Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 52, February, 1862», страница 9

He watched Lois knitting and patching her poor little gifts, with a vague feeling that every stitch made the time a moment shorter until he should be free, with his life in his hand again. She left him at last, sorrowfully enough, but he made her go: he fancied the close air of the hospital was hurting her, seeing at night the strange shadow growing on her face. I do not think he ever said to her that he knew all she had done for him; but no dog or woman that Stephen Holmes loved could look into his eyes and doubt that love. Sad, masterful eyes, such as are seen but once or twice in a lifetime: no woman but would wish, like Lois, for such eyes to be near her when she came to die, for her to remember the world's love in. She came hobbling back every day to see him after she had gone, and would stay to make his soup, telling him, child-like, how many days it was until Christmas. He knew that, as well as she, waiting through the cold, slow hours, in his solitary room. He thought sometimes she had some eager petition to offer him, when she stood watching him wistfully, twisting her hands together; but she always smothered it with a sigh, and, tying her little woollen cap, went away, walking more slowly, he thought, every day.

Do you remember how Christmas came last year? how there was a waiting pause, when the great States stood still, and from the peoples came the first awful murmurs of the storm that was to shake the earth? how men's hearts failed them for fear, how women turned pale and held their children closer to their breasts, while they heard a far cry of lamentation for their country that had fallen? Do you remember how, through the fury of men's anger, the storehouses of God were opened for that land? how the very sunshine gathered new splendors, the rains more fruitful moisture, until the earth poured forth an unknown fulness of life and beauty? Was there no promise there, no prophecy? Do you remember, while the very life of the people hung in doubt before them, while the angel of death came again to pass over the land, and there was no blood on any door-post to keep him from that house, how slowly the old earth folded in her harvest, dead, till it should waken to a stronger life? how quietly, as the time came near for the birth of Christ, this old earth made ready for his coming, heedless of the clamor of men? how the air grew fresher, day by day, and the gray deep silently opened for the snow to go down and screen and whiten and make holy that fouled earth? I think the slow-falling snow did not fail in its quiet warning; for I remember that men, too, in a feeble way tried to make ready for the birth of Christ. There was a healthier glow than terror stirred in their hearts; because of the vague, great dread without, it may be, they drew closer together round household fires, were kindlier in the good old-fashioned way; old friendships were wakened, old times talked over, fathers and mothers and children planned homely ways to show the love in their hearts and to welcome in Christmas. Who knew but it might be the last? Let us be thankful for that happy Christmas-day. What if it were the last? What if, when another comes, and another, some voice, the kindest and cheerfullest then, shall never say "Happy Christmas" to us again? Let us be thankful for that day the more,—accept it the more as a sign of that which will surely come.

Holmes, even, in his dreary room and drearier thought, felt the warmth and expectant stir creeping through the land as the day drew near. Even in the hospital, the sisters were in a busy flutter, decking their little chapel with flowers, and preparing a Christmas fête for their patients. The doctor, as he bandaged his broken arm, hinted at faint rumors in the city of masquerades and concerts. Even Knowles, who had not visited the hospital for weeks, relented and came back, moody and grim. He brought Kitts with him, and started him on talking of how they kept Christmas in Ohio on his mother's farm; and the poor soul, encouraged by the silence of two of his auditors, and the intense interest of Lois in the background, mazed on about Santa-Claus trees and Virginia reels until the clock struck twelve and Knowles began to snore.

Christmas was coming. As he stood, day after day, looking out of the gray window, he could see the signs of its coming even in the shop-windows glittering with miraculous toys, in the market-carts with their red-faced drivers and heaps of ducks and turkeys, in every stage-coach or omnibus that went by crowded with boys home for the holidays, hallooing for Bell or Lincoln, forgetful that the election was over and Carolina out.

Pike came to see him one day, his arms full of a bundle, which turned out to be an accordion for Sophy.

"Christmas, you know," he said, taking off the brown paper, while he was cursing the Cotton States the hardest, and gravely kneading at the keys, and stretching it until he made as much discord as five Congressmen. "I think Sophy will like that," he said, tying it up carefully.

"I am sure she will," said Holmes,—and did not think the man a fool for one moment.

Always going back, this Holmes, when he was alone, to the certainty that homecomings or children's kisses or Christmas feasts were not for such as he,—never could be, though he sought for the old time in bitterness of heart; and so, dully remembering his resolve, and waiting for Christmas eve, when, he might end it all. Not one of the myriads of happy children listened more intently to the clock clanging off hour after hour than the silent, stern man who had no hope in that day that was coming.

He learned to watch even for poor Lois coming up the corridor every day,—being the only tie that bound the solitary man to the inner world of love and warmth. The deformed little body was quite alive with Christmas now, and brought its glow with her, in her weak way. Different from the others, he saw with a curious interest. The day was more real to her than to them. Not because, only, the care she had of everybody and everybody had of her seemed to reach its culmination of kindly thought for the Christmas time; not because, as she sat talking slowly, stopping for breath, her great fear seemed to be that she would not have gifts enough to go round; but deeper than that,—the day was real to her. As if it were actually true that the Master in whom she believed was freshly born into the world once a year, to waken all that was genial and noble and pure in the turbid, worn-out hearts; as if new honor and pride and love did come with the breaking of Christmas morn. It was a beautiful faith; he almost wished it were his. (Perhaps in that day when the under-currents of life shall be bared, this man with his self-reliant soul will know the subtile instincts that drew him to true manhood and feeling by the homely practice of poor Lois. He did not see them now.) A beautiful faith! it gave a meaning to the old custom of gifts and kind words. Love coming into the world!—the idea pleased his artistic taste, being simple and sublime. Lois used to tell him, while she feebly tried to set his room in order, of all her plans,—of how Sam Polston was to be married on New-Year's,—but most of all of the Christmas coming out at the old schoolmaster's: how the old house had been scrubbed from top to bottom, was fairly glowing with shining paint and hot fires,—how Margaret and her mother worked, in terror lest the old man should find out how poor and bare it was,—how he and Joel had some secret enterprise on foot at the far end of the plantation out in the swamp, and were gone nearly all day.

She ceased coming at last. One of the sisters went out to see her, and told him she was too weak to walk, but meant to be better soon,—quite well by the holidays. He wished the poor thing had told him what she wanted of him,—wished it anxiously, with a dull presentiment of evil.

The days went by, cold and slow. He watched grimly the preparations the hospital physician was silently making in his case, for fever, inflammation.

"I must be strong enough to go out cured on Christmas eve," he said to him one day, coolly.

The old doctor glanced up shrewdly. He was an old Alsatian, very plain-spoken.

"You say so?" he mumbled. "Chut! Then you will go. There are some—bull-dog men. They do what they please,—they never die unless they choose, begar! We know them in our practice, Herr Holmes!"

Holmes laughed. Some acumen there, he thought, in medicine or mind: as for himself, it was true enough; whatever success he had gained in life had been by no flush of enthusiasm or hope; a dogged persistence of "holding on," rather.

Christmas eve came at last; bright, still, frosty. "Whatever he had to do, let it be done quickly "; but not till the set hour came. So he laid his watch on the table beside him, waiting until it should mark the time he had chosen: the ruling passion of self-control as strong in this turn of life's tide as it would be in its ebb, at the last. The old doctor found him alone in the dreary room, coming in with the frosty breath of the eager street about him. A grim, chilling sight enough, as solitary and impenetrable as the Sphinx. He did not like such faces in this genial and gracious time, so hurried over his examination. The eye was cool, the pulse steady, the man's body, battered though it was, strong in its steely composure. "Ja wohl!—ja wohl!" he went on chuffily, summing up: latent fever,—the very lips were blue, dry as husks; "he would go,—oui?—then go!"—with a chuckle. "All right, glück zu!" And so shuffled out latent fever? Doubtless, yet hardly from broken bones, the doctor thought,—with no suspicion of the subtile, intolerable passion smouldering in every drop of this man's phlegmatic blood.

Evening came at last. He stopped until the cracked bell of the chapel had done striking the Angelus, and then put on his overcoat, and went out. The air was cold and pungent. The crowded city seemed wakening to some keen enjoyment; even his own weak, deliberate step rang on the icy pavement as if it wished to rejoice with the rest. I said it was a trading city: so it was, but the very trade to-day had a jolly Christmas face on; the surly old banks and pawnbrokers' shops had grown ashamed of their doings, and shut their doors, and covered their windows with frosty trees, and cathedrals, and castles; the shops opened their hearts; some child's angel had touched them, and they flushed out into a magic splendor of Christmas trees, and lights, and toys; Santa Claus might have made his head-quarters in any one of them. As for children, you stumbled over them at every step, quite weighed down with the heaviness of their joy, and the money burning their pockets; the acrid old brokers and pettifoggers, that you met with a chill on other days, had turned into jolly fathers of families, and lounged laughing along with half a dozen little hands pulling them into candy-stores or toy-shops: all the churches whose rules permitted them to show their deep rejoicing in a simple way had covered their cold stone walls with evergreens and wreaths of glowing fire-berries: the child's angel had touched them too, perhaps,—not unwisely.

He passed crowds of thin-clad women looking in through open doors, with red cheeks and hungry eyes, at red-hot stoves within, and a placard, "Christmas dinners for the poor, gratis"; out of every window on the streets came a ruddy light, and a spicy smell; the very sunset sky had caught the reflection of the countless Christmas fires, and flamed up to the zenith, blood-red as cinnabar.

Holmes turned down one of the back streets: he was going to see Lois, first of all. I hardly know why: the child's angel may have touched him, too; or his heart, full of a yearning pity for the poor cripple, who, he believed now, had given her own life for his, may have plead for indulgence, as men remember their childish prayers, before going into battle. He came at last, in the quiet lane where she lived, to her little brown frame-shanty, to which you mounted by a flight of wooden steps: there were two narrow windows at the top, hung with red curtains; he could hear her feeble voice singing within. As he turned to go up the steps, he caught sight of something crouched underneath them in the dark, hiding from him: whether a man—or a dog he could not see. He touched it.

"What d' ye want, Mas'r?" said a stifled voice.

He touched it again with his stick.

The man stood upright, back in the shadow: it was old Yare.

"Had ye any word wi' me, Mas'r?"

He saw the negro's face grow gray with fear.

"Come out, Yare," he said, quietly. "Any word? What word is arson, eh?"

The man did not move. Holmes touched him with the stick.

"Come out," he said.

He came out, looking gaunt, as with famine.

"I'll not flurr myself," he said, crunching his ragged hat in his hands,—"I'll not."

He drove the hat down upon his head, and looked up with a sullen fierceness.

"Yoh've got me, an' I'm glad of 't. I'm tired, fearin'. I was born for hangin', they say," with a laugh. "But I'll see my girl. I've waited hyur, runnin' the resk,—not darin' to see her, on 'count o' yoh. I thort I was safe on Christmas-day,—but what's Christmas to yoh or me?"

Holmes's quiet motion drove him up the steps before him. He stopped at the top, his cowardly nature getting the better of him, and sat down whining on the upper step.

"Be marciful, Mas'r! I wanted to see my girl,—that's all. She's all I hev."

Holmes passed him and went in. Was Christmas nothing to him? How did this foul wretch know that they stood alone, apart from the world?

It was a low, cheerful little room that he came into, stooping his tall head: a tea-kettle humming and singing on the wood-fire, that lighted up the coarse carpet and the gray walls, but spent its warmest heat on the low settee where Lois lay sewing, and singing to herself. She was wrapped up in a shawl, but the hands, he saw, were worn to skin and bone; the gray shadow was heavier on her face, and the brooding brown eyes were like a tired child's. She tried to jump up when she saw him, and not being able, leaned on one elbow, half-crying as she laughed.

"It's the best Christmas gift of all I I can hardly b'lieve it!"—touching the strong hand humbly that was held out to her.

Holmes had a gentle touch, I told you, for dogs and children and women: so, sitting quietly by her, he listened with untiring patience to her long story; looked at the heap of worthless trifles she had patched up for gifts, wondering secretly at the delicate sense of color and grace betrayed in the bits of flannel and leather; and took, with a grave look of wonder, his own package, out of which a bit of woollen thread peeped forth.

"Don't look till to-morrow mornin'," she said, anxiously, as she lay back trembling and exhausted.

The breath of the mill! The fires of want and crime had finished their work on her life,—so! She caught the meaning of his face quickly.

"It's nothin'," she said, eagerly. "I'll be strong by New-Year's; it's only a day or two rest I need. I've no tho't o' givin' up."

And to show how strong she was, she got up and hobbled about to make the tea. He had not the heart to stop her; she did not want to die,—why should she? the world was a great, warm, beautiful nest for the little cripple,—why need he show her the cold without? He saw her at last go near the door where old Yare sat outside, then heard her breathless cry, and a sob. A moment after the old man came into the room, carrying her, and, laying her down on the settee, chafed her hands and misshapen head.

"What ails her?" he said, looking up, bewildered, to Holmes. "We've killed her among us."

She laughed, though the great eyes were growing dim, and drew his coarse gray hair into her hand.

"Yoh wur long comin'," she said, weakly. "I hunted fur yoh every day,—every day."

The old man had pushed her hair back, and was reading the sunken face with a wild fear.

"What ails her?" he cried. "Ther' 's somethin' gone wi' my girl. Was it my fault? Lo, was it my fault?"

"Be quiet!" said Holmes, sternly.

"Is it that?" he gasped, shrilly. "My God! not that! I can't bear it!"

Lois soothed him, patting his face childishly.

"Am I dyin'?" she asked, with a frightened look at Holmes.

He told her no, cheerfully.

"I've no tho't o' dyin'. I dunnot thenk o' dyin'. Don't mind, dear!

Yoh'll stay with me, fur good?"

The man's paroxysm of fear for her over, his spite and cowardice came uppermost.

"It's him," he yelped, looking fiercely at Holmes. "He's got my life in his hands. He kin take it. What does he keer fur me or my girl? I'll not stay wi' yoh no longer, Lo. Mornin' he'll send me t' th' lock-up, an' after"–

"I care for you, child," said Holmes, stooping suddenly close to the girl's livid face.

"To-morrow?" she muttered. "My Christmas-day?"

He wet her face while he looked over at the wretch whose life he held in his hands. It was the iron rule of Holmes's nature to be just; but to-night dim perceptions of a deeper justice than law opened before him,—problems he had no time to solve: the sternest fortress is liable to be taken by assault,—and the dew of the coming morn was on his heart.

"So as I've hunted fur him!" she whispered, weakly. "I didn't think it wud come to this. So as I loved him! Oh, Mr. Holmes, he's hed a pore chance in livin',—forgive him this! Him that'll come to-morrow'd say to forgive him this."

She caught the old man's head in her arms with an agony of tears, and held it tight.

"I hev hed a pore chance," he said, looking up,—"that's God's truth, Lo! I dunnot keer fur that: it's too late goin' back.—Mas'r," he mumbled, servilely, "it's on'y a little time t' th' end: let me stay with Lo. She loves me,—Lo does."

A look of disgust crept over Holmes's face.

"Stay, then," he muttered,—"I wash my hands of you, you old scoundrel!"

He bent over Lois with his rare, pitiful smile.

"Have I his life in my hands? I put it into yours,—so, child! Now put it all out of your head, and look up here to wish me good-bye."

She looked up cheerfully, hardly conscious how deep the danger had been; but the flush had gone from her face, leaving it sad and still.

"I must go to keep Christmas, Lois," he said, playfully.

"Yoh're keepin' it here, Sir." She held her weak gripe on his hand still, with the vague outlook in her eyes that came there sometimes. "Was it fur me yoh done it?"

"Yes, for you."

She turned her eyes slowly around, bewildered. The clear evening light fell on Holmes, as he stood there looking down at the dying little lamiter: a powerful figure, with a face supreme, masterful, but tender: you will find no higher type of manhood. Did God make him of the same blood as the vicious, cringing wretch crouching to hide his black face at the other side of the bed? Some such thought came into Lois's brain, and vexed her, bringing the tears to her eyes: he was her father, you know.

"It's all wrong," she muttered,—"oh, it's far wrong! Ther' 's One could make them 'like. Not me."

She stroked her father's head once, and then let it go. Holmes glanced out, and saw the sun was down.

"Lois," he said, "I want you to wish me a happy Christmas, as people do."

Holmes had a curious vein of superstition: he knew no lips so pure as this girl's, and he wanted them to wish him good-luck that night. She did it, laughing and growing red: riddles of life did not trouble her childish fancy long. And so he left her, with a dull feeling, as I said before, that it was good to say a prayer before the battle came on. For men who believed in prayers: for him, it was the same thing to make one day for Lois happier.

METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY

IV

In presenting Classification as the subject of a series of papers in the "Atlantic Monthly," I am aware that I am drawing largely upon the patience of its readers; since the technical nature of the topic renders many details necessary which cannot be otherwise than dry to any but professional naturalists. Yet believing, as I do, that classification, rightly understood, means simply the creative plan of God as expressed in organic forms, I feel the importance of attempting at least to present it in a popular guise, divested, as far as possible, of technicalities, while I would ask the indulgence of my readers for such scientific terms and details as cannot well be dispensed with, begging them to remember that a long and tedious road may bring us suddenly upon a glorious prospect, and that a clearer mental atmosphere and a new intellectual sensation may well reward us for a little weariness in the outset. Besides, the time has come when scientific truth must cease to be the property of the few, when it must be woven into the common life of the world; for we have reached the point where the results of science touch the very problem of existence, and all men listen for the solving of that mystery. When it will come, and how, none can say; but this much at least is certain, that all our researches are leading up to that question, and mankind will never rest till it is answered. If, then, the results of science are of such general interest for the human race, if they are gradually interpreting the purposes of the Deity in creation, and the relation of man to all the past, then it is well that all should share in its teachings, and that it should not be kept, like the learning of the Egyptians, for an exclusive priesthood who may expound the oracle according to their own theories, but should make a part of all our intellectual culture and of our common educational systems. With this view, I will endeavor to simplify as far as may be my illustrations of the different groups of the Animal Kingdom, beginning with a more careful analysis of those structural features on which classes are founded.

I have said that the Radiates are the lowest type among animals, embodying, under an infinite variety of forms, that plan in which all parts bear definite relations to a vertical central axis. The three classes of Radiates are distinguished from each other by three distinct ways of executing that plan. I dwell upon this point; for we shall never arrive at a clear understanding of the different significance and value of the various divisions of the Animal Kingdom, till we appreciate the distinction between the structural conception and the material means by which it is expressed. A comparison will, perhaps, better explain my meaning. There are certain architectonic types, including edifices of different materials, with an infinite variety of architectural details and external ornaments; but the flat roof and the colonnade are typical of all Grecian temples, whether built of marble or granite or wood, whether Doric or Ionic or Corinthian, whether simple and massive or light and ornamented; and, in like manner, the steep roof and pointed arch are the typical characters of all Gothic cathedrals, whatever be the material or the details. The architectural conception remains the same in all its essential elements, however the more superficial features vary. Such relations as these edifices bear to the architectural idea that includes them all, do classes bear to the primary divisions or branches of the Animal Kingdom.

The three classes of Radiates, beginning with the lowest, and naming them in their relative order, are Polyps, Acalephs or Jelly-Fishes, and Echinoderms or Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins. In the Polyps the plan is executed in the simplest manner by a sac, the sides of which are folded inward, at regular intervals from top to bottom, so as to divide it by vertical radiating partitions, converging from the periphery toward the centre. These folds or partitions do not meet in the centre, but leave an open space, which is the main cavity of the body. This open space, however, occupies only the lower part of the body; for in the upper there is a second sac hanging to a certain distance within the first. This inner sac has an aperture in the bottom, through which whatever enters it passes into the main cavity of the body. A central opening in the top forms a kind of mouth, around which are radiating tentacles connecting with the open chambers formed by the partitions within. Cutting such an animal across in a transverse section, we shall see the radiation of the partitions from the centre to the circumference, showing still more distinctly the typical structure of the division to which it belongs.

The second class is that of Jelly-Fishes or Acalephs; and here the same plan is carried out in the form of a hemispherical gelatinous disk, the digestive cavity being hollowed, or, as it were, scooped, out of the substance of the body, which is traversed by tubes that radiate from the centre to the periphery. Cutting it across transversely, or looking through its transparent mass, the same radiation of the internal structure is seen again; only that in this instance the radiating lines are not produced by vertical partition-walls, with open spaces between, as in the Polyps, but by radiating tubes passing through the gelatinous mass of the body. At the periphery is a circular tube connecting them all, and the tentacles, which hang down when the animal is in its natural position, connect at their base with the radiating tubes, while numerous smaller tentacles may form a kind of fringe all round the margin.

The third and highest class includes the Star-Fishes, Sea-Urchins, and Holothurians or Beches-de-Mer. The radiation is equally distinct in each of these; but here again the mode of execution differs from that of the two other classes. The internal cavity and the radiating tubes, instead of being connected with the outer wall of the body as in Polyps, or hollowed out of the substance of the body as in Jelly-Fishes, are here inclosed within independent walls of their own, quite distinct from the wall of the body. But notwithstanding this difference, a transverse section shows in these animals, as distinctly as in all the rest, the radiating structure typical of the whole branch. In these three classes we have no difference of plan, nor even any modification of the same plan,—for either one of them expresses it as clearly as any other,—but simply three different ways of executing one structural idea.

I have mentioned only three classes of Radiates. Cuvier had five in his classification; for he placed among them the Intestinal Worms and the Infusoria or Animalcules. The Intestinal Worms are much better known now than they were in his day. Their anatomy and embryology have been traced, and it has been shown that the essential features of these parasites are the same as those of all Articulates, their whole body being divided into successive, movable joints or rings. Cuvier was misled by the circular arrangement of certain parts around the mouth, and by the presence of a wreath of feelers around the head of some of these Worms, resembling the tentacles of many Radiates. This is, however, no indication of radiate structure, but a superficial feature in no way related to the internal organization.

We must carefully distinguish between affinity and analogy among animals. The former is founded on identity of plan; the latter only upon external resemblance, produced by similar features, which, when they are intimately connected with the whole internal organization, as in some groups, may be considered as typical characters, but when only grafted, as it were, in a superficial manner on animals of another type, have no relation to the essential elements of structure, and become at once subordinate and unimportant. Such is the difference between the tentacles in a Radiate and the wreath of feelers in a Worm;—the external effect may be much the same; but in the former every tentacle opens into one of the chambers as in a Polyp, or connects with one of the radiating tubes as in Acalephs, or with the locomotive suckers as in Star-Fishes, and is therefore closely linked with the whole internal organization; whereas the feelers in the latter are only external appendages, in no way connected with the essential structural elements. We have a striking illustration of this superficial resemblance in the wings of Birds and Insects. In Birds, wings are a typical feature, corresponding to the front limbs in all Vertebrates, which are constructed in the same way, whether they are arms as in Man, or forelegs as in Quadrupeds, or pectoral fins as in Fishes, or wings as in Birds. The wing in an Insect, on the contrary, is a flattened, dried-up gill, having no structural relation whatever to the wing of a Bird. They are analogous only because they resemble each other in function, being in the same way subservient to flight; but as organs they are entirely different.

In adding Infusoria to the Radiates, Cuvier was false to his own principle of founding all classification on plan. He was influenced by their seeming simplicity of structure, and placed them in the lowest division of the Animal Kingdom on that account. But even this simplicity was only apparent in many of them. At certain seasons of the year myriads of these little Animalcules may be seen in every brook and road-side pool. They are like transparent little globules, without any special organization, apparently; and were it not that they are in constant rotation, exhibiting thus a motion of their own, one would hardly suspect that they were endowed with life. To the superficial observer they all look alike, and it is not strange, that, before they had been more carefully investigated, they should have been associated together as the lowest division of the Animal Kingdom, representing, as it were, a border-land between animal and vegetable life. But since the modern improvements in the microscope, Ehrenberg, the great master in microscopic investigation, has shown that many of these little globules have an extraordinary complication of structure. Subsequent investigations have proved that they include a great variety of beings: some of them belonging to the type of Mollusks; others to the type of Articulates, being in fact little Shrimps; while many others are the locomotive germs of plants, and so far from forming a class by themselves, as a distinct group in the Animal Kingdom, they seem to comprise representatives of all types except Vertebrates, and to belong in part to the Vegetable Kingdom, Siebold, Leuckart, and other modern zoölogists, have considered them as a primary type, and called them Protozoa; but this is as great a mistake as the other. The rotatory motion in them all is produced by an apparatus that exists not only in all animals, but in plants also, and is a most important agent in sustaining the freshness and vitality of their circulating fluids and of the surrounding medium in which they live. It consists of soft fringes, called Vibratile Cilia. Such fringes cover the whole surface of these little living beings, and by their unceasing play they maintain the rotating motion that carries them along in the water.