Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 62, December, 1862», страница 3

 
"Till all the interim
Between the acting of the dreadful thing
And the first motion"
 

was brought so vividly and truthfully to mind that Mr. Conway fell to the floor as if dead. The cashier, relieved from a pressure that had for weary months been grinding his very soul, burst into tears. A scene of strange excitement ensued, during which Mr. Conway muttered incoherent sentences in condemnation of Temple and then of himself,—now with penitence, and then with rage. Recovering his composure, he suggested the Jew as the guilty party. Mr. Sidney then dissected the handwriting of the Jew, and demonstrated that there was as great a difference between his chirography and a New-Englander's as between the English and the Chinese characters,—showed how the Jew must have been exceedingly timid, and stated the probability that he had left the city not because he had taken any part in the forgery, but because he had been frightened away. Then turning to Conway, he gave him a lecture such as no mortal before ever gave or received. The agony of Conway's mind so distorted his body as made it painful in the extreme to all beholders. "His inmost soul seemed stung as by the bite of a serpent." When at last Mr. Sidney turned and took from his valise a small steel safe, which Conway recognized as his own, "the terrors of hell got hold of him," and his anguish was indescribably horrible. The little safe had been by some unknown and unaccountable process taken from a larger one in Conway's office, and was unopened. Neither Mr. Sidney nor the directors have ever seen its contents; but in consideration that it should not be opened, Mr. Conway confessed his crime in the very form of Mr. Sidney's description, paid the notes before leaving the bank, and remains a director to this day. As is often the case, the greater criminal goes unwhipped of justice.

* * * * *

Mr. Sidney, besides the faculty I have described, had acquired another, less wonderful perhaps, but still quite remarkable, and which was of incalculable assistance to him in the prosecution of his Herculean labor. He was a most rare physiognomist. And by physiognomy is here intended, not simply the art of discerning the character of the mind by the features of the face, but also the art of discovering the qualities of the mind by the conformation of the body,—and still further, (although it may not be a legitimate use of the word,) the power of distinguishing the character, mental and moral, the capacity, occupation, and all the distinctive qualities of a person by his figure, action, dress, deportment, and the like: for Sterne said well, that "the wise man takes his hat from the peg very differently from a fool."

The ancient Egyptians acquired the greatest skill in this science; and Tacitus affirms, not without reason, that their keen perception and acute observation, essential in communicating their ideas in hieroglyphics, contributed largely to their success. Certainly, few better proofs of the existence of the science have been furnished than that given by the Egyptian physiognomist at Athens in the days of Plato. Zopyrus pronounced the face of Socrates to be that of a libertine. The physiognomist being derided by the disciples of the great philosopher, Socrates reproved them, saying that Zopyrus had spoken well, for in his younger days such indeed had been the truth, and that he had overcome the proclivities of his nature by philosophy and the severest discipline.

Pliny affirms that Apelles could trace the likeness of men so accurately that a physiognomist could discover the ruling passion to which they were subject. Dante's characters, in his view of Purgatory, are drawn with accurate reference to the principles of physiognomy; and Shakspeare and Sterne, particularly the latter, were clever in the art; while Kempf and Zimmermann, in their profession, are said seldom to have erred as physiognomists. Surely it is a higher authority and more practical, which saith, "A wicked man walketh with a froward mouth; he speaketh with his feet; he teacheth with his fingers.—A man is known by his look, and a wise man by the air of his countenance." And yet again, "The wickedness of a woman changeth her face."

If it be true, as Sultzer declares, that there is not a living creature that is not more or less skilled in physiognomy as a necessary condition of its existence, surely man, with all his parts fitly joined together, should be the most expert; and there are circumstances and conditions, as well as qualities of mind and body, which will conduct him more surely along the pathway of his research, and direct him onward towards the goal of perfection. Consider, then, the characteristics of Mr. Sidney, the circumstances by which he was surrounded, and the school in which he was taught, in order to determine if there were in him the elements of success.

Chiefest among the essential qualities is to be named his astonishing strength of nerve. No danger could agitate him, however imminent or sudden. No power could deprive him of his imperturbable coolness and courage. Perils seemed to render his mind more clear and his self-reliance more firm. (And yet I have heard him say, that there was among the band of criminals before mentioned one woman of greater strength of mind and nervous power than any person he had ever seen, whom alone of all created beings, whether man or devil, he dreaded to encounter.) Had not Mr. Sidney been thus potently armed, he must, without doubt or question, have become almost a monomaniac; for, secondly, he was for years enraged almost to madness that his entire estate had been swept from his grasp, as he believed, by the torch of the incendiary; and he was to the last degree exasperated, and with a just indignation, that the merchant-princes who he supposed had occasioned his impoverishment yet walked abroad with the confidence of the community, and were still trusted by many a good man as the very salt of the city. Nevertheless, Mr. Sidney, solitary and alone, had arraigned them before a criminal tribunal. He was therefore driven to his own resources, and there was no place in his nature, or in the nature of things, for the first retrograde step. All his vast energies were thenceforth consecrated to, and concentrated in, the detection of crime. And from the time that he was refused payment for his loss, so far as my observation extended, he seemed to have been governed by no other purpose in life than the extermination of that great gang of robbers which he subsequently discovered. Add to these incentives and capacities his extraordinary perceptive faculties and power of analytical observation, together with his wonderful patience, and it must be granted that he was qualified to discover in any incident connected with his pursuits more of its component parts than all other beholders, and had greater opportunities than almost any other man by which to be informed how it is that "the heart of a man changeth his countenance."

If I remember rightly, it was some two years after our acquaintance commenced that I became aware of Mr. Sidney's proficiency as a physiognomist, and it was then communicated, not so much by his choice as by a necessity, for the accomplishment of one of his purposes.

The object of Mr. Sidney's visit to the city of P–, at that time, was nothing less difficult than the discovery and identification of an individual of whom no other knowledge or description had been obtained than what could be extracted from the inspection, in another city, of a single specimen of his handwriting in the superscription of a letter. So much from so little. Within three days thereafter, with no other instrumentalities than what were suggested by Mr. Sidney's expertness in deciphering character in handwriting and his proficiency as a physiognomist, the result was reached and the object happily attained. In the prosecution of the enterprise, it was important, if not essential, that I should believe that the data were sufficient by which to arrive at a correct conclusion, and that I should confide in Mr. Sidney's skill in order that there might be hearty coöperation.

My office was so situated, that from its windows could most advantageously be observed, and for a considerable distance, the vast throng that ebbed and flowed, hour after hour, through the great thoroughfares of the city. For the greater part of three consecutive days I sat by Mr. Sidney's side, watching the changing crowd through the half-opened shutters, listening incredulously, at first, to the practical application of his science to the unsuspecting individuals below, till my derision was changed to admiration, and I was thoroughly convinced of his power. As my friends of both sexes passed under the ordeal, it was intensely bewitching. Hour after hour would he give, with rapidity and correctness, the occupation and peculiarity of character and condition of almost every individual who passed. This was not occasional, but continuous. The marked men were not singled out, but all were included. He was a stranger, and yet better acquainted with the people than any of our citizens. And this was the manner of his speaking:—

"That physician has a better opinion of himself than the people have of him: he is superficial, and makes up in effrontery what he lacks in qualification. The gambler yonder, with a toothpick in his mouth, has of late succeeded in his tricks. The affairs of this kind-hearted grocer are troubling him. Were we within a yard of that round-shouldered man from the country, we should smell leather; for he works on his bench, and is unmarried. Here comes an atheist who is a joker and stubborn as a mule. There goes a man of no business at all: very probably it is the best occupation he is fitted for, as he has no concentrativeness. The schoolmistress crossing the street is an accomplished teacher, is very sympathetic, and has great love of approbation. That lawyer is a bachelor, and distrusts his own strength. This merchant should give up the use of tobacco, and pay his notes before dinner, else he will become a dyspeptic. Here comes a man of wealth who despises the common people and is miserly and hypocritical; and next to him is a scamp. I think it is Burke who says, 'When the gnawing worm is within, the impression of the ravage it makes is visible on the outside, which appears quite disfigured by it': and in that young man the light that was within him has become darkness, and 'how great is that darkness!'"

Of some qualities of mind he would occasionally decline to speak until he could see the features in play, as in conversation. Some occupations he failed to discover, if the arms were folded, or the hands in the pockets, or the body not in motion. It is not my purpose to specify any of the rules by which he was governed, though they differed materially from those of Lavater, Redfield, and others, nor the facts from which he drew his conclusions, but simply to give results.

I selected from the crowd acquaintances of marked character and standing, and obtained accurate descriptions of them. Of one he said, "He is a good merchant, and has done and is doing a large business. He carries his business home with him at night, as he should not. He has been wealthy, and is now reduced in circumstances. His disaster weighs heavily upon him. He has a high sense of honor, a keen conscience, and is a meek, religious man. He has great goodness of nature, is very modest and retiring, has more ability than he supposes, and is a man of family and very fond of his children."

Another he accurately described thus: "He is a mechanic, of a good mind, who has succeeded so well that I doubt if he is in active business. Certainly he does not labor. He is very independent and radical,—can be impudent, if occasion requires,—gives others all their rights, and pertinaciously insists upon his own." Here the mechanic took his hands from his pocket. "Hold! I said he was a mechanic. He is not,—he is a house-painter."

I desired to be informed by what indications he judged him to be a painter. He replied, that he so judged from the general appearance and motions, and that it was difficult to specify. I insisted, and he remarked that "the easy roll of his wrists was indicative."

After obtaining similar correct descriptions of men well known to me, I spied one whom I did not know, and who was dressed peculiarly. I inquired his occupation, and Mr. Sidney, without turning a glance towards me, and still gazing through the half-opened shutters, replied, "Yes! you never saw him before, yourself. He is a stranger in town, as is evident from the fact of his being dressed in his best suit, and by the manner of his taking observations. Besides, there is no opportunity in these parts for him to follow his trade. He is a glass-blower. You may perceive he is a little deaf, and the curvature of his motions also indicates his occupation."

Whether this description was correct or not I failed to ascertain.

Mr. Sidney contended that any man of ordinary perceptive faculties need never mistake a gambler, as the marks on the tribe were as distinct as the complexion of the Ethiopian,—that, of honest callings, dealers in cattle could be most easily discovered,—that immorality indicated its kind invariably in the muscles of the face,—that sympathetic qualities, love and the desire of being loved, taste and refinement,—were among the most perspicuous in the outline of the face.

A man of very gentlemanly appearance was approaching, whom Mr. Sidney pronounced a gambler, and also engaged in some other branch of iniquity. His appearance was so remarkably good that I doubted. He turned the corner, and immediately Mr. Sidney hastened to the street and soon returned, saying he had ascertained his history: that he was in the counterfeiting department,—that his conscience affected his nerves, and consequently his motions,—that he was a stranger in town, and was restless and disquieted,—that he would not remain many hours here, as he had an enterprise on hand, and was about it. I remarked, that, as the contrary never could be proved, he was perfectly safe in his prophecy, when Mr. Sidney rose from his chair, and, approaching me, slowly said, with great energy,—

"I will follow that man till it is proved."

The next day but one, I received a note from Mr. Sidney, simply saying, "I am on his track." He followed the supposed counterfeiter to Philadelphia, where he ascertained that he had passed five-dollar bills of the – bank of Connecticut. Mr. Sidney obtained the bills the gambler had passed to compare with the genuine. Failing, however, to find any of the same denomination, he presented the supposed counterfeits to a broker skilled in detecting bad bills, and was surprised to be informed that they were genuine. At Baltimore, he repeated the inquiry at the counter of a well-known banker relative to other similar bills, and received the same response. So again in Washington, Pittsburg, Chicago, and several other cities whither he had followed the suspected man, and invariably the reply of the cashier would be, "We will exchange our bills for them, Sir." In some Western cities he was offered a premium on the bills he had collected. At St. Louis he obtained a known genuine bill of the bank in question, and in company with a broker proceeded to examine the two with a microscope. The broker pronounced the supposed counterfeits to be genuine. In the mean time the gambler had left the city. Two days after, Mr. Sidney had overtaken him. So great were his excitement and vexation that he could scarcely eat or sleep. In a fit of desperation, without law and against law, he pounced upon the suspected man and put him in irons. He beat a parley. It was granted, and the two went to the gambler's apartments in company. In a conversation of several hours, Mr. Sidney extracted from him the most valuable information relating to the gang he was so pertinaciously prosecuting, and received into his possession forty-seven thousand dollars in counterfeits of the aforesaid bank, some of which I now have in my possession, and which have been pronounced genuine by our most skilful experts.

* * * * *

It would be gratifying to all lovers of science to be informed that the practical knowledge acquired by Mr. Sidney had been preserved, and that at least the elementary principles of the arts in which he became so nearly perfect had been definitely explained and recorded. I am not aware, however, that such is the fact, but am persuaded that his uniform policy of concealment has deprived the world of much that would have been exceedingly entertaining and instructive. That this knowledge has not been preserved is owing mainly to the fact that he considered it of little importance, except as a means for the accomplishment of his purposes, and that those purposes would be most effectually achieved by his withholding from the common gaze the instrumentality by which they were to be attained. That he intended at some future period to make some communication to the public I am well assured, and some materials were collected by him with this view; but the hot pursuit of the great idea that he never for an hour lost sight of would not allow sufficient rest from his labors, and he deferred the publication to those riper years of experience and acquirement from which he could survey his whole past career.

It may be comforting for all rogues to know that he left behind him no note of that vast amount of statistical knowledge which he possessed, whether appertaining to crimes or criminals in general or in particular, or more especially to the band of robbers,—and that with him perished all knowledge of this organization as such, and the names of all the parties therewith connected. They also have the consolation, if there be any, of knowing that he was sent prematurely to his grave by a subtle poison, administered by unknown hands and in an unknown manner and moment, and that he died in the firm faith of immortality.

THE CUMBERLAND

 
At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay,
On board of the Cumberland sloop-of-war;
And at times from the fortress across the bay
The alarum of drums swept past,
Or a bugle-blast
From the camp on the shore.
 
 
Then far away to the South uprose
A little feather of snow-white smoke,
And we knew that the iron ship of our foes
Was steadily steering its course
To try the force
Of our ribs of oak.
 
 
Down upon us heavily runs,
Silent and sullen, the floating fort;
Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns,
And leaps the terrible death,
With fiery breath,
From each open port.
 
 
We are not idle, but send her straight
Defiance back in a full broadside!
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate,
Rebounds our heavier hail
From each iron scale
Of the monster's hide.
 
 
"Strike your flag!" the rebel cries,
In his arrogant old plantation strain.
"Never!" our gallant Morris replies;
"It is better to sink than to yield!"
And the whole air pealed
With the cheers of our men.
 
 
Then, like a kraken huge and black,
She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp!
Down went the Cumberland all a wrack,
With a sudden shudder of death,
And the cannon's breath
For her dying gasp.
 
 
Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,
Still floated our flag at the mainmast-head.
Lord, how beautiful was thy day!
Every waft of the air
Was a whisper of prayer,
Or a dirge for the dead.
 
 
Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas!
Ye are at peace in the troubled stream.
Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,
Thy flag, that is rent in twain,
Shall be one again,
And without a seam!
 

THE FOSSIL MAN

The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been: to be found in the register of God, not in the records of men. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The Night of Time far surpasseth the Day, and who knoweth the Equinox?—Sir THOMAS BROWNE.

What a mysterious and subtile pleasure there is in groping back through the early twilight of human history! The mind thirsts and longs so to know the Beginning: who and what manner of men those were who laid the first foundations of all that is now upon the earth: of what intellectual power, of what degree of civilization, of what race and country. We wonder how the fathers of mankind lived, what habitations they dwelt in, what instruments or tools they employed, what crops they tilled, what garments they wore. We catch eagerly at any traces that may remain of their faiths and beliefs and superstitions; and we fancy, as we gain a clearer insight into them, that we are approaching more nearly to the mysterious Source of all life in the soul. The germ, to our limited comprehension, seems nearer the Creator than the perfected growth. Then the great problem of Origin forever attracts us on,—the multitudinous and intricate questions relating to "the ordained becoming of beings": how the Creating Power has worked, whether through an almost endless chain of gradual and advantageous changes, or by some sudden and miraculous ictus, placing at once a completed body on the earth, as an abode and instrument for a developed soul,—all these remote and difficult questions lead us on. And yet the search for human origins, or the earliest historic and scientific evidences of man on the earth, is but a groping in the dark.

We turn to the Hebrew and the inspired records; but we soon discover, that, though containing a picture, unequalled for simplicity and dignity, of the earliest experiences of the present family of man, they are by no means a monument or relic of the most remote period, but belong to a comparatively modern date, and that the question of Time is not at all directly treated in them.

We visit the region where poetry and myth and tradition have placed a most ancient civilization,—the Black-Land, or Land of the Nile: we search its royal sepulchres, its manifold history written in funereal records, in kingly genealogies, in inscriptions, and in the thousand relics preserved of domestic life, whether in picture, sculpture, or the embalmed remains of the dead; and we find ourselves thrown back to a date far beyond any received date of history, and still we have before us a ripened civilization, an art which could not belong to the childhood of a race, a language which (so far as we can judge) must have needed centuries for its development, and the divisions of human races, whose formation from the original pair our philosophy teaches us must have required immense and unknown spaces of time,—all as distinct as they are at the present day.

We traverse the regions to which both the comparison of languages and the Biblical records assign the original birthplace of mankind,—the country of the Euphrates and the plateau of Eastern Asia. Buried kingdoms are revealed to us; the shadowy outlines of magnificent cities appear which flourished and fell before recorded human history, and of which even Herodotus never heard; Art and Science are unfolded, reaching far back into the past; the signs of luxury and splendor are uncovered from the ruin of ages: but, remote as is the date of these Turanian and Semitic empires, almost equalling that of the Flood in the ordinary system of chronology, they cannot be near the origin of things, and a long process of development must have passed ere they reached the maturity in which they are revealed to us.

The Chinese records give us an antiquity and an acknowledged date before the time of Abraham, (if we follow the received chronology,) and even then their language must have been, as it is now, distinct and solidified, betraying to the scholar no certain affinity to any other family of language. The Indian history, so long boasted of for its immense antiquity, is without doubt the most modern of the ancient records, and offers no certain date beyond 1800 B.C.

In Europe, the earliest evidences of man disclosed by our investigations are even more vague and shadowy. Probably, without antedating in time these historical records of Asia, they reach back to a more primitive and barbarous era. The earliest history of Europe is not studied from inscription or manuscript or even monument; it is not, like the Asiatic, a conscious work of a people leaving a memorial of itself to a future age. It is rather, like the geological history, an unconscious, gradual deposit left by the remains of extinct and unknown races in the soil of the fields or under the sediment of the waters. The earliest European barbarian, as he burned his canoe from a log, or fabricated his necklace from a bone, or worked out his knife from a flint, was in reality writing a history of his race for distant days. We can follow him now in his wanderings through the rivers and lakes and on the edges of the forests; we open his simple mounds of burial, and study his barbarian tools and ornaments; we discover that he knew nothing of metals, and that bone and flint and amber and coal were his materials; we trace out his remarkable defences and huts built on piles in the various lakes of Europe, where the simple savage could escape the few gigantic "fossil" animals which even then survived, and roved through the forests of Prussia and France, or the still more terrible human enemies who were continually pouring into Germany, Denmark, and Switzerland from the Asiatic plains. We find that the early savage of Switzerland and Sweden was not entirely ignorant of the care of animals, and that he had fabricated some rude pottery. Of what race he was, or when he appeared amid the forests of Northern Europe, no one can confidently say. Collecting the various indications from the superstitions, language, and habits of this barbarian people, and comparing them with like peculiarities of the most ancient races now existing in Europe, we can frame a very plausible hypothesis that these early savages belonged to that great family of which the Finns and Laps, and possibly the Basques, are scattered members. Their skulls, also, are analogous in form to those of the Finnish race. This age the archaeologists have denominated the "Stone Age" of European antiquity.

Following this is what has been called by them the "Bronze Age." Another, more powerful, and more cultivated race or collection of peoples inundates Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, and other districts. They make war against and destroy the early barbarians; they burn their water-huts, and force them to the mountains, or to the most northern portions of the continent. This new race has a taste for objects of beauty. They work copper and bronze; they make use of beautiful vases of earthenware and ornaments of the precious metals; but they have yet no knowledge of iron or steel. Their dead are burned instead of being buried, as was done by the preceding races. They are evidently more warlike and more advanced than the Finnish barbarians. Of their race or family it is difficult to say anything trustworthy. Their skulls belong to the "long-skulled" races, and would ally them to the Kelts. Antiquaries have called their remains "Keltic remains."

Still another age in this ancient history is the "Iron Age," when the tribes of Europe used iron weapons and implements, and had advanced from the nomadic condition to that of cultivators of the ground, though still gaining most of their livelihood from fishing and hunting. This period no doubt approached the period of historical annals, and the iron men may have been the earliest Teutons of the North,—our own forefathers; but of their race or mixture of races we have no certain evidence, and can only make approximate hypotheses,—the division of "ages" by archaeologists, it should be remembered, being not in any way a fixed division of races, but only indicating the probability of different races at those different early periods. What was the date of these ages cannot at all be determined; the earlier are long before any recorded European annals, but there is no reason to believe that they approach in antiquity the Asiatic records and remains.

Such, until recently, were the historic and scientific evidences with regard to the antiquity of man. His most venerable records, his most ancient dates of historic chronology were but of yesterday, when compared with the age of existing species of plants and animals, or with the opening of the present geologic era. Every new scientific investigation seemed, from its negative evidence, to render more improbable the existence of the "fossil man." It is true that in various parts of the world, during the past few years, human bones have been discovered in connection with the bones of the fossil mammalia; but they were generally found in caves or in lime-deposits, where they might have been dropped or swept in by currents of water, or inserted in more modern periods, and yet covered with the same deposit as the more ancient relics. Geologists have uniformly reasoned on the a priori improbability of these being fossil bones, and have somewhat strained the evidence—as some distinguished savans² now believe—against the theory of a great human antiquity.

And yet the "negative evidence" against the existence of the fossil man was open to many doubts. The records of geology are notoriously imperfect. We probably read but a few leaves of a mighty library of volumes. Moreover, the last ages preceding the present period were witnesses of a series of changes and slowly acting agencies of destruction, from which man may have in general escaped. We have reason to believe that during long periods of time the land was gradually elevated and subject to oscillations, so that the courses of rivers and the beds of lakes were disturbed, and even the bottom of the ocean was raised. The results were the inundation of some countries, and the pouring of great currents of water over others, wearing down the hills and depositing in the course of ages the regular layers of gravel, sand, and marl, which now cover so large a part of Europe. This was still further followed by a period in which the temperature of the earth was lowered, and ice and glaciers had perhaps a part in forming the present surface of the northern hemisphere. During the first period, which may be called the "Quaternary Period,"³ the mighty animals lived whose bones are now found in caverns, or under the slowly deposited sediment of the waters, or preserved in bog,—the mammoth, and rhinoceros, and elk, and bear, and elephant, as well as many others of extinct species.