"Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. LX, No. ccclvi, Jan. 1880 (6)": electronic edition

The Ghost of the Nineteenth Century by Phœbe Yates Pember

`Are you really sincere in asserting that you are utterly incredulous in belief in the existence of all sights, sounds, and omens?' She hesitated a moment before she answered. There was a faraway, dreamy look in her eyes, and a general delicacy of feature and contour, that physically appeared to disprove this assertion; but her mouth was firm, and the chin would have been masculine but for the soft dimple indented in it.

The present summer had been very hot and debilitating, and although far advanced into September, there had been no cooling change in the temperature of the Southern city where they lived. She had passed her first youth, but the rose was as lovely as the bud had been. Not the mere beauty of coloring and feature, but the higher grace of symmetry, and the nameless charm that, lacking the proper expression, we call fascination. The full but slight limbs, the graceful fall of shoulders and arms, the setting of the spirited head upon the throat and neck, were correct, even classic. The eye became satisfied in looking, and when she spoke, the crowning charm of woman was hers—the slow, soft voice, sweet, low, and distinct. Her companion had been always her friend, and they had lived as neighbors from childhood. If at times a passing anger at attentions shown her by other men fretted him, a little sisterly soothing on her part, and the absence of apparent interest toward the aspirants, soon quelled the feeling.

Still he was not her lover, their intimacy from childhood precluding her looking upon him differently to her brothers, whose companion he was, and if any passion lingered in her heart, it was dormant. The subject of love as applied to their intimacy had never intruded its presence.

Once there had arisen a coldness—a fancy on her side, an estrangement on his—but the object was dead, and how deeply she had suffered she alone knew. None questioned, and she gave no sign, save in shrinking from all mention of a name, and an avoidance of aught that could recall a memory. At the time a long and wasting illness had prostrated her, but the physician suggested a malarious atmosphere, and as she had no female relative save a paralyzed old grandmother, who, with her two brothers and her father composed their household, and who were as obtuse in such matters as those of their sex generally are, no one surmised any cause beyond local fever.

They were seated upon the stone steps leading down into the garden, with the long, dark conservatory, odorous with tropical plants, behind them. The house, an old discolored mass of bricks, monopolized the whole square, for it stood in the centre centre of a perfect wilderness of greenery. Tall forest trees grew there, straight magnolias towering above roof and chimney, feathery acacias with their yellow hair, dense fig-trees, all shading a wilderness of rose-bushes. Thick vines threw their embracing arms from bough to bough, dropping twisted loops of giant tendrils almost to the ground, and, softening the ruggedness of branch and bark, the tender gray moss clung around them, light almost as the mist of the Indian summer. Even at noonday there brooded shadow and mystery around the place. The old master had been opposed to all modern innovations, and the few flitting candles that hardly supply the need of gas made the spacious rooms seem larger, and the high walls higher. Only familiarity with these gloomy surroundings from early childhood could have rendered the pair indifferent to the dreariness of the place. They may still have had their influence, for the conversation often insensibly took, as it did this night, a mysterious tone.

She was leaning against the stone balustrade now, having left him a moment to tie up a wandering bud, with her soft white mull muslin dress clinging to the outline of her graceful shoulders. The stephanotis flowers dropped mutely from the vine above her head, and fell like stars about her dark hair, as the soft south wind shook them from their loose stems. Her mind was evidently much occupied with thoughts apart from her surroundings, for her answers were very unsatisfactory to his lively attempts to amuse and interest her. They were alone, the father and brothers having joined a hunting party early in the spring, whom they had met marooning on one of the sea islands, waiting for their annual sport. Except her old grandmother and an intelligent woman, partly companion and partly nurse, there had been no one living in the house with her since they left.

The question that had at last roused her attention was a challenge from Linton to go to a chamber in the garret which had always been locked up on account of foolish rumors among the servants of strange sounds having been there heard. The missing key had been found by him that morning when searching for fishing-tackle. She refused with some impatience, which provoked a jesting retort from him, and then an accusation that `she and Mrs. Prynne were both afraid of ghosts.'

`Mrs. Prynne left us some weeks since,' she said, calmly, `and I have only that stupid Candis to supply her place. I fear my grandmother needs me now.'

Still she lingered, casting long apprehensive glances down the dim wide hall. The summer evenings stretched far into the night, and the dull heavily cut glass lamp, that made the passage only more gloomy, had not yet been lit, the air seeming cooler in darkness.

Linton was not very observant, but love quickens the senses, and as he looked attentively into her face, struck by the gravity of her manner, he became aware that some change had thinned her figure and hollowed her cheeks. The blood came and receded too quickly in her fair face, and the quiet composure which was her chief charm seemed to be maintained only by great control. If he had noticed this before, it had made no impression, but the full nature of the alternation in face and form burst upon him now with startling force.

`Esther,' he said, springing to his feet, `what is troubling you? Are you sick again? Why did you turn so white, and then red, when I jested about ghosts? Has any one dared to play a trick upon you, knowing your solitary position at present, and the silly rumors concerning this house?'

`Who do you suppose would dare to take such a liberty?' she answered, gravely.

`But there must be some cause for your manner, your looks, and the abstraction of your mind from all that once interested and amused you. Good Heaven! how blind I have been!'

She seemed about to speak, then hesitated, and he noticed how uneasily she glanced around her. `If only—' she said, under her breath, but the words died upon her lips.

`Esther,' he said, `you have known me, boy and man, from childhood; can not you trust me?'

`Yes, yes,' she eagerly cried; `it is not the trust that is wanting. If only I could, if only I dared! I have tried in vain to be self-reliant, to be sensible if possible, and I have failed so entirely—so entirely!'

`Then let me judge for you,' he said. `I am a man, Esther, and have, I think, as much power of will and as much brain as are apportioned to most men. You do not seem willing to believe this. Be just, and give me the same consideration you accord to others. Have I no influence with you, because long familiarity of intercourse, untrammelled by etiquette, has blinded you to the changes of time? Whatever I may lack in your sight, I shall never be any more of a man than I now am.'

Undoubtedly he felt aright. He had never yet been aught to her but her boy-playmate grown a bigger boy, for she looked at him with some surprise, and a dawning sense that he had true cause for his complaint. Her eyes filled with tears, and her voice trembled, as she answered him: `I know that you are kind and brave, manly and tender-hearted, and I need help so much! My brain feels giving way. I have been so skeptical, so determined in my disbelief, and it has been so fearful, so horrible, so unaccountable. Why should it have been forced upon me?'

He took her shaking hand, and waited to hear more, but she seemed to regret what she had already said. He entreated her to trust in his interest and power to aid her, but she shrank away.

`Leave me now,' she said. `I may not be disturbed to-night. Sometimes, but very rarely, I am allowed to rest without hinderance—when it is stormy, or when the night is dark and wild; and whatever it is, it seems to shun the conflict of the elements. There is a storm brooding now, and I may escape to-night. Come to me to-morrow evening, and if I can, I will tell you everything. Indeed, I must, for I can not bear it alone; and yet'—she spoke under her breath—`any one rather than you.'

He checked his rising impulse of resentment, for he saw how pale she grew, and how the strong agitation she labored under shook her fragile form. He had waited and hoped apparently in vain for years, serving faithfully for his reward, and never knowing what was the nature of the invisible and intangible but impassable barrier which separated them.

`As you please,' he replied, gravely. `You are the best judge of how far I am to be relied upon in any emergency. Give or withhold your confidence, it will make no difference. I shall always, I think, be the same to you.'

`Always the same,' she said. `Always the truest, the kindest, the most unselfish friend that any woman was ever blessed with. I can not tell you why I shrink from confiding to you this story, for a fearful story it is.'

He checked her words, seeing her increasing agitation, called Candis—a heavy, stupid negro girl, only brought from the kitchen to fill Mrs. Prynne's place during her temporary absence—tried to bid Esther good-night as coldly as he could, for he feared to trust his excited feelings of tenderness, and telling the girl not to leave her young lady until she saw that she slept, left the house before the storm burst.

It was, indeed, a wild September night, so stormy that all sounds were swallowed up in the roar of wind and the rush of rain; but it swept away for a time the intense summer heat, and the next day the sun arose brilliantly, disclosing the destruction of roses and jasmines, which in that generous clime it takes but one day's sunshine to renew in their perfect beauty. The torn branches of trees strewed the streets, but the soft sandy soil had already drunk up the rain. All nature seemed healthier, stronger, and fresher.

He found Esther more in unison with the change. The bracing atmosphere had apparently invigorated her, for her movements were not so languid; but her face was deadly pale, and the violet shadows deeper under her eyes. Sad or bright, they were the loveliest, tenderest eyes he had ever looked into.

The twilight was melting into the deep sapphire of the summer night as they seated themselves in their accustomed spot, but they still talked upon indifferent subjects, as if shunning one particular one. She seemed loath to allude to her promise of the previous night, and he felt a natural delicacy in urging her confidence. The young crescent moon, with a bright star just touching her horn, floated over the mimosa-trees, where a young mocking-bird tried his melodious notes. Linton fancied once or twice that she made an effort to commence her story, for her breath came short at times, and then would end in a long painful sigh. At last he turned suddenly to her.

`Esther, what have you to reveal to me? It can be nothing but for which an easy solution can be found. Your imagination has been excited, and has exaggerated whatever it is into an alarming matter. I wish to hear all about it now—this instant. I can not see you so distressed, and feign indifference.'

`You shall hear,' she said; `but promise not to interrupt me. Listen to the very, very end, I entreat you, and then give me some explanation that may satisfy me, or I shall die, I believe.'

They were seated as usual on the steps of the veranda overlooking the garden. So thick was the undergrowth of vines and rose-bushes and honeysuckles that it appeared to stretch miles away. The boundaries were hidden from sight by close hedges, and only here and there a mass of green caught the rays of the bright crescent light.

`You remember the years we passed in Europe,' she commenced, `the time you were finishing your collegiate career, when our house and grounds were rented to Mr. Winstoun, while his were painting and repairing? Winny Winstoun and I had always been fast friends from the day we entered school together, and the intimacy continued unbroken for many years, for we shared our girlish pleasures too in after life. We had no jealousies then, our attractions being as different as our characters. It is just five years since we made our début, and for a long time after our entrance into society there seemed to be no one among the young men who associated with us who could be considered a favored lover for either. Then came a naval vessel to our port, and among her officers one proved as attractive in society as he appeared to be among his friends. He was with us very often, and almost domesticated in Mr. Winstoun's family, and our little world soon decided that Winny's bright face and gay manners had won him. I never could draw from her any serious avowal on the subject. She seemed uneasy when questioned, laughing as long as she could evade inquiry by jesting, and then growing angry if pressed; but she always declared when I appealed to her for confidence that he did not know whom he wanted, and that whatever his game was, it was too deep for her penetration to fathom. She was an heiress, and my father's affairs at that time were much embarrassed, so I had an advantage over her in never being suspicious of the motives of my lovers. Then a coolness grew up between us, and before I could resolve to ask explanations, my mother's health became much affected, and we left for Europe. It was then that Mr. Winstoun took our house, and occupied it until his was added to and put in complete repair. He gave it up then to my brothers when they returned home that winter. They were young and wild, free from all supervision, and they led a very gay life, and filled the old house with their noisy companions. Foremost among them in reckless daring was our young naval friend, who, after all, had proved the shrewdness of Winny's judgment by flying off with his wings unsinged, apparently fancy-free, never having enacted decidedly the rôle of lover. For many months they lived their lively, careless life, until the terrible tragedy occurred which threw a gloom over the whole city, and gave my brothers a shock which sobered their life for many months. We were at Pau, watching my mother's declining days, for she lived only a few weeks afterward, when, among the items in a long letter received from Winny, was a studiously careless account of the death of Captain Santerre' (her voice died away to a faint whisper, and the pale cheeks and lips waned even paler in the moonlight).

`I remember,' Linton said, briefly; `a life thrown away recklessly; but it was very sudden, and very awful.'

Awful indeed! You do not know the real circumstances of the case. The reports were false that said it was not accidental. Why should a man choose such a death, if even he was tired of life? and why should he have been—' Again the sweet voice faltered and broke.

`My youngest brother was his chosen friend,' she continued, `and he bears witness to the falsehood of the charges made. In the full flush of health and strength, Captain Santerre insisted on making a bet that he could spring over the stone balustrade of the piazza on the west front, leading out from my bedroom (the one I now occupy), and that he could clear the iron fence that separates the garden from the yard, and reach the ground in safety. I can not tell you more; you know the rest.'

`Hush,' he said, soothingly. `Do not force yourself to recount that horrible story. It is all past. Why dwell upon it?'

Her mind still clung to her narrative, and she continued as if he had not spoken: `In the distraction of travel and the constant anxiety about the state of my mother's health, as well as the necessity of preserving her mind from all agitation, and perhaps, also, by reason of our distance from the scene, I did not feel with the acuteness you would suppose the horror of the tragedy that had occurred in our very house, amidst all our daily surroundings. Then my mother died, and with that great sorrow pressing upon me, all reminiscences faded into the background. We were then recalled home immediately to receive my grandmother, who had been struck with paralysis at hearing of her daughter's death, and had become as helpless as she is now. As soon as we became settled, Winny came from the plantation to see me. She was as gay and thoughtless and noisy as ever, inquired why had we resolved to live again in such a gloomy, dreary old prison-house, and what rooms I had determined to immure myself in. I told her that I had exchanged the former nursery, where I had remained before we left, to be near my mother, for a couple of rooms on the western side.

```Which two?'' she asked; ``back or front?''

```The back ones, for the sake of the westerly view of the river and ocean, and the comfort of the little piazza that led out of the chamber windows.''

```I should not like to sleep in either of them,'' she said, lightly. ``Captain Santerre, when he was picked up apparently lifeless, was taken into one of those rooms, and there laid upon the couch. For nearly a week they watched him day and night, but he gave no sign of life except the loud sobbing, struggling of the breath to escape, and the hurrying beat, beat of his heart. It could be heard even outside of the house, sounding like nothing human. If I were you, Essie, I would change my rooms: you might hear him some night, and you would not easily forget it all. You know he always had a fancy for you, and could not make up his mind to take me, even for the money that he needed so much. Indeed, people said—''

`But I turned way, and would listen to no more, and the light laugh—not without bitterness—which followed me revealed then the reason for her coldness and captiousness in times past. But her remarks made little impression on my mind, as all my faculties had been dulled and my heart deadened by the loss of my mother, and the daily need I felt for her presence and companionship.

`This conversation occurred about a week after our return. It was then late in the winter. I was very busy for some time getting the house re-arranged comfortably, and distributing the many luxuries we had brought home with us. My father had been specially solicitous that the bedrooms I occupied should be made as pretty and fresh as muslin and cretonne could make them, and there was no trace left of the heavy, old-fashioned look that they had worn for many years. I had never remembered Winny's careless and cruel words, or her description of Captain Santerre's death, and could feel no nervousness living in the changed rooms where so sad a tragedy had been enacted, for there was not a sign of their former appearance left.

`And now, Linton, I come—oh, so reluctantly!—to the cause of my distress, or terror, I should say, for terror and horror worse than death have I borne for weeks. I know that I am sane, and that my bodily health is good. I disbelieve entirely, as I have always asserted, in the existence of any phenomena contrary to the laws of nature. I am not a weak or a fanciful woman, or even a superstitious one, and that I have great control over myself I have shown by bearing for six weeks all the suffering that I will relate to you, as well as by trying in every way my mind could suggest to elucidate the mystery. I have failed. And now I want your help, and am more than relieved that you have persuaded me to rest part of my burden upon your shoulders. God grant that your investigations may lead to the elucidation of the mystery!'

He gazed at her in speechless surprise. She was usually so calm and composed, so self-reliant and free from all feminine nervousness, that her violent agitation and convulsed voice stupefied him.

`I never again thought of Winny's story, as I assured you,' she continued, `and all that winter and spring I occupied my rooms contented and happy. Then my father and brothers left for their annual hunt to the lower part of the State, my grandmother, myself, and Mrs. Prynne, whom I had engaged on my own account as well as my grandmother's (for she was an educated, efficient woman, on whom I could depend), alone occupying the house, the quarters of the servant-men being over the stable. My grandmother became so helpless and so deaf that a capable woman was a necessity for her, but when Mrs. Prynne was summoned away to her daughter, and wrote me that she would be unable to come back, I replaced her with Candis, a stupid negro girl, thinking I could supervise her duties, as I preferred not getting a stranger to fill the office until my father's return.

`It was very quiet in the house before you came. All our friends had left for a cooler atmosphere, but it was necessary for me to remain with grandmother, as she could not be moved, and I had no inclination, I had been so long away, to leave home again. The gloom of the high, wide passages and rooms had never depressed me, for we use so little light in the summer months at the South that the absence of gas was naturally unnoticed.

`One night, a week after Mrs. Prynne's departure, I awoke suddenly with a confused feeling of fright—wide-awake, with every sense alive, as we are when aroused in the dead of night by the unexpected cry of fire or murder. I sat up in bed, listening intently in the deep silence around me, when there smote upon my ear a faint, oppressed, and smothered breathing, low and distinct. Quick as light Winny Winstoun's careless speech came to me. I pushed my hair back, and waited, motionless; and then, regularly, steadily, commencing softly, as if half suppressed, then momently increasing in volume and agony they came—those awful sounds. Gasp after gasp. They filled the room. They labored like a soul in mortal agony, ever growing louder and louder, stronger and stronger, and between the suffocating sobs came the bewildering beat, beat, beat of the crushed and lacerated heart. The room, the air, the walls from which they re-echoed, everything around me, above me, below me, resounded with the ghastly tumult, and was burdened with the horrible regularity of the struggling breath that came fluttering and sobbing and writhing in the still night like a tortured spirit in torment, like an agonized body broken upon the wheel. I sat up in my bed, motionless, pulseless, breathless, but my senses ever keenly alive. I knew that I was not dreaming, and that my imagination had not conjured up that scene, that there was no deception in the sounds I heard, and I forced myself to remain calm.

`For three-quarters of an hour it lasted, commencing low, then rising, and lastly culminating into a tumult of tones that forced me to crush my hands into my ears, and then it died away as it had commenced, and I strained my ears to hear the last of the faint, far-away sobs that had ceased.

`The next morning I awoke late, for I had dropped asleep near day-dawn from exhaustion, and my first thought, under the brightness of the summer sun streaming in the windows, was entire disbelief in the possibility of the night's occurrence. It was a feverish dream, and nothing more, and at the time, could I have summoned courage to have sprung out of bed, the nightmare would have been dispelled. All day I busily occupied myself, and allowed but scant time for reflection upon supernatural phenomena. Even when night came, I gathered the late roses, and sitting where we now are, made bouquets for my vases, wondering when I should have you with me to cheer my loneliness—for you were absent just then—and when it grew too dark for work, I thought of the coming pleasures for the winter, and what occupations I would make. I thought of everything I could conjure up that was amusing, and that could interest a girl's mind.

`In this healthy mood I went up to my chamber, said my prayers, went to bed, and dropped quietly to sleep almost immediately. The only difference made in my usual habits was the addition of a candle and box of matches at my bedside.

`Linton, in the dead of night, at the same hour, again I awoke, for my ear as suddenly caught that first faint struggling gasp. I did not wait one moment, but sprang out of bed, lit my candle, and then I stood still and waited. It was not for long. The gasps, the struggles, the stertorous heaving of the laboring chest, again filled all space, while the terrible monotone of the beat, beat, beat of the anguished heart never varied half a second.

`This was no freak of the imagination, no delusion of the senses, but an awful reality. Still, it could not be what I dared not think of. I quieted my nerves, and went mechanically around my chamber and sitting-room. I stepped out into the calm of the sweet-smelling summer night, out on the piazza—that piazza from which he had sprung; but I shrank back, for the horror grew louder, the struggles stronger. I wandered into the hall, and across it to the opposite room, and awoke my poor old grandmother. ``Do you hear any one suffering?'' I screamed to her; but she shook her head silently, and was asleep almost before my voice had died away. Candis I knew of old; there would be no use in trying to make her hear, much less understand, when once fallen asleep. Her intellects are dull at all times. Through the long hall, candle in hand, I returned to my rooms, never for a moment losing those sounds, that had only become fainter as I went farther along the passage, and as I neared my chamber filled the dark space, and beat the air with a regularity that was maddening.

`I did not faint, Linton. I did not feel like fainting. I could only die once of horror; but why did not either insensibility or death come? On the contrary, every nerve was strong. I did not, I could not, I would not, believe! I opened all my doors—of closet and cabinet and dressing room, even the small one that closed my escritoire; but I did not again go into the hall—I would never have dared to return to my rooms! I peered into the obscurity of the garden, for my ears were so filled with the ghastly horror that I did not know where to seek it. It was all around me, but it came louder and more shudderingly from that piazza, and I shrank back into a corner of the sofa.

`But I am no coward. I come of a race who never feared, and a passion of anger at my helplessness flamed into my brain, and set my blood boiling and the heretofore still pulses beating to fever-heat, and in my sudden passion I called to him—to it—to whatever the horror might be that was blasting my life. I could no longer endure the quiescence that accorded to such sounds their aggravated terror.

```Speak to me, Captain Santerre,'' I cried aloud. ``I am alone and suffering. Through what power are you here, and why this ghastly presentment to me alone of a past agony? If aught of the manliness is left that was yours in life, cease this horrible travesty of vitality. Come to me, if come you must, in a more seemly shape.'' My brain was throbbing, and my wild address, as you may suppose, died on the air; but the tumult was again fading away, and then came silence—still, dead silence, like the calm of exhaustion. Hardly a breath could be heard.

`The first night that I was disturbed, Linton, was the 2d of August. It is now the middle of September; so for six weeks I have lived with this nightly terror near me. Do you wonder that my cheeks are pale and my eyes hollow? You look incredulously at me: why should you not? for believe me that I do not, even in the presence of this horrible experience, rely entirely on the evidence of my own senses; that is, I can not realize those night scenes when the daylight come, but at night—' Her lips contracted, and she trembled all through her delicate frame.

He had listened with surprise at first, then with a kind of puzzled amusement, and lastly with infinite compassion. All the tenderness of his love, and love controlled almost beyond repression for years, was thrilling his nerves and throbbing at his heart. The narration itself influenced but little his masculine incredulity, but the suffering she had evidently endured, and her unconscious appeal to him, to his care, his protection, sank into the very depths of his soul. Mingling, too, with this feeling rose a suspicion, gathering force as it grew, that there was an added horror she had not alluded to in her narration, nor could he ask any explanation; but he knew that the scenes she had described were the death-bed scenes of the man she had once loved, perhaps still mourned, and the only solution he could at that moment confusedly grasp at was that a dormant sympathy had been re-awakened in her heart by returning to the neighborhood of the surroundings of the terrible tragedy which had closed Santerre's life, and had conjured up the nightly scenes she had borne with such secrecy and courage, and had blown the embers of an almost forgotten fancy into flame.

But how to meet the emergency pushed more abstract feelings into the background. That she had suffered deeply was evident from her hollow eyes and extreme depression. Her story showed no signs of hypochondria. She had struggled against illusions and deceptions, and had maintained a courage that few women under similar circumstances could have summoned. Here was no weak nature to be laughed out of fanciful moods, or be scolded into common-sense.

`Have you been reading lately any of Dale Owen's books?' he said carelessly. `Been pouring over Foot-Prints on the Borders of Another World, or Mrs. Crowe's Night Side of Nature?'

`I know of what you are thinking. I have not read books of that style for years. They make no impression upon me even at the time of reading them. There is not a single well-attested or well-authenticated fact in them, and although I can not doubt that I have absolutely heard for the last six weeks all I have related to you, still I do not believe in the possibility of its being of a supernatural nature. What have I ever done to him' (suddenly bursting into hysterical sobs) `that he should come to me nightly to rend my heart with his awful agony.'

Now that the excitement had taken the relief of tears, he did not disturb her, but let her weep it away. This outburst, the removal of the pressure of secrecy, and the comfort of unrestrained confidence, all tended to tranquillize her, so that she listened almost cheerfully to his explanation of future plans for the elucidation of the mystery.

`You did not tell me if you were disturbed last night,' he said. `What an awful storm! I thought often of you, and wondered if you were alarmed. I did not then know' (tenderly taking her hand) `of the more serious horrors you had to contend with!'

`I was spared it all,' she said. `In the turmoil of wind and rain, and the swaying and crashing of the old trees, I dreaded the added sounds I had every reason to expect. None came, thank God! Not a groan, not a sob. Can it all be over? And if it is, what has it been?'

`Never mind what it has been, my Esther, my dear Esther, my poor little Essie! If only it is all over, we can sooner or later find the key to the mystery. And now listen to me, and be guided by my judgment, I pray you. Who cares so much for you, and loves—'

But not now. Surely not now, when her weakness, her trial, should call forth his forbearance, his tenderness. He steadied his voice, and calmed his manner.

`It is past eleven o'clock,' he said. `I will go over home and tell them not to expect me there to-night, and then I will return, and we will go up to your fearful little piazza, and spend the night there. You can enjoy your European experiences over again by recounting them to me, and while you are so engaged, I will keep a sharp look-out for—' He glanced at her face, and did not finish his sentence. The impression her story had at first made upon him was already dying away. Indeed, his brave, bold nature could hardly be affected by her wild narration of the strange events she had suffered from, particularly when the actual enactment of them was impossible from his common-sense point of view; but he saw she could not then endure any disbelief expressed by him on the subject.

`That is what I should like,' she eagerly assented. `You can only elucidate the mystery (if it can be elucidated) by hearing it for yourself. Come back to me as soon as possible; and, oh! do not leave me alone too long. I could not bear it another night.'

There was nothing further at present to be said, so he silently left. All subjects of former interest appeared to have been banished from her mind by her last six weeks' experience, but her trouble had surely been his gain, and he returned, after a few minutes' absence, hopeful, buoyant, and happy. What a charming ghost was this, he thought, who had frightened her so thoroughly that his care was an absolute necessity! He could hardly control the expression of his gratification, and act with the solemnity which befitted the occasion.

It was a lovely night that followed the storm. Esther was very still and composed, but every nerve was quivering with suppressed expectancy, and even fear that the absence of that which she dreaded most might throw discredit upon her story, and make her appear the weak dupe of a nervous delusion. He was too well satisfied with any cause that would draw them together to care what the nature of it might be. There was but little conversation. Her small slim hands were folded tightly on her lap, and both tried to appear at their ease, as if the circumstances that drew them together at that hour were matters of usual occurrence. They had left their nightly position on the stone steps of the veranda about twelve o'clock, and taken their post of observation on the piazza leading from her bedroom.

Away to the west glided the tranquil river, too much in shadow under its wooded banks to add to the beauty of the scene, but beyond it gleamed a broad stretch of silver sand, running out a long tongue of land separating the river from the ocean. Even during the heaviest Atlantic gales the curve of the coast made this stretch a safe passage for small steamers and schooners that coasted along its bend, thus escaping rougher waves. It was called the inland passage, and although very distant, almost too far to add to the view, a quivering, bright line of molten silver always glittered there under the sun or moon beams.

And gazing upon this peaceful scene they watched the night wear on, undisturbed by any present attempt at elucidating the cause of their vigil. Now and then a word from him, and a murmured answer or a slight sigh of relief from her. Her heart, which had fluttered so often with the dread of catching that first struggling sob, fluttered still more wildly for fear that it might not come that night. It was nearly three in the morning when, glancing at him, she fancied she detected the dawning of a faint smile.

`I know, Linton, what you are beginning to doubt,' she commenced, when her voice sank away to a faint whisper, as a low, suppressed, gasping sob breathed lightly into the still air of the summer night, and then another, and another—struggling, gasping, heaving, sobbing sighs, as if the soul beating against its earthly bars strove and fought and writhed to be free, and yet suppressed, restraining the sounds that they might not penetrate too far. Muffled as they were, they filled all the space around. Above, below, wherever the ear met them, their fullness swelled upon the tension; and now, added to the anguish of the struggling soul, came with mechanical regularity the beat, beat, beat of the throbbing heart, agonized beyond endurance.

They both had risen simultaneously. She, lost to all surroundings, only awake to the excitement and dread of the hour, stood clasping his arm with her trembling fingers, her head hidden upon his breast. He, with eyes, ears, senses, all alive, too startled to be conscious of even the sweet burden he bore, listening intently as his mind swept like lightning over all the aspects of the situation and its surroundings. Even her vivid description of her fearful experience had not prepared him for what he now heard.

But this lasted only for some minutes, and then the tension of his face and figure relaxed as he put his arms around her yielding form.

`Essie, my darling,' he said, `I do not wonder at the delusion you have labored under. I can well imagine your feelings during this terrible trial. Winny's foolish speech, and the wonderful similarity of the sounds we hear to her description of the scenes of that awful death-bed, may well have deceived you. Your terrors were quite natural, my poor girl; but can not you imagine even now what has caused them?'

`No,' she answered, quieted by his composure, and conscious already that her trouble was over, and the solution clear to him. `What are they? From where do they come? Listen, they are dying away—fainter and fainter.'

`They will be gone entirely in a few moments, Esther; quite as soon as Mr. Winstoun's little steamboat has rounded the tongue of land and steamed out to sea. Your ghost, my dearest, is a modern ghost. The sobs that struggled through the air were the steam-throbs of her engine, mellowed by the distance; the agonized and oppressed heart-beats, the beat of her paddle-wheels. The silence of night, the echo of the woods between us and the ocean, the situation of the house, and the strange peculiarities of the laws which govern acoustics have all combined to produce this delusion. When to these causes were added the mysticism of night, and the strong influence of the previous thoughts which had for a considerable time affected your mind, it is not strange that your senses, prepared as a medium for such impressions, should have succumbed to the result.'

`But the disturbances have occurred with such frightful regularity. They commence and die at exactly the same hour.'

`Because the steamer makes her nightly trips at the same hour. When she leaves the plantation wharf she is farthest from us. As she touches the edge of the wood of water-oaks, we catch the first pant of her engines and beat of her wheels. The sounds culminate as she nears the point, and as she rounds it and makes for the open sea they die away till they are lost in the distance.'

`And last night? Why did I not hear it?'

`Last night was too stormy for any small vessel to leave port, particularly when she would have to put out to sea as soon as she got beyond the point. Your not hearing her during the storm helped me to my solution of the mystery. Bring me the night-glass, and I will show you your ghost. He has but limited powers of progress, and can not have made much headway yet. Why, Essie, collect your faculties, and throw off this nightmare. Can you doubt the evidence of our combined senses?'

`But why should I never have heard it until the 2d of August, the anniversary of the very night of his death?'

`The corresponding date is the only strange part of the whole affair. It has been simply a coincidence,' he said. `Mr. Winstoun had before then used the outside ocean steamer for transit and freight for his cotton. She ceased running the 1st of August until business should revive in the fall, and so he was compelled to use his own little private steamer, which he had purchased in case of just such an emergency. Bring me the night-glass, that you may see her before she steams out of sight.'

She brought it silently, and fixing the focus, he showed her the faint light and vapor of the little vessel beating and throbbing against wind and tide. He held the glass with one hand to steady it, but the other had sought a rest around her waist. It remained there, if noticed, at least unrebuked, while a long sigh of relief and satisfaction proved at last her faith in his solution of the mystery.

`And now,' he said, after a long pause, `can not you let all other illusions die away with this one? I have seen and felt for two years the depressing influence of that more important spectre which has stood between us like a wall of ice, and I dared not before to-night venture in his presence to put my fate to the test; but may not a living, loving devotion that has stood the wear of time, coldness, and, worse, indifference, be worth the shadow of a fancy or a memory that I think was only called into being after the object had ceased to exist? It was Santerre's terrible death, in the prime of youth, strength, and health, added to the knowledge of his secret love for you, that has held your fancy, more than filled your heart, for so long. You have given a great deal in return, as the suffering of the last six weeks proves. Is not a warm human love an equivalent for this phantom romance? Oh, my darling, my playmate from childhood, my earliest and only love, give me the privilege to protect and comfort you always. I want so little in return!'

The fading dream of her girlish romance, more of brain than heart, vanished before the light of his strong human love, and as the last star of night melted into the dawning day, she laid her weary head upon his breast with a long sigh of relief and—consent; and in the quiet of a deep content they stood, while the pink flush of early morn blushed all over the face of nature, and deepened and deepened until the sun, like the triumphant young god he is in Southern climes, glowing with strength and fire, sprang up suddenly from his rest, and threw his network of diamonds over every blade of grass, leaf, and flower.

`I must leave you now, Esther, but I lay upon you my first command, which is, to rest as quietly as you can. I will not seek you before this evening at our usual hour of meeting; and, Essie, before I go make me a promise that as long as you live you will never join in any disparagement of ghosts. I shall sympathize with them, believe in them, even adore them forever. Long live the ghosts of the nineteenth century!'

Editor's Easy Chair - Chair for January

The holiday season this year will be peculiarly pleasant, because the long prostration of industry is ended, and business everywhere revives. The good-will of the season will be even more cheerful and cordial, and the wish of a happy New-Year will have the charm of sincere expectation. But whatever the situation, the magic of the time is resistless. `Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.'

This is the ever fresh and recurring sentiment of the season, and although Christendom is wide, and embraces many nationalities, there is always a feeling that Christmas-tide is peculiarly an English season. Certainly our own associations with it, its family reunions, its boundless good cheer, it ample hospitality, the waits, the Yule-log, the morris-dancers, the mistletoe, are especially English. Our Northern ancestors celebrated everything with feasting, with huge eating and deep drinking, and Father Christmas comes in, preceded, indeed, by the cantors intoning a hymn, but closely followed by the boar's head wreathed with rosemary, and the plum-pudding smoking hot not far away.

The great success of Dickens's Christmas stories lay in their felicitous expression of this national feeling. There was a vague `ideal' of Christmas hovering in the popular mind, traditions of the good old hearty time of popular games and Christmas carols and universal benignity and well-being. Nobody knew exactly when or exactly where this miracle of changing England into Arcadia was wrought. But that the vision was a mirage nobody believed. The old song was true history: `A man might then behold At Christmas in each hall Good fires to curb the cold, And meat for great and small; The neighbors were friendly bidden, And all had welcome true; The poor from the gates were not chidden, When this old cap was new.' It was a No Man's Land, a land of Cockaigne, during the rest of the year, but at Christmas it was good old England.

This was the generous and wholesome feeling which makes Irving's Christmas sketches so delightful. They are full of the breath of a hallowed and gracious time. There is an inexpressible glamour over the simple narrative, and there are no passages in his books more familiar or more justly popular. It was this poetic aura over very substantial facts to which Dickens gave such exquisite expression. He treats Christmas as a season when Christianity may be represented as really practicable—when simple generosity and forgiveness and repentance may be depicted as natural and actual, and when it is fair to give glimpses of what this modern world, the world of London or New York, would be if people were governed by Christian rules, and practiced the faith which they profess.

Dickens does this, of course, in a characteristic and sympathetic way. Honest good cheer is a large part of his Christmas. It is practical Christianity which his blithe pen preaches and describes—feeding the hungry, soothing the sick, raising the fallen, visiting the fatherless and the widow—a homely, hearty, beautiful Christianity; a season in which the bird of dawning singeth all night long. Thackeray followed in his own way. His little Christmas stories preach less than those of Dickens, but they have a prodigious moral. He felt deeply the benediction of a season which the traditions of his race had consecrated to the simple and sturdy virtues, and the tender pensiveness of his genius has a singularly touching expression in the little Christmas verses of various kinds that he wrote. Among these the most familiar are the delightful `Mahogany Tree:' `Christmas is here: Winds whistle shrill, Icy and chill, Little care we; Little we fear Weather without, Sheltered about The mahogany tree;' and the Epilogue to Dr. Birch: `The play is done, the curtain drops.' Thackeray also, in his lecture upon `Charity and Humor'—first published, if we may make bold to mention it, in this Magazine—pays generous tribute to the character and influence of Dickens's Christmas literature as re-awakening the hearty spirit of Old English Christmas, which had fallen rather into slumber and forgetfulness.

But in New York and this year no slumber or forgetfulness has overtaken the gracious season. The long ranges of Christmas trees, as if a Birnam wood of evergreens had garrisoned the town; the bewildering piles and masses of Christmas gifts in miles of window, which by their infinite contrariety of temptation are sure to hold the eager youthful buyer in suspense; The markets solid with beeves and poultry and game, recalling the pictures in the old Illustrated News of the London markets at Christmas, and the poulterers with three and four stories of solid poultry covering the entire front of the house; the crowds of buyers with the happy look of the mind bent upon giving pleasure—all these things, and the vast miscellany of sights that can be `better imagined than described,' recall the generous old Christmas traditions, the feeling with which as boys we all read Irving's Sketch-Book and Bracebridge Hall, and then Dickens and Thackeray, and the satisfaction with which we passed from intoning the solemn music of Milton's `Hymn on the Nativity,' and Wordsworth's poem, The minstrels sang their Christmas tunes Last night beneath my cottage eaves,' to gazing upon pictures of the bringing in of the boar's head, and the wassail, and Kenny Meadows's blindman's buff, and dishing the Christmas pudding. The Yule-logs, we are told, like half of the Christmas observances, are heathen reminiscences and traditions. But `before Abraham was, I am.' There is nothing in the deepest and best sense human which in the truest and highest sense is not also Christian. The characteristic feeling about Christmas, as it is revealed in literature and tradition and association, is the striking and beautiful tribute to the practicability of Christianity.

Two recent events in England were treated by the papers with an attention wholly disproportioned to their importance. One was the libel suit of Mr. Lawson and Mr. Labouchere, and the other was the suit against Rosenberg for libels upon the two `professional beauties' Mrs. Langtry and Mrs. Cornwallis West. The secret of the interest in both was the personal scandal involved. Both illustrated a reckless license of the press, which is without parallel of the kind in this country. They are both, also, illustrative of that kind of coarseness, as of the old Berserker and Viking, which Taine and other foreign observers perceive in our English race. Another form of the same thing is what we know as blackguardism. The origin of this word Richardson indicates by a quotation from Gifford's notes to Ben Jonson: `In all great houses, but particularly in the royal residences, there were a number of mean and dirty dependents whose office it was to attend the wood-yard, sculleries, etc.; of these the most forlorn wretches seem to have been selected to carry coals to the kitchens, halls, etc. To this smutty regiment, who attended the progresses, and rode in the carts with the pots and kettles, the people in derision gave the name of blackguards.' Richardson cites, among his illustrations of the use of the word, a passage from Ben Jonson' masque of Love Restored, and one from `Hudibras,' beginning, `Thou art some paltry blackguard sprite, Condemn'd to drudgery in the night.'

A recent biography of Lord Beaconsfield, by Mr. T. P. O'Connor, a work so severe upon the career of the Prime Minister as to have evoked a counter Life, hints at Mr. Disraeli's powers as a blackguard, and as the counter Life of the earl depicts him as a proud stoic under abuse of every kind, the Spectator answers it by reproducing some specimens of his vituperation. The Globe had taunted Mr. Disraeli as an adventurer in politics, and the young politician, then in his thirty-second year, replied in a letter to the Times by alluding to the writer in the Globe as `the thing who concocts the meagre sentences and drivels out the rheumy rhetoric of the Globe.' Upon a bantering reply by the Globe, Mr. Disraeli retorted:

`The editor of the Globe must have a more contracted mind and a paltrier spirit than even I imagined, if he can suppose for a moment that an ignoble controversy with an obscure animal like himself can gratify the passion for notoriety of one whose words at least have been translated into the languages of polished Europe, and circulated by thousands in the New World. It is not, then, my passion for notoriety that has induced me to tweak the nose and inflict sundry kicks on the baser part of his base body—to make him eat dirt, and his own words, fouler than any filth; but because I wished to show to the world what a miserable poltroon, what a craven dullard, what a literary scarecrow, what a mere thing stuffed with straw and rubbish, is this soi-disant director of public opinion and official organ of Whig politics.' The Globe then proved its assertions incontestably.

This irritable temperament and unbridled tongue are unfortunate possessions for any one who takes part in public discussion. He should not begin until he understands the conditions of the contest, and he will then perceive that upon its surface it is not one of principle and reason, but of selfishness and meanness and foul play. The moment that he professes to prefer cleanliness to dirt, he raises an uproar of objurgation.

In one of Albert Gallatin's letters, recently published, he warns his correspondent not to be troubled by the cry of Pharisee, which his political opponents will certainly raise against him. It is a policy akin to that of abusing the plaintiff's attorney. To sneer at a man as affecting superior virtue because he prefers decency and truthfulness in dealing, whether in politics, or in business, or in any relation of life, is a very amusing but an undeniably effective proceeding. It is really a charge of hypocrisy. It assumes that nobody sincerely wishes anything but what is mean and contemptible, and that to profess a preference for cleanliness is but a more disgusting form of meanness. The truth is that the mere suggestion of decency is a reproach to those who are satisfied to lie in the mire, and inevitably it extorts the grunt of angry sarcasm.

This cry of Phariseeism is especially common in politics. A young man beginning `to attend to his duties as an American citizen' finds immediately that he is expected to sacrifice his self-respect, to flatter and wheedle and lie, to affect good-fellowship with men whom he sees to be despicable, to drink and `treat,' and `run wid de masheen,' and clap `the boys' on the back, and to affect to believe of his political adversaries what Dr. Johnson asserted of his, that `the devil was the first Whig.' If he does not conform—if he declines to drink, and prefers to talk honestly, and to show that he scorns the petty arts that are instinctively repulsive to every generous man—he is marked by his more cunning opponents; and it is they, not those whom he is accused of flouting, who sneer privately to their henchmen that he is `stuck up,' and `unco guid,' and `high and mighty,' and `too proud to speak to a poor man.' We have heard a bar-room statesman insist that a man who brought his own cigars to a political meeting at the tavern, instead of buying them at the bar, could not hope to succeed in public life.

Don't be troubled, said Gallatin, because you are called a Pharisee. Blackguardism is not a difficult art, but it is very costly to the performer. When A pelts B with sarcasm and ridicule, B, if he can talk at all, can easily retort. But it is well for him if he has learned that such missiles recoil and wound the thrower. Many a public man, for the gratification of an hour, in giving way to his own bitter feeling amid the delighted applause of loyal stupidity, which innocently confounds fury with force, has forfeited forever the respect of really honorable men. It is a terrible gift, that of fluent blackguardism, however easy it may be, and the more intelligent the blackguard, the more fatal the fluency.

It is fatal to the blackguard, however, only in the estimation of really high-minded men. The universality of the practice, which Gallatin remarks, shows its effectiveness. Non-conformity condemns conformity. Not to yield to the usual custom is to criticize those who do yield as weak or deceived. So when a political orator, addressing a multitude of politicians who hold that intrigue and bribery and swindling of every kind are pardonable in politics, sneers at the men who do not believe that political bricks can be made without the straw of honor and honesty, as Puritans and Pharisees, the crowd feel that they are justified, and shout with triumph over the pretentious hypocrites and smug saints. The orator pleases the crowd, but the judicious grieve. He gains the world, but he loses his own soul. The slums may follow a blackguard, but honorable men demand a different leader.

But the cry of Pharisee is not only a missile, it is also a measure of him who hurls it. It is not an argument, it is simply an appeal to the prejudice of base minds. The man who resorts to it reveals his own essential baseness. With whatever rhetoric he may ornament it, he can not conceal it, and the rhetoric is but a decoration of carrion. The test of power in the contention of debate is the ability to scorn reliance upon these Cow-boy and Skinner tactics. They do not assail the argument of an opponent. They do not meet the foe in a fair field. They skulk and dodge, and strike from behind and in the dark. His opponent sits down, and Cleon rises. He ridicules the face, the form, the movement of his antagonist. He sneers that he is an angel astray in this wicked world, a Pharisee thanking God that he is not as other men. The crowd delightedly cheer. A Pharisee! a Pharisee! That is the end of the argument. The orator's victory is complete. What an able man! What an ugly foe! But his name is Cleon; it is not Pericles.

Those who venture under Niagara must expect to be drenched, and a man who proposes to take part in public affairs must be blackguard-proof. If he venture not to like dirt, he will be told that he lacks sympathy with the people. If he suggest honest dealing and loyalty to principle, he will be warned to take care lest he expect too much of human nature. If he refuse to stifle his convictions, he will be exhorted to take men as they are, and not to insist upon heavenly standards. But if he persist not only in preaching decency, but in attempting to practice it—away with him! he is a Pharisee! If drenching is sure to take away a man's breath, he should reflect carefully before going under Niagara. If his soul is wrung by the cry of Pharisee, he should see clearly that it is his duty to encounter it before he provokes it.

If it should be understood that the cabinet was to be dissolved and reorganized because the President insisted that the wives of the Secretaries should visit a particular person, the amazed country would conclude that the republic had become ridiculous. Yet a person has recently died of whom most of our readers probably have never heard, and who was the cause of the `break up' of President Jackson's first cabinet. The story is told in many memoirs of the time, and it is interesting as having led to the nomination and election of Mr. Van Buren to the Presidency. It is also illustrative of the headstrong temper and folly of a man who was the idol of a great political party.

Pretty Peggy O'Neil, as she was familiarly called, who had been a noted tavern belle at Washington during the administration of John Quincy Adams, was, at the close of it, the widow of Purser Timberlake of the navy, and had married Major Eaton, a Senator from Tennessee, just as General Jackson was elected President. Major Eaton was one of the personal henchman of Jackson. He had written a `campaign life' of him, and the general was very much attached to him. After a short bridal journey Senator and Mrs. Eaton returned to Washington, and she very soon left cards, as `Oliver Oldschool' informs us in letters written at the time, upon the wife of Mr. Calhoun, the Vice-President, and the wives of the Secretaries. Mr. Rush was then Secretary of the Treasury, General Porter of War, and Mr. Southard of the Navy.

`Good society was in commotion.' It was whispered that Mrs. Eaton's conduct before her marriage had unfitted her for good society, and as the ladies upon whom she had called were, according to the official social etiquette of Washington, of the highest rank, those who were of `a less exalted station,' as Sir Joseph Porter would describe it, might do as they pleased about calling upon Mrs. Eaton. The cabinet ladies declined to recognize Mrs. Eaton, and the tea-pot of society was in a most tempestuous state when the newly elected President Jackson arrived in Washington, and to him, the old friend of her new husband, Mrs. Eaton made her appeal. The general warmly took her part, and swore that he would compel the ladies of Washington to call upon his friend's wife. He appointed Major Eaton Secretary of War, and his domineering will overawed a part of society, which called upon her, but the other part steadfastly refused to call. Even the President's niece, `the lady of the White House,' refused, and the general sent her to Tennessee to reflect. As a goddess of war and battles, Mrs. Eaton was called Bellona, and when the courtly Van Buren, then a widower, arrived at the capital, he surveyed the situation as a politician. He saw Old Hickory resolutely bent upon Mrs. Eaton's recognition, and he knew that the road to political preferment did not lie through opposition to Jackson's will, and with all his bland address he set himself to aid the wishes of his chief. Mr. Van Buren was Secretary of State, and a man of the world. He was especially friendly with the English minister, Mr. Vaughan, and Baron Krudener, the Russian minister, both of whom were bachelors, and each gave a ball in honor of Bellona. But, says our chronicler, at the Russian ball the wife of the minister of Holland, on entering the supper-room, saw Mrs. Eaton already seated at the head of the table, with an empty chair at her side, designed for the lady from Holland. But that lady, having already declined Mr. Van Buren's honeyed invitation, urged in her own native Dutch tongue, to be presented to Mrs. Eaton, now refused to take the seat by her, and thus be compelled to seem to recognize her, and taking her husband's arm, she walked out of the room with stern dignity, and returned to her house. General Jackson was full of wrath, and foolishly threatened to send the Dutch minister home. But Mr. Van Buren had won his heart.

This suppressed hostile social situation continued during the first year of the Jackson administration. It was coincident with the general's jealousy of the Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun, which culminated in the letter of May 30, 1830, which is the date of the real but unconscious destruction of Mr. Calhoun's hopes of the Presidency. Upon the subject of recognizing Mrs. Eaton, Mr. Calhoun had said that it was a ladies' quarrel, and that the laws of the ladies were like those of the Medes and Persians, and admitted neither of argument nor of amendment. The affair of Mrs. Eaton was temporarily adjusted, but after the publication of Mr. Calhoun's attack upon the President, a dissolution of the cabinet was inevitable. In the spring of 1831, therefore, General Jackson undoubtedly agreed with Mr. Van Buren, Secretary Eaton, and Postmaster-General Barry, who composed the Eaton party in the cabinet, to resign. Their resignation enabled the President to request that of the others, and entirely to renew the cabinet. Mr. McLane was recalled from England, and Mr. Van Buren was appointed his successor. He left upon his mission immediately, in the summer of 1831. In the following winter occurred the great debate in the Senate upon his confirmation, during which Senator Marcy, of New York, announced the fundamental doctrine of `machine' politics, `To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy'—a phrase admirably chosen to describe the mingled folly and ferocity of the system of patronage introduced by General Jackson.

`A woman scorned' has been the secret source of many historic events and the theme of epic song. But considerable events never sprang from causes more ridiculous than the dissolution of a cabinet and the election of a President from the attempt of the Chief Executive of a great nation to dictate to American women whom they should visit. Such scandals were made possible by the election of a man like Jackson to the Presidency. But they would be astounding now. Indeed, those who are accustomed to bewail the golden age of the republic as lying behind us may well imagine this situation, and figure any President to-day attempting to compel the families of the members of his cabinet to visit any one upon whom suspicion had publicly breathed, and requiring the resignation of the Secretaries if their families refused. The Eaton story is told at length in Mr. Parton's entertaining and instructive Life of Jackson. But nobody can read that book or any other political memoir of the time without feeling that we need ask no odds of our fathers in political decency. ------------------

There is no more thriving or enterprising city than Rochester, in New York, and it is singular that the two things which are most widely known as associated with the city are the Rochester rappings and the last leap of Sam Patch. The name is familiar, but to many persons it is fabulous. Yet there are many living who remember his jumps as matters of contemporary notoriety, and one of them has recently told the story of his last leap, which he saw. The recurrence of the fiftieth anniversary of the incident impelled him to record the details. The writer was then a printer in Rochester.

Sam Patch was a waif, a `wharf rat,' who, according to this historian, spent his days in licking sugar hogsheads and thieving, and his nights where he could. But he was a daring fellow, and was as much at home in the water as out of it, and became notorious for leaping into the Passaic River, in New Jersey, from mast-heads and yard-arms and bowsprits, and in the autumn of 1829 he was in Western New York, and had made two `leaps of the cataract,' as they were called, at Niagara. A stage about eighty feet high was put up at the side of the American Fall, and he leaped into the foam. Patch had a black bear, which he cruelly threw into the water before he leaped, and fortunately the bear always emerged alive. The success of the leaps at Niagara gave him a `sporting' notoriety, and he was invited by that fraternity in Rochester, who took charge of him, and kept him half drunk. The Genesee Fall, at Rochester, is ninety-five feet in height, and it was announced that he would leap from the precipice into the river below.

A large crowd assembled, and Patch appeared, leading the bear. Hats were passed around to collect money for `the poor fellow,' of which the old printer says he probably got none. About one o'clock on the 6th of November he stepped to the edge of a rock overhanging the river, and dragging the wretched beast after him, suddenly jerked him off the rock. The poor animal whirled through the air, and reaching the water, sank, but soon swam ashore, and was caught for further torture. Then Sam Patch, with a gay handkerchief twisted about his head, and in shirt and trousers, bowed all around to the spectators, and leaped clear of the rock, spread his arms, and holding his feet together and leaning backward, he fell rapidly to the water, which he struck feet foremost, having suddenly thrown his arms down close to his body. He re-appeared on the surface of the river some rods below, and he gayly pushed away the boat that was ready to take him, and swam ashore. This feat was so successful that the sporting fraternity decided upon another exhibition. They built a scaffold upon the rock twenty-five feet high, so that the leap would be one hundred and twenty feet. The day was a week later, and a still larger crowd assembled. The printer was on the roof of a neighboring factory, and he saw that Sam Patch was pretty drunk. But he climbed totteringly to his perch, and threw off the bear, which happily escaped from the river as before; and again poor Patch, drunkenly bowing to the crowd, sprang into the air; but his body bent to the right, and struck the water below with a loud noise. The day was gloomy and chill. Sam Patch disappeared, and nothing more was seen of him until the next March, when his body, `nibbled by fishes,' was found by a fishing party at the mouth of the river, seven miles below. One of the things that could not be done, moralizes the printer, was safely jumping the Genesee Falls with a skin full of whiskey. He adds that a nephew of Fisher Ames, whose skin was often in the same plight, but whose poetical genius rivalled that of `Sands, Rodman Drake, and even Bryant,' celebrated the demise of Patch in `a poem of singular beauty, a parody on Dibdin's ``Will, Watch,''' reciting in iambic verse how Patch took `His final, eternal, and life's fatal leap.'

The poet has not succeeded in giving to his hero the fame that tradition has secured to him. Probably few of our readers ever saw the poem, but Sam Patch is a name as immortal as Rip Van Winkle. Indeed, were the Easy Chair not more considerate of its readers than Patch was of his bear, it would proceed to show at length how Sam Patch constantly re-appears on all sides, and how notoriety is won at the expense of `good fame' or of decent living. But it forbears. We do not remember that `Flaccus,' in his `Passaic: a Group of Musings touching that River,' alludes to the man whose name, by an odd chance, is more widely known than that of any other man associated with the river. But thousands of travellers in the innumerable railroad trains which daily and nightly pass close to the spot where Sam Patch made his last leap endeavor—and generally in vain—to catch a glimpse of the picturesque gorge into which the Genesee plunges. There is a wicked story told among them, perhaps, as the train rolls into the spacious station, about the famous statesman who, in a paroxysm of after-dinner eloquence at Rochester, declared that Greece and Rome in their palmiest days never had a water-fall ninety-six feet high. But Greece had a fame which rivals that of Sam Patch, as the Rochester Express remarks, in that of `The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome.'

Mr. Wendell Phillips has published a caustic and brilliant denunciation of most of the memorial statues of public men in Boston. He interprets the old proverb, De mortuis nil nisi bonum, to mean, Of the dead say nothing unless you can tell something good of them. His criticism was perhaps suggested by a meeting to form an association in Boston for the erection of commemorative statues, tablets, and other works of art, and some such association is plainly necessary if the sharp words of Mr. Phillips are true.

Some of these biting comments are worthy of preservation, for nothing is pleasanter than the courage of a brilliant man who says pointedly precisely what he thinks, and in saying it inevitably speaks for thousands of other men. `Boston,' says this terrible critic, `seems hag-ridden with Thomas Ball, and so groans under the infliction of hideous statues.' He proceeds:

`Mayor Quincy was a man of Goethe-like presence, rare manly beauty, and a sedate, dignified bearing. In a different way his figure was as impressive as was the grand repose of Webster. But what stands for him in School Street?—A dancing master clogged with horse-blankets. Not a dancing master taking a position—that might possibly be graceful—but a dancing master assuming an attitude, which is always ridiculous, and wholly unlike Quincy, who never assumed anything, but was nature itself all over. I tender my sincere condolence to those who share the great mayor's blood.' Of the statue of Franklin he say:

`His comical companion, a tipsy old gentleman, somewhat weak on his spindle-shanks, swaying feebly to and fro on a jaunty cane, as with villainous leer he ogles the ladies. And this represents the sturdy, self-centred, quiet dignity of Franklin, which at once charmed and awed the court of Louis. Ball's Quincy has one merit—it is better than Franklin; and it is lucky for the artist that his clumsy mayor has the dilapidated roué for a foil.' Here is Edward Everett:

`And so we come in our walk to Everett, in trousers too large for him, and a frock-coat which he has slightly outgrown. It requires consummate genius to manage the modern costume. But this figure also seems toppling over backward, as, with more energy than Everett ever showed in his lifetime, he exclaims, ``That is the road to Brighton!'' pointing with lifted arm and wide-spread fingers to that centre of beef and the races.' Here is Charles Sumner:

`If this bronze pyramid on Boylston Street be a cask made of staves, why is it set on human legs? And if it is really Sumner, why do his chest and shoulders rise out of a barrel? Is his broadcloth new felt, too stiff for folds, or is he dressed in shoe-leather? That matters little, however. But no angry Southerner would have needed to smite those overfed cheeks, which may have faced many a snow-storm on the locomotive, or many a northeaster on our coast, but surely must have been far too innocent of thought and passion ever to anger senates or rouse nations to war. This heavy-moulded prize-fighter is the marvellous achievement of that wise committee which rejected Miss Whitney's ``matchless model'' (as they confessed it to be) of the seated Senator, ``because no woman could make a statue!'' No, indeed, I hope not, if this Irish porter in his Sunday clothes is the ideal they desired.' And here are Webster and Horace Mann:

`Then Webster, that mass of ugly iron at the State-house! which cheers us as we climb those endless steps, robbing the effort of half its weariness by resting us with a laugh, of which a journal said, with undue frankness, that Everett, well knowing how hideous it was, let it be raised to revenge himself on the man who overshadowed and eclipsed him. But they have supplied him too with a foil, which half redeems its shapelessness. It is Horace Mann, waked up so suddenly that in his hurry he has brought half his bedclothes clinging to his legs and arms.' And here is Pater Patriæ:

`But who is this riding master, on a really good horse, staring so heroically up Commonwealth Avenue? Washington? Well, then, my worthy George, drop your legs closer to your horse's side; it must fatigue you to hold them off at that painful distance. Rest yourself, general; subside for a moment, as you used to do at Mount Vernon, into the easy pose of a gentleman; don't oblige us to fancy you are exhibiting, and rather caricaturing, a model ``seat'' for the guidance of some slow pupil. Can not you see, right in front of you, Rimmer's Hamilton? Let that teach you the majesty of repose.'

This is criticism which `sticks.' It will be as impossible hereafter to look at the Everett statue without hearing it say, `That is the road to Brighton,' as at the sitting statue of Washington in the capital with its hand extended toward the Patent-office without recalling the popular notion that it is asking, `Where are my clothes?' Ridicule, of course, is not criticism, and may be grossly unjust. But Mr. Phillips praises as warmly as he censures. We have long ago commmended the model of a statue to Sumner by Miss Whitney, a copy of which is in the Union League Club in New York, and which is altogether a most satisfactory portraiture of the man. Mr. Phillips speaks of it without reserve in the same strain. He also greatly praises the Soldiers' Monument upon Boston Common, saying that it has one peer, the `Minute-Man,' by French, at Concord, `so full of life and movement that one fears he shall not see it again if he passes that way the next week.' He objects, however, to the Soldiers' Monument, as to all monuments of the kind that he has observed since the war, that he finds no sign of the broken chain or of the negro soldier. Let us tell the whole truth, he concludes, or raise no monument.

For artistic fitness, however, the only way is for committees who are charged with the erection of memorials to consult acknowledged authorities, and to be governed by their decision. That committee, even of intelligent persons, may go very wrong, the rejection of Miss Whitney's Sumner proves. But, so far as we can learn, that result was due to the singular prejudice which even clever and accomplished men may have against the artistic capacity of women. It was the more comical in this instance because the model was there to plead for itself. To say that a woman could not make a fitting statue, when a most fitting statue made by a woman was upon the table before them, was a judgment only to be explained by the ludicrous supposition that want of physical power was the incapacity meant. But a woman who can design and execute a model has already done the artist's work.

There are two monuments under consideration which will be probably very satisfactory, because of the method pursued in deciding what they shall be, and by whom they shall be made. These are the memorial at the birthplace of Washington, in Virginia, and upon the battle-field of Bennington, in Vermont. The first has been confided to the Secretary of State, who has consulted friends most accomplished in art. And the other is in charge of a committee which will undoubtedly assign the work to some artist of renown. The ridiculous results of jobbery in such matters are displayed for our national shame in Washington. The consequences of competition subject to prejudice are seen in the substitution of an inferior for a superior work in the Sumner statue. If the Boston Memorial Society shall do something to help us in our sore need of securing the nil nisi bonum in our memorial statues and monuments, it will receive the gratitude of the country.