her pretty dark eyes and lifted herself and wrung the water out of her braids; then she sank back.
“Faith! Faith! speak to me!” said Dan, close in her ear. “Don’t you know me?”
“Go away,” she said, hoarsely, pushing his face with her flat wet palm. “You let the sail take me over and drown me, while you kissed Georgie’s hand.”
I flung my hand before her eyes.
“Is there a kiss on those fingers?” I cried, in a blaze. “He never kissed my hands or my lips. Dan is your husband, Faith!”
For all answer Faith hid her head and gave a little moan. Somehow I couldn’t stand that; so I ran and put my arms round her neck and lifted her face and kissed it, and then we cried together. And Dan, walking the floor, took up his hat and went out, while she never cast a look after him. To think of such a great strong nature and such a powerful depth of feeling being wasted on such a little limp rag! I cried as much for that as anything. Then I helped Faith into my bedroom, and running home, I got her some dry clothes,–after rummaging enough, dear knows! for you’d be more like to find her nightcap in the tea-caddy than elsewhere,–and I made her a corner on the settle, for she was afraid to stay in the bedroom, and when she was comfortably covered there she fell asleep. Dan came in soon and sat down beside her, his eyes on the floor, never glancing aside nor smiling, but gloomier than the grave. As for me, I felt at ease now, so I went and laid my hand on the back of his chair and made him look up. I wanted he should know the same rest that I had, and perhaps he did,–for, still looking up, the quiet smile came floating round his lips, and his eyes grew steady and sweet as they used to be before he married Faith. Then I went bustling lightly about the kitchen again.
“Dan,” I said, “if you’d just bring me in a couple of those chickens stalking out there like two gentlemen from Spain.”
While he was gone I flew round and got a cake into the bake-kettle, and a pan of biscuit down before the fire; and I set the tea to steep on the coals, because father always likes his tea strong enough to bear up an egg, after a hard day’s work, and he’d had that to-day; and I put on the coffee to boil, for I knew Dan never had it at home, because Faith liked it and it didn’t agree with her. And then he brought me in the chickens all ready for the pot, and so at last I sat down, but at the opposite side of the chimney. Then he rose, and, without exactly touching me, swept me back to the other side, where lay the great net I was making for father; and I took the little stool by the settle, and not far from him, and went to work.
“Georgie,” said Dan, at length, after he’d watched me a considerable time, “if any word I may have said to-day disturbed you a moment, I want you to know that it hurt me first, and just as much.”
“Yes, Dan,” said I.
I’ve always thought there was something real noble between Dan and me then. There was I,–well, I don’t mind telling you. And he,–yes, I’m sure he loved me perfectly,–you mustn’t be startled, I’ll tell you how it was,–and always had, only maybe he hadn’t known it; but it was deep down in his heart just the same, and by-and-by it stirred. There we were, both of us thoroughly conscious, yet neither of us expressing it by a word, and trying not to by a look,–both of us content to wait for the next life, when we could belong to one another. In those days I contrived to have it always pleasure enough for me just to know that Dan was in the room; and though that wasn’t often, I never grudged Faith her right in him, perhaps because I knew she didn’t care anything about it. You see, this is how it was.
When Dan was a lad of sixteen, and took care of his mother, a ship went to pieces down there on the island. It was one of the worst storms that ever whistled, and though crowds were on the shore, it was impossible to reach her. They could see the poor wretches hanging in the rigging, and dropping one by one, and they could only stay and sicken, for the surf stove the boats, and they didn’t know then how to send out ropes on rockets or on cannon-balls, and so the night fell, and the people wrung their hands and left the sea to its prey, and felt as if blue sky could never come again. And with the bright, keen morning not a vestige of the ship, but here a spar and there a door, and on the side of a sand-hill a great dog watching over a little child that he’d kept warm all night. Dan, he’d got up at turn of tide, and walked down,–the sea running over the road knee-deep,–for there was too much swell for boats; and when day broke, he found the little girl, and carried her up to town. He didn’t take her home, for he saw that what clothes she had were the very finest,–made as delicately,–with seams like the hair-strokes on that heart’s-ease there; and he concluded that he couldn’t bring her up as she ought to be. So he took her round to the rich men, and represented that she was the child of a lady, and that a poor fellow like himself–for Dan was older than his years, you see–couldn’t do her justice: she was a slight little thing, and needed dainty training and fancy food, maybe a matter of seven years old, and she spoke some foreign language, and perhaps she didn’t speak it plain, for nobody knew what it was. However, everybody was very much interested, and everybody was willing to give and to help, but nobody wanted to take her, and the upshot of it was that Dan refused all their offers and took her himself.
His mother’d been in to our house all the afternoon before, and she’d kept taking her pipe out of her mouth,–she had the asthma, and smoked,–and kept sighing.
“This storm’s going to bring me something,” says she, in a mighty miserable tone. “I’m sure of it!”
“No harm, I hope, Miss Devereux,” said mother.
“Well, Rhody,”–mother’s father, he was a queer kind,–called his girls all after the thirteen States, and there being none left for Uncle Mat, he called him after the state of matrimony,–“Well, Rhody,” she replied, rather dismally, and knocking the ashes out of the bowl, “I don’t know; but I’ll have faith to believe that the Lord won’t send me no ill without distincter warning. And that it’s good I _have_ faith to believe.”
And so when the child appeared, and had no name, and couldn’t answer for herself, Mrs. Devereux called her Faith.
We’re a people of presentiments down here on the Flats, and well we may be. You’d own up yourself, maybe, if in the dark of the night, you locked in sleep, there’s a knock on the door enough to wake the dead, and you start up and listen and nothing follows; and falling back, you’re just dozing off, and there it is once more, so that the lad in the next room cries out, “Who’s that, mother?” No one answering, you’re half lost again, when _rap_ comes the hand again, the loudest of the three, and you spring to the door and open it, and there’s nought there but a wind from the graves blowing in your face; and after a while you learn that in that hour of that same night your husband was lost at sea. Well, that happened to Mrs. Devereux. And I haven’t time to tell you the warnings I’ve known of. As for Faith, I mind that she said herself, as we were in the boat for that clear midnight sail, that the sea had a spite against her, but third time was trying time.
So Faith grew up, and Dan sent her to school what he could, for he set store by her. She was always ailing,–a little, wilful, pettish thing, but pretty as a flower; and folks put things into her head, and she began to think she was some great shakes; and she may have been a matter of seventeen years old when Mrs. Devereux died. Dan, as simple at twenty-six as he had been ten years before, thought to go on just in the old way, but the neighbors were one too many for him; and they all represented that it would never do, and so on, till the poor fellow got perplexed and vexed and half beside himself. There wasn’t the first thing she could do for herself, and he couldn’t afford to board her out, for Dan was only a laboring-man, mackerelling all summer and shoemaking all winter, less the dreadful times when he stayed out on the Georges; and then he couldn’t afford, either, to keep her there and ruin the poor girl’s reputation;–and what did Dan do but come to me with it all?
Now for a number of years I’d been up in the other part of the town with Aunt Netty, who kept a shop that I tended between schools and before and after, and I’d almost forgotten there was such a soul on earth as Dan Devereux,–though he’d not forgotten me. I’d got through the Grammar and had a year in the High, and suppose I should have finished with an education and gone off teaching somewhere, instead of being here now, cheerful as heart could wish, with a little black-haired hussy tiltering on the back of my chair.–Rolly, get down! Her name’s Laura,–for his mother.–I mean I might have done all this, if at that time mother hadn’t been thrown on her back, and been bedridden ever since. I haven’t said much about mother yet, but there all the time she was, just as she is to-day, in her little tidy bed in one corner of the great kitchen, sweet as a saint, and as patient; and I had to come and keep house for father. He never meant that I should lose by it, father didn’t; begged, borrowed, or stolen, bought or hired, I should have my books, he said: he’s mighty proud of my learning, though between you and me it’s little enough to be proud of; but the neighbors think I know ‘most as much as the minister,–and I let ’em think. Well, while Mrs. Devereux was sick I was over there a good deal,–for if Faith had one talent, it was total incapacity,–and there had a chance of knowing the stuff that Dan was made of; and I declare to man ‘twould have touched a heart of stone to see the love between the two. She thought Dan held up the sky, and Dan thought she was the sky. It’s no wonder,–the risks our men lead can’t make common-sized women out of their wives and mothers. But I hadn’t been coming in and out, busying about where Dan was, all that time, without making any mark; though he was so lost in grief about his mother that he didn’t take notice of his other feelings, or think of himself at all. And who could care the less about him for that? It always brings down a woman to see a man wrapt in some sorrow that’s lawful, and tender as it is large. And when he came and told me what the neighbors said he must do with Faith, the blood stood still in my heart.
“Ask mother, Dan,” says I,–for I couldn’t have advised him. “She knows best about everything.”
So he asked her.
“I think–I’m sorry to think, for I fear she’ll not make you a good wife,” said mother, “but that perhaps her love for you will teach her to be–you’d best marry Faith.”
“But I can’t marry her!” said Dan, half choking; “I don’t want to marry her,–it–it makes me uncomfortable-like to think of such a thing. I care for the child plenty—-Besides,” said Dan, catching at a bright hope, “I’m not sure that she’d have me.”
“Have you, poor boy! What else can she do?”
Dan groaned.
“Poor little Faith!” said mother. “She’s so pretty, Dan, and she’s so young, and she’s pliant. And then how can we tell what may turn up about her some day? She may be a duke’s daughter yet,–who knows? Think of the stroke of good-fortune she may give you!”
“But I don’t love her,” said Dan, as a finality.
“Perhaps—-It isn’t—-You don’t love any one else?”
“No,” said Dan, as a matter of course, and not at all with reflection. And then, as his eyes went wandering, there came over them a misty look, just as the haze creeps between you and some object away out at sea, and he seemed to be searching his very soul. Suddenly the look swept off them, and his eyes struck mine, and he turned, not having meant to, and faced me entirely, and there came such a light into his countenance, such a smile round his lips, such a red stamped his cheek, and he bent a little,–and it was just as if the angel of the Lord had shaken his wings over us in passing, and we both of us knew that here was a man and here was a woman, each for the other, in life and death; and I just hid my head in my apron, and mother turned on her pillow with a little moan. How long that lasted I can’t say, but by-and-by I heard mother’s voice, clear and sweet as a tolling bell far away on some fair Sunday morning,–
“The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try the children of men.”
And nobody spoke.
“Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation. Thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.”
Then came the hush again, and Dan started to his feet, and began to walk up and down the room as if something drove him; but wearying, he stood and leaned his head on the chimney there. And mother’s voice broke the stillness anew, and she said,–
“Hath God forgotten to be gracious? His mercy endureth forever. And none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.”
There was something in mother’s tone that made me forget myself and my sorrow, and look; and there she was, as she hadn’t been before for six months, half risen from the bed, one hand up, and her whole face white and shining with confident faith. Well, when I see all that such trust has buoyed mother over, I wish to goodness I had it: I take more after Martha. But never mind, do well here and you’ll do well there, say I. Perhaps you think it wasn’t much, the quiet and the few texts breathed through it; but sometimes when one’s soul’s at a white heat, it may be moulded like wax with a finger. As for me, maybe God hardened Pharaoh’s heart,–though how that was Pharaoh’s fault I never could see. But Dan,–he felt what it was to have a refuge in trouble, to have a great love always extending over him like a wing; he longed for it; he couldn’t believe it was his now, he was so suddenly convicted of all sin and wickedness; and something sprang up in his heart, a kind of holy passion that he felt to be possible for this great and tender Divine Being; and he came and fell on his knees by the side of the bed, crying out for mother to show him the way; and mother, she put her hand on his head and prayed,–prayed, oh, so beautifully, that it makes the water stand in my eyes now to remember what she said. But I didn’t feel so then, my heart and my soul were rebellious, and love for Dan alone kept me under, not love for God. And in fact, if ever I’d got to heaven then, love for Dan’d have been my only saving grace; for I was mighty high-spirited, as a girl. Well, Dan he never made open profession; but when he left the house, he went and asked Faith to marry him.
Now Faith didn’t care anything about Dan,–except the quiet attachment that she couldn’t help, from living in the house with him, and he’d always petted and made much of her, and dressed her like a doll,–he wasn’t the kind of man to take her fancy: she’d have maybe liked some slender, smooth-faced chap; but Dan was a black, shaggy fellow, with shoulders like the cross-tree, and a length of limb like Saul’s, and eyes set deep, like lamps in caverns. And he had a great, powerful heart,–and, oh, how it was lost! for she might have won it, she might have made him love her, since I would have stood wide away and aside for the sake of seeing him happy. But Faith was one of those that, if they can’t get what they want, haven’t any idea of putting up with what they have,–God forgive me, if I’m hard on the child! And she couldn’t give Dan an answer right off, but was loath to think of it, and went flirting about among the other boys; and Dan, when he saw she wasn’t so easily gotten, perhaps set more value on her. For Faith, she grew prettier every day; her great brown eyes were so soft and clear, and had a wide, sorrowful way of looking at you; and her cheeks, that were usually pale, blossomed to roses when you spoke to her, her hair drooping over them dark and silky; and though she was slack and untidy and at loose ends about her dress, she somehow always seemed like a princess in disguise; and when she had on any thing new,–a sprigged calico, and her little straw bonnet with the pink ribbons, and Mrs. Devereux’s black scarf, for instance,–you’d have allowed that she might have been daughter to the Queen of Sheba. I don’t know, but I rather think Dan wouldn’t have said any more to Faith, from various motives, you see, notwithstanding the neighbors were still remonstrating with him, if it hadn’t been that Miss Brown–she that lived round the corner there; the town’s well quit of her now, poor thing!–went to saying the same stuff to Faith, and telling her all that other folks said. And Faith went home in a passion,–some of your timid kind nothing ever abashes, and nobody gets to the windward of them,–and, being perfectly furious, fell to accusing Dan of having brought her to this, so that Dan actually believed he had, and was cut to the quick with contrition, and told her that all the reparation he could make he was waiting and wishing to make, and then there came floods of tears. Some women seem to have set out with the idea that life’s a desert for them to cross, and they’ve laid in a supply of water-bags accordingly,–but it’s the meanest weapon! And then again, there’s men that are iron, and not to be bent under calamities, that these tears can twist round your little finger. Well, I suppose Faith concluded ’twas no use to go hungry because her bread wasn’t buttered on both sides, but she always acted as if she’d condescended ninety degrees in marrying Dan, and Dan always seemed to feel that he’d done her a great injury; and there it was.
I kept in the house for a time; mother was worse.–and I thought the less Dan saw of me the better; I kind of hoped he’d forget, and find his happiness where it ought to be. But the first time I saw him, when Faith had been his wife all the spring, there was the look in his eyes that told of the ache in his heart. Faith wasn’t very happy herself, of course, though she was careless; and she gave him trouble,–keeping company with the young men just as before; and she got into a way of flying straight to me, if Dan ventured to reprove her ever so lightly; and stormy nights, when he was gone, and in his long trips, she always locked up her doors and came over and got into my bed; and she was one of those that never listened to reason, and it was none so easy for me, you may suppose.
Things had gone on now for some three years, and I’d about lived in my books,–I’d tried to teach Faith some, but she wouldn’t go any farther than newspaper stories,–when one day Dan took her and me to sail, and we were to have had a clam-chowder on the Point, if the squall hadn’t come. As it was, we’d got to put up with chicken-broth, and it couldn’t have been better, considering who made it. It was getting on toward the cool of the May evening, the sunset was round on the other side of the house, but all the east looked as if the sky had been stirred up with currant-juice, till it grew purple and dark, and then the two light-houses flared out and showed us the lip of froth lapping the shadowy shore beyond, and I–heard father’s voice, and he came in.
There was nothing but the fire-light in the room, and it threw about great shadows, so that at first entering all was indistinct; but I heard a foot behind father’s, and then a form appeared, and something, I never could tell what, made a great shiver rush down my back, just as when a creature is frightened in the dark at what you don’t see, and so, though my soul was unconscious, my body felt that there was danger in the air. Dan had risen and lighted the lamp that swings in the chimney, and father first of all had gone up and kissed mother, and left the stranger standing; then he turned round, saying,–
“A tough day,–it’s been a tough day; and here’s some un to prove it. Georgie, hope that pot’s steam don’t belie it, for Mr. Gabriel Verelay and I want a good supper and a good bed.”
At this, the stranger, still standing, bowed.
“Here’s the one, father,” said I. “But about the bed,–Faith’ll have to stay here,–and I don’t see–unless Dan takes him over”—-
“That I’ll do,” said Dan.
“All right,” said the stranger, in a voice that you didn’t seem to notice while he was speaking, but that you remembered afterwards like the ring of any silver thing that has been thrown down; and he dropped his hat on the floor and drew near the fireplace, warming hands that were slender and brown, but shapely as a woman’s. I was taking up the supper; so I only gave him a glance or two, and saw him standing there, his left hand extended to the blaze, and his eye resting lightly and then earnestly on Faith in her pretty sleep, and turning away much as one turns from a picture. At length I came to ask him to sit by, and at that moment Faith’s eyes opened.
Faith always woke up just as a baby does, wide and bewildered, and the fire had flushed her cheeks, and her hair was disordered, and she fixed her gaze on him as if he had stepped out of her dream, her lips half parted and then curling in a smile,–but in a second he moved off with me, and Faith slipped down and into the little bedroom.
Well, we didn’t waste many words until father’d lost the edge of his appetite, and then I told about Faith.
“‘F that don’t beat the Dutch!” said father. “Here’s Mr.–Mr.”——
“Gabriel,” said the stranger.
“Yes,–Mr. Gabriel Verelay been served the same trick by the same squall, only worse and more of it,–knocked off the yacht–What’s that you call her?”
“La belle Louise.”
“And left for drowned,–if they see him go at all. But he couldn’t ‘a’ sinked in that sea, if he’d tried. He kep’ afloat; we blundered into him; and here he is.”
Dan and I looked round In considerable surprise, for he was dry as an August leaf.
“Oh,” said the stranger, coloring, and with the least little turn of his words, as if he didn’t always speak English, “the good captain reached shore, and, finding sticks, he kindled a fire, and we did dry our clothes until it made fine weather once more.”
“Yes,” said father; “but ‘t wouldn’t been quite such fine weather, I reckon, if this ‘d gone to the fishes!” And he pushed something across the table.
It was a pouch with steel snaps, and well stuffed. The stranger colored again, and held his hand for it, and the snap burst, and great gold pieces, English coin and very old French ones, rolled about the table, and father shut his eyes tight; and just then Faith came back and slipped into her chair. I saw her eyes sparkle as we all reached, laughing and joking, to gather them; and Mr. Gabriel–we got into the way of calling him so,–he liked it best–hurried to get them out of sight as if he’d committed some act of ostentation. And then, to make amends, he threw off what constraint he had worn in this new atmosphere of ours, and was so gay, so full of questions and quips and conceits, all spoken in his strange way, his voice was so sweet, and he laughed so much and so like a boy, and his words had so much point and brightness, that I could think of nothing but the showers of colored stars in fireworks. Dan felt it like a play, sat quiet, but enjoying, and I saw he liked it;–the fellow had a way of attaching every one. Father was uproarious, and kept calling out, “Mother, do you hear?–d’ you hear _that_, mother?” And Faith, she was near, taking it all in as a flower does sunshine, only smiling a little, and looking utterly happy. Then I hurried to clear up, and Faith sat in the great arm-chair, and father got out the pipes, and you could hardly see across the room for the wide tobacco-wreaths; and then it was father’s turn, and he told story after story of the hardships and the dangers and the charms of our way of living. And I could see Mr. Gabriel’s cheek blanch, and he would bend forward, forgetting to smoke, and his breath coming short, and then right himself like a boat after lurching,–he had such natural ways, and except that he’d maybe been a spoiled child, he would have had a good heart, as hearts go. And nothing would do at last but he must stay and live the same scenes for a little; and father told him ‘t wouldn’t pay;–they weren’t so much to go through with as to tell of,–there was too much prose in the daily life, and too much dirt, and ‘t wa’n’t fit for gentlemen. Oh, he said, he’d been used to roughing it,–woodsing, camping and gunning and yachting, ever since he’d been a free man. He was Canadian, and had been cruising from the St. Lawrence to Florida, –and now, as his companions would go on without him, he had a mind to try a bit of coast-life. And could he board here? or was there any handy place? And father said, there was Dan,–Dan Devereux, a man that hadn’t his match at oar or helm. And Mr. Gabriel turned his keen eye and bowed again,–and couldn’t Dan take Mr. Gabriel? And before Dan could answer, for he’d referred it to Faith, Mr. Gabriel had forgotten all about it, and was humming a little French song and stirring the coals with the tongs. And that put father off in a fresh remembrance; and as the hours lengthened, the stories grew fearful, and he told them deep into the midnight, till at last Mr. Gabriel stood up.
“No more, good friend,” said he. “But I will have a taste of this life perilous. And now where is it that I go?”
Dan also stood up.
“My little woman,” said he, glancing at Faith, “thinks there’s a corner for you, Sir.”
“I beg your pardon”–And Mr. Gabriel paused, with a shadow skimming over his clear dark face.
Dan wondered what he was begging pardon for, but thought perhaps he hadn’t heard him, so he repeated,–
“My wife”–nodding over his shoulder at Faith, “she’s my wife–thinks there’s a”—-
“She’s your wife?” said Mr. Gabriel, his eyes opening and brightening the way an aurora runs up the sky, and looking first at one and then at the other, as if he couldn’t understand how so delicate a flower grew on so thorny a stem.
The red flushed up Dan’s face,–and up mine too, for the matter of that,–but in a minute the stranger had dropped his glance.
“And why did you not tell me,” he said, “that I might have found her less beautiful?”
Then he raised his shoulders, gave her a saucy bow, with his hand on Dan’s arm,–Dan, who was now too well pleased at having Faith made happy by a compliment to sift it,–and they went out.
But I was angry enough; and you may imagine I wasn’t much soothed by seeing Faith, who’d been so die-away all the evening, sitting up before my scrap of looking-glass, trying in my old coral earrings, bowing up my ribbons, and plaiting and prinking till the clock frightened her into bed.
The next morning, mother, who wasn’t used to such disturbance, was ill, and I was kept pretty busy tending on her for two or three days. Faith had insisted on going home the first thing after breakfast, and in that time I heard no more of anybody,–for father was out with the night-tides, and, except to ask how mother did, and if I’d seen the stray from the Lobblelyese again, was too tired for talking when he came back. That had been–let me see–on a Monday, I think,–yes, on a Monday; and Thursday evening, as in-doors had begun to tell on me, and mother was so much improved, I thought I’d run out for a walk along the seawall. The sunset was creeping round everything, and lying in great sheets on the broad, still river, the children were frolicking in the water, and all was so gay, and the air was so sweet, that I went lingering along farther than I’d meant, and by-and-by who should I see but a couple sauntering toward me at my own gait, and one of them was Faith. She had on a muslin with little roses blushing all over it, and she floated along in it as if she were in a pink cloud, and she’d snatched a vine of the tender young woodbine as she went, and, throwing it round her shoulders, held the two ends in one hand like a ribbon, while with the other she swung her white sun-bonnet. She laughed, and shook her head at me, and there, large as life, under the dark braids dangled my coral ear-rings, that she’d adopted without leave or license. She’d been down to the lower landing to meet Dan,–a thing she’d done before I don’t know when,–and was walking up with Mr. Gabriel while Dan stayed behind to see to things. I kept them talking, and Mr. Gabriel was sparkling with fun, for he’d got to feeling acquainted, and it had put him in high spirits to get ashore at this hour, though he liked the sea, and we were all laughing, when Dan came up. Now I must confess I hadn’t fancied Mr. Gabriel over and above; I suppose my first impression had hardened into a prejudice; and after I’d fathomed the meaning of Faith’s fine feathers I liked him less than ever. But when Dan came up, he joined right in, gay and hearty, and liking his new acquaintance so much, that, thinks I, he must know best, and I’ll let him look out for his interests himself. It would ‘a’ been no use, though, for Dan to pretend to beat the Frenchman at his own weapons,–and I don’t know that I should have cared to have him. The older I grow, the less I think of your mere intellect; throw learning out of the scales, and give me a great, warm heart,–like Dan’s.
Well, it was getting on in the evening, when the latch lifted, and in ran Faith. She twisted my ear-rings out of her hair, exclaiming,–
“Oh, Georgie, are you busy? Can’t you perse my ears now?”
“Pierce them yourself, Faith.”
“Well, pierce, then. But I can’t,–you know I can’t. Won’t you now, Georgie?” and she tossed the ear-rings into my lap.
“Why, Faith,” said I, “how’d you contrive to wear these, if your ears aren’t”–
“Oh, I tied them on. Come now, Georgie!”
So I got the ball of yarn and the darning-needle.
“Oh, not such a big one!” cried she.
“Perhaps you’d like a cambric needle,” said I.
“I don’t want a winch,” she pouted.
“Well, here’s a smaller one. Now kneel down.”
“Yes, but you wait a moment, till I screw up my courage.”
“No need. You can talk, and I’ll take you at unawares.”
So Faith knelt down, and I got all ready.
“And what shall I talk about?” said she. “About Aunt Rhody, or Mr. Gabriel, or–I’ll tell you the queerest thing, Georgie! Going to now?”
“Do be quiet, Faith, and not keep your head flirting about so!”–for she’d started up to speak. Then she composed herself once more.
“What was I saying? Oh, about that. Yes, Georgie, the queerest thing! You see, this evening, when Dan was out, I was sitting talkin’ with Mr. Gabriel, and he was wondering how I came to be dropped down here, so I told him all about it. And he was so interested that I went and showed him the things I had on when Dan found me,–you know they’ve been kept real nice. And he took them, and looked them over, close, admiring them, and–and–admiring me,–and finally he started, and then held the frock to the light, and then lifted a little plait, and in the under side of the belt-lining there was a name very finely wrought,–Virginie des Violets; and he looked at all the others, and in some hidden corner of every one was the initials of the same name,–V. des V.
“‘That should be your name, Mrs. Devereux,’ says he.
“‘Oh, no!’ says I. ‘My name’s Faith.’
“Well, and on that he asked, was there no more; and so I took off the little chain that I’ve always worn and showed him that, and he asked if there was a face in it, in what we thought was a coin, you know; and I said, oh, it didn’t open; and he turned it over and over, and finally something snapped, and there _was_ a face,–here, you shall see it, Georgie.”
And Faith drew it from her bosom, and opened and held it before me; for I’d sat with my needle poised, and forgetting to strike. And there was the face indeed, a sad, serious face, dark and sweet, yet the image of Faith, and with the same mouth,–that so lovely in a woman becomes weak in a man,–and on the other side there were a few threads of hair, with the same darkness and fineness as Faith’s hair, and under them a little picture chased in the gold and enamelled, which, from what I’ve read since, I suppose must have been the crest of the Des Violets.
“And what did Mr. Gabriel say then?” I asked, giving it back to Faith, who put her head into the old position again.
“Oh, he acted real queer. ‘The very man!’ he cried out. ‘The man himself! His portrait,–I have seen it a hundred times!’ And then he told me that about a dozen years ago or more, a ship sailed from–from–I forget the place exactly, somewhere up there where _he_ came from,–Mr. Gabriel, I mean,–and among the passengers was this man and his wife, and his little daughter, whose name was Virginie des Violets, and the ship was never heard from again. But he says that without a doubt I’m the little daughter and my name is Virginie, though I suppose every one’ll call me Faith. Oh, and that isn’t the queerest. The queerest is, this gentleman,” and Faith lifted her head, “was very rich. I can’t tell you how much he owned. Lands that you can walk on a whole day and not come to the end, and ships, and gold. And the whole of it’s lying idle and waiting for an heir,–and I, Georgie, am the heir.”
And Faith told it with cheeks burning and eyes shining, but yet quite as if she’d been born and brought up in the knowledge.
“It don’t seem to move you much, Faith,” said I, perfectly amazed, although I’d frequently expected something of the kind.
“Well, I may never get it, and so on. If I do, I’ll give you a silk dress and set you up in a book-store. But here’s a queerer thing yet. Des Violets is the way Mr. Gabriel’s own name is spelt, and his father and mine–his mother and–Well, some way or other we’re sort of cousins. Only think, Georgie! isn’t that–I thought, to be sure, when he quartered at our house, Dan’d begin to take me to do, if I looked at him sideways,–make the same fuss that he does, if I nod to any of the other young men.”
“I don’t think Dan speaks before he should, Faith.”
“Why don’t you say Virginie?” says she, laughing.
“Because Faith you’ve always been, and Faith you’ll have to remain, with us, to the end of the chapter.”
“Well, that’s as it may be. But Dan can’t object now to my going where I’m a mind to with my own cousin!” And here Faith laid her ear on the ball of yarn again.
“Hasten, headsman!” said she, out of a novel, “or they’ll wonder where I am.”
“Well,” I answered, “just let me run the needle through the emery.”
“Yes, Georgie,” said Faith, going back with her memories while I sharpened my steel, “Mr. Gabriel and I are kin. And he said that the moment he laid eyes on me he knew I was of different blood from the rest of the people”–.
“What people?” asked I.
“Why, you, and Dan, and all these. And he said he was struck to stone when he heard I was married to Dan,–I must have been entrapped,–the courts would annul it,–any one could see the difference between us”–
Here was my moment, and I didn’t spare it, but jabbed the needle into the ball of yarn, if her ear did lie between them.
“Yes!” says I, “anybody with half an eye can see the difference between you, and that’s a fact! Nobody’d ever imagine for a breath that you were deserving of Dan,–Dan, who’s so noble he’d die for what he thought was right,–you, who are so selfish and idle and fickle and”–
And at that Faith burst out crying.
“Oh, I never expected you’d talk about me so, Georgie!” said she between her sobs. “How could I tell you were such a mighty friend of Dan’s? And besides, if ever I was Virginie des Violets, I’m Faith Devereux now, and Dan’ll resent _any one’s_ speaking so about his wife!”
And she stood up, the tears sparkling like diamonds in her flashing dark eyes, her cheeks red, and her little fist clenched.
“That’s the right spirit, Faith,” says I, “and I’m glad to see you show it. And as for this young Canadian, the best thing to do with him is to send him packing. I don’t believe a word he says; it’s more than likely nothing but to get into your good graces.”
“But there’s the names,” said she, so astonished that she didn’t remember she was angry.
“Happened so.”
“Oh, yes! ‘Happened so’ A likely story! It’s nothing but your envy, and that’s all!”
“Faith!” says I, for I forgot she didn’t know how close she struck.
“Well,–I mean—-There, don’t let’s talk about it any more! How under the sun am I going to get these ends tied?”
“Come here. There! Now for the other one.”
“No, I sha’n’t let you do that; you hurt me dreadfully, and you got angry and took the big needle.”
“I thought you expected to be hurt.”
“I didn’t expect to be stabbed.”
“Well, just as you please. I suppose you’ll go round with one ear-ring.”
“Like a little pig with his ear cropped? No, I shall do it myself. See there, Georgie!” and she threw a bit of a box into my hands.
I opened it, and there lay inside, on their velvet cushion, a pair of the prettiest things you ever saw,–a tiny bunch of white grapes, and every grape a round pearl, and all hung so that they would tinkle together on their golden stems every time Faith shook her head,–and she had a cunning little way of shaking it often enough.
“These must have cost a penny, Faith,” said I. “Where’d you get them?”
“Mr. Gabriel gave them to me, just now. He went up-town and bought them. And I don’t want him to know that my ears weren’t bored.”
“Mr. Gabriel? And you took them?”
“Of course I took them, and mighty glad to get them.”
“Faith, dear,” said I, “don’t you know that you shouldn’t accept presents from gentlemen, and especially now you’re a married woman, and especially from those of higher station?”
“But he isn’t higher.”
“You know what I mean. And then, too, he is; for one always takes rank from one’s husband.”
Faith looked rather downcast at this.
“Yes,” said I,–“and pearls and calico”—-
“Just because you haven’t got a pair yourself! There, be still! I don’t want any of your instructions in duty!”
“You ought to put up with a word from a friend, Faith,” said I. “You always come to me with your grievances. And I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You used to like these coral branches of mine; and if you’ll give those back to Mr. Gabriel, you shall have the coral.”
Well, Faith she hesitated, standing there trying to muster her mind to the needle, and it ended by her taking the coral, though I don’t believe she returned the pearls,–but we none of us ever saw them afterwards.
We’d been talking in a pretty low tone, because mother was asleep; and just as she’d finished the other ear, and a little drop of blood stood up on it like a live ruby, the door opened and Dan and Mr. Gabriel came in. There never was a prettier picture than Faith at that moment, and so the young stranger thought, for he stared at her, smiling and at ease, just as if she’d been hung in a gallery and he’d bought a ticket. So then he sat down and repeated to Dan and mother what she’d told me, and he promised to send for the papers to prove it all. But he never did send for them,–delaying and delaying, till the summer wore away; and perhaps there were such papers and perhaps there weren’t. I’ve always thought he didn’t want his own friends to know where he was. Dan might be a rich man to-day, if he chose to look them up; but he’d scorch at a slow fire before he’d touch a copper of it. Father never believed a word about it, when we recited it again to him.
“So Faith ‘a come into her fortune, has she?” said he. “Pretty child! She ‘a’n’t had so much before sence she fell heir to old Miss Devereux’s best chany, her six silver spoons, and her surname.”
So the days passed, and the greater part of every one Mr. Gabriel was dabbling in the water somewhere. There wasn’t a brook within ten miles that he didn’t empty of trout, for Dan knew the woods as well as the shores, and he knew the clear nights when the insects can keep free from the water so that next day the fish rise hungry to the surface; and so sometimes in the brightest of May noons they’d bring home a string of those beauties, speckled with little tongues of flame; and Mr. Gabriel would have them cooked, and make us all taste them,–for we don’t care much for that sort, down here on the Flats; we should think we were famished, if we had to eat fish. And then they’d lie in wait all day for the darting pickerel in the little Stream of Shadows above; and when it came June, up the river he went trolling for bass, and he used a different sort of bait from the rest,–bass won’t bite much at clams,–and he hauled in great forty-pounders. And sometimes in the afternoons he took out Faith and me,–for, as Faith would go, whether or no, I always made it a point to put by everything and go too; and I used to try and get some of the other girls in, but Mr. Gabriel never would take them, though he was hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, and was everybody’s favorite, and it was known all round how he found out Faith, and that alone made him so popular, that I do believe, if he’d only taken out naturalization-papers, we’d have sent him to General Court. And then it grew time for the river-mackerel, and they used to bring in at sunset two or three hundred in a shining heap, together with great lobsters that looked as if they’d been carved out of heliotrope-stone, and so old that they were barnacled. And it was so novel to Mr. Gabriel, that he used to act as if he’d fallen in fairy-land.
After all, I don’t know what we should have done without him that summer: he always paid Dan or father a dollar a day and the hire of the boat; and the times were so hard, and there was so little doing, that, but for this, and packing the barrels of clam-bait, they’d have been idle and fared sorely. But we’d rather have starved: though, as for that, I’ve heard father say there never was a time when he couldn’t go out and catch some sort of fish and sell it for enough to get us something to eat. And then this Mr. Gabriel, he had such a winning way with him, he was as quick at wit as a bird on the wing, he had a story or a song for every point, he seemed to take to our simple life as if he’d been born to it, and he was as much interested in all our trifles as we were ourselves. Then he was so sympathetic, he felt everybody’s troubles, he went to the city and brought down a wonderful doctor to see mother, and he got her queer things that helped her more than you’d have thought anything could, and he went himself and set honeysuckles out all round Dan’s house, so that before summer was over it was a bower of great sweet blows, and he had an alms for every beggar, and a kind word for every urchin, and he followed Dan about as a child would follow some big shaggy dog. He introduced, too, a lot of new-fangled games; he was what they called a gymnast, and in feats of rassling there wasn’t a man among them all but he could stretch as flat as a flounder. And then he always treated. Everybody had a place for him soon,–even _I_ did; and as for Dan, he’d have cut his own heart out of his body, if Mr. Gabriel ‘d had occasion to use it. He was a different man from any Dan ‘d ever met before, something finer, and he might have been better, and Dan’s loyal soul was glad to acknowledge him master, and I declare I believe he felt just as the Jacobites in the old songs used to feel for royal Charlie. There are some men born to rule with a haughty, careless sweetness, and others born to die for them with stern and dogged devotion.
Well, and all this while Faith wasn’t standing still; she was changing steadily, as much as ever the moon changed in the sky. I noticed it first one day when Mr. Gabriel’d caught every child in the region and given them a picnic in the woods of the Stack-Yard-Gate, and Faith was nowhere to be seen tiptoeing round every one as she used to do, but I found her at last standing at the head of the table,–Mr. Gabriel dancing here and there, seeing to it that all should be as gay as he seemed to be,–quiet and dignified as you please, and feeling every one of her inches. But it wasn’t dignity really that was the matter with Faith,–it was just gloom. She’d brighten up for a moment or two and then down would fall the cloud again, she took to long fits of dreaming, and sometimes she’d burst out crying at any careless word, so that my heart fairly bled for the poor child,–for one couldn’t help seeing that she’d some secret unhappiness or other; and I was as gentle and soothing to her as it’s in my nature to be. She was in to our house a good deal; she kept it pretty well out of Dan’s way, and I hoped she’d get over it sooner or later, and make up her mind to circumstances. And I talked to her a sight about Dan, praising him constantly before her, though I couldn’t hear to do it; and finally, one very confidential evening, I told her that I’d been in love with Dan myself once a little, but I’d seen that he would marry her, and so had left off thinking about it; for, do you know, I thought it might make her set more price on him now, if she knew somebody else had ever cared for him. Well, that did answer awhile: whether she thought she ought to make it up to Dan, or whether he really did grow more in her eyes, Faith got to being very neat and domestic and praiseworthy. But still there was the change, and it didn’t make her any the less lovely. Indeed, if I’d been a man, I should have cared for her more than ever: it was like turning a child into a woman: and I really think, as Dan saw her going about with such a pleasant gravity, her pretty figure moving so quietly, her pretty face so still and fair, as if she had thoughts and feelings now, he began to wonder what had come over Faith, and, if she were really as charming as this, why he hadn’t felt it before; and then, you know, whether you love a woman or not, the mere fact that she’s your wife, that her life is sunk in yours, that she’s something for you to protect and that your honor lies in doing so, gives you a certain kindly feeling that might ripen into love any day under sunshine and a south wall.
* * * * *
METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY
XI.
Among the astounding discoveries of modern science is that of the immense periods which have passed in the gradual formation of our earth. So vast were the cycles of time preceding even the appearance of man on the surface of our globe, that our own period seems as yesterday when compared with the epochs that have gone before it. Had we only the evidence of the deposits of rock heaped above each other in regular strata by the slow accumulation of materials, they alone would convince us of the long and slow maturing of God’s work on the earth but when we add to these the successive populations of whose life this world has been the theatre, and whose remains are hidden in the rocks into which the mud or sand or soil of whatever kind on which they lived has hardened in the course of time,–or the enormous chains of mountains whose upheaval divided these periods of quiet accumulation by great convulsions,–or the changes of a different nature in the configuration of our globe, as the sinking of lands beneath the ocean, or the gradual rising of continents and islands above it,–or the wearing of great river-beds, or the filling of extensive water-basins, till marshes first and then dry land succeeded to inland seas,–or the slow growth of coral reefs, those wonderful sea-walls raised by the little ocean-architects whose own bodies furnish both the building-stones and the cement that binds them together, and who have worked so busily during the long centuries, that there are extensive countries, mountain-chains, islands, and long lines of coast consisting solely of their remains,–or the countless forests that must have grown up, flourished, died, and decayed, to fill the storehouses of coal that feed the fires of the human race to-day,–if we consider all these records of the past, the intellect fails to grasp a chronology for which our experience furnishes no data, and the time that lies behind us seems as much an eternity to our conception as the future that stretches indefinitely before us.
The physical as well as the human history of the world has its mythical age, lying dim and vague in the morning mists of creation, like that of the heroes and demigods in the early traditions of man, defying all our ordinary dates and measures. But if the succession of periods that prepared the earth for the coming of man, and the animals and plants that accompany him on earth, baffles our finite attempts to estimate its duration, have we any means of determining even approximately the length of the period to which we ourselves belong? If so, it may furnish us with some data for the further solution of these wonderful mysteries of time, and it is besides of especial importance with reference to the question of permanence of Species. Those who maintain the mutability of Species, and account for all the variety of life on earth by the gradual changes wrought by time and circumstances, do not accept historical evidence as affecting the question at all. The monuments of those oldest nations, all whose history is preserved in monumental records, do not indicate the slightest variation of organic types from that day to this. The animals that were preserved within their tombs or carved upon their walls by the ancient Egyptians were the same as those that have their home in the valley of the Nile today; the negro, whose peculiar features are unmistakable even in their rude artistic attempts to represent them, was the same woolly-haired, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, dark-skinned being in the days of the Rameses that he is now. The Apis, the Ibis, the Crocodiles, the sacred Beetles, have brought down to us unchanged all the characters that superstition hallowed in those early days. The stony face of the Sphinx is not more true to its past, nor the massive architecture of the Pyramids more unchanged, than they are. But the advocates of the mutability of Species say truly enough that the most ancient traditions are but as yesterday in the world’s history, and that what six thousand years could not do sixty thousand years might effect. Leaving aside, then, all historical chronology, how far back can we trace our own geological period, and the Species belonging to it? By what means can we determine its duration? Within what limits, by what standard, may it be measured? Shall hundreds, or thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of years be the unit from which we start?
I will begin this inquiry with a series of facts which I myself have had an opportunity of investigating with especial care respecting the formation and growth of the Coral Reefs of Florida. But first a few words on Coral Reefs in general. They are living limestone walls that are built up from certain depths in the ocean by the natural growth of a variety of animals, but limited by the level of high-water, beyond which they cannot rise, since the little beings that compose them die as soon as they are removed from the vitalizing influence of the pure sea-water. These walls have a variety of outlines: they may be straight, circular, semicircular, oblong, according to the form of the coast along which the little Reef-Builders establish themselves; and their height is, of course, determined by the depth of the bottom on which they rest. If they settle about an island on all sides of which the conditions for their growth are equally favorable, they will raise a wall all around it, thus encircling it with a ring of Coral growth. The Athols in the Pacific Ocean, those circular islands inclosing sometimes a fresh-water lake in mid-ocean, are Coral walls of this kind, that have formed a ring around a central island. This is easily understood, if we remember that the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is by no means a stable foundation for such a structure. On the contrary, over a certain area, which has already been surveyed with some accuracy by Professor Dana, during the United States Exploring Expedition, it is subsiding; and if an island upon which the Reef-Builders have established themselves be situated in that area of subsidence, it will, of course, sink with the floor on which it rests, carrying down also the Coral wall to a greater depth in the sea. In such instances, if the rate of subsidence be more rapid than the rate of growth in the Corals, the island and the wall itself will disappear beneath the ocean. But whenever, on the contrary, the rate of increase in the wall is greater than that of subsidence in the island, while the latter gradually sinks below the surface, the former rises in proportion, and by the time it has completed its growth the central island has vanished, and there remains only a ring of Coral Reef, with here and there a break, perhaps, at some spot where the more prosperous growth of the Corals has been checked. If, however, as sometimes happens, there is no such break, and the wall is perfectly uninterrupted, the sheet of sea-water so inclosed may be changed to fresh water by the rains that are poured into it. Such a water-basin will remain salt, it is true, in its lower part, and the fact that it is affected by the rise and fall of the tides shows that it is not entirely secluded from communication with the ocean outside; but the salt water, being heavier, sinks, while the lighter rain-water remains above, and it is to all appearance actually changed into a fresh-water lake.
I need not dwell here on the further history of such a Coral island, or follow it through the changes by which the summit of its circular wall becomes covered with a fertile soil, a tropical vegetation springs up on it, and it is at last perhaps inhabited by man. There is something very attractive in the idea of these green rings inclosing sheltered harbors and quiet lakes in mid-ocean, and the subject has lost none of its fascination since the mystery of their existence has been solved by the investigations of several contemporary naturalists who have enabled us to trace the whole story of their structure. I would refer all who wish for a more detailed account of them to Charles Darwin’s charming little volume on “Coral Reefs,” where their mode of formation is fully described, and also to James D. Dana’s “Geological Report of the United States Exploring Expedition.”
Coral Reefs are found only in tropical regions: although Polyps, animals of the same class as those chiefly instrumental in their formation, are found in all parts of the globe, yet the Reef-Building Polyps are limited to the Tropics. We are too apt to forget that the homes of animals are as definitely limited in the water as on the land. Indeed, the subject of the geographical distribution of animals according to laws that are established by altitude, by latitude and longitude, by pressure of atmosphere or pressure of water, already alluded to in a previous article, is exceedingly interesting, and presents a most important field of investigation. The climatic effect of different degrees of altitude upon the growth of animals and plants is the same as that of different degrees of latitude; and the slope of a high mountain in the Tropics, from base to summit, presents, in a condensed form, an epitome, as it were, of the same kind of gradation in vegetable growth that may be observed from the Tropics to the Arctics. At the base of such a mountain we have all the luxuriance of growth characteristic of the tropical forest,–the Palms, the Bananas, the Bread-trees, the Mimosas; higher up, these give way to a different kind of growth, corresponding to our Oaks, Chestnuts, Maples, etc.; as these wane, on the loftier slopes comes in the Pine forest, fading gradually, as it ascends, into a dwarfish growth of the same kind; and this at last gives way to the low creeping Mosses and Lichens of the greater heights, till even these find a foothold no longer, and the summit of the mountain is clothed in perpetual snow and ice. What have we here but the same series of changes through which we pass, if, travelling northward from the Tropics, we leave Palms and Pomegranates and Bananas behind, where the Live-Oaks and Cypresses, the Orange-trees and Myrtles of the warmer Temperate Zone come in, and these die out as we reach the Oaks, Chestnuts, Maples, Elms, Nut-trees, Beeches, and Birches of the colder Temperate Zone, these again waning as we enter the Pine forests of the Arctic borders, till, passing out of these, nothing but a dwarf vegetation, a carpet of Moss and Lichen, fit food for the Reindeer and the Esquimaux, greets us, and beyond that lies the region of the snow and ice fields, impenetrable to all but the daring Arctic voyager?
I have thus far spoken of the changes in the vegetable growth alone as influenced by altitude and latitude, but the same is equally true of animals. Every zone of the earth’s surface has its own animals, suited to the conditions under which they are meant to live; and with the exception of those that accompany man in all his pilgrimages, and are subject to the same modifying influences by which he adapts his home and himself to all climates, animals are absolutely bound by the laws of their nature within the range assigned to them. Nor is this the case only on land, where river-banks, lake-shores, and mountain-ranges might be supposed to form the impassable boundaries that keep animals within certain limits; but the ocean as well as the land has its faunae and florae bound within their respective zooelogical and botanical provinces; and a wall of granite is not more impassable to a marine animal than that ocean-line, fluid and flowing and ever-changing though it be, on which is written for him, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther.” One word as to the effect of pressure on animals will explain this.
We all live under the pressure of the atmosphere. Now thirty-two feet under the sea doubles that pressure, since a column of water of that height is equal in weight to the pressure of one atmosphere. At the depth of thirty-two feet, then, any marine animal is under the pressure of two atmospheres,–that of the air which surrounds our globe, and of a weight of water equal to it; at sixty-four feet he is under the pressure of three atmospheres, and so on,–the weight of one atmosphere being always added for every thirty-two feet of depth. There is a great difference in the sensitiveness of animals to this pressure. Some fishes live at a great depth and find the weight of water genial to them, while others would be killed at once by the same pressure, and the latter naturally seek the shallow waters. Every fisherman knows that he must throw a long line for a Halibut, while with a common fishing-rod he will catch plenty of Perch from the rocks near the shore; and the differently colored bands of sea-weed revealed by low tide, from the green line of the Ulvas through the brown zone of the common Fucas to the rosy and purple hued sea-weeds of the deeper water show that the florae as well as the faunae of the ocean have their precise boundaries. This wider or narrower range of marine animals is in direct relation to their structure, which enables them to bear a greater or less pressure of water. All fishes, and, indeed, all animals having a wide range of distribution in ocean-depths, have a special apparatus of water-pores, so that the surrounding element penetrates their structure, thus equalizing the pressure of the weight, which is diminished from without in proportion to the quantity of water they can admit into their bodies. Marine animals differ in their ability to sustain this pressure, just as land animals differ in their power of enduring great variations of climate and of atmospheric pressure.
Of all air-breathing animals, none exhibits a more surprising power of adapting itself to great and rapid changes of external influences than the Condor. It may be seen feeding on the sea-shore under a burning tropical sun, and then, rising from its repast, it floats up among the highest summits of the Andes and is lost to sight beyond them, miles above the line of perpetual snow, where the temperature must be lower than that of the Arctics. But even the Condor, sweeping at one flight from tropic heat to arctic cold, although it passes through greater changes of temperature, does not undergo such changes of pressure as a fish that rises from a depth of sixty-four feet to the surface of the sea; for the former remains within the air that surrounds our globe, and therefore the increase or diminution of pressure to which it is subjected must be confined within the limits of one atmosphere, while the latter, at a depth of sixty-four feet, is under a weight equal to that of three such atmospheres, which is reduced to one when it reaches the sea-level. The change is even much greater for those fishes that come from a depth of several hundred feet. These laws of limitation in space explain many facts in the growth of Coral Reefs that would be otherwise inexplicable, and which I will endeavor to make clear to my readers.
For a long time it was supposed that the Coral animals inhabited very deep waters, for they were sometimes brought up on sounding-lines from a depth of many hundreds or even thousands of feet, and it was taken for granted that they must have had their home where they were found; but the facts recently ascertained respecting the subsidence of ocean-bottoms have shown that the foundation of a Coral wall may have sunk far below the place where it was laid, and it is now proved beyond a doubt that no Reef-Building Coral can thrive at a depth of more than fifteen fathoms, though Corals of other kinds occur far lower, and that the dead Reef-Corals sometimes brought to the surface from much greater depths are only broken fragments of some Reef that has subsided with the bottom on which it was growing. But though fifteen fathoms is the maximum depth at which any Reef-Builder can prosper, there are many which will not sustain even that degree of pressure, and this fact has, as we shall see, an important influence on the structure of the Reef.
Imagine now a sloping shore on some tropical coast descending gradually below the surface of the sea. Upon that slope, at a depth of from ten to twelve or fifteen fathoms, and two or three or more miles from the main-land, according to the shelving of the shore, we will suppose that one of those little Coral animals to whom a home in such deep waters is genial has established itself. How it happens that such a being, which we know is immovably attached to the ground and forms the foundation of a solid wall, was ever able to swim freely about in the water till it found a suitable resting-place, I shall explain hereafter, when I say something of the mode of reproduction of these animals. Accept, for the moment, my unsustained assertion, and plant our little Coral on this sloping shore some twelve or fifteen fathoms below the surface of the sea. The internal structure of such a Coral corresponds to that of the Sea-Anemone: the body is divided by vertical partitions from top to bottom, leaving open chambers between, while in the centre hangs the digestive cavity connecting by an opening in the bottom with all these chambers; at the top is an aperture which serves as a mouth, surrounded by a wreath of hollow tentacles, each one connecting at its base with one of the chambers, so that all parts of the animal communicate freely with each other. But though the structure of the Coral is identical in all its parts with that of the Sea-Anemone, it nevertheless presents one important difference. The body of the Sea-Anemone is soft, while that of the Coral is hard. It is well known that all animals and plants have the power of appropriating to themselves and assimilating the materials they need, each selecting from the surrounding elements whatever contributes to its well-being. The plant takes carbon, the animal takes oxygen, each rejecting what the other requires. We ourselves build our bones with the lime that we find unconsciously in the world around us; much of our nourishment supplies us with it, and the very vegetables we eat have, perhaps, themselves been fed from some old lime strata deposited centuries ago. We all represent materials that have contributed to construct our bodies. Now Corals possess, in an extraordinary degree, the power of assimilating to themselves the lime contained in the salt water around them; and as soon as our little Coral is established on a firm foundation, a lime deposit begins to form in all the walls of its body, so that its base, its partitions, and its outer wall, which in the Sea-Anemone remain always soft, become perfectly solid in the Polyp Coral and form a frame as hard as bone. It may naturally be asked where the lime comes from in the sea which the Corals absorb in such quantities. As far as the living Corals are concerned the answer is easy, for an immense deal of lime is brought down to the ocean by rivers that wear away the lime deposits through which they pass. The Mississippi, whose course lies through extensive lime regions, brings down yearly lime enough to supply all the animals living in the Gulf of Mexico. But behind this lies a question not so easily settled, as to the origin of the extensive deposits of limestone found at the very beginning of life upon earth. This problem brings us to the threshold of astronomy, for limestone is metallic in character, susceptible therefore of fusion, and may have formed a part of the materials of our earth, even in an incandescent state, when the worlds were forming. But though this investigation as to the origin of lime does not belong either to the naturalist or the geologist, its suggestion reminds us that the time has come when all the sciences and their results are so intimately connected that no one can be carried on independently of the others. Since the study of the rocks has revealed a crowded life whose records are hoarded within them, the work of the geologist and the naturalist has become one and the same, and at that border-land where the first crust of the earth condensed out of the igneous mass of materials which formed its earliest condition their investigation mingles with that of the astronomer, and we cannot trace the limestone in a little Coral without going back to the creation of our solar system, when the worlds that compose it were thrown off from a central mass in a gaseous condition.
When the Coral has become in this way permeated with lime, all parts of the body are rigid, with the exception of the upper margin, the stomach, and the tentacles. The tentacles are soft and waving, projected or drawn in at will, and they retain their flexible character through life, and decompose when the animal dies. For this reason the dried specimens of Corals preserved in museums do not give us the least idea of the living Corals, in which every one of the millions of beings composing such a community is crowned by a waving wreath of white or green or rose-colored tentacles.
As soon as the little Coral is fairly established and solidly attached to the ground, it begins to bud. This may take place in a variety of ways, dividing at the top or budding from the base or from the sides, till the primitive animal is surrounded by a number of individuals like itself, of which it forms the nucleus, and which now begin to bud in their turn, each one surrounding itself with a numerous progeny, all remaining, however, attached to the parent. Such a community increases till its individuals are numbered by millions; and I have myself counted no less than fourteen millions of individuals in a Coral mass measuring not more than twelve feet in diameter. These are the so-called Coral heads which form the foundation of a Coral wall, and their massive character and regular form seem to be especially adapted to give a strong, solid base to the whole structure. They are known in our classifications as the Astraeans, so named on account of the star-shaped form of the little pits that are crowded upon the surface, each one marking the place of a single individual in such a community.
Thus firmly and strongly is the foundation of the reef laid by the Astraeans; but we have seen that for their prosperous growth they require a certain depth and pressure of water, and when they have brought the wall so high that they have not more than six fathoms of water above them, this kind of Coral ceases to grow. They have, however, prepared a fitting surface for different kinds of Corals that could not live in the depths from which the Astraeans have come, but find their genial home nearer the surface; such a home being made ready for them by their predecessors, they now establish themselves on the top of the Coral wall and continue its growth for a certain time. These are the Mandrinas, or the so-called Brain-Corals, and the Porites. The Mandrinas differ from the Astraeans by their less compact and definite pits. In the Astraeans the place occupied by the animal in the community is marked by a little star-shaped spot, in the centre of which all the partition-walls meet. But in the Mandrinas, although all the partitions converge toward the central opening, as in the Astraeans, these central openings elongate, run into each other, and form waving furrows all over the surface, instead of the small round pits so characteristic of the Astraeans. The Porites resemble the Astraeans, but the pits are smaller, with fewer partitions and fewer tentacles, and their whole substance is more porous.
But these also have their bounds within the sea: they in their turn reach the limit beyond which they are forbidden by the laws of their nature to pass, and there they also pause. But the Coral wall continues its steady progress; for here the lighter kinds set in,–the Madrepores, the Millepores, and a great variety of Sea-Fans and Corallines, and the reef is crowned at last with a many-colored shrubbery of low feathery growth. These are all branching in form, and many of them are simple calciferous plants, though most of them are true animals, resembling, however, delicate Algae more than any marine animals; but, on examination of the latter, one finds them to be covered with myriads of minute dots, each representing one of the little beings out of which the whole is built.
I would add here one word on the true nature of the Millepores, long misunderstood by naturalists, because it throws light not only on some interesting facts respecting Coral Reefs, especially the ancient ones, but also because it tells us something of the early inhabitants of the globe, and shows us that a class of Radiates supposed to be missing in that primitive creation had its representatives then as now. In the diagram of the geological periods introduced in a previous article, I have represented all the three classes of Radiates, Polyps, Acalephs, and Echinoderms, as present on the first floor of our globe that was inhabited at all. But it is only recently that positive proofs have been found of the existence of Acalephs or Jelly-Fishes, as they are called, at that early period. Their very name indicates their delicate structure; and were there no remains preserved in the rocks of these soft, transparent creatures, it would yet be no evidence that they did not exist. Fragile as they are, however, they have left here and there some faint record of themselves, and in the Museum at Carlsruhe, on a slab from Solenhofen, I have seen a very perfect outline of one which remains undescribed to this day. This, however, does not carry them farther back than the Jurassic period, and it is only lately that I have satisfied myself that they not only existed, but were among the most numerous animals in the first representation of organic life.
The earliest Corals correspond in certain features of their structure to the Millepores. They differ from them as all early animals differ from the succeeding ones, every geological period having its special set of representatives. But still they are always true to their class, and have a certain general correspondence with animals of like kind that follow them in later periods. In this sense the Millepores are in our epoch the representatives of those early Corals called by naturalists Tabulata and Rugosa,–distinguished from the Polyp Corals by the horizontal floors, waving in some, straight in others, which divide the body transversely at successive heights through its whole length, and also by the absence of the vertical partitions, extending from top to bottom of each animal, so characteristic of the true Polyps. As I have said, they were for a long time supposed, notwithstanding these differences, to be Polyps, and I had shared in this opinion, till, during the winter of 1857, while pursuing my investigations on the Coral Reefs of Florida, one of these Millepores revealed itself to me in its true character of Acaleph. It is by its soft parts alone–those parts which are seen only in its living state, and when the animal is fully open–that its Acalephian character can be perceived, and this accounts for its being so long accepted as a Polyp, when studied in the dry Coral stock. Nothing could exceed my astonishment when for the first time I saw such an animal fully expanded, and found it to be a true Acaleph. It is exceedingly difficult to obtain a view of them in this state, for, at any approach, they draw themselves in, and remain closed to all investigation. Only once, for a short hour, I had this opportunity; during that time one of these little creatures revealed to me its whole structure, as if to tell me, once for all, the story of its existence through all the successive epochs from the dawn of Creation till now, and then withdrew. With my most patient watching, I have never been able to see one of them open again. But to establish the fact that one of the Corals represented from the earliest period till now, and indeed far more numerous in the beginning than any other, was in truth no Polyp, but an Acaleph, the glimpse I had was all-sufficient. It came out as if to bear witness of its class,–as if to say, “We, too, were among the hosts of living beings with which God first peopled His earth.”
With these branching Corals the reef reaches the level of high-water, beyond which, as I have said, there can be no further growth, for want of the action of the fresh sea-water. This dependence upon the vivifying influence of the sea accounts for one unfailing feature in the Coral walls. They are always abrupt and steep on the seaward side, but have a gentle slope towards the land. This is accounted for by the circumstance that the Corals on the outer side of the reef are in immediate contact with the pure ocean-water, while by their growth they partially exclude the inner ones from the same influence,–the rapid growth of the latter being also impeded by any impurity or foreign material washed away from the neighboring shore and mingling with the water that fills the channel between the main-land and the reef. Thus the Coral Reefs, whether built around an island, or concentric to a rounding shore, or along a straight line of coast, are always shelving toward the land, while they are comparatively abrupt and steep toward the sea. This should be remembered, for, as we shall see hereafter, it has an important bearing on the question of time as illustrated by Coral Reefs.
I have spoken of the budding of Corals, by which each one becomes the centre of a cluster; but this is not the only way in which they multiply their kind. They give birth to eggs also, which are carried on the inner edge of their partition-walls, till they drop into the sea, where they float about, little, soft, transparent, pear-shaped bodies, as unlike as possible to the rigid stony structure they are to assume hereafter. In this condition they are covered with vibratile cilia or fringes, that are always in rapid, uninterrupted motion, and keep them swimming about in the water. It is by means of these little germs of the Corals, swimming freely about during their earliest stages of growth, that the reef is continued, at the various heights where special kinds die out, by those that prosper at shallower depths; otherwise it would be impossible to understand how this variety of building material, as it were, is introduced wherever it is needed. This point, formerly a puzzle to naturalists, has become quite clear since it has been found that myriads of these little germs are poured into the water surrounding a reef. There they swim about till they find a genial spot on which to establish themselves, when they become attached to the ground by one end, while a depression takes place at the opposite end, which gradually deepens to form the mouth and inner cavity, while the edges expand to form the tentacles, and the productive life of the little Coral begins: it buds from every side, and becomes the foundation of a new community.
I should add, that, beside the Polyps and the Acalephs, Mollusks also have their representatives among the Corals. There is a group of small Mollusks called Bryozoa, allied to the Clams by their structure, but excessively minute when compared to the other members of their class, which, like the other Corals, harden in consequence of an absorption of solid materials, and contribute to the formation of the reef. Besides these, there are certain plants, limestone Algae,–Corallines, as they are called,–which have their share also in the work.
I had intended to give some account of the Coral Reefs of Florida, and to show what bearing they have upon the question of time and the permanence of Species; but this cursory sketch of Coral Reefs in general has grown to such dimensions that I must reserve a more particular account of the Florida Reefs and Keys for a future article.
* * * * *
SPIRITS.
“Did you ever see a ghost?” said a gentleman to his friend.
“No, but I once came very nigh seeing one,” was the facetious reply.
The writer of this article has had still better luck,–having _twice_ come very nigh seeing a ghost. In other words, two friends, in whose veracity and healthy clearness of vision I have perfect confidence, have assured me that they have distinctly seen a disembodied spirit.
If I had permission to do so, I would record the street in Boston, and the number of the house, where the first of these two apparitions was seen; but that would be unpleasant to parties concerned. Years ago, the lady who witnessed it told me the particulars, and I have recently heard her repeat them. A cousin, with whom her relations were as intimate as with a brother, was in the last stages of consumption. One morning, when she carried him her customary offering of fruit or flowers, she found him unusually bright, his cheeks flushed, his eyes brilliant, and his state of mind exceedingly cheerful. He talked of his recovery and future plans in life with hopefulness almost amounting to certainty. This made her somewhat sad, for she regarded it as a delusion of his flattering disease, a flaring up of the life-candle before it sank in the socket. She thus reported the case, when she returned home. In the afternoon she was sewing as usual, surrounded by her mother and sisters, and listening to one who was reading aloud. While thus occupied, she chanced to raise her eyes from her work and glance to the opposite corner of the room. Her mother, seeing her give a sudden start, exclaimed, “What is the matter?” She pointed to the corner of the room and replied, “There is Cousin ——!” They all told her she had been dreaming, and was only half wakened. She assured them she had not even been drowsy; and she repeated with great earnestness, “There is Cousin ——, just as I saw him this morning. Don’t you see him?” She could not measure the time that the vision remained; but it was long enough for several questions and answers to pass rapidly between herself and other members of the family. In reply to their persistent incredulity, she said, “It is very strange that you don’t see him; for I see him as plainly as I do any of you.” She was so obviously awake and in her right mind, that the incident naturally made an impression on those who listened to her. Her mother looked at her watch, and despatched a messenger to inquire how Cousin —— did. Word was soon brought that he died at the same moment he had appeared in the house of his relatives. The lady who had this singular experience is too sensible and well-informed to be superstitious. She was not afflicted with any disorder of the nerves, and was in good health at the time.
To my other story I can give “a local habitation and a name” well known. When Harriet Hosmer, the sculptor, visited her native country a few years ago, I had an interview with her, during which our conversation happened to turn upon dreams and visions.
“I have had some experience in that way,” said she. “Let me tell you a singular circumstance that happened to me in Rome. An Italian girl named Rosa was in my employ for a long time, but was finally obliged to return to her mother, on account of confirmed ill-health. We were mutually sorry to part, for we liked each other. When I took my customary exercise on horseback, I frequently called to see her. On one of these occasions, I found her brighter than I had seen her for some time past. I had long relinquished hopes of her recovery, but there was nothing in her appearance that gave me the impression of immediate danger. I left her with the expectation of calling to see her again many times. During the remainder of the day I was busy in my studio, and I do not recollect that Rosa was in my thoughts after I parted from her. I retired to rest in good health and in a quiet frame of mind. But I woke from a sound sleep with an oppressive feeling that some one was in the room. I wondered at the sensation, for it was entirely new to me; but in vain I tried to dispel it. I peered beyond the curtain of my bed, but could distinguish no objects in the darkness. Trying to gather up my thoughts, I soon reflected that the door was locked, and that I had put the key under my bolster. I felt for it, and found it where I had placed it. I said to myself that I had probably had some ugly dream, and had waked with a vague impression of it still on my mind. Reasoning thus, I arranged myself comfortably for another nap. I am habitually a good sleeper, and a stranger to fear; but, do what I would, the idea still haunted me that some one was in the room. Finding it impossible to sleep, I longed for daylight to dawn, that I might rise and pursue my customary avocations. It was not long before I was able dimly to distinguish the furniture in my room, and soon after I heard, in the apartments below, familiar noises of servants opening windows and doors. An old clock, with ringing vibrations, proclaimed the hour. I counted one, two, three, four, five, and resolved to rise immediately. My bed was partially screened by a long curtain looped up at one side. As I raised my head from the pillow, Rosa looked inside the curtain, and smiled at me. The idea of anything supernatural did not occur to me. I was simply surprised, and exclaimed, ‘Why, Rosa! How came you here, when you are so ill?’ In the old familiar tones, to which I was so much accustomed, a voice replied, ‘I am well, now.’ With no other thought than that of greeting her joyfully, I sprang out of bed. There was no Rosa there! I moved the curtain, thinking she might perhaps have playfully hidden herself behind its folds. The same feeling induced me to look into the closet. The sight of her had come so suddenly, that, in the first moment of surprise and bewilderment, I did not reflect that the door was locked. When I became convinced there was no one in the room but myself, I recollected that fact, and thought I must have seen a vision.
“At the breakfast-table, I said to the old lady with whom I boarded, ‘Rosa is dead.’ ‘What do you mean by that?’ she inquired. ‘You told me she seemed better than common when you called to see her yesterday.’ I related the occurrences of the morning, and told her I had a strong impression Rosa was dead. She laughed, and said I had dreamed it all. I assured her I was thoroughly awake, and in proof thereof told her I had heard all the customary household noises, and had counted the clock when it struck five. She replied, ‘All that is very possible, my dear. The clock struck into your dream. Real sounds often mix with the illusions of sleep. I am surprised that a dream should make such an impression on a young lady so free from superstition as you are.’ She continued to jest on the subject, and slightly annoyed me by her persistence in believing it a dream, when I was perfectly sure of having been wide awake. To settle the question, I summoned a messenger and sent him to inquire how Rosa did. He returned with the answer that she died that morning at five o’clock.”
I wrote the story as Miss Hosmer told it to me, and after I had shown it to her, I asked if she had any objection, to its being published, without suppression of names. She replied, “You have reported the story of Rosa correctly. Make what use you please of it. You cannot think it more interesting, or unaccountable, than I do myself.”
A remarkable instance of communication between spirits at the moment of death is recorded in the Life of the Rev. Joseph S. Buckminster, written by his sister. When he was dying in Boston, their father was dying in Vermont, ignorant of his son’s illness. Early in the morning, he said to his wife, “My son Joseph is dead.” She told him he had been dreaming. He calmly replied, “I have not slept, nor dreamed. He is dead.” When letters arrived from Boston, they announced that the spirit of the son had departed from his body the same night that the father received an impression of it.
Such incidents suggest curious psychological inquiries, which I think have attracted less attention than they deserve. It is common to explain all such phenomena as “optical illusions” produced by “disordered nerves.” But _is_ that any explanation? _How_ do certain states of the nerves produce visions as distinct as material forms? In the two cases I have mentioned, there was no disorder of the nerves, no derangement of health, no disquietude of mind. Similar accounts come to us from all nations, and from the remotest periods of time; and I doubt whether there ever was a universal superstition that had not some great, unchangeable truth for its basis. Some secret laws of our being are wrapt up in these occasional mysteries, and in the course of the world’s progress we may perhaps become familiar with the explanation, and find genuine philosophy under the mask of superstition. When any well-authenticated incidents of this kind are related, it is a very common inquiry, “What are such visions sent _for_?” The question implies a supposition of miraculous power, exerted for a temporary and special purpose. But would it not be more rational to believe that all appearances, whether spiritual or material, are caused by the operation of universal laws, manifested under varying circumstances? In the infancy of the world, it was the general tendency of the human mind to consider all occasional phenomena as direct interventions of the gods, for some special purpose at the time. Thus, the rainbow was supposed to be a celestial road, made to accommodate the swift messenger of the gods, when she was sent on an errand, and withdrawn as soon as she had done with it. We now know that the laws of the refraction and reflection of light produce the radiant iris, and that it will always appear whenever drops of water in the air present themselves to the sun’s rays in a suitable position. Knowing this, we have ceased to ask what the rainbow appears _for_.
That a spiritual form is contained within the material body is a very ancient and almost universal belief. Hindoo books of the remotest antiquity describe man as a triune being, consisting of the soul, the spiritual body, and the material body. This form within the outer body was variously named by Grecian poets and philosophers. They called it “the soul’s image,” “the invisible body,” “the aerial body,” “the shade.” Sometimes they called it “the sensuous soul,” and described it as “_all_ eye and _all_ ear,”–expressions which cannot fail to suggest the phenomena of clairvoyance. The “shade” of Hercules is described by poets as dwelling in the Elysian Fields, while his body was converted to ashes on the earth, and his soul was dwelling on Olympus with the gods. Swedenborg speaks of himself as having been a visible form to angels in the spiritual world; and members of his household, observing him at such times, describe the eyes of his body on earth as having the expression of one walking in his sleep. He tells us, that, when his thoughts turned toward earthly things, the angels would say to him, “Now we are losing sight of you”: and he himself felt that he was returning to his material body. For several years of his life, he was in the habit of seeing and conversing familiarly with visitors unseen by those around him. The deceased brother of the Queen of Sweden repeated to him a secret conversation, known only to himself and his sister. The Queen had asked for this, as a test of Swedenborg’s veracity; and she became pale with astonishment when every minute particular of her interview with her brother was reported to her. Swedenborg was a sedate man, apparently devoid of any wish to excite a sensation, engrossed in scientific pursuits, and remarkable for the orderly habits of his mind. The intelligent and enlightened German, Nicolai, in the later years of his life, was accustomed to find himself in the midst of persons whom he knew perfectly well, but who were invisible to others. He reasoned very calmly about it, but arrived at no solution more satisfactory than the old one of “optical illusion,” which is certainly a very inadequate explanation. Instances are recorded, and some of them apparently well authenticated, of persons still living in this world, and unconscious of disease, who have seen _themselves_ in a distinct visible form, without the aid of a mirror. It would seem as if such experiences had not been confined to any particular part of the world; for they have given birth to a general superstition that such apparitions are a forerunner of death,–or, in other words, of the complete separation of the spiritual body from the natural body. A friend related to me the particulars of a fainting-fit, during which her body remained senseless an unusually long time. When she was restored to consciousness, she told her attendant friends that she had been standing near the sofa all the time, watching her own lifeless body, and seeing what they did to resuscitate it. In proof thereof she correctly repeated to them all they had said and done while her body remained insensible. Those present at the time corroborated her statement, so far as her accurate knowledge of all their words, looks, and proceedings was concerned.
The most numerous class of phenomena concerning the “spiritual body” relate to its visible appearance to others at the moment of dissolution. There is so much testimony on this subject, from widely separated witnesses, that an unprejudiced mind, equally removed from superstition and skepticism, inclines to believe that they must be manifestations of some hidden law of our mysterious being. Plato says that everything in this world is merely the material form of some model previously existing in a higher world of ethereal spiritual forms; and Swedenborg’s beautiful doctrine of Correspondences is a reappearance of the same idea. If their theory be true, may not the antecedent type of that strange force which in the material world we call electricity be a _spiritual_ magnetism. As yet, we know extremely little of the laws of electricity, and we know nothing of those laws of _spiritual_ attraction and repulsion which are perhaps the _cause_ of electricity. There may be subtile and as yet unexplained causes, connected with the state of the nervous system, the state of the mind, the accord of two souls under peculiar circumstances, etc., which may sometimes enable a person who is in a material body to see another who is in a spiritual body. That such visions are not of daily occurrence may be owing to the fact that it requires an unusual combination of many favorable circumstances to produce them; and when they do occur, they seem to us miraculous simply because we are ignorant of the laws of which they are transient manifestations.
Lord Bacon says,–“The relations touching the force of imagination and the secret instincts of Nature are so uncertain, as they require a great deal of examination ere we conclude upon them. I would have it first thoroughly inquired whether there be any secret passages of sympathy between persons of near blood,–as parents, children, brothers, sisters, nurse-children, husbands, wives, etc. There be many reports in history, that, upon the death of persons of such nearness, men have had an inward feeling of it. I myself remember, that, being in Paris, and my father dying in London, two or three days before my father’s death I had a dream, which I told to divers English gentlemen, that my father’s house in the country was plastered all over with black mortar. Next to those that are near in blood, there may be the like passage and instincts of Nature between great friends and great enemies. Some trial also would be made whether pact or agreement do anything: as, if two friends should agree, that, such a day in every week, they, being in far distant places, should pray one for another, or should put on a ring or tablet one for another’s sake, whether, if one of them should break their vow and promise, the other should have any feeling of it in absence.”
This query of Lord Bacon, whether an agreement between two distant persons to think of each other at a particular time may not produce an actual nearness between their spirits, is suggestive. People partially drowned and resuscitated have often described their last moments of consciousness as flooded with memories, so that they seemed to be surrounded by the voices and countenances of those they loved. If this is common when soul and body are approaching dissolution, may not such concentration of loving thoughts produce an actual nearness, filling the person thought of with “a feeling as if somebody were in the room”? And if the feeling thus induced is very powerful, may not the presence thus felt become objective, or, in other words, a vision?
The feeling of the nearness of spirits to when the thoughts are busily occupied with them may have led to the almost universal belief among ancient nations that the souls of the dead came back on the anniversary of their death to the places where their bodies were deposited. This belief invested their tombs with peculiar sacredness, and led the wealthy to great expense in their construction. Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans built them with upper apartments, more or less spacious. These chambers were adorned with vases, sculptures, and paintings on the walls, varying in costliness and style according to the means or taste of the builder. The tomb of Cestius in Rome contained a chamber much ornamented with paintings. Ancient Egyptian tombs abound with sculptures and paintings, probably representative of the character of the deceased. Thus, on the walls of one a man is pictured throwing seed into the ground, followed by a troop of laborers; farther on, the same individual is represented as gathering in the harvest; then he is seen in procession with wife, children, friends, and followers, carrying sheaves to the temple, a thank-offering to the gods. This seems to be a painted epitaph, signifying that the deceased was industrious, prosperous, and pious. It was common to deposit in these tombs various articles of use or ornament, such as the departed ones had been familiar with and attached to, while on earth. Many things in the ancient sculptures indicate that Egyptian women were very fond of flowers. It is a curious fact, that little china boxes with Chinese letters on them, like those in which the Chinese now sell flower-seeds, have been discovered in some of these tombs. Probably the ladies buried there were partial to exotics from China; and perhaps friends placed them there with the tender thought that the spirit of the deceased would be pleased to see them, when it came on its annual visit. Sometimes these paintings and sculptures embodied ideas reaching beyond the earthly existence, and “the aerial body” was represented floating among stars, escorted by what we should call angels, but which they named “Spirits of the Sun.” Families and friends visited these consecrated chambers on the anniversary of the death of those whose bodies were placed in the room below. They carried with them music and flowers, cakes and wine. Religious ceremonies were performed, with the idea that the “invisible body” was present with them and took part in the prayers and offerings. The visitors talked together of past scenes, and doubtless their conversation abounded with touching allusions to the character and habits of the unseen friend supposed to be listening. It was, in fact, an annual family-gathering, scarcely sadder in its memories than is our Thanksgiving festival to those who have travelled far on the pilgrimage of life.
St. Paul teaches that “there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” The early Christians had a very vivid faith, that, when the soul dropped its outer envelope of flesh, it continued to exist in a spiritual form. When any of their number died, they observed the anniversary of his departure by placing on the altar an offering to the church, in his name. On such occasions, they partook of the sacrament, with the full belief that his unseen form was present with them, and shared in the sacred rite, as he had done while in the material body. On the anniversary of the death of martyrs, there were such commemorations in all the churches; and that their spirits were believed to be present is evident from the fact that numerous petitions were addressed to them. In the Roman Catacombs, where many of the early Christians were buried, are apartments containing sculptures and paintings of apostles and martyrs. They are few and rude, because the Christians of that period were poor, and used such worldly goods as they had more for benevolence than for show. But these memorials, in such a place, indicate the same feeling that adorned the magnificent tombs of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. These subterranean apartments were used for religious meetings in the first centuries of our era, and it is generally supposed that they were chosen as safe hiding-places from persecution. Very likely it was so; but it is not improbable that the spot had peculiar attractions to worshippers, from the feeling that they were in the midst of an unseen congregation, whose bodies were buried there. If it was so, it would be but one of many proofs that the early Christians mixed with their new religion many of the traditions and ceremonies of their forefathers, who had been educated in other forms of faith. Even in our own time, threads of these ancient traditions are more or less visible through the whole warp and woof of our literature and our customs. Many of the tombs in the Cemetery of Pere la Chaise have pretty upper apartments. On the anniversary of the death of those buried beneath, friends and relatives carry thither flowers and garlands. Women often spend the entire day there, and parties of friends assemble to partake of a picnic repast.
Most of the ancient nations annually observed a day in honor of the Souls of Ancestors. This naturally grew out of the custom of meeting in tombs to commemorate the death of relatives. As generations passed away, it was unavoidable that many of the very old sepulchres should be seldom or never visited. Still it was believed that the “shades” even of remote ancestors hovered about their descendants and were cognizant of their doings. It was impossible to observe separately the anniversaries of departed millions, and therefore a day was set apart for religious ceremonies in honor of _all_ ancestors. Hindoo and Chinese families have from time immemorial consecrated such days; and the Romans observed a similar anniversary under the name of Parentalia.
Christians retained this ancient custom, but it took a new coloring from their peculiar circumstances. The ties of the church were substituted for ties of kindred. Its members were considered _spiritual_ fathers and brothers, and there was an annual festival in honor of _spiritual_ ancestors. The forms greatly resembled those of the Roman Parentalia. The gathering-place was usually at the tomb of some celebrated martyr, or in some chapel consecrated to his memory. Crowds of people came from all quarters to implore the spirits of the martyrs to send them favorable seasons, good crops, healthy children, etc., just as the old Romans had been accustomed to invoke the names of their ancestors for similar blessings. Prayers were repeated, hymns sung, and offerings presented to the church, as aforetime to the gods. A great banquet was prepared, and wine was drunk to the souls of the martyrs so freely that complete intoxication was common. In view of this and other excesses, the pious among the bishops exerted their influence to abolish the custom. But it was so intertwined with the traditional faith of the populace, and so gratifying to their social propensities, that it was a long time before it could be suppressed. A vestige of the old anniversaries in honor of the Souls of Ancestors remains in the Catholic Church under the name of All-Souls’ Day.
In France, the Parentalia of the ancient Romans is annually observed under the name of “Le Jour des Morts.” All Paris flock to the cemeteries, bearing bouquets, crosses, and garlands to decorate the tombs of departed ancestors, relatives, and friends. The gay population is, for that day, sobered by tender and solemn memories. Many a tear glistens on the wreaths, and the passing traveller notices many a one whose trembling lips and swollen eyelids indicate that the soul is immersed in recollections of departed loved ones. The “cities of the dead” bloom with fresh flowers, in multifarious forms of crosses, crowns, and hearts. From all the churches prayers ascend for those who have dropped their earthly garment of flesh, and who live henceforth in the “spiritual body,” which becomes more and more beautiful with the progress of the soul,–it being, as the ancients called it, “the soul’s image.”
THE TITMOUSE.
You shall not be over-bold
When you deal with arctic cold,
As late I found my lukewarm blood
Chilled wading in the snow-choked wood. How should I fight? my foeman fine
Has million arms to one of mine.
East, west, for aid I looked in vain; East, west, north, south, are his domain. Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home; Must borrow his winds who there would come. Up and away for life! be fleet!
The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, Sings in my ears, my hands are stones,
Curdles the blood to the marble bones, Tugs at the heartstrings, numbs the sense, Hems in the life with narrowing fence.
Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep, The punctual stars will vigil keep,
Embalmed by purifying cold,
The winds shall sing their dead-march old, The snow is no ignoble shroud,
The moon thy mourner, and the cloud. Softly,–but this way fate was pointing, ‘Twas coming fast to such anointing,
When piped a tiny voice hard by,
Gay and polite, a cheerful cry,
“_Chic-chic-a-dee-dee_!” saucy note, Out of sound heart and merry throat,
As if it said, “Good day, good Sir! Fine afternoon, old passenger!
Happy to meet you in these places, Where January brings few men’s faces.”
This poet, though he live apart,
Moved by a hospitable heart,
Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, To do the honors of his court,
As fits a feathered lord of land,
Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand, Hopped on the bough, then, darting low, Prints his small impress on the snow,
Shows feats of his gymnastic play, Head downward, clinging to the spray.
Here was this atom in full breath
Hurling defiance at vast death,
This scrap of valor just for play
Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, As if to shame my weak behavior.
I greeted loud my little saviour:
“Thou pet! what dost here? and what for? In these woods, thy small Labrador,
At this pinch, wee San Salvador!
What fire burns in that little chest, So frolic, stout, and self-possest?
Didst steal the glow that lights the West? Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine:
Ashes and black all hues outshine. Why are not diamonds black and gray,
To ape thy dare-devil array?
And I affirm the spacious North
Exists to draw thy virtue forth.
I think no virtue goes with size:
The reason of all cowardice
Is, that men are overgrown,
And, to be valiant, must come down To the titmouse dimension.”
‘Tis good-will makes intelligence,
And I began to catch the sense
Of my bird’s song: “Live out of doors, In the great woods, and prairie floors. I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea, I, too, have a hole in a hollow tree.
And I like less when summer beats
With stifling beams on these retreats Than noontide twilights which snow makes With tempest of the blinding flakes:
For well the soul, if stout within, Can arm impregnably the skin;
And polar frost my frame defied,
Made of the air that blows outside.”
With glad remembrance of my debt,
I homeward turn. Farewell, my pet! When here again thy pilgrim comes,
He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs. Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant
O’er all that mass and minster vaunt: For men mishear thy call in spring,
As ‘twould accost some frivolous wing, Crying out of the hazel copse, “_Phe–be!_” And in winter, “_Chic-a-dee-dee!_”
I think old Caesar must have heard In Northern Gaul my dauntless bird,
And, echoed in some frosty wold,
Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold.
And I shall write our annals new,
And thank thee for a better clew:
I, who dreamed not, when I came here, To find the antidote of fear,
Now hear thee say in Roman key,
“_Paean! Ve-ni, Vi-di, Vi-ci._”
* * * * *
SALTPETRE AS A SOURCE OF POWER.
Every element of _strength_ in a civilized community demands special notice. The present material progress of nations brings us every day in contact with the application of power under various conditions, and the most thoughtless person is to some extent influenced mentally by the improvements, taking the places of older means and ways of adaptation, in the arts of life.
We travel by the aid of steam-power, and we think and speak of a locomotive or a steamboat as we once thought and spoke of a horse or a man; and no little feeling of self-sufficiency is engendered by the conclusion that this new source of power has been brought under control and put to work in our day.
It is also true that we do not always entertain the most correct view of what we term the new power of locomotive and steamboat; and as it may aid us in some further steps connected with the subject of my remarks, a familiar object, such as a steamboat, may be taken as illustrative of the application of power, and we may thus obtain some simple ideas of what power truly is, in Nature.
My travelled friend considers a steamboat as a ship propelled by wheels, the shaft to which they are attached being moved by the machinery. He follows back to the piston of the engine and finds the motor there,–satisfied that he has discovered in the transference of rectilinear to rotatory motion the reason for the progress of the boat. A more inquisitive friend does not rest here, but assumes that the power of the steam flowing through the machine sets in action its parts; and he rests from farther pursuit of the power, where the larger number of those who give any observation to the application of steam are found,–gratified with the knowledge accumulated, and the readiness with which an explanation of the motion of the boat can be traced to the power of steam as its source.
We must proceed a little farther on our backward course from the point where the power is applied, and in our analysis consider the steam as only the vehicle or carrier of the power; and examining the conditions, we find that water acted on by fire, while contained in a suitable vessel, after some time takes up certain properties which enable it to go forward and move the ponderous machinery of the boat. The water evidently here derives its new character of steam from the fire, and we have now reached the source of the _movement_ of steam, and traced it to the fire. In fact, we have found the source of power, in this most mechanical of all mechanical machines, to be removed from the department of knowledge which treats of machines!
But we need not pause here, although we must now enter a little way into chemical, instead of mechanical science. The fire prepares the water to act as a carrier of power; it must contain power, therefore; and what is it which we call fire? In placing on the grate coal or wood, and providing for the contact of a continuous current of air, we intend to bring about certain chemical actions as consequent on a disposition which we know coal and wood to possess. When we apply fire, the chemical actions commence and the usual effects follow. Now, if we for a moment dismiss the consideration of the means adopted, it becomes apparent to every one, that, as the fire will continue to increase with successive additions of fuel, or as it will continue indefinitely with a regular supply, there must be something else than mere motor action here. We cannot call it chemical action, and dismiss the thought, and neglect further inquiry, unless we would place ourselves with those who regard the movement of the steamboat as being due to the machinery.
Our farther progress in this analysis will soon open a wide field of knowledge and inquiry; but it is sufficient for our present purpose, if, by a careful study of the composition and chemical disposition of the proximate compounds of the coal and the wood fuel, we arrive at the conclusion that both are the result of forces which, very slight in themselves at any moment, yet when acting through long periods of time become laid up in the form of coal and wood. All that effort which the tree has exhibited during its growth from the germ of the seed to its state of maturity, when taken as fuel, is pent up in its substance, ready, when fire is applied, to escape slowly and continuously. In the case of the coal, after the growth of the plant from which it was formed, the material underwent changes which enabled it to conserve more forces, and to exhibit more energy when fire is applied to its mass; and hence the distinction between wood and coal.
Our analysis thus far has developed the source of the power moving the steamboat as existing in the gradual action of forces influencing vegetation, concentrated and locked up in the fuel. For the purpose of illustrating the subject of this essay, we require no farther progress in this direction. A moment of thought at this point and we shall cease to consider steam-power as _new_; for, long before man appeared on this earth, the vegetation was collecting and condensing those ordinary natural powers which we find in fuel. In our time, too, the rains and dews, heat, motion, and gaseous food, are being stored up in a wondrous manner, to serve as elements of power which may be used and applied now or hereafter.
In this view, too, we may include the winds, the falling of rain, the ascent and descent of sap, the condensation of gases,–in short, the natural powers, exerted before,–as the cause of motion in the steamboat.
Passing from these considerations not unconnected with the subject, let us inquire what saltpetre is, and how it is formed.
The term Saltpetre is applied to a variety of bodies, distinguished, however, by their bases, as potash saltpetre, soda saltpetre, lime saltpetre, etc., which occur naturally. They are all compounds of nitric acid and bases, or the gases nitrogen and oxygen united to bases, and are found in all soils which have not been recently washed by rains, and which are protected from excessive moisture.
The decomposition of animal and of some vegetable bodies in the soil causes the production of one constituent of saltpetre, while the earth and the animal remains supply the other. Evaporation of pure water from the surface of the earth causes the moisture which rises from below to bring to the surface the salt dissolved in it; and as this salt is not volatile, the escape of the moisture leaves it at or near the surface. Hence, under buildings, especially habitations of men and animals, the salt accumulates, and in times of scarcity it may be collected. In all cases of its extraction from the earth several kinds of saltpetre are obtained, and the usual course is to decompose these by the addition of salts of potash, so as to form from them potash saltpetre, the kind most generally consumed.
In this decomposition of animal remains and the formation of saltpetre the air performs an important part, and the changes it effects are worthy of our attention.
Let us consider the aerial ocean surrounding our earth and resting upon it, greatly larger in mass and extent than the more familiar aqueous ocean below it, and more closely and momentarily affecting our well-being.
The pure air, consisting of 20.96 volumes of oxygen gas and 79.04 volumes of nitrogen gas, preserves, under all the variations of climate and height above the surface of the earth, a remarkable constancy of composition,–the variation of one one-hundredth part never having been observed. But additions and subtractions are being constantly made, and the atmosphere, as distinguished from the pure air, is mixed with exhalations from countless sources on the land and the sea. Wherever man moves, his fire, his food, the materials of his dwellings, the soil he disturbs, all add their volatile parts to the atmosphere. Vegetation, death, and decay pour into it copiously substances foreign to the composition of pure air. The combustion of one ton of coal adds at least sixteen tons of impurity to the atmosphere; and when we estimate on the daily consumption of coal the addition from this source alone, the amount becomes enormous.
Experiments have been made for the purpose of estimating these additions, and the results of those most carefully conducted show how very slightly the combined causes affect the general composition of our atmosphere; and although the present refined methods of chemists enable them to detect the presence of an abnormal amount of some substances, no research has yet been successful in determining how far this varies from the natural quantity at all times necessarily present in the atmosphere.
It is, however, the comparatively minute portions of nitrogenous matter in the atmosphere that we are to consider as the source of the nitrous acids formed there, and of part of that found in the earth. From some experiments made during the day and night it has been found, that, under the most favorable circumstances, six millions six hundred and seventy