The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863

The results of this census were very gratifying, and very unexpected. Such scanty means are there, ordinarily, of knowing the true condition of the country, that it was a prevailing impression that the population was decreasing. Had slavery continued, the present population would probably have been about 275,000. The difference of 165,000 in favor of freedom tells its own story. But the present necessities of the estates call for a more speedy augmentation of the laboring force than is furnished by natural increase alone.

I have omitted to mention in its proper place one gratifying sign that those minor industries which make so large a part of the prosperity of the wealthiest free communities, but which are neglected by the coarse labor of slaves, and have been particularly despised by the Jamaica planters, are now coming up in the island. Hitherto, sugar, rum, and coffee have been the all in all of prosperity to Jamaicans. But in 1838, the pimento export was 2,708,640 pounds; in 1858, 9,465,261 pounds. In 1838 the export of logwood was 8,432 cwt.; of fustic, 2,126 cwt.; of mahogany, 1,936 feet; of cocoanuts, 0; of honey, 0. In 1859, the export of logwood was 14,006 cwt.; of fustic, 2,329 cwt.; of mahogany, 35,000 feet; of cocoanuts, 712,913; of honey, 6,954 pounds. The ginger export has diminished from 1,834,120 pounds in 1841, to 709,620 pounds in 1858. This increase in the lesser articles of trade shows a brisker circulation in the capillaries of the social system, a sure token of reviving health. Indeed, before the writer left the island, that dreary uncertainty how affairs were turning, which prevailed for the first half of his stay, had given way to the returning cheerfulness arising from the feeling that Jamaica had touched bottom, and that henceforward, however slowly, her prospects were brightening. This cheerful feeling displays itself in a late report of Governor Darling to the Home Government, some paragraphs of which follow, quoted from Mr. Underhill's book, from which the writer has derived so large a part of the facts that he has had to take at second hand, and which he is glad again to commend as kindly, impartial, and full of carefully gathered and exactly appreciated information. His conjectural estimates of property, however, are exceptionable, as decidedly too high.

Governor Darling, himself a planter, says:

'The proportion of those who are settling themselves industriously on their holdings, and rapidly rising in the social scale, while commanding the respect of all classes of the community, and some of whom are, to a limited extent, themselves the employers of hired labor, paid for either in money or in kind, is, I am happy to think, not only steadily increasing, but at the present moment is far more extensive than was anticipated by those who are cognizant of all that took place in the colony in the earlier days of negro freedom.

'There can be no doubt, in fact, that an independent, respectable, and, I believe, trustworthy middle class is rapidly forming.... If the real object of emancipation was to place the freedman in such a position that he might work out his own advancement in the social scale, and prove his capacity for the full and rational enjoyment of personal independence, secured by constitutional liberty, Jamaica will afford more instances, even in proportion to its large population, of such gratifying results, than any land in which African slavery once existed.

'Jamaica, at this moment, presents, I believe, at once the strongest proof of the complete success of the great measure of emancipation, as relates to the capacity of the emancipated race for freedom, and the most unfortunate instance of a descent in the scale of agricultural and commercial importance as a colonial community.'

Governor Darling's words suggest the exact reason why Jamaica may be looked upon either as the most fortunate or the most unfortunate of the emancipated colonies. All depends upon the point of view. If the largest amount of individual well-being and the most favorable conditions of gaining independence and self-respect constitute a community fortunate, then Jamaica stands at the head of her island sisters. If immense wealth, centred in a few, constitutes a community fortunate, then Barbados is at the head. In Barbados the wealth of the planters is greater, in Jamaica the condition of the laborers is better. The late Mr. Sewell remarked to the writer that the common people in Jamaica had a more manly and self-respecting look than in any of the smaller islands which he had visited. It is much to be lamented that the divorce between the proprietary and the laboring interest was so complete in this island, and the consequent industrial anarchy so great. But even this was better than the depressed condition in which the peasantry of the smaller islands are kept by the hold that the planters have upon them. Manhood is a better crop than either sugar or coffee, and in the long run brings all other things with it. The article in the March number of the Atlantic Monthly for 1862, shows, in brief compass, what inestimable benefits have followed in the smaller islands from conferring the boon of personal freedom, even with so stringent a social dependence remaining. In Jamaica, freedom has been more complete, and the recoil of the social elements from each other more violent. The disaffection of the governing class has also been greater, and Freedom has been left to take care of herself.11 But though thwarted and frowned upon, she is at the last justified of her children. Mr. Sewell has most happily hit the whole truth in a few lines: 'The crop' (of freedom), he says, 'appears in patches, even as it was sown, forcing itself here and there through the ruins of the fabric which disfigures still the political complexion of the island, and sorely cramps the energies of its people.' Governor Darling's words show how rapidly the crop, thus negligently sown, is forcing itself into prosperous and prevailing growth.

ABIJAH WITHERPEE'S RETREAT

For many years Abijah Witherpee had kept, in East Hampton, the largest country store for miles around, and by more than ordinary shrewdness had accumulated a snug little fortune, and with it the reputation among the country folk of being an immensely rich man. It is no trifle, as every one knows, in a small village, to be accounted its richest man, but that was the least of Abijah's honors. It appears by record that Abijah maintained the responsible—and, since Squire Adams has been gathered to his fathers, the solitary—dignity of justice of the peace in and for the county of which East Hampton formed a highly respectable portion. It was not the mere flourish of 'Esq.' at the end of the great man's name—it was the essence of the great man himself. It found him, as he was proud to think, an ordinary, commonplace individual. The good people of East Hampton saw what it had made him, and trembled. And well they might, where justice herself, in the person of the magistrate, stood in awe of her own responsibility and power.

We have been told that, at the outset of Squire Witherpee's administration, he held his breath at the thought of venturing upon judicial grounds with much the same uneasiness that the tyro in science exhibits in some new and hazardous experiment. The honors of office had grown scarcely a week old upon him, when opportunity offered for a full display of the 'feeling and perspiration' (to borrow the words of our informant) 'with which he dispensed justice at the lowest cash price.'

It was bright and early one winter morning that two tall, raw old farmers drove up to the 'West India Goods and General Emporium' establishment, and emerging from an avalanche of buffalo robes, made good their way into the back part of the store, where the customary knot of hangers-on was gathered around the stove, to drag through the day, doing nothing and talking politics. A single look convinced the proprietor that he was wanted 'professionally;' he was informed that they wished to have a deed executed. With great presence of mind, Abijah concealed every symptom of growing palpitation, and led the way out of the store into the kitchen of his house near by, where Mrs. Witherpee was busy ironing, and several little Witherpees at 'sixes and sevens' about the floor.

Like all justices, he thought it of prime importance to be assured that the instrument had been drawn up in proper shape, though he consumed about five times the time ordinarily devoted to such preliminaries. His protracted scrutiny would have alarmed the parties in waiting, less gifted as they were in the mysteries of legal lore, had it not been for a generous approval that he gave at intervals, of 'Wells' and 'Ahems', in a tone that was intended to let them know he was doing them a special favor to think so well of what they had submitted.

'Well, my friends,' he remarked, laying down the sacred document, 'it seems that at this stage of proceedings, the statute requires that—' and then a pause which was solemn enough.

''Squire, hadn't I ought to sign that 'ar now?' timidly suggested one of the party. The 'Squire was taking a hasty run over the pages of the 'Town Justice' for instruction in such emergencies, but finding none, he kept on at a venture, and replied with native dignity: 'I decide you'd ought to.'

While the 'grantor' was 'putting his hand and seal' to the deed, in the largest-sized penmanship that can conveniently be displayed on half a foot of paper with all the advantages of a slant up hill, the magistrate had arrived at the place desired, and was now 'in his element.' Kindly, and yet with no lack of firmness, he is said to have turned to Mrs. Witherpee and observed:

'Wife, I think you'd better go into the next room and take the children with you!'

After this fraction of the family had been removed to a place of safety, the prudent husband and father continued:

'Hold up your hands! You severally and solemnly swear that this is all right, true, and legal, according to the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, and the laws and regulations of the State of–. So help you God, gentlemen, and me, Abijah Witherpee, Justice of the Peace, fee two shillings.' There is reason to believe that both parties experienced a sense of relief when the crisis was over, and the requirements of the law had been satisfied.

Rich and varied as Abijah's legal experiences may have been, it was not on their account that he has been introduced, but rather for the contemplation of his 'fine points' as a citizen. He was never classed among those men who exaggerate to the assessors the value of their worldly possessions; in fact, it was always difficult to discover where 'what little money he had' was invested. There was one piece of property, however, of which he not only acknowledged himself the owner, but publicly declared he never would dispose of, a threat that seemed harmless enough, there not being the slightest possibility that any one else would be willing to hold such a miserable waste on any pretext whatever:—a half acre down by the railroad, slabsided, full of gnarled stumps and brake, and about equally distributed into rock, black mud, and water. Had the original trees been standing, it must have approached quite as near the correct type of the 'howling wilderness,' the horrida inculta, as could be exhibited this side of 'Turkey Buzzard's Land, Arkansas.' Few strangers were suffered to pass by the locality in company with any of the East Hampton folk, without having their attention directed to 'Abijah Witherpee's Retreat;' and the opinion was apt to be freely ventured that at some period of his life, that gentleman had come into what is popularly termed 'a tight fix.'

The place had originally belonged to nobody in particular, and one day fell into the hands of a Mr. Jones, at a merely nominal price, in connection with a large tract through which it was thought the railroad, then contemplated, would be likely to run. The railroad changed its mind, as all railroads do, and Mr. Jones's speculation was not so profitable as he had anticipated. It happened that among his friends was a wild, freakish fellow, Charley Davis, who undertook to be on the best of terms with everybody, and had succeeded admirably, with the exception of Justice Witherpee, who, he swore, had swindled him outrageously in a business transaction they had together in getting out lumber. What made it all the worse, the aggrieved party used to say, was the shameful manner in which the 'old reprobate' would publicly boast of it.

'I say, Jones,' exclaimed the Major (as he was called) one day as he sat smoothing off a new ramrod for his fowling piece, 'what would you say to a chance of getting that old stick-in-the-mud, Witherpee, on the hip? I rather flatter myself that I can do it.'

'Go ahead, my son,' said Jones, pleasantly, by way of encouragement.

'You own that infernal piece of swamp down by the railroad crossing, don't you? That air's a valuable piece of real estate!'

'Well, yes. It's never been spoilt by too much cultivation that I know of.'

'I reckon I can just get a heap of money for that air; and what's more, I can have the satisfaction of selling it to a gentleman who can appreciate it.'

'It does you credit, Major. That's what I call a genuine love of nature. It ain't every man that sees the beauties of a first-class rural retreat like that,' and the speaker's countenance was radiant with benignity—whether at the high-toned sentiment of his friend, or at the prospect of getting the better of the 'Squire, it was difficult to determine. He thought it well, however, to add: 'But I'd advise you to be mighty careful if you're calc'lating to run a saw on old 'Bijh. What's your programme?'

'You see this here interesting and valuable collection of gold dust,' said the Major, producing a vial which contained particles of the ore in unusual abundance, and flourishing it in his hand in a manner intensely theatrical. 'Belonging to a friend of mine, he donates it for this occasion only, so to speak. It will appear, of course, to have been dug out of a piece of ground belonging to that highly respectable and public spirited citizen, Mr. G. G. Jones. With a cupidity not at all to be wondered at, I shall attempt to keep the matter secret and immediately to make a purchase. I shall apply to Witherpee, as a man of wealth, to advance me part of the funds, or get him, rather, to act as my agent in buying it, because you, Jones, a friend of mine, would suspect me of being up to something if I should offer to buy it myself. D'ye see the bait, now? Catch him playing off!'

As further conversation was modulated to an undertone, and accompanied with a complete signal code of nods and chuckles, it is fair to presume that Mr. J. did see the bait—and was sure of a good nibble too.

No time was lost before the speculator and his victim had their knees under the same table—with a mug of hard cider between them. Mingled suspicion and avarice in Abijah's expression argued well for the success of the scheme. As is often the case, his love of money was only surpassed by the credulity with which he gave ear to new plans for satisfying it. He was slow to trust Davis, because they had not been the best of friends, but the Major played his cards so well that the old fellow did not waver long:

'All you will have to do is to hand it right over to me, you know, and take your commission money. You see just as well as I do that it wouldn't do no how for me to undertake it on my own hook.'

And the 'Squire said, 'Yes, certainly,' but couldn't see it distinctly either, and after they had fixed upon the maximum price, and the 'Squire had feasted his eyes once more on the 'real glitter,' and Charley had explained for the twenty-first time that the divining rod had demonstrated the singular fact that not a bit of ground outside that particular lot was worth a red cent to prospect on, and the 'Squire had once for all swallowed the whole story, and declared it the most remarkable thing he ever heard of, he consented to act as agent in the purchase.

For some unaccountable reason, Abijah Witherpee found Mr. Jones not at all in the humor for a bargain. The land wasn't worth much, he knew, and it was very handsome in the 'Squire to offer fifty dollars for it, but the fact was that his feelings somehow prompted him to keep it: it was a silly idea, perhaps, but he had always thought, ever since he had owned the land, that some day it would be worth gold to him.

'Gracious goodness!' thought Abijah; 'Jones swore that it was a secret that only he and the diviner knew. Could this man have felt it out by animal magnetism, or anything of that sort?' But his mind was at ease again when he was assured by further conversation that the owner was entirely ignorant of the momentous truth. The 'Squire's offers were tempting, and, from byplay and bantering, at last amounted to what appeared a perfectly fabulous sum. The upshot of the matter was that the coolheaded Jones got rid of the wretched little lot for $490 cash. The purchaser was now quite sure that he was the shrewdest fellow in that part of the country.

Just as had been anticipated, the agent's next move was to lay claim to the auriferous region himself, and refuse to turn it over to the lawful owner. The Major exhibited a proper degree of anxiety to learn the results of the interview, and appeared well enough satisfied with the price—high as it was.

He was deaf to every proposition of the 'Squire, who was ready almost to double on the purchase money; till at last the latter declared point blank that he meant to stick to the property himself; that the agreement was verbal merely, and he would have ownership in writing, in spite of what Major Davis or anybody else could do. It was in vain that the Major protested and threatened prosecution for swindling, and called witnesses to the transaction. Before sunset, Witherpee was the sole and indisputable proprietor of the newly discovered El Dorado.

It is hardly worth while to state how so extraordinary a financier succeeded when he came to actual prospecting. It was currently reported that there was 'some pretty tall digging going on down in that swamp lot.' It required a lengthy series of geological arguments, with practical illustrations, to convince 'Squire Witherpee that the soil of East Hampton was somewhat feeble in the production of the precious metals—except, perhaps, in a metaphorical sense.

When he talked of 'taking the law on those rascals,' he found after all that the best thing he could do was not to move in the matter at all. Mr. Jones and his friend were no rascals, and took pleasure in contributing every cent of the money to the town fund for supporting the poor. Abijah Witherpee was since known to have acknowledged that though rather hard, it was no more than he had deserved, and the change that was wrought in his dealings gained him from that time no more faithful friends than the confederates, Jones and the Major.

REASON, RYHME, AND RYTHM

CHAPTER III.—THE INFINITE

The Divine Attributes are the base of all true Art

No work of art can be considered truly beautiful unless it recalls or reproduces, even in its finite form, some of the divine attributes; not that the work must treat of them, or consciously suggest them to the intellect, but that they must enter into the creation of the artist, that the immediate and intuitive perception of beauty, always attached to their manifestation, may appeal to those faculties or instincts which ever answer in delight when these attributes are suggested to the human spirit; for, consciously or unconsciously, the soul yearns for a clearer view of the beauty of God.

Whatever good there may be desirable by man, more especially good belonging to his moral nature, there will be a corresponding agreeableness in whatever external object reminds him of such good, whether it remind him by arbitrary association, by typical resemblance, or by awakening intuitions of the divine attributes, which he was created to glorify and to enjoy eternally. Leibnitz says:

'The perfections of God are those of our own souls, but He possesses them without limit; He is the exhaustless ocean from which we have received but a drop; we have some power, some wisdom, some love; but God is all power, all wisdom, all love. Order, unity, proportion, harmony, enchant us; painting, sculpture, music, poetry, charm us in the degree in which, in their appropriate spheres, they have succeeded in manifesting fragments of the above: but God is all order, all proportion, all unity, all harmony; and all beauty visible here is but a dim reflex of the eternal rays.'

The fact of our deriving constant pleasure from whatever is a type or semblance of the divine attributes, and from nothing enduringly but that which is, is the most ennobling of all that can be said of human nature, not only setting a great gulf of specific separation between us and the brutes that perish, but it seems a promise of a communion ultimately deep, close, and conscious with the Being in whose darkened manifestations we here unconsciously and instinctively delight. It is at least probable that the higher the order of intelligences, the more of the divine image becomes palpable in all around them, and the redeemed spirits and angels may have perceptions as much more full and rapturous than ours, as ours than those of the beasts and creeping things. It may be received almost as an axiom that no natural instinct or desire can be entirely frustrated, and as these desires for the beautiful are so unfailing that they have not escaped the thinkers of any age, but were held divine of old, and even in heathen countries, it must be admitted that in these visionary pleasures, lightly as we may now be disposed to regard them, there are causes of gratitude, grounds of hope, anchors of faith, more than in all the manifold material gifts with which God mercifully crowns the years and hedges the path of men.

We turn to Plato to show how clearly such ideas were held by the thinkers of antiquity:

'Eternal beauty, not created, not made; exempt from increase or decay; not beautiful in one part and deformed in another, beautiful in such a time, such a place, such a relation; not beauty which hath any sensible parts or anything corporeal, or which may be found comprised in any one thought or science, or residing in any creation different from itself, as in an animal, the earth, or the heavens;—but absolute beauty, identical and invariable in itself; beauty in which, would they please the spirit of men, other things must participate, but their creation or destruction brings IT neither diminution, increase, nor the slightest change.'

Plotinus writes in the same spirit:

'Let him who has closed his eyes upon mere sensuous beauty, advance boldly into the depths of the sanctuary. Let him reverently gaze upon the true beauty, the original type of those pale and fleeting images to which he may have hitherto applied the holy name of beautiful.'

We propose to consider reverently and with a humble sense of the limited sphere from which we must regard the infinite, some of the divine attributes, which must, in the finite mode, enter into every creation of artistic excellence. We begin our reflections with the infinite itself.

Infinite—this word is by no means the expression of a clear idea: it is merely the expression of an effort to attain one. It stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception. Man needed a term by which to point out the direction of this effort—the cloud behind which lay, forever invisible, the object of this attempt. The fact is, that upon the enunciation of any one of that class of terms to which 'infinite' belongs—the class representing thoughts of thought—he who has a right to say he thinks at all, feels himself called upon, not to entertain a conception, but simply to direct his mental vision toward some given point, in the intellectual firmament, where lies a nebula never to be resolved. And yet to this very point, which the intellect cannot define, are our spirits forever tending. No artistic creation ever fully pleases unless there is given in it some suggestion of this mystic attribute, underlying and permeating all other attributes of Deity. It is the dim unconscious feeling after this attribute which causes the forever recurring dissatisfaction with the finite, which so ruthlessly pursues us through life. It is the source of that vague but tender longing, that restless but dreamy yearning, that haunting melancholy, which characterize human souls created for the enjoyment of the infinite; divining and insatiably thirsting for the absolute.