The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858

"Oh, James, I am sorry that you only go to meeting for the sake of seeing me; you feel no real interest in religious things; and besides, mother thinks now I'm grown so old, that–Why, you know things are different now,—at least, we mustn't, you know, always do as we did when we were children. But I wish you did feel more interested in good things."

"I am interested in one or two good things, Mary,—principally in you, who are the beat I know of. Besides," he said quickly, and scanning her face attentively to see the effect of his words, "don't you think there is more merit in my sitting out all these meetings, when they bore me so confoundedly, than there is in your and Aunt Katy's doing it, who really seem to find something to like in them? I believe you have a sixth sense, quite unknown to me; for it's all a maze,—I can't find top, nor bottom, nor side, nor up, nor down to it,—it's you can and you can't, you shall and you sha'n't, you will and you won't,"–

"James!"

"You needn't look at me so. I'm not going to say the rest of it. But, seriously, it's all anywhere and nowhere to me; it don't touch me, it don't help me, and I think it rather makes me worse; and then they tell me it's because I'm a natural man, and the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit. Well, I am a natural man,—how's a fellow to help it?"

"Well, James, why need you talk everywhere as you do? You joke, and jest, and trifle, till it seems to everybody that you don't believe in anything. I'm afraid mother thinks you are an infidel, but I know that can't be; yet we hear of all sorts of things that you say."

"I suppose you mean my telling Deacon Twitchel that I had seen as good Christians among the Mahometans as any in Newport. Didn't I make him open his eyes? It's true, too!"

"In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him," said Mary; "and if there are better Christians than us among the Mahometans, I am sure I'm glad of it. But, after all, the great question is, 'Are we Christians ourselves?' Oh, James, if you only were a real, true, noble Christian!"

"Well, Mary, you have got into that harbor, through all the sandbars and rocks and crooked channels; and now do you think it right to leave a fellow beating about outside, and not go out to help him in? This way of drawing up, among you good people, and leaving us sinners to ourselves, isn't generous. You might care a little for the soul of an old friend, anyhow!"

"And don't I care, James? How many days and nights have been one prayer for you! If I could take my hopes of heaven out of my own heart and give them to you, I would. Dr. H. preached last Sunday on the text, 'I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen'; and he went on to show how we must be willing to give up even our own salvation, if necessary, for the good of others. People said it was hard doctrine, but I could feel my way through it very well. Yes, I would give my soul for yours; I wish I could."

There was a solemnity and pathos in Mary's manner which checked the conversation. James was the more touched because he felt it all so real, from one whose words were always yea and nay, so true, so inflexibly simple. Her eyes filled with tears, her face kindled with a sad earnestness, and James thought, as he looked, of a picture he had once seen in a European cathedral, where the youthful Mother of Sorrows is represented,

"Radiant and grave, as pitying man's decline;All youth, but with an aspect beyond time;Mournful, but mournful of another's crime;She looked as if she sat by Ellen's door,And grieved for those who should return no more."

James had thought he loved Mary; he had admired her remarkable beauty, he had been proud of a certain right in her before that of other young men, her associates; he had thought of her as the keeper of his home; he had wished to appropriate her wholly to himself;—but in all this there had been, after all, only the thought of what she was to be to him; and this, for this poor measure of what he called love, she was ready to offer, an infinite sacrifice.

As a subtile flash of lightning will show in a moment a whole landscape, tower, town, winding stream, and distant sea, so that one subtile ray of feeling seemed in a moment to reveal to James the whole of his past life; and it seemed to him so poor, so meagre, so shallow, by the side of that childlike woman, to whom the noblest of feelings were unconscious matters of course, that a sort of awe awoke in him; like the Apostles of old, he "feared as he entered into the cloud"; it seemed as if the deepest string of some eternal sorrow had vibrated between them.

After a moment's pause, he spoke in a low and altered voice:—

"Mary, I am a sinner. No psalm or sermon ever taught it to me, but I see it now. Your mother is quite right, Mary; you are too good for me; I am no mate for you. Oh, what would you think of me, if you knew me wholly? I have lived a mean, miserable, shallow, unworthy life. You are worthy, you are a saint, and walk in white! Oh, what upon earth could ever make you care so much for me?"

"Well, then, James, you will be good? Won't you talk with Dr. H.?"

"Hang Dr. H.!" said James. "Now, Mary, I beg your pardon, but I can't make head or tail of a word Dr. H. says. I don't get hold of it, or know what he would be at. You girls and women don't know your power. Why, Mary, you are a living gospel. You have always had a strange power over us boys. You never talked religion much, but I have seen high fellows come away from being with you as still and quite as one feels when one goes into a church. I can't understand all the hang of predestination, and moral ability, and natural ability, and God's efficiency, and man's agency, which Dr. H. is so engaged about; but I can understand you, you can do me good!"

"Oh, James, can I?"

"Mary, I'm going to confess my sins. I saw, that, somehow or other, the wind was against me in Aunt Katy's quarter, and you know we fellows who take up the world in both fists don't like to be beat. If there's opposition, it sets us on. Now I confess I never did care much about religion, but I thought, without being really a hypocrite, I'd just let you try to save my soul for the sake of getting you; for there's nothing surer to hook a woman than trying to save a fellow's soul. It's a dead-shot, generally, that. Now our ship sails to-night, and I thought I'd just come across this path in the orchard to speak to you. You know I used always to bring you peaches and juneatings across this way, and once I brought you a ribbon."

"Yes, I've got it yet, James."

"Well, now, Mary, all this seems mean to me, mean, to try and trick and snare you, who are so much too good for me. I felt very proud this morning that I was to go out first mate this time, and that I should command a ship next voyage. I meant to have asked you for a promise, but I don't. Only, Mary, just give me your little Bible, and I'll promise to read it all through soberly, and see what it all comes to. And pray for me; and if, while I'm gone, a good man comes who loves you, and is worthy of you, why, take him, Mary,—that's my advice."

"James, I am not thinking of any such things; I don't ever mean to be married. And I'm glad you don't ask me for any promise,—because it would be wrong to give it; mother don't even like me to be much with you. But I'm sure all I have said to you to-day is right; I shall tell her exactly all I have said."

"If Aunt Katy knew what things we fellows are pitched into, who take the world headforemost, she wouldn't be so selfish. Mary, you girls and women don't know the world you live in; you ought to be pure and good: you are not as we are. You don't know what men, what women—no, they're not women!—what creatures, beset us in every foreign port, and boarding-houses that are gates of hell; and then, if a fellow comes back from all this and don't walk exactly straight, you just draw up the hems of your garments and stand close to the wall, for fear he should touch you when he passes. I don't mean you, Mary, for you are different from most; but if you would do what you could, you might save us. But it's no use talking, Mary. Give me the Bible; and please be kind to my dove,—for I had a hard time getting him across the water, and I don't want him to die."

If Mary had spoken all that welled up in her little heart at that moment, she might have said too much; but duty had its habitual seal upon her lips. She took the little Bible from her table and gave it with a trembling hand, and James turned to go. In a moment he turned back, and stood irresolute.

"Mary," he said, "we are cousins; I may never come back; you might kiss me this once."

The kiss was given and received in silence, and James disappeared among the thick trees.

"Come, child," said Aunt Katy, looking in, "there is Deacon Twitchel's chaise in sight,—are you ready?"

"Yes, mother."

[To be continued.]

THE AUTOCRAT GIVES A BREAKFAST TO THE PUBLIC

Before my friend the Professor takes his place at our old table, where, Providence permitting, he means to wish you all a happy New Year on or about the First of January next, I wish you to do me the favor of being my guests at the table which you see spread before you.

This table is a very long one. Legs in every Atlantic and inland city,—legs in California and Oregon,—legs on the shores of 'Quoddy and of Lake Pontchartrain,—legs everywhere, like a millipede or a banian-tree.

The schoolmistress that was,—and is,—(there are her little scholars at the side-table.)—shall pour out coffee or tea for you as you like.

Sit down and make yourselves comfortable.—A teaspoon, my dear, for Minnesota.—Sacramento's cup is out.

Bridget has become a thought, and serves us a great deal faster than the sticky lightning of the submarine par vagum, as the Professor calls it.—Pepper for Kansas, Bridget.—A sandwich for Cincinnati.—Rolls and sardines for Washington.—A bit of the Cape Ann turkey for Boston.—South Carolina prefers dark meat.—Fifty thousand glasses of eau sucrée at once, and the rest simultaneously.—Now give us the nude mahogany, that we may talk over it.—Bridget becomes as a mighty wind and peels off the immeasurable table-cloth as a northwester strips off the leafy damask from the autumn woods.

[At this point of the entertainment the Reporter of the "Oceanic Miscellany" was introduced, and to his fluent and indefatigable pen we owe the further account of the proceedings.—Editors of the "Oceanic Miscellany."]

–The liberal and untiring editors of the "Oceanic Miscellany" commissioned their special reporter to be present at the Great Breakfast given by the personage known as the Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, furnishing him with one of the caput-mortuum tickets usually distributed on such occasions.

The tables groaned with the delicacies of the season, provided by the distinguished caterers whose names are familiar in our mouths as household words. After the usual contest for places,—a proceeding more honored in the breach than the observance,—the band discoursed sweet music. The creature comforts were then discussed, consisting of the various luxuries that flesh is heir to, together with fish and fowl, too numerous to mention. After the material banquet had cloyed the hungry edge of appetite, began the feast of reason and the flow of soul. As, take him for all in all, the bright particular star of the evening was the distinguished individual who played the part of mine host, we shall make no apology for confining our report to the

SPEECH OF THE AUTOCRAT

I think on the whole we have had a good time together, since we became acquainted. So many pleasant looks and words as have passed between us must mean something. For one person who speaks well or ill of us we may safely take it for granted that there are ten or a hundred, or an indefinite number, who feel in the same way, but are shy of talking.

Now the first effect of being kindly received is unquestionably a pleasing internal commotion, out of which arises a not less pleasing secondary sensation, which the unthinking vulgar call conceit, but which is in reality an increased consciousness of life, and a most important part of the mechanism by which a man is advertised of his ability to serve his fellows, and stirred up to use it.

In the present instance, the immediate effects of the warm general welcome received were the following demonstrations:—

1. The purchase of a glossy bell-crowned hat, which is worn a little inclined to one side, at the angle of self-reliance,—this being a very slight dip, as compared to the outrageous slant of country dandies and the insolent obliquity indulged in by a few unpleasantly conspicuous city-youth, who prove that "it takes three generations to make a gentleman."

2. A movement towards the acquisition of a pair of pantaloons with a stripe running down the leg; also of a slender canary-colored cane, to be carried as formerly in the time when Mr. Van Buren was President.—[A mild veto from the schoolmistress was interposed.]

3. A manifest increase of that monstraridigitativeness,—if you will permit the term,—which is so remarkable in literary men, that, if public opinion allowed it, some of them would like to wear a smart uniform, with an author's button, so that they might be known and hailed everywhere.

4. An undeniable aggravation of the natural tendency to caress and cosset such products of the writer's literary industry as have met with special favor. This is shown by a willingness to repeat any given stanza, a line of which is referred to, and a readiness to listen to even exaggerated eulogy with a twinkling stillness of feature and inclination of the titillated ear to the operator, such as the Mexican Peccary is said to show when its dorsal surface is gently and continuously irritated with the pointed extremity of a reed or of a magnolia-branch. What other people think well of, we certainly have a right to like, ourselves.

All this self-exaltation, which some folks make so much scandal of, is the most natural thing in the world when one gets an over-dose of fair words. The more I reflect upon it, the more I am convinced that it is well for a man to think too highly of himself while he is in the working state. Sydney Smith could discover no relation between Modesty and Merit, excepting that they both began with an M. Considered simply as a machine out of which work is to be got, the wheels of intellect run best when they are kept well oiled by the public and the publisher.

Therefore, my friends, if any of you have uttered words of kindness, of flattery, of extreme over-praise, even, let me thank you for it. Criticism with praise in it is azotized food; it makes muscle; to expect a man to write without it is like giving nothing but hay to a roadster and expecting to get ten miles an hour out of him. A young fellow cannot be asked to go on making love forever, if he does not get a smile now and then to keep hope alive. The truth is, Bridget would have whisked off the table-cloth and given notice of quitting, and the whole establishment would have gone to pieces at the end of No. 1, if you had not looked so very good-natured about it that it was impossible to give up such amiable acquaintance.

The above acknowledgments and personal revelations are preliminary to the following more general statement, which will show how they must be qualified.

Every man of sense has two ways of looking at himself. The first is an everyday working view, in which he makes the most of his gifts and accomplishments. It is the superficial stratum in which praise and blame find their sphere of action,—the region of comparisons,—the habitat where envy and jealousy are to be looked for, if they have not been weeded out and flung into the compost-heap of dead vices, with which, if we understand moral husbandry, we fertilize our living virtues. It is quite foolish to abuse this thin upper layer of our mental soil. The grasses do not strike their roots deep in towards the centre, like the oaks, but they are the more useful and necessary vegetable of the two. The cheap, but perpetual activities of life grow out of this upper stratum of our being. How silly to try to be wiser than Providence! Don't tell me about the vain illusions of self-love. There is nothing so real in this world as Illusion. All other things may desert a man, but this fair angel never leaves him. She holds a star a billion miles over a baby's head, and laughs to see him clawing and batting himself as he tries to reach it. She glides before the hoary sinner down the path which leads to the inexorable gate, jingling the keys of heaven at her girdle.

Underneath this surface-soil lies another stratum of thought, where the tap-roots of the larger mental growths penetrate and find their nourishment. Out of this comes heroism in all its shapes; here the enterprises that overshadow half the planet, when full grown, lie, tender, in their cotyledons. Here there is neither praise nor blame, nothing but a passionless self-estimate, quite as willing to undervalue as to rate too highly. The less clay and straw the task-master has given his servant, the smaller the tale of bricks he will be required to furnish. Many a man not remarkable for conceit has shuddered as some effort or accident has revealed to him a depth of power of which he never thought himself the possessor and broken his peace with the fatal words, "Sleep no more!"

This deeper self-appreciation is a slow and gradual process. At first, a child thinks he can do everything. I remember when I thought I could lift a house, if I would only try hard enough. So I began with the hind wheel of a heavy old family-coach, built like that in which my Lady Bountiful carried little King Pippin, if you happen to remember the illustrations of that story. I lifted with all my might, and the planet pulled down with all its might. The planet beat. After that, my ideas of the difference between my will and my muscular force were more accurately defined. Then came the illusion, that I could, of course, "lick," "serve out," or "polish off," various small boys who had been or might be obnoxious to me. The event of the different "set-tos" to which, this hypothesis led not uniformly confirming it, another limitation of my possibilities was the consequence. In this way I groped along into a knowledge of my physical relations to the organic and inorganic universe.

A man must be very stupid indeed, if, by the time he is fully ripened, he does not know tolerably well what his physical powers are. His weight, his height, his general development, his constitutional force, his good or ill looks, he has had time to find out; and he is a fool, if he does not carry a reasonable consciousness of these conditions with him always. It is a little harder with the mind; but some qualities are generally estimated fairly enough by their owners. Thus, a man may be trusted when he says he has a good or a bad memory. Not so of his opinion of his own judgment or imagination. It is only by a very slow process that he finds out how much or how little of those qualities he possesses. But it is one of the blessed privileges of growing older, that we come to have a much clearer sense of what we can do and what we cannot, and settle down to our work quietly, knowing what our tools are and what we have to do with them.

Therefore, my friends, if I should at any time put on any airs on the strength of your good-natured treatment, please to remember that these are only the growth of that thin upper stratum of character I was telling you of. I conceive that the fact of a man's coming out in a book or two, even supposing them to have a success such as I should never think of, is to the sum total of that man's life and character as the bed of tulips and hyacinths you may see in spring, at the feet of the "Great Elm," on our Boston Common, is to the solemn old tree itself. The serene, strong life, reaching deep underground and high overhead, robed itself in April and disrobed itself in October when the Common was a cow-pasture, and observes the same seasons now that the old tree is belted with an iron girdle and finds its feet covered with flowers. Alas! my friends, the fence and the tulips are painfully suggestive. Authorship is an iron girdle, and the blossoms of flattery that are scattered at its feet are useful to it only as their culture keeps the soil open to the sun and rain. No man can please the reading public ever so little without being too highly commended for it in the heat of the moment; and so, if he thinks of starting again for the prize of public approbation, he finds himself heavily handicapped, and perhaps weighted down, simply because he has made good running for some former stakes.

I don't like the position of my friend the Professor. I consider him fully as good a man as myself.—I have, you know, often referred to him and quoted him, and sometimes got so mixed up with him, that, like the Schildbürgers at their town-meeting, I was puzzled to disentangle my own legs from his, when I wanted to stand up by myself, they were got into such a snarl together.—But I don't like the position of my friend the Professor.

The first thing, of course, when he opens his mouth, will be to compare him with his predecessor. Now, if he has the least tact in the world, he will begin dull, so as to leave a wide margin for improvement. You may be perfectly certain that he can talk and write just as well as I can; but you don't think, surely, that he is going to begin where I left off. Not unless we are to have a wedding in the first number;—and you are not sure whether or not there is to be any wedding at all while the Professor holds my seat at the table.

But I will tell you one thing,—if you sit a year or so at a long table, you will see what life is. Christenings, weddings, funerals,—these are the three legs it stands on; and you have a chance to see them all in a twelvemonth, if the table is really a long one. I don't doubt the Professor will have something to tell besides his opinions and fancies; and if you like a book of thoughts with occasional incidents, as well as a book of incidents with occasional thoughts, why, I see no reason why you should not accept this talk of the Professor's as kindly as if it had a fancy name and called itself a novel.

Life may be divided into two periods,—the hours of taking food, and the intervals between them,—or, technically, into the alimentary and the non-alimentary portions of existence. Now our social being is so intensified during the first of these periods, that whoso should write the history of a man's breakfasts or dinners or suppers would give a perfect picture of his most important social qualities, conditions, and actions, and might omit the non-alimentary portion of his life altogether from consideration. Thus I trust that the breakfasts of which you have had some records have given you a pretty clear idea, not only of myself, but of those more interesting friends and fellow-boarders of mine to whom I have introduced you, and with some of whom, in company with certain new acquaintances, my friend the Professor will keep you in relation during the following year. So you see that over the new table-cloth which is going to be spread there may very possibly be a new drama of life enacted; but all that, if it should be so, is incidental and by the way;—for what the Professor wishes particularly to do, and means to do, is to talk about life and men and things and books and thoughts; but if there should be anything better than talk occurring before his eyes, either at the small world of the breakfast-table or in the greater world without, he holds himself at liberty to relate it or discourse upon it.

I suppose the Professor will receive a good many letters, as I did, containing suggestions, counsel, and articles in prose and verse for publication. He desires me to state that he is very happy to hear from known and unknown friends, provided they will not mistake him for an editor, and will not be offended if their communications are not made the subject of individual notice. There may be times when, having nothing to say, he will be very glad to print somebody's note or copy of verses; I don't think it very likely; for life, is short, and the world is brimful, and rammed down hard, with strange things worth seeing and telling, and Mr. Worcester's great Quarto Dictionary is soon coming out, crammed with all manner of words to talk with,—so that the Professor will probably find little room, except for an answer to a question now and then, or the acknowledgment of some hint he may have thought worth taking.