The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863

Mary.

P.S. Try to send me, too, something from France, not because I'm afraid I shall forget you, but I want something from you to carry always about me. Kiss what you send me. I know I shall find at once where you kissed it.

When the colonel finished reading the letter, Piter said:

'Arnold gave me this letter last night when I received my billet paper. For my life's sake I could not sleep; I lay awake all night long, thinking of home and of Mary. She asked for something from France. I had no money. I drew three months' advance last week to send home to my brother and my cousin. This morning, when I got up to go, I opened my window. A blue handkerchief was hanging on a clothes line; it looked like Mary's; it was the same color, the same white lines; I was so weak as to take it, and put it in my knapsack. I went out into the street; I was sorry for what I had done; I was going back to the house with it just when this lady ran after me. The handkerchief was found in my knapsack. This is all the truth. The capitulation orders me to be shot. Shoot me, but don't despise me.'

The judges could not conceal their emotion; but when the balloting took place, he was unanimously condemned to death. He heard his sentence with sang-froid; after it was passed on him, he went up to his captain and asked him to lend him four francs. The captain gave them to him. I then saw Piter go to the woman to whom the blue handkerchief had been restored, and I heard him say:

'Madame, here are four francs; I don't know whether your handkerchief is worth more, but even if it is, I pay dear enough for it to engage you to knock off the rest.'

Taking the handkerchief from her, he kissed it, and gave it to the captain.

'Captain,' said he, 'in two years you'll be returning home; when you go toward Areneberg, ask for Mary; give her this blue handkerchief, but don't tell her how dearly I purchased it.'

Piter then kneeled and prayed fervently; when his prayers were ended, he arose and walked with a firm step to the place of execution. I forgot that I was a scientific man, and I walked down into the woods to avoid seeing the end of this cruel tragedy. A volley of musketry soon told me that all was over.

I returned to the fatal spot an hour afterward; the regiment had marched away; all was calm and silent. While following the edge of the grove, going to the highway, I perceived at a short distance before me traces of blood, and a mound of freshly heaped earth. I took a branch from one of the fir trees, and made a rude cross.

I placed it at the head of poor Piter's grave, now forgotten by every body except by me, and perhaps by Mary.

GOLD

Gold, next to iron, is the most widely diffused metal upon the surface of our globe. It occurs in granite, the oldest rock known to us, and in all the rocks derived from it; it is also found in the veinstones which traverse other geological formations, but has never been found in any secondary formation. It is, however, much more common in alluvial grounds than among primitive and pyrogenous rocks. It is found disseminated, under the form of spangles, in the silicious, argillaceous, and ferruginous sands of certain plains and rivers, especially in their junction, at the season of low water, and after storms and temporary floods. It is the only metal of a yellow color; it is readily crystallizable, and always assumes one or more of the symmetrical shapes, such as the cube or regular octahedron. It affords a resplendent polish, and may be exposed to the atmosphere for any length of time, without suffering any change; it is remarkable for its beauty; is nineteen times heavier than water, and, next to platinum, the heaviest known substance; its malleability is such, that a cubic inch will cover thirty-five hundred square feet; its ductility is such, that a lump of the value of four hundred dollars could be drawn into a wire which would extend around the globe. It is first mentioned in Genesis ii, 11. It was found in the country of Havilah, where the rivers Euphrates and Tigris unite and discharge their waters into the Persian gulf.

The relative value of gold to silver in the days of the patriarch Abraham was one to eight; at the period of B.C. 1000, it was one to twelve; B.C. 500, it was one to thirteen; at the commencement of the Christian era, it was one to nine; A.D. 500, it was one to eighteen; A.D. 1100, it was one to eight; A.D. 1400, it was one to eleven; A.D. 1613, it was one to thirteen; A.D. 1700, it was one to fifteen and a half; which latter ratio, with but slight variation, it has maintained to the present day. Gold was considered bullion in Palestine for a long period after silver had been current as money. The first mention of gold money in the Bible is in David's reign (B.C. 1056), when that king purchased the threshing floor of Oman for six hundred shekels of gold by weight. In the early period of Grecian history the quantity of the precious metals increased but slowly; the circulating medium did not increase in proportion with the quantity of bullion. In the earliest days of Greece, the precious metals existed in great abundance in the Levant. Cabul and Little Thibet (B.C. 500) were abundant in gold. It seems to be a well ascertained fact, that it was obtained near the surface; so that countries, which formerly yielded the metal in great abundance, are now entirely destitute of it. Crœsus (B.C. 560) coined the golden stater, which contained one hundred and thirty-three grains of pure metal. Darius, son of Hystaspes (B.C. 538), coined darics, containing one hundred and twenty-one grains of pure metal, which were preferred, for several ages throughout the East, for their fineness. Next to the darics were some coins of the reigns of the tyrants of Sicily: of Gelo (B.C. 491); of Hiero (B.C. 478); and of Dionysius (B.C, 404). Specimens of the two former are still preserved in modern cabinets. Darics are supposed to be mentioned in the latter books of the Old Testament, under the name of drams. Very few specimens of the daric have come down to us; their scarcity may he accounted for by the fact that they were melted down under the type of Alexander. Gold coin was by no means plenty in Greece until Philip of Macedon had put the mines of Thrace into full operation, about B.C. 360. Gold was also obtained by the Greeks from Asia Minor, the adjacent islands, which possessed it in abundance, and from India, Arabia, Armenia, Colchis, and Troas. It was found mixed with the sands of the Pactolus and other rivers. There are only about a dozen Greek coins in existence, three of which are in the British Museum; and of the latter, two are staters, of the weight of one hundred and twenty-nine grains each. About B.C. 207, gold coins were first struck off at Rome, and were denominated aurei, four specimens of which are in the institution before alluded to. Their weight was one hundred and twenty-one grains. Gold coins were first issued in France by Clovis, A.D. 489; about the same time they were issued in Spain by Amalric, the Gothic king; in both kingdoms they were called trientes. They were first issued in England A.D. 1257, in the shape of a penny. Florins were next issued, in 1344, of the value of six shillings. The guinea was first issued in 1663, of Guinea gold. In 1733 all the gold coins—nobles, angels, rials, crowns, units, lions, exurgats, etc., etc., were called in and forbidden to circulate. The present sovereign was first issued in 1817.

From the commencement of the Christian era to the discovery of America, the amount of gold obtained from the surface and bowels of the earth is estimated to be thirty-eight hundred millions of dollars; from the date of the latter event to the close of 1842, an addition of twenty-eight hundred millions was obtained. The discovery and extensive working of the Russian mines added, to the close of 1852, six hundred millions more. The double discovery of the California mines in 1848, and of the Australia mines in 1851 has added, to the present time, twenty-one hundred millions; making a grand total of ninety-three hundred millions of dollars. The average loss by wear and tear of coin is estimated to be one-tenth of one per cent, per annum; and the loss by consumption in the arts, by fire and shipwreck, at from one to three millions per annum.

A cubic inch of gold is worth (at £3 17s. 10½d., or $18.69 per ounce) two hundred and ten dollars; a cubic foot, three hundred and sixty-two thousand eight hundred and eighty dollars; a cubic yard, nine millions nine hundred and seventeen thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars. The amount of gold in existence, at the commencement of the Christian era, is estimated to be four hundred and twenty-seven millions of dollars; at the period of the discovery of America, it had diminished to fifty-seven millions; after the occurrence of that event, it gradually increased, and in 1600, it attained to one hundred and five millions; in 1700, to three hundred and fifty-one millions; in 1800, to eleven hundred and twenty-five millions; in 1843, to two thousand millions; in 1853 to three thousand millions; and at the present time, the amount of gold in existence is estimated to be forty-eight hundred millions of dollars; which, welded into one mass, could be contained in a cube of twenty-four feet. Of the amount now in existence, three thousand millions is estimated to be in coin and bullion, and the remainder in watches, jewelry, plate, etc., etc.

The Russian gold mines were discovered in 1819, and extend over one third of the circumference of the globe, upon the parallel of 55° of north latitude. Their product, since their discovery to the present time, has amounted to eight hundred millions of dollars. The California gold mines were discovered by William Marshall, on the ninth day of February, 1848, at Sutter's Mill, upon the American Fork, a tributary of the Sacramento, and extend from 34° to 49° of north latitude. Their product, since their discovery to the present time, has amounted to one thousand and forty-seven millions of dollars. The Australia gold mines were discovered by Edward Hammond Hargraves, on the twelfth day of February, 1851, in the Bathurst and Wellington districts, and extend from 30° to 38° of south latitude. Their product, since their discovery to the present time, has amounted to nine hundred and eleven millions of dollars. The finest gold is obtained at Ballurat, and the largest nugget yet obtained weighed twenty-two hundred and seventeen ounces, valued at forty-one thousand dollars. In shape it resembled a continent with a peninsula attached by a narrow isthmus. The annual product of gold at the commencement of the Christian era is estimated at eight hundred thousand dollars; at the period of the discovery of America it had diminished to one hundred thousand dollars; after the occurrence of that event it gradually increased, and in 1600 it attained to two millions; and in 1700, to five millions; in 1800, to fifteen millions; in 1843, to thirty-four millions; in 1850, to eighty-eight millions; in 1852, to two hundred and thirty-six millions; but owing to the falling off of the California as well as the Australia mines, the product of the present year will not probably exceed one hundred and ninety millions.

Since 1792 to the present time, the gold coinage of the United States mint has amounted to seven hundred and forty millions of dollars, of which six hundred and fifty-five millions have been issued since 1850. The gold coinage of the French mint, since 1726, has amounted to eighty-seven hundred millions of francs, of which fifty-two hundred and fifty millions have been issued since 1850. The gold coinage of the British mint, since 1603, has amounted to two hundred and eighty millions of pounds sterling; of which seventy-five millions have been issued since 1850. The gold coinage of the Russian mint, since 1664, has amounted to five hundred and twenty-six millions of roubles, of which two hundred and sixty millions have been issued since 1850. The sovereign of England contains one hundred and twelve grains of pure metal; the new doubloon of Spain, one hundred and fifteen; the half eagle of the United States, one hundred and sixteen; the gold lion of the Netherlands, and the double ounce of Sicily, one hundred and seventeen grains each; the ducat of Austria, one hundred and six; the twenty-franc piece of France, ninety; and the half imperial of Russia, ninety-one grains. A commissioner has been despatched by the United States Government to England, France, and other countries of Europe, to confer with their respective governments upon the expediency of adopting a uniform system of coinage throughout the world, so that the coins of one country may circulate in any other, without the expense of recoinage—a consummation most devoutly to be wished.

The fact that the large amount of gold which has been thrown into the monetary circulation of the world within the last fourteen years, has exercised so little influence upon the money market or prices generally, is at variance with the predictions of financial writers upon both sides of the Atlantic. The increase in the present production of gold, compared with former periods, is enormous; and it would not be surprising if, in view of the explorations which are going on in Africa, Japan, Borneo, and other countries bordering upon the equator, the product of the precious metals within the next decade should be a million of dollars daily. The price of gold has not diminished, although the annual product has increased fivefold within twenty years.

LAST WORDS

I am at last resolved. This taunting devil shall possess me no longer. At least I will meet him face to face. I have read that the face of a dead man is as though he understood the cause of all things, and was therefore profoundly at rest, I will know the cause of my wretched fate, and will be at rest. My pistols lie loaded by my side—I shall die to-night. To-morrow, twelve awestruck and trembling men will come and look at me. They will ask each other: 'What could have been his motive for the rash act.' Rash! my face will be calmer than theirs, for my struggles in this life will be over; and I shall have gained—perhaps knowledge, perhaps oblivion, but certainly victory. And to-night, as the clock strikes twelve, there will be shrieks and horror in this room. No matter: I shall have been more kind to those who utter them than they know of, for they will not have known the cause until they have read these lines.

And yet most people would esteem me a happy man. I am rich in all that the world calls riches. I sit in a room filled with luxuries; a few steps would bring me into the midst of guests, among whom are noble men and women, sweet music, rare perfumes, glitter and costly show. My life has been spent amid the influences of kind friends, good parents, and culture in all that is highest and worthiest in literature and art; and I can recall scenes as I write, of days that would have been most happy but for the blight that has been upon me always. I think I see now the pleasant parlor in the old house at home. Here sits our mother, a little gray, but brisk and merry as a cricket; there our father, a well-preserved gentleman of fifty, rather gratified at feeling the first aristocratic twinges of gout, and whose double eyeglass is a chief feature in all he says; there is Bill, poring over Sir William Napier's 'Peninsular War;' there is Charles, just rushing in, with a face the principal features in which are redness and hair, to tell us that there is another otter in the mill stream in the meadow; there is my little sister, holding grave talk with dear Dollie, and best (or worst) of all, there is cousin Lucy—cousin Lucy, with her brown hair, and soft, loving eyes and quiet ways. Where are they all now? Charley went to London, was first the favorite of the clubs, next a heartless rake, and finally, being worn out, and, like Solomon, convinced that all was vanity, went into the Church to become that most contemptible of all creatures, a fashionable preacher; my father and mother are laid side by side in the aisle of the old church on the hill, where their virtues are sculptured in marble, for the information of anxiously curious mankind; sister Mary no longer talks to dolls, though a flock of little girls, who call her mother, do. Bill, poor Bill, lies far away in the Crimea, with the bullet of a gray-coated Russian in his heart. And Lucy—but it is to her I owe what I am, and what I am about to do.

I loved her—love her still. Will she know what these words mean, when she finds them here? I cannot tell. They are enough for me. Not for you are they written, ball-room lounger, whispering of endless devotion between every qaudrille; not to you, proud beauty, taking and absorbing declarations as you would an ice; not for you, chattering monkey of the Champs Elyseés, raving of your grande passion for Eloise, so charmante, so spirituelle; nor for you, Eloise aforesaid, with your devilish devices, stringing hearts in your girdle as Indians do scalps; not for you, dancing Spaniard, with your eternal castagnets, whispering just one word to your dark-eyed señorita, as you hand her another perfumed cigarette; not for you, lounging Italian, hissing intrigues under the shadow of an Athenian portico, or stealing after your veiled incognita, as her shadow flits over the place where the blood of Cæsar dyed the floor of the Capitol, or where the knife of Virginius flashed in the summer sun—not for one of you, for I have seen and despise you all. To you all love is a sealed book, which you shall never open—a tree of knowledge that will never turn into a curse for you—a beautiful serpent that, as you gaze upon its changing hues, will never sting you to the death.

I never told her. I would wait for hours to see her pass, if she went out alone—but I never told her. I would trace her footsteps where she had taken her daily walk; I would wait beneath her window at night, to see but her shadow upon the blind, until she put out her lamp, and left the stars and myself the only watchers there—but I never told her. I would lay flowers in her way, happy if she wore them on her bosom, or wreathed them in her hair, as she sometimes would—but she never knew from whom they came. I sickened at my heart for her; I pined, oh! how I pined for her, and worshipped her as a saint, the hope, the glory, the heaven of my life—but I never told her.

Did she love me? No. And, while I loved, I feared her. She never made me her companion, never took my arm; would always sit opposite me in the carriage instead of by my side; if in a game of forfeits, I forced the embrace I had won, she would struggle with tears of anger, though she had given her cheek to William with a blush but a few minutes before. If I had not been her abject slave, I could have torn her in pieces. Alas! alas! we were but boys, and she a girl still. How many, long years I have suffered since then!

One night I could not sleep, but sat up in my room thinking. Why should she not love me? I am esteemed well-looking and intelligent, thought I, looking into the glass, as if to confirm my satisfactory judgment of myself. I gazed long and earnestly. Yes, certainly handsome, said I with my lips, but—fool! fool! said my mocking eyes; for at that moment there came out of their depths—there came a devil! Yes, a devil that glared at me from the glass! a devil that was, and yet was not, myself! a devil that had my form, and looked out of my face, but with its own cruel, mocking eyes! And he and I confronted each other in that horrible glass. I know not how long, but they told me afterward that I was found next morning making ghastly faces at myself.

And then I was carried by spirits into a land of visions, where for a hundred years, or for a moment of time, I was flying through space, and clouds, and fire!—groping through dark caverns, millions of miles long, crying wildly for light and air; now a giant, entangled in myriads of chains that I could not break; now a reptile, writhing away from footsteps that made the earth reel and tremble beneath their tread; and at last waking, as if out of sleep, a poor, puny thing, with limbs like shadows, laughing or crying by turns for very feebleness.

As I arose from that bed I knew that I was changed. It was a secret thought, a secret that I have kept till now. I was not quite sure at first, but it thus fell out that I knew it well:

One day William and I had been sitting for some time in the library, he reading and I looking at the faces that glowed in the red-hot coal, and thinking of Lucy and him.

'Where is Lucy?' said I, at length,

'Gone out into the village,' he answered, without looking from the book; 'first to buy gloves, then to see Miss Trip, the dancing mistress, who is ill, then to Hurst Park to tea, whence I am to fetch her at nine o'clock.'

'You seem to know all her movements,' I said, with a sneer.

'Certainly, he rejoined, 'she told me all that I have told you.'

'You always are in her confidence,' said I, very angrily, as my blood rose.

'I believe so,' said he, calmly; though he looked at me with some surprise.

'And I never,' said I, between my teeth.

'That,' he said, 'is a matter with which I have no concern.'

I ground my teeth, but I kept quiet. I kept quiet, though every nerve in my body tingled with rage, and my boiling blood rushed into my eyes till I could hardly see. 'Do you know,' I shouted, 'do you know that I love her—would die a thousand deaths for her?'

He clasped his hands with a quick motion, as he said in a low voice, 'And so do I; and so would I.'

'Beast, fiend!' I screamed, 'does she—does she–' I could not get out the accursed words.

'We have been engaged,' he answered, divining what I would have asked, 'we have been engaged for some time, and–'

He did not finish the sentence, for I sprang at him, crushed him to the floor, squeezed his throat till his face grew black and the froth oozed out from his lips, beat his head upon the hearthstones till he lay still and bleeding, and then sought my knife. It was up stairs. I flew to get it. It lay upon my dressing table before the glass, and I snatched at it. Great God! as I did so, another arm was thrust forth—not mine, I swear, if I live a thousand years; and as I recoiled, I saw in that glass a fiend step back. Not me, not me!—but a fiend with bloody hands, and a foul leer upon its face, and a fierce, cruel laugh in its glittering eyes. It was he, it was he! It was the devil that had possessed me before, come back again. And as I shuddered and gasped, and turned away, and then looked again into those eyes that pierced me through, and saw the cold, bitter smile that was on the face before me, I knew that the fiend would leave me never more, and that I was mad!

What was a quarrel with my brother now? I stole back, and, lifting him up, carried him to his room, where I washed the blood from his face. When he came to himself I fell at his feet and besought his pardon, and that he would keep what had happened a secret. He forgave me. And I believe the only lie he ever told in all his life was when he told Lucy that he had cut his head by falling on a jagged stone.

Oh, how often after that my fingers itched to be at his throat again; but I always quailed before his steady eye.

I pass over the next few years, except to say that I went to college, where I was shunned by all, though never alone: was a dunce, and plucked twice. Perhaps it was I who shunned others, for had I not society in the constant presence of my Familiar? I was of course a dunce, for my brain was never steady enough to carry me over the Pons Asinorum, or to make a Latin verse with even decent correctness. I went away in disgust. I think if I had stayed longer I should have torn somebody, or else myself.

I went next into the army. It was a new era in my life, and, strange to say, my devil left me for a while, so that I was able to master the details of my profession, and to be esteemed a good and careful officer. There was hope, too, of active service; for the Russian Eagle was slowly unfolding his vast wings for a new descent into the plains of Europe. William, married to Her now, who was a lieutenant in the Foot Guards, wrote to me to say that he hoped we should be really brothers, now that we were to meet before an enemy; and the next day out came the declaration of war. When I had read it, I drew my sword, and, as I ran my eye along its cold, sharp blade from hilt to point, I thought how strange was its power to let out a man's life, and turn him, in a moment, into a heap of inanimate carrion.