Chapter XV: Introduction (3)

[Into the question, whether the ability to express ourselves
in articulate language has been productive of more good or
evil, I shall not here enter at large. The two faculties of
speech and of speech-making are wholly diverse in their
natures. By the first we make ourselves intelligible, by the
last unintelligible, to our fellows. It has not seldom
occurred to me (noting how in our national legislature every
thing runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil
be unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming
handsome heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the
earliest mill erected for the manufacture of gabble. In
these days, what with Town Meetings, School Committees,
Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Congresses,
Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, Palavers, and the like,
there is scarce a village which has not its factories of
this description driven by (milk-and-) water power. I cannot
conceive the confusion of tongues to have been the curse of
Babel, since I esteem my ignorance of other languages as a
kind of Martello-tower, in which I am safe from the furious
bombardments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I have
ever preferred the study of the dead languages, those
primitive formations being Ararats upon whose silent peaks I
sit secure and watch this new deluge without fear, though it
rain figures (_simulacra_, semblances) of speech forty days
and nights together, as it not uncommonly happens. Thus is
my coat, as it were, without buttons by which any but a
vernacular wild bore can seize me. Is it not possible that
the Shakers may intend to convey a quiet reproof and hint,
in fastening their outer garments with hooks and eyes?

This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no
Commentary, was first thrown upon my mind when an excellent
deacon of my congregation (being infected with the Second
Advent delusion) assured me that he had received a first
instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of
larger possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a
truth, I could not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine
justice and mercy that the single wall which protected
people, of other languages from the incursions of this
otherwise well-meaning propagandist should be broken down.

In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that,
after the subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain
which result from such exercises, I detected a slender
residuum of valuable information. I made the discovery that
_nothing_ takes longer in the saying than any thing else,
for, as _ex nihilo nihil fit_, so from one polypus _nothing_
any number of similar ones may be produced. I would
recommend to the attention of _vivâ voce_ debaters and
controversialists the admirable example of the monk Copres,
who, in the fourth century, stood for half an hour in the
midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichæan
antagonist who had less of the salamander in him. As for
those who quarrel in print, I have no concern with them
here, since the eyelids are a divinely-granted shield
against all such. Moreover, I have observed in many modern
books that the printed portion is becoming gradually
smaller, and the number of blank or fly-leaves (as they are
called) greater. Should this fortunate tendency of
literature continue, books will grow more valuable from year
to year, and the whole Serbonian bog yield to the advances
of firm arable land.

The sagacious Lacedæmonians hearing that Tesephone had
bragged that he could talk all day long on any given
subject, made no more ado, but forthwith banished him,
whereby they supplied him a topic and at the same time took
care that his experiment upon it should be tried out of
ear-shot.

I have wondered, in the Representatives' Chamber of our own
Commonwealth, to mark how little impression seemed to be
produced by that emblematic fish suspended over the heads of
the members. Our wiser ancestors, no doubt, hung it there as
being the animal which the Pythagoreans reverenced for its
silence, and which certainly in that particular does not so
well merit the epithet _cold-blooded_, by which naturalists
distinguish it, as certain bipeds, afflicted with
ditch-water on the brain, who take occasion to tap
themselves in Fanueil Halls, meeting-houses, and other
places of public resort.--H. W.]

No. V.

THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT.

SOT TO A NUSRY RHYME.

[The incident which gave rise to the debate satirized in the
following verses was the unsuccessful attempt of Drayton and
Sayres to give freedom to seventy men and women,
fellow-beings and fellow-Christians. Had Tripoli, instead of
Washington, been the scene of this undertaking, the unhappy
leaders in it would have been as secure of the theoretic as
they now are of the practical part of martyrdom. I question
whether the Dey of Tripoli is blessed with a District
Attorney so benighted as ours at the seat of government.
Very fitly is he named Key, who would allow himself to be
made the instrument of locking the door of hope against
sufferers in such a cause. Not all the waters of the ocean
can cleanse the vile smutch of the jailer's fingers from off
that little Key. _Ahenea clavis_, a brazen Key indeed!

Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker in this
burlesque, seems to think that the light of the nineteenth
century is to be put out as soon as he tinkles his little
cow-bell curfew. Whenever slavery is touched, he sets up his
scarecrow of dissolving the Union. This may do for the
North, but I should conjecture that something more than a
pumpkin-lantern is required to scare manifest and
irretrievable Destiny out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot
let go the apron-string of the Past. The Past is a good
nurse, but we must be weaned from her sooner or later, even
though, like Plotinus, we should run home from school to ask
the breast, after we are tolerably well-grown youths. It
will not do for us to hide our faces in her lap, whenever
the strange Future holds out her arms and asks us to come to
her.

But we are all alike. We have all heard it said, often
enough, that little boys must not play with fire; and yet,
if the matches be taken away from us and put out of reach
upon the shelf, we must needs get into our little corner,
and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire revenge of going
to bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we get
our dangerous plaything again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who
has more than enough household matters to mind, goes
bustling hither and thither as a hiss or a sputter tells her
that this or that kettle of hers is boiling over and before
bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold, and gulp down
our dignity along with it.

Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name of a great
statesman, and, if it be great statesmanship to put lance in
rest and run a tilt at the Spirit of the Age with the
certainty of being next moment hurled neck and heels into
the dust amid universal laughter, he deserves the title. He
is the Sir Kay of our modern chivalry. He should remember
the old Scandinavian mythus. Thor was the strongest of gods,
but he could not wrestle with Time, nor so much as lift up a
fold of the great snake which knit the universe together;
and when he smote the Earth, though with his terrible
mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet all the
while it seemed to Thor that he had only been wrestling with
an old woman, striving to lift a cat, and striking a stupid
giant on the head.

And in old times, doubtless, the giants _were_ stupid, and
there was no better sport for the Sir Launcelots and Sir
Gawains than to go about cutting off their great blundering
heads with enchanted swords. But things have wonderfully
changed. It is the giants, now-a-days, that have the science
and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of
Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy armor
of a by-gone age. On whirls the restless globe through
unsounded time, with its cities and its silences, its births
and funerals, half light, half shade, but never wholly dark,
and sure to swing round into the happy morning at last. With
an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting slip his
pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to
anchor South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the
Past.--H. W.]

TO MR. BUCKENAM.

|Mr. Editer|, As i wuz kinder prunin round, in a little nussry sot out a year or 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter my mine An so i took & Sot it to wut I call a nussry rime. I hev made sum onnable Gentlemun speak that dident speak in a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is dreffle backerd up This way

ewers as ushul
|Hosea Biglow|.

"Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thunder!
It's a fact o' wich ther's bushils o' proofs;
Fer how could we trample on't so, I wonder,
Ef 't worn't thet it's ollers under our hoofs?"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;
"Human rights haint no more
Right to come on this floor,
No more'n the man in the moon," sez he.

"The North haint no kind o' bisness with nothin',
An' you've no idee how much bother it saves;
We aint none riled by their frettin' an' frothin',
We're _used_ to layin' the string on our slaves,"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Mister Foote,
"I should like to shoot
The holl gang, by the great horn spoon," sez he.

"Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet ther's no doubt on,
It's sutthin' thet's--wha' d' ye call it?--divine,--
An' the slaves thet we allers _make_ the most out on
Air them north o' Mason an' Dixon's line,"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
"Fer all thet," sez Mangum,
"'T would be better to hang 'em,
An' so git red on 'em soon," sez he.

"The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on soffies,
Thet's the reason I want to spread Freedom's aree;
It puts all the cunninest on us in office,
An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal idee,"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
"Thet's ez plain," sez Cass,
"Ez thet some one's an ass,
It's ez clear ez the sun is at noon," sez he.

"Now don't go to say I'm the friend of oppression,
But keep all your spare breath fer coolin' your broth,
Fer I ollers hev strove (at least thet's my impression)
To make cussed free with the rights o' the North,"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
"Yes," sez Davis o' Miss.,
"The perfection o' bliss
Is in skinnin' thet same old coon," sez he.

"Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion,
It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe;
Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection!)
Wich of our onnable body'd be safe?"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Mister Hannegan,
Afore he began agin,
"Thet exception is quite oppertoon," sez he.

"Gen'nle Cass, Sir, you needn't be twitchin' your collar,
_Your_ merit's quite clear by the dut on your knees,
At the North we don't make no distinctions o' color,
You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please,"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Mister Jarnagin,
"They wunt hev to larn agin,
They all on 'em know the old toon," sez he.

"The slavery question aint no ways bewilderin',
North an' South hev one int'rest, it's plain to a glance;
No'thern men, like us patriarchs, don't sell their childrin,
But they _du_ sell themselves, ef they git a good chance,"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Atherton here,
"This is gittin' severe,
I wish I could dive like a loon," sez he.

"It'll break up the Union, this talk about freedom,
An' your fact'ry gals (soon ez we split) 'll make head,
An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em,
'll go to work raisin' pr'miscoous Ned,"
Sez John O. Calhoun, sez he;--
"Yes, the North," sez Colquitt,
"Ef we Southeners all quit,
Would go down like a busted balloon," sez he.

"Jest look wut is doin', wut annyky's brewin'
In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' vine,
All the wise aristoxy is tumblin' to ruin,
An' the sankylots drorin' an' drinkin' their wine,"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
"Yes," sez Johnson, "in France
They're beginnin' to dance
Beelzebub's own rigadoon," sez he.

"The South's safe enough, it don't feel a mite skeery,
Our slaves in their darkness an' dut air tu blest
Not to welcome with proud hallylugers the ery
Wen our eagle kicks yourn from the naytional nest,"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
"O," sez Westcott o' Florida,
"Wut treason is horrider
Then our priv'leges tryin' to proon?" sez he.

"It's 'coz they're so happy, thet, wen crazy sarpints
Stick their nose in our bizness, we git so darned riled;
We think it's our dooty to give pooty sharp hints,
Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth shan't be spiled,"
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
"Ah," sez Dixon H. Lewis,
"It perfectly true is
Thet slavery 's airth's grettest boon," sez he.

[It was said of old time, that riches have wings; and,
though this be not applicable in a literal strictness to the
wealth of our patriarchal brethren of the South, yet it is
clear that their possessions have legs, and an unaccountable
propensity for using them in a northerly direction. I marvel
that the grand jury of Washington did not find a true bill
against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and
Sayres. It would have been quite of a piece with the
intelligence displayed by the South on other questions
connected with slavery. I think that no ship of state was
ever freighted with a more veritable Jonah than this same
domestic institution of ours. Mephistopheles himself could
not feign so bitterly, so satirically sad a sight as this of
three millions of human beings crushed beyond help or hope
by this one mighty argument,--_Our fathers knew no better!_
Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable destiny of Jonahs to be
cast overboard sooner or later. Or shall we try the
experiment of hiding our Jonah in a safe place, that none
may lay hands on him to make jetsam of him? Let us, then,
with equal forethought and wisdom, lash ourselves to the
anchor, and await, in pious confidence, the certain result.
Perhaps our suspicious passenger is no Jonah after all,
being black. For it is well known that a superintending
Providence made a kind of sandwich of Ham and his
descendants, to be devoured by the Caucasian race.

In God's name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the
hungry moan of the storm and the growl of the breakers,
speak out! But, alas! we have no right to interfere. If a
man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in danger of the
justice; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who
says this? Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous
consuetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant
argument by the left hand of him whose right hand clutches
the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable with the
undethronable majesty of countless æons, says,--|Speak|! The
Past, wise with the sorrows and desolations of ages, from
amid her shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces,
echoes,--|Speak|! Nature, through her thousand trumpets of
freedom, her stars, her sunrises, her seas, her winds, her
cataracts, her mountains blue with cloudy pines, blows
jubilant encouragement, and cries,--|Speak!| From the soul's
trembling abysses the still, small voice not vaguely
murmurs,--|Speak|! But, alas! the Constitution and the
Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C., say,--|Be dumb|!

It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of inquiry in this
connection, whether, on that momentous occasion when the
goats and the sheep shall be parted, the Constitution and
the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C., will be expected to take
their places on the left as our hircine vicars.

_Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus?_

There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness
and poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to
look on what is barely better as good enough, and to worship
what is only moderately good. Woe to that man, or that
nation, to whom mediocrity has become an ideal!

Has our experiment of self-government succeeded, if it
barely manage to _rub and go_? Here, now, is a piece of
barbarism which Christ and the nineteenth century say shall
cease, and which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and others say shall
_not_ cease. I would by no means deny the eminent
respectability of these gentlemen, but I confess, that, in
such a wrestling-match, I cannot help having my fears for
them.

_Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos._
H. W.]

No. VI.

THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED.

[At the special instance of Mr. Biglow, I preface the
following satire with an extract from a sermon preached
during the past summer, from Ezekiel xxxiv. 2:--"Son of man,
prophesy against the shepherds of Israel." Since the Sabbath
on which this discourse was delivered, the editor of the
"Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss" has unaccountably absented
himself from our house of worship.

"I know of no so responsible position as that of the public
journalist. The editor of our day bears the same relation to
his time that the clerk bore to the age before the invention
of printing. Indeed, the position which he holds is that
which the clergyman should hold even now. But the clergyman
chooses to walk off to the extreme edge of the world, and to
throw such seed as he has clear over into that darkness
which he calls the Next Life. As if _next_ did not mean
_nearest_, and as if any life were nearer than that
immediately present one which boils and eddies all around
him at the caucus, the ratification meeting, and the polls!
Who taught him to exhort men to prepare for eternity, as for
some future era of which the present forms no integral part?
The furrow which Time is even now turning runs through the
Everlasting, and in that must he plant, or nowhere. Yet he
would fain believe and teach that we are _going_ to have
more of eternity than we have now. This _going_ of his is
like that of the auctioneer, on which _gone_ follows before
we have made up our minds to bid,--in which manner, not
three months back, I lost an excellent copy of Chappelow on
Job. So it has come to pass that the preacher, instead of
being a living force, has faded into an emblematic figure at
christenings, weddings, and funerals. Or, if he exercise any
other function, it is as keeper and feeder of certain
theologic dogmas, which, when occasion offers, he unkennels
with a _staboy_! 'to bark and bite as 'tis their nature to,'
whence that reproach of _odium theologicum_ has arisen.

"Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the editor mounts daily,
sometimes with a congregation of fifty thousand within reach
of his voice, and never so much as a nodder, even, among
them! And from what a Bible can he choose his text,--a Bible
which needs no translation, and which no priestcraft can
shut and clasp from the laity,--the open volume of the
world, upon which, with a pen of sunshine or destroying
fire, the inspired Present is even now writing the annals of
God! Methinks the editor who should understand his calling,
and be equal thereto, would truly deserve that title of
ποιμὴν λαῶν, which Homer bestows upon princes. He would be
the Moses of our nineteenth century; and whereas the old
Sinai, silent now, is but a common mountain stared at by the
elegant tourist and crawled over by the hammering geologist,
he must find his tables of the new law here among factories
and cities in this Wilderness of Sin (Numbers xxxiii. 12)
called Progress of Civilization, and be the captain of our
Exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order.

"Nevertheless, our editor will not come so far within even
the shadow of Sinai as Mahomet did, but chooses rather to
construe Moses by Joe Smith. He takes up the crook, not that
the sheep may be fed, but that he may never want a warm
woollen suit and a joint of mutton.

_Immemor, O, fidei, pecorumque oblite tuorum!_

For which reason I would derive the name _editor_ not so
much from _edo_, to publish, as from _edo_, to eat, that
being the peculiar profession to which he esteems himself
called. He blows up the flames of political discord for no
other occasion than that he may thereby handily boil his own
pot. I believe there are two thousand of these mutton-loving
shepherds in the United States, and of these, how many have
even the dimmest perception of their immense power, and the
duties consequent thereon? Here and there, haply, one. Nine
hundred and ninety-nine labor to impress upon the people the
great principles of _Tweedledum_, and other nine hundred and
ninety-nine preach with equal earnestness the gospel
according to _Tweedledee_."--H. W.]

I du believe in Freedom's cause,
Ez fur away ez Payris is;
I love to see her stick her claws
In them infarnal Phayrisees;
It's wal enough agin a king
To dror resolves an' triggers,--
But libbaty's a kind o' thing
Thet don't agree with niggers.

I du believe the people want
A tax on teas, an' coffees,
Thet nothin' aint extravygunt,--
Purvidin' I'm in office;
Fer I hev loved my country sence
My eye-teeth filled their sockets,
An' Uncle Sam I reverence,
Partic'larly his pockets.

I du believe in _any_ plan
O' levyin' the taxes,
Ez long ez, like a lumberman,
I git jest wut I axes:
I go free-trade thru thick an' thin,
Because it kind o' rouses
The folks to vote,--an' keeps us in
Our quiet custom-houses.

I du believe it's wise an' good
To sen' out furrin missions,
Thet is, on sartin understood
An' orthydox conditions;--
I mean nine thousan' dolls. per ann.,
Nine thousan' more fer outfit,
An' me to recommend a man
The place 'ould jest about fit.

I du believe in special ways
O' prayin' an' convartin';
The bread comes back in many days,
An' buttered, tu, fer sartin;
I mean in prayin' till one busts
On wut the party chooses,
An' in convartin' public trusts
To very privit uses.

I du believe hard coin the stuff
Fer 'lectioneers to spout on;
The people's ollers soft enough
To make hard money out on;
Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his,
An' gives a good-sized junk to all,--
I don't care _how_ hard money is,
Ez long ez mine's paid punctooal.

I du believe with all my soul
In the gret Press's freedom,
To pint the people to the goal
An' in the traces lead 'em;
Palsied the arm thet forges yokes
At my fat contracts squintin',
An' withered be the nose thet pokes
Inter the gov'ment printin'!

I du believe thet I should give
Wut's his'n unto Cæsar,
Fer it's by him I move an' live,
Frum him my bread an' cheese air;
I du believe thet all o' me
Doth bear his superscription,--
Will, conscience, honor, honesty,
An' things o' thet description.

I du believe in prayer an' praise
To him that hez the grantin'
O' jobs,--in every thin' thet pays,
But most of all in |Cantin|';
This doth my cup with marcies fill,
This lays all thought o' sin to rest,--
I _don't_ believe in princerple,
But O, I _du_ in interest.

I du believe in bein' this
Or thet, ez it may happen
One way or t' other hendiest is
To ketch the people nappin';
It aint by princerples nor men
My preudunt course is steadied,--
I scent which pays the best, an' then
Go into it baldheaded.

I du believe thet holdin' slaves
Comes nat'ral tu a Presidunt,
Let 'lone the rowdedow it saves
To hev a wal-broke precedunt;
Fer any office, small or gret,
I couldn't ax with no face,
Without I'd ben, thru dry an' wet,
Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface.

I du believe wutever trash
'll keep the people in blindness,--
Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash
Right inter brotherly kindness,
Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' ball
Air good-will's strongest magnets,
Thet peace, to make it stick at all,
Must be druv in with bagnets.

In short, I firmly du believe
In Humbug generally,
Fer it's a thing thet I perceive
To hev a solid vally;
This heth my faithful shepherd ben,
In pasturs sweet heth led me,
An' this 'll keep the people green
To feed ez they hev fed me.

[I subjoin here another passage from my before-mentioned
discourse.

"Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the
newspaper. To me, for example, sitting on the critical front
bench of the pit, in my study here in Jaalam, the advent of
my weekly journal is as that of a strolling theatre, or
rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, narrow as it is,
the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little.
Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a
brown-paper wrapper!

"Hither, to my obscure corner, by wind or steam, on
horseback or dromedary-back, in the pouch of the Indian
runner, or clicking over the magnetic wires, troop all the
famous performers from the four quarters of the globe.
Looked at from a point of criticism, tiny puppets they seem
all, as the editor sets up his booth upon my desk and
officiates as showman. Now I can truly see how little and
transitory is life. The earth appears almost as a drop of
vinegar, on which the solar microscope of the imagination
must be brought to bear in order to make out anything
distinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is
Louis Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That
other, in the gray surtout and cocked hat, is Napoleon
Bonaparte Smith, assuring France that she need apprehend no
interference from him in the present alarming juncture. At
that spot, where you seem to see a speck of something in
motion, is an immense mass-meeting. Look sharper and you
will see a mite brandishing his mandibles in an excited
manner. That is the great Mr. Soandso, defining his position
amid tumultuous and irrepressible cheers. That infinitesimal
creature, upon whom some score of others, as minute as he,
are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous
philosopher, expounding to a select audience their capacity
for the infinite. That scarce discernible pufflet of smoke
and dust is a revolution. That speck there is a reformer,
just arranging the lever with which he is to move the world.
And lo, there creeps forward the shadow of a skeleton that
blows one breath between its grinning teeth, and all our
distinguished actors are whisked off the slippery stage into
the dark Beyond.

"Yes, the little show-box has its solemner suggestions. Now
and then we catch a glimpse of a grim old man, who lays down
a scythe and hour-glass in the corner while he shifts the
scenes. There, too, in the dim background, a weird shape is
ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his mattock, and
gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on
their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought
home from christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger
and larger as we look) a bony hand snatches back a performer
in the midst of his part, and him, whom yesterday two
infinites (past and future) would not suffice, a handful of
dust is enough to cover and silence forever. Nay, we see the
same fleshless fingers opening to clutch the showman
himself, and guess, not without a shudder, that they are
lying in wait for spectator also.

"Think of it: for three dollars a year I buy a season-ticket
to this great Globe Theatre, for which God would write the
dramas (only that we like farces, spectacles, and the
tragedies of Apollyon better), whose scene-shifter is Time,
and whose curtain is rung down by Death.

"Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tearing
off the wrapper of my newspaper. Then suddenly that
otherwise too often vacant sheet becomes invested for me
with a strange kind of awe. Look! deaths and marriages,
notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of
promotions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires,
accidents, of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty;--I hold
in my hand the ends of myriad invisible electric conductors,
along which tremble the joys, sorrows, wrongs, triumphs,
hopes, and despairs of as many men and women everywhere. So
that upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate me from
mankind as a spectator of their puppet-pranks, another
supervenes, in which I feel that I, too, unknown and unheard
of, am yet of some import to my fellows. For, through my
newspaper here, do not families take pains to send me, an
entire stranger, news of a death among them? Are not here
two who would have me know of their marriage? And, strangest
of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me
informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry
Bruisgins? But to none of us does the President continue
miraculous (even if for a moment discerned as such). We
glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to Orion and
the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this
sheet, in which a vision was let down to me from Heaven,
shall be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a
beggar's broken victuals."--H. W.]

No. VII.

A LETTER

FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, ENCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR. BIGLOW TO S. H. GAY, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY STANDARD.

[Curiosity may be said to be the quality which pre-eminently
distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As
we trace the scale of animated nature downward, we find this
faculty (as it may truly be called) of the mind diminished
in the savage, and quite extinct in the brute. The first
object which civilized man proposes to himself I take to be
the finding out whatsoever he can concerning his neighbors.
_Nihil humanum a me alienum puto_; I am curious about even
John Smith. The desire next in strength to this (an opposite
pole, indeed, of the same magnet) is that of communicating
the unintelligence we have carefully picked up.

Men in general may be divided into the inquisitive and the
communicative. To the first class belong Peeping Toms,
eaves-droppers, navel-contemplating Brahmins,
metaphysicians, travellers, Empedocleses, spies, the various
societies for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses, Yankees,
discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to
the mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up and
down the world, or sitting in studies and laboratories. The
second class I should again subdivide into four. In the
first subdivision I would rank those who have an itch to
tell us about themselves,--as keepers of diaries,
insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, Horace
Walpoles, autobiographers, poets. The second includes those
who are anxious to impart information concerning other
people,--as historians, barbers, and such. To the third
belong those who labor to give us intelligence about nothing
at all,--as novelists, political orators, the large majority
of authors, preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the
fourth come those who are communicative from motives of
public benevolence,--as finders of mares'-nests and bringers
of ill news. Each of us two-legged fowls without feathers
embraces all these subdivisions in himself to a greater or
less degree, for none of us so much as lays an egg, or
incubates a chalk one, but straightway the whole barn-yard
shall know it by our cackle or our cluck. _Omnibus hoc
vitium est._ There are different grades in all these
classes. One will turn his telescope toward a back-yard,
another toward Uranus; one will tell you that he dined with
Smith, another that he supped with Plato. In one particular,
all men may be considered as belonging to the first grand
division, inasmuch as they all seem equally desirous of
discovering the mote in their neighbor's eye.

To one or another of these species every human being may
safely be referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that
Jonah prosecuted some inquiries into the digestive apparatus
of whales, and that Noah sealed up a letter in an empty
bottle, that news in regard to him might not be wanting in
case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human.
I conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who
continually peep and pry at the keyhole of that mysterious
door through which, sooner or later, we all make our exits,
so there are doubtless ghosts fidgetting and fretting on the
other side of it, because they have no means of conveying
back to this world the scraps of news they have picked up in
that. For there is an answer ready somewhere to every
question, the great law of _give and take_ runs through all
nature, and if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye is
waiting for it. I read in every face I meet a standing
advertisement of information wanted in regard to A. B., or
that the friends of C. D. can hear something to his
disadvantage by application to such a one.

It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and
answering that epistolary correspondence was first invented.
Letters (for by this usurped title epistles are now commonly
known) are of several kinds. First, there are those which
are not letters at all,--as letters-patent, letters
dismissory, letters enclosing bills, letters of
administration, Pliny's letters, letters of diplomacy, of
Cato, of Mentor, of Lords Lyttleton, Chesterfield, and
Orrery, of Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St. Jerome includes in
his list of sacred writers), letters from abroad, from sons
in college to their fathers, letters of marque, and letters
generally, which are in nowise letters of mark. Second, are
real letters, such as those of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, Howel,
Lamb, D. Y., the first letters from children, (printed in
staggering capitals,) Letters from New York, letters of
credit, and others, interesting for the sake of the writer
or the thing written. I have read also letters from Europe
by a gentleman named Pinto, containing some curious gossip,
and which I hope to see collected for the benefit of the
curious. There are, besides, letters addressed to
posterity,--as epitaphs, for example, written for their own
monuments by monarchs, whereby we have lately become
possessed of the names of several great conquerors and kings
of kings, hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, but
valuable to the student of the entirely dark ages. The
letter which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of
grace 755, that of the Virgin to the magistrates of Messina,
that of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus to the D--l, and that of
this last-mentioned active police-magistrate to a nun of
Girgenti, I would place in a class by themselves, as also
the letters of candidates, concerning which I shall dilate
more fully in a note at the end of the following poem. At
present, _sat prata biberunt_. Only, concerning the shape of
letters, they are all either square or oblong, to which
general figures circular letters and round-robins also
conform themselves.--H. W.]

|Deer sir| its gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to the candid 8s and i wus chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du wut wus nessary fur that town. i writ to 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha air called candid 8s but I don't see nothin candid about em. this here I wich I send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno as it's ushle to print Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it wus best. times has gretly changed. Formaly to knock a man into a cocked hat wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance fur the cheef madgustracy.--H. B.

|Dear Sir|,--You wish, to know my notions
On sartin pints thet rile the land;
There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns
Ez bein' mum or underhand;
I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur
Thet blurts right out wut's in his head,
An' ef I've one pecooler feetur,
It is a nose thet wunt be led.

So, to begin at the beginnin',
An' come direcly to the pint,
I think the country's underpinnin'
Is some consid'ble out o' jint;
I aint agoin' to try your patience
By tellin' who done this or thet,
I don't make no insinooations,
I jest let on I smell a rat.

Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so,
But, ef the public think I'm wrong,
I wunt deny but wut I be so,--
An', fact, it don't smell very strong;
My mind's tu fair to lose its balance
An' say wich party hez most sense;
There may be folks o' greater talence
Thet can't set stiddier on the fence.

I'm an eclectic; ez to choosin'
'Twixt this an' thet, I'm plaguy lawth;
I leave a side thet looks like losin',
But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both;
I stan' upon the Constitution,
Ez preudunt statesmun say, who've planned
A way to git the most profusion
O' chances ez to _ware_ they'll stand.

Ez fer the war, I go agin it,--
I mean to say I kind o' du,--
Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it,
The best way wuz to fight it thru;
Not but wut abstract war is horrid,
I sign to thet with all my heart,--
But civlyzation _doos_ git forrid
Sometimes upon a powder-cart.

About thet darned Proviso matter
I never hed a grain o' doubt,
Nor I aint one my sense to scatter
So'st no one couldn't pick it out;
My love fer North an' South is equil,
So I'll jest answer plump an' frank,--
No matter wut may be the sequil,--
Yes, Sir, I _am_ agin a Bank.

Ez to the answerin' o' questions,
I'm an off ox at bein' druv,
Though I aint one thet ary test shuns
'll give our folks a helpin' shove;
Kind o' pr'miscoous I go it
Fer the holl country, an' the ground
I take, ez nigh ez I can show it,
Is pooty gen'ally all round.

I don't appruve o' givin' pledges;
You'd ough' to leave a fellar free,
An' not go knockin' out the wedges
To ketch his fingers in the tree;
Pledges air awfle breachy cattle
Thet preudunt farmers don't turn out,--
Ez long 'z the people git their rattle,
Wut is there fer 'm to grout about?

Ez to the slaves, there's no confusion
In _my_ idees consarnin' them,--
_I_ think they air an Institution,
A sort of--yes, jest so,--ahem:
Do _I_ own any? Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge.
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.

Ez to my princerples, I glory
In hevin' nothin' o' the sort;
I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory,
I'm jest a candidate, in short;
Thet's fair an' square an' parpendicler,
But, ef the Public cares' a fig
To hev me an'thin' in particler,
Wy, I'm a kind o' peri-wig.

P. S.

Ez we're a sort o' privateerin',
O' course, you know, it's sheer an' sheer,
An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin'
I'll mention in _your_ privit ear;
Ef you git me inside the White House,
Your head with ile I'll kin' o' 'nint
By gittin' you inside the Light-house
Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint.

An' ez the North hez took to brustlin'
At bein' scrouged frum off the roost,
I'll tell ye wut'll save all tusslin'
An' give our side a harnsome boost,--
Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question
I'm |right|, although to speak I'm lawth;
This gives you a safe pint to rest on,
An' leaves me frontin' South by North.

[And now of epistles candidatial, which are of two
kinds,--namely, letters of acceptance, and letters
definitive of position. Our republic, on the eve of an
election, may safely enough be called a republic of letters.
Epistolary composition becomes then an epidemic, which
seizes one candidate after another, not seldom cutting short
the thread of political life. It has come to such a pass,
that a party dreads less the attacks of its opponents than a
letter from its candidate. _Litera scripta manet_, and it
will go hard if something bad can not be made of it. General
Harrison, it is well understood, was surrounded, during his
candidacy, with the _cordon sanitaire_ of a vigilance
committee. No prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously
deprived of writing materials. The soot was scraped
carefully from the chimney-places; outposts of expert
rifle-shooters rendered it sure death for any goose (who
came clad in feathers) to approach within a certain limited
distance of North Bend; and all domestic fowls about the
premises were reduced to the condition of Plato's original
man. By these precautions the General was saved. _Parva
componere magnis_, I remember, that, when party-spirit once
ran high among my people, upon occasion of the choice of a
new deacon, I, having my preferences, yet not caring too
openly to express them, made use of an innocent fraud to
bring about that result which I deemed most desirable. My
stratagem was no other than the throwing a copy of the
Complete Letter-Writer in the way of the candidate whom I
wished to defeat. He caught the infection, and addressed a
short note to his constituents, in which the opposite party
detected so many and so grave improprieties, (he had
modelled it upon the letter of a young lady accepting a
proposal of marriage,) that he not only lost his election,
but, falling under a suspicion of Sabellianism and I know
not what, (the widow Endive assured me that he was a
Paralipomenon, to her certain knowledge,) was forced to
leave the town. Thus it is that the letter killeth.

The object which candidates propose to themselves in writing
is to convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite
unsuspected pitfall into which they successively plunge
headlong. For it is precisely in such cryptographies that
mankind are prone to seek for and find a wonderful amount
and variety of significance. _Omne ignotum pro mirifico._
How do we admire at the antique world striving to crack
those oracular nuts from Delphi, Hammon, and elsewhere, in
only one of which can I so much as surmise that any kernel
had ever lodged; that, namely, wherein Apollo confessed that
he was mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to have
written six thousand books on the single subject of grammar,
a topic rendered only more tenebrific by the labors of his
successors, and which seems still to possess an attraction
for authors in proportion as they can make nothing of it. A
singular loadstone for theologians, also, is the Beast in
the Apocalypse, whereof, in the course of my studies, I have
noted two hundred and three several interpretations, each
lethiferal to all the rest. _Non nostrum est tantas
componere lites_, yet I have myself ventured upon a two
hundred and fourth, which I embodied in a discourse preached
on occasion of the demise of the late usurper, Napoleon
Bonaparte, and which quieted, in a large measure, the minds
of my people. It is true that my views on this important
point were ardently controverted by Mr. Shearjashub Holden,
the then preceptor of our academy, and in other particulars
a very deserving and sensible young man, though possessing a
somewhat limited knowledge of the Greek tongue. But his
heresy struck down no deep root, and, he having been lately
removed by the hand of Providence, I had the satisfaction of
reaffirming my cherished sentiments in a sermon preached
upon the Lord's day immediately succeeding his funeral. This
might seem like taking an unfair advantage, did I not add
that he had made provision in his last will (being celibate)
for the publication of a posthumous tractate in support of
his own dangerous opinions.

I know of nothing in our modern times which approaches so
nearly to the ancient oracle as the letter of a Presidential
candidate. Now, among the Greeks, the eating of beans was
strictly forbidden to all such as had it in mind to consult
those expert amphibologists, and this same prohibition on
the part of Pythagoras to his disciples is understood to
imply an abstinence from politics, beans having been used as
ballots. That other explication, _quod videlicet sensus eo
cibo obtundi existimaret_, though supported _pugnis et
calcibus_ by many of the learned, and not wanting the
countenance of Cicero, is confuted by the larger experience
of New England. On the whole, I think it safer to apply here
the rule of interpretation which now generally obtains in
regard to antique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial
expressions, and knotty points generally, which is, to find
a common-sense meaning, and then select whatever can be
imagined the most opposite thereto. In this way we arrive at
the conclusion, that the Greeks objected to the questioning
of candidates. And very properly, if, as I conceive, the
chief point be not to discover what a person in that
position is, or what he will do, but whether he can be
elected. _Vos exemplaria Græca nocturna versate manu,
versate diurna._

But, since an imitation of the Greeks in this particular
(the asking of questions being one chief privilege of
freemen) is hardly to be hoped for, and our candidates will
answer, whether they are questioned or not, I would
recommend that these ante-electionary dialogues should be
carried on by symbols, as were the diplomatic
correspondences of the Scythians and Macrobii, or confined
to the language of signs, like the famous interview of
Panurge and Goatsnose. A candidate might then convey a
suitable reply to all committees of inquiry by closing one
eye, or by presenting them with a phial of Egyptian darkness
to be speculated upon by their respective constituencies.
These answers would be susceptible of whatever retrospective
construction the exigencies of the political campaign might
seem to demand, and the candidate could take his position on
either side of the fence with entire consistency. Or, if
letters must be written, profitable use might be made of the
Dighton rock hieroglyphic or the cuneiform script, every
fresh decipherer of which is enabled to educe a different
meaning, whereby a sculptured stone or two supplies us, and
will probably continue to supply posterity, with a very vast
and various body of authentic history. For even the briefest
epistle in the ordinary chirography is dangerous. There is
scarce any style so compressed that superfluous words may
not be detected in it. A severe critic might curtail that
famous brevity of Cæsar's by two thirds, drawing his pen
through the supererogatory _veni_ and _vidi_. Perhaps, after
all, the surest footing of hope is to be found in the
rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and less of
qualification in candidates. Already have statesmanship,
experience, and the possession (nay, the profession, even)
of principles been rejected as superfluous, and may not the
patriot reasonably hope that the ability to write will
follow? At present, there may be death in pot-hooks as well
as pots, the loop of a letter may suffice for a bowstring,
and all the dreadful heresies of Anti-slavery may lurk in a
flourish.--H. W.]

No. VIII.

A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ.

[In the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, a
_miles emeritus_, to the bosom of his family. _Quantum
mutatus!_ The good Father of us all had doubtless intrusted
to the keeping of this child of his certain faculties of a
constructive kind. He had put in him a share of that vital
force, the nicest economy of every minute atom of which is
necessary to the perfect development of Humanity. He had
given him a brain and heart, and so had equipped his soul
with the two strong wings of knowledge and love, whereby it
can mount to hang its nest under the eaves of heaven. And
this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the keeping of
his vicar, the State. How stands the account of that
stewardship? The State, or Society, (call her by what name
you will,) had taken no manner of thought of him till she
saw him swept out into the street, the pitiful leavings of
last night's debauch, with cigar-ends, lemon-parings,
tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole loathsome
next-morning of the bar-room,--an own child of the Almighty
God! I remember him as he was brought to be christened, a
ruddy, rugged babe; and now there he wallows, reeking,
seething,--the dead corpse, not of a man, but of a soul,--a
putrefying lump, horrible for the life that is in it. Comes
the wind of heaven, that good Samaritan, and parts the hair
upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those parched,
cracked lips; the morning opens upon him her eyes full of
pitying sunshine, the sky yearns down to him,--and there he
lies fermenting. O sleep! let me not profane thy holy name
by calling that stertorous unconsciousness a slumber! By and
by comes along the State, God's vicar. Does she say,--"My
poor, forlorn foster-child! Behold here a force which I will
make dig and plant and build for me?" Not so, but,--"Here is
a recruit ready-made to my hand, a piece of destroying
energy lying unprofitably idle." So she claps an ugly gray
suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, and sends him off,
with Gubernatorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as a
destroyer.

I made one of the crowd at the last Mechanics' Fair, and,
with the rest, stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine,
with its soul of fire, its boiler-heart that sent the hot
blood pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of
steel. And while I was admiring the adaptation of means to
end, the harmonious involutions of contrivance, and the
never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy
fellow, the imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole
office was to let fall, at intervals, a drop or two of oil
upon a certain joint. Then my soul said within me, See there
a piece of mechanism to which that other you marvel at is
but as the rude first effort of a child,--a force which not
merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can
send an impulse all through the infinite future,--a
contrivance, not for turning out pins, or stitching
button-holes, but for making Hamlets and Lears. And yet this
thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust
and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch
it with a pin; while the other with its fire of God in it,
shall be buffeted hither and thither, and finally sent
carefully a thousand miles to be the target for a Mexican
cannon-ball. Unthrifty Mother State! My heart burned within
me for pity and indignation, and I renewed this covenant
with my own soul,--_In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in
blasphemiis contra Christum, non ita._--H. W.]

I spose you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me,
Exacly ware I be myself,--meanin' by thet the holl o' me.
Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they worn't bad ones neither,
(The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin' on me hither,)
Now one on 'm's I dunno ware;--they thought I wuz adyin',
An' sawed it off because they said 'twuz kin' o' mortifyin';
I'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther,
Wy one should take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner'n t' other,
Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be;
It took on so they took it off, an' thet's enough fer me:
There's one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one,--
The liquor can't git into it ez't used to in the true one;
So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller couldn't beg
A gretter blessin' then to hev one ollers sober peg;
It's true a chap's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum,
But all the march I'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come.