CONTENTdm
British Columbia Historical Books Collection
Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918
"Imprint varies: vols. 8, 14, 16-17, 22-26, 29-32, 34-39 published by the History Company of San Francisco. The list of authorities quoted in each volume includes mss. now in the Bancroft Library. The Works with changed t.p.'s and binder's titles and without the first five volumes, were published under the title History of the Pacific States of America. For the period up to the 1840s, it is necessary to consult all the volumes relating to the northwest Pacific. Bancroft's histories have been bitterly attacked on grounds of prejudice and failure to give adequate recognition to contributing authors. " . .. produced in a literary factory ... the work of many hands, they are spotty in quality": - Phil Townsend Hanna in Zamorano 80. "As time passes and prejudice drifts into obscurity, these works become more strongly entrenched each year. For scholars and investigators they will always remain the greatest source of authority": - Cowan. Contents: vols. 1-5. Native races.- vols.6-8. Central America. vols. 9-14. Mexico.- Vols.15-16. North American states and Texas.- vol.17. Arizona and New Mexico.- vols. 18-24. California.vol.25. Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming.- vol.26. Utah.- vols.27- 28. Northwest coast.- vols.29-30. Oregon.- vol.31. Washington, Idaho and Montana.- vol.32. British Columbia.- vol.33. Alaska.vol.34. California pastoral.- vol.35. California inter poculi.- vols. 36-37. Popular tribunals.- vol.38. Essays and miscellany.- vol.39. Literary industries."-- Strathern, G. M., & Edwards, M. H. (1970). Navigations, traffiques & discoveries, 1774-1848: A guide to publications relating to the area now British Columbia. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, p. 13
vi, 764 pages ; 23 cm
application/pdf
THE WORKS OF HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT r THE WORKS HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT VOLUME XXXVIII ESSAYS AND MISCELLANY SAN FRANCISCO THE HISTORY COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 1890 An ARNO PRESS book published in cooperation with McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY New York Toronto London Sydney Manufactured in the U.S.A. ARNO PRESS, INC. Library of Congress Catalog Card #67-29422 CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME. CHAPTER I. page. THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS, 1 CHAPTER II. THE NEW CIVILIZATION, 39 CHAPTER III. ROOT DIGGERS AND GOLD DIGGERS, ; 54 CHAPTER IV. OUR TREATMENT OP THE NATIVE RACES, 65 CHAPTER V. HISTORY WRITING, , .. , 75 CHAPTER VI. CRITICISM, 113 CHAPTER VII. WORK , 148 CHAPTER VIII. BATTRE LE FER SCR l'ENCLUME, .-. 165 CHAPTER IX, SOCIAL ANALYSIS, 182 CHAPTER X. NATION-MAKING, 205 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. PA0E. TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION, 235 CHAPTER XII. THE JURY SYSTEM, 2$0 CHAPTER XIII. MONGOL1ANISM IN AMERICA, 309 CHAPTER XIV. MONEY AND MONOPOLY, 419 CHAPTER XV. LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA, 455 CHAPTER XVI. LITERATURE OP COLONIAL MEXICO, 481 CHAPTER XVII. LITERATURE OF MEXICO DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY 537 CHAPTER XVIII. EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE 691 CHAPTER XIX. PLATO REVISED 6"9 ESSAYS AND MISCELLANY 1 CHAPTER I THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS Facts can be accurately known to us only by the most rigid observation and sustained and scrutinizing scepticism —Fronde In the North American Review for April, 1876, appeared an article by Lewis H. Morgan entitled " Montezuma's Dinner,", in which the writer attempts to show that the native nations of Central and South America were not so far advanced in culture as from the evidence of priests and conquerors we have been led to suppose, were not indeed so far advanced as the Iroquois and some other northern tribes. As Mr Morgan takes for his text the second volume of my Native Races of the Pacific States, treating of the aboriginal civilization of the Mexican and Central American table-lands; and as his remarkable hypotheses affect not alone the quality of American aboriginal culture, but the foundations of early American history, and indeed of all historic evidence; and as among his dis- iples are found several popular writers disseminating these erroneous ideas, I deem it not out of place to express my views upon the subject. I shall not attempt the elucidation of Mr Morgan's theories, which run through voluminous and somewhat 2 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. turbid writings, and which have been brought into some degree of notice, more by the persistent energy of the author than by any able arguments or convincing proofs. I have noticed that not every originator or supporter of a theory holds to one belief throughout the entire course of his investigations, or can himself explain exactly what he thinks he believes. The Morgan hypothesis adopts a distinction of its own as to what constitutes a savage or a civilized nation, in which rise prominent the systems of kinship, conspicuous in particular among the Iroquois and Ojibways, together with plurality of wives and community of property, as tests of a former grade. Convinced that the American nations all belong to one family, Mr Morgan assumes that their various institutions must be practically identical, and that the social customs of extinct tribes may be best learned, not from the statements of men who wrote from actual observation, but from the study of existing tribes. Himself familiar with the Iroquois, and to some extent with other northern tribes, he arbitrarily applies the tribal organization of the Iroquois, of gentes. phra- tries, tribes, and confederations to the nations of Mexico and Central and South America, thus making savages of all the inhabitants of the two Americas. With Mr Morgan's theory I have nothing to do. I cannot see that it alters the facts regarding the culture, the intellectual and social conditions of the inhabitants of the Mexican and Central American table-lands whether they are called savage or civilized, especially by those whose conception of the meaning of these words is peculiar, or at least quite different from that of the foremost scholars of the day. What alone interests me in this connection is the effect of such teachings on popular estimates of historical evidence, particularly as touching the early American chroniclers. Not that the teachings of Mr Morgan himself could exercise any great popular influence anywhere; but there is a class of writers for the million, who THE MORGAN THEORY. 3 flit in the sunshine of public favor, in the borderland between fact and fancy, caring less for the truth of what they say than for the manner in which it is said, and the money that comes to them in consequence. Men of this stamp have taken up the Morgan theory, and by pretending that there is more in it than ever the author himself dreamed of, have exercised a most pernicious influence over the popular mind, succeeding at one time in attracting to themselves considerable attention. They claimed that the literary and monumental remains of the Aztecs, Mayas, and Mound- builders might now be translated by skillful students ; that a clew to the labyrinths of race and origin had been found ; that conjecture in this direction had begun for science a new era, and that there remains little affecting American archaeology which the new theory will not make plain. For not one of these statements was there any foundation in fact or reason. They even went further to astonish the world, by asserting that the early American annals are by the light of this new theory transformed, and to a great extent annulled, the eyes of the first comers having deceived them; that the aboriginal culture, its arts, literature, sciences, polities, and religions, mean not these, but other things, as is clearly shown by the "new interpretation," and that the tales of the conquerors must accordingly be written anew, written and read by this new transforming light; that there never was an Aztec or a Maya empire, but only wild tribes leagued like the northern savages; that Yucatan never had great cities, nor Montezuma a palace, but that as an ordinary Indian chief this personage had lived in the communal dwelling of his tribe; that we can see America as Cortes saw it, not in the words of Cortes and his companions, or in the monumental remains of the south, but in the reflection of New Mexican villages, and through the mental vagaries of one man after the annihilation of facts presented by a hundred men. 4 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. All that was seen and said at the time of the conquest, and all that has since been seen or said conflicting with this fancy, is illusion; reasonable, tangible evidence, such alone as could be accepted by unbiassed common-sense, was not admissible if conflicting with the preconceived idea. I was surprised that such conceits should ever assume tangible form and be received as truth by any considerable number of scholars; that such conceits should ever be disseminated as facts by men pretending to a love of truth. It seems somewhat difficult for the average mind, slowly undergoing eternal emancipation, to establish the true relative values of learned and unlearned ignorance. In the former category may be placed all those unprovable speculations destined to end where they begin, and which so largely occupy the attention of the human race. And so long as those who assume the r61es of teachers present their illusions in pleasing forms, with a fair amount of dogmatic assurance, they will find listeners. In the present instance the disciples are far worse than the master. I fail to see the wisdom of thus attempting to sweep from the face of the earth by mere negation all persons and facts opposing a proposition. It is not by such means that reasonable hypotheses are established; blank negation never yet overthrew substantial truth. It seems a long leap, indeed, from a theory resting on a trace of certain organizations in the north, to an arbitrary conclusion that the Mayas were identical in their institutions with the Pueblo Indians. Grant the fundamental doctrine, and there is yet a wide distance between Zuni and Uxmal. It requires a vivid imagination to see only joint-tenement structures in the remains at Palenque. But admitting it, the radical difference in plan, architecture, and sculptured and stucco decorations, to employ Morgan's own line of argument, suggests a corresponding development and improvement in other institutions and arts, which would in- FACTS AND FANCY. 5 troduce some troublesome variations in the assumed identity with the Pueblos and Iroquois, even if all started together. The Maya hieroglyphs, and even certain of the Aztec, form also an obstacle by no means so easily removed. True, not being deciphered, their actual grade cannot be positively proved; yet the common picture-writing contains enough of the phonetic element to place the better class high above the line fixed by the new transforming light as the mark of civilization. Even by this bright illumination it seems scarcely possible to reconcile the testimony of existing relics, and of Spanish witnesses who came into contact with the Maya and Nahua nations, with the narrow conclusions of supporters of the all-embracing consanguinity. In the earlier life of the hypothesis the changes to what are called descriptive consanguinity and the inheritance of property were made tests of civilization; but these tests were abandoned when it was ascertained, among other things, that the Aztecs did inherit personal property, and to a certain extent landed estate. If this were the only theory ever advanced to prove indemonstrable propositions regarding the Americans, it might be more imposing; but it is only one of fifty, each of which has had its day and its supporters, and we cannot look forward with any degree of confidence to the fulfilment of promises based on grounds so weak and fictitious. Nor do I regard such investigation as in every respect beneficial; on the contrary, it is clearly detrimental where facts are warped to fit theories, the theory being of less importance to mankind than the fact. On the other hand it is true that great discoveries have sprung from apparently puerile conceits; and facts are sure to live, however sometimes distorted, while false doctrines are sure to die, however ably presented. In common with all such suppositions, the paths by which the advocate reaches his conclusions are fuller of instruction than the conclusions themselves. There 6 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. is something of instruction in the nine massive folios left by the poor demented Lord Kingsborough, who greatly desired to prove the American Indians Jews, though he was not one whit nearer such proof at the end than at the beginning. The more knowledge the learned abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg brought to the subject the more confused he became, until the latter parts of his labors were directed toward revising his earlier conjectures. Such a course appears not unusual with theorists—from the dogmatic to the argumentative, then back to the dogmatic again^ forever explaining away mistakes and falling into new ones. The eloquent Robert Mackenzie is still in the -first stage of dogmatism when with a glance at the map showing the proximity of Asia and America he would forever settle the question of origin. Nor is the straining of modern scientists to prove Asiatic intercourse by shipwrecked Japanese junks at all necessary. It is a well established fact that for many centuries there has been free intercourse between the peoples on either side of Bering strait, both by means of boats and by crossing on the ice. It may be as Mr Morgan says, though his arguments appear scarcely more convincing than the arguments of those who preceded him, or of those who came after him. Some of these other theories are held to-day; grant them all—what then? Grant that the Americans are one stock with the people of Asia, Scandinavia, or Africa, or Armenia, there still remains to be proven whether the Old World peopled the New, or the New the Old; where stood the primordial cradle or cradles of the race; where man was first made, and how. The fundamental weakness of Mr Morgan's argument lies in the glaring distortion of evidence to sustain it. Mr Morgan begins by telling what the Spanish conquerers found in Mexico—not what they themselves reported to have: seen, but what they should have seen to establish the ' new interpretation. This being infallible, the Spanish conquerors did not see what DOGMATIC THEORIZING. 7 they claimed. It may be immaterial whether we call the Nah ua culture savagism or civilization,Montezuma's dwelling a palace or a tenement house, himself emperor or cacique, and his subordinate rulers lords or chiefs; but it is somewhat presumptuous for Mr Morgan, who never examined the monumental remains of the Aztecs, who had no greater opportunity than others of studying their social system, and who in fact never knew anything about it except upon the evidence of the very witnesses he denounces as blind and false, sweepingly to assert, in order to extend a preconceived theory over all the nations of America, that the conquerers were mistaken, that they could not have seen what they thought they saw. It is the old line of reasoning employed by learned super- sition these many centuries; if the universe, or any part of it, does not accord with the doctrine, so much the worse for the universe, which must thereupon be reconstructed. As the good elder of one of our fashionable churches lately remarked, " If the bible affirmed that Jonah swallowed the whale, I should believe it." Without advancing adequate evidence to show the existence of his system among the Nahuas, Mr Morgan engages in sage discussions concerning it, transforming by the light of the new interpretation as many of the new facts into his fancies as suits his purpose. In doing this, he allows the chroniclers to be right, in whatever they say supporting his views; in all such statements as oppose his system they were in error. It was indeed a transforming light that enabled this man to see, not being present, what others could by no means perceive though they were on the ground; and he kindly admits that the early histories of Spanish America may for the most part be trusted, except where his pet project is touched. This, then, is my opinion of the Morgan theory. There may be grounds for certain of its suppositions in certain directions, but there are not sufficient 8 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. grounds for its acceptance as affecting the nations of the Mexican and Central American table-lands. In all such discussions there may be marshalled many analogies, some of them remarkable Nature is everywhere one; the nations of the earth, of whatever origin, are formed on one model But for every analogy these theorists have found, their predecessors have found a score of analogies in support of some other theory. Analogy presents no reliable basis for proving origin or race migrations. In looking over Mr Morgan's writings, it is to be noticed that traces of his tests to prove his theories become fainter and fainter as the southern and more advanced nations are approached. His attempt to locate the ancient Cibola shows no small lack of skill in the use of evidence. Likewise, though more dog- matical in some respects, in his later works he apparently relinquishes in some degree the positions which at first were maintained with such obstinacy, and spends some time in qualifying some of the more palpable of his former errors, yet still insisting in extending his doctrines over the southern plateaux. In estimating the relative advancement of peoples, some standard of measurement is necessary. The term savage and civilized, as employed by various persons, have widely different significations. Probably no words so freely used are so little understood. The terms are usually employed to designate fixed conditions, when by the very nature of .things such conditions cannot properly be applied to man. Mr Morgan classified culture periods under the categories of savagism, barbarism, and civilization; to emerge from the first of which there should be knowledge of fire, fish subsistence, and the bow and arrow; from the second, pottery, domestication of animals, agriculture, and smelting of iron; and to attain full civilization a phonetic alphabet was necessary, or use of hieroglyphs upon stone as an equivalent. SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 9 This may have been a convenient arrangement for his purpose, and I see no reason why he, and all who choose, should not employ it. But surely the same right should be accorded others, who perchance may find another classification convenient. For instance, one might wish to throw Mr Morgan's three divisions into the one category of savagism, and spread the idea of civilization upon a higher plane; for surely our present highest civilization is as much superior to the condition essential to admission into his highest class as his highest class is superior to his lowest. Italian song, French art, German letters, English poetry, and American invention are certainly far enough in advance of the first use of the phonetic alphabet to entitle such accomplishments to a new category. One estimates a nation's civilization by its agriculture; another by its manufactures; others by the quality of its religion, morality, literature, or political and social institutions. Some say that tillers of the soil should be preferred before herders of cattle; some hold workers in iron and coal above workers in gold and feathers; some place pottery in advance of sculpture; the fine arts before the industrial; some compare implements of war, others phonetic characters, others knowledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies; some would take a general average. But weighing a people's civilization, or lack of it, by any of these standards, yet other standards are necessary by which to measure progress. What is meant by half civilized, or quarter civilized, or wholly civilized? A half civilized nation is a nation half as civilized as ours. But is ours civilized, fully civilized ? Is there no higher culture, or refinement, or justice, or humanity in store for man than those formed on present European models, which sanction coercion, bloody arbitrament, international robbery, the extermination of primitive peoples, and hide in society under more comely coverings all the iniquities of sav- 10 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. agism ? Judging from the past and the present there is yet another six thousand, or sixty thousand years of progress for man, and then he may be still a savage compared with his condition at the end of the next twelve thousand or one hundred and twenty thousand years' term. Is there then no such thing as civilization? Assuredly not, in the significance of a fixed condition, a goal attained, a complete and perfected idea or state. Civilization and savagism are relative and not absolute terms. True, temporary standards have to be adopted at different stages in history for the sake of argument and elucidation; but to attempt to make them absolute and apply them to fixed conditions is to render them meaning-, less, and make null the conditions indicated. The moment the man primeval kindles a fire, or employs a crooked stick in procuring food, he has entered upon his never ending progressional journey; he is no longer wholly and primordially savage. The terms being rightly employed, there are no absolute savages or ciYilized peoples on the earth to-day; and when there are so many standards by which progress may properly be measured, is it wise to warp fundamental facts in dogmatically thrusting one people into the category of half civilized, and another but slightly different into that of one quarter savage ? We might have a hundred fixed stages, not one of which by any possibility could be so defined in words as completely to fit any one of the millions of human conditions. Howsoever definite an idea we may have of that end of the line which began with man, of the other which Avill never cease spinning until the last human being has left the planet, we can have no conception. For aught we know it may not stop short of omniscience. Civilization is an unfolding, and develops mainly from its own germ; it is not a superficial acquisition, but an inward growth, even if nourished by extraneous food. You may whitewash a savage with your superiority, but you cannot civilize him at once. AZTEC CULTURE. 11 Whether we turn to the extreme eastern kingdoms of Asia, or to the region watered by the Euphrates and the Nile, all inhabited since the remotest historic past by races of acknowledged culture, everywhere we find vast differences and strong peculiarities in the respective cultures, developed by environment. Some of the characteristics are of a high order, others descend to a grade of actual barbarism; some are in course of development, others stationary, or even retrograding. The Nahua culture partakes of the same traits, fashioned by its peculiar environment. For purposes of his own, Mr Morgan arbitrarily describes limits to what is called civilization in order if possible to prevent the Nahuas from entering its precincts. In this effort he ignores many distinctively higher traits which the most superficial observer must discover among the southern races; he chooses to disregard or slight the very distinct evidences of not merely settled life, but of settled communities under a high form of government, with advanced institutions and arts. I will present briefly some facts and characteristics on which, according to my conception of the term, the Nahuas and Mayas may justly lay claim to be called civilized. I will give beforehand the proof that these traits did actually exist among the peoples of the Mexican and Central American table-lands at the time of their conquest by the Spaniards, laying before the reader the principal authorities in their true character as fully as I am able to discover it, with all their merits and demerits, their veracity and mendacity; making as close and critical an analysis of their writings as the most skeptical could desire. I am not aware of any special desire to prove the presence or absence of a civilization in this instance. If my historical writings display any one marked peculiarity, it is that of a critical incredulity in respect of both Indian and Spanish tales. I have avoided, so 12 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. far as possible, placing myself in a position where I should be tempted to exaggerate. I have no theory to advocate. My narrations are based on the reports of eye-witnesses whose characters have been studied, whose education, idiosyncrasies, positions, conditions, temper, and temptations have all been carefully considered in weighing their evidence, and the results are so given that the reader can easily form conclusions of his own if mine' do not satisfy him. It is well not to lose sight of the fact, either in the present investigation or in using the writings of the chroniclers as historical evidence or for any other purpose, that the men of the period were deceived in regard to many things, but that it is not difficult for us to perceive in what things and to what extent they were laboring under misapprehension. All men and all things are to a certain extent deceiving, even to our wiser discrimination of to-day. Classes and creeds are given to misrepresentation; either intentionally or unintentionally, the false colors placed before the mind of man in the beginning, through which alone the universe and whatever it contains must of necessity be viewed, were quite different in different times and from various standpoints. The priest, however, is not likely wilfully to misrepresent in matters wherefrom there will arise no benefit either to him or to his church or order. And so with the soldier and adventurer, each perhaps jealous of the other, and ever ready to contradict any false statement which will lessen his own importance or add to the wealth or happiness of one he hates. In regard to aboriginal testimony, aside from that displayed by the still existing material remains, I never have placed great reliance, although on no better evidence than that of native Aztec writers, and aboriginal traditions in existence long before the appearance in the country of Europeans, Christianity, mahomet- anism, and all religions pin their faith. There are some able scholars and investigators of the present ABORIGINAL WRITINGS. 13 day who are confident that in the hieroglyphics of the Nahuas and Mayas will yet be found the key to many mysteries, among others to unknown languages, to kinship with the Egyptians, Chaldeans, or other peoples, and to the routes and purposes of the great migrations of the earth; but there has as yet appeared no evidence whatever to base any such expectations upon. Towards deciphering the picture writings of the aboriginal peoples of the Mexican and Central American table-lands, little or no advance has been made. Nevertheless, there were among the native nations inhabiting this region prior to the conquest wise and able men, who, after the Spaniards had come, and they had learned the language of the conquerors, transcribed much of their aboriginal history from the original hieroglyphics into Spanish, and there is no reason why we may not as well believe the more evident truths contained in these writings, particularly such portions as wre have at hand collateral evidence to sustain, as credit anything found in any ancient writings, sacred or profane. Even though the statements recorded in these aboriginal books are all thrown into the category of mythology, there is still evidence of a well-advanced culture in the bare ability to originate, entertain, and record such ideas. The measure of their civilization, which is the prominent point at issue in the present instance, is to a certain extent determined by the character and quality of their writings, whether true or false. Let every word of the Iliad be untrue, Homer would not therefore be termed a savage. It seems superfluous to attempt to prove the validity of the early chroniclers, Mr Morgan's singular position would not be worthy of notice but that his statements have proved misleading to others. Imagine the history of the conquest written from the Morgan standpoint. The story might be told based on the authority of the chroniclers—it can never otherwise be written; but all that they report in any way conflicting with the preconceived idea must be thrown PI 14 THE EAULY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. out or explained away. Imagine my account of the aborigines announced as A Description of the Native Races of North America, founded on such parts of existing Spanish Testimony, and on such Material Relics as seem to agree with the researches of Lewis H. Morgan among the Iroquois of New York! If, after the evidence in the present instance is fully given, the reader prefers denominating the peoples referred to as savages or satyrs, I have not the slightest objection. With the first expedition to Mexico went two men by the name of Diaz, one a priest and the other a soldier. Both wrote accounts of what they saw, thus giving us at the outset narratives from ecclesiastical and secular standpoints. It was a voyage along the coast; they did not penetrate the interior. Observation being general, the descriptions are general. There was nothing remarkable about the priest; he was not particularly intelligent or honest. I see no reason to doubt the commonplace incidents of the voyage as given in the Itinerario de Grijalva. The towns, with their white stone buildings and temple-towers glistening in the foliage, remind him of Seville; when he mentions a miracle which happens at one of them, we know he is not telling the truth. Indeed, an experienced judge can almost always arrive at the truth even if the evidence comes only from the mouths of lying witnesses, provided he can examine them apart. Where the evidence- is abundant, the judge, soon knows more of the facts of the case than any one witness, and can easily discern the true statements from the false. But on the whole, the priest Juan Diaz was quite moderate in his descriptions of what we know from other sources to have been there. The same evidence is offered in the Historia Ver- dadera of Bernal Diaz, who attended not only on this voyage, but on the first and succeeding expeditions; all is plain, unvarnished, and devoid of coloring. If hyperbole was ever to be employed it should be in DIAZ, TERRAZAS. 15 connection with the revelation of these first startling evidences of a new art and a strange race. But the enthusiasm of the author becomes marked only as he ascends later with Cortes to the table-land and there beholds the varied extent of the new culture. What stronger proof can there be of its superior grade when he passes by with comparative indifference the Yucatec specimen, knowm to us to be of rare beauty, and expresses marked wonder only on reaching Mexico? Bernal Diaz wrote rather late in life, after many accounts had already been given. He prided himself on giving a true history, was quite as ready to fight with his pen as with his sword, and having had many quarrels, and still harboring many jealousies, was very apt to criticise what others said; and he did so criticise and refute. The truth is, there were here many and opposing elements in the evidence to winnow it from falsehood, far more than are usually found in early materials for history. The memorials of the relatives of Velazquez to the king are not worth considering, being little more than masses of misstatements and exaggerations. The personage known as the Anonymous Conqueror, probably Francisco de Terrazas, mayordomo of Cortes, gave a clear description of Mexico, the country, people, towns, and institutions, and particularly the capital city, arranged in paragraphs with proper headings, with drawings of the great temple and of the city. His method and language denote intelligence and inspire confidence. No reason is known why he should exaggerate, many being apparent why he should render a true account. If his testimony can be ruled out on the ground that it does not fit a theory, then can that of any man who furnishes material for history, and our histories may as well be written with the theories as authorities, and have done with it. Dealing wholly with native institutions, the writer seems to have no desire, as' is the case with some, to magnify native strength and resources for the ->*^ 16 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. sake of raising the estimate of the deeds of himself and comrades; on the contrary, in speaking of native troops and arms, where a soldier would be most inclined to boast, the description rather moderates the idea of their prowess. The population of Mexico he gives lower than most writers, and yet, when describing the city and its arts, he grows quite eloquent on the size, the beauty, the civilized features. The whole narrative bears the stamp of reliability, and the student may easily from internal evidence and comparison deduct approximate truth. There are documents, such as Carta del Ejercito and Probanza de Lejalde, attested under oath by hundreds, and therefore apparently worthy of credit above others; but when we examine the motives for their production, and find that they vrere intended to palliate the conduct of the conquerors, our confidence is shaken. Hernan Cortes was ever ready with a lie when it suited his purpose, but he was far too wise a man needlessly to waste so useful an agent. He would not, and did not, acquire a name for untruthfulness. He knew that others were writing as well as himself, and it could by no possibility bring him permanent benefit to indulge in much deception. His misstatements chiefly affect himself and his enemies and opponents among his owTn countrymen; in giving detailed information concerning the natives there was little temptation to deceive. His Cartas might naturally be expected to aim at extolling his achievements and the value of his discovery. Expecting some coloring, the student is forewarned. We find at times what we feel inclined to stamp as exaggeration, but here also the enthusiasm of the narrator rises only as he approaches Mexico, the fame of which is dinned into his ears all along his march, and that by the natives nearer the coast, whose high advancement is attested by ruins and relics. Internal and collateral evidence shows his first descriptions of sights to be far from overrated, and his later discoveries to be in the*main quite trust- HERNAN CORTES. 17 worthy. Indeed, aware that some of his statements may be doubted, he urges his sovereign more than once to send out a commission to verify them. Such verification was exacted. Officials did come out to report on the conquest and its value, only to join, in the main, in confirmation of what had been said. A series of questions was also sent to public men in Mexico not long after the conquest, bearing to a great extent on the native culture, and the answers all tend to confirm the high estimate already formed from the specimens and reports forwarded to Spain. One of the most exhaustive answers was sent by the eminent jurist Alonso de Zurita, connected for nearly twenty years with Spanish audiencias in New Spain. He reviews the native institutions with calm and clear judgment, and it is only in rejecting the epithet of barbarians as bestowed by unthinking persons—a term applied also to Europeans by Chinese—that he grows indignant, declaring that none who had any knowledge of Mexican institutions and capacity could use such a term. He spoke while evidences were quite fresh, and well knew what he affirmed. Similar confirmatory evidence may be found massed in the various collections of letters and narratives about the Indies brought to light from the archives of Spain and America, and published by the editors of the extensive Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos; Coleccion de Docu- mentos para laHistoria de Mexico, etc.; by the learned Navarrete, Ramirez, Ieazbalceta, Ternaux-Compans, and others. Still stronger evidence of the reliability of the early authorities comes from the consideration, that the rumors of Mexico's grandeur and wealth attracted vast hordes of hungry seekers for gold, grants of land, &nd office. Of course, most of them were disappointed, and Cortes, from his inability to please and gratify all, raised a host of enemies, who joined the large number already arraigned against him by reason of his successes. Their aim was naturally to vilify Essays and Miscellany 2 18 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. him, to lower the achievements of the conquest, and to disparage the country which had failed to satisfy them. .If ever a subject was assailed, it was this of Mexico, her resources and people; assailed, too, during the very opening years of the occupation, when the testimony of eye-witnesses was abundant, and particularly of the disappointed, whose voice was loudest. Notwithstanding all this the glories of Mexico stand unshaken, and greater grow the confirmed ideas of the superior condition of her race in number, culture, and resources; and this, too, when the Spanish government began to discountenance the glowing reports of native superiority, and to lower the estimates of aboriginal wealth and condition, with a view to keep foreign attention from the country, and to hide the facts which would tell against it while crushing a high culture and enslaving a noble race. Thus it was that the writings of Sahagun, Las Casas, and others, were suppressed or neglected. But if many such were lost, others came finally to light to receive additional confirmation from the native records. It is to these records that we must look not only for confirmation of what the. chroniclers relate, but for the only reliable data on political machinery and other esoteric subjects with which Spaniards could not become so well acquainted. The value of native "records as supplementary and confirmatory testimony is self-apparent, since they were written by and for the natives themselves, and naturally without the idea of exaggeration or deception being dominant. A sufficient number of original and copied native manuscripts or paintings exists in different museums and libraries, relating not only to historic events, but describing the nature and development of institutions and arts. Besides the actual records, many histories exist, by natives and friars, based wholly on such paintings and on traditions and personal observations, such as those of Tezozomoc, Camargo, and IxtlilxochitL NATIVE HISTORIANS. 19 Each of these native authors wrote from a different standpoint, in the interest of his respective nationality. Camargo, for instance, as a Tlascaltec is bitterly hostile to the Aztecs, and seeks of course to detract from their grandeur in order to exalt his own people. He rather avoids dwelling on Aztec glories; nevertheless frequent admissions appear which help to confirm the impression of their advanced institutions. Ixtlilxochitl, again, writes from the family archives of his royal house of Tezcuco, and dwells upon the deeds and grandeur of his city and tribe. None of these authors possess sufficient skill to conceal the coloring which constitutes their chief defect as authorities. A number of chroniclers, and even modern writers like Brasseur de Bourbourg, have used native paintings and narratives more or less for their histories, while certain others, like Veytia, depend upon them or their translations almost wholly. Ixtlilxochitl was called by Bustamante the Cicero of An&huac, and of course is to be read with allowance when speaking of his people. And so with Father Duran—I would no more trust a zealous priest while defending the natives than I would trust Morgan while defending his theory. The reliability of translators is best judged by the method used by Father Sahagun in the formation of the Historia General, the three volumes of which are devoted to an account of native manners and customs, their domestic and public life, their festivals and rites, their institutions and traits. Instructed by his superiors, the friar called upon intelligent and learned Indians in different places to paint in hieroglyphics their accounts of these subjects. To these, explanations were attached in full Mexican text, and tested by further inquiries, and then translated into Spanish by Sahagun. Many of the narratives are vague and absurd, yet these very faults point in most cases to simple-minded earnestness and frankness, and render the work rather easier for the discriminating 20 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. student to sift. The honesty of Sahagun's labors brought upon them obloquy and neglect, which only the more serve to commend the work to us. It is from such sources, original' and translated native records, and verbal and written narrations of eye-witnesses, that succeeding writers, or chroniclers proper, obtained the main portion of their accounts of conquests and aboriginal institutions. They themselves had opportunities for observation; and actuated by different motives, they were naturally impelled to investigate and weigh to a certain extent, whether through eagerness for fame, or from desire to raise the achievements of favorites, or to detract from the glories of envied or detested leaders. Las Casas, for instance, in his different works stands forward as a pronounced champion of the natives, and unflinchingly lashes the conquerors and historians for what he terms cruelty, unjust policy, and false statement. His Historia Apologdtica is purely a defence of the Indians, their institutions and characteristics, and consequently to be accepted with caution. The need of this caution becomes stronger when we behold the extreme exaggerations to which he is led in the Breve Relacion, claiming to be an exposd of Spanish excesses and cruelties. In the Historia de las Indias, again, he allows his feelings of friendship for Velazquez to detract from the achievements of Cortes. On every hand, therefore, the historian finds reasons for accepting with caution the statements of Las Casas; but thus forewarned, he is able to reject the false and determine the true. He also finds that when not blinded by zeal the worthy bishop is honest, and withal a keen and valuable observer, guided by practical sagacity and endowed with a certain genius. His contemporary, Oviedo, although less talented, is by no means deficient in.knowledge, and a varied experience in both hemispheres had given him a useful insight into affairs. He is not partial to the natives, and Las Casas actually denounces his state- LAS CASAS, OVIEDO, PETER MARTYR, GOMARA. 21 ments against them as lies. This is hardly just, except in some instances. While personally acquainted only with the region to the south of Nicaragua Lake, his account embraces all Spanish conquests in the western Indies, the facts being gathered from every accessible source, and either compiled or given in separate form. Indian and Spaniard, friend, foe, and rival, all receive a hearing and a record, so that his work is to a great extent a mass of testimony from opposite sides. This to the hasty reader may present a contradictory appearance, as Las Casas is led to assume, but to the student such material is valuable. A third contemporary and famous writer is Peter Martyr, a man of brilliant attainments, deep, clear mind, and honest purpose, who had gained for himself a prominent position in Spain,.and even a seat in the Council of the Indies. Naturally interested in the New World, whose affairs were then unfolding, he eagerly questioned those who came thence, consulted their charts and reports, and was thus enabled to form a more accurate opinion about the Indians and their land, one that was thus founded on reliable and varied testimony. A fault, however, is the haste with which his' summaries were formed, both in order and detail; yet even this defect tends to leave the narrative unvarnished and free from a dangerous elaboration. Even Las Casas admits its credibility. The different minds, motives, prejudices, and even antagonisms, of these three writers each impart an additional value to their respective writings from which the historian cannot fail to derive benefit. Like Peter Martyr, Gomara took his material entirely from testimony, chiefly letters, reports, and other documents in the archives of Cortes, his patron, and collections to which his influence gained access. His high literary tastes gave a zest to his writings, but impelled him also to elaboration, and his Historia de Mexico is colored by his predilections as biographer 22 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. of the conqueror. On the other hand, he finds endorsement in the decree which was issued against his history because of its treatment of government affairs, and comparison with other histories reveals the many valuable points which he has brought to light The adoption of his Mexican work by so prominent a native as Chimalpain is to a certain extent an assurance of its truthfulness. Munoz places Gomara among the first of the chroniclers. He had no special reason that we can see to extol unduly native institutions. He wrote early enough to know all about them, but not so early as to be carried away by a first enthusiasm. Made secretary and chaplain to Cortes in 1540, his object of adulation was his patron, in recounting whose deeds he cannot be trusted. Neither had Corte's, as before remarked, special interest, least of all at this time, in magnifying the civilization—the civilization he had destroyed. Alvarado and others of the chroniclers were repeatedly tried by the Spanish government for their cruelty to the natives, whom it was the desire of both church and state to preserve. It would therefore be rather in favor of the conquerors to hold them up as ignoble and low. The learned and elegant Antonio de Solis, though so bigoted as to render his deductions in many instances puerile, and though constantly raving against the natives, was closely followed by both Robertson and Prescott. Herrera, the historiographer of the Indies, uses the material of all the preceding writers, in addition to original*narratives, and has in his Historia General the most complete account of American affairs up to his time. His method of massing material makes it most valuable^ but a slavish adherence to chronology destroys the sequence, interferes with broad views, and renders the reading uninteresting. This defect is increased by a bald, prolix style, the effect of inexperienced aid, and by the extreme patriotism and piety HERRERA, TORQUEMADA, MENDIETA 23 which often set aside integrity and humanity. On the other hand, he in some measure tempered and corrected the exaggerations of his predecessors. Torquemada was less critical in accepting material, but he was indefatigable in his efforts to exhaust the information about New Spain and her natives, anct his Monarquia Indiana is the most complete account extant in its combination of topics. Though an able work, it contains many errors; yet the manifold sources of information all the more help the student to arrive at the truth. Torquemada amassed a great store of private information about native institutions during the fifty years of his labor among the Indians, and he made use of many histories then unpublished— instance those of Sahagun, Mendieta, and others. Mendieta was an ardent champion of the natives, and a bitter opponent of the audiencia and government officials; yet in mundane affairs he possessed sound judgment, so much so that he was frequently intrusted with important missions of a diplomatic nature. He became the historian of his provincia, and gained the title of its Cicero. His Historia Eclesi- dstica, which treats chiefly of the missionary progress of his order, contains a large amount of matter on native customs, arts, and traits. Mendieta may be regarded as the pupil of Toribio de Benavente, whose humility of spirit caused him to adopt the name of Motolinia, applied by the Indians out of commiseration for his appearance. Not that he was very humble in all matters, as may be seen from his bitter attack on Las Casas. In this instance, however, he was merely an exponent of the hostility prevailing between the Franciscans, to which he belonged, and the Dominicans, which led to many pen contests and contradictory measures for the Indians, from all of which the historian gains new facts. Motolinia arrived in Mexico in 1524, and wandered over it and the countries to the south for a series of years, teaching and converting. He is claimed to have 24 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. baptized over four hundred thousand persons. His knowledge of the aborigines and long intercourse with them before their customs were changed, enabled him to acquire most important information about them. All this, together with the story of his mission work, is related in the Historia de los Lndios de Nueva Espana, written in a rambling manner, with a naive acceptance of the marvellous, yet bearing a stamp of truthfulness that wins confidence. Occasionally there have risen writers who, from excess of zeal, personal ambition, or careless study of facts, sought to cast doubts on native culture and similar topics, like De Pau and Raynal, only to evoke replies more or less hasty. This unsatisfactory contest roused the ire, among others, of the learned Jesuit Clavigero. Himself born in Mexico, his patriotic zeal was kindled, and during a residence there of thirty-five years, till driven forth by the general edict against his order, he made the ancient history and institutions thereof his special study. The result was the Storm Antica del Messico, which if less bulky than Torquemada's work, is far more satisfactory in its plan for thoroughness and clearness, and remains the leading authority in its field. Clavigero is generally admitted to have refuted the two prominent opponents above named on the culture questions, even though his statements are at times colored with the heat of argument and with zeal for race. Among the remaining historians who treat on civilized tribes may be named Acosta, who in speaking of Mexican culture borrows wholly from Duran, a Franciscan, born in New Spain of a native mother, and consequently predisposed in favor of his race. Indeed, nearly all of Duran's bulky narrative on ancient history and institutions is not only from native sources, but from a native standpoint. Vetancurt, who agrees mainly with Torquemada, follows both native and Spanish versions. Benzoni offers a good store of personal observation on Central American OTHER WRITERS. 25 Indians and affairs, but writes from hearsay when touching on Mexico. Writers on special districts are also numerous. Bishop Landa wrote on Yucatan and its culture, and is accused of having given forth and invented alphabets, as the Maya. Cogolludo adds much to his accounts, while Fuentes, Remesal, Vasquez, Villagutierre, and Juarros exhaust the adjoining fields of Chiapas and Guatemala. Thence northward the circle may be continued with Burgoa's works on Oajaca, Beaumont's on Michoacan, Mota Padilla's on Nueva Galicia, Arlegui's on Zacatecas, Ribas' on Sinaloa; and so forth. Descriptions of the chroniclers and their works might be carried to almost any extent, but sufficient has been given, I trust, to prove their testimony, taken as a whole, closely sifted and carefully weighed, to be quite as worthy of credence as that from which history is usually derived. I cannot throw to the winds such testimony in order that certain speculators may the better win converts to their fancy. The traducers of Aztec culture and its chroniclers have evidently failed in that most important point of carefully reading, comparing, and analyzing the authorities which they so recklessly condemn as a mass of fiction or exaggeration. It seems to me ridiculous for the superficial readers of a few books to criticise the result of such thorough researches as Prescott's, and even to sweep them all away with one contemptuous breath. I for one can testify to Prescott's general fairness and accuracy. His researches and writings are beyond all comparison with those of any modern theorist. Others also have read, compared, and analyzed the authorities on Mexico, perhaps even more than Prescott, for fresh documents have appeared since his time; and while some errors and discrepancies have been discovered, yet in the main neither Nahua culture nor the chronicles and records describing it can be said to have been misrepresented or exaggerated by him. f i 26 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. The very discrepancies in the accounts of different chroniclers, which to the experienced observer indicate genuineness and truthfulness, are paraded by the superficial reader as proof of falsity. The chroniclers have for centuries been exposed to numerous and. severe ordeals of critique, and their respective defects and merits have been widely discussed; but on the whole these discussions tend to confirm the statements which I have given, some of the strongest testimony being found in their very differences and blunders. Thus not even their bigotry, then so strong and wide-spread, their simplicity, their prejudices in different directions, none of these can conceal the truth or its main features, although occasional points may still remain hidden under a false coloring. The rigid censorship exercised in Spain over all writings led to the suppression of many works, but the main effort was to suppress heterodoxy and unfavorable reflections on Spanish policy, and if culture questions were touched, to lower the estimate thereof in order to cover vandalism. While thoroughly convinced that we have in the early American chroniclers a solid foundation for history, as before stated I do not by any means accept as truth all they say; I do not accept half of what some say, while others I find it difficult to believe at all. Upon this basis, then—that is, on the basis of truth and well sifted facts—I will present a few of the leading characteristics of the Nahua and Maya peoples, sufficient in my opinion to justify their claim, as the world goes, to be called civilized. Whether those who thus affect to disbelieve in Aztec culture, including such men as Lewis Cass and R. A. Wilson, advocate an Old World origin for some of the advanced features does not matter, for there is absolutely no evidence for such origin beyond resemblances which may be traced • between nations throughout the world; on the other hand, there are THE CITY OF MEXICO. 27 strong internal evidences of the autochthonic origin of some of the highest features of this civilization, such as hieroglyphics and many branches of the higher arts. Besides, the existence or non-existence of these advanced arts is the point in question, not whence they came. The city of Mexico presents many features of advanced urban life under Aztec occupation, not alone as related by chroniclers, but as proved by incidental details in the account of the sieges of and by the Spaniards, and by the ruins. Humboldt found distinct traces of the old city, extending in some directions far beyond the present actual limits; and the numerous and substantial causeways which led to it for several miles through the lake prove that it must have been of great extent. The causeways, though now passing over dry land, are still in use, and reveal their solidity. Any one who will carefully read the military report and other accounts of the long protracted siege must become impressed with the vast extent and strength of the city; the large number and size of its temple pyramids affirm the same. Through an aqueduct of masonry several miles long it was supplied with water, which was distributed by pipes, and by boatmen. Light-houses guided the lake traffic; a large body of men kept the numerous canals in order, swept the streets, and sprinkled them. The houses were, many of them, large and well built. The emperor's palace contained many suites of rooms designed for individual occupation, not at all like anything in New Mexico. Temple-towers and turrets were frequent, proving that structures several stories in height were in use. Among the Nahuas the several branches of art were under control of a council or academy, with a view to promote development in poetry, music, oratory, painting, and sculpture, though chiefly literary arts, and to check the production of defective work. Before this council poems and essays were recited, and inventions exhibited. Uii***"" 28 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. If distortion assumes prominence in a large class of models instead of ideal beauty, this must be attributed to the peculiarity and cruelty of certain Aztec institutions, which stamp their traits on subjective art. Beauty of outline is nevertheless common, notably in the rich ornamentation to be seen on ruins, and on art relics transmitted in large numbers to Spain by the conquerors. The friezes or borders equal the Grecian in elegant outline and combination. The well known calendar stone contains in itself a vast number of beautiful designs. Some of the vases in the museums at Mexico and Washington surpass the Etruscan in beauty of form and in tasteful decorations. Again, the terra-cotta heads picked up round Teotihuacan, some of which I have in my possession, exhibit a most truthful delineation of the human face, with considerable expression, and are of actual beauty. Other admirable specimens are the female Aztec idol in the British Museum, the mosaic knife with its human figure from Christy's collection, the skin-clad Aztec priest, the Ethiopian granite head, the beautiful head from Mitla, and the grotesque figures from the Mexican gulf. Such specimens suffice to establish the existence of a high degree of art among the Nahuas. As for the advance exhibited by adjoining races, one glance at the numerous artistic designs and groupings on Yucatan ruins must command admiration, which rises as the observer examines the monuments at Palenque, with their extent of massive edifices, their advanced mode of construction, their galleries, their arches, their .fine facade and interior ornamentation, and above all, their numerous human figures of absolute beauty in model. This applies also to some terra-cotta relics from the same quarter. Ornamental work in gold and silver had reached a perfection which struck the Spaniards with admiration, and much of the metal obtained by them was given to native smiths to shape into models and set- WORK IN METALS. 29 tings. Many pieces sent to Europe were pronounced superior to what Old World artists could then produce. Birds and other animals were modelled with astonishing exactness, and furnished with movable wings, legs, and tongues. The so-called 'lost art' of casting parts of the same object in different metals was known; thus fishes were modelled with alternate scales of gold and silver. Copper and other metals were gilded by a process which would have made the fortune of a goldsmith in Europe. Furnaces, perhaps of earthen-ware, and blowpipes, are depicted on native paintings in connection with gold-working. Although there had been but little progress in mining, yet a beginning appears to have been made in obtaining metals and minerals from the solid rock, and melting, casting, hammering, and carving were in use among goldsmiths and other workers, as shown in native paintings. This is one of the strongest proofs that the Nahuas were progressing in civilization, not at a stand-still nor retrograding, for such mining and melting methods must surely lead to the discovery of iron ere they stopped. Cutting implements were made of copper alloyed with tin, and tempered to great hardness. Yet stone tools were still chiefly used, particularly those of obsidian, from which mirrors were also made, equal in reflecting power to those of Europe at that time, it was said. Softer stone being chiefly used, flint implements sufficed for the sculptor; yet specimens exist in hard stone. Precious stones were cut with copper tools, with the aid of silicious sand, and carved in forms of animals. Specimens of their art in stone and metal were received in Europe, wThere chroniclers of different minds and impulses write in ecstasy over workmanship which in so many instances surpassed in excellence that of Spain. The fabrics and feather-work were equally admired for fineness of texture, brilliancy of coloring, and beauty of arrangement and form. So accurate were the representations of animals in relief j>>* 30 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. and drawing as to serve the naturalist Hernandez for models. The Nahua paintings show little artistic merit, because the figures, in order to be intelligible, were necessarily conventional, as were the Egyptian hieroglyphics. This necessity naturally cramped art. But while the Egyptians carried the conventionality even to sculpture and painting generally, the Nahuas clung to it closely only in their writings; and it needs but a glance at many specimens among ruins and relics to see that considerable skill had been reached in delineating even the human form and face in plastic material, for in painting the development was small. An art, however, which approached that of painting was the formation of designs and imitation of animal forms, and even faces, with feathers—feather- mosaic—so beautifully done that the feather-pictures are declared by wondering Spaniards to have equalled the best works of European painters. Specimens are still to be seen in museums. The artist would often spend hours, even days, in selecting and adjusting one feather in order to obtain the desired shade of color. Fabrics were made of cotton, of rabbit-hair, or of both mixed, or with feather admixture. The rabbit- hair fabrics were pronounced equal in finish and texture to silk. The fibres of maguey and palm leaves were used for coarser cloth. Paper in long narrow. sheets was made chiefly of maguey fibres, and though thick, the surface was smooth. Gums appear to have been used for cohesion. Parchment was also used. Skins were tanned by a process not described, but the result is highly praised. In dyeing they appeared to have excelled Europeans, and cochineal and other dyes have been introduced among us from them. Many of their secrets in this art have since been lost. There is little doubt that the palaces of the rulers were of immense extent, and provided with manifold comforts and specimens of art. Numerous divisions NAHUA INSTITUTIONS. 31 existed for harems, private rooms, reception and state rooms, guard-rooms, servants' quarter, storehouses, gardens, and menageries. The chroniclers speak of walls faced with polished marble and jasper; of balconies supported by monoliths, of sculptures and carvings, of tapestry brilliant in colors and fine in texture, of censers with burning perfume. The admitted excellence in arts and wealth, the possession of rare stones and metals, permit to some extent the belief in a Hall of Gold, Room of Emeralds, and so forth, which the chroniclers place within the palaces. The menagerie at Mexico was large and varied, and the many beautifully laid out gardens in all parts of the country, some devoted to scientific advancement, denote a high status in natural history. Throughout the narratives of the chroniclers the Aztec ruler receives the title of emperor, which it was not the custom of the conquerors to give unadvisedly. It was almost a sacred title in their eyes, their own sovereign being so called, and they were not likely to apply that title to a common Indian chief. Indeed, the native records relate that Montezuma II. after many conquests assumed the title emperor, or ruler, of the world. In two of the Nahua kingdoms the succession was lineal and hereditary, and fell to the eldest legitimate son, those born of concubines or lesser wives being passed over. In Mexico election prevailed, but the choice was restricted to one family. The system resembled very much that of the electoral German empire. Each of these rulers was expected to confer with a council, the number and composition of whose members are not quite satisfactorily established. Executive government was intrusted to regularly appointed officials and tribunals. In Tlascala a parliament composed of the nobility and headed by the four lords determined the affairs of government. The native records indicate a number of classes and orders among nobles, officials, and warriors. The highest were the feudal lords, as in Tezcuco, whose 32 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. position corresponded very much to that of the mighty baron of Germanyin former times,all kept from defying the supreme ruler by a balancing of power, by private jealousies, and later by the ruler increasing their numbers, and thus closely attaching to himself a large proportion, and by obliging others to constantly reside in the capital, either to form a council or on other pretences. Another means for controlling the haughty feudal lord, and indeed a step toward abolishing their power, was to divide the kingdom into sixty-five departments, w^hose governors were nearly all creatures of the king. The population of certain districts was moved in part to other districts, or made- to receive inwanderers, both operations tending to give the king greater control. Instances of such master-strokes of policy as are related in aboriginal records serve to show the power of the monarch and the advanced system of government. In Mexico the people, had had access in a great measure to military, civil, and court offices, but with the enthronement of Montezuma II. the nobles managed to obtain exclusive control of nearly all dignities. This reform naturally served to alienate the people and to aid in the downfall of the empire. The list of royal officials is imposing in its length, and is vouched for not only by the minute account of the titles and duties of the dignitaries, but by the many incidental allusions to them and their acts in the native records of events. The list embraces offices corresponding to minister of war, who was also commander-in-chief; to minister of finance, grand master of ceremonies, grand chamberlain, superintendent of arts, etc. There were also military orders, corresponding to the knights of mediaeval Europe, while the church had its gradations of priests, guardians, deacons, friars, nuns, and probationers. Several tribunals existed, each with a number of appointed judges and a staff of officials; and appeals could be carried from one to the other, and finally to JUDICIARY AND LAND TENURE. 33 the supreme judge, who was without a colleague. In the wards were elected magistrates, who judged minor cases in the first instance, and an inferior class of justices, assisted by bailiffs and constables. Some courts had jurisdiction over matters relating pnly to taxes and their collectors, others over industries and arts. Cases were conducted with the aid not alone of verbal testimony under oath, but of paintings, representing documents; and names, evidence, and decisions were recorded by clerks. Whether advocates were employed is not clear, but the judges were skilled in cross-examination, and many a perjury was proved, followed by the penalty of death. Suits were limited to eighty days. Bribery was strictly forbidden. The judges were selected from the higher class, the superior from relatives of the kings, and held office for life, sustained by ample revenues. Adultery and similar crimes were severely punished. Land was divided in different proportions, the largest owned by king and nobles, and the remainder by the temples and communities of the people. All such property was duly surveyed, and each estate accurately marked on maps or paintings, kept on file by district officials. Each class of landed estate had then its distinctive color and name, and from each owner or tenant was exacted tribute in product or service, regular or occasional. Portions of the crown land were granted to usufructuaries and their heirs; for service rendered and to be rendered. In conquered provinces a certain territory was set aside for the conqueror and cultivated by the people for his benefit. The estates of the nobles, were, many of them, of ancient origin, and often entailed, which fact establishes to a certain extent the private ownership of land. These feudatories paid no rent, but were bound to render service to the crown with person, vassals, and property, when called upon. The people's land belonged to the wards of the towns or villages, with perpetual and inalienable tenure. Individual Essays and Miscellany 3 34 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. members of the ward were, on demand, assigned portions for use, and could even transmit the control thereof to heirs, but not sell. Certain conditions must be observed for the tenure of such lands, and the observance was watched over by a council of elders or its agents. There is much in this to confirm the resemblances to the feudal system of Europe already noticed. The exactness of the information on land tenure is confirmed by investigations instituted under auspices of the Spanish government with a view to respect the rights of the natives, so far as the claims of conquerors and settlers permitted. Cortes obtained from the native archives and officials copies of the estate maps, and tax lists, by which he was guided in his distribution of land and collection of tribute. In the department of the minister of finance, and in the offices of the numerous tax collectors, were kept hieroglyphic lists of the districts, towns, and estates, designating the kind and quantity of tax to be paid by each, in product or service. A copy of such a list is given by Lorenzana, and others are reproduced in the Codex Mendoza, and other collections. Certain cities had to supply the palaces with laborers and servants, food and furniture, fabrics and other material; others paid their service and products regularly to the finance department, or when called upon. Manufacturers and merchants paid in the kind they possessed, and artisans often in labor. The tenants of nobles tilled land for their own benefit, and paid rent in a certain amount of labor for the landlord, and in military service when called upon; besides this, they paid tribute in kind to the crown, the produce being stored away in magazines in the nearest towns. There were nearly four hundred tributary towns in the Mexican empire, some paying taxes several times a month, others less often, and still others only once a year, the amount being in many instances over COMMERCE AND SOCIETY. 35 a third of everything produced. Custom-houses also existed for exacting duties. In the capitals of the provinces resided chief treasurers, each with a corps of collectors, who not only enforced the payment of taxes but watched that lands were kept under cultivation and industries generally maintained. To illustrate the extent to which organization entered into the affairs of life, we can point to the merchants, with their guilds, apprenticeship, caravans, markets, fairs, agencies, and factories in distant regions. Tlatelulco was renowned for her trade and vast market, and her merchants really formed a commercial corporation controlling the trade of the country. Sahagun's records sketch the development of this company. Maps guided them in their journeys, tribunals of their own regulated affairs, and different articles were accepted as a medium for exchange, including copper and tin pieces, and gold-dust. The market at Tlatelulco, in the vast extent of booths, and of articles for sale, and in its regulations, was a source of wonder to the Spaniards. Couriers and inns existed to aid travel and intercourse; also roads, well kept and often paved, such as late exploration in Yucatan shows to have connected distant cities. In navigation the Mexicans were less advanced. One lawful wife was married with special ceremonies, and her children were the only legitimate issue. Three additional classes of mates were admissible: those bound to the man with less solemn ceremonies, and bearing the title of wife, like the legitimate one, yet deprived of inheritance or nearly so, together with their children; those bound with no ceremonies, and ranking merely as concubines; and those who cohabited with unmarried men, and who might be married by their lovers or by other men. These two classes of concubines were not entitled to the respect accorded to the first-named, yet no dishonor attached to their condition. Public prostitutes were tolerated UP**- 36 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. as a necessary evil. This is a social condition which needs not for its justification to seek a parallel among other nations recognized as civilized, nor among the European princes who publicly maintained the same classes of consorts and mistresses. Schools flourished in connection with the temple under control of the priests, and in Mexico every quarter had its school for the common people, after the manner of our public schools. There were higher schools or colleges for sons of nobles and those destined for the priesthood, wherein were taught history, religion, philosophy, law, astronomy, writing, and interpreting hieroglyphics, singing, dancing, use of arms, gymnastics, and many arts and sciences. A result of this high training may be found in the many botanical and zoological collections in the country, and the promotion of art in sculpture, weaving, .feather ornaments, and jewelry, by the nobles and the wealthy. Picture-writing is practised to a certain extent by all savages, both in representative and symbolic form, but it is only by studying the art, or following its development to a higher grade, that it acquires permanent value, or can be made the means to gain for its possessors the culture stamp of keeping records, and records were kept by the Nahuas. They had advanced to some extent even in the phonetic form of picture-writing, but had not reached the alphabetic grade. Any codex will show in abundance the representative and symbolic signs, and some that are phonetic. In religious and astrologic documents the signs vary so greatly that the theory has been strongly asserted that the priests used a partially distinct symbolic system for certain records. When studying church forms under the missionaries the natives usea phonetic signs to aid their memory in remembering abstract words, a method also recognized in the preserved paintings for designation of names. The svs- tem is apparently of native origin. The Maya writing is still more phonetic in its character. HISTORY AND ASTRONOMY. 37 The Nahua records, in hieroglyphic characters, include traditional and historical annals, with names and genealogic tables of kings and nobles, lists and tribute rolls of provinces and towns, land titles, law codes, court records, calendar, religious rules and rites, educational and mechanical processes, etc. The hieroglyphic system was known in its ordinary application to the educated classes, while the priests alone understood it fully. The characters were painted in bright colors, on long strips of paper, cloth, or parchment, or carved in stone. Original specimens on stone and paper or skin exist to prove the efficiency of the system for all ordinary requirements, and to establish for the race that high index of culture, the possession of written annals. The Spanish authorities for a long time had to appeal to them to settle land and other suits, and to fix taxes, etc. The several codices in European libraries and museums, with their early and recent interpretation, have added much valuable material to ancient history; Ixtlilxochitl and others built their histories mainly on such paintings. The Nahuas were well acquainted with the movements of the sun, moon, and of some planets, and observed and recorded eclipses, though not attributing them to natural causes. Their calendar divided time into ages of two cycles,, each cycle consisting of four periods of thirteen years, the years of each cycle being distinctly designated by signs and names with numbers, in orderly arrangement, as shown on their sculptured stones. The civil year was divided into eighteen months of twenty days, with five extra days to complete the year; and each month into four sections or weeks. Extra days were also added at the end of the cycle, so that our calculations are closely approached. , The day was divided into fixed periods corresponding to hours. All the above divisions had their signs and names. The ritual calendar was lunar, with twenty weeks of thirteen days for the year, all differing in their enumeration, though the names of r 38 THE EARLY AMERICAN CHRONICLERS. the days were the same as in the solar calendar. The system of numeration was simple and comprehensive, without limit to the numbers that could be expressed; and so were the signs for them. It was essentially decimal. These are some few instances of Nahua culture which might easily be extended to fill a volume after all exaggeration has been thrown out; and all this, be it remembered, was the condition of things four hundred years ago. Compare it with the European civilization or semi-civilization of that day on the one hand, and with the savagism of the Iroquois and Ojibways on the other, and then judge which of the two it most resembled. &** CHAPTER II. THE NEW CIVILIZATION. Among men valor and prudence are seldom met with, and of all human excellencies justice is still more uncommon. —Plutarch. Amidst the seemingly fortuitous flight of time and evolution of nations, we may rest assured of some things that they are tolerably certain to come to pass. There are a few simple and self-evident propositions which are sure to work themselves out in certain simple and self-evident results. For example, satisfied that from the once chaotic universe this planet emerged in a crude uninhabited state; that the cooling process is yet going on, and the plants and animals engendered have not yet reached perfection; that the once wild humanity is gradually becoming what is called civilized, the human intellect slowly extending its sway over all the earth; satisfied of these and other like phenomena, we may know that it is only a question of more time, a further progress, a yet more powerful reign of mind, when there will be no more savagism, measured by the standard' of to-day; when a higher than the present culture will extend to the uttermost parts of the earth, when a culture more refined than ever yet the world has witnessed, intellectual domination more extended and complete, science, literature, and the arts more elevated and* all-compelling than ever has been or at present is dreamed of will develop upon these shores, upon this western earth's end, this terminus of the grand pro- gressional highway from the oriental cradle of civilization to the farthest occidental reach of firm land. (39) e 40 THE NEW CIVILIZATION. Of old, prophets spake of a new heaven and a new earth; we may here predict with far better reason a New Civilization. If the future can in any degree be determined from the past—and upon this doctrine man bases every rul of action; if, in the progress of human affairs, the de velopment of intellect, the evolution of societies, there is anything like method or law, by which from what has been we may judge to some extent of what will be, then we may know that hereupon and around this western point of the temperate zone man's highest and ultimate endeavor is to be achieved. For the tide of intelligence having ever been from east to west, and the ultimate west having been attained, civilization must pause in its migration, and either turn backward or work out its salvation on this ground. Hitherto there has been no turning back; the east has ever declined as the west has advanced, oriental peoples having lapsed toward barbarism, and oriental cities being well-nigh dead. That away back in the dim prehistoric there may have been movements of peoples other than those given in orthodox story, or origins of race, or cradles of civilization other than those generally accepted, does not affect the fact; indeed, we can plainly trace the westward current for thirty or forty centuries, and it has not wholly ceased flowing yet. The classic nations of the Mediterranean preserve the tradition of their respective phases of "the Aryan migration, with the elaborations prompted by romance and vanity, as in .ZEneas, who with his followers, with sacred fire and the national gods of Troy, set out for the unknown shores of Hesperia. The east is known, though dimly, by means of maintained commercial relations, while the west became the object of curiosity and attraction, to which mystery lent a veneration which stands revealed in the assignment here of the happy abode of the Hesperides. The incentives for the movement must ever remain PAST AND FUTURE. 41 a dim conjecture. Science points to America as the oldest continent, peopled perchance from now submerged areas, of which the Azores and Cape Verde islands present vestiges on one side, and Polynesia on the other. The resemblance of race-types on either side of Bering strait confirms the natural supposition of ancient intercourse in this quarter. The oceans interposed obstacles well-nigh insurmountable to migrations from America, save by the north-western approach to Asia. In times of more favorable climatic conditions, this route may have been a great highway, although long since closed by its winters, and its dreary, barren surroundings. Whether or not we accept one common origin for mankind, or a migration to Asia from America, or still older lost continents, the westward advance from the Asiatic table-lands is generally adopted. The recent theory of a Scandinavian source for the Aryans has not presented itself in sufficiently strong array to merit comparison with the other. The Phoenician migration of traders and colonizers alone forms a more imposing evidence of the westward movement than any to be found in favor of the south-eastward. Among the incentives for the start of the migration must be considered, as now, not alone over-population, war, famine, and other disastrous incidents, but the attractions also of nomad life on the plains, and the inspiriting influence of travel. From the interior of Asia swept several great invading hosts within historic times. The instilled passion for roaming, fostered by the possession of beasts of burden, found a stimulus in the swiftness of the animals wherein lay alike safety and the temptation to daring feats. The pressure of such restless peoples was sufficient in itself to compel their more settled neighbors to seek a new home, while the resources of richer nations, bordering on the ocean and its fertilizing tributaries, served as an allurement to raid and conquest, from which China and India suffered in common with occidental regions. 42 THE NEW CIVILIZATION. The direction of advance from the Asiatic plateaux may have been in a measure indicated by the course of the sun, which in the splendor of its western retreat held forth an entrancing promise to the toiler as he sank to rest and meditation after the day's labor. It is evident, however* that the route westward was less obstructed than those to the east and south, for here interposed lofty mountain ranges, the bulwark of compact settlements reaching to the ocean. In these directions the proximity of the sea placed a bar to advance. For that matter, the exodus from the interior plains overran the continent in all directions, into Kathai, Hindostan, and Persia ; but it was left to the highest race, the Aryan, to follow the guiding, sun mainly along an equable zone, whose conditions were best adapted to the unfolding of culture. The fructifying element lay in the movement, and the consequent contact with different peoples and institutions, to be absorbed during a more or less prolonged stay, together with the blood-infusion of the conquered. Thus the eye of progress with its inquiring gaze, and the arm of progress with its romance and revelations, have ever been directed toward the setting sun. Still another explanation for the westward march is furnished by the unfolding of settlements in the United States of America. The first colonists occupied the coast region. Later comers were obliged to extend themselves along the rivers inland. The movement continued westward in quest of new lands, until the inner border peoples, cramped for lack of outlet, began to look toward the Pacific coast for relief. The construction of railways has rendered less attractive or important the sea-shore, with its previously better means for intercourse and trade, and its more equable temperature. Thus in Asia, whether originating in an older continent or not, the people naturally clustered along the coast and the great river channels, with their additional attractions of fish. The gradual filling up of THE EAST AND THE WEST. 43 China and India left the Aryans among others as a border tribe of the interior. The wealth of the Indian peninsulas served to increase the attractions for the seaboards, and lend an incentive to the march. Thus was occupied every attractive point westward. On reaching Africa, the desert on one side, and the mountains and equatorial heat on the other, turned the next phase of the movement from the Nile ranges, along the northern shores of the Mediterranean, until the Atlantic was reached. A fresh field being opened in America, social and political troubles and aspirations prompted another advance, with a still greater intellectual development. The highest culture is found always along the paths of trade, with its stimulating intercourse, along the highway from India j to Phoenicia, along the peninsula of the northern Mediterranean, thence to spread by colonization westward and north, to be rooted among the slower yet stronger peoples bordering on the North Sea. The most striking progress was attained with the opening of new fields in America, attended by more daring and inspiriting voyages and expeditions, and by a battling with nature in the founding of settlements, which led to a practical self-reliance and inventive faculty, ever the sources of the widest development. The acquisition of vacant land on which to exert intelligent energy was a strong factor in the advance, and the location of progressive peoples along the temperate belt gave stimulus to efforts, as did the liberation from civil and ecclesiastical restraint, with the privilege to freely think and act and work out the promptings of laudable aspirations. This check to liberty, and the lack of free land, tended to steep the middle ages of Europe in stagnation, while the encircling Mohammedans, of inferior traits and abilities, under stimulating movement and intercourse, conquest and empire building, were developing to an exceptional degree of culture. The two obstacles removed, Europe resumed her onward march, r 44 THE NEW CIVILIZATION. while the Saracens, deprived of these benefits, fell behind. The energy latent in man needs only proper incentive to manifest itself with effect; but the nature of the incentive varies somewhat as illustrated by the followers of th<* Bible and the Koran. The present advance is marked especially by the elevation of the masses, by means of inventions and acquisition of landed interest. It is a matter worthy of consideration, that ever since the world was made down to the present time, there have been untenanted lands for a crowded humanity to overflow into, swarming places for the race; that although as men fathomed science more and more, and became skilled in the arts, and assumed more and more a mastery over nature, they required less room, yet the area occupied was ever filling up with human beings, whom land could not adequately sustain, or development provide for, thus rendering constantly necessary new lands or else a curtailment of population. The theory of population which leaves no standing- room for further comers is finding realization faster than its originators imagined. It is but a question of time when the race increase must stop, if not by one means then by another. Until now the world has had a west, where good land could be had for the taking; there is not now left a single acre of the kind. True, our western lands for the present will hold many more people, and poorer lands will be utilized, but all the same the end will come—the end of the world, it may be, as it is noticeable that in the more advanced stages of national age and culture, increase is first arrested, and then population retrogrades. What is civilization? The question has often been asked, but never answered. Nor can it be satisfactorily explained until human knowledge has advanced much farther, has, indeed, entered the domain of omniscience. The irrepressible unfolding of intellect stands WHAT IS CIVILIZATION? 45 in the same category with the other great unknowable mysteries of the universe. What is life ? what intellect? How shall be unravelled the tangled thread of origin and destiny? The self-consciousness which makes man know that he is, the reasoning faculties which tell him that his mind is something different from mere brute intelligence, his aspirations something different from, if not, indeed, higher and more lasting than mere brute instinct, and that existence has its significance to him—this consciousness reveals to the possessor at once an ocean of knowledge and an eternity of despair. Although the offspring of man is the most helpless and apparently senseless of all animals during the long period of its infant existence, it makes rapid strides afterwards. Measure by this standard the life of the human race, and it has 'many millions of years yet to live before it knows all there is to be known, and can do all there is to be done; so slowly unfolds the intellect, so slowly nature reveals herself to man! It seems to have taken a long time before man could gain a position distinct from the brute creation. It is difficult to conceive the point of separation, or to apply the ordinary tests to distinguish absolute savag- ism from incipient civilization. We say that when man, with intellect still a germ, indistinguishable from instinct, bends branches and places sticks and bark so as the better to shelter himself; the moment he seizes a club to assist him in capturing food, he has taken the first step from savagism toward civilization; and yet many animals do this, and more, animals which never advance further. The difference is more marked, however, when man, after deliberately erecting for himself a hut, sits down before it, and sharpens one end of his stick, or in one end of it makes a slit, in which he fastens a stone so that one end shall be the heavier, or perhaps sharpens the stone before he ties it to a stick in the form of a hatchet, notwithstanding sticks and stones when taken apart are used r 46 THE NEW CIVILIZATION. by many animals as weapons. Let the sharpened end of the stick be hardened in the fire, tipped with poison, or with sharpened flint, or both, and let a bow be strung with which to drive the feathered dart, and a stride has been made which satisfies humanity perhaps for thousands of years. The advance may be slow. Nevertheless, there is an advance ; and herein lies the difference between man and brute. The one, with the aid of reason, improves his weapons, while the other does not. And this improving is civilization. Here may be noticed the anomaly in man emerging from a purely primitive state, that while decoration is before dress, in temperate zones at least, in all of his other unfoldings, the practical precedes the ornamental. In the very fact that the naked wild man is of all animals the least fitted by nature to provide for himself his first necessity, food, lies the strongest of impulses for him to abandon savagism, and set out on his endless journey toward civilization—endless, because civilization is not an end but an aim. If the world stands ten thousand years longer, and men continue to come and go as of old, then we of to-day are savages as compared with the more cultured people of that remote period. As nowhere on the globe mankind are now born into a state of absolute savagism, so nowhere can their beginning here be made in an atmosphere of perfect civilization. We may go further and say with truth and reason of the latest civilization, that if it be the foremost on the earth of its day, it must of necessity be the farthest advanced of any that has been before. It can not blot out all the benefits to the race added by its predecessors, and so leave the world the worse. Civilization is a progress, a perpetual and continuous progress, although the advance is more marked at certain times and in certain directions. Such growth, like that of most things in nature, may not be visible to the eye, but it is none the less present. There may PROGRESS DURING THE DARK AGE. 47 be apparent inaction, or even retrogression, during which many things are forgotten, and some valuable arts lost; yet who shall say of any period, long or short, that here was no advance, or there civilization rested ? It is true that since the dawn of our present development there has been a so-called Dark Age, ten centuries, during which knowledge lay hidden away in musty prison-houses, and civilization slumbered, while the heavens were hung in black. But was there then really no advance during these ten dark centuries ? Was there no leaven of progress working in society, no hidden processes going on, no unseen changes which were to yield mighty results, turning and overturning nations, and kneading the world of Europe into new forms ? It is true the sky was dark, and all the earth incarnadine with man's blood, shed by man because of conceptions so absurd, so superlatively silly as to appear to us naught but the workings of insanity; and yet out of all this wickedness and folly came great good; out of feudalism the compacting of societies, out of knight-errantry the elevation of woman, out of the crusades the general breaking down of barriers, the explosion of fallacies, and the out-spreading of knowledge, not to mention the temporary ascendancy of Mohammedanism in general culture. Add the high achievements of art and science, culminating in the inventions of gunpowder and printing, the adaptation of the mariner's compass to navigation, which was followed by the discovery of a new world, divers circumnavigations, and the final uncovering of the entire globe. Such grand results, the grandest the world has ever witnessed, could hardly have arisen from a stagnant pool, notwithstanding we are in the habit of calling it the Dark Age of general depression, Tvhen the intellect of man lay dormant. Yet, while the period following the opening of America was indeed an age of progress, aside from the few great inventions mentioned, how insignificant 48 THE NEW CIVILIZATION. have been the developments of the three past centuries as compared with the achievements massed within five decades of the present century, the era of steam and steel. Still greater prospects of development are promised by electricity alone, which is as yet in its infancy; and who shall venture to predict the advance to be made within the following centuries ? During the past few thousand years, for which time alone the doings of the human race have left any record, men have been much occupied in their migrations. These are now for the most part finished, so far at least as large united bodies are concerned. The great migrations of the human race are ended. There will continue, more than ever before, a restless moving hither and thither over the face of the earth of individuals and small parties; but for a nation, or any considerable portion of a nation, to arise, go forth, and conquer, despoil, and subjugate or drive out another nation, will never again be done under the present order -of things. The general commingling of the peoples of the earth essentially prohibit such usurpation. Never was intercourse so wide-spread and expeditious as now; never was less conspicuous the idea of race robbery and national spoliation. The last great migration was to California, the western world's end, completing the cycle of Aryan wanderings. Far less voluminous and cosmopolitan were the movements toward Australia and Africa. On the Pacific coast met the representatives of nations from all quarters to form a new organization, bringing into contribution the choicest traits and acquirements. What Egyptian and west Asiatic civilization did for Greece, what Greece did for Rome, what Rome did for Western Europe, all the world has done for these Pacific States. The site of this new civilization, which but lately seemed far removed from regions of refinement and the higher culture, is gradually becoming the centre DEAD NATIONS. 49 of the most energetic material and intellectual progress that may be found among the nation's of the earth to-day. The stranger coming hither from any part of the world may find more congenial companionship, more that is like himself and his early life than in any other community. He finds himself at home, environed by an atmosphere in which his true inwardness may best thrive, and he may transplant himself into this new and natural civilization and grow as if born in it. Following the law of progress, other things being equal, the latest civilization is the most powerful, and becomes the world's master. It is most powerful because of its superior knowledge, its superior mental force, which breeds mechanical force surmounting the forces of other peoples and of nature. The new civilization has for its guide all the recorded experiences of other civilizations. To these world-wide and accumulated experiences it may add its own intuitions and inventions, and while avoiding the errors of others it may profit by the wisdom of the past. The train of thought started in the east has ever expanded in its westward advance. Each succeeding generation has surpassed the preceding. Nevertheless, the self-esteem and prestige of age has naturally sought to assert itself over youth; the parent has striven to maintain its authority over the child. As before intimated, since the first appearance of civilization in Europe, and indeed before it left Asia, it has been the tendency of the east to rule the west. Always further advanced in culture, superior in the arts and sciences, the people of the east have ever assumed it as a divine right to tyrannize over those of the west, to fasten upon them not alone their social customs, and their mechanical contrivances, but their laws, their literature, their modes of thought, and their re^ ligious beliefs. When Europeans broke the boundaries of time, traversed the Sea of Darkness, and found a strange peo- Essays and Miscellany 4 50 THE NEW CIVILIZATION. pie in their new India, the same old story was repeated. The nations of America were less powerful than, those of Europe; and we well know the inexorable law of nature, that the weaker must give way to the stronger. The Indians were naked; their weapons were crude and ineffectual; they had neither steel nor gunpowder; they were simple-minded, superstitious, at war one with another, easily played upon; and finally, with no great difficulty, they were subjugated. As matters of course they must learn the language of the conquerors, they must accept the faith and obey the laws of the conquerors. This was demanded and enforced, all in the way of true righteousness, as the will of heaven, as the eternal purpose of the almighty. God should feel truly grateful for what man has done for him. And even to the present day lingers this same spirit of domination, with the difference that the spots whereon appeared the oldest civilizations are no longer centres of superior intelligence. Progress there has become withered, dead, the nations retrograde, and the people have relapsed into a state more hopeless in some respects than that of savagism. Thus the seat of domination has shifted ever further westward with the unfolding of civilization, following in the path of the select elements which have cut loose from eastern homes to flourish in fresher soil. Round about the hypothetical cradle of the race the very earth has gone out with its people, the forests are withered, and the soil exhausted. Siva has usurped the place of Vishnu, to assume sway over lands once as fair as any which have so long been kept fresh for the new civilization. Eden of the Euphrates is a desert; where once grew the oaks of Bash- an acorns will not sprout; the elysian fields which once bordered the Mediterranean, where are they ?# Unlike the mouldering plant which fertilizes its successor, the decaying nations of the old world, in common with their forests and fields, seem difficult to REVIVAL OF MATERIAL IMPROVEMENT. 51 restore. Like the soil of the east, progress is dissipated rather than decayed ; for in decay is life. In practical enterprise and cognate traits, whereon depend the highest unfolding of civilization, America is nearly as far in advance of Europe as Europe is of Asia. This relative excellence applies also to the western and Pacific states, as compared with the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. Behold the effect of open fields and fresh resources on self-reliant man on this western slope, in the transformation of a wilderness into a series of flourishing states, with a rapidity, soundness, and perfection that stand unparalleled I Consider the impromptu yet efficient organizations of local and general government; the elaboration of a new system of mining under the promptings of necessity, marked by inventions for sluicing and hydraulics, in cribbing, pumping, crushing, and reduction, devices so great as to revolutionize and revive the exploitation of precious metals in all parts of the world, the improvements in lumbering, which have increased this business to huge porportions, and benefited the world at large, notably by means of the flume and saw-tooth, and the powerful and economic method and machinery applied to agriculture, which assisted to lift California within a few years to the front rank among wheat regions. Similar advances have been made in other industries, and this within the first decade or two after the birth of these territories and states. Within the same period California raised herself from an obscure colonial and frontier settlement to a position of paramount influence along the entire Pacific coast, the nucleus whence started the founders of states, the chief seat of commerce in the Occident, the school whence issued disciples to scatter the seed of Anglo-Saxon culture among the retrograde nations of the south and the orient. Turnips transplanted from the east to California change in their nature; so do grains and grasses, fruit uM>* 52 THE NEW CIVILIZATION. and live stock, and likewise men. Bone, sinew, brains, the whole person teeming with determinate purpose, comprise the lapisphilosophorum of Californian alchemists. Thus into the alembic of this heterogeneous society, into this land of broad possibilities, came many a young farmer and mechanic for his refining; many a business man and scientist. In art, literature, and learning, we must expect the east for some time yet to patronize the west. In journalism we must expect that as the editor of the London Highbinder regards the editor of the New York Highbinder with disdain, so will the editor of the New York Highbinder have no hesitation in manifesting his contempt for whatever appears in the columns of the Chicago Highbinder or the San Francisco Highbinder. The eastern editor may be the wiser man, or he may not be so; if the latter, he happily does not know it, and putting on his cloak of tradition and environment, he will continue to write most bravely. The east has been so long accustomed to play the part of schoolmaster that it does not realize that in the west also are things to learn and brains to learn them; it does not realize that much of its so-called learning is obsolete or untrue, that many of its teachings are absurdly fallacious and false, and that the first work of western wisdom is to unlearn a large part of what it has been taught by the east, more especially in regard to matters of which no one can know anything. If we have not here so much of conversational refinement and prudish formalism, it is because we do not want them, preferring a physical energy with unadulterated intellectual force. For centuries to come, and henceforth to the end for aught anyone can tell,-the tendency of culture will be to concentrate on this Pacific seaboard, the terminal of the great Aryan march; nor is this expectation without good and reasonable ground. Consider THE LATEST MIGRATION. 53 alone the vast array of resources in fertile soil, mineral deposits, forests, fish, and the like, and a climate of unsurpassed equability for fully twenty degrees of latitude. The choicest of these advantages unite in California, which, from its peculiarly favorable geographic position and fine harbors, will ever sustain itself as a great entrepot for trade between the orient and the Australasias,and the vast range of states and countries eastward. This prospect of a great future brings forward one more point for consideration. There is a unity of interests among the nations bordering the Pacific side of the continent which circumstances are just now beginning fully to develop. Time brings to pass many wonderful things. The eastern side of America does not always regard the western with a benignant eye, single to the interests of the nation. There are mountain barriers dividing the east from the west; there are broad placid waters inviting intercourse between the south and the north. This western strip of North America nature has made one country. The same world-enwrapping waters wash its entire shore; the same glow of sunset bathes its entire borders. It\ makes little difference what the political divisions may be, so long as the several states or republics are at peace and harmony, one with another. Several independent governments along this Pacific seaboard may be better or worse than one, according to circumstances. In proof of these premises, we see already commenced a migration different from any which has preceded it; a migration, not for gold, or furs, or conquest, or religion, by adventurers, soldiers, priests, or peltrymen, but by persons of wealth and intelligence from the more inhospitable climates of the east and Europe, who come hither for health and pleasure and happy homes. Already has begun the New Civilization. And when decay comes here, will the western sunset be followed by a new sunrise in the east, or will the world be rejuvenated by a new cataclysm? CHAPTER III. ROOT DIGGERS AND GOLD DIGGERS. Con legno legno spranga mai non cinse Lorte cosi: ond'ei, come duo becchi, Cozzaro insieme, tanb'ira gli vinse. —DeW Inferno. One hot day in July 1848, such as the middle prong of the American river has long been subject to, perched upon one of the high boulders time had tumbled into the defile, sat a philosophic savage, his hairless chin resting on his naked knees, his bony hands clasped over his bushy head, and his black eyes gleaming with dim intelligence as they strained their powers to encompass the scene before him. On either side, scattered up the stream and down it, far as the eye could reach and until the steel-and-silver band was lost behind precipitous banks, were strange beings engaged in a strange business. Some were in red and black, some in white and gray; many were almost as naked as himself, their bare arms and legs whiter than the white stones over which the waters skipped. Crawling between the rocks, and turning up the red earth, and kneading with their hands the mud they made, through the dry baked air tremulous with rarefactions, they looked not unlike variegated bugs rolling their delectable dung-balls. Some were swinging over their heads large double-pronged clubs, and smiting the earth therewith; some were standing bare-legged and bare- armed in the rushing waters, peering into them as if to read their records or fathom the secrets of the mountains; some were on their knees in an attitude THE MEDITATIVE SAVAGE. 55 of worship or supplication; others lay like lizards on the rocks pecking with their knives. Some with shovels were digging in the sands and gravel, leaving beside the earth-heaps holes half filled with water. "These must be graves," the savage thought, "prepared before the coming sacrifice." Right, my big- lipped brother! These are graves, every one of them, graves of sense and soul, of high hopes and the better quality of manhood. Indeed, of all this fine array of mind-driven mechanism, of beings that in this wilderness might rise to the full stature of gods were they not under curse to crawl about these canons serpentine upon their bellies; of all of them, I say, there will be little left this day twelve-month not buried in these holes. For most of the gold the foothills gave, brought like that of Nibelungen, nothing but ill-luck to the possessor. "What are they digging for?" the meditative aboriginal asks himself. "My faithful wives dig roots and so sustain the lives of their liege lord and little ones, as in duty they are ever bound; but these poor pale fools will find no nourishment beneath those stones. I will tell them so. But stop 1 What is that he holds aloft with out-stretched arms midst yells and waving of his hat, the one more frantic than the rest ? By the dried bones of my grandsire I believe it is the heavy yellow dirt that often as a child I gathered to see it glitter in the sun, though it is not half so beautiful for that as the snake's back. Once I hammered handfuls of it into a dish for crushing grasshoppers in, or for boiling fish, but the stones my greasy darlings hollow out are better for the one purpose, and their baskets for the other. Besides, willows and grass are easier worked than that heavy stuff. So I kicked the old dish into the river and was glad to see it sink. The young,.chief tried that same dirt for his arrow-heads, but it was not fit; the women forged it into chains for ornaments, but there was nothing ornamental about them; so. after trying 56 ROOT DIGGERS AND GOLD DIGGERS it for one thing and another it was finally let alone as good for nothing. "But heavenly spirit 1 we found that out ages. ago. It must be that these white scramblers have not been long upon this earth to be so taken by so poor a glitter. Mark their posture. Even their eyes are turned downward. They cannot see the sun, which is brighter than their gold. And the stars are brighter; and the dancing water, and the purple haze that lies on misty mountains, and the awful cragginess hereabout are a thousand times more beautiful and grand. Can they eat this they so covet? No. It is good for nothing or for very little for which there are not other better things. I have it. The stuff melts; I saw some running down the edges of my dish when they put the fire to it. They want it for images, for molten gods. Alas! alas! that throughout this universe intelligences yet exist possessed of such insensate folly." Softly, bad-smelling barbarian! Though thou art right, it is for gods they want the stuff, and very good gods it makes. None of your deaf and dumb effigies, nor even invisible, impalpable spirits perched on high Olympus, hell-bound, or be-heavened beyond space. Appeal to these golden gods and they answer you. Invoke them and forthwith they procure you food, obeisance, and eternal life. And yet you question, tawny friend, why this insatiate human appetite for bits of yellow earth, for cold, dead metal, and why for this more than for any other kind of earth ? Not for its utility, surely, you argue; though economists say that it is an absolute equivo- lent as well as a measure of value. It is scarcely more valuable than other metals, scarcely more valuable intrinsically than the least of all created things. It is less valuable than stone, which makes the mountains that rib and form the valleys, than grass which offers food, than soil which feeds'the grass. For ornament, if ornament be essential to human happiness, PHILOSOPHY OF GOLD, 57 shells or laurel serve as well; for plate, porcelain is better. True, some little of it may be used for filling teeth, but tons of it might be employed in vain to fill the stomach. Other metals are just as rare, and beautiful, and durable. "Then what magic power lies wrapped within its molecules?" you seem to say. " Will it heal the sick or raise the dead; will it even clothe or feed, or add one comfort to naked, houseless humanity? Hidden beneath its cold and weighty covering may we hope to find an elixir vitse, a fountain of youth; or will it save a soul from hell, or a body from the grave ? Surely there must be some innate virtue there, some power, natural or supernatural, that thus brings intellect and all the high attributes and holy aspirations of intelligent reasoning creatures beneath its sway." Peace, brute I Nothing of the kind. Yes and no. Have I not told you that in the civilization which so sage a savage even as yourself can but faintly comprehend, gold is god, and a very good god ? All men worship it, and all women. It buys men and it buys women. It buys intellect and honor; it buys beauty and chastity. There is nothing on earth that it will not. purchase, nor yet anything in heaven, or in hell. Lucifer has his broker on every street corner, and Christ his agent in every pulpit. All cry alike for gold I gold! Men cannot live without it, or die without it. Unless he finds an obolus in their mouth to pay the ferriage over the stygian stream, Charon will not pass them. You do not know Charon ? Well, you shall know him presently. Charon is a very good god, but not so good as gold. Indeed, gold is Charon's god, and every god's god, as well as every man's. You are somewhat like Charon, oh! sooty and filthy! Charon is he who, while with Mercury on a visit for a day to the upper world to see what life was like, wondered how men should so wail while crossing Styx when there was so little on earth to lose. No, shock-head t gold is not wealth even, and yet 58 ROOT DIGGERS AND GOLD DIGGERS. men give all their wealth for it. Money, as intrinsic wealth, has little value, and yet wealth is valued only as it can be converted into money. Nor is it long since the doctrine prevailed that money was wealth, the only wealth; but after commerce ..and industry had begged for centuries, and men and nations had fought for the enforcement of this principle, the world awoke one day and found it fallacy; found that money, instead of being wealth, was only the attendant on traffic and not actual wealth. Money is synonymous neither with capital nor wealth. It is capital only when it is bought and sold like any other commodity; it is wealth only according to its worth as a measure of values. Gold is not value, or the representative of value, until it is made such by the stamp of the image and superscription. All men desire it, and in limitless quantities; yet those who have it are anxious to be rid of it, as it is the most profitless of all things to hold. Know, then, the truth of the matter, Oh ! red- painted and tattooed! Long ago, before Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill, when those diggers to the gods down there were little less wild and beastly than yourself,—craving your pardon,—at the instigation of Pluto, perhaps, though some hold opinion that the creator made gold specially to be used by man as money, it so happened that a conventionalism arose concerning this metal. It was agreed between the fathers of the Pharaohs and Job's ancestors, that this heavy durable substance, chiefly because it was hard to get, should be baptized into the category of wealth; nay more, that it should be endowed with the soul of riches, be coined into idols, worshipful crowned pieces, and. be called money, as children in their play cut paper into bits and call it money, or as certain tamed tribes have sought to use for money merely the name, withoutall this trouble and agitation about the metal, computing value by means of the idea instead of the substance. Since which time their descendants and offshoots, that m. THE MONEY INFATUATION. 59 is those of the Jobs and the Pharaohs, have kept up the joke, and it appears that we of this boasted scientific and economic nineteenth-century civilization can do no better than to keep it up. It requires as much labor to find and dig a certain quantity of it as it does to raise a field of grain, so we swear it to be worth as much as the grain. So subtle is its energy, that moulded and milled into the current image of wealth, it assumes all qualities and virtues. Call it land, and it is land; labor, and straightway the fields sweat with labor. It is health and happiness, it is body, intellect, soul, aye, and eternal salvation. Thrice lucky metal to be so humanly endowed, so divinely inspired! Oh! precious metal, how I do love thee! Oh ! holy metal, how I do worship thee! Thus you see, thrice honored scalper and cannibal, that these men down among the boulders are slaves of a slave. To serve us in our interchanges we endow with imaginative miraculous power the yellow substance which you see them all so eagerly snatching from the all-unconscious earth. They snatch it to make it their slave, but being beforehand deified, as heathen idolators deify the little images which their fingers have made, and their mouths call gods, they straightway find themselves in bondage to their servant. Sage though you are, and a most respectable wild man, you cannot yet fairly comprehend this peculiarity of civilized liberty, wherein you are permitted to call yourself free only in so far as you are in bondage to something. You find one wife good, but several wives better; one wife finds you good, several also. You may now marry as many wives as you please; as many women as please may marry you, provided you mutually agree. Doubtless you will be surprised to learn that the liberty of civilization permits you but one wife, howsoever half a dozen love you. This is technically called giving up some portion of your natural rights for the benefit of all; as a~matter of fact, it is falling into the tyranny of the majority, 60 ROOT DIGGERS AND GOLD DIGGERS. however stupid or unjust that may be. Again, gamble commercially, and your piety is not impeached; gamble with money only, and you are an odious thing. You may not marry but one wife, but you may keep as many mistresses as you please; you may keep them, always in proper retirement, unchidden by society, though she whom you have enticed into such connection is forever anathematized by the whole sisterhood. But as I said, you do not understand such things, and I will confess it to you, greasy brother, neither do I. Coming back to our gold—for however much we may despise it, we cannot do without it—we have seen that money is wealth only by sufferance. Men have agreed to call gold stamped in a certain way money, but for all that, only in as far as it serves a purpose^ like anything useful, in so far it is wealth. You might ask, to what good is this great expenditure of time and energy, of health and life, when we consider that in proportion as the quantity of gold in circulation increases, its value diminishes, that the aggregation of money is not aggregation of wealth, and that the uses of money are not facilitated by increasing the quantity ? Increase the volume of money and you increase prices; diminish the quantity'in circulation and prices diminish. Give to every man in the world a boat-load of it, and not one of them is the richer; take from every man living half he hath, and not one of them is {he poorer. Why, then, is the result of the labors of these ditch-gods regarded with such concern throughout the commercial world ? In answer to which queries, gentle savage, I respectfully refer you to the libraries. You must ask me easy questions respecting the present order of things among so-called civilized societies if you would have answers. I can get no answers even to many simple questions. Some medium for exchanges, some materialization of the spirit of commerce is certainly 1 COMMERCE AND CURRENCY. 61 convenient, as business is now done. That there is room for improvement upon our present system I am equally certain. In extensive transactions barter is a cumbrous process; there must be money, but is it necessary that money should be made of metals ? Is it necessary for a measure of values that the world should expend as much labor as for the values measured? As it is now, the value of money depends upon the cost of the metal composing it. If the metal exists in large quantities and is easily gathered, the amount produced is large, and its value correspondingly low. Could a bushel of gold dust under ordinary circumstances be produced with no more labor than a bushel of potatoes, then a bushel of potatoes would be worth a bushel of gold dust. Gold, because of its scarcity, and consequent cost of production, its divisibility, and its imperishable qualities, was tacitly adopted by almost all nations as money. Its very intrinsic worthlessness adds to its importance as a make-believe value, for not being used to any great extent for other purposes, it is not subject to sudden or violent fluctuations in value. I have actually heard men in the pulpit, who professed to be teachers of their fellow-men, say that God not only made gold specially to be used as money, but that he kept some of it hidden, and let men find it only as commerce required it. This may be true in the sense that he made death that the living might have standing-room upon the earth, but being too slow at his work disease and war were sent to help him. I say something of the kind, as matters are now arranged, seems to be necessary. You, yourself, tawny sir, have felt the need of a currency medium in your petty barters. You have taken shells and beads, and have called them money, making the longest shells and beads of a certain color to represent the 'higher values, just as others have invested the yellow metal with a greater purchasing power than the white or the copper-colored. Money is a convenience, a ju^n 62 ROOT DIGGERS AND GOLD DIGGERS. great labor-saving machine, and would be worth all it costs provided something cheaper could not be devised to take its place. It permits to the fullest extent the division of labor; it ameliorates the condition of man by bringing to his door the products of distant nations; it facilitates industrial activities, promotes national, intercourse, and stimulates the life blood of society. But a moderate amount of gold, if gold must be had for a currency, is as valuable to commerce as a large amount. We may safely say that before the discovery of gold in California the world had sufficient. Then were not the labor and lives spent here in adding to the store to some extent thrown away ? Though the discovery of precious metals has hitherto more than kept pace with the requirements of commerce, yet so elastic and capacious is the maw of man that he has been able to appropriate it. The time will come, however, when the mountains will be exhausted of their gold and silver, which likewise shall drop out of commerce. California, Australia, and the Ural mountains together poured their precious metals into the world's coffers, and the value of gold soon fell one half and more. We can wait some time yet with what we have, but where will we find other Califor- nias, Australias, and Ural mountains when wanted? Much more will yet be found, but there is obviously a limit. When the value of gold was thus so seriously disturbed, silver was talked of as the chief monetary standard. Then Nevada poured out her several thousand tons of silver, which became such a drug in the market as to be bought and sold at from one to ten per cent discount. But even Comstock lodes have bottoms, and when the end of it all comes, perhaps mankind will improve its currency. Under the present infliction, and relatively in the proportion of the aggregate product to the work gold has to accomplish, the race must earn its comforts once and more. First it must till the land so that it will bring forth, and then unearth the gold with which LOGIC OF THE RIFLE. 63 to buy and sell the product. Thus is avoided barter, which is cumbersome to commerce and industries, and every way undesirable. But so far ingenuity has sought in vain a cheaper substitute. With changes in the national conditions, however, there will in due time be a change here. Just as we shall have new religions, new moralities, and new political orders, so shall we have new standards of value and new currencies. Meanwhile we must be thankful for what we have, and in our present imperfect state accept it as a blessing, as an aid to civilization and all cheating. Then let the diggers continue, let them sweat in death-distilling labor until they drop in the graves of their own digging, so that wealth may have its image and commerce its superscription. But let us not pride ourselves too much on intellectual superiority over the Pharaohs' and Jobs' ancestors in this respect, wherein we make so slight improvement. And this, my dear root-digger, is civilization, and religion, and all the rest. If you have acuteness of intellect, eloquence, and personal magnetism enough, you may go out even under the shining skies of America and play the prophet with the best of those that gulled humanity fifty or five thousand years back. You may go to New York, to London, to Berlin and capture your thousands. The gullibility of mankind in its extent is a question not so much of intelligence and enlightenment as of the strength of the impostor. Some little advance out of the subterranean darkness has been made during the last two thousand years, but it is little comparatively. The world still, in many respects, prefers falsehood to truth, and men will believe a lie, though their reason, if they have any, plainly tells them it is such. It is not in the power of the human mind to conceive a creed so absurd or diabolical as not to find believers among the most enlightened nations of the earth, and that in proportion to the power with which the doctrine is enforced. 64 ROOT DIGGERS AND GOLD DIGGERS Suddenly the sharp crack of a rifle is heard, and the meditative aboriginal tumbles from his seat a lifeless mass into the stream. A miner's mustang was missing yesterday; some skulking redskin must have stolen it. Even the rattlesnake will not strike until it sounds the note of battle. CHAPTER IV. OUR TREATMENT OF THE NATIVE RACES. Qu 'on me donne six lignes ecrites de la main de plus honnSte homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre. —Rictielieu. Notwithstanding the pretentions of Portugal and France, the two Americas in their final occupancy fell largely to Spain and Great Britain. The policy of the several nations in the disposal of their prizes was directed not alone by the race characteristics of Latin and Teuton, marked on one side by a laisser-aller disposition, on the other by selfish energy, but*by geographic conditions, which invited to one section of North America the immigration of families for agricultural colonies, and to others men who were ambitious to reap fortunes at mining, fur-hunting, and exaction, with attendant instability and undefined intentions at permanent settlement. The attitude toward the aborigines of the quiet and reserved settler, intent on home-building, differed radically from that of the adventurer and fortune- hunter aiming at speedy enrichment. The one was prompted to propitiatory measures by regard for his exposed family and possessions ; the other had nothing to lose and everything to gain by yielding to the still rampant war spirit, fresh from ? Mohammedan crusades, and to the greed which "had lured across the seas an otherwise unwilling colonist. Hence the liory calm of puritan advent, as contrasted with the blood-stained invasion of the Iberian. Gradually came a change, from the very nature of these primary conditions. As the settler acquired a Essays and Miscellany 5 (65 ) 66 OUR TREATMENT OF THE NATIVE RACES. foothold and strength, the restraints of fear were cast aside, together with solemn obligations, while selfish assertion assumed the reins. As the glitter of gold began to fade, the eyes of the fortune-seeker opened to the existence of more substantial treasures for his gleaning, in fertile soils, existing plantations, unfolding silver mines, and other resources, and above all in submissive natives to develop them. The Indians acquired a value; but were too plentiful to obtain due appreciation and consequent immunity from the ex acting oppression of irresponsible masters. Fortunately for them both church and government learned to better estimate their w7orth, and to impress it upon their graceless sons for the perpetuation of their own economic and sovereign interests. The Spanish government was never intentionally unkind to the Indians, however cruel may have been the unprincipled horde of conquerors. When the Holy See had passed upon the quality of this new humanity—when the pope had pronounced that the dusky inhabitants of the New World were possessed of souls, the queen of Castile declared them her subjects, with rights of life and protection, always provided that they bowed submission to Christ and their catholic Majesties. The pope's decision, indeed, could scarcely have been otherwise in view of church prerogatives, as these beings, whether human or not, were destined to become important factors in New World affairs; but it was a judgment less happy for the savages presently to be converted at the point of the sword, than for the missionaries who were to gain much wealth and glory thereby. The Spanish sovereigns were true to their original declaration, and did all in their power to prevent the infamies constantly being perpetrated by the distant colonists in their eagerness for slaves and results. The extermination of the Indians was equally remote from the minds of the colonists, averse as they were to work; and their lands and mines were valueless without laborers. COMPARATIVE CRUELTY. 67 A similar governmental interference took place in the north, when the rivalry of unscrupulous fur-traders led to excesses and disregard alike for the morals of the natives and the revenues of the crown. For the preservation of both, charters were issued to responsible companies in French and Russian America. These soon found it to their interest to court the aborigine for his fur and his trade, as well as for the safety of their scattered trappers and peddlers. In supplanting the Gaul the English adopted his admirable policy. Neither of these nations cared for the native Americans, their souls or bodies; they cared far less than the Spaniards, who were so widely swayed by the church, wherein humanity found also strong material incentive. All were of the same stock, and claimed alike the highest morality and the purest religion; comparing one with another of the great nations of the foremost civilization, there is little to choose between them in regard to equity and humanity. Englishmen speak of the Spaniards and Russians of a century or two ago as cruel, and so they were; but it is not possible in the compass of crime for men to inflict upon their fellow-men greater wrongs than those put by England upon India and China, within the century. With the decline of pecuniary interest in the Indians fell also the consideration of the invaders and the zeal of the authorities. When the independence of the New England provinces divided Anglo- American domination, the policy of the two parts in their treatment of the aborigines became as distinct as that of Spain or Russia. It is safe to say that nowhere in the history of colonization were native nations worse treated than in the United States, or better treated than in British America. Not that the revolted colonists were inherently less humane than their northern brethren, and least of all was it owing to any influence from 68 OUR TREATMENT OF THE NATIVE RACES. the mother country. The cause lay in the fur wealth of the northern section, which prompted the company representing the crown to comport itself with circumspection, while southward there was less of this incentive to self-control, and no government to assign the trade to responsible parties or regulate the fiercer rivalry which ensued among a host of competitors, heedless of the future or the consequences to others, and bent only on quick profits. National moralities, outside of certain bounds, are regulated by pecuniary interests. It so happened that it was money in the pockets of the Canadians for the savages to live, so they were kept alive; it paid the people of the United States to have them die, so their wild men were killed. The colonists of New England and their descendants were essentially workers, settlers, agriculturalists, and wanted the land cleared of all cumbrances, while the Montreal Scotchmen were fur-dealers, and wished to maintain half of North America as a game preserve, with the Indians as their hunters. Hence the officers of the great fur companies were exceedingly kind and circumspect, placing in contact with the savages only their own servants of tried integrity, who dealt with them honestly, charitably, respecting their rights and maintaining the peace of nations. A Hudson's Bay Company's man was never thanked by his superior for taking advantage of an Indian in trade. Promises were faithfully kept; and if a white man injured an Indian he was punished as surely if not as severely as the Indian who injured a white man. A whole village was not murdered for a theft by one of its members, but only the guilty one was made to suffer, And when the country was thrown open to settlement, the natives were not left to the mercy of the vilest element in the commonwealth to be robbed and insulted, but were allotted the lands about their ancient homes, and made useful and respectable. . Along the ever-widening border of the li THE FUR COMPANIES. 69 great republic, on the other hand, were free trappers, desperadoes, the scum of society, together with unlicensed settlers, knowing no law and having no protection save of their own devising. It was alone from contact with such an element that the savages were forced to form their opinion of white men—an element that kept them in a state of constant exasperation. More than was the case with the Spaniards, or Portuguese, or Russians, it was to the interest of the people of the United States to rid themselves of their savages. They were in the way; of no use to any; and preordained at best soon to die; then why protect them ? Moreover, they killed white men, stole cattle, and held possession of land which could be put to better use. That white men did worse by them, or among themselves, made no difference. That the English lord might fence out hundreds of paupers from his thousand-acre park which gave him each year a few days' shooting, or a Yankee speculator hold 50,000 acres for an advance in price made no difference. Englishmen and Yankees are not painted savages; English lords are not American lords; civilization and savagism are natural foes; the weaker must give way, and the less said about justice and humanity the better. So with their accustomed energy the people of the United States have driven back the Indian beyond their fast expanding border, and with the extermination of their wild beasts exterminated their wild men when these ventured to protest or resist. Few now remain within their borders from the Atlantic to the Pacific, while Mexico, British America, and Russian America, if it be any satisfaction to them, may still count their hordes of unslain aboriginals. Perhaps it is better so. If with our Indians we would kill off our Africans, and Asiatics, and lowT Europeans, we might in due time breed a race of gods. But must we not first' revise our ethics, and throw out as obsolete the idea of any other right than iF 70 OUR TREATMENT OF THE NATIVE RACES. might, of any other principle than the inexorable law of progress? Must we not root out of our religion every sentiment which conflicts with culture ? We see plainly enough that the rights of nations are respected by other nations in proportion to the power of a people to defend them. Neither religion nor civilization are sufficiently advanced to render strict justice to savage nations, or to any weaker power. The immigrants from England were no exception to this rule. Finding the savages along the eastern seaboard too strong to be at once driven back, thev acknowledged their ownership to the land, but did not hesitate to cheat them out of it as opportunity offered. And later, as the white men became stronger and the red men weaker, while it has been partially acknowledged that the latter have some rights, practically but few have been granted them. It would have been more consistent on the part of the government to have ignored them entirely or to have recognized them fully. Savagism has no rights if it has not equal rights with civilization. It is revolting to our every sense of-manhood, of honor, and of justice, the narrative of the century- march of European civilization, from east to west across the mid-continent of North America. It were enough, one would think, to inflict on the doomed race the current curses of civilization, rum and divers strange diseases, without employing steel and gunpowder. But no sooner were the English plantations on the eastern seaboard strong enough than the struggle began, and in one line may be told the story ringing with its thousand imfamies to fit ten thousand occasions. The white man, in the belief of his mental and moral superiority, imposes upon the red man, who, daring to defend himself, is struck to earth. The story fits the great battles of the period no less than the local raids brought on by an attempt of a husband and father to protect an insulted wife or daughter, or the theft of a hungry Indian from whose ATTITUDE OF THE GOVERNMENT. lands game has been driven to give pasturage to cattle, the whole neighborhood rallying in revenge and shooting down indiscriminately every native man, woman and child in the vicinity. The government has been likewise at fault. We behold warlike and blustering tribes wring one concession after another, in reservations, provisions, annuities, and aid toward building houses, and obtain ready pardon after every fresh uprising or outrage. Peaceful and weak tribes, on the other hand, have been neglected, or put off with barren tracts and scanty allowance, filtered though the fingers of dishonest agents. Thus a premium was ever offered to disaffection. Some tribes, like the Mission Indians of California, have been surrendered to swindlers, to be driven from their homes occupied for generations, and left to starve. Temporizing was in a measure enforced by the feud bred of long hostility and the exposed condition of a vast frontier; and the mode of dealing had to conform to the character and strength of the tribe, as practised among so-called civilized nations. Yet it can never excuse the glaring injustice toward well- disposed and deserving peoples. For the last half century the aim of the government in its Indian policy has been for the most part humane and honorable, equal in its benevolent intentions to Spain's, and superior to that of England; nevertheless, its mistakes and inconsistencies have been numberless. Starting out upon a false premise, striving at once to be powerful and pure, its pathway has bristled with difficulties. It made lofty distinctions which were without a difference, acknowledging in words from the first the lords aboriginal in possession as the rightful owners of the soil, from whom to steal without pretext of right was sinful, but who might nevertheless be righteously robbed in a thousand ways. Nor was it until the young republic had secured for itself acreage broad enough, as it supposed, for all r 72 OUR TREATMENT OF THE NATIVE RACES. present and future needs, and was on the highroad to wealth and fame, that the east began preaching to the west such honesty and humanity on behalf of the natives as it had not hitherto felt able to indulge in on its own account. What new revelation has come to the commonwealth, that the settlers west of the Mississippi have not the same right to seize the lands and kill the inhabitants as had the settlers east of that line ? Had a clause been inserted in the constitution making the robbery and murder of Indians lawful, the course of all would have been clear; but to rob and murder, or permit a straight century of such license, and that on a mighty magnificent scale, and now begin to rail at similar slighter deeds enforced by necessity, seems absurd. The condition of the philanthropists of the east, in no fear for their scalps, and in the full enjoyment of lands stolen from the savages by their forefathers, differs widely from that of the settlers on the border with dwellings aflame , and wives and children slaughtered. Among the more common and continued mistakes of the government in dealing with the Indians has been the employment as agents of men who would buy their appointment from some political hack, depending on peculation or other rascality for a return. Of all the millions of money appropriated by congress for the benefit of the Indians, it is safe to say that only a small proportion has ever reached them. Then there has been much bad faith on the part of government, broken promises, and unfulfilled treaties. A savage cannot understand how a nation can deceive without expecting to fight. Indian outbreaks have always been the result of real or fancied wrongs, which nine times in ten the government might have remedied, and thus avoided bloodshed, had it acted through honest, competent agents, with promptness, fairness, and firmness. An insurmountable obstacle confining the action of RACE DIFFERENCES. 73 the authorities lies in race feeling, which is far more intense among the Teutons than in the Latin element. The Frenchman and Spaniard hold themselves above the lowly Indian, but they do not spurn him. Intermarriage was unhesitatingly adopted by their young men, and favored by the church and the government, as among fur-traders, on the ground of morality and with a view to form a claim upon native loyalty. The half-breed grew to receive a share in the affection so freely bestowed by Spanish parents. Thus favored, the mestizo expanded in Latin America into a powerful race. Subjected like the creole to narrow-minded oppression and disregard, he turned for sympathy to the maternal side, to cherish ancient tradition, and to revive its glories in the achievement of independence. With him the aborigines have been lifted to full equality before the law, although the sprightlier mestizo seeks to maintain the domination over the masses inherited from the Spaniard, politically as well as socially. His rise is most desirable, for his patient and conservative traits form a needful check on the changeable disposition of the others. His capacity for elevation is demonstrated not alone in the fraternal recognition of his merits and character in the various official positions which he shares with his half-breed brother, but in the number of prominent men contributed by him to the-circles of arts, science, and literature, as in the case of Juarez, the great lawgiver and liberator, whom unanimous gratitude has raised to a national hero. So in, the north also we find bright promises, as exhibited by the Cherokees, by instances of intellectual and material advancement at different reservations, and by marked reformation effected by missionary effort on the remote Alaskan border of British Columbia, in creating a model community from among rude fisher tribes. There is not here the same prospect for advancement, however, as in Spanish America, for the contemptuous race antipathy and disdainful 74 OUR TREATMENT OF THE NATIVE RACES. exclusiveness, on the part of the Anglo-Saxons, have placed a gulf impassable between them and the Indians and half-breeds, which leaves them strangers and outcasts on their ancestral soil. There can be no great good, now that the Indians are nearly all dead, in devising means for preserving their lives. At the same time the mind will sometimes revert to a possible condition of things, wherein there were no Indian reservations to serve as prisons for free men, and hot-beds of political iniquity; wherein the survivors of a nation had each been secured in the possession of land sufficient for his easy maintenance on the spot where had lived his ancestors, officers being appointed for their further protection under the severest penalties for misconduct; wherein there were strict regulations respecting settlers on the border, their occupation of lands, and intercourse with the natives; wherein, if voting in this republic must be promiscuous, Africans and low Europeans being invited to become our peers, the privilege was not denied the Indians, whose soil we have seized and whose nationalities we have obliterated. CHAPTER V. HISTORY WRITING. He alone reads history aright, who, observing how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings and opinions of man, how often vices pass into virtues and paradoxes into axioms, learns to distinguish what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable. As the world makes history, men are found to record it; first on the tablet of memory, to be in like manner reinscribed by successive generations, illuminated with the glow of family pride, of tribal sympa- pathy, of patriotic devotion. In the course of this transmission occur further modifications under influences multifarious, colored by the vagaries of fancy, superstition, or emotion, others warped by defective retention or obscure judgment; others perverted to please the varying audiences, of elders or youth, of friends or strangers, or to add brilliancy to the rhetoric of the narrator. The distortion here is no worse than in the host of written chronicles, additionally influenced by fanaticism and prejudice, ignorance, and lack of reflection. In the latter, however, the outlines are sharply cut in prose and with unalterable rigidity; in the former they fade and intermingle with the metric current which bore the tales of illiterate ancestors. A poetic imagination lifts incidents into the sphere of miraculous or supernatural phenomena, and the figure rises from the sage patriarch or valiant chieftain to a hero or a divinity, euphemistically transformed. Distance wraps around all its mystifying veil; age invests falsehood with sanctity. A step back and history fades. As the vista of 76 HISTORY WRITING. time lengthens and the past recedes, a mist closes in behind us and even recorded facts grow dim. Poets themselves, as milestones in the highway of history— Chaucer, as displaying English character at the close of the fifteenth century; Shakespeare, as opening a new era in the development of thought; and Shelley, as heralding the approach of modern skepticism—are doomed in time to become obsolete, and crumble. With the fruits of their lives in never-dying fragrance still before us, some affect to believe the man Homer a myth; some regard Shakespeare as a mask. But where is the difference, if, contrary to our teachings, the blind minstrel or the divine dramatist never had authentic reality? Their works, the testimony of earnest lives and matchless intellects, are with us, and for these their authors, whosoever they are, shall be to us as Homer and Shakespeare. From hallowed antiquity emerges mythology to enfold the cradle of most nations, and to be in time set forth in records like the Jewish scriptures, the Hindoo Veda, the Popol Vuh of the Quiches, regarded by their several peoples as sacred, and supplemented by heroic ballads, which often contain the beginnings of national history. Even science had its occult period, as in the astrology of astronomy and the alchemy of chemistry. All the unknown was the doings of the gods; and while imagination thus tyrannized over reason, all historical records were deemed divine. Then arose skepticism with its questionings, and the human began to mix with the spiritual. The history of one age became the romance of the next. Until a comparatively late period, patristic writings were regarded by Christians as but little less worthy of belief than the holy scriptures. Now, history, in common with the vital forces of the age, has become humanized, materialized. No longer are mainsprings of thought and action sought amidst the unknowable. Chivalry, kingcraft, and military Christianity have had their day, and mankind is now less ruled by the SUPERSTITION AND REALITY. 77- ecclesiastical spirit or by the sentiment of loyalty. Spiritual power and temporal power are divorced; and instead of crusading knights, inquisitions, and an infallible papacy, we have constitutional government and a free press. Thought is emancipated, and mind harnesses the forces of nature. We are becoming more and more satisfied to be guided by the light of our reason, which, howsoever dim and flickering, distinguishes us from brute beasts, and serves to reveal the will-o'-the-wisps which have so long misled us, dispelling the veneration which once attended all that was printed, almost all that was written, and much of what was said, particularly if spoken from the pulpit or forum. There was something mysterious and almost sacred in books, and in the words of those who had long and diligently searched them. The unthinking millions were ever ready to credit philosopher and sage, priest and professor, with knowledge and powers illimitable. The earliest book of the nation was above all held sacred, as something emanating from divinity, by virtue of its unearthly and unnatural incidents. But the older the world grows, the clearer becomes its discrimination in historic judgment. In this it is aided also by the unobscured records of many a modern nation from its political inception. In our present- researches we have recourse to lenses as well as new lights. The cumulative knowledge of past generations is becoming more accessible and concentrated, and science gives daily fresh tongues to organic and inorganic substance. The normal unfolding of nature is demonstrated, together with depending events; the hieroglyphics of the past assume an ever-brightening outline, and the elements of truth distill from the ambiguous and absurd in the national books. As history emerges from this shadowy borderland, the mythology and dim beginning of national records proceeding from the sacred to the profane, it 7S HISTORY WRITING. loses somewhat of its deception and uncertainty, until truth triumphant rises superior to all tradition. Similarly graded was the development from original reflective and philosophic history. In regard to the latter, it is better that history should be pure, unadulterated by any philosophy, than to be burdened by it. It is well for the historian ever to have in mind causes and principles; otherwise, indeed, he would be only a chronicler or annalist. But he need not parade his doctrines unduly. No two writers or readers, if they think at all, will agree exactly touching the origin of human affairs and the nature of human progress; it is not necessary that they should. The greater the pretension to insight into these enigmas, the greater the confusion. Let us have our facts, so far as consistent with reasonable and critical narration, pure and simple, presented clearly, in natural order and logical sequence; and each of us, if so disposed, can weave from them any additional web of philosophy. Strained efforts in this direction are as unprofitable and unpleasant as preconceived recognition of special providence or miraculous interposition. It is enough to discern wise provisions and fundamental rules, or proclaim a seemingly overruling intelligence in all that relates to man and nature, without appending on the one side evident or remote explanations, or attempting on the other to trace the finger of God in the affairs of men to such an extent as to make the Almighty the drudge and scavenger of the universe, subject to the beck and call of every atom in his Bceotic handiwork. In mixing too freely philosophy with history, homely facts are liable to become distorted or subverted. In truth, philosophizing produces too often only a phantom to which "facts will not cling. While pretending to great things, to primary and universal investigation, to the synthesis and analysis of all knowledge, the explanation of fundamental causes and the determining of infinite effects, it soars away from real knowledge to deal with its shadow. With Montaigne, REFORMATION IN NARRATION. 79 M. Sainte-Beuve loved "only the simple ingenuous historians who recounted facts without choice or selection in good faith;" but that is another extreme to which few will subscribe. But a little while ago it was assumed that a nation which had not waded through centuries of blood had no history. . To our more refined sensibilities, pictures of battle-field agonies, catalogues of death wounds, and barbarous atrocities are less congenial—I will not say less profitable—than to the ruder tastes of Homer's listeners or to the lover of King Arthur romances. Narratives of sieges and battles, of the discipline and movement of armies, and of international diplomacies; biographies of ministers and generals, and the idiosyn- cracies of great men; pictures of court intrigues, dainty morsels of court scandals, recitations of the sayings of imbecile monarchs, anecdotes of princes, the opinions of counsellors, or the tortuous ways of political factions—these are not all of history. What Carlyle wanted to see was "not red-book lists, and court calendars, and parliamentary registers, but the life of man in England; what men did, thought, suffered, enjoyed; the form, especially the spirit, of their terrestrial existence, its outward environment, its inward principle; how and what it was; whence it proceeded, whither it was tending." Beginning with Moses or Homer and tracing the records of the race to the present time, if we take out the accounts of human butcheries, of lying and over-reaching of statesmen and rulers, and of the sources of lamentation, there is little left. Crushing is the curse of ignorance and injustice! How blotted are the pages of history with the cruelties of tyrants, the corruptions of courts, the wanton wickedness of lawmakers and governors! What wonder that the poor steal, and bloated sensualists ravish ! \ Gibbon considers history indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. ±0*" 80 HISTORY WRITING. History's tale as given is by far too woeful. It tells not the whole truth. It holds up to us chiefly the dolorous side of humanity, with the wounds, conflicts, and stains of crime,—the hateful, bloody side* Now, to every human soul, and to every aggregation of souls, there is a bright side, generally the unwritten side of history.' Between the black periods of passion are long eras of peace and prosperity, as fully entitled to their place in history as the other. A still greater omission lies in the failure to duly observe the mighty current of history in the people, to dilate only or chiefly upon eddies, streaks, and flotsam, in stirring incidents and striking figures. No intelligent reader of the present day will for a moment question the relative value of a knowledge of the origin and structure of social institutions as compared with a knowledge of kings, dynasties, genealogies, and political intrigues. Formerly the people seemed to be kept alive in order that the government might live,-but as the people become strong the government recedes to a subordinate position. We are told that history is but the essence of innumerable biographies. Resolving then this essence, we find chronicled how this prince was elevated and deposed, how that sycophant intrigued; we are notified at length how certain nobles quarreled, how ministers were made and unmade—as if the universe revolved round these poor worms, and the fate of humanity hung upon their lips. Descending to minor greatness, we find recorded the mechanical ingenuity of an inventor, the skill or magnanimity of a politician or a tradesman ; but of the .men, moral or bestial, we learn little. Success we can but worship, weak creatures that we are, and success demands a place; whether it comes from propagandism or pickle-making, it will have a niche in the pantheon. But this is not enough; the new immortal must be bleached or blackened to harmonize with the surroundings; Le I 11 III RULERS AND PEOPLE. 81 must be elevated and rendered conspicuous, as angel or devil, above the crowd whence he issued. In history the people have been represented far too much by their chiefs. The movers of the world are mankind, not the leaders. Statesmen are undoubtedly the authors of many evils and some few benefits to man. Yet we exaggerate when from the prow of the ship of state we see the threatening breakers, and fancy that, but for the helming of great men, we should be dashed to pieces. From the cause of bad leadership alone is seldom, at this day, a nation wrecked. The people are the nation; and to their ignorance or weakness, poverty or cowardice, we must look for the origin of all the greater evils that befall, them. The time was when Pharaohs and Alexanders, or latterly a Napoleon, seemed to sway the destinies of their own and adjacent nations, partly by inherited control over a subjected people, partly through ascendency gained by prowess and intellect. The acts of such a wielder of power are undoubtedly all important, and his biography becomes largely the history of the nation. Nevertheless, we must look deeper, and not be blinded by superficial glitter. We must look for bases and causes, not alone for appearances and effects. The great men of history, or those who play prominent parts on the world's stage, are in the main the result of accident or a combination of circumstances, being made by fortune rather than making it. The evolution of a king varies little in form or principle from the unfolding of any other object in nature or in man, with the difference that fitness as the element of survival seems to have little to do with it. Originally, as subordinate leaders, they possessed the merit of prowess, or as representatives in whom centered the interests of castes and guilds and tribes, held in equilibrium by diplomatic jealousy and distrust; but otherwise there was usually no merit whatever. Essays and Miscellany 6 82 HISTORY WRITING. In following the career of an Alexander, the causes of success must be sought not in his legislative acts and military feats, in his public conduct or private life, but in the character and habits of the peoples which achieved his conquests or submitted to his sway. We must go back and trace the influence of the surrounding circumstances, and watch the ripening incidents which enable one man to step to the front, and seemingly guide the current of national performance into a new channel. It required the long fermentations of many ingredients to start the Aryans on the great westward march which still pursues its civilizing course. In tracing it, we direct our glance no longer at the leaders, but at the moving mass, and at the numerous evidences of its halt, now in the fertile valley of the Euphrates, now on the sterile shores of Pocenicia, in the semi-tropic climate of Greece, and in the diversified valleys of America. Alexander's father introduced a primary element of success in the military system, long matured in the classic peninsula, and which inspired the Macedonians with irresistible confidence as well as military ardor. It was the spirit of Epaminondas, to a certain extent, which guided them to victory. Then we must take into consideration the influence of Greek thought in other directions upon the leading classes, and of Aristotle's teachings upon the young general, until finally we approximate the cause which started the invasion, roused the flame of discord among the nations throughout south-western Asia, and shaped the policy which assured the conquest. The comparative insignificance of the head is illustrated by the parting asunder of the fabric at his death for the benefit of his generals, upheld by the favor and desire of the subordinate officers and soldiers. In Napoleon we behold the personification of a new military method, which found success among old-fashioned and rutty systems, and of the consequent inspiration which drove the nation onward to glorious deeds. L MODERN ERA. 83 In the reaction, it was national sympathy and love of independence, rather than the direction of kings, which broke the chains, while national integrity kept the allied powers from exacting terms too severe. The material and intellectual advancement of nations cannot be wholly arrested by the vagaries of rulers, who, autocratic as they may be, are bound and guided by common interests with their people, although prompted by ambition and vanity to secure more than a due share for themselves. The statecraft which so long deluded the masses for the benefit of a self-asserting few avails no longer. Democracy has had its ebbs and tides, but since the middle ages its progress has been more steady. The practical discoveries and inventions which form the essentials of civilization are the levers of its own making, whereby it is uplifted. Note also the effect of the three great inventions upon this modern era, the compass, printing press, and gunpowder; the first opening the hitherto locked oceans and western continents to enterprise and emigration, offering an asylum for the oppressed and a nursery for freedom; the second opening the portals of knowledge to benighted masses, presenting to them means and guidance for self-reliant acquisition of power; the third, by revolutionizing warfare, dealing the death blow to feudal tyranny, and reducing the ascendancy of knights and nobles. The success of democratic rule in America has exerted a powerful influence upon Europe. Autocracy has had to yield to representative government. Rulers are obliged more and more to conform to their duty as executives of popular will, and to study the requirements of the masses, in order to sustain themselves. Subordinate heads have in similar manner to court their respective constituents or apparent defenders, and to figure as representatives and mouthpieces rather than masters. The comfort of the people and the growth of intelligence, the genesis of laws and institutions, are of as 84 HISTORY WRITING. vital importance in pur study of social anatomy, and in the deduction of principles as the juggleries of political tricksters. To ignore the existence of the material composing the nation in writing' its history, is to persist in the retention of the barbaric in historic literature The absence of allusions to the masses in the Homeric poems, and in the Arthurian and Carlovingian tales, is striking. Yet what minstrel could condescend to celebrate in song the lives and thoughts of base- born drudges, when the general was considered everything, the soldier nothing, the lord more than man, the laborer less than brute. How doth the halo of divine kingship blind the eyes of men! Lamartine saw in gouty old Louis XVIII. a manly figure, an honored hero, clothed in modest wisdom; eyes like lapis lazuli, without anger, without timidity, reflected the ancestral nobility as in a mirror! Not that rulers are to be ignored in history. The good ruler influences the interests of society as the mountains give direction to wind and rain. Yet in scientific history, forms and dignities must give place to human nature, men-killers and political thimble- riggers to iron-smiths and wool-weavers. Kings and courts will never again figure in history as hitherto, for as their hold on us in real life lessens, so does their hold in tradition. Rather throw rank and caste, with patriotic egoism and fanatical creeds, to-the wind, and rest our philosophy on the broad principles of nature and humanity. Give rulers, generals, and great men their place in history—in the background. These are the creatures, not the creators of civilization. Marshal to the front generalizable facts, from which principles important to the welfare of the people may be deduced. Let us see how nations originate, organize, and unfold; let us examine the structure and operations of governments, their polities, strength, tyrannies, and corruptions ; with civil government let us parallel ecclesias- MEN AND NATIONS. 85 tical government, with its powers, creeds, ceremonials, and superstitions; domestic customs, sex and family relationships, the affinities and antagonisms of class, occupation, and every species of social phenomena down to the apparently most insignificant habits, are worth our attention; labor, industries, the economy of wealth, the arts, the condition and advancement of the intellect, aesthetic culture, morals, and everything appertaining to the individual as well as to the body social should be critically considered; in short, the progress of man's domination over nature. Costumes as well as customs should be reproduced, for dress, no less than style, is the man, and the man is the nation. A half-century ago poets, painters, novelists, neither knew nor cared to know the costumes of the several nations and epochs of history which they attempted to picture, so that the grossest anachronisms were perpetrated. And this was only one phase of the disregard for knowledge then prevalent. The analysis of history should be made inversely from the concrete to the abstract, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous and complex. After examining the facts, we may proceed inductively to generalizations. History, heaven-born, descends to earth ; from the abstract to the concrete : from the general and remote to the particular and proximate; from the doings of demi-gods, heroes, and kings, it comes to the doings of humbler men. Mighty in its original aspirations, history bridged the chasm between heaven and earth ; then dropping down through all the modifications of the semi-supernatural, through all the phases of divine and mortal rule, it finally rests upon the shoulders of the common herd, which finally raises its eyes dimly conscious of its destiny. ^ The history of the United States illustrates in particular the unfolding of this destiny, presenting a lesson to the world of practical energy and able and prosperous self-government. We are not as yet prepared to HISTORY WRITING. determine the exact relative importance to mankind of the histories of the different nations of the earth. It may seem to us now, that Greece, and Rome, and England have exercised a broader and deeper influence upon the destinies of man than, ever will Oregon, California, or Mexico ; but we cannot tell. The civilizations of antiquity flourished while yet the world was small, and thought circumscribed; when the Pacific slope shall have had centuries of national life, her annals may tell of more benefits to the race than those of Egypt can now boast. In order to better understand and bring forward with proper spirit the current and flotsam of history, the laws of nature and humanity should be kept in mind, and all those natural and supernatural forces of which we know so little and feel so strongly; for these, to the historian, are as the world's wind and water currents to the meteorologist, or as the effects of heat and intermixtures to the chemist; else there is no accounting for the insane wranglings, the battles and butcheries over nothings, the sacrifice of millions upon the altar of an inane idea. They proffer clues to the modifications to which changeable man is constantly subjected by his surroundings, and to the action and. reaction of individuals and institutions on each other. So intertwined and subtle are the relations of man and nature that knowledge of mankind constitutes the sum of all knowledge. Physical nature marks out a path to human nature, and human nature in turn becomes the key to physical nature; as in the motions of matter so in the emotions of mind, whether evolved or artificially created, human passions and proclivities act and react on each other, are measured>relatively not absolutely, and balanced "o/ie by another. Hence it is that change in one place involves change in another, and any deviation from the general plan would result in a totally different order of things. THINGS EASILY FORGOTTEN. 87 We must remember that individuals, institutions, and societies are developed, not self-created; and that in this evolution evil instruments are employed in common with good; that the virtue of one age is the vice of another, and the beauty of one age the deformity of another. We do not realize how infinitesimal are our originatings, how infinite the powers that mould us; we do not consider that in the ideal, as in the material world, there is no>escape from external influences, that society fastens upon every member laws as inflexible as the laws of nature, and that we rest under dire necessity. We may imagine ourselves free when in truth we are bound to the strictest servitude. Statutory laws, with their limited restraint, may be evaded, but disobedience to the laws of nature is promptly punished by nature herself. Divine law comprehends all law, but divine punishment is remote and undefined. The laws of society however, are more domineering than all other laws combined, and, although punishing with but a frown, they are more dreaded than either the laws of nations or the laws of nature We forget, moreover, that civilization, this evolution of the mechanical from the mechanical, and of the mental from the mental, with all its attendant moralities, polities, and religions, is not a human invention; that great ideas, great consequences are born of time, not originated by man nor self-imposed; that individuals owe their intelligence and their ignorance to the age and society in which by their destiny they are projected, and that society must first make a place for the great man before it can produce one; nay, more, that man with his mighty intellect originates nothing, not even one poor thought, for trains of thought inevitably follow trains of circumstances, and every thought is but one in a sequence of thought, dependent upon its correlative, the seed of its progenitor, the germ of its successor, and that man can no more originate or exterminate thought than he 88 HISTORY WRITING. can originate or exterminate a solar system, so that our ideas are ever coming and going, and, whether we will or not, gathering color and volume from every fresh experience—I say we forget all this and a thousand other things of like import, when we so sagely sit in judgment on our fellows. Some intimation humanity has of its elevation from the earthy by this subtle power, for in the naming of itself, in speaking the word "man" it says "thinker," such being the signification. Man, thinker, and not alone brute, not stolid senseless brain and muscle only, but thinker. . So if we would be men and not animals only we must think, and the more we think the less brutish we will be. Herein is a world of philosophy, and moreover much strength, for thought breeds knowledge, and knowledge is strength. Innumerable varieties of thought are generated by innumerable varieties of circumstance, as plants are generated by soil and climate. Men, in so far as they think at all, think differently ; few are wholly wrong. • Judgment is always perverted by our teachings, which consist largely of fallacies. In our estimations of human nature the great fault lies in our restricted vision, and in the narrow-minded and one-sided views of life which are taken even by the profoundest scholars in every branch of learning. By some, humanity is studied as an art; by others, as a science. Some consider proximate causes only, endow mankind with absolute volition, make the individual the arbiter of his fate, governing, yet in some measure being governed by his surroundings; fortuitous circumstances are referred to divine interpositions, unexplainable phenomena are thrown back upon the supernatural, and the supernatural in return explains all mysteries. Herein life is an art. Others raise their eyes to causations more remote; they behold the broad eternal stream of progress from afar, human rivers flowing on solehtnly, resistlessly,, in channels predetermined, They see in the civiliza- STUDY OF HUMANITY 89 tions of nations, in the evolutions of successive societies, an orderly march, uniform in impulse, under the direction of supreme intelligence, and regulated by primordial laws. They £ee the tide of human affairs ebbing and flowing, now sinking into the depths of the material, now rising to the confines of the spiritual, but ever firmly bound by omnipotence. From the association of human intellects they perceive engendering progressional phenomena, under an influence vivifying as the sun and palpable as the air we breathe; a living principle, like conditions ever producing like results. Circumstances apparently fortuitous they refer to the same natural laws that govern the knowable, and the genesis of progress they hold to be one with the genesis of man. This view raises the study of humanity into a* science; and thus is human life pictured on opposite sides of the shield, and discussed by minds practical on the one hand and by minds speculative on the other. True philosophy, however, grasps at entireties; man is made up of many elements, of endless impulses as well as fixed principles; take away parts of his nature and he becomes denaturalized, becomes either more or less than man. Every philosophic writer of history has his own ideas of primal causes and underlying principles regulating society and progress. Thus Buckle makes natural phenomena and a priori necessity the basis of his philosophy of history ; Draper rears his structure on the physiological idea; Froude sees in the ambitions and passions of men the domineering elements of social energetics, while Goldwin Smith believes in the direct interposition of the creator in the affairs of men. Very different were the old-time explanations of social phenomena from these latter-day explainers. Mandeville went so far as to make moral virtue spring from the cunning of rulers, who the better to govern their subjects persuaded them to restrain their passions and achieve the good—so low were the estimates 90 HISTORY WRITING. placed by the teachers of mankind upon the overruling of social affairs. All seem to agree that an unseen mysterious force has some direction of human affairs, and rules them by intelligent laws for man's advancement. It matters little for the purposes of history what this subtle force is called, whether free-will, necessity, progress, or providence. Says Jean Paul Richter,. "Nature forces on our heart a creator; history a providence." The religionist sees in history God's plan concerning mankind, and the records of our race are to him but sequent supernatural interferences. The scientist sees an unfolding, and in studying causations discovers laws. But whether these laws are called God's or nature's they are the same in origin and in operation. This much, however, I think may safely be said: No one seeks truth with keener zest or with higher aspirations toward that which is beautiful and good than the skeptic. He alone who rests satisfied in the stolid ignorance of an old and trodden path prefers falsehood. The historian of "innumerable biographies," with mind of breadth and depth sufficient to take in at one view the whole of this vast theme, has yet to come forward. Greatness in great things is seldom found united to greatness in little things; individual action so ill accords with philosophic speculation, that it is with extreme difficulty the practical mind is drawn from immediate practical results, or the speculative mind can be brought down to the careful consideration of the proximate. "To realize with any adequacy the force of a passion we have never experienced," remarks Lecky, " to conceive a type of character radically different from our own, above all, to form any just appreciation of the lawlessness and obtuseness of moral temperament, inevitably generated by a vicious education, requires a power of imagination which is among the rarest of human endowments." There are those who claim that many of the leading INSIGNIFICANT MARVELS. 91 events of history spring from trivial accidents, ignoring which, in his efforts at more dignified causations, the writer exaggerates or warps the truth. This may be so to a limited extent. But when William Mathews soberly affirms that " half of the great movements in the world are brought about by means far more insignificant than a Helen's beauty or an Achilles' wrath," that "one more pang of doubt in the tossed and wavering soul of Luther, and the current of the world's history would have been changed," he is far from the fact. And w7hen this writer continues, "had Cleopatra's nose been shorter, had the spider not woven its web across the cave in which Mahomet took refuge, had Luther's friend escaped the thunderstorm," mankind shall never know what might have been, he approaches the burlesque. As Fontanelle remarks, "L'histoire a pour objet les effets irreguliers des passions et des caprices des hommes, et une suite d'evenements si bizarres, que Ton a autrefois imagine* une divinite avengle et insensee pour lui en donner la direction." Another sums up fifteen decisive battles, any one of which, if resulting differently, would have brought destruction on mankind. Western civilization would have been blotted out had not Asia been checked at Marathon. And what would have happened, that did not happen, had Hasdrubal won, had Themistocles lost, had Charles Martel been overthrown by the Saracens, or had Napoleon been successful at Leipzig, sages recite as though reading from a record. While Wellington waited Bluchers arrival at Waterloo the sun stood still to see whether its services should be wanted more on this planet. In like manner momentous turning-points are discovered in statecraft, politics, and progress. Humboldt saw in the discovery of Columbus a "wonderful concatenation of trivial circumstances," and Irving gives a string of incidents to show that something dreadful might have happened if Columbus 22 HISTORY WRITING. Lad resisted Pinzon's counsel, when the latter was inspired by the sight of a flock of parrots to steer westward. Mr Mill sagely observes, " If Mary had lived a little longer, or Elizabeth died sooner, the reformation would have been crushed in England." An innate love for the marvellous fondles these assumptions; but human affairs do not flow in such shallow channels as to be turned from their course by the falling of a pebble, or if turned from one course they find another which answers as well. It does not seem reasonable that had not the Medes and Persians, the Saracens, the French, and the rest of them, been checked just where they were, that we all would now be Mahometans or Frenchmen. And surely it does not argue well for Christ's care of his church to make its wellare dependent upon the accident of a woman's fate. Nature and the Great Inexorable have some voice in the dispensation of human affairs as well as Blucher, Mary Queen of Scots, or Napoleon. These persons were but qreatures of circumstances, and the events that raised them could have found other means and instruments. Politics and governments may run away with themselves, and with one another, but the master is sure to bring them back. The moral ideal of every society is stronger than its greatest friend or enemy. The great mass of readers, even of history, seem to prefer to have their thinking done for them. It is not given to every man to think as all the world shall think a century hence. The deepest original thinkers add little to the world of thought; but from those who hire their thinking the world learns nothing. They are not satisfied with the bald facts, but must have them well coated with romance and theory before they are palatable. The chief art of partisan historians is to make the facts of history sufficientlv pliable to fit pre-determined principles. Their plan is not to deduce but to induce. Too often even among philosophic writers, history is but a special pleading —as in the case of Thirwall and Mitford, who take SPECIAL PLEADING. the facts of Grecian history, and warp them, one to suit democratic ideas, and the other aristocratic; or of Abbott and Allison, who in writing of the French, station God's providence on opposite sides. The proficient historian will range his facts in natural sequence, so that each event may show at once its origin and its influence,—and herein lies the essence of history writing,—while for his philosophy of history the student should draw from his Hegel or his Schlegel rather than require the narrator of facts to warp them for popular or prejudiced views. As in geological science we discover a chronology of the material, so in history there is a chronology of the immaterial. A fact in history, like a relic in archaeology, may from its form and character be ascribed its proper place or epoch. There are the beliefs, the politics, the moralities of our period, which by no possibility could appear in another. " To serve more effectually the philosophical explanation of the past," says Noah Porter, "the great movements of historic progress in separate lines and the several agencies on which they depend have been treated of in distinct works." To this separate treatment of topics particular attention should be given in all historical writings, bringing severally forward the progress of commerce, agriculture, education, and various kindred sections of the ground covered, so as to enable the mind to see the effects of each of these civilizing agents on society apart from other causes and effects. To pure and healthy minds the plain truth has fascinations which no fiction, however brilliant, can equal. A taste for the latter can be cultivated, however, until it surpasses the former. The child continually asks of the story told, Is it true ? But by-and- by we find half the world reading romance, men and women of all classes, ages, and grades of intelligence devouring shadow as though it were substance, filling themselves with wind, imagining it to be food, laugh- 94 HISTORY WRITING. ing and weeping over the airy nothings of novelists, all the while knowing them to be false yet pretending them to be true. And those who can make this false glitter appear most like truth are called artists, and apparently esteemed more highly than if they dealt only in truth. Novels afford us pastime and keep us young; but it is a most remarkable commentary on the mental and moral construction of humanity, this preference of pleasing fiction to substantial fact; and yet, in the earlier processes of the mind, as we have seen, truth has its fascinations. In the domain of sober history, pure unadulterated facts were never in greater demand than in the present practical and material age. During the past thirty centuries and more, the world has had its fill of windy speculations; bubbles blown by wondering savages, half-crazed philosophers, and bigoted churchmen. It is the raw material that worlds are made of, and guided by, and more knowledge of the propelling power that drives forward the mighty machine called civilization, that we now desire to see and handle. History is not alone facts, not alone ideas, but facts in their relation to ideas. The duty of the historian is not only to present truth, but to demand its origin and significance. According to Cousin's conception: "To recall every fact, even the most minute, to its general law, to the law which alone causes it to be: to examine its relation with other facts referred also to their laws ; and from relations to relations to arrive at seizing the relation of the most fugitive particularity, to the most general idea of an epoch, to the lofty rule of history." Continuing the same thoughts by Froude; "When historians have to relate great social or speculative changes, the overthrow of a monarchy or the establishment of a creed, they do but half their duty if they merely relate the events. In an account, for instance, of the rise of Mahometan- ism, it is not enough to describe the character of the prophet, the ends which he set before him, the means INCONGRUITIES AND EXAGGERATIONS. 95 which he made use of, and the effect which he produced ; the historian must show what there was in the condition of the eastern races which enabled Mahomet to act upon them so powerfully; their existing beliefs, their existing moral and political condition." While laying the foundations of history for an important section of the world, as did Herodotus, the writer should with Horace, in a series of tableaux vi- vants, carry the reader into the very heart of the subject, and in the examination of antecedents bring to his aid the mirror of Lao, by which the mind as well as the visible form is reflected. Certain molecules are sure to assume given shapes in aggregating; each element of matter has its own form of crystalization. So it is with human societies; ascertain elemental and individual qualities, and you may predict results. As the universal brotherhood of man becomes more and more apparent, the brotherhood of history is no less recognized. Nations act and react on each other, and a history of one cannot be complete while relating nothing of another. Nor yet alone by years are historical epochs measured. In modern history are things ancient, and in ancient, things modern. A century before Christ, the Romans, in their intentions and actions, were more like ourselves than were their successors four or five centuries later. The stream of human progress at the bottom is compact and silent in its flow, while the surface abounds in eddies, whirlpools, and counter- currents. The branches and foliage of the tree are in their substance equivalent to the volume and diameter of the trunk from which they shoot; so the life of man is not that which it now appears, a network of erratic energies, swayed by every wind of passion, but the sum of wide-spread influences, which, uprising with the birth of time, unfolds from roots of good and evil. Many of the exaggerations of history have undoubtedly their origin in the writer's effort at brilliancy in painting character; and nothing is truer than La r 9G HISTORY WRITING. Harpe's remark " On affaiblit toujours ce qui on ex- agere." Such efforts tend to perdition, for before the writer is aware of it he is sacrificing truth to style in an endeavor to please rather than to instruct. There are few writers, who if they spoke truly could but admit with Jean Paul that "there was a time when truth charmed me less than its ornament; the thought less than the form in which it was expressed." Some regard style of the first importance; others make style secondary to substance. Time was, and not long since, when style was not only the man, but the book; when naked facts were savagisms not admissible into conventional literature. * Ornamentation ' was more than dress, and dress more than the body. Unless minted by philosophical and rhetorical flourish, the most golden of truths were not current. Haply, now we will gladly take the gold wherever or in whatever form we find it, even if it be not already exchangeable coin. On the whole we may say that the heroic in historical composition has given place to the scientific, the romantic and popular to the austere and truthful. Yet it is impossible wholly to separate romance from reality. Fiction must have truth for its base, while staid indeed must be the narrative which is not tinged with romance. There are historical romances less romantic than the histories themselves—instance the Cyrus of Xenophon as compared with the Cyrus of Herodotus. Let, then, him who in writing history would bathe his rigid limbs in pools of inspiration, and dip his ambitious pen in auroral colors, pray the gods that fancy may not outstrip fact. To religion must be accorded the foremost credit of sustaining alike ignorance and learning. The position cf its servants, from the early sorcerer, medicineman, and astrologer, to the brahmin, muezzin, or pope, made them the middlemen between the masses and LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS. 97 the awe-inspiring forces of nature, and rendered knowledge, or the hiding of it, the object of their lives, the excuse for their occupation, the apology for their existence. As the means for influence it became to them as current coin. The collection and transcription of legends and traditions into the general whole formed part of their working capital. The leisure imposed by their vows and conditions on priests, and monks, and anarchists, promoted their labors. Their character has been stamped on most national literature, adding to the mysticism of ancient records. The Veda is as widely diffused in India as the religio-philosophic precepts of Confucius in the Celestial kingdom, influencing the conduct of a large proportion of the human race. The Koran spreads over many smaller nationalities, and the Bible helped to shape the destinies of the advanced among nations, permeating the middle ages with unparalleled tenacity. Not unlike these was the influence of the Popul Vuh, and other ancient records of civilized America. The first of the historians who began to place on record the myths and traditions of their nation, made additions and variations of their own mostly with a frank effort at truth; yet they were not devoid of invention and wilful falsification. Dealing in the impossible, they readily fell back upon the supernatural to deliver them from every dilemma ; and being filled with dim conceptions regarding the origin and end of things, and that insane fervor, sometimes called inspiration, they were well-conditioned to prepare for peoples just aroused from savagism the bases of mental pabulum, which well enough served the purpose for certain centuries. The secular historian had to wait for the unfolding of liberal ideas, as in Greece, fostered like himself in the civilizing circle of foreign intercourse and trade. He was a traveller, roused by the excitement of motion and the novelty of changing aspects, which also Essays and Miscellany i 98 HISTORY WRITING. brought comparison and judgment. Inquiry and skepticism brought improvement upon mere narrative, in philosophic history, to which further strength was imparted through the agency of compilation. The subsequent halt in progress was marked by the revival in the troubadour of Homeric reciters. Improvement was slow though perceptible. Following the gleam that breaks through the mist we behold those who begin to weigh evidence; yet they venture only partially to force their way through the trammels cast round them by veneration for the divine authority and national character of the earliest books. This is strongly illustrated by the chroniclers of the twelfth and seventeenth centuries, who mark therein also the retrogression of the middle ages. Modern historians pride themselves on being freed from the superstitions which clouded the views of their predecessors, and on having gained a truer insight into events; but how shrouded are still their perceptions by inherited and acquired bias, and how distorted by subordination to irrelevant aims. Few histories stand relieved from partisan spirit. Some seek to uphold a liberal administration, others a conservative policy; some the influence of ecclesiastics and nobles, others to champion the cause of the masses; some seek to justify the acts of a certain potentate, others to correct the omissions or prejudices of recorders. The mere effort to strengthen their argument brings about coloring and exaggeration, even if it does not carry them so far as the class which writes to prove some predetermined proposition, and warp every fact to* fit the theory. 3 Then there are those who write for reputation and display, who strive to excel in the narration of some tale, to elaborate into romance some brilliant epoch or episode, too often at the expense of accuracy. Nevertheless we encounter those who write to tell the truth for the simple love of it, actuated by a sense of fairness; and others there are who, confident in their VARIOUS INFLUENCES. 99 power to control prejudices and exaggerations, and to discriminate, yield freely to style as well as argument in order to impart force to the incident and theory. In the championship of a dogma or doctrine by the religionist or scientist, fanaticism in some form is seldom wholly separable. In regard to the former, it is utterly impossible for him to see clearly where his faith is affected. He may be honest and conscientious, intelligent and virtuous; his very honesty and virtue are barriers between him and truth. He has been taught to believe that upon his religion rests the universe, that his doctrina is the embodiment of truth; that by his holy book all human events, all science, all history, all that has been and is to be must be adjusted; that by his deity exist the eternal hills, and all forces, attractive and repulsive, and all worlds, and all space, and light, and life, and time. And as he has been taught, so he has promised to teach; he may not investigate; he is bound; he would say he is bound to the truth, but of that he may not question, and he has no desire to question. He may not subscribe to modern miracles, but he must to ancient ones; he may trust reason and science for the present, but for the past, his sacred book supplies all. The improbable, impossible stories, the insane assertions of dim human intelligences, of blind ignorance, words of men spoken in the earlier stages of mental development—these and the like are to be taken as the omnipotence of truth, omnipotence and truth as presented by nature, sense, and reason to the contrary notwithstanding. In a similar realm of obscurity, blinded by the effulgence of inflowing light, stands the scientist who subscribes to the unprovable propositions of some school, or is seized by some conception of his own, the establishment of which absorbs his best efforts, and becomes the dearest object of his life. Superstition is not alone of the past, nor is bigotry confined to religion. There is a fanaticism of liberty 100 HISTORY WRITING. as well as a fanaticism of enslavement. There is a bigotry of libertinism no less than a bigotry of sectarianism ; there are in atheism zealots as blind as ever disgraced theism or deism. The pope claims infallibility in the face of protests from all unfettered minds; but dogmatic extremists, of whatsoever sect or creed, likewise assume infallibility in denouncing opinions opposed to their own. Upon a Procrustean bed of their own dimensions these liberalized latter- day contortionists place all who fall into their hands, cutting off the limbs that are too long for it, and stretching those that are too short. Of approximate stamp is undue bias in favor of one's own people or country. This failing, still regarded in many quarters as a virtue, is worse in some respects than the bigotry arising from religious belief, and denotes narrowness of mind. " One historian after another sets himself to write the panegyric of his favorite period," says Goldwin Smith, " and each panegyric is an apology or a falsehood." The homily of glowing patriot or zealous sectarian is not history but verbiage. Let all that is worthy of censure in state, church, and society be condemned : let all that is worthy of praise be extolled; but let not censure and praise be meted out according to the maxims of country or creed. Patriotism is but a form of egotism, which must be circumscribed if not laid entirely aside. Let us meet every age and nation upon the broad platform of humanity, measuring no man's conscience by our own but by the conscience of nature, and condemning cruelty and injustice wherever we find it, whether in Hebrew, Turk, or Christian, Spaniard or Anglo-Saxon. It is no less unwise than dishonest to wage vituperative warfare against any nation or sect as such. Would he keep pellucid the stream of thought, with his piety and patriotism the writer of history will have little to do. "Nothing endures except that which is necessary, and history occupies itself onlv with that which endures," observes M.Cousin. IMPEDIMENTS AND QUALIFICATIONS. 101 Other obstacles interpose in forms infinite to warp our conceptions of incidents and character. There is the intellectual bias, the impossibility of reproducing in our own minds the thoughts and abstractions of others; the emotional bias, in which category may be placed the whole range of passion, family and class, loves and hates, with their numberless sympathies and antipathies; the educational bias, and many others. Impartiality and clearness must not be confounded or obscured, even by a strong detestation of the hateful or an absorbing admiration for the excellent. The effects and lessons of both have to be duly emphasized, yet the writer must rise above the excitement which he himself seeks to rouse by incident or style. Like the general, he must inspire enthusiasm without allowing himself to be carried away by it. While apparently yielding to the emotions awakened by varying occurrences, he must ever be on his guard to restrain those sympathies within bounds, or he becomes untrustworthy. There are many yet remaining among the guilds and schools who prefer graceful fiction to ungainly fact, and the older and more learned and more refined the school, the closer they hug their superstitions and deny conflicting truths. They have been taught, and sagely ; the world's storehouse of knowledge has been opened to them, and they have been able to secure more of it to themselves than usually falls to the lot of man; perchance they receive their daily food by holding to certain doctrines; at all events, they seem too ready to welcome any sham which will bolster up - their learning, as against any reality which will overthrow it. To pander to the passions or prejudices of a class, to romance for the pleasure of idle brains, or draw thrilling pictures for the amusement of dull intellects, whatever else it may be, is not to write history. No less indispensable than freedom from such de- m 102 HISTORY WRITING. basing shackles is fearlessness in the portrayal of contemporaneous events. The impartial judge should be a satisfied man— satisfied with place and possessions, and as free from vanity as from ambition. He should have nothing to gain by the expression of any opinion or in advocating any principle, and if loss attends such expression, he should be ready to sustain it. There may not be many historians who, like Paulus Jovius, would write openly as they were bribed, who would assign illustrious acts or noble pedigree to those who paid for them, and who would blacken and vilify the name of him who refused to buy fame; yet there»are enough over whom other motives and influences hold sway sufficient to make their record far from just. Hume piqued himself on his judicial fairness, and yet would alter or reverse a fact to suit his printer. What kind of a historian is he whose charm of style and whose exquisite grace and vivacity of narration have captivated so many readers, and of whom De Quincey might justly say, "Upon any question of fact, Hume's authority is none at all?" Macaulay hated the Quakers, hated the duke of Marlborough, idolized William III.—conditions wholly unfitting him to write truthfully. When Douglas Jerrold went to Paris, and amidst the scenes then stirring the capital attempted the r61e of special correspondent for his own journal, writing from strange nooks, as George Hodder says, "without the accustomed implements of his calling, and far removed from those domestic influences which he often confessed quickened his impulses and chastened his understanding," he felt that the same work could have been done better at home. When his companion reminded him that he came there for facts, he angrily exclaimed, "Damn the facts! I don't want facts." History is a magician's bottle, out of which we can pour any kind of wine the human appetite craves. Sophocles.pictured humanity as it ought to be; Eurip- TEMPER AND BIAS. 103 ides as it was. Thucydides wrote down democracy, Tacitus imperialism. Was either of them true to the interests of the opposite side? Would they not have been accounted as traitors by their respective parties had they been wholly impartial, and might not their names and works have soon perished in consequence? Macaulay looks upon the ills of the English poor two centuries back; Cobbett and Hallam dwell more upon their comforts. Read one, and you imagine them the most miserable of mortals; read the others, and you think how much happier people were then than now. To the character of Philip II Prescott applies the words bigoted, perfidious, suspicious, cruel, which were enough for even so powerful a prince, but when Motley adds to these the terms pedant and idiot, one begins to wonder how such a driveller was able to manage his estate of half a world so long and so well. The writer of history need not be a genius—indeed, genius is ordinarily too erratic for faithful plodding— but he must be a fair man, a man of sound sense, good judgment, and catholicity of opinion; of broad experience and a wide range of knowledge. While guarding against a too free indulgence of that love of personalities which, latent in simple minds, begins in gossip and boyish stories, and culminates in biography and history, he will never hold himself above anything which affects human nature, however humble, nor below those abstract generalities which are a later product, the result of study and experience. He should be possessed of the faculty of abstraction to the degree of double sense and opposite natures, so that he may clearly see the two sides there are to every proposition and every human character, and thus be enabled to reconcile the antagonisms of mind and emotions. A practical imagination; calm energy, and cautious speculation, should underlie all his efforts. It is the historian's duty to fill vacant spaces with probable events, or as Porter says : " The*power when trained and used in the search after historic truth be- 104 HISTORY WRITING, comes what is called the historic imagination, which by long practice becomes so discriminating and so trustworthy as to be termed the historic sense." All this is very well in nubibus. It is easy enough to point out defects and tell how history should be written, easier far than to find the model historian. Wholly to abstract thought from falsifying influences, to divorce mind from its superstitions, its hollow maxims, and its moral phantasms, is not possible. Before attempting it let Ithuriel and Zephon search for Satan in paradise, and let Lucifer cleanse his abode of every worthy quality. Between opinion and experience, cognition and emotion, there is perpetual antagonism.. How little we know of nature, of ourselves, of our neighbor! How little of impartial thought there is even among those who most earnestly seek it I The infant beholds the moon within its. grasp, and learns but gradually how unreliable are his perceptions in this and other directions without the correcting medium of experience. The artist has recourse to delusive methods to convey to the observer a truer idea of his work, to correct the aberrations of the eye and mind. The sculptor curves the column to secure an apparent straightness of outlines; the painter shades the background to convey, aerial perspective or project his figures; the musician uses now slow, now fast vibrations to soothe or animate his listeners. Without skilful exaggeration the poem, heroic or idyllic, would fail in its purpose. Likewise in history, although in minor degree, writers find it often necessary to emphasize, in more or less forcible manner, certain incidents in order to raise them to due prominence above the general level, to produce a proper contrast. Coloring of style is permissible to relieve monotony, or to secure an appreciation of a trait or happening commensurate with its importance; all, however, within the bounds requisite alone for strengthening truth, while keeping the reins of thought ever PARTISANSHIP AND SECTARIANISM. 105 under control. A battle could not be effectually depicted in the monotone applicable to the enumeration of legislative enactments, nor a humorous occurrence in the strain required for tragedy. In this age of rapid transition from one state of thought to another, some might consider it almost a necessity for the writer of history at the outset to declare his method of investigation in the study of social phenomena, whether he inclines to the side of the supernatural interference theory, to the influence of the individual wills of great men in social affairs, or to the theory of evolution and the unchangeable operation of primordial law. The political speaker, or pulpit orator—and to these I might add nine-tenths of the book-writers— who does not appear before the public as a partisan or a sectarian of some sort, and hence prepared to suppress half the truth in support of his opinion, is regarded as little better than beside himself. Better than plain truth we love to listen to that which pleases the ear and absorbs the fancy, and he who speaks to us thus speaks truth; him we will feed, and clothe, and praise, for he it is who holds over us the grateful shades of ignorance. On the other hand those who love fight more than self-opinionated blindness can, perhaps, listen or read as profitably, if they know at once the color and calibre of the speaker's or writer's mind. "Broader and deeper must we write our annals," says Emerson, "from an ethical reformation, from an influx of the ever new, ever sanitive conscience, if we would trulier express our central and wide- related nature, instead of this old chronology of selfishness and pride to which we have too long lent our eyes." Yet the knowledge of the end from the beginning tends to operate against exact narration or views. How different to the eye of an observer appear the carriage and conduct of one in court if he be told the individual is culprit or judge I If to a stranger the 106 HISTORY WRITING. most innocent man that walks the street was pointed out as a thief and an assassin, villainy would seem to lurk about his heels and display itself in every feature. Then too, it is one thing to write fanaticism for fanatics or weave fustian for demagogues, and quite another to write for those with whom a mere assertion, however strongly made, will not take the place of well-digested facts and logical conclusions. History repeats itself, we are told. Yet like most maxims this is too frequently misapplied. Man's progress—and history is but the record of this progress—though infinitely variable in its phenomena, and like physical nature immutable in its laws, never, strictly speaking, repeats itself. Human nature, like physical nature, and the nature of all created things, is unchangeable. Like conditions produce like results; and in as far as the conditions of to-day are similar to the conditions of a hundred or a thousand years ago, in so far, and no farther, does history repeat itself. There is more truth in the idea that recent events present themselves at too short range to be seen as an.entirety, and hence are unfit for historical record. Time must be allowed for insignificant detail, and interests purely local and personal, to subside, and all parts of the occurrence to assume proper proportions. The member of a society, daily commingling with his fellows, is not only ipso facto incapacitated forjudging impartially that society, but he cannot rightly estimate contemporaneous neighboring societies. His sympathies and antipathies warp his judgment, and if he attempts to bend it straight, likely enough he crooks it in the opposite direction. Phrynichus, the dramatist, was fined for breaking the rule of his art, and presenting the fall of Miletus and the attendant woes so soon after the occurrence as to excite the sympathy of the audience to a painful degree., Great actions should be presented in their simplicity, not in their complexity, and this can be done only at some distance, in time, from the date of their occurrence. PAST AND FUTURE. 107 As Taine truly says: "La veritable histoire s'eleve a sentiment quand l'historien commence a demd- ler, a travers la distance des temps, i'homme vivant, agissant, donne de passions, muni d'habitudes, avec sa voix et sa physionomie, avec ses gestes et ses habits, distinct et complet comme celui que tout a l'heure nous avons quitte dans la rue." At the same time there may be occasions when it is impracticable for a writer to confine himself to the remote in history, when important incidents and events coming to his knowledge would be lost if left unrecorded, or it may be deemed best sometimes to bring a narrative down to a modern date rather than leave the work unfinished. Kernels of permanent history can be selected from current events. Practical life and our views of the after-life, are based upon life and opinion a» entertained in the past. Among the three sources for our knowledge of the past, personal observation, the testimony of eyewitnesses, and circumstantial evidence, the former are naturally preferable. Yet circumstantial evidence may in some instances be stronger than testimonial evidence. For example, no evidence is more true than that written by reptiles on the bottom of the sea, by insects in the rocks, or by plants and animals in the sand. Again, a bullet in the brain with a hole in the skull corresponding to that which a pistol-ball usually makes, is better proof that the man was shot, than would be the assertion of a pretended eye-witness open to the charge of faulty vision. Although there are phenomena in the science of human nature common to all, yet the condition and character of every man differ from those of every other man. Then, to the same minds things appear different at different times. Vision is affected by time and place. The world seems very large to the unsophisticated. To the young man returning to his childhood home after an absence of years, a general shrinkage I 108 HISTORY WRITING. appears to have taken place; sizes have dwindled and distances shortened. Many phases of human character there are which, like certain physical elements, act paradoxically when brought in contact. There are two clear liquids which when mixed become opaque mud; there are two cold liquids which when brought together become boiling hot. Some of the most diabolical acts ever witnessed have been committed by brethren of the same faith warring on each other. What we now call infamous deeds may have been done by those who in their day were regarded as good men, and many good deeds have been done by those whose name we may justly consign to infamy; for by their teachings no less than by their fruits we may know them. We must not forget what the world owes to its bad men, nor how much civilization is indebted to things which are now called evil. In judging by the light of conscience, it makes a vast difference whose conscience is to be the guide, and at what place and period in the annals of the race it was exercised. Conscience is like a piece of wrought steel, its value depending upon the quality. Well tempered witl reason, it performs its functions fairly. It has oft guided mankind into the most shameful atrocities, to Christian butcheries, the very irony of Christian love. The Spanish inquisitors who burned heretics for Christ's sake were most conscientious and respectable men. "There is no beast more savage than man, when he is possessed of power equal to his passion," says Plutarch. While the effect of a bad act is in no wise lessened by a praiseworthy motive, and while such an act merits a priori as severe condemnation as if committed from a bad motive, yet judgment upon the character of the actors in the two cases should .be rendered very differently if we would not fall into the error of weighing the virtue of one against the vice of another, the cruelty of one against the humaneness of another, loyalty against treachery, rather than against a loftier standard. 1 en OPINIONS AND STANDARDS. 109 Standards differ. What is right or expedient in one age or nation may not be right and expedient in another age and nation. Opinion changes; mind evolves, and thought becomes material, and we find the most eminent of geologists, Sir Charles Lyell, after holding for forty years to the doctrine of special creation, making it the corner-stone,of his intellectual structure through nine editions of his work, wholly abandoning the theory in the tenth. Medieval legends were born of a time when there was little inclination to question their authenticity, and little opportunity to distinguish between the true and the false. Modern canons of morality are not applicable to the measurement of mediaeval character. Likewise care should be taken to distinguish between the various standards employed by different persons. Thus, one would regard a poet as possessing the highest type of intellect, another a philosopher, another a reformer. One would name Shakespeare, one Newton, one Luther, as the greatest of men. To the miser, who can be more exalted in every virtue than a Rothschild; to a disciple of the manly art, who is there more worthy of imitation than the champion prize-fighter? When in the region of shadows, Men- ippus asked Mercury to show him the notable worthies of the past gone thither. " Yonder on your right," he said, "are Hyacinthus, and Narcissus, Nireus, Achilles, Tyro, Helen, and Leda." "I see nought but bones and bare skulls," replied Menippus, "all very alike." " Yet all the poets have gone into raptures about those very bones which you seem to look upon with such contempt." Thus it is in history. Those we praise or censure are dust, as we soon shall be. Let us speak of them justly, as we shall wish others to speak of us. Social phenomena, the last to be brought under the surveillance' of science, are the most difficult of all investigations. Human character always appears before us in ever-changing colors. There is no such thing HO HISTORY WRITING. as human nature apart from physical nature. As in plants, so the ovule of human nature, clothed in its own integuments and enclosed in its pericarp, lies in embryo embedded* in the albumen that feeds it, bursting which it finds itself ever subject to the governance of new surroundings. The milieu of proclivities and passions is the air breathed, the earth trodden on, and the sky gazed into. Thus it is that great artists and great authors are always keenly alive to the influence of external nature over mind and emotion. So multitudinous, and intricate, and interdependent are the laws which govern mental phenomena, so diversified are the agencies which determine human character, that only an approximate knowledge of mankind is possible. Isolated facts, in this connection, are of little value; in sequent circumstances, converging from innumerable sources, and reaching back to the beginning of time, and in the innumerable influences which rise within, and breathe upon, and play about the individual—if these could be known, might be found the causations of character. Protagoras said, " Man is the measure of all things." But how shall we measure man? Our conceptions of our neighbor are of necessity automorphic. We judge others by ourselves; how else shall we judge them? True, no two minds or characters are alike; hence, automorphic conceptions, and, inductively, all conceptions of human character are more or less erroneous. We may compare this arm or intellect with that arm or intellect, measure one man by another man, one age or nation by another age or nation, but abstract measurements are less easily made. Consider alone how inseparable from the mind of the investigator are inherent distortions and sectional prejudices, which obstruct or render notional even attempts at concrete perceptions. In the question, What is morality? we are unable to clearly distinguish innate principles from those which spring from association. With Herr Teufelsdrockh one must look through ABSENCE OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE. Ill the coat and through the skin it covers if one would know the man. Where feeling is to be propitiated, few may boast the subtlety of the serpent, for few carry the heart so near the head. He who attempts to portray character should guard as much against the hallucinations of his own mind, the delusions of his own vision, as against falsity in fact, form, or coloring. From a balloon, the earth's surface next the observer appears not convex but concave. Inferences from the clearest data may be illogical and untrue. Democritus laughed at everything; Heraclitus wept at everything. To one, the world and all it contained seemed unreal and ridiculous, objects of mirth to a wise man, while to the other there was nothing but what called for tears. Man, he cries, is only to be pitied; the world is one of wickedness, fit only for destruction. Evil reigns; pleasure is not pleasure; knowledge is ignorance; life is but a winter's day. Were it possible even to know self; to dive into the depths of our own consciousness, and drawing aside the veil, scan the strange conglomeration of opposing forces, and mark off the ego and the non-ego; could we step within the shrine, and examine the machinery of our wondrous life, note the ticking of obsolete formulas and the unfolding of divine intuitions; could we place free-will and necessity under analysis, fathom the duality of our nature, decompose the falsity of seeming reality and the reality of falsity, and ascertain whence the ascendency of these vagaries and the subordination of those—we might then understand what is due to intrinsic self and what to intractable circumstances. Could we play the critic after this fashion, we might tell why feeling has so much more power over us than reason; why we feed our passions only to give them strength to devour us; why, with scarcely a consciousness of our inconsistency, we persist in deceiving ourselves and accepting as true what we know to be false; why we daily tempt death, struggling for we know not what, yet intensify hope 112 HISTORY WRITING. to prolong life; why we commit a wrong in order to accomplish a right; why we conceal our nobler part, turn our baser qualities like porcupine quills to the world, then roll ourselves in the dust to hide them. When once we know all this, we have then but to turn our eyes within and there beheld, as in a mirror, that alter ego, our neighbor. Momus blamed Jupiter because in creating man he put no window in his breast through which the heart might be seen. Momus was a sleepy god, and we mortals are likewise troubled with a lack of insight into human character. No doubt Jupiter could have done better. Man is far from a perfect creation. But as the gods saw fit to do no more for us, may we not now do something for ourselves ? Were not the eyes of Momus somewhat at fault as well as the fingers of Jupiter? If we lay aside the narrowing prejudices of birth and education, under the influences of which it is impossible to balance nicely the actions of men, may we not discover here and there openings into the soul? CHAPTER VI. CRITICISM. Ich bin ein Feind von Explicationen; man betriigt sich oder den Andern, und meist beide. —Goethe. n n'appartient qu'aux grands hommes d'avoir de grands defauts. —La Rochefoucauld, Los hombres famosos por sus ingenios, los grandes poetas, los ilustres historiadores siempre, d las mas vezes, son embidiados de aquellos que tienen por gusto, y por particular entretenimiento, juzgar los escritos agenos, sin aver dado algunos proprios a la luz del mundo. Protagoras begins his treatise On the Gods, in these words: "Respecting the gods, I am unable to know whether they exist or do not exist." A writer opens a chapter On the Snakes in Ireland, by saying, "There are no snakes in Ireland." We can hardly affirm that there is no such thing as criticism, but if any exist, it is of doubtful interpretation. There are tricks in all trades, but there are few trades that are all tricks. There are some honest men who are critics; there is even such a thing as fair criticism. There are many who try to be just; there are yet more who are amiable; a great many in this world are politic; hundreds of thousands are obliged to live. The office is one of honor, and honorably filled is of benefit to the community. Books are the great civilizers of the race, the store-houses of knowledge, the granaries of intellectual food. Therefore to designate in all candor which books of those that are made are, indeed, public pabulum, and which are straw; carefully and conscientiously to examine and explain, one man for the million,, the publications which are conducive or detrimental, in whole or in Essays and Miscellany 8 (113) 114 CRITICISM. part, to learning and progress, is one of the most important and noblest works in which man can be engaged, while to prostitute the powers requisite for such a position is one of the basest. So with regard to newspaper strictures on men. The journalist who as a sacred duty strives to cleanse the community of its pollutions, who searches out and exposes wickedness in high and low places, who holds up to public scorn evil purposes and practices, dereliction of duty in public officials, subversion of the law, prostitution of politics, injustice, bribery, iniquitous monopoly, and all immorality, employs divine functions for the highest benefit of man. On the other hand, he who, through fear or favor, or for money, or popularity, or to increase the circulation of his journal, or through prejudice, or fanaticism, or jealousy, turns from the path of rectitude, and vilifies the good while allowing the bad to escape, is a curse to the community. And worst of all, most vile and most detestable, is the hypocrite who strikes in the dark, who, while pretending-to pure integrity, sells himself and his influence for personal benefit, panders to depraved public taste, advocates iniquitous measures, or vilifies from personal spite good men whose, ways are honest and whose lives have been devoted to praiseworthy efforts. Such a man, or a newspaper proprietor who will allow such creatures to crawl about him and insert slanders in his journal, is a villain of the deepest dye, more deserving of the hangman's rope than many who suffer thereat. More than ever before, during these days of extensive book-making, the scholar immersed in his investigations, the teacher, the general reader, need the opinion of qualified persons on the respective merits of books as they appear, need the conscientious opinion of discriminating critics. It is impossible otherwise for a specialist, even, to keep under control the so rapidly multiplying literature relative to his department. Indeed, opinions and controversies have become AUTHORS AND REVIEWERS. 115 so numerous that we shall soon require reviews of reviewers; for on the works of some authors, more has been written than by the authors themselves. Many have essayed criticism ; some have achieved it. Although critical talent is ranked a little lower than creative talent, on the ground that in free creative power man finds exercise for his highest capabilities, yet in all the field of letters nothing is more difficult of attainment than pure criticism,—not that conventional article so freely flaunted in our faces by aspiring youths or censorious old men, of which Destouches says, " La critique est aisee et l'art est difficile," but the intelligent expression of truthful opinion resulting from unbiassed inquiry. With comparative ease, from the delicate filament of his inspiration the poet may spin stanzas, but omniscience, justice, goodness, and truth, all the attributes of the deity, scarcely suffice for the qualifications of the perfect critic. In no department of literature is there more skilled humbug employed than in criticism. Writers of every other class sail under colors which enable the reader to form some idea of their craft, and whither it is driving. He may be knave or fanatic, philosopher or fool, who deals in history or romance, science or religion; he may be conscientious and exact, or mendacious, ignorant, and superstitious; but whatever he is, the intelligent reader can approximately place him, and attach a tolerably correct value to his work. But the critic finds himself in a peculiar position. He must be wiser than all men, abler than all, and of more experience than any; for if he is not, then is he no critic. The fault is not his; he is generally a very good fellow; but too often he is placed at the treadle of the machine and instructed to do certain work in a certain way, and he must obey. Fifty thousand reviewers in Europe and America are employed to tell what five thousand authors have done or are doing, nominally to read, analyze, prove, and truthfully value their 116 CRITICISM work, really to display learning and acumen in the service of their respective journals. It is a difficult position, and one which should be better paid, that of too often sacrificing fair-mindedness and integrity for policy or subordinating them to prejudice, that of pretending to a superiority which one does not possess, that of appearing erudite and honest when one is not. This among the fifty thousand is the rule, but to which there are exceptions. That most of the books written never should have had being; that most authors are men who display their stupidity through a desire for notoriety, or other ambition, and should be put down ; that this flooding the world with worthless books appealing to mankind for examination and judgment is a nuisance, and a detriment to learning and refinement, has nothing to do with it. The lack of honesty and sincerity in praising a poor book is as culpable as in condemning a good one. And even worse than this is so magnifying the non-essential faults of a really good book, and omitting to mention its-merits, as to leave the impression that it is wholly bad, which is a trick very common with malevolent and unprincipled critics. It is the utter selling of himself to the prejudice, popularity, bigotry, or pecuniary advantage of himself or another that lies, at the bottom of all false criticism. This literary gauging and estimating of values is a matter which comes home to every writer, whether his labors be in the field of science, and in the study of a particular branch, or in the all-embracing province of the historian, who must analyze alike individuals and communities, institutions and events, authorities and critics. Says the talented author of Causeries du Lundi, "Criticism is an invention, a perpetual creation. One needs to renew, to repeat continually his observation and study of men, even of those he knows best and has portrayed; otherwise he runs the risk of partially forgetting them, and of forming imaginary ideas of them while remembering them. No one has a OPINIONS OF AUTHORS. 117 right to say, 'I understand men.' All that one can truly say is, 'I am in a fair way to understand them.'" More of this ideal application and conscientiousness on the part of the critic is due to both authors and readers, that one may not be injured or the other misled. Every author, except of course the few sensible ones, believes his work to be, if not the best that ever was written, at least the equal of any, and the inferior of none. He has no intention of allowing it to rest in the dismal shades of silence, preferring publicity at all hazards. Sometimes he deserves the condemnation he receives, but earnest and honest effort should never be met by ridicule, even though the author be an ignoramus. His honesty might be respected even though his ability were not. Readers of books, meanwhile, justly object to an imposition on the part of a critic which prevents his perusal of a good book, or causes him to waste his time over a worthless one. For so ancient an art, criticism should be farther advanced than it is. Little progress seems to have been made since that day when cried the unhappy man of Uz, " O, that mine adversary had written a book!" He had been comforted and criticized by his friends well-nigh to death, and he asked no better opportunity for squaring accounts with his enemy. The art seems to have been founded upon the satne morality, which was to half love your friends and wholly hate your enemies; to half recognize and flatter your own prejudices as spoken by another, and wholly to condemn all antagonism to your opinions wherever found. Instead of simple inquiry, as it professed to be, it was arbitrary inquisition, totally unlike Christ's criticism when he judged men and women. In the world of letters are three several classes of critics; there is the critic by instinct, the critic by education, and the critic who is no critic. The first are those who judge by inspiration, like Hazlitt or Sainte-Beuve, measuring' the book and the author at 118 CRITICISM. a glance, j It is claimed for both of these writers that their criticisms are divinations rather than the results of investigation. Beneath their alLsearching gaze the author might ask with Venus, who, on beholding her statue at Cnidos, cried, " Where saw Praxiteles me thus nude ? " They read a book as a necromancer reads his victim. Then come those who, being intelligent and well-read, are charged with learning of so susceptible a nature that as soon as a few facts of a writer come under their eye, ignition ensues, and like a flash of gunpowder sufficient of their knowledge, colored somewhat by the contents of the book they review, is discharged on paper to the extent of so many columns or pages. And thirdly, those who gather all they know of the subject treated from the book they review, make so much of it their own as they require, and write ad libitum at so much the yard. Any one of these may be honest or dishonest in his intentions, and skilful or bungling in the execution. In the first of these more than in either of the others we can excuse extravagance of expression, for the keener the appreciation the more intense the feelings for or against. He by whom the beauty and fragrance of the flower are most enjoyed is most of all sensitive to ugly and odorous weeds. Rare is this natural critic, who sees as with second sight the spirit of the book, not without looking into it, but without the careful reading of it; or who, like De Quincey, instinctively attacks a Junius, throttles a windy Brougham, and dissects a pompous Parr or hollow Sheridan, and with Pascal can exclaim, " It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all I read in his book." But let those devoid of this fine subtlety beware how. they don the lion's skin, lest their bray discover them. The loud long wail of a Byron or a Poe fascinates while it thrills, because there is human nature in it. So with the genius of criticism, which means more than metaphysical hair-splitting. OMNISCIENCE OF CRITICS. 119 Yet of all classes men of genius, other than those critically inspired, make the worst critics. He whose one faculty is developed at the expense of all the other faculties is in no fit condition to judge another's production, still less his own. Contemporaneous men of letters, particularly if occupying the same field, are always envious of each other; yet they emulate while they hate. Criticism is an art sui generis. The best authors are seldom the best critics; just as artists are seldom the best judges of art, or lawyers of justice, or politicians of patriotism, or theologians of religion. We all lack that microscopic vision which clearly discerns proximate objects lying under the shadow of our egoism. None rail so loudly against critics as the critics themselves. With the ancient philosophers, whom learned men have so long worshiped, criticism was a sneering and scolding of school against school, and of individuals against each other. Wordsworth, who was scarcely less critic than poet, bunglingly enough affirms that reviewers "while they prosecute their inglorious employment cannot be supposed to be in a state of mind very favorable for being affected by the finer influences of a thing so pure, as genuine poetry." Wordsworth's strictures fit Wordsworth as well as another; for at this very time he was snarling at Byron for plagiarizing from him. Here, then, lies a reason for the absorption of the field by the special class called into existence by its vast and growing expanse and by the mission of the press as a medium between authors and the public. Invested with this power of judging and instructing on topics embracing every grade of knowledge, they regard it as a duty to their office to assume a versatility which indeed transcends human capacity. They claim it as essential to inspire confidence, just as in the manner of the physician, whose mere tone is oft sufficient to gain half the battle over the influences contending with his patient, and spur the weakened imagination 120 CRTTICTSM. to aid his prescription; or like the judge upon whose insight and decision depend lives and fortunes. Nevertheless, the claim springs from vanity rather than duty. Since Rabelais, there have been found no other men save this race of critics, who, like Gargantua knew everything—knew all languages, all sciences, all ologies, isms, and onomies; history, music, mathematics, and things worthy of belief; all realities and philosophy; all pleasures, all pains, all creeds, and all spiritualities, all mysteries beneath the earth and beyond the sky. Behold him, then, the be-wigged and be-gowned by virtue of authoritative ink and paper, who sits in judgment upon the products of men's brains! Regard him well, this opinion-maker, this idea-autocrat. Is he a partisan, prescribed already in his decisions; or a specialist with a pet theory to which all things must square themselves; or an unfledged litterateur puffed with ambitious conceits? Choose your judge and be satisfied to be condemned ad pias causas. Among the many who assume the office of critic, there may be those who can review an ordinary book of fiction, history, science, or philosophy with discrimination and fairness ; who, besides possessing as great or greater knowledge of the subject than the author, can weigh in an even balance the merits and demerits of the work, and mete out in due proportions praise and censure. And I can truthfully say that it has been my good fortune to meet with many men occupying that proud position; men. in whom are united the highest order of critical talent with inbred honesty and fair-mindedness; men to whom is given the power they wield because they use it justly; men who are wise by reason of native talent and education, and who are noblemen by instinct. And I have met others, also, those who are anything but honorable, who prostitute their talents, and, ASSUMPTION OF KNOWLEDGE. 121 be they professors, preachers, or publicans, delight in all sorts of subterfuge, pretending to what is not true. It is certainly within the limits of truth to say that three times in four some other than the pretended purpose actuates the ordinary reviewer in introducing a book to the public, a deceit based upon an assumed knowledge of the subject which he does not possess. If he has not superior knowledge, how can he offer a superior opinion? If ten books are given him to review in three days, each book being the life-work of an abler man .than himself, or if he is a specialist, an expert in certain directions, and is given a work fresh from the hands of a brother specialist, who has devoted the last twenty years to the latest and fullest developments of the subject, we will say the work of a student of greater natural ability than the critic, and of far greater research and application, the reviewer has still to assume a knowledge of the subject and a judgment as to the manner in which it should be handled superior to the knowledge and judgment of the author, if he would not be put down as incompetent for the task. Nine times in ten the task is impossible, from sheer lack of time to weigh the subject, but nine times in ten the counterfeit in criticism serves the public just as well as the genuine article, and the consequence is that nine times in ten the critic is a sham. The critic fails to consider that his point of observation is totally different from that of the general reader. One seeks information with which to discourse on the book, the other reads for instruction, and the thoughts of the two while perusing the same work run in different channels. It is not necessary for the reviewer to know as much of the subject treated as the author. This is impossible. For during the course of a year the reviewer might have occasion to notice a hundred volumes, each on an average having cost its author five years of study. One may tell a good watch without being able to reproduce it. Pretension is there- 122 CRITICISM. fore absurd as well as misleading. Nevertheless he persists. And after all he only floats with the general current, for three-fourths of every man is pretence; three- fourths of society, its moralities, its politics, its conventionalities, and its religions, is hypocrisy. Men love companionship, wherein alone is progress; yet this companionship which we call society is more a seeming than a being. The forgeries of fashion are more than its sincerities; the wrongs of religion are greater than its charities; the shufflings and prevarications of business and politics attend all their dealings. For so noble an animal, man is a wretched compound, though seasoned with sagacity. Beasts assume the mask at times, but man is a living mask, and the worst of it is that he cannot escape his destiny. He is the offspring of a double parentage, truth and error; one of his fathers is the father of lies, to whom the resemblance of the child is striking. Man is a mass of sophisms. The chief occupation of associated man is to deceive one another. Being but partially true to ourselves, we are in a still greater degree false before our fellows. And this through no fault of our own; we are so made; we are born into a society full of pretension and disguise, and civilization with its arts enforces artfulness. Entering life with our moral being at its best, we endow the world and all it contains with grace, beauty, and perfection, which gradually change to our perceptions as the years go by, leaving us at the last in a maze of bewilderment. At the beo inning of our consciousness the world is spread out before us like a mirage of which to the day of our death we are proving the falsity. Among the child's first teachings are so many aphorisms heretical to nature that it would almost appear that his maker did not understand his business, I that one of nature's journeymen had made him, and not made him well either." First of all he must coyer his matchless form, his God:made body, as a thing MORALITY AND CONSCIENCE. 123 ignominious to behold, unfit for human eyes to dwell upon; he improvises shame and hides it under clothes. Not only in certain respects must he be to himself a lie, but his deception must be aided by nature. Then that unruly member the tongue must be curbed; it must not speak the whole truth, and may often virtuously prevaricate. And as society is constructed we cannot escape these curses. What would be the man of commerce with unvarnished plainness of speech and dealing? A bankrupt. What would be the religious teacher, who, instead of telling his people what he does not know, should tell them all that he does know ? Anathema. What should we say of a strictly honest politician ? That he was not a politician. Even conscience is a counterfeit; not a heaven-born guide as it pretends to be, but a fungus fastened on the mind by the atmosphere surrounding it. Nature furnishes the raw material for its manufacture, and societies hammer it out according to their several ideals. Form, fashion, which in all human affairs are a necessity until man is perfect, must be the imperfect counterfeit of the reality they represent. Our clothing, our courtesies, our worship, our rascalities, must have forms, which are all transparent enough to him who has eyes. We pray by beads and genuflections, or in stereotyped phrases. Our social intercourse, like our dress, is for simulution and display, rather than for real utility. Morality is but a fashion, and society is cemented by subterfuge. Our religion is based upon a not wholly fair purchase of heavenly favors, our poor temporary self-denials being urged as payment for an eternity of felicity. True, our morality must be formulated in accordance with the mandates of nature, and the standards of excellence set up by society, as a rule, conform to the standards accepted by our moral and aesthetic faculties; but it is no less a fact that three-fourths of our thoughts, words, and deeds in our intercourse with each other are counterfeit. CRITICISM. Wherefore, if we are so hollow and false in so many other things, how shall we have literature without hyperbole, or reviews without empiricism ? An editor who never wholly praised any book, yet -often besmeared with his venom a really good one, once refused to espouse a cause of great public utility on the ground that people would say he had been bribed I The old, vulgar, and time-worn trick of finding some fault—it made little difference what, or whether or not deserved, or whether or not the most glaring fault in the work—in order to make a show of ability, and for fear the public would think him not capable of discovering imperfections unless he did so, was a policy and principle with this man, leading him into many ludicrous absurdities. He was of the truest type of newspaper hypocrite, professing religion, professing integrity, professing immaculate purity for his newspaper, holding himself a worthy member of society,—he was indeed possessed of wealth and much influence,—yet utterly insincere, unreliable, and not entitled to half the respect which should fall to the holder of looser principles openly avowed. Though no lover of the people, except as he was paid for his love, he was held in esteem by many for whom he concocted opinion, and who seemed awed by the feeling that in the inner sanctuary of a master mind was distilled refined knowledge, presently to impregnate the metal types, and be distributed in multiplications without end on paper. A helper was kept in the office more especially for the talent he possessed of clothing verbiage in the apparel%of learning, like Geber, the alchemist, who wrote in gibberish, or mystical jargon, upon his art, because to have written plainly would have brought him to grief. It is a matter the people would do well to consider, whether or not there should be allowed always to exist in the community one or more newspapers either living or building themselves up on black-mail, attacking as may suit their fancy, citizens wholly undeserv- HUMBUG AND HYPOCRISY. 125 ing of such treatment, with ridicule and scurrility, in order to extort money or attract readers. Such journalism reflects the tastes and propensities of society no less than the heart and mind of the journalist, for the latter will write what the people will read. Those who so like to hear ill of their neighbor, whether he may be deserving of it or not, need not imagine themselves exempt from similar slanders, and should not forget that while living in a community permitting and patronizing such detraction, they are at any moment liable to similar attack. After all, when we consider the wrong and injustice so frequently inflicted on individual members of the community by malicious writers, the author should not complain merely at seeing the better qualities of his book passed over, and the remainder, so far as possible reduced to an absurdity by inuendoes or false statements. It is easy to deride when one can say nothing else. "My dear Tom," said Curran to Moore one day, "when I can't talk sense I talk metaphor." Few can write well; any one can ridicule, and often he who knows least condemns most. " There are twenty men of wit," says Pope, " for one man of sense." "It is easy to write an average literary criticism," says Mathews, " especially of the fulsome, laudatory, or savage cut-and-thrust kind, which we find in many American journals. For such a purpose, little preparation is required; you have only to cut the leaves of the book to be reviewed, and then smell of the paper knife." Underlying most criticism is the desire of the reviewer to bring into notice either himself or his review, and as this can usually be done more effectually by censure than by praise, the weaker victims are generally sacrificed. Some delight in picking a meritorious work to pieces purely for the pleasure it affords, just as a boy pulls off the legs and wings of a fly to see it squirm. Truth is of no moment; blood alone will 128 CRITICISM answer the purpose. Fur and feathers are made to fly, and if horsewhipped by the outraged author, he raises the cry of martyrdom. The mischievous appetite for popularity is apparent in almost all criticisms, as in almost every kind of teaching and amusing. Every reviewer must make or sustain a reputation as an ingenious critic, as one of brilliant wit, of fiery imagination, and who revels in scrupulous distinctions. Hence the work reviewed is first made to do service to the reviewer, after which it may be blessed or cursed, as fancy dictates. ''Half the lies of history," says Mathews, " have their origin in this desire to be brilliant." Authors may writhe under the target practice instituted for the momentary delight of reviewers and readers, but their own attitude as critics tends to undermine sympathy for them. Every poet who ever lived has been ridiculed by his brother poets, every essayist by. his brother essayists, every blacksmith by his brother blacksmiths. Some, indeed, have praised, but all have censured. Poets often stoop even to scurrility. Southey spoke slightingly of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. Fielding saw nothing good in Richardson, nor Richardson in Fielding. To the ear of Beattie, Churchill's verse was drivelling and dull. Doctor Johnson, with all his acuteness and sagacity in dissecting metaphysical writers, like Dry den and Pope, failed completely when he touched the imaginative realms of romance. Nor was he better at criticism than at poetry. Often had he reviled Milton, although he confessed he never read Paradise Lost until obliged to do so in order to gather its words into his dictionary. Milton preferred Cowley to Dryden; Waller, De Maistre, Dryden, and many others affirmed that Milton's blank verse was not poetry; the little wasp of Twickenham received about as many stings as he gave; Ben Johnson scourged Spenser, Donne, Sharpham, QUARRELSOME AUTHORS. 127 Day, and Dekkar. Bymer, Voltaire, and Samuel Rogers ridiculed Shakespeare, pronouncing the tragedies bloody farces, without reason or coherence. Of Wordsworth's Prelude, Macaulay says: "There are the old raptures about mountains and cataracts; the old flimsy philosophy about the effects of scenery on the mind; the old crazy mystical metaphysics; the endless wilderness of dull, flat, prosaic declamations interspersed ; " and this is the poem which Coleridge had called 1 an Orphic song indeed, a song divine, of high and passionate thoughts, to their own music chanted." In Gray's Elegy neither Wordsworth nor Coleridge saw merit. Gray pretended he could distinguish no genius in Goldsmith, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Thomson, or Collins; indeed, in Gray's eyes there was but one poet, and that was Gray. Scarcely an author of note escapes scathing condemnation in some form. To be of note implies originality, and new ideas falling among dogmatic opinionists are sure to be wrangled over. Innovation invites derision; sneers are the present reward of him who writes for the future. Elsewhere than in literature are discovered the same manifestations. Scott saw nothing beautiful in pictures, nor had he any ear for music. Sir Robert Peel disliked music, Lord Holland hated pictures; Byron did not care for architecture, nor did Madame de Stael for grand scenery. In every pronounced character there appears to be some one sense lacking. Probably there never lived a man possessed of more sweeping or subtler critical faculties than William Hazlitt, already mentioned. By a kind of preternatural insight or intellectual intuition he felt at once and with remarkable precision what another could reach only by study; just as a musical genius catches the spirit of a composition the moment his eye alights on it. And yet, though the assertion may seem paradoxical, his criticisms were always de- 128 CRITICISM. fective, and the cause may be traced to the possession of these extraordinary critical faculties. Inspiration is a splendid thing in criticism, but even genius cannot know all a book contains without reading it. The trouble with Hazlitt was, that he did not possess patience thoroughly to master the work he attempted to criticize. His sharp invective was hurled alike on all. Between friend and foe he made no distinction. Wherever he saw faults or foibles he assumed the right to expose, and if possible to exterminate them. The temperament of Rogers, the poet, on the other hand, was most variable. With whatsoever his spirit harmonized, he was all delicacy and affection; regarding things hateful to him, there was displayed an acerbity almost diabolical. Yet wjhile every man does not permit his judgment to be made the tool of passion, in humanity there is no such thing as passionless opinion. "Tant le tres irritable amour-propre des gens de lettres est difficile a menagerl" exclaims Rousseau. Some yield readily to tender feelings, as Pope, who burst into tears on reading Homer's representation of Priam's grief over Hector's loss; or Shelley, who fainted on hearing read for the first time a certain passage in Christabel I The condition of the reviewer's blood or liver often determines the color of his criticisms, leading him to dwell on parts, or to select for special attention passages of beauty or deformity. Most energetic, ambitious persons have within them a certain amount of immoral bile, which they must occasionally discharge. Thus with indigestion, loss of sleep, matrimonial infelicities, or wine and late hours, the reviewer whets his pen, and books are made the innocent victims of an acrimonious temper. From the freshly opened volume comes an odor, fragrant or stale as the case may be, but always responsive to the critic's humor. Criticism is by far too polemical. Leaving its purely literary sphere^ we see it every now and then THE MAN AND THE WORK. 129 striking out into divers controversies which have nothing to do with the questions at issue, and which narrow the minds of men to one-sided views of things, and blind them even to their own blindness. While some have assisted to popularity fanatical or superficial authors, as Tupper, Holland, and a host of others, the profound lucidity of such scholars as Mill, Lecky, Spencer, and Draper has been lost upon them, their seat of judgment being in the heart rather than in the head, if indeed they can be said to possess in any sense the faculty of judgment. In others, the very superiority of the author inspires dislike, his merit proving the cause of condemnation ; as we sometimes see a man who is indebted to another assail his benefactor wTith a view thereby to lessen the obligation. Not unfrequently the critic affects to photograph the author from his writings. This affords an opportunity for the display of much fustian, but it results in little else. The work alone falls within the province of criticism, not the author, else faults of style become faults of character. Of tlie author of every work he criticised, Saint-Beuve asked himself the following questions: "What were his religious views? How did the sight of nature affect him ? How was he affected toward women, and by money? Was he rich, poor, and what was his regimen? What were his daily habits, and his besetting sins ?" All of which are essential in biography, but irrelevant in criticism. Because an artist squints, has a hair-lip, or a broken nose, are his Venuses and Madonnas to be judged thereby ? Because an author is infidel, or immoral, or wears long hair, or smokes,, swears, gambles, preaches, or prays are his printed facts any better or worse on account of any of these? The character of the writer cannot be portrayed from his works, nor is it necessary that it should be. Who can picture the glories of Eden like Lucifer, or the sweet serenities of temperance like the inebriate or glutton ? Euripides, Essays and Miscellany 9 Jb*^~ CRITICISM. the most touching of Greek tragic poets, though more skeptical in his religious opinions than JEschylus, was a more pious writer. Love rather than fear was the spirit of his teachings. If we accept such precepts only as those that fall from pure lips, we shall wait long to be wise. And yet how quickly the intelligent reader imagines he detects the qualities of his author's mind and manner, fancying he sees before him a boor, a gentleman, one instinct with fun, kindness, honesty, or the reverse. Did not James Boswell, Esquire, the blustering British coxcomb, the witless wit, the sycophant and sot, the spy and tattler, did he not write the best biography in the English language, the most natural, the most vivid, the most truthful, and that because he was "such an egregrious ass as always to tell all he knew ? And shall not a critic in his review separate such an author from such a work? This as a rule; notwithstanding which there may be some truth in the words of Jean Paul: "Nie zeichnet der Mensch den eignen charakter scharfer als in seiner Manier einen fremden zu zeichnen." I do not mean to say that a reader can know nothing of a man by his words and sentences. If we may know something of a person by his dress, his walk, his air, or attitude, surely we may know more of him when he opens his mouth to speak or introduces us to his inner self through the expression of ideas upon paper. The choice of language and style is an index to a man's character. In expressions emphatic, moderate, verbose, we see men of different dispositions. He is recognized as cool-headed, temperate, who weighs carefully his opinions, and makes his words strong from their very scarcity. We see a dogmatic disposition in one who makes assertions in a positive, arrogant manner, never admitting a doubt as to the correctness of his opinions. We know another to be impetuous and irritable from the hurried vehemence of his words and his impatience of controversy. But to know and judge a man is very different from con- TRICKS OF THE TRADE. 131 demning the work on account of the workman, or rating a book as good or bad on account of the author's temper or morality. Too often in conversational criticism the author is made a vehicle in which to carry off the lumber of the writer's demolished ideas. This is the case when the main features of the work are ignored while insignificant parts are taken up and discussed with, all .the gravity of a De Quincey expatiating on murder as a fine art. The critic's own idiosyncrasies replace the sentiments of the author criticized. The reviewer, who perhaps is some professional man or theorist, takes this opportunity for ventilating his ideas on the subject under consideration, and the author and his work are placed in the background. Such were many of the reviews of Macaulay, who used the book only as a text to preach a sermon from. There is much of this special pleading in criticism, where the member of a sect or a society, a professor or doctor of something, views the world always through the mists of his learning, and the main object of whose life is to make converts to his theory. As for unadulterated truth, few desire it, or have the courage always to own it when they find it. What cares the sectarian for truth while pleading for proselytes? What cares the politician for truth while seeking to exalt himself or his party ? What cares the author for truth who seeks only to prove a favorite theory, or who writes to square his facts to his philosophy? And what is more, this garbled, mendacious style of writing is expected, regarded with favor, and even demanded in the highest quarters. He who does not write as advocate or special pleader on one side or the other of a subject, but simply to tell what is known of it, that the truth may finally be ascertained, seems in the eyes of many to be lacking in something. "A critic in one of the quarterlies," says Hamerton, "once treated me as a feeble tmmm 132 CRITICISM. defender of my opinions, because I gave due consideration to both sides of a question." It must not be forgotten that nearly all the so- called exponents of public opinion are in bondao-e to bread-winning, either as salaried men or proprietors. All teachers, preachers, professors, editors, and nine- tenths of the authors are chained in greater or less degree by some one interest, obligation, or necessity to certain lines of thought and conduct. The journalist, if proprietor, must first of all consider the interests of his journal, the salaried editor, of his pay ; the clergyman and the professor must'follow the course marked out for them by tradition and association. True, they will claim to believe in what they teach ; but if knowledge is a fixed quantity what hope has progress? The popular writer must sacrifice whatever prevents the admission of his article in the popular magazine, whose publishers unhesitatingly sacrifice whatever impedes its circulation. It is a very difficult matter making men see the truth contrary to their interests. All this should be remembered in criticising critics. Even apparently independent criticisms in book form have to study the views of publishers and parties, while the great mass, in the public journals, are swayed not only by pressure of time, but by prejudices of the editor and proprietor, and the spirit of the publication. The press is called the mouth-piece of the people, and as they would give utterance so must it speak. But in what a limited degree does this apply. Few of the people think at all, and when they open their mouths nothing comes forth. To such the public journal is brains rather than tongue. Of those who think, or imagine so, few penetrate beneath the surface of things, breaking asunder the hold upon them of tradition and environment, and casting themselves adrift on the sea of reason, with inly nature and experience as a rudder. They do JOURNALISTIC SUBTERFUGE. 133 not reach the bottom of any thing, or follow any subject to its source; consequently they are ever ready to listen to those who pretend to know more than they. Of this class, in a certain sense, the public journal is the mouth-piece, holding sway in most matters by means of that well-sustained assumption of superior knowledge which is necessary to successful leadership. The dignity of criticism sinks materially when the views of certain journals regarding any work on a given subject may be foretold by one conversant with the policy or prejudices of its editor. The popularity of the journal is its life blood, and is paramount to truth or fairness; sometimes the popular course is in the direction of truth and the right. Where a book falls into the hands of a school or clique, it is made a foot-ball, and criticism, like sectarianism, or political partisanship, becomes a fight. Though the free indulgence of personalties in criticism which obtained in Byron's day is modified, we have perhaps what is worse in these self-opinionated cabals. What would be thought of a Chinese woman jealously decrying a Parisian head-dress, or a Chinook finding fault with the religious observances of the Turks; and yet as gross absurdities are perpetrated daily amid the world of criticism. Every shade of theological and political opinion has its organ of criticism, whose illogical dogmatism is the very irony of honesty. Its mandates take the place of the political or theological censorship which circumscribes the press in so many foreign countries. Instance the effect on Merimee's review of Napoleon's Csesar. " I am not dissatisfied with my article on Tlie History of Julius Csesar" writes he to his Incognita. " As the task was imposed on me, submission was unavoidable. You know how very highly I think both of the author and his book, and you also appreciate the difficulties besetting the critic who would deprecate the imputation of sycophancy and yet say nothing unbecoming," 134 CRITICISM. After all, there are only a comparatively few leading journals and journalists in the world, the few which are really what they pretend to be, makers of opinion, that a writer for lasting fame needs to fear. About these there is little of that "ignorant praise, which," as George Elliot says, "misses every valid quality," nor yet ignorant condemnation. Before I should agree with Doctor Johnson when he says, "I would rather be attacked than unnoticed; for the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works," I should consider who or what it was that attacked. While the Olympian gods in council were discussing what should be done with certain skeptics on earth who doubted their existence, a messenger from below announced the occurrence of a duel of philosophers over the subject. Orthodox Timocles disputes with infidel Damis. Timocles becomes confused in his argument, then angry, and threatens to break the head of Damis, who laughingly escapes. Jupiter is in sorrowful doubt where lies the victory. Mercury attempts to console him by saying that they still have the greater numbers with them, let Damis win whom he may. " Yes," replied Jupiter, " but I would rather have on my side one man like Damis than ten thousand Babylonians." There may be no deeper thinkers in the world now than three thousand years ago; but mind seems to have been somewhat quickened since the days of the ancients, and there is more to think about, more of reality and less of speculation. After the voyages of Columbus knowledge rapidly multiplied. The true critic, after determining the questions whether or not the book has any right to be, whether or not the author's subject is of sufficient importance to claim public attention, whether or not the author has a proper cause to lay before the tribunal of letters, will then proceed to determine the merit of the plan and the faithfulness of execution. Adverse criticism, in so far as it is merited, should WORKS OF MIXED MERIT. 135 always unflinchingly be given; but not in a spirit of injustice or antagonism. Neither coarse personalities nor chronic fault-findings are productive of any good. Imperfections may be pointed out with scrupulous care, but unimportant deficiencies should not be paraded as primary failings, and so made condemnatory of the whole. To be productive of good both to the author and to the public, let faults be found in connection with good qualities, if of the latter there be any, and all in kind and conscientious fairness; so that while the public are warned of false pretenders, inexperienced authors of meritorious work may be led to correct the error of their ways. It is not expected that dullness and stupidity should be rewarded. Least of all is it to the interest of writers of good books that the incompetent should be successful. Yet might the critics make it a little more their pleasure to point out the merits of a good book, as well as the imperfections of a poor one. Jean Paul Richter says that a book without beauties is a bad thing, but a book without faults is not therefore necessarily a good one. "Let your rogues in novels act like rogues," says Thackeray, " and your honest men like honest men; don't let us have any juggling and thimblerigging with virtue and vice, so that at the end of three volumes the bewildered reader shall not know which is which." This may sound very well in novels, though such a sentiment does not tend to raise the discriminating qualities of the satirist in the reader's opinion, for in real life we find no such thing as men all rogues or all honest. Paul R/ichter complained that the reviews bestowed upon his works either extravagant praise or indiscriminate censure. "Die Kritik," he says, "nimmt oft dem Baume Raupen und Bluthen mit einander." It is easy to flatter, but exceedingly difficult to bestow heart-felt praise. We may for charity's sake overlook slight faults in a meritorious work. "A book may be savs Disraeli; the life as great a thing as a battle 136 CRITICISM. and character of a good book may be measured with the life and character of a good man; frequently one good book is worth a thousand men. He therefore who wilfully and maliciously murders a good book or destroys praiseworthy effort, cannot be too severely condemned; though as Martial says:" Chartis nee furta nocent, et falcula prosunt; solaque non n6runt hsec monumenta mori." Perfection nowhere exists; yet few books printed are wholly devoid of merit. That marvellous student, the elder Pliny, always took notes as he read, declaring that he could find something good in the worst of books. Attempts even are worth some consideration. A bad author is bad enough, but an incompetent or dishonest critic is worse. The least meritorious author does some good; the best critic much evil. Carlyle says: "Of no given book, not even of a fashionable novel, can you predict with certainty that its vacuity is absolute; that there are not other vacuities which shall partially replenish themselves therefrom, and esteem it a Plenum. And knowest thou, may the distressed novelwright exclaim, that I, here where I sit, am the foolishest of existing mortals; that this my long ear of a fictitious biography shall not find one and the other into whose still longer ears it may be the means, under providence, of instilling somewhat? We answer none knows, none can certainly know; therefore write on, worthy brother, even as thou canst, even as it has been given thee." In literary ventures the chances of success are in no wise proportionate to the necessary efforts. Diction-drilling and literary stuffing do not make a writer. Innumerable perplexities often beset the author, of which the reviewer knows nothing; not unfrequently an author is obliged to adopt a plan which no one knows better than himself to be faulty, in order to avoid a yet more faulty course. In quoting from a work the reviewer by artful selections can make the author say anything he TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD. 137 wishes. The Athanasian creed is not to be found in the writings of Athanasius. Says Herbert Spencer on this subject, " We cannot infer from a fragment of a composition what the whole is, any more than we could describe Babylon from specimens of the bricks used in its construction. This is a principle which sound criticism holds fast to in pronouncing its judgments on authors and books." To mass facts and present arguments for the support of but one side of a question, pretending meanwhile to state the whole case truthfully, be it in law, theology, or letters, is neither honorable, nor beneficial to mankind. In the ultimate principles of human nature there is a dualism which manifests itself in all human affairs. An a priori analysis of humanity is not necessary to show that in all things relating to man, no less than to man himself, there are two sides. In social intercourse there is an inner, proximate, and real side, and an outer, disingenuous, artificial, and false side. We know what we are; we are none of us exactly satisfied with ourselves; we would appear something different. Hence the primary purpose of society lies no less in suppressio veri than in suggestio falsi. Likewise whatever man touches, be it from the highest and purest motives, he warps and falsely colors. There is nothing he so eschews as truth, even while pretending to search for it. If he ascends the pulpit it is for the purpose of dogmatizing rather than for honest inquiry. If he enters politics it is for the purpose of serving himself, while pretending to serve the public. If he publishes a journal, and swears upon the holy evangelists that honor, integrity, and the welfare of the people are, and ever shall be, his governing principles, beware ! for he will betray you, aye, he will besmear his manhood with ditch-water and sacrifice friend, wife, or mother to whatever he conceives to be for the interests of his journal. The physician will leave a man to die rather 138 CRITICISM. than submit to what he regards as a breach of professional etiquette. The lawyer will clear a murderer, knowing him to be such, and let him loose, like a bloodhound, with appetite whetted by confinement, again to prey upon society. Jurymen, sworn to render a verdict according to the testimony, fling evidence to the wind, and consult only their feelings. Many emphasize the value of standards by which to judge. Pope says study the ancients, and square all criticism by their rule; but before Greece and Rome is nature, whose ethics should be our guide. The ancients were not so wise as they have been accounted ; they were not so wise as the men of to-day. Canons of critical art can be laid down but partially,. and cannot be made to fit every case; yet one may always broadly know sound sincerity from hollow chicanery. Neither in literature nor in art has the world a complete and accepted standard of excellence. Art, like nature, may not always be interpreted by prescribed rules. Volumes sent forth among reviewers to be measured by rule have been made the battle ground of contending factions equally with those upon which critics have passed candid judgment from their own intuitive sense of right and wrong. Philosophic criticism is broadly guided by nature as the source of all knowledge. Inspiration alone can fathom inspiration or experience fathom experience. Beads of perspiration resting on the brow may tell of bodily fatigue, or of the soul's great agony, or they may give welcome notice that the crisis of fever is safely passed. The dramatic critic has the advantage of the reviewer of books in one respect; he is not obliged to pronounce his verdict until after the public have rendered theirs. Even the canons of dramatic criticism are taken ready made from the play-goers. Morality, an essential of literature, is subordinated to expression in the drama. We read books for instruction and improvement; we attend the play for pleasure. DISINTERESTEDNESS. 139 Hence in the drama, more than in literature, to emphasize a vice is no less pleasing to the public mind than to adorn a virtue. The pure-minded though veno-eful Anne Boleyn is tedious on the stage beside the sinful fascinations of Camille. Philosophic criticism is an enlightened curiosity .which seeks to know the good, an enlightened judgment which seeks to determine the right. It seeks to turn from party cant and plant itself fairly on the platform of truth. It does not stop to cavil at unimportant peculiarities of style or diction; the author's opportunities as well as his aims are considered, the time in which he lived as well as the result of his undertaking. The critic should be en rapport with the author instead of mentally armed against him. As Porter says, "The critic cannot be just to an author unless he puts himself in the author's place." Matthew Arnold gives his rule of criticism in one word, disinterestedness. And this he would display by holding aloof from what he calls the practical view of things, and by giving the mind free play. Criticism should follow its nobler instincts, utterly refusing to lend itself to social, political, or theological fashions or forms, utterly refusing to be influenced by pique or by intellectual vanity. A good reviewer, with a wide range of knowledge, combines comprehensiveness of views and catholicity of opinions, sustained by subtle instincts, delicate tastes, and an analytical and judicial mind; epigram and paradox he subordinates, and hyperbole and hy- percriticism he despises. He must be neither a good lover nor a good hater. He must have wisdom without prejudices, power without passion. Candor controls his pen. He is bold yet modest; severe, if necessary, but kind; neither dogmatic nor moody, neither sentimental nor cynical. To high-minded unselfishness is added a keen and correct insight into the minds and motives of men. He discovers to a friend his faults, praises CRITICISM. an enemy's good work, and never talks merely for effect nor professes too much. Of that which he knows nothing he says nothing. He is satisfied that no trade based on cheating or cant ever is permanently successful. His knowledge of mankind is not less than his knowledge of books. He analyzes nature as skilfully as literature. Saint-Beuve served an apprenticeship dissecting the bodies of dead men before he began on the writings of living ones. " Je n'ai plus qu'un plai- sir," he exclaims, "j'analyse, j'herborise, je suis un naturaliste des esprits. Ce que je voudrais constituer, c'est l'histoire naturelle litteraire." Matthews remarks on Saint-Beuve: " It is safe to say there never was a literary judge who was more indefatigable in collecting the materials for his decisions, or who tried more earnestly to keep his mind from all bias, and from every influence which could interfere in the slightest degree with the clearness, vividness, and truthfulness of its- impression. His jealousy of himself was carried, at times, to an almost ridiculous extreme. So keenly was he sensible, and so morbidly fearful of the influence of friendship upon one's opinions, that he sacrificed, it is said, some of his pleasantest intimacies to his love of impartiality." In measuring character, as in everything else, we run to extremes; and often our foolish and versatile prejudices change objects most familiar. Through the eyes of love sparkle sunlight and"prismatic rainbow hues. The color of our glasses tinges all we see; from our collection of spectacles,, we draw and adjust the green glass, jealously; or the yellow glass, envy; or the red glass, revenge; or the black glass, racor; turning all into hate and hellish hues. But in spite of our blind vagaries, as Pascal says, " l'homme n'est ni ange ni bete; et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la bdte." The improbability of encountering the paragon re- AUTHOR AND PUBLIC. 141 viewer, and the likelihood of meeting with more flaw- finding than admiration, should teach the speaker or writer to steel his sensibilities and submit patiently to criticism. If wise he will not be puffed by praise nor annihilated by censure, but will be soberly stimulated by the one, and taught improvement by the other. The public, whose attention he challenges, have their rights as well as he, and if cheated by false pretenses out of their time or money, have just cause for complaint. He who cries truth and sells only its imitation, is a charlatan, and the people through their paid agent, the press, have the right to denounce him. If he has done aught worthy of fame, let him rest content; time will establish it. A good book cannot be hidden. Bury it in the grave with its author, as in the case of Dicty's Cretensis, and an earthquake will burst the sepulchre. That a book lives, though condemned by its critics, is not altogether proof of unsound judgment on the part of the reviewer, for he may have been right as to both the absolute and relative merits of the work, and the world led away by caprice,'prejudice, or passion. But for the most part, and in the long run, time and the world are to be trusted. " I know of no tonic more useful for a young writer," says Higginson, "than to read carefully in the English reviews of seventy or eighty years ago the crushing criticisms on nearly every author of that epoch who has achieved lasting fame." Wordsworth attempted to disparage Goethe without having read him; he stigmatized Dryden's music ode as a drunken song, and held Burns' productions in profound contempt. On the other hand, amidst a universal hiss of scorn, upon the wheels of its sarcasm the Edinburgh Review broke every poetic bone in Wordsworth's body. Hazlitt has often been pronounced a blockhead, and Shelley's poetry meaningless. Byron called Spenser a dull fellow, and Chaucer contemptible; a poem of Wordsworth's was his aversion. When it first appeared, 142 CRITICISM. Jane Eyre w&s denounced in the severest terms by the Quarterly Review. No one ever aimed at severer impartiality than Hallam, but in spite of his strictly judicial mind, his admiration was often too much for his discrimination. Patmore published a severe criticism on Sheridan Knowles' Virginius, which he was led wholly to modify after having seen the author. When an old and expert critic in one of the first reviews of the day feels compelled to acknowledge that " the subsequent writings of this distinguished man have convinced me that my first impressions of his talents as a dramatic writer did him manifest injustice in some particulars, and fell far short of his merit in others," what trust can be placed in fledglings ? It was deemed scarcely safe at one time for the preface of a book to go out unarmed, that is, without defiance and loud denunciations of the critics. Soderini ordered to be made for him by Michael Angelo a statue, which when done was perfect. Nevertheless, Soderini must criticize; the nose was not Grecian enough. Taking a chisel Angelo pretended to alter it, meanwhile letting fall some dust which he had concealed in his hand, but in reality not touching the statue. Soderini was charmed that his opinion should have been so cheerfully acted upon, and extolled the nose as perfect. In like manner Pope pretended to change certain words of the Iliad which Lord Halifax had criticized when Pope had read to him the poem, to the infinite gratification of his critical lordship. Before the triumphant march of genius critics are powerless. Knowingly they never attempt to write down what is apt to become popular. Like those of journalism, their opinions are based on cowardice, and too often on the trembling timidity of ignorance. Says Gillies, the Scotch reviewer, "By no effort of criticism could we put down the Lay of the Ijxst Minstrel Even the ballad of Rosabelle, and the description of Melrose ORIGINALITY AND PLAGIARISM. 143 by moonlight, were alone enough to keep it buoyant, notwithstanding that the poem was decidedly at variance with all our acknowledged models." Just before Talfourd's Ion was put upon the stage amidst the most boisterous triumph, the critic's place on the Athenseum was taken from Chorley and given to Darley, who used the axe and scalpel with such consummate dexterity that to cut books to pieces became a passion with him. But in writing down Ion Darley made a mistake; and Chorley the supposed culprit was hooted to the wall by an exasperated public. He was blackguarded as the "chaw-bacon of literature," "a worm," and many such names. "I cannot call to mind a writer more largely neglected, sneered at, and grudgingly analyzed than myself," complains this innocent victim. A reviewer is in no wise backward about calling the attention of his reader to the praise bestowed by him on the first appearance of what subsequently proves a successful book. Says Chorley, of the Atlvenxum, of Hawthorne's writings, "It is one of my greatest pleasures as a journalist to recollect that I wras the first who had the honor of calling attention to these tales when they appeared in the form of periodical articles." Plagiarism is a charge that has been freely bandied by jealous authors no less than by keen critics. Byron's inspirations of nature, Wordsworth said, were not drawn from nature, but from his Tintern Abbey, and that both the sentiment and style of the third canto of Childe Harold were caught from him and greatly marred in the reproduction. It is a delicate matter for one writer to charge another with lack of originality, when the most original of thinkers, for nine tenths of all their so-called original thoughts, draw upon the past. Besides, every writer has the right to use all that has gone before him, and if he but add one original idea to every thousand borrowed 144 CRITICISM. ideas his labor is not in vain. Human experiences are funded, and every man that appears has a right to a share. Says Bulwer, " from that which time has made classical we cannot plagiarize." How many of the best plots and plays are founded upon classical mythology and ancient history ? From a Grecian legend of Hercules and the Pigmies Swift derives his story of Gulliver. Shakespeare in Midsummer Nights Dream has innumerable touches and travesties like that from Ovid's metamorphoses of Pyramus and Thisbe. De Foe's novel is founded on the published voyages in 1712 of Woodes Rogers and Edward Cooke, and the embryo Robinson Crusoe may be seen in the Alexander Selkirk of Captain Bur- ney's narrative. See how the story of Romeo and Juliet has been handled. Shakespeare is directly indebted for it to Arthur Brooke, who made a poetical version of Bolsteau's novel Rhomeo and Julietta. The main incidents were obtained by Balsteau from a story by Luigi da Porto, of Vicenza, called La Giulietta, and this closely resembles the Ephesiaca of Ephesius Xenophon. Under the title of Six Old Plays on which Shakespeare Founded his Comedies published by S. Leacroft, of Charing Cross, was one of the same name from which the plot of Taming the Shrew was taken, the induction being borrowed from Heuterus' Rerum Burgund. Few writers indeed are caught pursuing the opposite course, that of attributing their own ideas to others, like Xenophon, who makes Socrates, his master, the mouth-piece for many of his own conceptions. Style, which is the first thing an inexperienced writer thinks of, and which should be the last, is often made a handle for adverse criticism when all else fails. A style consistent with the serious dignity of the subject may be sneered at as Johnsonian, or if it be natural and easy, then it is cheap English. In questions of svntax, where the best authorities do not agree, STYLE. 145 and the writer is obliged to employ terms sanctioned by one or the other, whichever course he takes lays him open to the charge of solecism. In such hands warrantable hyperbole is gross exaggeration, and authorized antithesis, epigram, and metaphor, glaring absurdities. Style is in a measure to letters what dress is to the body, Men and women are more attractive when tastefully attired than when clothed in rags or ill- fitting garments; but as compared with the body, soul, or life of the person, dress is insignificant. So it is with literary composition. Facts are more pleasing when adorned with elegant diction; but the arrangement of the words in which ideas are clothed is of little moment beside the magnitude and truthfulness of the naked fact. Nevertheless, say what we will of style in letters or in dress, it will have its influence. Beauty and symmetry appeal to the mind not less strongly than truth and logic. Dress is admirable no less than merit. Good clothes and a pleasing style captivate the multitude more than do shabby virtue or homely truths. Again, elegance and comfort in dress are greatly to be desired ; but what shall we say of him who all day, and every day, is conscious of his attire, who cannot lift his mind above the cut of his coat or the fit of his boots; who thinks and speaks only of his raiment, and who works or plays chiefly for the purpose of displaying his dress ? In the various walks of life there are men who live by style; there are authors whose ambition and efforts are all for style; take from their writings style, and there is nothing left. Time was when the ruler prescribed the kind and quality of dress each class should wear, the kind and quality of food each class should eat. In the eyes of criticism, form was everything in those days. With Johnson and Dryden the manner was no less important than the matter. While we of this latter-day and less trammelled literature do not despise rhythm Essays and Miscellany 10 146 CRITICISM. or lightly esteem beauty in the arrangement of words, sentiment and truth we deem of far higher importance. Chaste imagery we admire, but clearness and energy are indispensable. The truly sublime swallows all petty adornments. Style is, however, something more than dress. It is not the adaptation of thought to expression, nor the adaptation of expression to thought. Style is thought itself; expression is the man; it is character, as well as cut of clothes and carriage. Qualities of mind, form of physique, and every result of environment, no less than the blaze of words lighted by thought, generate style, and are in turn moulded by style. The attitude of the body under cogitation is in a measure the outward or physical expression of thought. Says La Bruyere, " II n'y a rien de si delie* de si simple, et de si imperceptible, ou il n'entre des manieres qui nous decelent. Un sot n'entre, ni ne sort, ni ne s'assied, ni ne se leve, ni ne se tait, ni n'est sur les jambes, comme un homme d'esprit." " The style of an author should be the image of his mind," observes Gibbon, "but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation." A true and natural style is the product of birth, though it may be modified by education. It cannot be acquired any more than blood or brains. With the physical and intellectual man, it may be refined by culture; but it must be as the unfolding of a germ, as the development of an innate quality, and not as a creation or an adoption; else it is not style the man, but style the appearance, style the imitation. " Un homme qui ecrit bien," says Montesqueieu, "n'eerit pas comme on eerit; mais comme il ecrit; et c'est souvent en parlant mal qu'il parle bien." Suppose two writers should attempt to exchange their style, that of both would be ruined. It would be worse than exchanging coats; the probability is that one i STRONG SIMPLICITY. 147 would not fit the other. Tyndall's delicate forms of beauty, and Huxley's incisive wit and vivid pictur- esqueness, would not suit the plain direct forms of Darwin, whose thoughts spread themselves out on paper in such logical sequence and with such effectiveness, that from a mere statement of the facts arise the clearest conclusions. There are natural writers and there are artificial writers. They are known by their works. Strong is simplicity; strong the power of truthful words to move I All great poets, Homer, Horace, ^Eschylus, Shakespeare, Tennyson, exercised this charming power. The wisest of the ancients, feeling its superior strength and having it not, affected it. Studied simplicity of style seems to have been the effort of Plato. For we are assured that the sentences which flow so easily, and were apparently flung off currente calamo, were, indeed, the result of prolonged elaboration. Sainte-Beuve thanked the necessity which forced him from his ingrained mannerism into a style of strong simplicity which every one could understand. CHAPTER VII. WORK. Get leave to work In this world, 'tis the best you get at all; For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts Than men in benediction. God says " Sweat For foreheads;" men say "crowns"; and so we are crowned, Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel Which snaps with a secret spring; Get work; get work; Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get. —Mrs Browning. The necessity to labor is generally regarded as an evil; the first and sum of evils; offspring of the primal curse, spawn of Adamic transgression, born of the serpent which envenoms all, which cradles humanity in thistles and thorns, and clothes us in galling fetters, to be worn 'midst sorrow and sweat until the body returns to dust. It is the severest punishment divine vengeance can conjure for the disobedient, the heaviest infliction almighty power may lay upon the seed of woman for her sin of curiosity. And the curse of curses, Cain's curse, was that he should labor and reap no reward. These precepts accord with our earliest impressions of labor. The child abhors his task. It is neither affection, food, nor any good gift of God; and instinctively he feels that it is not. It is a penalty he must pay, not having committed any crime; a slavery he must undergo, though free-born. Even brutes blush, and hang their heads, when harnessed to man's infelicities. Enjoyment alone the creatures of a beneficent creator claim as their birthright. Therefore call it pleasure and the exercise is easy; whereas pleasure itself is painful if done as duty. In childhood, how much of exertion and fatigue we laughingly undergo I PLEASURABLE, VS. ENFORCED LABOR. 149 in the name of fun; how intolerably dull and spirit- crushing the slight labor-lesson our kind parent gives us to learn. For the child at play winter has no cold, nor is the longest, hottest summer's day wearisome; but over the light unfinished task the songs of birds strike heavily upon the ear, the fresh, fragrant breath of heaven is hateful, and the joyful sun-rays stinging scorpions. In grown-up children we see drawn the same distinctions. With what nervous delight the delicate young woman dances the dark hours through, when, were those midnight whirls and ambles necessary or useful, how terrible the infliction! Happy as a beaver the young man rises before day for a ten-mile tramp over the hills for a possible shot at a deer, when, did his breakfast every morning depend upon similar early and severe exertion, better die at once than keep up life at such a cost. Even old, prosaic, practical men, and humdrum women, cheerful as cackling barn-fowl, every summer leave their home comforts, their clean carpets and soft beds, their carriage, garden, and well-stored larder, their cosey parlor and cool verandah, and go into voluntary exile, become savage or at least sylvan while encamping under the chaparral or buckeye, eating indigestible food, breathing the blistering air, and sweltering through the shelterless day only at night to stretch themselves with no small show of satisfaction upon the flea-and-fever-breeding earth, there to wait the slow approach of sleep, while the mosquito's soft soprano alternates with the loud contralto of the sympathetic frog. Were this all done from necessity, what a wail would go heavenward over the bitterness of their lot. So by the simple name of sport do we sweeten the very dregs of drudgery. Not only does the labor we delight in physic pain, but such effort ceases to be labor in the sense here used; that is, as a burden to be borne. Pleasures pall, however, showing that therein we may not seek 150 WORK. the highest good; and men are sometimes driven to do things useful through sheer ennui; activity then becomes delightful, and the necessity being removed, it falls not under the curse; there are some whom wealth and luxury cannot wholly debase. In all industry, in commerce, agriculture, and manufactures; in mechanical or intellectual pursuits, in education and religion; by all mankind, throughout all ages, it seems to have been tacitly implied that, however beneficial the result of labor, work per se is a curse. It is something to be deplored; something to be endured, rewarded; and it is performed, for the most part, in the hope and endeavor of ultimate relief from it. Who has not this hope, and what would life be without it ? How often we hear said, " When I have so much money, when my new house is built, my farm paid for, my daughters educated, my sons settled, I will no longer toil in this fashion; I will rest; I will fling care to the winds, release brain, nerves, and muscles from their life-long tension, take a free look upward and outward, and live a little before I die." Alas! how seldom is this effected; or if it be, how laborious this inactive waiting for death! Anticipations are almost always more enjoyable than realizations. The pleasures of hope enter into labor to lighten it and relieve its hard lot with rose- colored vistas. One shoulders a shovel, another a hod, and early marches to melancholy exercise, foregoing awhile the companionable pipe at the corner grocery, in the expectation of coupling it later with a double reward. The merchant finds in his profit a delightful incentive to buying and selling. Nothing is sooner suspected in a stranger than a display of disinterested benevolence. The pioneer has a wider object in view, when planting a home in the forest, than mere delight in swinging an axe and seeing the chips fly. Clearing the ground, and ploughing, and plantingr-are but the paths to that object. While the aim sweetens the pursuit, it seldom does THE CURSE OF IT. 151 so sufficiently to render it desirable. ^Will anyone wanting a house to shelter his family say to himself, it is better for me to build it than that I should be saved the trouble? Will anyone desiring a fortune which shall give him rest for the remainder of his life, which shall give him leisure for the pursuit of refining arts and pleasures, which shall give him the means of making happy those he loves, of giving to the poor, of building schools and churches—will he say, better for me to rack my brain and ply my fingers early in the morning and late into the night, day after day for twenty or forty years, meanwhile keeping my feet to the treadmill, my eyes to the sordid occupation of money-making, until with old age is frozen every generous impulse, shutting forever from my understanding all the Qod-given beauties and benefits that hang like a starry canopy above my head to the very hemming of my horizon; will he say, better for me to endure all this, to sacrifice all this, and that, too, while attended by a hundred necessary risks and ventures, any one of which may wreck all, than to find fortune ready-made, with a lifetime before me in which to enjoy it ? Or if his soul hungers for the higher good, if, indifferent to wealth and social distinction, thoughts of the great What and Whence and Whither urge him to a more defined understanding of his being and surroundings, and if, without the laborious accumulating and analyzing of experiences, without days of nervous investigating and long nights of mental strain, scores of years of the severest study might be overleaped, and the youth know as the sage,—would he not be a dolt, an idiot, to refuse any Aladdin-lamp assistance, on the ground that the sore travail of knowledge was itself a blessing, the intellectual and moral faculties thus aroused and exercised and developed, but otherwise non-existent or dormant, being more beneficial than Minerva-births or other spontaneous results? 152 WORK. This daily dead-lift of labor that walls every avenue of progress, that hangs like Dantean darkness over every effort of aspiring intelligence, that lays inexorably its burden upon the shoulder alike of operative, artisan, and clerk, of merchant and manufacturer, of student and professor, of lawyer, doctor, and preacher— will anyone say that it is a good thing, something in and of itself to be desired ? In a word, is not labor regarded by mankind generally if not an absolute curse, yet less a blessing than the absence of its necessity ? Most assuredly. And yet mankind is wrong. Else the creator is a merciless tyrant, and creation a botch, or this great agony of our existence is a blessing. I know that one step farther carries our investigation beyond its depths, and I do not propose to speculate. I wish to confine myself to the plainest, simplest view of the case, the proximate and practical parts of these life-embracing anomalies being more than sufficient to occupy all our attention. It requires no great keenness of observation, whatever one's creed or ethical code may be as to causations and consequences, to see that nature is our master, that she rules us with an iron hand, by unalterable laws, to which it behooves us humbly to conform the conduct of our lives. Nature is inexorable. Obey her, and she is kind; throw off allegiance, and she is mercilessly cruel. Whether you know, or do not care to know, or forget, break one of the least of her laws and you suffer, and in proportion to the sin. Only the savage sees smiles and frowns in nature; the philosopher fails to discover wherein the slightest partiality has ever been shown a votary, the slightest sentiment, or favoritism, or interposition, or yielding under supplication. Rain falls upon the just and the unjust; fire burns God's martyr as surely as Satan's servant. If I overreach the precipice too far in my THE NECESSIIY OF IT; 153 effort to rescue a fellow-being, I am dashed in pieces as surely as if I fall in attempting revenge upon an enemy. In nature man finds his counterpart; she is our great example and teacher. If you would know the price of happiness, go to nature; she will spread before you a true catalogue of rewards and punishments. To the purest codes of morality creeds are by no means essential. Even religion asks not of man labor or sacrifice for nothing, and nature asks not this. Of nature and the sublimest selfishness the highest ethics are built. Before labor in any sense can be called a curse, the economy of nature must be changed, or the universe be called a curse. All that have being labor, and by labor all was made that exists. Nature grows under redundant energy, with here and there convulsive throes,—excesses which sent worlds a-whirling into space and there maintains them, despite all striving for reunion, for rest. This seeking is the normal condition of affairs; for rest only brings a desire for fresh activity. Bodies in motion labor to be quiet; bodies at rest labor to be in motion. Rest is found in constant or varied activity. Such is nature's rest, God's rest, and man's only rest; night brings with it a restoration of the forces which have been expended during day. Death is called the absolute repose, yet that most dreaded quietude cannot rest for rotting. It also is merely transmutation. By work the universe is, and man. Force is all prevading, in our bodies and without; by it instinct is and intellect, mind is made, and soul implanted. Nature hinges on it; by it winds blow, and the fertilizing moisture is lifted from the ocean and dropped upon the hills; by it grass grows, flowers bloom, and the sunbeam enters my window, else how without work should it have come so far to greet me. The mind cannot conceive of a state of things wherein all was absolute inactivity, breathless immobility, rigid 154 WORK. rest. The tendency of things is toward an unattainable equilibrium. Unrest alone is eternal. So labor is the normal condition of man as of nature, both by will and from necessity. His inherent energy is significant of that destiny. If he wills not to labor, necessity drives him to it; if necessity is absent, the spirit of good or the demon of evil stirs him to the accomplishment of he knows not what. Beyond the vista of absolute rest lies chaos. The most primitive, and simple existence cannot be maintained without work. The savage must dio- roots, pluck fruit, catch fish, or pursue game. He must construct a shelter against the storm and the insecurities of night, seek covering against the cold, and prepare weapons for onslaught upon wild beasts or defence against hostile neighbors. Disliking the task the male transfers it chiefly to wives and slaves, and abandons himself to indolent repose, or to agreeable pastime, to feats of strength and valor, flattering to his conceit, and pleasing to his appetites. In the tropics an over-indulgent nature fosters this indulgence to excess. Toward the arctic a harsher clime calls for greater exertion, especially during certain seasons, in order to provide food, fuel, and other necessaries for the long winter. The alternate rest and desultory labor are alike marred by risks and hardships. In the temperate zone man is relieved from many of these impediments and incubi, with the attendant spasmodic exertion and enervating relaxation. Both mind and body respond to the liberation by reveling in the balmy and refreshing atmosphere. With greater command of self comes wider enjoyment of resources. Herein lies the precious gift from the prudently restrained generosity of nature, for products abound here on soil and in water, sufficient to permit the savage to enjoy freely the dolcefar niente, as in- THE PLEASURE OF IT. 155 stanced by the aborigines of America and the nomads of the Asiatic plains. Nature is not exacting. She works incessantly for her children, and demands as a rule only a slight exertion on their part to sustain the machinery of mind and body set in motion by herself; but she implants longings and offers rewards for greater performance; and to these have responded best the less weighted or benumbed energies of temperate regions. Vanity leads to the quest for ornament and improved covering. The hostility of neighbors, prompted by sex jealousy, greed, or pugnacity, calls not alone for weapons, but for fortifications, military bodies and organized communities. Thus comes good from evil. The gathering of large masses at one point, within walled camps, tended naturally to the development of agricultural and other industries. The inconvenience of every man attending to every duty led to rapid subdivision of labor, with a consequently greater effectiveness in each branch, and to the unfolding of trade, which, reaching in time to distant lands, brought about elevating intercourse and exchange of ideas and resources. Not until Adam was driven from his paradisiacal garden could he or his children have set out on a progressional journey. Perfect man is unfitted for an imperfect world; and imperfect man in paradise, it seems, proved a failure. Among advanced peoples most of the labor is often imposed not by nature but by expanding civilization, which germinates in our passions and aspirations. Herein the energy of progressive spirits and leaders asserts its influence from the earliest stage, in setting example and giving proper direction to efforts. The aptitude of one inventive mind, and his consequent success in attracting admiration or attention, create emulation in others; and so with superior dress, comforts, and enjoyments. In time is reached a stage when the majority, m 156 WORK. through organized government, imposes as obligation the additional labor demanded by the condition of their culture. The man, who might be content with the bare cover, and the spontaneous products of the soil, is ordered by statutes and by the more imposing mandates of society, under pain of disgrace and other punishment, to provide decent clothing, food, and shelter for himself and family, and to educate his children. Thus is laid upon civilized males a manifold heavier burden than upon the savage. Fortunately many attributes attend to lighten the weight and sweeten the toil. The potency of the reward is recognized. There is also inducement in the more assured enjoyment of property and life, by means of agriculture and other institutions of settled life. Acquired taste for improvements lends spurs to their attainment. Habit assists to render labor endurable, and interesting, and growing skill give ease to performance. Mere motion and exercise furnish incentive to deeds, to improving intercourse, to lofty aspirations. There is pleasure in the chase, and exercise connected with the game, aside from the pursuit itself. The man soon turns from his puerile pastime to sterner sport or more sedate entertainment, yet he stillt feels animated by the action itself. He even imbibes a preference for occupations leading to a practical and substantial end, the unprofitable growing distasteful. Many take a decided delight in gardening, building, repairing, as oompared with siestas, promenades, and sports. How irksome to many is the dumb-bell performance, as contrasted with the doubly useful woocVchopping has been illustrated by the great English premier. Some find pleasure in riding when connected with stock-raising or other useful purposes, others for itself alone. Some prefer scientific books to novels. As in play, labor can become most pleasing when not entirely compulsory, and herein lies the strongest of motives, aside from the reward, for the eager THE BLESSING OF IT. 157 perseverance of farmers, merchants, and other self- dependent classes and employers. They are in a measure obliged to earn a livelihood, but can at least regulate operations to their taste and perhaps to their convenience. This soothing element is absent among the great mass of employers, and forms one of the main causes for dislike to labor. The restraint on time, inclination, and procedure is objectionable. It partakes of slavery, though voluntarily contracted. No less distasteful is the idea that only a portion of their efforts is for personal benefit in the form of wages, the rest being absorbed by another. Their balm lies chiefly in the wages, to be Used for independent labor, pastime, or rest. Additional relief and incentive are brought by the exciting effect of rivalry. Competition lends zest to the consideration that, as work is unavoidable, it may best be performed with spirit. The desire to complete a task is an impulse, and still more so is the ambition to do it well, perhaps to excel others in perfection as well as speed. This strengthens the wish to learn, to become skilful, and to improve the limbs and senses by means of which the work is accomplished. After all it is in work itself, rather than in the accomplished result, that the true benefit of labor lies. We have been wrongly taught; nor is this the onlv instance wherein our teachers need instructing. It is evident that by exercise organs and faculties alone develop. This is the central principle alike in universal evolution and in individual unfolding. Organs and organisms improve according to use. The blacksmith does not acquire strength to swing his hammer by running foot-races, nor does the logician become proficient in subtle reasoning by counting money or selling bacon. Bind a limb and it withers ; put out one eye, and the other performs the work of two. Mind and muscle alike grow, acquire strength and elasticity by exercise. Little is expected of the r 158 WORK. man who in youth was not sent to school or required to work. To this end exercise is encouraged alike in. children and adults, often in dull bar or club movements, or strained walking, which lose much of their value from the associated distaste. A boat or bicycle might be welcomed as more agreeable, and therefore also as more beneficial, and many would find still greater satisfaction in a task with practical results, in the flower patch, the woodshed, or on the lawn; the manual worker, on his side, seeks discipline as well as relaxation for the mind in chess, or in some solid reading. Many a craftsman would labor without recompense in his vocation rather than lose his cunning therein. Effort is always its own reward. Every well-directed blow gives strength to the arm and skill to the fingers equally, whether paid for or not. Better, indeed, to work for nothing and maintain in good condition the digestive and other organs, rather than spend money at the alehouse in spoiling them. Laziness is social gangrene; "like the sword of Hudibras, which ate into itself for lack of blood to eat, it is its own perdition. Deplorable would be the aspect of humanity, breeding like maggots upon the putridity of effortless existence. The stoppage of work would bring about decay, retrogression to savagism, annihilation.. Labor, then, is improving, elevating, ennobling in itself, besides bringing comfort and wealth, unfolding civilization, and approximating toward that perfection which is the ideal alike of the individual and of onward-pushing society. This applies only to well- directed labor, for the spasmodic efforts of the savage yield but temporary benefits as compared with progressive and enduring operations of civilized communities. Nor would the finished results of the latter, in machinery, silks, and books, be appreciated by the other. From this aspect the possession of inherited wealth QUALITIES OF LABOR. 159 seldom confers the happiness which is so widely associated with it. The absence of an inspiring aim, such, for instance, as led the pioneers of the west to build up imposing and flourishing commonwealths, relaxes the energy, conduces to misdirected and abortive exertion, and impairs the power of mind and body, unfitting them for the proper or full enjoyment of life. Pleasure nauseates; labor likewise is uncongenial from lack of will and skill, and the victim sinks, an invalid, into ennui. Blind pursuit of wealth is no less debasing than the passionate search for pleasures. The one is expected to follow in the wake of the other. As if in accord with some hidden principle in the economy of nature, the miserly sire is often succeeded by a spendthrift heir; the pushing man of business leaves an indolent son, the genius a commonplace offspring. Excessive energy spends itself, or weakens the organs upon which falls the drain. Likewise the aspirations and desires unduly restrained at one period burst forth at another in over indulgence. The predilections of one generation find their balancing bents in another. Intellectual revival follows a long period of material prosperity. Surfeited with gold, even Midas remembers his mind, and turns it to some new enjoyment. There is much talk about honorable or dishonorable degrees in labor, manual and mental, menial and independent, cheap and dear. Cheap labor is no more degrading than dear labor. No labor is degrading. It all contributes to the well-being of mankind and the advancement of civilization directly or indirectly. Some kinds of labor are more elevating, more improving, more refining than others, but all are honorable. The literary and scientific pursuits which expand the mind and enlarge the soul are naturally to be preferred to handling a shovel or cobbling shoes, and the superior knowledge and skill which adapts the possessor for such tasks confer a certain advantage over those less 160 WORK. favored; yet to class the inferior work as humiliating is wrong, since labor aims at a benefit, per se and in its results. Again, some kinds of work are light and pleasant, others painful; others, by reason of collateral conditions, unwholesome; excessive labor is always disagreeable. The duties of the physician are in some respects unpleasant, but no one thinks of calling them degrading. But for the benefit arising from the careful examination of the exquisite anatomy of the human body, the dissecting of dead men would be about as revolting an occupation as the mind could imagine. In its repute labor has undergone many fluctuations, from the character of those to whom particular branches have been assigned. Thus the descendants of Spanish conquerors in America consigned tillage and other hard tasks to enslaved Indians, and regarded it as derogatory to their dignity to join therein. Yet not in the labor which Virgil framed in glowing verse, and for which Cincinnatus abandoned the dictatorship, lay the stigma, but in the association with those who performed it. Labor has steadily risen in estimation with the elevation of its votaries. Compare the present condition of the farmer and plough-boy of America with that of their serf predecessors of feudal times, and the position of the merchant class of to-day with that of the period when the wielder of the sword alone enjoyed repute above ignoble commoners. The rise is proportionate to democratic ascendancy, as illustrated in particular in the United States. The equalization of classes, and in a measure therefore of labor, was never more strikingly depicted than during the early mining fevers on the Pacific coast, when scientist and jurist worked side by side with artisan and laborer in common pursuit of gold, and joined on equal terms in every phase of life. Labor was deified. The possibilities opened in this land to pure energy, the caprices of fortune in distributing her resources, EVILS OF EXCESS. 161 and the general participation in politics, tend to sustain that equality to a great extent. The Spanish view of Indian labor has found a parallel on this coast in Mongolian competition, which, by the humiliating association of a lower race, is making distasteful to Anglo-Saxons different branches of labor. It is claimed that by its political and social laws the nation imposes upon the latter a high standard of living, including the rearing and education of families, which cannot be well maintained if a class of unmarried men, free from such ties and' obligation, and accustomed to a cheap mode of life be allowed to encroach upon their resources. Much is said in these latter days about overwork. Of course excess of any kind is an evil; and the greater the blessing, the greater the curse when carried too far. Yet there is much less overwork than many would have us believe; much less overwork than overreaching. It is worry that kills men, not work. The harassing cares of overstrained business, the snapping of hungry hounds who follow at the heels of the unwary, the burnings of jealousy, stock gambling, and the demon drink, extravagance in dress and living—these are what wear life away. With the necessary food and raiment, and rest, work never injures anyone. The student should not neglect physical exercise, or the laboring or business man intellectual culture. Work may be varied with great advantage. Indeed a change of work is the best kind of rest. The highest attainment comes only with the proper development of both mind and body. Either exercised unduly brings weakness upon the other. In this sense overwork signifies simply the neglect of due precautions and adjuncts for carrying out the main task. Severe injury is frequently incurred by injudicious lifting of a weight which with care or proper appliances could be handled with ease. Essays and Miscellany 11 J&P* ™ 162 WORK. The development of a community depends upon the knowledge, disposition, and aptitude of its members, rather than upon natural advantages. The law of work partakes of the immutable in nature's laws. The chief condition for success is work. Honest, well-directed effort is as sure to succeed as the swelling rivulet is sure to find for itself a channel. Let the wage-worker also take heart, have patience, and persevere, laboring not as in the presence of a taskmaster, whom to defraud by perfunctory services were a gain; but remembering that every good deed is done for himself, and makes him stronger, healthier, wiser, nobler, whether performed in the dark or in the broad light of open day. Every subterfuge, slight, or cheat is sure to react on the performer. The shop or office is but the crucible in which his metal is to be tried, the work the anvil upon which with his own arms he hammers out his character, his daily duties the mould in which his destiny is shaped. The spirit in which his duties are done gives form and direction to his future life; it makes or unmakes him for all time. The reputation acquired among his comrades is likely to be a true estimate of his character. From the incipient stages of a business career proceed natural results, and few bad beginnings make good endings. A course of deception can never lead to success. "Nemo omnes, neminem omnes fefellerunt," observes the younger Pliny. Character will not be hidden. It shows itself in gait and garments; it shines through the gossamer of features and is woven into observation by the fingers. Even the contour of a man, his back towards you speaks volumes, and the very atmosphere surrounding him breathes of his occupation, be it of shop, pulpit, or the courtroom. Confine ignited gunpowder in a rock; smother Vesuvius with a handful of ashes; but do not attempt the r61e of the foolish ostrich which thrusts its head under a leaf to hide itself withal. L SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 163 The appreciation by parents of early training for a career, no less for inculcating industrious habits than for acquiring knowledge of a business, is manifest in the widely prevalent custom of binding boys to a trade or profession, often paying for the privilege. With the improvement of character, mind, and limbs should be united the desire to elevate the vocation, and to study the employer's interest as a duty to one's own honor and unfolding, no less than in just fulfilment of agreements. Conscientious performance of obligations will command alike esteem and success. Failure arises from not doing work rather than not having work to do. Living in a poorer country than the United States Goethe says, " Ich habe gesehen, so lange einer lebt und sich ruhrt, findet er immer seine Nahrung, und wenn sie auch gleich nicht die reichlichste ist. Und woruber habt ihr euch denn zu beschweren." Hear Teufelsdrockh rant in Sartor Resartus. "Tools! Thou hast no tools? Why, there is not a man or a thing now live but has tools. The basest of created animalcules, the spider itself has a spinning- jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom within its head; the stupidest of oysters has a papin's digestion, with stone and lime house to hold it in. Every being that can live can do something; this let him do. Tools? Hast thou not a brain furnished, furnishable with some glimmerings of light; and three fingers to hold a pen withal ? Never since Aaron's rod went out of practice, or even before it, was there such a wonder-working tool; greater than all recorded miracles have been performed by pens." Let the young man remember he will be rated at his worth; of this let him have no fear. Be the night never so dark in which he does virtuously; be the solitude never so dense in which he performs more than his allotted task; be the thoughts never so secret which come from a mind occupied with another's welfare, from a mind pondering on improvement, on 164 WORK. the more complete surrender of self to a manly success; he need not fear lest any of these fall to the ground; his own head and heart alone retain sufficient benefits from his high aspirations. To him who does his best life is no venture. Among human possibilities the youth may make of liimself what he will. There is no uncertainty about it. It may be reduced to a simple mathematical or chemical proposition. To so many pounds of common-sense add so many ounces of honesty, mix it with a certain amount of energy, and bake it over a slow fire in the oven of human experience, and the bread so fermented shall make fat the nation. Still further may be discussed the benefits of labor apart from its fruits, its abstract qualities and its individual relationship to human progress in the economy of the universe; but enough has been said to show the fact that work of itself is a blessing rather than a curse. If it fall heavily at times the cause lies in man's ambition, and the artificial demands of society with its cumulating obligations. The civilization which has imposed the excess is also continually striving to reduce it by means of inventions, of subdivision, cooperation, and other methods of organization. Machinery, in particular, has relieved man of the most severe and difficult tasks, and is daily lightening his toil. It has ako lessened the hours of labor, giving wider opportunity for the enjoyment of the fast multiplying comforts and entertainments provided from that same source, and leisure for improvement in those arts which assist the individual to bear his burden better, and to advance society toward the millennial stage when work shall be generally appreciated as a blessing unalloyed. CHAPTER VIII. BATTRE LE FER SUR L'ENCLUME. Non est ars, quae ad effectum casu venit. -Seneca.. Success and failure in life are not accidents. Success springs from natural causes, and follows fundamental rules. There must be the implanted germ and the developing environment. The necessary conditions are often deficient, but every person may succeed to a greater or less extent in some direction. True success must be restricted to that which not only strengthens the mind and body and morals of the person directly seeking it, but which brings a benefit of greater or less degree to every member of the society in which that person lives. Success is not wholly free from its hypocrisies. Often it comes to us disguised; often we pursue the shadow of it while the substance is with us. Many have achieved success who deemed their lives failures; many failures have been made by those who regard their lives successful. It is altogether as men measure success; whether in wealth, virtue, fame, fashion, or wickedness. Aspiration leading to effort though attended by seeming failure, is sometimes success, while effortless success may be failure; for one carries with it improvement, development, increase of strength, the other weakness and decay. It is not uncommon to hear those who have achieved success in any one of the paths of industry rail at their less fortunate neighbor, and attribute the cause of disappointment to some radical defect of (165) 166 BATTRE LE FER SUR L*ENCLUME. character. In their eyes defeat carries with it prima facie evidence of defect. The unfortunate man is a visionary, who dreams life away in idle speculation; or an enthusiast, who, without fortifying his premises by sound common sense, rushes headlong on false conclusions; or a schemer, wasting his time in futile attempts at great things, when moderate efforts would be attended by more beneficial results. Brimful of the elements of success themselves, it is impossible for them to comprehend a nature so organized as not to possess these elements, or to restrain their virtuous indignation. A man has no business to be unsuccessful; failure is a fault, and* penury a crime. In one sense this is true, but seldom do these self- satisfied autocrats take the trouble to inquire what success is, and what failure. It is taken for granted that the prosperous issue of whatever they may have attempted, the attainment of whatever may have been their desires, is the sum of merited good fortune to themselves, and the best that could happen to mankind. It is generally understood that the man makes the most of himself who, if he be a lawyer or a doctor, enjoys a lucrative practice; if a clergyman, fills the largest church ; or, if a man of business, accumulates a fortune. This is true only in part; the speeding of our faculties is but a necessary preparation before we are entitled to a place even among the competitors for a prize. Were there no attempts except such as promised success; were all non-successful efforts lost, this were a different world. Success, or what we have learned to look upon as success, is generally so insignificant, so unsatisfying, so slight in value to ourselves or others—sometimes indeed the greatest evil—that if in the accomplishment of our desires, the consummation of our purposes, was found the only benefit, as well might the holder of the universe withdraw his arm and let chaos come again, for in no surer way could mankind be sent swiftly to destruction. SUCCESS THAT IS NOT SUCCESS. 167 Well understood is the evil attending the attainment of his goal by the tyrant, the blindly ambitious soldier, the machiavellian statesman. In aggressive efforts the loser must suffer more or less severely, .although the winner may find victory disastrous. Such struggles for mastery are constant in our midst, the roue and gamester in society, the unscrupulous speculator in business, alike bringing suffering to others. Winning money at play; gambling in mining stocks, in wheat or other merchandise, and in securities; originating and manipulating monopolies which operate unjustly upon a portion of the people—these and the accomplishment of like impositions cannot be considered in connection with true success, though they bring into the pocket their millions, and friends and sycophants by the thousands, and seek an atoning guise in the building of churches, hospitals, and other benevolent efforts. The politician who secures place at the cost of manhood, and the teacher, clerical or literary, who panders to popular taste instead of promulgating unpalatable truths, or parades dead forms in opposition to living facts, no less than the absorbed money-maker, sell their souls to slavery, and imperil the prospects of themselves and their neighbors for a momentary gain. Yet by the people these fools are flattered until they learn to despise their flatterers. The country, the world, is no better for their having lived in 'it. Men may acquire the power that money buys, but if their influence be such as to lower the standard of public morals, to forge fetters for unfolding intellect, or to advance mammon in opposition to mind, their broadest successes are but brilliant failures. From the puddles of politics, and mammon ditches and ecclesiastic marches, rise human insectivora with feelers and suckers and pincers ready for victims, most voracious in their appetite, preying on each other like men who eat men, for there are human insects in social life as elsewhere. 168 BATTRE LE FER SUR L'ENCLUME. Even the general accomplishment of wishes by honorable and legitimate means would be equivalent to failure through the very universality of the success. If all obtained the riches sighed for, or the honors sought, these would become worthless and leave the gainer no better off than before. While considering the time honored way to success, we must remember that many have found what they sought, taking another course. Yet he who steps aside from the beaten path must expect a rough road, with brambles and pitfalls; he may be many times discomfited, driven back, and perhaps, finally overcome; but this is progress. We of to-day are greatly indebted to mechanical inventions; our usefulness and our comfort are increased thereby a hundred fold. Yet the patent office shows that for every success there are a thousand failures. Success comes from attempts ; without attempts there could be no successes. Now in the very nature of things there must be more attempts than successes, so that, speaking broadly, every success is the result of a multitude of failures. Life consists, then, not so much in ends as in efforts; and often less in what a man does than in what he attempts to do. The sum of human accomplishment bears but a small proportion to the sum of human efforts. All this is well for progress, for undertakings are more civilizing than successes. Attempts surpass results; this grand civilization of ours is a pressing forward, not a rest, just as philosophy is a search after truth, rather than truth itself. He who fails in attempting great things often achieves the grandest success. It is not in doing some things as well as they have been done before that civilization is promoted, but in doing one thing better than it has ever before been done, or by doing something that has never before been done. Columbus did not find the India he sought; but were not his voyages a success ? MISDIRECTED EFFORTS. 169 After all it is hardly worth while to talk of the misery attending great failures. There is no higher happiness in store for certain souls with broad ambition than these very embarrassments. Only ignoble attempts bring misery. There is a charm attending virtuous misfortune, by which the success of mere accident is shamed. Then let each have heart to labor while he may, knowing that not one jot shall fall purposeless to the ground; that every blow struck by his puny arm is felt in the vibrations of a universe; that every thought of his poor understanding, every emotion of his loving and hating heart, sends a throb through the eternal ages of intelligence. For he, even he, is part of this great universe, an inseparable, ineradicable part; mind, soul, being, one with the eternal. Science tells us that in the universe of matter there is never an atom made or unmade ; that the molecule no more than the mass can drop out of its place and be lost in absolute void; that not an iota of force can be created or uncreated; that there is no such thing as originating or annihilating potential energy any more than fundamental elements of matter. Force, then, is a positive existing something, incapable of addition or subtraction. Following up this idea, and have we not every reason to conclude that the highest, the brightest, the most electric of all forces, life, soul, intellect, when properly exercised, live in their results; that the consequent thought, motion, being, are indestructible and eternal in their essentials, come from some source and escape to some bourne. If misdirected, the effect of the emotion upon ourselves and others may be injurious or fleeting; the idea born of thought may dissolve without leaving a trace; the celibate who neglects to rear a progeny passes unevolved into food alone for lower organisms. A blow may spend itself in air, or it may cut off a dynasty or agitate a nation. The true idea is, emotion impresses itself from generation 170 BATTRE LE FER SUR L'ENCLUME. to generation in ever-widening expansion, the incentive to great achievements. Taking form, the idea transmits its* germ for grander unfolding in future ages, even failures assisting by their pointed lessons to smooth the path for successes. The idea of the improved mind springs from a richer soil than that of the uncultured savage. How little of originality is contained in the so-called new ideas. At their best they seldom pass beyond an additional wing to the existing edifice. Yet, as we form new combinations of matter, and say we have caused these plants to grow or made this house or this machine, in reality we only change the form of particles already made, a few of the grander con-. ceptions springing like new creations from the minute germs of the past. Originality in literature as elsewhere is therefore a re-arranging rather than a creating. How feeble, withal, is the unfolding! . What are all our schools, our printing presses, our pulpits, but bellows for fanning the flame, which else would die? With all the enginery of ages employed in inoculating the young with what the dying old can by no shorter process bequeath to them, how slight the advance ! Cease these means, and how rapid the retrogression. Ignorance breeds. Nevertheless, advancement is assured, and its prospective grandeur may be judged by our present short-comings. Is the fair earth made fairer by man; are prim orchards, and clean fields, and cold hard metals for use, ornament, and currency, recompense sufficient for mutilated forests and disembowelled sierras ? With all our boasted cultivating and refining we cannot improve upon the lily, nor make the sweet air sweeter, nor a ray of sunshine brighter. We meddle with the handiwork of omnipotence in a crude striving for perfection, to regain with Plato the ideal type. Herein lies power enough behind our intellect to drive it on to eternal activities, willing or unwilling. But there are also other impulses, without which few EFFECT OF EFFORT. 171 would move or become imbued with that loftier incentive. What home and foreign foes are to the life of the nation, so the daily struggles for existence, and the antagonisms which attend them, are to the life of the individual. Remove from humanity the atmospheric pressure of want and calamity, and the organism is straightway rent asunder. Nothing so closely cements one to his higher destiny as necessity, with its corroding care. Social phenomena, under whatsoever form or phase manifested, while seeking their source in the intellectual force expressed by human societies and individuals of remote times, pass on to exert a moulding influence of perhaps still greater im^ port upon the future. We have seen that the benefit of labor lies not more in the fruits of labor than in the effects of labor on the laborer. Gold's lustre conies from use. It is ordained that in the use of our limbs and faculties, and in their use alone, there is development. But whether direct or indirect the results, by these alone must every human life be measured. In the centre of an all- producing universe, man the fruit of all must yet bear fruit. It is the inexorable rule of perpetuation, bear or cease to be. Nor may we pass by as void of results the lives of that great army of workers who go down to their former dust, leaving their millions of unrecorded efforts, such as we are accustomed to term fruitless. No honest, well-directed effort is ever fruitless. We may not be able to see the results, yet the results exist; the fruit may not appear until centuries after the seed was planted; yet all the experiences by which comes our later success are born, among others, of these so-called fruitless efforts, as we have elsewhere seen. Literature is the accident rather than the object of life, and being coupled with some collateral occupation 172 BATTRE LE FER SUR L'ENCLUME. by means of which livelihood and leisure are obtained, books are produced not in proportion to the demand, but in accordance with the will and ability of men to gratify their pleasure or vanity by thrusting their ideas upon the public. Hence it is that literary labor is the poorest paid of all labor, and often a poorer class of labor is better paid than a superior kind. It is rash to talk of making literature a profession. Such as it is, it comes of its own volition, making its votary rather than being made by him. A journalist may write for one dollar or for ten dollars a day what certain people like best to read, and so make journalism a business. In certain quarters professorships of books and reading are spoken of. Instead of leaving the mind to the natural direction of its appetite, every particle of food must be prescribed by a physician. But who is to direct this director ? While guidance is well for the young and inexperienced, nothing sooner destroys healthy appetite and stifles the natural exercise of the faculties than undue interference. " The truth," says Hammerton, " seems to be that literature of the highest kind can only in the most exceptional cases be made a profession, yet that a skilful writer may use his pen professionally if he chooses. The production of the printed talk of the day is a profession, requiring no more than average ability, and the tone and temper of ordinary educated men. The outcome of it is journalism and magazine writing." Among those who claimed that literature should not be followed as a vocation, but rather as a pastime, were Scott, Southey, Beranger, and many others. This depends, however, on the strength of the writer. If one can write like Scott, one need not die in debt. Byron understood poetry to be an art, an attribute, but scouted the idea of calling it a profession. I do not say that mercenary bookwriting is not, or cannot be followed in some degree as a profession, but this is by no means the higher kind of authorship. Car- SUCCESS IN LITERATURE. 173 lyle says: "His is a high, laborious, unrequited, or only self-requited endeavor; which, however, by the law of his being, he is compelled to undertake, and must prevail in, or be permanently wretched; nay, the more wretched, the nobler his gifts are. For it is the deep, inborn claim of his whole spiritual nature, and will not, and must not go unanswered. His youthful unrest, that ' unrest of genius,' often so wayward in its character, is the dim anticipation of this; the mysterious, all-powerful mandate, as from heaven, to prepare himself, to purify himself, for the vocation wherewith he is called." Few real poets have that insatiable craving for fame which has been so often attributed to them. A poet knows himself to be a poet, and therewith is usually content. The better class of them write as birds sing, because they cannot help it. Journalism and book-writing are different occupations, and a person may be fitted for one and not for the other. The effort of the journalist is a play upon transient popular feeling; it is momentary morning or evening gossip, to be read and forgotten; the aim of the writer of books is to make a careful selection of his facts and to arrange them in a suitable form for permanent use. It does not follow that because a man has the ability and patience to gather, sift, and classify historical data, he can therefore write a good magazine article. The talents and training needed for one are different from those which find success in the other. Herein many have failed, not knowing why. There is a wide difference even in the qualities required for elaborating at leisure a review, and throwing off on the instant a leader or a local for a daily journal. Elaboration may be, perhaps, the merit of one and a fault of the other. In the first number of the Westminster Review is an analysis by James Mill of the more important writings published in the Edinburgh Review from its beginning, which produced no small sensation at the time, Among other things he pointed out the fact hi 174 BATTRE LE FER SUR LTOCLUME. that periodical literature, unlike books, must succeed immediately if at all, and hence must be of a popular rather than of a permanent character. It must, in general, pander to the public taste rather than attempt to reform it. Hence honesty must be sacrificed to policy, truthfulness to success. Compared with the number of books written, but few of them are the products of what might be called skilled labor. Book-writing for the most part is the work of amateurs. Few write books who have not some other occupation; few adopt authorship as a business; few devote their whole time to the writing of books. "Oh thou who art able to write a book," exclaims Teufelsdrockh, " which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name city-builder and inexpressibly pity him whom they name conqueror, or city-burner. Thou, too, art a conquerer and victor; but of the true sort, namely over the devil. Thou, too, hast .built what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder-bringing city of the mind, a temple and seminary and prophetic mount, whereto all kindreds of the earth will pilgrim." Enthusiasm intense, in the eyes of some insane, underlies all great things, all good work. What will not fanaticism do for a man ? If he hungers, it feeds him ; if he be cold, it warms him ; if brought to martyrdom, it bears him to happier realms. To good literary work enthusiasm is essential; fanaticism, fatal. To be buoyed up and carried happily forward above storms and buffetings, and at the same time to have sufficient coolness, caution, and mental balance left to avoid the maelstroms of excess so destructive to venturesome voyagers on untried seas—this is to preserve the happy medium. Enthusiasm often supplies the place of genius, though many are fired by desire whose fuel burns out too soon. Provided he is not a fool, an enthusiast is always interesting. ENTHUSIASM AND ENNUI. 175 In crossing the Alps, Napoleon's artillery proved too heavy for the men. For a time it seemed that it must be abandoned. At length the general ordered a charge sounded, when, inspired by the familiar tones, up went the heavy guns as if lifted by unseen powers. It is not, however, by spasms that great things in literature are achieved. The fire which warms and purifies intelligence must be kept at a steadier glow. A central enthusiasm, indeed, is necessary to the well-being of every man and every woman. It matters less what form it takes than that it should exist. Thank God, then, for ambition 1 Without enthusiasm man is moveless mechanism, pistons and wheels and cogs without propelling power. Ambition is the steam that drives pur human enginery, and the higher the ambition the nobler the man, though any desire is better than none. " Better far," as Mrs Browning says, "pursue a frivolous trade by serious means than a sublime art frivolously." The moment enthusiasm dies the work ends. Every heart must have its worshipful ideal, else it is empty indeed. The lowest ordinary form of this inspiration is avarice, the highest, faith. Take from the average citizen the passion for accumulating,, and you deprive him of his manhood. Take from the bereaved Hindoo or Christian mother her faith, and you blot out to her the stars of heaven. A wise enthusiasm brings with it lasting benefits, but the enthusiasm of folly is better than none. A man is more a man who builds Pisa towers, or collects meerschaum pipes, than one who mopes in the chimney corner, or panders to animal appetites, The man of distemper or ennui should get a hobby and ride it, even though the thing itself be no more winsome than the plank to which the drowning man clings. If you would save your life you must anchor it to something more noble than yourself. He who from satiety, ill health, or other cause, has irrecoverably lost all interest in the affairs of this >rse. 176 BATTRE LE FER SUR L'ENCLUME. world, is no better than a dead man; nay, he _ His mind, sapped of its ambitions, feeding on fancied misfortunes, becomes infected and infectious. It poisons every other mind coming under its influence. Woe betide him whose last great hope is gone. His sun is indeed set. Twice dead is he, dead to the Inking and dead to the dead. Worse than dead he seems to the actively living, his unappeased shade wandering amidst the tasteless things of earth as in a prison-yard beyond whose walls is endless desert. Occupation in purgatory were better than inability to forget the past or to improve the future. There are days and weeks and months with such an one when the sky is overcast with blackness, when the air is filled with harpies that play discordant tunes upon his nerve- strings, and steal his soul-sustenance as the food of blind Phineus was stolen. Storm and sunshine alike wage war upon his sensibilities. What wonder is it, then, that there appears between him and nature so deadly an antagonism that sometimes he deems it better for both that they should be divorced? From days barren of hope, from an old age in which the soul has nothing to look forward to, may the gods deliver us! The recluse habits of authors account for much of their natural shyness, though it may as truthfully be said that shyness smothering high ambition drives many to the study for the expression of irrepressible thought. Unable to mint the treasures of their minds into the rapidly circulating coin of conversation, they retire, and dive into profounder depths for pearls of greater price. Society talk is chiefly for pleasure or display, seldom for improvement; he who is conscious of abilities above the average is unwilling to fling his best thoughts where they drop like bullets among the bubbles of the brilliant wit and shining conversationalist. Authors, as a rule, are not the best conversers. The cause is obvious. The best thoughts of a careful LITERARY LABOR. 177 writer come with long research and patient study. He whose only resource is the spontaneous flow from the accumulations of actual experience soon writes himself out. The mills even of genius refuse to grind unless grain be thrown in at the hopper. Days and nights of study breed. habits of thought unfavorable to wise gossip and witty repartee; and on the other hand, the brilliant conversationalist will seldom leave the fascinations of intellectual encounter and closet himself for a lifelong drudgery. The mind, roused to its utmost endeavor in the study, droops in the drawing-room. " While other men in society abandon their whole souls to the topics of the moment," says William Mathews, " and, concentrating their energies, appear keen and animated, the man of genius, who has stirred the vast sea of human hearts by his writings, feels a languor and prostration arising from the secret toil of thought; and it is only when he has recruited his energies by relaxation and repose, and is once more in his study, surrounded by those master spirits with whom he has so often held celestial col- oquy sublime, that his soul rekindles with enthusiasm, and pours itself on paper in thoughts that breathe and words that burn." All work which benefits our fellows is entitled to recognition and remuneration, but literary work performed solely for such recognition or remuneration is seldom beneficial to them. It is not instructive to tell people what they like to hear rather than what is true. It is quite different, living to write and writing to live. "The want of money," says Hammerton, "is in the higher intellectual pursuits the most common hindrance to thoroughness and excellence of work." If a man can write honestly and nobly, and can find men who will buy his efforts, let him receive his pay as the price of precious merchandise; but to counterfeit opinion and principle for pecuniary or other reward is to prostitute the soul, a crime as much greater than the prostitution of the body as the soul is above the Essays and Miscellany 12 L 178 BATTRE LE FER SUR L'ENCLUME. body. Indeed, such artifice almost always betrays the author; the hypocrite seldom long deceives in literature any more than elsewhere. The ordinary incentives to literary effort are found less in the promptings of necessity and profit than in pleasure, fame. These, or any one of them, are linked with a desire to say something to which the world will listen, a desire to give expression to pent-up thought, to find outlet for the surcharged heart or brain. Love of distinction is but a love of self, and though it sometimes spurs the ardent aspirer to greater interest in mankind, and thence to generous sacrifices, self still is the song and the refrain. He who looks for a reward for his labor, other than that which satisfies the highest aspirations of the soul and fills the mind with fragrant thoughts, is apt to meet with disappointment. Unlike base earthly soil, it is only in the bestowal that love's field is fertilized; a recompense required, and the garden moisture turns to ice. He who lives the intellectual life finds his reward not abroad, but in being; he finds solace not in what men sav of him, but in what he knows of himself. His happiness is in ever drawing nearer that supreme intelligence which he is destined never fully to attain. If happiness be tire end of life the question is how most successfully to pursue it. He who is always thinkino- of his happiness is never happy. The healthy man is one who is never notified by his lungs or liver that all is well with him to-day. He knows not that he has an organism. He who would write and be happy in it, must not write for happiness, for fame, for fortune; must write, not as a means to an end, but as finding the end in the means. Pursue pleasure and you will never find it; pursue duty and, whether it be pleasing or not, much pleasure may be taken on the wing. We all desire happiness, and yet so perverse and foolish are we, that unless secured in our own way we prefer being miserable. The miser does not wish to be mad e LOVE OF FAME. happy by giving, nor the drunkard by abstinence. It is through the indulgence of those things which bring us woe that we wish to achieve happiness, else we prefer to hug our misery. Quiet, health-producing wisdom renders ardent temperaments only the more impatient. Up to his twentieth year it had been the life object of John Stuart Mill to be, as he expressed it, a reformer of the world. Such careful training had he received from his father that he was then the equal of most scholars at forty. One dull, insipid day he asked himself | Suppose all my objects in life were realized, would I be glad of it ?" And the irrepressible "No," that followed shivered his ideal structure. He thought himself living for an end; he found himself living only for present gratification. Nevertheless, whatever the other promptings, the desire for fame is undoubtedly present with the writer. Says Richard Henry Stoddard, " The desire for fame is one of the highest by which man is actuated." And again: "I can conceive of nothing grander than the love of fame by which so many are governed." Such words seem at variance with purity of ambition or elevation of feeling, for next to money fame per se is the lowest incentive to effort. What to the dead Achilles in his gloomy prison house should be the thought of the unfading glory that was to illumine his name, while in life, to Ulysses, who essayed him comfort, he made answer that he would rather be a churl's slave within the sunlight than lord of a universe of the dead. "A man's conviction that justice will be done to him in history," says Sir Arthur Helps, "is a secondary motive, and not one which of itself will compel him to do just and great things." Goethe during the latter part of his life was apparently as indifferent to fame as he was impervious to flattery. Probably he had had enough of both. Campbell professed to care nothing for his reputa- 180 BATTRE LE FER SUR L'ENCLUME. tion as a prose-writer, and appeared careless of fame even in regard to his poetry. To a Life of Mrs Sid- dons and a Life of Sir Thomas Lawrmce, the name of "T. Campbell Esq." was put as author, though that ease-loving genius had little else to do with the books than to look over the proof sheets as they passed through the press. But though fame is not the highest incentive to literary work, it is as high as most of us aspire to. As the younger Pliny expresses it: "Alius alium, ego beatissimum existimo, qui bonse mansurseque famae praesumptione perfruitur, certusque posteritatis cum futura gloria vivit." As a rule he who prints a book professing indifference to literary fame is a simpleton and a hypocrite, even though he lack the discrimination to perceive his own motives, and though honest in his asseverations of indifference to public praise. So coy and prudish may be his blushing modesty, that he sends forth his work anonymously; yet the omission from the title page of the author's name indicates a morbid sensibility upon the subject, which points to egotism, affectation, and hankering for that which he pretends to despise. For if his anonymous publication secures praise, is he not proud of it, and does he not tell his friend, and finally all the world ? He who works for fame alone deserves none; he who is wholly indifferent to fame is already near the end of his labors. The moment a person finds greater pleasure in praise than in speaking the truth, he is fast losing his principles, if he ever had any. Low is the standard in anything, in literature no less than in morality, which is reached and governed by what people will say. But sham prevails, swaying most of us% although we know its glaring transparency. " Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else," says Holmes. Indeed, he who seeks fame can soonest find it by forfeiting that he seeks it. Duty rather than praise should be upper- INCENTIVE TO LITERARY LABOR. most in the mind of the writer ; the just rather than the expedient. Remember also that literary fame is seldom lasting and is scarcely worth the looking after. " What do they think of Tupper ?" asked some one of Thackeray. "They do not think of Tupper," was the reply. The true writer writes not alone for fame or for money, he writes because he has something to say. is the incentive underlying all literary activity. Bodily hunger has produced thousands of books; mind hunger, soul hunger, other thousands. Poor indeed is the ambition which cannot sink self in the object to be attained. Such is political ambition, place-seeking, whose immediate and only desire is self-gratification. Such were not the missionary fathers' aspirations, willing to wait until after death for their reward. Political ambition is pure selfish ness. Yet the enthusiasm of politics is better than stale, flat emptiness. Above this is the ordinary traffic of the hour, in which the pencil-maker, the clothier, and the tobacconist, more solicitous for the reputation of his wares than his own, spends his life in improving some trick or method which he may leave as an heirloom to his son. A forgetfulness of self is the direct means of attaining any object, even when that object is self-aggrandisement. There is something better in this, enigmatical existence of ours even than well-deserved honor, and fairly earned fame ; for in the teachings of the Christ do we not read that in good deeds it is well that the right hand should not know the doings of the left ? To embody in one's self the good, to burn away all hateful vice Which as Cicero says, though it were concealed from the eyes of gods and men is most pernicious ; to hold with Seneca that nobleness is none the less noble when prostrate in the dust; or with others of the porch-philosophers that virtue is better than fame, and that if a man does well it matters little whether he be known or not. L CHAPTER IX. SOCIAL ANALYSIS. No one, indeed, who is once led to dwell on the matter, can fail to see how absurd is the proposition that there can be a rational interpretation of men's combined actions, without a rational interpretation of those thoughts and feelings by which their individual actions are prompted. —Herbert Spencer. In California we behold the achievements of an intelligent and exceedingly well-mixed population under conditions nowhere else existing. One result will be a people on this coast different from any other on the globe. The chosen specimen of manhood from among all nations, they have affirmed their exceptional qualities by achievements both novel and Titanic. Radiating from the central El Dorado, they have with unprecedented rapidity transformed the Pacific slope from a wilderness and hunting-field into a number of flourishing states, and have assumed the r61e of civilizing mediums toward Spanish America and the transoceanic Orient. The combination of elements so powerful was appropriately effected by one of the strongest of attractions. All men love money; some for money's self, others for the good or evil that money will accomplish. It is safe to say that all mankind, crave the power that money contributes. This is one of the deep-seated impulses everywhere found in nature, but made intelligible more especially in the mind of man. God is all-powerful; nature is an eternity of contending forces; the lives of beasts are a struggle for the mastery, and man is ever, in the fiercest of the contest. Taking it all in all, beginning early and continuing THE PRIMARY INCENTIVE. 183 late, avarice is probably the strongest constant passion that finds lodgment in the human breast. It is more general, being so far as we can discern equally powerful amongst all nations, castes, and conditions of men, ruling alike savage and civilized, young and old, high and low, learned and ignorant. The London banker covets Nevada's silver not less than the Asiatic launderer; pure patriotism demands pay for its services in gold as persistently as the commonest servitude; piety scorns it not, and even philanthropy esteems it for more than one. reason. There are outbursts of passion which for the moment tower above avarice, but there is no flame which burns so uniformly hot and steady. Love often rises superior to lucre, but is sure in the end to sink beneath it. And so with religious enthusiasm, mind-culture, and every other appetite and ambition, however conspicuous they may appear above the often hidden main incentive. Love of gold alone is all-powerful, and will so continue as long as gold remains the embodiment of human good and human greed. While not in itself lovely or lovable, the yellow metal is so intimately associated in our minds with the gratification of our "desires as the means for acquiring the lovable and pleasurable, that we learn to love it for itself. The miser willingly denies himself the comfort it buys for the mere pleasure of possessing it. So with love of power and love of praise. Seeking these first for the benefits in their train, men soon learn to love them for their own sake ; like the eater of opium, who, partaking of the insidious drug first to allay the pains of disease, in time takes it for the happiness it directly gives. With rusting millions write they their names with faint fingers upon the seashore sands, where next morning their more thoughtful children will search in vain for any trace of them, save in hoarded wealth, which obscures rather than enhances their miemory. Such were the motives actuating the early comers SOCIAL ANALYSIS. to California. And now let us examine the nature of the material for nation-making that came; for thus shall we gain two things, a knowledge of what this society now is, and some idea of what it will be. Here was the final point of reunion for the human race, after the dispersion on the plains of Asia, when Aryans turned westward on their tour of conquest and colonization, leaving the Tartars to follow and to overrun the celestial and Indian empires. Now after a journey of four thousand years, during which time environment has been actively at work, coloring mind and warping manners, the same brotherhood, though severally changed by circumstances, meet upon the shores and islands of the Pacific, meet to restore the mental equilibrium of the race, and to unify society. No human event since the parting is pregnant with greater importance than the meeting. Incentive was added to the influx by the expectation of easy acquirement, without rendering the customary equivalent in time, talents, and labor. Moreover, the period was ripe for such, movements. Steam had elaborated a new and expeditious means for spanning the oceans and overcoming many of their still repellent monsters. Political turmoils had roused the sedate nations of Europe to deeds and enterprise, and imbued the youth with a thirst for adventure. In northern America the westward march of settlement had been given fresh impulse by the conquest of Mexican border lands. Disbanded soldiers stood eagerly prepared to enter and reap the result of their achievements, and trappers and pioneers had opened paths across the trackless continent to a land already famed as flowing with milk and honey. Predominant was the English-speaking element— Anglo-Saxon blood and brains Americanized by a century or two of free thought and untrammeled activity. It was but natural that the masters of the soil, by conquest and gradual pioneer immigration, should excel in number as well as influence. Next to ill CHARACTERISTICS OF NATIONALITIES. 185 the Mexicans they were nearest to the borders, with two great routes at their command, one by sea, provided with all essential facilities, the other by land, for which they above all other nations were well equipped. They possessed, moreover, a marked advantage over other nationalities for migration and colonization, by virtue of the century-training in backwood life, arid expansion of the frontier settlements by constant accessions from the seaboard states. Herein they had developed the practical adaptability and self-reliance inherited from the mother race, so much so as to surpass even that so far preeminent colonist element. Of the English themselves and their character, it is not necessary here to speak at length. The representative Englishman we know by his grave, taciturn, meditative demeanor, his strong intellect, his big, burly, awkward frame, and his overshadowing egoism. We know him by his sound mind soundly bodied; by his coarse energy bordering on brutality; by his respect for law, for conventionalities and traditions ; by his hatred of cant, and his love of fairness even in the most brutal of his pastimes. Having a keen sense of their own rights, the English learn to respect the rights of others—particularly of the strong and well armed. They are self-willed, captious in their criticisms, jealous in their love of freedom, firm in the maintainance of general good conduct. In their treatment of conquered provinces, rights and humanity are too often ignored, and while pretending to the highest benevolence no nation has ever surpassed them in acts of injustice and cruelty. Though forcing a deleterious drug on some, and firing others out of the mouths of cannons, they nevertheless were the first to take active measures for the abolition of human slavery, and many other good works. Their merchants are noted for fair dealing, their statesmen for a love of right, and their women for virtue. Of all nations they best know themselves, and are bv no 186 SOCIAL ANALYSIS, means disposed to place a low estimate upon their mental or physical capabilities. They have produced some of the greatest men of genius the world has ever seen, and more of them than any other people. They are an exceedingly busy people. As Montesquieu says of them, "ils n'ont pas le temps d'etre polis." Being great eaters of flesh, they are somewhat ferocious for a well-tamed people. Clearness of comprehension characterizes all their investigations; utility, and strength, the products of their hands. Into their manufactured articles they put thought and substance as well as finish, and the consequence is that in every shop and household in Christendom, on every table, and in every wardrobe, we find something English. The British are a kingly race. A fifth of the globe and of its inhabitants they claim, and they have not a little to say about affairs and the general management of things on this planet. Broader in their possessions than Rome in her palmiest days, they are stronger than Spain ever was, because more intelligent and free. Holding money and life in as high estimation as most other people, there are yet with them sentiments higher than these. Rather by their character, than by force of arms, they give direction to the polities of half the world. These English traits were in a measure common with the Americanized Englishman. There were no greater number of real Englishmen in California than of several other nationalities; not so many as of Irish or of Germans. Yet there were more than was apparent on the surface; for speaking the same language as that of the New Englander, the southerner, the western border man, there was less to distinguish the Englishman from the Anglo-American, more^es- pecially as Californians, of whatsoever nationality, soon dropped into ways of their own which blinded the observer more or less as to their origin and early life. - The British colonies contributed largely to the EUROPEANS AND AMERICANS. 187 population of California; but among these were Irish and Scotch as well as English; yet they were usually regarded as one family. Furthermore, the colonial element, being made up largely of a criminal class from the British penal settlements, was not regarded as permanent inhabitants. Some few of them did indeed avail themselves of this new apportionment of providence, became respectable citizens, remained with us and found that where honesty was within the reach of all, demanding so little sacrifice from its votaries, requiring of them to be but reasonably correct, to be only superficially or pharisaically honest; finding it so easy to be called great and good, and profitable withal, they placed themselves on the Lord's side, and became loudest in the denunciation of their old master the devil. Indeed, if many a good man has been hurried to perdition from California, many a bad one has ascended thence to heaven. Next to the English-speaking population in California, in early days, were the Spanish-speaking, native Californians, Mexicans, and South Americans. But these too, like the uncongenial elements from British penal colonies, were not destined to remain permanently, nor to any great extent to mix their blood with that of fresher arrivals from Europe, and from the eastern United States, in the engendering of this new nation. The new comers were too shrewd for them, too unscrupulous. They beat them at monte, they surpassed them at cattle-stealing, at whiskey- drinking ; they swindled them out of their lands, seduced their wives and daughters, and played the mischief generally. They were a wicked lot. Harassed and chagrined, many of these children of the Latin race gave the land over to the philistines, and departed for countries where wits were tamer, and early rising unfashionable. But out of no such precarious or coarse fabric as this mongrel stock was to be spun the warp and woof of our new civilization. There r 188 SOCIAL ANALYSIS. were Spaniards of pure blood, with their families already upon the ground, destined to exercise no small influence in the formation of the government, and in the assimilations of society, but these were- far different material from the dusky, mixed breeds, which during the past centuries have prevailed largely throughout the Spanish-speaking territories in the two Americas. After these I would place in numerical order the German's, French, cockney English, and Italians, with a fair peppering of black men. Of Scandinavian and Slavonic stocks there were not so many. Asiatics, and South Sea islanders varied in number from originally few to latterly more than any other one race. Hawaiian islanders were plentiful at first, but too tender for the rough morals which obtained here at that time. None of the dark-skinned peoples have, from paucity of number or lack of recognition, been able to leave any marked impression on the social mixture. Selfish in his pride of race, the Anglo-Saxon is apt to scan closely any differentiation. While welcoming freely even low classes so long as they are white, he shrinks from the dusky hue which he has been taught to despise in the abject subordination and mental inferiority of the African and Indian. Hence he also held aloof from the first from the Mongolian, and when the latter displayed his caliber in remaining at the mudsill and back door, the aversion grew. Political and economic reasons have widened the gul£ and the celestial dwells here a stranger, to add his leaven only as an industrial factor. The Indian does not wield even this influence, exiled as he is to secluded reservations, or hovering an outcast along the frontier settlements. The negro rests content in his assigned sphere. For conspicuous traits and effects we must look to the inherited or adopted characteristics of the Teuton and Latin races. We love, and our older brothers of COMPARATIVE QUALITIES. 189 England love, to draw comparisons and parade each their fancied superiority. I must confess I fail to distinguish the radical differences many would make apparent. In physique we of the newer England have been made somewhat thinner and keener-edged by reason of our assiduous striving; while they of the ancient isle, fattened under the paternal roof, and made less zealous by fewer ambitions, fewer responsibilities, assume sleeker and more oily proportions. Likewise with the swelling of their bodies their minds became somewhat inflated, while we of the untamed west, whatever our successes, have been kept humble by the very magnitude of our ventures, and by the democratic influence of the back-woods. As for our national brag, I think we Anglo-Americans may justly assert that the characteristic energy and penchant for utility of our forefathers has not diminished in our hands. As in a new country there is always more room for the exercise of native skill and enterprise than in satisfied societies with fixed habits, so we may safely claim to have employed faculties of no mean order, in no mean manner. We do not, however, now as formerly claim all the advance made during this nineteenth century, but we are willing to give England, France, and .Germany their share of credit. Great were our expectations and great our realizations; as instanced by the unparalleled growth and prosperity of the republic, the acquired excellence in so many branches of industry, and the success of democratic government—shining examples in all their essential features to the struggling masses of the world. Even the bloody struggle of the union war taught a lesson in pointing to the bravery and perseverance with which principle was upheld, the moderation with which victory was celebrated, and the admirable recuperation following so great a struggle. Innumerable senseless forms in government, law, ethics, and every-day intercourse we have to some 190 SOCIAL ANALYSIS. extent eliminated, and there are many more which a progressive people might dispense with; but superstition elsewhere has likewise been on the wane. Ours are not the only eyes from which have dropped scales during these latter days. Religion, or rather the lack of it, is having its influence on California, no less than face agglutinations. Puritanism, the little of it that left New England, evaporated before reaching these shores, or else dwindled into cant, and was quickly expelled from good society. Sectarians put on a new face, and spoke low. Orthodoxy began to ask questions, and many gave up praying as senseless and unprofitable. Even Catholicism had to reform its diet, finding the richer food of fatted superstitions ill-agreeing with the new organism. The skies of California were too clear for the old mystic credulity, and its air too pure to harbor unseen hobgoblins. Hell was brought to the surface of things, where all might analyze, and then embrace or avoid according to inclination or character. Heaven dropped from the skies, and mapped its celestial city in the human heart, showing its presence by clearness of eyes, and by honest speech. But with our wide freedom of thought, and our spirit of toleration, we have opened the door to divers isms which creep snake-like about the heels of progress. For the most part they are fangless, however, and scarcely worth the trouble of crushing. It is a great comfort to most men to make fools of themselves in some way; and however sickening to sensitive minds may be spiritualism, salvationism, free-loveism, and the rest, they are here regarded as the foul wayside beast which the traveller, who holds his breath while passing, quickly leaves behind. The true philanthropist, the liberty lover, the promoter of tolerant ideas,- may here find work enough to do without doing battle upon those social ulcerations which erratic physicians delio-ht in. Better to give attention to the abnormities resulting from indiscriminate admission of low foreign AMERICANS IN VARIATIONS. 191 elements into the population and participation in the government; from the expansion of monopolies which suck the life-blood out of the people; and from the opposing organizations which, in their blind hostility, threaten to involve the country in disorders. Herein may be sought one reason for the spirit of discontent which marks the character of the Americanized Englishman, as contrasted with his former self- satisfaction over the water. This is particularly observable in his social aspirations. He is less in love with his home, with the family mansion and its surroundings, particularly if it be dilapidated, and without revenue, takes less pride in the family portraits, especially in faded photographs, and in family plate, which is too often pewter. He wishes to make his mark in the world, and is not so particular as to its color or significance, so long as it is loud and glaring. Old customs he cares little for, and still less for old costumes. In buying and selling he likes quick transactions, preferring often a ready money loss to a long-winded profit. The Anglo-American is the Anglo-Saxon retorted and galvanized. The Yankee, with his practical sagacity and enterprise, seasoned by a Puritanic spirit, and sustained by the bracing and frugal training of a less indulgent environment, finds a stronger contrast in the southerner, with his tinge of affectation and chivalry, inherited to some degree from the French colonist neighbor, and with the Creole indolence born of a warmer climate and pernicious slavery. A representation of this type is the Virginian. Without the tincture of chivalry from Virginia, the social mixture in California would have been, perhaps, more muddy and mercenary than it was. F. F. V.'s, first families of Virginia, every one of these dubious scions dubbed himself. So numerous were claimants to this distinction that one could but wonder if all the families of Virginia were first; for if the immigrant had been reared in a pigsty, and was unable to write 192 SOCIAL ANALYSIS. his name, he still swore his blood was blue, while his breath told of its alcoholic warmth. Brave as were the Californians, there were none so daring as to deny to any the right of nominating himself F. F. V. It was from the withered and unseasoned hope of the Spendthrift Fathers of fifty years ago that California derived many of her first families. Sons of silk-stockinged sires, powdered and peruked old fellows, in buff vest, ruffled shirt, top boots, and shorts, of noonday toddy-takers, of blood boasters pugilistic- ally proud of their lineage and of themselves, the young men from both north and south of Mason and Dixon's line came hither, bringing with them a crushing courtesy which savored strongly of rum, tobacco, saltpetre, and the stable. Their politeness was quite different from the French article; it was more sincere, more real, but less artistic and finished. Their tongue betrayed their several places of birth, and though they called themselves educated, their knowledge had not much learning in it. Their culture had been empirical, and their manner was now provincial. There had been hitherto nothing broad or Parisian in their experiences, and their conceptions of greatness were narrowed to an idea. To have been born in this place or that was good luck enough for any man; and except, unfortunately, their native land was part of the world, they might decline relationship with the remainder of the race. If this intense egotism and provincial vanity can be called patriotism, then was this somewhat small and select class patriotic. They might travel, but not without carrying their birth-place with them, and if their whole state was too much for the measure of their intellect, then a piece of it, the particular and hallowed dirt out of which they were made, would do. Yet wherever they went, all the world must know where they were from. These scions of decayed gentility were themselves a little seedy in California. Though their manners SOME PHASES OF CHARACTER. 193 never left them so long as they were sober, their clothes sometimes did. As they were not equal to Yankee shrewdness in traffic, and being constitutionally opposed to manual labor, the black coat and gloves which they had brought from home soon became shabby, and in due time a gray flannel shirt was not unacceptable. In common with all first-comers, most of them were obliged to go to the mines. To root the ground like a rat, and cook beans like a wench were fearful humiliations, but unavoidable. It was gold and not rutabagas they dug; and work over, was there not pleasure to be pursued in cards, horse-racing, and Sunday pis- tolings and bowie-knife practice? What many of them delighted in, what nature, in his own estimation, had best fitted them for, was to filll public offices. Ask one of them what business he best understood, and with Diogenes he would answer, "How to command men." The judicial bench he delighted in. He found it better to tend jail than to herd swine. The legislative hall, with a flush lobby, and scores of axe-grinding rooms contiguous, with free liquors and cigars, was not the most disagreeable of places during the muddy winter; nor did he disdain the gubernatorial chair. He was born to rule, and the chief utility of the rest of the race was to live that they might be ruled b}r him. To smoke, and talk, to swear politely, and swing his dirk gracefully, to sit benignly in all the lucrative places of honor and trust, were the chief ends of man in California. Unfortunately for this class the Pike county miner and the New England trader, the men of Sydney, of Asia, and of Tipperary did not wish to be bothered with a too gentlemanly jurisprudence or excessive society rules during their dusty scramble. They had no use for a master. They wanted gold, not government. So the American nobleman, finding his occupation gone, was constrained to remove his shabby black coat and kid gloves and go to work. But when Essays and Miscellany 13 194 SOCIAL ANALYSIS. digging grew unprofitable, uninteresting, and monotonous ; or, rather, the moment he was able, he bought a new coarse white shirt, resumed his shiny black coat, thin tight boots, and shabby gloves, and mounting a city-bound stage again sought a position where he might fulfil his high destiny. But with all their intense egoism and patriotism, this class did much for California. Those from the south brought in their true chivalry and laid it beside the ill-favored beast, avarice. They brought us genuine, though somewhat slovenly politeness, and laid it beside the counterfeit though highly polished French article. They brought in deep human sympathy, which had it been broader would have been Christ-like. The true American man, from whatever quarter, displays kindness and consideration in many ways, and his words are not hollow. He has his own notions of thrift and labor, and he is not ostentatious in his morals; on the other hand his features are not contorted by prudish piety, and if he has less of the form of charity than Spaniards, we find in him more of the substance. Without the treacherous simplicity of the Mexican he can save himself from imposition; he can exercise shrewdness without meanness. If the Mexican cheats you of your money he does it in a gentle way, such as borrowing without any idea of ever returning. He will lend to you with equal liberality—if he has it, which is seldom the case; but no matter how needy, he will not stoop to the low tricks of law-abiding swindlers. To California the Virginian brought with his vast store of unwritten politics his Richmond Whig and his Richmond Enquirer, which he read and quoted as indisputable authorities on all points of law, religion, and social ethics. So long as science and holy writ did not run counter to the assertions of these journals they might be believed, but not longer. The authors of the bible were not Virginians, and all there was L FIRST FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA. 195 in science the Richmond journals knew and told; if the sun rose contrary to their calculations, there was something wrong about the sun; it surely had made some mistake "in its reckoning. Moreover, for the patriots Virginia has given to the commonwealth, our country should be grateful. Her orators and statesmen were of a higher order than those from any other quarter. They were more magnanimous, more purely patriotic, less selfish, less hypocritical and mercenary, were manly and noble. She has always talked wisely and well, better in fact than she has done. But her dilatoriness in action was not the result of deceit, but rather of indifference to money and material progress. In regard to their social propensities the Virginians were the same in California as at home, eminently humane, hospitable, and companionable. And by nature no less than by training were they proficient in the art of pleasing, high-spirited, and sensitive as to their reputation under the code, though exceptions might be taken to some of their ethical forms and doctrines. Most admirable in them is the genuineness of their character. Imperfect as it may be in many respects, they are never ashamed of it, nor do they try to hide or color any part of it. Of all men, most reverential were the Virginians; reverent as to law, divinity, medicine, and all the old customs and traditions. It is natural to those who are courteous and considerate toward humanity to be courteous and considerate in regard to all, human and divine. All things in the eyes of the reverential man are reverential. In California the law, though weak, was worshipful; the doctor's pill-bag was worshipful; and so was the minister's desk, the monte-dealer's table, and the counter over which fiery comforts were dispensed. The free-and-easy female flower of the city or camp was a, Dulcinea del Toboso, beside whose virtue that of no one was more stainless. All women were angels; and if some were fallen, all the more 196 SOCIAL ANALYSES. need had they of a kind word from a live gentleman. The Virginian in California, or elsewhere, was never a quack, charlatan, or sham. To California the Virginians were sugar rather than salt. They acted as a fine flavor to a new settlement, but as practical pioneers they were inferior to worse men. Their early isolation, remote from any of the world's great highways of traffic, their lack of business experience, their credulity, which made them believe all men as honorable as themselves, their habits, tastes, and training, and the rosy hues in which their sanguine temperament colored schemes and speculations, mace them an easy prey at once to their own illusions, and to the snares of designing men. At the heels of aspiring Irishmen clung closely a quality which, partaking of little of their good characteristics, displays to excess their inferior traits, and by virtue of its services in the political field clamors loudly for a share in the spoils. The Celts, so all-pervading in the United States, brought to the Pacific coast their pugnacious as well as vivacious mind, their energetic but also boisterous disposition. On the farm they contribute an admirable quota to development, but a large proportion lingers unfortunately in the towns to pollute the political arena, and to form in the low outskirts a social quagmire whence spreads foul disorders. The pungency of the Irish element pervades too strongly even its many commendable features to make it so desirable as those from the other adjoining nationalities of Europe. Rousseau, who seems troubled that the English should prove so proud, pronounces the French vain. "L'Anglais a les prejuges de l'orgueil" he says, "et les Francais ceux de la vanitd" From which one would infer that this most chaste Swiss believed the pride of the English to rest upon something while that of the French did not. Now the English no doubt are a solid nation, disa- THE MERCURIAL GAUL. 197 greeably substantial sometimes, and the French are superficial, effervescent, inconstant, fascinatingly so. Yet as this life goes, more particularly as life in California is shaping itself, we could not get along without the qualities supplied only by the mercurial Gaul. We do not want our mundane existence all cast iron and stone. Give us a little of the gilt and glitter that please children withal, and let our sunshine be softened by something less gloomy and opaque than London fog. The world of humanity has been divided by certain home-fed philosophers into two parts, human nature and French nature. Now, if the Gallic people, in their rapidity of thought, their inflammable, tumultuous activity, their caprices, inconsistencies, and contradictions, display a variegated whole which might be called a distinct species of human nature, that species is required in California, where we are planting a new and complete civilization. If the African and the Asiatic possess valuable qualities or characteristics which other nationalities cannot lay claim to, we might even wish the mass seasoned with these spices. English solidity and stolidity do well as a base, better by far than any other element evolution has yet revealed; but, good and invaluable as they are, no wise builder of a commonwealth would reject other material for his structure. Everything must be proportioned here for a future. We want under Californian skies some of the old Athenian flexibility of mind and heart found only in the French people. We want their refined manners with which to soften and tone common intercourse, and tinge with elegance social reunions. We want their gaiete de coeur, their happy manner, their lively pastimes, and their sprightly conversation. We will take lessons from them in soldiery if we descend to such brutalizing pastimes as war; we will take lessons from them in the delicacy and finish of their manufactured articles, in the endurance of their 195 SOCIAL ANALYSIS. drudgery, in the harmonious enjoyment of life, and in the cut of gear as well as gait. More grace may be seen in the costume and carriage of a French peasant woman than can be found in the average English woman of rank. These things are not to be despised, for women love them, and men love women. Next to the poetry of mind is the poetry of manners; next to artless grace, graceful art. Heartless intrigue and virtue's masquerade we will do well to leave in France; and with them the Frenchman's proverbial giddiness and insincerity. I do not say that as a race Frenchmen are frivolous or hypocritical. But their politeness, or anything else about them, is not very deep, or earnest, or substantial. They are volatile, full of effervescent feeling which passes off with the effects of their claret. They are too apt to be carried away by whatever is nearest them. Yet with all their faults the French are greatly to be esteemed. With the inspiriting fumes of light-headed nationalities, the deep, phlegmatic humor of the German mingles profitably. Amidst the intellectual convulsions of other nations, firm upon his broad platform of universal knowledge, he stands secure. More than any other people the Germans separate facts from ideas. To their early love of nature and of physical enjoyment are now added mind culture and the refined subtleties of metaphysical speculation. Nowhere do we find more patient application, deeper study, broader intelligence, or more thorough learning. All our Yankee individualism and love of personal independence came to us through the British nation from Germany. For stolid bravery and stolid virtue we may safely commend the German nation. That which amuses, captivates the Italian; that which touches, affects the French; that which instructs, moves the German. Then there is the proud, pompous Spaniard, who, THE ANTIQUATED SPANIARD. 199 if he be now of but little practical utility in the scheme of a progressive commonwealth, can at least boast of what he has been. He can point to his faded grandeur, to the land of lost greatness, where, if you have eyes for the teaching of human unfoldings, you may discover the reasons for Spain's unhappy dissolution. More especially is this nation endowed with interest for Californians, as the source of our history. It was before the spirit of chivalry had wholly departed from her shores, when gallant men made love to graceful women, that under the banner of loyalty and superstition Spain sent forth her sons to deeds of New World daring. And in this New World are now many able minds and stout hearts, who regard with mournful regret the policy of short-sighted priests and rulers, which sapped the energy and ambition of the Spanish people, and left them bankrupt indeed, when progress stripped the black veil of bigotry in a slight measure from their eyes. In an eminent degree they may now boast of the two qualities which Spinoza denounces as the great banes of humanity, self-conceit and laziness. As a class they are far too unreliable for important undertakings. They are most pleasant companions socially, and manifest profound interest in what is said during conversation; but the next moment all is forgotten, their protestations not more false than their promises. From Italy, the early patron of literature, and once the home of art, from skies as bright and air as balmy as our own, came many hither. And notwithstanding their languid nature, and their ancient reputation for cunning and treachery, they proved to be a quiet and industrious people, capable of teaching us many things besides painting and music. Those in California are more skilled in gardening, boating, fishing, and maccaroni-making than in the dark subtleties of political or social intrigues. Nor has the ancient traveller, the Hebrew, been t 200 SOCIAL ANALYSIS. without his influence in California, where he remained true to his traditional pursuits. This may be accounted for on the ground that for centuries past, in fact since the destruction of their nationality, almost every other avenue but commerce was denied them by the statutory provisions of the nations among whom they had found residence. But this commercial character of the Hebrew has become so recognized an element in the social and industrial development of a country, that the early entrance of Hebrews in California must have been considered as one of the sure indications of the country's future excellence and permanent prosperity. Those who found their way to the coast were sober, industrious, abstemious, for the most part of good family, and hence educated. They were as liberal in their religious sentiment as in the methods of their business; hence they easily became prosperous, met with prompt and ready recognition, found many gentile doors opened to them, and secured for themselves the consideration of their fellow-immigrants. They shunned politics, without refusing to serve the people; some held public office; the greatest number were content with pursuing their vocations, and assisting in the promotion of peace and the enforcement of law. As a direct result, the Hebrew communities of California are among the most prosperous of the world. Thus we see here in California a fusion of widely distant and often antagonistic elements, some of which blend quickly and some slowly. Besides these are redundant and heterogeneous qualities which do not assimilate, and which in time wither and finally disappear. In our streets are now heard spoken almost as many languages as there are nations under the sun, but the time will come when one language will suffice for men along these shores in which to communicate their thoughts, when home-sickness for motherlands beyond seas will be no longer felt, and national THE COMING RACE. 201 partition lines will be wholly wiped out. Among those who now drink to their fatherland, who now drink and sing their eyes dim, shortly there will be few who can trace the family name beyond the Golden Gate or tell from what country their great, great grandfather came. Though not of one root, of one stem this people will be; and they will form collectively probably a finer race than any from which they individually sprung. The parent source represented the select manhood from the different nations; for the remoteness of California, the cost and dangers of the voyage, and the presumed hardships of life here, kept back all save the more hardy, self-reliant, and provided classes, and drew in particular the dashing and adventurous spirits. This sifting continues to a great extent, although settled conditions and improved communications permit the introduction also of less choice specimens, and the climatic advantages attract a number of invalids and indolent villa-dwellers. They bring compensation, however, in much needed culture and refinement, and in presenting for assimilation a superior class of women, so far kept back by the circumstances which eliminated all who were not prepared to contend with hard border life. The earlier female arrivals were of the robust mould, well calculated to bear a strong progeny; but mentally, and in social position and acquirements, they were inferior to the male pioneers, somewhat deficient in those finer qualities which above all win the admiration of the lover, the esteem of the husband, and the respect of the children; qualities which are particularly sought and expected no less in the mother than in the bride, since in the moral and intellectual home-training of the child lies the basis for its future unfolding and success. From such excellent sources there is every reason to expect a race no less well endowed. Environment is of the most favorable character. Resources are so varied and extensive that they promise to stimulate 202 SOCIAL ANALYSIS. and reward for time indefinite the enterprise of the people. The soil is so fertile, and luxuriates in both choice and large specimens in almost every branch of culture ; animals as well as plants grow so rapidly and produce so fine a progeny, as noticed alike in the now famed horses, in the superior sheep and in the ever improving cattle, that there is every reason to hope for a similar unfolding in man. In the zoological unfolding may be sought an answer to the only questionable feature in the environment, climate. This is undoubtedly warm, and somewhat enervating in the interior valleys, and in the south where the main population will abide. Judging from the effect of such temperature on the southerners of the Atlantic states, for instance, there rises the spectre of a blunting indolence to thwart the efforts of the race. But the climate of California differs in many respects. The heat is modified in its depressing influence by daily breezes, during the season and hours when most required, and the sea winds are laden with tonic elements to which a varied mountain configuration impart variation. The assumed enervation is therefore counteracted here, and less applicable to the elevated fcable-land beyond the Sierra, or to the great Columbia basin, with its briefer summer and greater tempering rainfall. The dryness of California may prove another stimulant to nerve force. Her central position on the slope, the seat for an ever-expanding and vivifying commerce and for attendant industries, and also the vast extent of her sea coast, with broad avenues for interior traffic and alluring shores beyond the ocean, are all powerful incentives to progress, which should more than counteract the possibly opposing elements, to judge from the rise of Phoenicia and Carthage, of Athens and Rome, in a similar zone. In due time, then, we may confidently expect t behold here, as now in England, the best qualities of several kinds in a compact oneness, which shall be of o DIATHESIS OF THE NATION. such solidity, such moral, intellectual, and physical force as to make its influence felt to the remotest of earth's corners. Certain elemental qualities of Slavs, Latins, and Teutons, have here married certain other elemental qualities of Teutons, Latins, and Slavs, and in the offspring we find a new diathesis. Henceforth Californians shall claim an original inheritance, an original form of constitution. Her sky and soil suit certain temperaments, certain mental qualities, and bodily attributes. And the outcome will be a temperament something between the nervous and the sanguine, tinctured but slightly by the prudential qualities of phlegm. It is of no small importance for every nation to know its diathesis, whether gouty, as in the Teutonic races, or strumous, as in the Slavonic. By intelligent anatomy we may discover whence California derives her temperament. The nervous she imbibes with the quickening air; the phlegmatic is clearly inherited from Teutonic ancestry, but from many a source does she derive her sanguine, buoyant, hopeful enthusiasm, such as predominates in south of Europe dreamers, in New England speculators, and French faro-dealers; though ruinous loss taught many early lessons, and kept society weeded of its more venturesome gamesters. It is well to be sanguine; it is better not to be too sanguine. For I have often remarked that those with whom success seemed a little doubtful were readier with their sacrifices to win it. The intemperately hopeful are apt to fall on grief. Misfortune usually attends the irrationally or excessively sanguine. Fortune sometimes favors the reckless; but he who plays his cards trusting his skill rather than chance, wins in the long run. Yet hope, although warping judgment, quickens energy. Onward shall flow the stream of successive0 generations, tinctured as in times past by additions and subtractions, but midst all its eternal changes ever influenced by the original elements. Californians, r 204 SOCIAL ANALYSIS.. lapped beneath Italian skies in soft Levantine airs, will ever display the buoyant happy temper of the Greco-Roman races. To this will add his leaven the Spaniard, in lofty bearing and chivalrous honor; the Italian in happy contentment and love of art; the Frenchman in aesthetic tastes and grace, in delicate performance, etiquette, and bright mercurial manners ; while the German and the Anglo-Saxon will infuse practical intelligence and enterprise and depth of knowledge into the fermenting mass. Meanwhile, the Anglo-American, by his shrewd common sense, sagacious adaptiveness, and far-seeing, far-reaching mind and ambition will make all his own. From such race varieties, with their diversified talents, will spring painters and poets, inventors and statesmen. There will be multitudes in every department of letters and arts, industry and commerce; men of impatient enterprise, who will not rest satisfied until they secure for themselves and these shores all the advantages that other nations possess over nature and over each other. They will form another Utgard, wherein, like Thor and his companions, the new-comer finds no admittance unless he excel in some one art. With the acquired insight and skill they will multiply knowledge, and add, century by century, to the storehouse of experiences bequeathed by their forefathers. CHAPTER X. NATION-MAKING. Da unten aber ist's fiirchterlich, Und der Mensch versuclie die Gotter nicht. —Schiller. As friction generates heat, so business activity generates creative force. Enveloping the commonest labor of the early California period was a glow of inventive thought, such as attends only the greatest strides of progress. It was not unlike those outbursts of genius which attend revolutions and reformations. The first question California put to the gold-seekers was not, Is it moral ? Is it legal ? But, is it reasonable ? Is it possible ? There never was a time or place where the people manifested in mind and body such general alacrity and vivacity. It seemed preferable not to be, than to be inactive. The brain would work, if not in the right direction then in the wrong one. Children influence parents as well as parents the children. In lieu of the way of wisdom, or force of argument, or the matching of experiences, they exert a less perceptible though none the less certain reflex influence upon their elders. Soil and climate act on mind; atmosphere, physical and social, acts on the manners and morals. On the sandhills round Yerba Buena cove, during the year of 1849, was hatched by artificial incubation a new species of society destined throughout all time to exercise an influence upon the whole human world. It was engendering which may in time prove to have been second to no event in his- (205) NATION-MAKING. tory. ^ Some will smile at the idea, and point to the world's babel-buildings and Marathon-battles, to the advent of prophets, Confucius or Christ, Buddha or Mahomet, overturning or regenerating the world; nevertheless, the time may come when this sandy peninsula is surrounded by a hundred millions of the world's foremost men, that this human intermixture of 1849, the evaporation of feverish energy attending it, and the new coalescences and crystallizations that followed, will prove among the world's most important events. With mind bewildered, the new-comer could feel hanging about him old ideas and instincts, some of which seemed out of place midst this novel environment. Flung into the alembic of the nations, he was transmuted. Under a new revelation he was born anew. The old form brought hither was wholly or in part consumed; certain parts of his nature, the unworthy parts, turned quickly to ashes. Hypocrisy and cant, he quickly saw, must fade like a dissolving view; therefore the cloak to vain and immoral propensities, whether it was religion, social standing, or other counterfeit, was thrown aside, for directness of purpose and honest wickedness were regarded with greater favor than only the semblance of virtue. Trafficking in the cities, delving in the mines, travelling hither and thither, as their excited but not always intelligent fancy led them, by steamboat and stage, by pack-train and passenger animals, on foot over the dusty plains, or climbing snow-covered mountains, working, idling, praying, cheating, drinking, gambling, killing, curing, were representatives of the world's races hither drawn, and their actions to some extent harmonized by the only universal worship under heaven, the worship of gold. There were those so sun-browned and bearded, so travel-stained and steeped in sin that the cunningest race-fancier might fail to designate the soil whence they sprang. Enough there were, however, and by QUALITY OF THE MATERIAL. far the greater part whose nationality betrayed itself either in form, feature, or dress; for from early influences, let him wander about the world as he will, it is impossible for man wholly to liberate himself. The sharp-visaged Yankee in his several varieties does not present the blunt features and bullet-shaped head of the Dutchman, nor does the Kanaka from the Hawaiian islands carry the long cue of the Chinaman or the creese of the Malay. Whether Latin or Teuton, Slavonic or Jewish, African or Indian, the type was impressed by its representative character. That they were men of thought if not of culture is evident. First a man must be above the average in intelligence and energy to get to California at all. It required money, called forth self-denial; it was a staking of comfort, health, life, for an uncertain benefit, and churls and clowns are not made of the stuff to take these risks; then, what followed was of all processes most stimulating to the mind. A general cutting loose from old habits and restraints, new scenes, new countries, contact with strangers from different parts of the world; all the enlightening influences of travel tended to awaken the intellect and excite originality in thought and conduct. The magnet that drew men hither, the manner of their coming, the necessities thence arising, and the ways and means of meeting them, all exercised a powerful influence in the formation of manners and opinions. Far more pronounced and powerful than any laws, maxims, or other form of expression was this influence, which moulded the minds of men, and gave character and individuality even to modulations of voice, clothes, and carriage. Immigrants who arrived in California seemed to. be seized with a sudden glow of animal spirits, and revelling in the exuberance of new life and the physical force thus infused, were carried safely over innumerable obstacles at which they otherwise would have stumbled. The effect was by no means fleeting, for NATION-MAKING. the varying fortunes of mining life and the attendant speculations in all pursuits kept them in a constant tremor of excitement. This was marked in the gold region by continued rushes, and in the towns by the mad pursuit of business or pleasure. The inflammable disposition ignited as readily as a tinder-box; a yell or pistol shot on the corner of a street would bring crowds from every direction, emptying stores, offices, and bar-rooms perhaps several times a day. This was but the scintillation of the fiery energy and impulsive recklessness wherein lay the greatest safeguards of the times. Swift and strong must be the current that should carry off the moral impurities and social debris of that mad epoch. It was not the time for grave deliberation and cool reasoning. The blood of the people was on fire; a moral chaos lay upon the land, imminent dangers threatened society and state, and prompt and determined action in the many crises that arose was the people's only safety, all entertaining alike the treacherous hope of suddenly becoming rich. While mining camps were surcharged with industry and dissipation, in the cities was concentrated an activity more rapid and intense than even America had hitherto seen. There was an eagerness, a fever- ishness in every quarter, particularly in every kind of traffic, which only American nervousness was able to impart. The road to success was traversed only by the self- reliant and independent, lightning thinkers and livers, strong in passion, weak in prejudice, keen at circumvention, lavish with money. It was no time or place for dairyings, even conscience must not be too troublesome. Thoughts of purity, of temperance, of home with its loved ones, softened the heart; but, carried too far, such reflections brought painful exhaustion, and hence must not be indulged in. Few after coming to California failed in business from excessive conscientiousness. Yet there were PROCESS OF TRANSMUTATION. those few, with refined sensibility, whose consciences had been educated into a state of fastidiousness which made them unfit to grapple with rude, profane labor, who, fearful of doing something wrong, did nothing. Few resisted long the temptation to drop into a gambling saloon, to take now and then a drink, to stay away from church and work or travel on a Sunday, to swear a little in cases of emergency, and finally to overreach their neighbor in a bargain when opportunity offered. No one was likely to know it, or, if so, everybody did it; in any event, the money was of more value than the morality—or at least, money after the return home would be worth more than a too strict previous honesty in California. Thus conscience was quieted. Once unquestioning believers in existing traditions, in old men's tales, and above all in whatever was stamped in ink on paper, gradually they began to inquire, are these things true ? While freely yielding to the fascinations of highly seasoned novels, with which mining camps were inundated, the minds of these uncouth students still continued their blind groping after truth. Prominent among the many dogmas early ignored was that special scheme of salvation, contrived for an elect few, which surrounded itself by an atmosphere of lofty spirituality, and complacently regarded all without the little coterie as wholly reprobate. Farther and farther they wander from the tracks of their youth, until they find themselves launched upon a sea of thought, bottomless and boundless. At first fearful, then joyous, in their new liberty, many of them become lovers and worshippers of nature, and almost everyone has his individual code of ethics. Thus, as they elbow their way through the world, knocking together their heads newly filled with ideas engendered from new conditions, with all their stored principles and prejudices, each for himself begins to think both of the present and of the future; begins Essays and Miscellany NATION-MAKING. to question whether the institutions of his own country alone are destined to last, and to last forever, whether his mother's and sister's bright and beautiful beyond is as real as he once believed it to be. He begins to see in the affected patriotism of politicians the lowest and most vulgar selfishness, and in his own patriotism a senseless instrument to be played upon for the benefit of office-seeking jugglers; he begins to see multitudes of opinions and beliefs held by slender traditions and supported by slim proofs. All ancient maxims, political and religious, that did not fit the occasion, be their origin whencesoever they might, were thrown aside, together with many of the superfluous forms of law and institutions. Not that former associations and instructions here suddenly lost all influence, but they were mixed, even at the first, and later there came still other elements, in different classes and aspirations, notably men with their families, having views of permanency. Class distinctions suffered above all a ruthless levelling. Never existed a varied community with such equality among its members socially and politically; there were none rich, for the rich would not traverse thousands of miles of lands and seas to dig for gold, or to embark in uncertain traffic. There were none poor, for what we understand by poor men could not afford the journey, and once here no one was poor with the Sierra foothills as their bank of deposit. When some began to succeed and others to fail, neither need be too sure of their footing, for fortune's ways were slippery in those days. As for antecedents, they were utterly ignored. A man was valued only for his qualities. No assumption of aristocracy or pretended superiority was tolerated ; there were no men and women in the country, but all, in their own eyes, were gentlemen and ladies. Blood, breeding, and education went for nothing, if the woollen shirt covered not genuine manhood; yet nowhere was the influence which, if attended by true LIBERTY AND SINCERITY. 211 manhood, culture carries with it, more quickly felt than here. Honor and virtue were respected, but they were looked for beneath the skin; dress could not conceal hypocrisy; affectation and dissimulation in any shape were ridiculed. In communities where the people are separated into distinct classes, there is a certain sacred restraint which prohibits free intercourse of speech and action between individuals of one class and those of another. It is only among associates where the veil of reserve is laid aside, that imposition is fathomed, and the intrinsic merit of the individual made to appear in its nakedness and purity. In California, with barriers of caste broken down, and all cloudy prestige of ancestry, education, and social standing removed, it was easy to know men as they were. Accidentally thrown together for a brief term they would not take trouble to conceal feelings or hide deformities. There were here no conventionalisms of society in which its members are so accustomed to disguise themselves. So keen had become the insight into human nature of these horny-handed diggers, that to act naturally was soon discovered to be the only safe way. Unfortunately, with the artifices of civilization many cast off also its decencies; from looseness in dress and manners rose looseness in morals. Among many original creations appeared a new vernacular. Thought crystalized into words uneven and sentences disjointed, which were jerked out in a logic eminently paradoxical. All legislation tending toward a forced morality was frowned down; under all attempts to inculcate puritanical habits by coercion, such as closing the theatres on Sunday nights, expecting thereby to'drive the habitue's of such places into the churches, thus stimulating their piety as Falstaff would say on compulsion, they were stiff-necked and dogged. Politically free and socially untramelled, these new comers made rude labor'the central figure, the ideal NAlTON-MAKING. in their code of ethics; hence roughness and labor were not only honorable but virtuous, and often the only virtues. Contempt for dress, for personal appearance, were in many directions followed by abjuration of everything refining, and attachment to whatever brutalized; and this deification of labor must be sustained by bravado and lawlessness. It was not that money was sought for or worshipped with-so much greater intensity on the Pacific coast than on the Atlantic. Nor was money-making meaner or more debasing here than elsewhere. Voyaging to California was no less respectable than voyaging to Europe or Asia, merchandising was no more mercenary. Digging for gold was as honorable as digging for coal, or copper, and California street stock speculations were no more gambling than those of Wall street. It was the absence of counterbalancing influences that made life more licentious, and gave California free and easy airs in respect to moral decorum. The general order of things incident to new settlements was reversed. There was none of the innocence and artlessness of youth; there was no season of childhood, children were born men and women; there was no period of healthy growth in which intellect might strengthen and purity and virtue bloom. Enervating luxury and voluptuous pleasures accompanied self-denying effort, and severe hardships. Necessarily there must be here a reconcilement of incongruities following the meeting of extremes and the clash of customs. Gold-seekers were adrift as upon an unknown sea. Expatriated by their ambitions they felt themselves almost beyond the world's confines, without youthful associations, social obligations, or ties of kindred to impose restraint or guidance. The refined and the uncultured fell alike under "the spell of disorder, and reveled like schoolboys in the novelty of the Kcense. It was astonishing how quickly at the cry of gold clergymen among others hastened to California. MORALITY AND HYPOCRISY. 213 Wherever the necessity existed, there the ministers of the gospel gathered, and there was scarcely a canon without its wickedness in those days. Preachers at first displayed freely their piety, and were as zealous for souls as ever they had been at home. More so, the field being new, and money and sin abounding. It soon became apparent, however, that their ancient labors were lost in these gold-made communities, intent on enjoyment for a season, and to compromise with conscience afterward. Even the gospel ministers came to the conclusion that it was precious time wasted fighting sin in the foothills; so after holding divine service in tents or under the trees for a few Sundays, many turned to mining or other service of mammon. And the soft black raiment of sanctity being laid aside for the coarse gray shirt of sin, the influence of coddling elders, of prayer-meetings, of conference meetings, of holy meditations and brotherly visitations, of sermon-writing and fleshly wrestlings, and old women's soul-stirring tea-drinkings, and missionary stocking-makings—all this, these soul-subduing influences, being absent, it was marvellous how quickly the flowers of piety so recently blooming under these showers of benevolent association became rank weeds, reeking with blasphemy, rum, and tobacco. As the leaven of sin began to work beneath these gray shirts, it is wonderful how quickly melted the thin shell of their religion. Many of the fallen ones, stopped not on reaching the broad level of manhood, but fell far below it, and became gamblers, drinkers; yet some remaimed honest and earnest, willing to take time and eternity at their word, and make the most of both. That which had hitherto been taught under the names of morality and good character was carefully laid away with the black coat and white shirt, to be again resumed on returning home. It mattered little what men were here, how they behaved, or how they NATION-MAKING. were regarded, so that their parents and the friends of their childhood did not know of it. A husband might be faithless unblushingly, and a minister indulge in a little Sunday gambling without exciting comment, and as nobody expected to remain here permanently, who cared? Even name and identity were willingly sunk in the new admixture. The public benefactor, the dispenser of justice, the doer of a daring deed, tl le hero or the bully of the camp, might have been known, even to his most intimate comrades, only as Sandy Jim, One-eyed Bill, Yank, Dutchy, or Long- legged Pete. The natural became here a disguise for artificial reality of the home country. Rags and undress in like manner covered the beautiful and amiable. The outward signs by which we are accustomed to read the soul are here obliterated. Beneath the broad-brimmed Mexican hat, and long, uncombed hair, the bushy beard and greasy shirt, intellect, humanity, and heart may be concealed, or hellish hate and loathsome lust. The true character is lost to visible sense in dirt. Still, let the begrimed one move about among his fellows, show his eye and open his mouth, and the character and calibre of the man will soon be weighed and measured. Where life or death is so often the penalty of ignorance or stupidity, insight into character becomes an instinct. There is always a deterioration in the social and moral qualities attendant upon a search for the precious metals, and upon the wild excitement which must sway a community in which it is carried on. Severe labor alone redeems it to some extent. With the flush-timer the supreme thought, aim, and hope cen tred in gold. It was worshipped in one image alon< by the rusty, ragged miners, with their thin, grizzled, unkempt visages, shaggy with weather-bleached hair, down in the dolorous canons, sweating, and smiting the rocks for gold, which if gained would yield only one AVARICE AND AMBITION. 215 pleasures fitful as the garden of Adonis, buffeting misfortune with brawny arm and steady eye, many of them held for months and years in a limbo of suspense, with an aspect neither merry nor sad; many living along in a Virgilian hades, having no hope though consumed by strong desire. The town-dwellers, seeking the same object in more varied form, enjoyed a more diversified existence. Nevertheless, all was of a metallic brightness and a metallic ring; golden light and landscape, golden soil and golden companionship, rationalistic thought, utilitarian ideas, material wealth. Gold was god. Like the one-eyed Arimas- pians, they could see only gold, and waste their lives quarrelling with the gryfons that guarded it. From this absorbing mania sprang a number of others. Passions were played upon; irritations, toil, and hunger 'united even during the journey to stir up selfishness, meanness, and wickedness, so that when the gold seeker reached his destination, he was half the devil's, and ministering spirits stood ready and waiting to appropriate the other half. Nor was he to be specially blamed for all this. Circumstances did it. If he stumbled not, it was due more to temperament than to merit. Indeed, an extraordinary exercise of cold, calculating selfishness is essential to success; he would have been regarded as little better than a hypocrite or a fool who should have made the same, display of his virtues on the forty-nine arena as in his own family or Sunday-school. Had California no other natural resources than her mineral wealth, she would be to-day one of the most sordid and .insignificant of states. We have only to behold the stagnation of Nevada and the decline and desolation of mining districts in different directions. The mining for gold and silver is too near akin to gambling to be wholly free from excesses in temperament and habits, and cognate abasements. It is ordained that by work only shall man improve, either physically or mentally; and by work is meant that r 216 NATION-MAKING. kind of labor which tends to results beneficial to the human race. Most industries tend to this end, but gold mining ranks among the lowest in the grade. This can be best illustrated by a comparison with agriculture, wherein every application leaves a more or less tangible improvement for the future, while the other leaves a trail of devastation in upturned valleys and desert river-banks, both rendered unfit for cultivation by the washing away of the soil, or by the superposition of bottom gravel or debris from hydraulic washings. With the exhaustion of the surface deposits, or of beds and quartz bodies, the settlements sustained by their exploitation sink to ruined hamlets or are abandoned to solitude. The mining of baser metals and minerals is attended by little or none of this harm, while yielding far more substantial blessings. Nevertheless, the extraction of the precious metals involves by no means the waste of labor and the deplorable results that" are so sweepingly ascribed to it. Under our present commercial system these metals have been of incalculable value as a medium of exchange; numerous useful as well as ornamental arts require them, and their contribution to the enjoyments and delights of mankind is not to be despised. As a lever for starting civilization, for laying the bases of prosperous settlements^ they stand almost unequalled. Without their aid the Pacific coast would present merely a few small and struggling seaboard states with a waste interior, instead of the series of rich political sections we now can boast, Gold in uncovering itself did great things for California ; it brought hither intelligence and culture, and speedily peopled the land with industrious, enterprising men. In making its exodus, it left on the spot the more excellent of those it had enticed hither; left their minds free to engage in superior and more permanently profitable pursuits; left them^ to occupy and subdue the land, to plant honaes, to civilize, to refine. THE INFLUENCE OF GOLD-MINES. The mines of California bred less inactivity or indolence than perhaps any other gold field* The class that worked them had come too far, were too intelligent, energetic, and ambitious, and the development of the mineral resources of the country was too rapid to beget idleness. True, some ended their lives in dissipation, but this arose more from disappointment or lack of self-control, than from the usual enervating influence attending the uncertain and gambling-like occupation of mining. Had California given gold to the early adventurers without labor, as Mexico and Peru gave it to Cortes and Pizarro; had there been an aboriginal race which civilized lords could have whipped into the mining service without immediately killing them as was the case in Mexico; and had the Sierra drainage continued to yield treasure as at the beginning, the worst results to the country might have followed. Gold is a Judas that betrays with kisses, a Will o' the wisp that leads its followers over bogs and fens to destruction ; too much gold too easily obtained will ruin any man or nation, as Mexico and Spain were ruined. Gold engendered a mania for speculation, and emigration to California; this was well. Then it flitted hence, until it took a mine to work a mine; this was better. Else what a delirious crack-brained country this would be to-day. I do not say that such riches are an inherent element of weakness in a country. Far from it. Wealth and leisure lie at the foundation of all culture; but wealth to be of much benefit must come not as an inheritance or conquest, but as the fruit of labor, by which means alone an individual or a nation can become great. The man born to wealth is not wholly to be envied; four fifths of his chance for manhood are gone. The youth whose money and position are already secured to him, lacks the incentive to work, and without work he never can be a man. His money will not put muscle on his arm, nor intellect within his head; and 218 NATION-MAKING. though he be as rich as Croesus he will be but a puny idiot. Ten thousand dollars contain greater possibilities of comfort and contentment than ten millions. Some dispositions are demoralized by adversity. It is more difficult for a person pampered by wealth, and petted by society, to turn his back upon the allurements of prosperity, and rigidly pursue a life of regularity and self-abnegation, such for instance as is absolutely necessary for one who would achieve success in art or letters, than for one to work and improve who is driven on by poverty. But on the other hand, the shock of failure to one of a sanguine temperament, who has labored long for a competence which appeared just within his grasp, too often results in demoralization. The fire of religion burns fiercely when fanned by persecution, and dies away under the enervating influences of prosperity. In times of peace patriotism lies dormant in the hearts of the people, and is awakened only by the approach of danger. Wealth in order to be highly prized must be hard to get and limited to a few. It is becoming commonplace for illiterate clowns by some lucky turn of the cards, or by some system of overreaching, to be able to write themselves down for two or twenty millions, and then buy a seat in congress, or secure some other place which only renders the more conspicuous their ignorance and vanity. Fortunes and so-called honors thus obtained cheapen manhood, and bring participants into contempt. So far we have presented the more shaded aspect of California characteristics, which after all applied only in a degree. Excesses and eccentricities attract more attention because of their prominence above the broad current of ordinary occurrences, and are naturally seized upon by observers, who moreover emphasize them in order to impart a stronger outline to the peculiarities. A certain class of writers, each under REPRESENTATIVE ECCENTRICITIES. the effort to outdo all predecessors, has gone further and exaggerated the eccentricities of the early adventurers. In the main they were not so very singular; most of them were quiet, orderly men. Some camps were worse than others, and nearly every camp had some eccentric characters. The fault is that the most extravagant descriptions of fictitious characters have been wrought up by sensational writers and palmed off as representatives. Yet there was enough of the strange and fantastic, and that without adding to the coloring. The gathering was a rare novelty in its general aspect. For the moment a new experiment was undergoing trial—how civilized men of several nations would behave when thrown promiscuously together, unrestrained by law, by society, by religious forms. Primitive men live without government; each avenges his own wrongs or leaves them unavenged. Progressive men refer their troubles to rulers; in common wdth primitive men they likewise weave around themselves innumerable cords of restraint, such as religious teachings, moral precepts, fashion, public . opinion, which act as fetters to mind and passion. Some of these are good, others bad; some are blessings at one time and evils at another. Let us hope that mankind some day will be so far advanced as no longer to require administrators only; instead of rulers, abitrators; but that time is not yet. These men being without law straightway became a law unto themselves. As it is impossible for them to escape form and fashion in some shape, their first decree that society shall be without trammels or traditions, absolutely free, independent, and individual, is but the casting of a new fetter which makes no fashion the fashion. The first use of their liberty or license is to make that license the law; so impossible is it for men to fly the track of destiny, or progress faster or in any direction other than that predetermined I Religious observances were no longer urged upon them by pre- 220 NATION-MAKING. cept and example; so many became infidel to orthodox creeds; nevertheless they could not escape religion. Death and eternity were before them; 'that they well knew, and each for himself must meet the issue. So each for himself struck out on some independent belief, tinctured more or less by former training. Some professed to believe nothing; this in itself then became their dogma or doctrine. Not a few turned philosophers; and far might be the search before finding, within a given number, more or deeper thinkers on matters of religion and philosophy. In these, as in all other respects, they were thrown upon their own resources. They had all the essentials for deep thinking, an abrupt breaking loose from the past, a new interchange of ideas, with nature and their own hearts to commune with. Old moralities they threw away and established new maxims to meet the occasion. The aristocracy of dress and refinement they frowned down, and set up an aristocracy of democracy. In this way they soon perceived that humanity could not escape the shackles; that as well might they struggle to be rid of their nature as of the influence of physical and social surroundings. See how it works. No sooner do these gold-hunters cut loose from the trammels of home and of settled civilized society than they find themselves surrounded by new restrictions, held as if in a vise by the great law of necessity, growing out of their new situation. There is no escape from this law. Bands of outlaws are subject to, severer restrictions by their own code than ever a lawful government imposed upon its subjects. The leader, in order to be leader, must gird himself and walk wisely, and the led must merge their will almost wholly in that of their leader, and keep a stricter guard upon their intercourse with the rough comrades with whom the knife and pistol are readier to hand than words to mouth. Wholesome law falls at once under the severest despotism. THE EYE OF MAN. 221 All of us, old and young, become subject to a master. We may get along with conscience, no matter how we carry ourselves; either by compromising with the devil or putting it away to keep. But the omnipresent eye of our fellows we never can escape from. In the days of his budding genius Jean Paul Richter affected certain singularities in dress, wishing, as he expresses it, to accustom himself to the censure of others, and appear a fool, that he might learn to endure fools. But though a Diogenes in philosophy he finally broke under it and gave up his fashion. Few theoretical or artificially formed societies stand the test of time. Communities are born and grow; they are seldom made. From the first there have been in our midst men of sterling worth, reticent, modest, with brains more active than their tongues, men of wonderful and heroic lives, gems of manhood, whose quiet, gentle deeds go unheralded amidst the brass-and-cymbal soundings of the hurrying crowd. It was such men as these, a few of them, brought by fortune or circumstance to the front, but for the most part remaining a power behind appearances, who fashioned society on these shores, and shaped the destiny of the nation. Under the slouched hats even of the miners were brains that thought, and beneath the long flowing unkempt beards shone faces of homely shrewdness. Observant yet visionary, some worked hard, striving to overrule the inexorable circumstances that ruled them, while others, notwithstanding their apparent recklessness, possessed of a calmer judgment, of sagacity and quickness of apprehension, seized the favorable opportunity, and improved it with persevering industry and wonderful power of endurance. A higher estimate was placed upon human nature by the experiences in California. Even the rough and unlettered workingman, without wisdom or moral excellence, such as are taught in the schools, displayed a native nobility of some form or consistence, which f 222 NATION-MAKING. controverts the once-held doctrine of total depravity. None are so bad that no good can be found in them; and the greatest whilom saint too often in the hour of trial is found to be the greatest sinner. Kind-hearted, benevolent, generous, they were as a rule ; although some of them could be as cruel and extravagant as Caracalla. Ready at any cost of time or trouble to rescue those in peril, to help the distressed, they scorned pay for such services. Whether or not they possessed faith in God or their country, they had faith in themselves, and depended upon themselves alone for their success. With this faith they had no fear of misfortune or poverty. This was an age of ventures and pioneer plunges into the dark, an age of speculation and investigation, of exploration and opening of unknown wildernesses, in which restless schemers, confident in their own resources, stood ready to undertake anything, from the cutting of a ship canal to the conquest of a hundred thousand Sonorans with a handful of followers. Never was more versatility of talents, or more aptness in emergencies. As the richest placers were culled over and began to be exhausted, mining machinery was invented with marvellous rapidity and efficiency, which made profitable more difficult diggings. There was not a social problem that could arise but was solved or cut upon the instant. Although a motley crew, without law or order, rights of property were defined and respected; regulations were made concerning mining claims, thieves were shot, and ballot-box stuffers hanged. The trammels of ancient forms, inapplicable to the present order of things, were flung to the winds. There was here manifest in early times none of that inequality between labor and capital common in older communities, where the poor are servants of the rich, and labor is ruled by capital. In California labor was not only on an equality with capital, but in many respects superior to it. He who had bone and sinew to SOCIETY AND POLITICS. 223 sell was more independent than he who had money with which to buy. There was no cringing of the poor laborer before the rich employer. All started evenly; all must work, rich and poor alike; the rich of to-day might be. the poor of to-morrow, the employer of to-day to-morrow's laborer. For several years the prices of both labor and capital ruled high in California, because people at the east and in Europe lacked confidence in the stability of the country; and when our prosperity became fixed, and men and money came forward liberally, resources inviting development kept so far in advance of the supply of the means of development, that the rates of five dollars a day for . labor and three per cent a month for the use of money declined but slowly. As slavery shaped politics, the chivalric ideal, and domestic manners in the south, so did austere puri- tanism and the exaltation of labor in the north. In California were both; gold was slave, and the gathering of it labor, which became lord of all. The natural and material predominated. Brains and blood, which are sure in the end to prevail over brute force, were for a time under ban. Unassisted by muscular energy, the intellect alone would not disembowel the earth, turn streams, or remove boulders. Pride must have a fall; soft hands must be hardened. The aristocracy of intellect must give way before the aristocracy of muscle. The common laborer who at home hammered stones on the turnpike, or dug canals, was as good a man among the boulders as the statesman or merchant. The honest miner was lord of the land, and clergymen, doctors, and lawyers, who were obliged to drive mules or wash dishes, were his servants. Master and slave from the. southern states would work and live together; white and red would labor and lie down together. Failing in mining, the heterogeneous mass would segregate, individuals dropping off into pursuits more congenial, or better adapted to their money-making talents. One would take to law, r 224 NATION-MAKING. another to medicine; one would become an artist, and sketch claims and cabins and portraits for his comrades, finding the new occupation more congenial as well as more profitable than the old. Conservative notions were cast to the winds; and, stripped of its folly and trumpery as well as of its more comely adornments, society stood naked; all things seemed reduced to a state of nature, but the rapidity with wThich order, equity, and natural justice formulated themselves, with the balance of right and wrong restored, shows the inherent capabilities and good qualities of the founders of the new regime. Not only was labor made honorable, but there was a chivalry that enveloped all industry such as the marts of commerce had never before witnessed. For so small a community traffic was conducted on a grand scale, and the way of it was princely—more princely than the way of princes. Enter a shop; it might be a wooden house, a tent, or an uncovered piece of street or sandy beach. If the owner regards you at all, it is with total indifference as to your wealth or your wants; he is not at all tremulous as to the dollars he shall make out of you. If you object to the price, you are at liberty to leave the article. The seller has no time for chaffering, the buyer has none for cheapening ; if they are old Californians, which term at this juncture implies three months in the country, neither of them will stoop to many words when gold can settle the difference. Circumstances cast business methods into a mould widely different from that prevailing in staid old commercial circles, and those who neglected to adapt themselves to it were more liable to be borne down by the current than those who abandoned themselves freely to it. Of the best class of business men—those of the most sterling integrity and soundest morals, and greatest perseverance—who arrived here first, few have been permanently successful. The reality so AMIDST MANY FAILURES. 225 far exceeded the romance, that the wisest calculations and the wildest dreams were alike one. He who should tell the truth regarding the future was a raving maniac, while the imaginings of an Arabian storyteller might find credence. Brimful of health, hope, ambition, and enterprise, they failed more in overdoing than in lack of energy. Aspersions were freely cast upon the moral and mercantile reputations of Californians from abroad, some of which it must be admitted were true, but many of them wholly unjust. For the innumerable losses and failures which occurred to early shippers, they were themselves greatly to blame. As eager as any to make speedy fortunes in the golden wilderness, and ignorant of the country and of the necessities of its visitors, schemes the most visionary were thoughtlessly concocted, the blame for the failure of which often fell alone upon the instruments selected for carrying them out. A large amount of capital was thrown upon these shores, mostly in the shape of merchandise, some of which was wholly worthless. Money was advanced by capitalists at home to assist those who were to divide with them the gains; and these speculators in the lives and labors of others were naturally disappointed if the pittance advanced for outfit and passage did not bring them a fortune equal to that brought to Whittington by his cat. It is a conceded fact that personal honor ranked high in the mining community, and is so maintained during the present wider recourse to it by business men generally; for, owing to the peculiar climate and other conditions, the credit system obtains here extensively. In the absence of law during flush times men prided themselves on their integrity, and to throw a man upon his honor was oftentimes the safest security in traffic. Hence honesty became a ruling propensity; so that midst the hubbub of the maddest camp-life there was always found enough of righteousness to save the place. Essays and Miscellany 15 m 22G NATION-MAKING. In the manner of sustaining this independence and dignity at manual or head work, a vast difference appeared when comparing the several nationalities. With one an earnestness and zest for brute labor, with another the adjuncts of observation and thought, lifted the arm to easier performance and wider scope ; both in marked contrast to the desultory and less energetic efforts exhibited especially by Spanish-American and Latin races, which trusted more to good fortune than to personal force. These traits cropped out clearly on the mining ground. A Frenchman, for example, lacked the independence and practical sagacity necessary for emergencies here. Had the country been peopled entirely by them, it would have taken ten times as long 'to develop it. Frenchmen seemed afraid to be alone. Yet while essentially gregarious, they manifested little of that mutual confidence and cohesiveness necessary to self-government, and the prosecution of such mining enterprises as could be successfully carried on only by companies of twenty or more men. Scarcely half-a-dozen could work together harmoniously for any length of time; and yet a Frenchman was rarely seen prospecting or travelling in the mines alone, as was the common practice of Teutons and Anglo-Americans. The latter though of all men the most individually independent, can at the same time most perfectly unite and organize for the prosecution of a common object. Large mining companies always required a preponderant Anglo-Saxon element to give them consistency and cohesion. No matter how lawless and overbearing the respective members of these companies might be in an individual and private capacity, they were almost invariably quiet and orderly in their association, submitting cheerfully to the direction of their leader. This national idea of uniting for strength, merging the proud independence of one into the proud independence of the whole, is essentially American, and cannot be practised, even on so small a scale as a IL ALL EQUAL UNDER MAMMON. 227 mining company, so successfully by Europeans, or by the subjects of any monarchy. Perfect equality was the fundamental principle, and in companies formed for mining, a doctor and a drayman, a lawyer and a hod-carrier, the educated the refined and the ignorant, worked side by side as men. Differences were laid aside, and a union complete was made under the banner of Mammon. Partnership was more than business association; it was a union of all interests, social and physical. If one fell sick, the other took care of him; if one got drunk, the other helped him home; if both fell by the wayside, they shared their misfortune together. These men whom avarice had drawn to this wilderness from comfortable homes were not altogether avaricious; not so avaricious as many they had left behind. If any stranger were hungry they fed him, if any comrade were in need they divided their possessions with him. Notwithstanding the yellow tinge of their dreams and toils, nowhere could be found men more indifferent to gold, men who guarded it so carelessly, Who squandered it so recklessly, who parted from it with fewer pangs, than among these who had come so far and had denied themselves so much to find it. The humanity engendered by the gathering of the gold-diggers was crude and unique, but it was genuine and hearty. Social intercourse was pruned of its superfluous courtesies, and blunt goodfellowship took the place of meaningless etiquette. Greetings were frank and cordial, and the persistently morose and ill-tempered were cursed into kindness. No man of any parts who would then be called a man was long a stranger. Almost everyone had friends in the country, and he who had none made them, and presently himself began to feel that everybody was his friend. For cool courage, indifference to hardships, and the manliness with which they met the severest misfortunes, the world offers no such examples since the 228 NATION-MAKING. days of Cortes. The miner bore his ills with admirable indifference. Far from bemoaning his fate and sinking under discouragement, and crying all is lost and no chance any more, he recommenced with the same energy and enthusiasm a new apprenticeship. If from master he became a simple workman, it did not matter. If overtaken by death before rising again, the struggle was ended, and to death he resigned himself. If a fire swept a town, and half the inhabitants were bankrupted, there was no repining, no mourning over the irretrievably lost; as if by magic buildings rose again and business proceeded as usual. A flood bore away in a single night the results of a* summer's labor; straightway work was resumed with a persistency worthy a nobler cause. Not once or twice but ten times they fell and rose again, thousands of them dying in their endeavors. No wonder that some gave up the battle and succumbed, victims to intemperance. And let those blame them who will; for me there is no sight so pitiful, none that so draws upon my every sympathy, as that of a once noble man who from repeated misfortune irrecoverably falls, and gives himself up, body and soul, to the demon of drink. In his besotted insanity that man is ten times more my brother than the successful trickster or the untried sentimental moralist, who so scornfully pass him by on the other side. To this wrecking of humanity contributed not a little the wandering habits of miners, and their periodic idleness, largely compulsory, but developing therefrom into a custom with those predisposed to indolence. Thus was gradually unfolded the tramp in the country and the loafer in the towns; and this in so marked a manner that it became necessary to coin a word which should express their character. The foremost feature of the bummer is his idleness. He is the drone of society. He may even be a man of some property; but if he spends his time mainly in hanging about saloons, gossiping, smoking, playing cards or L THE GRAND VENTURE. 229 billiards, he is a bummer, and not entitled to the respect even of the professional gambler and saloonkeeper. He is not necessarily a vagabond, but he must be something of a sponge. He is the figure head of thriftlessness; he lives without work, often dresses well, nobody knows how, is happy and jovial. Landing on these shores without money, without friends, with no definite purpose in. view, wandering homeless about the streets from day to day, seeking rest and finding none, seeking occupation, seeking the means to relieve the day's hunger, the dream that lured men hither is soon dissipated, the charms of novelty fly before inexorable destiny, and the dazzling pictures of the past fade before unrelenting want. Some sink into vice, insanity, suicide, others chancing upon some lucky hit, or through their indomitable exertions overcoming the vicissitudes that beset their path, rise to eminence, and live to laugh at their former trials; many, very many, go down to the grave alone, unknown, uncared for, with a dying curse upon the tinsel allurements that drew them from home and wrought their ruin. Yet those behind come crowding on, the lessons of sad experience taught others having no meaning for them. Well, let them make the venture. Life, after all is but a wager, and he alone is sure to lose who will not stake it. Now that this grand festival is over, and the morrow has come, stand on the corner of a street in cosmopolitan San Francisco and watch the faces as they pass. Behold what manner of men are these ? Out of great tribulation they have come, some of them unscathed; or it may be they are yet in trouble. The once innocent, happy, and contented look lies deeply buried under business care and nervous striving. You see forms bent by labor, limbs mutilated by accidents, faces furrowed by disappointment or disease, hair whitened by sorrow and remorse, eyes dimmed and bleared by sensuality, cheeks flabby and 230 NATION-MAKING. bloated by drunkenness, the spirit clouded with shame and the conscience seared with the cinders of helL And among those who have overcome, who have succeeded in life's battle, you see their fossilized features, their intellectual inanity, and the gloomy light that glimmers from a hopeless heart, from hearts yet burning in the unquenchable fire of avarice, each of which knoweth its own bitterness. How many wrecked lives are here; how many have already gone down to perdition unknown and uncared for, buried beneath mountain snow, rotting at the foot of a precipice, devoured by wild beasts or laid under the ground by strangers who knew not even their names 1 Nevertheless from behind these pain-chiselled features shines out many a noble soul, whose battlings and victories and defeats none but itself can ever know; its blunted sensibilities and dead energies making it a thing objectionable to its fellows. Let him who would study the effect of mind upon body, the influence of the moral upon the intellectual, the subtle impress of wrong-doing and right-doing upon the human face, pause here a moment, for on no other corner in Christendom will he find such riddles to solve. What were to them the attractions of climate, the seductions of scenery, the natural wealth and good qualities of the country ? Blinded by their losses and mishaps many saw neither beauties nor benefits. Disgust and home-sickness enveloped them like a cloud ; and not until they neared Sandy Hook on their return did the sun seem to shine. The eyes of others were by their very successes so fastened upon the ground that they couPd not see the stars; so absorbed were their minds in their various pursuits, that the beauties of earth were lost upon them.^ The thought of making in California a permanent home was at the first entertained by few. To achieve wealth, at least to gather gold enough to satisfy moderate desires, to pay off the mortgage on the old home, to II ADAPTATIONS AND RECONCILIATIONS. shield the aged parents, or assist brothers and sisters to establish business, or peradventure to marry, and then to return—such was the ambition of nearly every man who entered California in 1849. To rear a family in such a place as the country where were neither schools nor churches, where, upon the surface at least, men were as uncouth as bears, and coarser and more brutal than the aboriginals before the charm of the wilderness was broken, was not to be thought of, and the towns, hot-beds of iniquity, were but little better. Meanwhile circumstances interposed to modify their views. Often is chronic home-sickness cured or at least alleviated by the receipt of letters and papers. Not that affection is thereby diminished, but being transported by these missives to familiar scenes, longings to be there are in a measure satisfied; fears arise lest the prospects of success have been drawn in too high colors, and considerations arise as to one's condition if at once returned thither. Hence the wealth- seeker becomes more reconciled to wait a little longer and improve his prospects. The realization of such hopes was not frequent. Of all the first steamship pioneers, who deemed themselves so fortunate in arriving at the new El Dorado before any of the thousands then preparing to follow them, how few succeeded in securing the coveted wealth or lived to enjoy the placid old age of opulence and ease so often dreamed of! Bags of gold, wealth —all were but husks on which these prodigals fed. By autumn 1850 the character of the population was somewhat changed. The only object was no longer to delve for gold wherewith to buy pleasure at the east; most of the class intent on that purpose had returned home or were still at work in the mines unable to return. Those who now came included many returned Californians bent on making California their permanent residence. With the arrival of virtuous women, and of men with their families, the moral aspect of California began to change, and the f 232 NATION-MAKING. tendency at one time apparent of making women masculine was corrected. The influence of individuals grew fainter by degrees as society assumed form and comeliness, and began to issue its mandates as a concentrated and crystallized fact, based on the common-sense of rational communities of intelligent men. But society had long to struggle with a lack of coherence; its several elements required time to coalesce. There was too much change, too much competition, too much manifestation of the spirit of egoism; but to all of which time brought a remedy. It could already be seen that a brilliant society, composed of the intellectual and polished from all nationalities, was within the reach of San Francisco, and that this magnificent fusion of the elegant and refined, each contributing the best traits, would some day be achieved. As yet we find a marked contrast in the free and friendly mingling of men and women here and elsewhere. This is one phase of the restlessness connected with migration fever that drove men hither, with the nomadic and desultory mining life and gambling spirit, and the periodicity of farming and many other industrial operations. It is also attributable to the frivolous disposition of the women of an inferior class as compared with the males, under the eliminating influence of distance, difficulty of access, and frontier hardships, and too much intent on marrying money for enjoyment and display. Indisposed for household duties, she has given an abnormal development to hotel and lodging-house life, with its ease and indolence, and has consequently widely undermined the taste for domesticity and for the home circle. Among other results is an increasing host of unmarried men, a forced recourse to public places of amusement, and a giddiness of temperament which is not conducive to the maintenance of the staid moral tone of puritan times. Neither separations nor great wealth are conducive THE NEGLECTED WIFE. 233 to quiet marital relations. How many illiterate men, in times of early poverty married to illiterate women, when riches made them worshipful among their fellows, and redder lips and brighter eyes than those of their old and careworn helpmeets smiled upon them —how many has prosperity thus turned from the faithful partner of former days to fresher attractions, thus sowing seeds of dissension, soon growing into weeds of discord and divorce! Moreover, in a country where women were comparatively few in number, the neglected wife always found friends of the opposite sex to lend their sympathy and advise separation. In California the ease in dissolving marriages was only equalled by the facility with which meretricious unions were pronounced legal. The world may look upon the graceless doings of the past and censure, but the soul of progress is not of that world. The prim and puritanical may regard the profligate acts of the pioneers, and heave a sigh of righteous wrath, but the prim and puritanical are blind to the great mysteries of civilization; for at all epochs in the refining of the race, such deeds, and worse, are patent, and to these and kindred evils sanctimonious imprecators owe their very primness and purity. The achievement of great social results requires a deep stirring of the different elements, even to the noxious settlements at the bottom. These times, and the like, were the world's nurseries of freedom. The knees of tyranny smote together, and all the world felt it, when France and 1792 made kings of the canaille. Does the world yet fully comprehend it? California and 1849 were the first to make capitalists of the masses, the first to break down the flimsy fabric of caste and social duplicity, the first to point effectively the finger of scorn at time-honored cant, hypocrisy, and humbug. Here the nations of the earth met together and learned the first lesson of social freedom, freedom from that hateful! est and strongest of all tyrannies, the eye, not of God, but of 234 NATION-MAKING. conservative society. Then they dispersed, and came again, and again dispersed, and the winds of heaven never scattered seeds further or more surely than these migrations and remigrations did the sublime and simple doctrines of social liberty without license, of individual self-restraint without social tyranny. In the admixture of races in California we have practically a congress of nations, whose effect upon the good-will and advancement of mankind will be felt more and more as the centuries pass by. In the interchange of mutual benefits which fuse under the influences of good government and free institutions, and the cords of sympathy radiating hence to every land, barriers of sectional jealousy and prejudice are broken down, national eccentricities are worn away, and every man begins to see something good in his neighbor. Nor is this all. This fusion of the races, this intermixture of the best from every nation rises and swells into a leaven, which reacts upon the original contributors, and leavens the whole mass of mankind. CHAPTER XI. TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. Have I not heard the sea puffed up with winds, Rage like an angry boor, chafed with sweat ? —Taming the Shrew. Probably never was there so favorable an opportunity for working out one of the grandest of race problems as in the republic of the United States during the first half century of its existence. The people who declared separation from Great Britain, and fought out their independence with consummate courage and self-reliance, were among the noblest of the earth. There were none to be found, among the most favored nations, of higher manhood, of freer minds, or purer hearts. Intellectually emancipated above all others, their purposes were exalted and their lives heroic and virtuous. Trained in the school of adversity and forced to self-denial, forced to carve out their fortunes, to subdue the wilderness, to subdue their own passions, they had acquired a hardihood, a physical and moral endurance, a self-adaptation to circumstances, and the power of subordinating circumstances to an iron will, such as could be found in no other community. And as they themselves had been disciplined, so they taught their children—to work, endure, worship God, govern themselves, and be intelligent and free. The material conditions were most favorable; lands unlimited, prolific soil, temperate climate, with no demoralizing metals or servile race. They had come for conscience' sake, for religious and political liberty, 236 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. not for gold or furs. The native men and women they encountered were poor material for slaves, preferring to die rather than work; so they let them die, even helping them betimes. Wild men and wild beasts were in the way, and it was the will of God that both should disappear from the forest when the men of conscience laid their axe at the root of the tree. No start in the race of empire-building could have been better; and had this course been preserved, all other nations would now be far behind. Had there been exercised less haste; had the men of nerve and conscience, of muscle and morality, been less eager to get rich, less eager to see forests cleared, lands populated, towns built, and government established; had they been satisfied to be wise and prudent, rearing sons and daughters to work and abstain, to cultivate body and mind alike, expanding in strength, intelligence, and virtue, and reserve for them and their descendants the vast domain which has been given to pthers, tongue cannot tell the result. The mistake arose from lack of patience and foresight. The theory was that there was practically no limit to land. The watchword was freedom; air and water were free, likewise religion and government, also land. All were the free gift of God, and should be free to all the children of God, to white and black, to Christian and barbarian. The commonwealth should be erected on this basis, and all the nations of the earth should be invited to participate. All mankind should find on one spot of earth at least freedom in its fullest extent, freedom of body, mind, and estate. Here was truly great magnanimity displayed by our venerated forefathers, both in theory and practice; we will not inquire too closely as to the part, if any, played by an inordinate desire for wealth and progress. For a hundred years every possible effort was made to bring in population, fill up the country, and get rid of the land. Every possible inducement was offered; all should be free to think and act and enjoy; even TANGLED LOGIC. 237 our government we would divide with all the world. Little attention was paid to quality; everything in the shape of a man counted, and one man was as good as another in the sight of God and under the banner of freedom. With some of fair endowment was gathered much of the world's refuse, and so the country was peopled. Nevertheless, in due time, the logic of our well- planned institutions became unreasonable and erratic in certain quarters, sometimes puzzling to the simple mind. There is the enigma of the African, who amidst a glorious exuberance of freedom is first made slave and then master, and seemingly as much out of place in one position as in the other. But while the black man has thus been made to undergo the irony of American liberty, the white European enters into the enjoyment of rulership at; once, while the off-colored Mongolian is permitted to be neither slave nor master. It was natural to quarrel with Great Britain over the great Oregon game-preserve; nations like men enjoy their disputes if by any twist they can found them on some fancied principle. When the great slice was secured from Mexico, the Americans who traversed the continent were angry to find the charming valleys of California so largely occupied by Mexicans. And when gold was found in the Sierra foothills, the question immediately arose, Can foreigners carry away our nuggets ? American miners said No, but American statesmen, having before their eyes precepts and traditions, said Yes. Nevertheless, the Pike county men drove out Mexicans and frightened away Frenchmen, while the state legislature levelled its anathema at the Chinese in t^e form of a foreign miners' tax, of first twenty dollars, but finally reduced to four dollars, the former sum being more than could be extorted from poor men with poor implements working ground which had been abandoned by the superior race. 238 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. Thus it occurred that not until the utmost limit of their country had been reached by westward pushing settlers, on the shores of the Pacific, did the people of the United States take thought of what they had been doing, California being the first to enter a practical protest against the unlimited and indiscriminate admission of foreigners. But before this the evil had been done. The republic had not posed before the world as the land of limitless freedom during a century or more for nothing. Low Europeans had come hither in droves, lowering the standards of intelligence and morality, and polluting our politics. Nor was the ground taken by California in opposing foreign immigration reasonable or tenable; her attitude and action did not arise from the honest and sincere convictions of h er best citizens. Instead of levelling her influence against the principle, she made war alone on an individual class, on a single nationality, not by any means the one that had done, was doing, or was likely to do, the greatest injury to the commonwealth; indeed, it was the most harmless class of all, its chief offence being the only one which was never mentioned, the fact that it would not and could not vote. The general government took the matter quietly. It could not yet see any great mistake it had made ; it would not see the cess-pools of immorality in all the larger cities, and how filthy had become its politics; above all, it could not all at once turn its back upon tradition and give the lie to a hundred Fourth-of- Julys. But in time demagogism made an impression, and a reluctant consent was finally secured to exclude from our shores any further accession of low Asiatics, while still permitting low Africans and low Europeans not only to come to their heart's content, but to mingle in our government and become our masters, attaining their ends by means so vile that no honest man can enter the lists against them. IL OUR TOO HASTY FOREFATHERS. Few enjoy hearing the unpopular side of a question. Still fewer care to present the facts on both sides of a disputed proposition. It is a thankless task, bringing down upon the head that undertakes it the condemnation of all concerned. We prefer our prejudices to facts; we do not like enlightenment that disturbs our self-complacency. Nevertheless, every question has two sides, and it is not always time lost to calmly look a subject through, instead of shutting the eyes and surrendering to blind tradition, or bellowing for whichever proposition pays. The Chinese question rarely receives notice on more than one side, and at the narrowest part of that. Like almost every disputed point, it is not a point at all, but something wider and deeper than was ever dreamed of until it came to be sounded. As between the Chinaman's side and that of other foreigners, there is indeed the point; but it widens as we consider Asia's side and America's, man's side and God's. In passing upon, let alone proving, any one of the many propositions surrounding the main proposition, we encounter questions as difficult of solution as the main question itself. For instance, it has been generally held here in America, as we have seen, that immigration from Europe is desirable; that it is beneficial to have our lands occupied as soon as possible, reclaimed from savagism and placed under cultivation. If we ask why it is a blessing, the answer is, the more population the more wealth and development. But are population, wealth, and-development desirable before every other consideration ? Our large cities have population, wealth, and development, and they are hot-beds of corruption, morally and politically rotten. Is this state of things in every respect so much better than when the wild man chased the wild buck over these now incorporated grounds? Again, good lands are becoming scarce. The descendants of Americans are rapidly multiplying. Soon there will be no more new lands for them. Is 240 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION it conducive to the highest good of the commonwealth so hastily to partition soil among strangers ? Or if it be best to have the land quickly occupied, should we not discriminate as to the quality of humanity admitted for colaborers in race and nation making ? We certainly do not want the yellow-skinned heathen to marry with our sons and daughters, and occupy our lands; but do we want the black, bad-smelling African, or the quarrelsome European ? This, then, is one side of the question: that a low class of immigration is worse than none; that it is better for a people to do their own work rather than hire it done; that the Chinese are certainly objectionable, being heathen, filthy, immoral, and inexorably alien in heart and mind to all our institutions, social and political. The other side is : that even if no immigration is desirable, if we admit any we should admit all; that the Chinese are no more objectionable than others; that laborers are required to develop agriculture and manufactures; and that it is not desirable that any low class of foreigners should amalgamate with our people or meddle in our politics. If material development, the occupation, and cultivation of lands, and the unfolding of. mines and manufactures be most desirable, then we deceive ourselves and malign the Asiatic in repudiating him; for he is the best man for that purpose, better than the African or the European. He works as the steam-engine, the cotton-gin, woollen-mill, and sewing-machine work, or as the mule or gang-plow—that is he does the most work for the least money, absorbs the least in food and clothes, and leaves the wealth he creates for general use, getting himself out. of the country when the country has no further use for him, not stopping to agitate, or amalgamate, or try his hand at bribing, ruling,.and demoralizing the too susceptible Americans, and carrying away with him the few metal dollars which he has justly earned. I High wages may affect humanity, and raise the MACHINES AND MACHINE-MEN. standard of comfort and intelligence in the community, but it is low wages that promote manufactures or other material development. It is idle to argue, as men will do, that the California raisin maker, or cigar, or cloth, or leather manufacturer, can enter the world's market and compete more successfully having to pay for labor two dollars than one dollar a day. For twenty years Chinese labor has acted as a protective tariff, enabling California to establish wealth- creating industries, which form the basis of her present and future greatness; and it would be about as sensible to drive out all steam-engines or other machinery as for this reason alone to drive out the Chinese. Again, wages, the price paid for labor, is a relative quantity. Low wages, other things being equal, are no more detrimental to comfort and the general well- being of the community than high wages with the price of commodities correspondingly high, and the labor wage regulates the prices of raw material as well as of the manufactured article. Chinese labor is in some branches little cheaper than white labor. The variations of wages are affected by the efficiency and faithfulness of the laborer, and not by religious belief or the color of the skin. In California a Chinese cook now receives from twenty-five to thirty-five dollars a month, and is generally preferred to a white cook at the same rate, particularly on farms, because he will do more and better work, and with less complaining. But the Chinese are becoming every day more independent. They comprehend the situation fully. Labor has no more conscience than capital; when there is a scarcity it raises the price. The European assumes that he is a better man than the Asiatic, in which position he is upheld by the politician seeking votes, by tradesmen desiring^ custom, and by newspapers desiring circulation. Yet he is unwilling to enter the arena beside the Mongolian, put his superiority to the test, and allow compensation to be measured by merit. He is captious and Essays and Miscellany 16 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. critical, alleging that he is humiliated and labor degraded thereby, though he does not object to follow the horse or work beside a steam-engine. It is mainly an excuse with him. When offered work at good wages he too often demands yet higher pay and fewer hours, with the slowest possible movement of the pick and shovel. .He is quick to take offence, and ever ready to abandon work and smoke his pipe on the street corners among his growling companions. He does not want to be a laborer unless he can be at the same time master, and rule in labor as in government. The solution of the new civilization's labor question is not to be found in Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill. There may be a return to New England's early ways, when the farmers' sons and daughters did the work, with or without a hired man or two, and in the town factories the native poor found a place. B^ut if this is ever to be, something is to be done in the meantime. Farming lands west of the Mississippi are not laid out in New England proportions. There is more work than the sons can do, and the young lady daughters will not cook and wash for the farm hands. A million laborers are wanted immediately west of the Rocky Mountains, not for purposes of purification, amalgamation, or social or political requirements, but to plant and gather, fence lands and tend stock, preserve products and develop manufactures. They must be had, or the industries of this country will suffer as never before. Where are they to come from? Hence it must be that in the minds of our enlightened advocates of immigration it is not material prosperity alone that actuates them in helping hither one class of workers while repelling another and better class. Is it philanthropy, then, that broad benevolence which would bring in all the world to enjoy our liberties and our lands ? It must be something of this kind. We seem to be suffering for amalgamation of L THE VOTING-MACHINE. some sort; we have no desire to join hearts and minds with those of the steam-engine, the mule, or the Mongolian, and through union with these agencies hand down to posterity our time-honored institutions. Why not? We might do worse. We have done and are doing worse. While one part of the commonwealth has hugged to its bosom the black African, who is not half so white as the half-white Mongolian, the other portion has been inviting equally objectionable elements from the east. We have made our master the low European, who has befouled our politics and demoralized the nation more than all the Mongolians or steam-engines therein. The cess-pools of Europe, which in the name of immigration we have been draining into our cities for the last century, have finally raised such a moral and political stench as should fully satisfy all lovers of America and haters of Asia. No! No Mongolian amalgamation after this! Rather let celestials sit here quietly and smoke all the opium forced by England on China than make more American citizens of the world's refuse humanity! Leaving out our worthy colored citizens as not worth discussion, the comparison narrows to the good and bad qualities of low Asiatics and low Europeans; for the inflowing of one or the other of these classes may seriously affect the future well-being and advancement of these United States. The question after all has so far been, not which, if either, is the better or worse, but wherein lies expediency ? This is the aspect with our governors, legislators, and judges, likewise our demagogues and all who pander to ' selfish interests. Yet this is carefully kept in the background, and sound arguments are seldom touched. In our government, the right of suffrage makes the man ; it does not matter if it be a lamp-post, or a sack of bran, if it votes it is as good an American citizen, so far as this great prerogative is concerned, as Daniel Webster or Abraham Lincoln. It is fortunate we have so many citizens already made, so much is de- r 244 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. pendent upon them. Could the Chinaman vote, there would be no Chinese question; could the European not vote, there would be no Chinese question. It is somewhat remarkable that our late imported brethren from Europe could in so short a time after coming to America, not only snugly establish themselves as American citizens, and gain possession of so large a part of the government, but could set the people at large barking against China, not only the newspapers and politicians, but all who read the newspapers and listen to the politicians. The politician readily perceives that by cursing China he obtains votes, and the editor in like manner seeks readers. It is safe to say that there is not a single public journal or politician on the Pacific coast to-day, our worthy regulators from Europe being present, that dare come out and speak in favor of the Chinese. It is remarkable, I say, such unanimity of opinion, and that too where in far more trifling matters it is the custom for these champions of free thought and progressive civilization to take sides and fight, doing it upon principle, and because in fighting is the greatest gain. Our masters from Europe are deserving of great credit in converting so thoroughly and universally our foremost men, opinion-makers, society-regulators, preachers, teachers, and whiskey-sellers. Such is the power of the ballot in this commonwealth, making meal-bags of men and men of meal-bags, and granting to all, with wonderful clearness, to discern the path wherein their true interest lies! At the beginning of the great influx into California the American miner prepared with knife and pistol to promulgate the doctrine of exclusion against all foreigners. Teutons and Celts escaped with a growl, while the persecution fell heavily on Spanish-Americans and others whose hue stamped them conspicuously as aliens. They accordingly moved away by the thousands, leaving the more tenacious Mongolian to bear the brunt. As the gold placers were skimmed of ASIA AND EUROPE. 245 their surface attraction the American turned to more profitable pursuits, and his wrath cooling, made less objection to foreigners taking a share in the scrapings. Even the Chinaman obtained respite awhile, and was permitted to serve in humble capacity in the new industries unfolded. Stumbling here against the low European, the jealousy of the latter revived the smouldering persecution. But aside from all this, and placing the low European and Chinaman under analysis, what do we see? Little to choose between them. Neither are very comely, nor very clean. John boasts a few thousand years more of nationality than the European, but the latter has made the better progress. One shaves the head and braids the hair too much, the other too little. One has oblique eyes, the other an oblique mouth; one smokes opium and drinks tea, the other smokes tobacco and drinks whiskey; one is a penitentiary builder and police courtier, the other a highbinder and bone-shipper; and finally, one swears in one language and the other in another. As regards relative enlightenment and debasement, that depends on ideas and standards. Asia was cultured while Europe was yet barbaric. There are few Asiatics in America who cannot read and write to some extent. To all appearances their intellect is as bright as that of the Europeans, both being far above that of the African. The Chinese quarter in San Francisco is more filthy than other parts of the city, and the low Europeans do not so herd here; but in New York and London the low European quarter far exceeds in fever-breeding foulness any thing in California. The Chinese are not always and altogether neat in person, orderly, docile, economical, industrious, tractable, and reliable, but they are more so than any other working class in America. The low Europeans are not always and altogether turbulent, fault-finding, politically intermeddling, drunken, r 246 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. quarrelsome, brutal, blaspheming, but they are more so than any other working class in America. The Chinese have some prostitutes, but they are mostly patronized by white men, who themselves have ten to the celestial's one. All the world is bidding against us in the labor mart, offering work and its equivalent at far lower rates than are ruling here. Professor Levi shows that in 1874 the common laborer received in England $22 a month; in Scotland $20; in Ireland $14; on the continent of Europe $10; in Russia $6; and in China $3. How can we expect to develop our resources on a large scale, when others are offering the products of labor at prices so much lower, and are growing rich thereby ? Yeh we are told not to avail ourselves here in California of the low wages in China. There are many objections to the Chinese and cheap labor, for both, while conferring benefits, entail great curses. They make the poor poorer and the rich richer. Many producers and few consumers make a dull market. Better restrain industrial ambition within prudent bounds and let our own children do the work, and let all foreigners stay at home. We cannot christianize these ieathery Asiatics; the other foreigners are too Christian. There are advantages in spending as well as in saving. If we want our cities quickly enlarged, 150,000 European laborers imply 600,000 inhabitants, on the basis of four to a family, with homes, schools, teachers, books, papers, churches, theatres, manufactories, arti- zans, traders, and professionals; 150,000 Chinamen signify merely that number of ignorant debased machine laborers, with very few of the elevating adjuncts of culture upon which to spend their earnings. Moreover, the earnings of the latter do not remain in the country, but are forwarded to China, at the rate of several millions of dollars a year, thus causing an incessant drain on our resources, and that to a CHINESE COMPETITION. 247 country which takes but little of our exports, and sends us in return the staple articles of food consumed by the Chinamen on our coast. It were surely better that our cities should not be too rapidly enlarged, our manufactures increased, and our lands cultivated under such adverse conditions. Chinamen intrude on our trade offering to work for months without pay; but having learned the art, or stolen the inventions that have cost years of toil, they turn upon the over-reaching employer, reduce him to bankruptcy by competition and cheap imitations, cast the white workmen into the street, and force the apprentices into hoodlumism. The white man must subsist, but he is obliged to compete with these cattle, and consequently to live as meanly, feed as cheaply, and leave his family in a like condition. - And society will brand trim a worthless fellow, and treat him accordingly if he fails to house and clothe the family in accordance with its rules of decency, or if he allows his children to grow up in ignorance and vice. Here-, in lies the root of the evil. The Chinaman by neglecting to conform to our standard of life, undermines our civilization and infringes on our social and political laws. Other foreigners, of more cognate and sympathetic races, learn to conform to bur customs, if only by assuming the duties of marriage. Behold the effect of debasing competition on the white population of the southern states, where a few grew wealthy at the expense of the community. The class known as "low whites" was once composed of happy family men and prosperous farmers, like those who make this occupation so honorable and wealth- creating in the northern states. The negro came, a cheap competitor. Labor was degrading. The master who formerly worked would no longer mingle at the task with the slave, to whom labor was now delegated. He grew rich and began to ignore his neighbor, his former equal, whose larger family, or smaller estate, forbade the hire or purchase of a negro, and TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. obliged him to cling to labor, now already branded as slavery, Negro competition reduced the poor man's income until he could no longer afford comforts, barely necessaries, or education for his children. Bred under such circumstances the son remained ignorant, grew coarse, fell lower in the social scale, and was despised even by the negro, who fed well while he starved. The "white trash" still remain in the position to which they were thus forced; for although the negro is now free, and his labor the labor of the free man, yet it still bears the stigma of the lower race. The effect of progressive civilization has been to exalt,labor. Not long since the merchant was regarded as a contemptible usurer, the chaplain and scribe as menials, the artisan and laborer as serfs, and as such they lived meanly. Every advance in culture has tended to increase wages, and to raise the classes to greater equality. The merchant & now among the foremost in the land, the chaplain, the writer, are prominent members of society, artisans and laborers share with others their comforts, luxuries, and institutions, and are prepared to contribute their quota to sustain a civilization fraught with such blessings. Shall we, by receiving another low race, repeat the negro plague, and nullify these years of progress? The Chinese threaten to become even worse than the negroes, for they have stronger if not baser passions; they live more meanly, and have no family or interest in the country. Our boys are growing up and need a trade. The welfare of the community demands as strongly that this opportunity shall be given them, as it demands that children shall be trained in morals and given a common-school education. In building up industries by means of a low race, we establish them on an insecure footing, since an alien people without family ties, and without desire to remain, cannot become skilful enough to compete with the finished products of more intelligent races, nor furnish the inventive spirit by which they shall pro- L ANTI-CHINESE VIEW. 249 gress. One cheap industry demands another, based on similar labor; one branch drags down the others. Imbued with our spirit, the youth objects to mingle with the class whose degradation pollutes every industry. Hoodlumism and disorder are the result, leading to national deterioriation. A struggle of races might ensue, resulting not in the survival of the fittest, but of numbers; for while the white man surpasses the Chinaman and negro in reasoning and invention they can outstrip him at lower work and overwhelm him by numbers. The Roman empire sank with its culture before barbaric invasions into the dismal slough of the middle ages. The vigor and intellect of the Anglo-Saxon cannot be sustained on a handful of rice. Blood intermixture is no less repugnant to the American mind than to the Asiatic, but should it ever come to pass, a mongrel race would be the consequence. The mulatto and the mestizo are unquestionably inferior to almost any unadulterated people. The mixed races of Mexico are probably the finest specimens of a hybrid population on the globe. Yet how inferior in enterprise, in originality, in prudence, in ability, to the Spanish ancestor, or in many respects even to the native Aztec. Social and political anarchy and intellectual stagnation have overspread the land; the spirit of progress has never truly overspread the land. Wages will adjust themselves, and monopoly disappear. Limited prostitution is considered necessary to check yet darker crime; but general immorality is destructive. If Chinese, mules, or steam-engines are needed in certain industries, employ them, but with due precaution, within the reasonable limits of a protective tariff which aims to foster the best interests of the nation. So argue many. Whatever may be said for and against the presence of the Chinese among us, it is but fair to state that the evil has been greatly exaggerated. The question r 250 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. is not treated with that judicial fairness which it demands; and it never has been. He who finds the Asiatic beneficial is blind to the evils he brings upon others; and he who suffers from his presence sees no good in him. The dark picture in the preceding pages applies only to continued immigration. So far the benefits received from the Chinese influx, in laying the foundation for many indispensable industries, such as vineyards, irrigation canals, and the overland railway, probably balance the evil inflicted in other directions. But by those whose occupation it is to pander to the prejudices of the people ; by politicians, by legislators, by our governors, our representatives in congress, and especially by our printed exponents of public opinion, more than by those directly benefited or injured by the Mongolian immigration, are multitudinous warped facts and false statements brought forth. It is not the better class of laborers who most object to the presence of the Chinese. Good men, capable and willing, can always find work, if not in the city then in the country. There are no Chinese among the tramps that infest the country, begging, stealing, and burning. It is the idler and vagabond, who want two days' pay for one day's labor, who clamor loudly and get drunk regularly at elections; these, and women who will not work at all unless everything exactly suits them, and will not go on to the farm scarcely at any price; these are the troublemakers. California is the tramp's paradise. In a land of freedom he is of all men most free, being bound neither by money, society, religion, honesty, nor decency. He is not forced by a rigorous climate into the settled habits required to secure heavy clothing and warm shelter. A blanket in a barn suffices throughout the year, and a little work here and there secures food. Much is said against peopling America from nations not cognate in thought, religion, and language. Why BASE INTERMIXTURES. 251 was this not thought of when we admitted infidel Europeans or Africans. True, these may assimilate in due time, whereas the Chinese never cam But assimilation with a bad element is demoralization for the mass, which is certainly worse than no assimilation. We rail against the Chinaman for lowering the tone of our morality. Yet for one of his hidden cypri- ans, we have a score brazenly trailing their skirts among us. For one of his opium dens we boast whiskey-shops innumerable, spreading their curse over impoverished households, ruined constitutions, and debased minds, into future generations. And more ; China long since sought to suppress the opium evil, but was forced at the mouth of Anglo-Saxon cannon to stay the reform. And now again in 1878 an imperial edict goes forth prohibiting the cultivation of the poppy. Behold China struggling with her great curse! Behold civilized Christian nations lending their aid to the devouring drug, and then throwing it in the teeth of the Chinese that they are debased by it, and making of it a pretext for doing them yet greater injury! As for their filth, slums, and disorder, as bad exist in most large towns. ' Their pagan ceremonies, their predilection for gambling and other weakness, do less harm than many of our spurious sectarianisms, our open races and pools, our veiled lotteries and games, our prurient books and cartoons. Let us cleanse our own skirts somewhat before we declaim so loudly upon the contaminating influence of these heathen. Some couple with this line of complaint the argument that the family is the center and ideal of our institutions, that all our refinement revolves round its hallowed altar; and because the Chinese do not establish families among us—which, by the way, is not true—their presence is hurtful. Others declaim against them for not assimilating, for not marrying our daughters, forsooth. Do we TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. wish them to do so ? The objection that they do not come with their lares and penates as immigrants seeking permanent homes should be put to their credit, for assuredly we do not covet more foreign ditch-water to be absorbed into our veins. They keep out other immigration, it is said; this is by no means an unmixed evil, I would reply. We hear much said about the degradation of labor. Our wives and daughters are degraded by working in the kitchen with black or yellow wenches; our hoodlums are degraded by working in the fields and factories beside yellow and black men. But what shall we say as to the degradation of our politics, our free and noble institutions ? In places where women vote, you may see the first man and matron of the commonwealth, a statesman and his wife for example, a man of means, having large interests in the community and a woman of culture, drive up to the polls and take their places beside a shock-headed greasy negro, and an illiterate foul-mouthed European, and so make their election, the vote of one of these American citizens being no whit better or worse than that of another. So with the thieves in our prisons it is degrading to associate, but with our monopolizing and office-holding thieves we wine and dine with great gusto. With such rank rottenness in social, political, and commercial quarters, it seems twaddle to talk of the degradation of labor. The quiet Chinese are by no means the worst class admitted, if restricted in number. All arguments tending to show the unfitness of the Asiatic to be entrusted with the ballot, siich as the absence of any knowledge of our institutions, the lack of responsibility or interest in them, the certainty that their vote would be bought with money, and the like, apply with equal force to the low European and the African. It is pure political pretence, and the argument offered in that direction verbiage, to say that the ballot cannot be confided to the Asiatic as well as to the OUR DEBASED GOVERNMENT. 253 African. The average Chinaman is far brighter, more intelligent, more energetic than the negro; but no lover of his country desires by any means to see either of them ruling the destinies of this nation at the polls. Are we not governed to-day by the lowest, basest element of our commonwealth; by machine voters under the control of politicians; by units under the sway of bosses and monopolists; by a majority of all the people without regard to qualification of any kind? How long shall our pure democracy, our pure liberty, our pure license last! As the Chinese will neither amalgamate with us nor accept the electoral franchise at our hands, the less can they drag us down, the less damaging their influence upon us. Unjust discrimination is marked. From the first occupation of California by Anglo-Americans, men of every nation were permitted to gather gold and carry it away. Thousands of English and Scotch, French, Dutch, and Spanish came and went, leaving no blessing. And yet they were never greatly blamed. Many of our wealthy and respectable people spend more in useless extravagance abroad than in beautifying or benefiting | California. Many of our rich men have carried off millions, and spent largely and invested largely at the east and in Europe, and yet no one ever questioned their right. Money tricked from the people by political knaves and stock gamblers who never added a dollar to the wealth of California in their lives, may be lavishly emptied into the lap of pleasure abroad and no thought of complaint; but let the miserable Mongolian carry hence his hard-earned pittance, and what a cry is raised! Further: that the Chinese spend so very much less of their wages than the European laborer is not correct. They patronize less the whiskey-shops, those bulwarks of American demagogism, it is true; but they buy flour, cloth ni£ dry-goods, groceries, 254 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. meat, fruit, and many other articles, and they are great patrons of boats, stages, and railways. They pay their government dues, poll tax, and property tax, equally with those who are so eager to drive them out. With all the complaint of starving laborers seeking employment in our cities, it is a question if our average crops could be harvested without Chinamen; and many a farmer's wife is saved a life of drudgery by John's ever-ready assistance. There are a number of industries, particularly manufacturing, which provide employment also for white men, but could not be sustained without the aid of cheap and reliable Chinese labor. Their suspension would throw out of work not alone the men connected therewith, but cut off a series of dependent industries. If there is any difference, the Chinese have greater cause of complaint from the unwelcome interference of Europeans in their system, than Europeans have of the baneful, influence of the Chinese upon their prospects in America. By force of arms Europeans enter China; by general invitation, and under treaty stipulations, the Chinese come to America. Forcing themselves upon the Chinese, the Europeans established places of business, and began trading with the interior, greatly to the damage of native merchants, who, as they expressed it, " suffered fire and water," thereby. Hateful foreigners put steamers on their rivers, to the utter annihilation of fleets of native craft, thus reducing to starvation hosts of pilots, sailors, and laborers. Within a few years thirty foreign steamers were placed upon the Yang-tse-kiang river alone, to the displacement of 30,000 wage- earners. And so it was with every material improvement Europeans sought to thrust upon them. Telegraphs and railways would deprive of employment thousands of worthy men, with wives and children depending on them for food. The mechanical contrivances" are the cheap-labor curse brought by for- AMERJCA IN CHINA. 255 eigners upon China. And have they not as much cause to complain of our inroads as we of theirs? The United States are reaping their share from this invasion and longing for more. When California fell into the lap of the union, China was sending away in European vessels alone one hundred millions of dollars worth of teas, sugar, silks, opium, and other articles. In the same quarter looms the commerce of India, which, since the days of the Pharaohs, has enriched the emporiums of Egypt and of the shores of the Mediterranean; also the important trade of Siam, Corea, and Japan, with America and Europe. Nature has given California the advantage over all the world in securing and centralizing the world's trade with China and Japan. Here may be gathered the rich products of eastern Asia, and hence distributed, passed on eastward over the continent by means of competing lines of railways, and over the Atlantic to Europe. California is the natural entrep6t and distributing point of this valuable traffic. There is much to learn as well as gain in Asia. America may take lessons from this wrinkled and toothless grandame of civilization. The dusky, almond- eyed sons of the primordial east, who reckon their ancestry by scores of centuries, whose government and institutions were ages old before Mohammed, Csssar, or Christ, regard with not unreasonable contempt the upstart Yankee, with his European and African masters, his inconsistencies of freedom, and his pretty new republican plaything. In some things we are contemptible, even in the eyes of a heathen. Professing Christ, we play the devil. Swearing by God, we kneel before Satan. We talk much of justice —rindeed, we have plenty; we buy it as required. We build an altar of equal rights, honesty, and patriotism, and sacrifice upon it offerings of hollow mockery, deeming a lie with legality better than a lamb, and bribery better than the fat of rams. At the sight of our political high priests, Confucius himself might TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. well arise, make of the divine drug bread, and shave anew his people. There are unquestionable evils attending the presence in a free government of a non-assimilative race to which the electorial franchise may not be safely confided, and I heartily agree with those who argue that because we have made one mistake in adopting Africa, it is no reason why we should make another and adopt Asia. We do not want the low Asiatics for our rulers; we do not want them as citizens. Like the low European and the low African they are our inferiors. The tone of our intelligence, of our politics, of our morality, is lowered by associating with them on terms of intellectual, moral, and political equality. As human beings, with human rights, all men are equal. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is the same to all, though all do not make the same beneficial use of that right, and in so far as they fail in this they are not the equal of those who do not fail. There are some advantages and some disadvantages in non-assimilation. There can be no question that the low Europeans have been a greater curse to America than the Asiatic and the African combined. The electoral franchise which we have so freely given them has pluralized their power for evil. Had they never been permitted to vote, our politics had never been so prostituted. Citizenship would then have been a thing Americans might have been proud of. Much corruption and many disgraceful riots would have been avoided, and more than all, we should not to-day be threatened with revolution and disruption by reason of our abased liberties. Because they can assimilate, because they can become blood of our blood and bone of our bone, they are the subtle poison in the veins of our institutions to-day. These aliens, while crying against the grindings of monopolists in railways and manufactures, would establish in our ABASEMENT OF AMERICA. 257 midst a monopoly of labor, and force us to employ them at their own price. They would ignore all rights in the premises save those conforming to their interests and prejudices. It is assumed by many that it is our duty not only to provide with remunerative employment all those who have come or who may come from Europe and from Africa, but that we are in duty bound to keep back those who would come from Asia lest they should interfere with the others. This has been the tendency of all our legislation, a protective tariff upon labor, discriminating in favor of the European and African, and against the Asiatic. I see no reason why we should provide for any of them. The claim advanced by low Europeans is somewhat audacious. They must be paid double the wages of Asiatics, and be fed while the latter may starve; and what is most remarkable, they have their way. They have the whip-hand of California, the whip-hand of politicians and people, and make us do as they will. They form into endless labor leagues, say "boo" and "boycott," and instantly we beg for mercy. We must obey our masters or be punished. Social organisms develop, they are not created. And as every social element is the product of new and strange combinations, the results in individual cases can scarcely be foretold. Intelligent and thrifty men and women make a nation stronger; ignorant and degraded men and women make a nation weaker. Base infusions are the bromine and chlorine which dissipate the gold of our morality that sulphuric fires cannot affect. If the Chinese lie an indigestible mass upon our national stomach, low Europeans have given us a worse political distemper. If the former, like many of our most thoughtful citizens, manifest indifference in the exercise of the franchise, the latter, fresh from filth of poverty and ignorance, with no more knowledge of our ways or sympathy with our principles than their late stolid companions, with a Essays and Miscellany 17 258 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. mental whoop plunge into our politics as if divinely commissioned to rule America. Health, in the body social, consists in the proper performance of its several functions. Society is sound only as the people are pure. When emerging from a savage state societies first begau to crystallize, physical strength and skill were the central or worshipful ideal. Then intellect began to assume sway, and to some extent brute force gave way before reason in the settlement of disputes. But the success through intellectual craft and subtlety, by which business men, orators, and writers become wealthy and great, is but one remove from brute cunning-and force, and must be subordinated to right and principle, to the sensibility and the will, before the highest morality can be approached. There is no doubt that to any country, at any period of its history, and under almost any conceivable circumstances, the accession of men of learning, wealth, and integrity, of broad intelligence, skill, and energy, is a benefit. But with us the question has never assumed this shape. Men of such a stamp do not as a rule emigrate to new countries. They prefer the refined and settled society of their equals; they prefer to live among men of cultivation and learning, and to buy luxuries in the cheapest market. Those who are successful at home seldom go abroad in search of ventures. Never have the rich or the learned as a class come to America; never have those superior in skill, intelligence, and energy come hither from Asia, or from Africa, or from Europe. A few men of extraordinary intelligence and activity have undoubtedly arrived, but most of our best men, I am proud to say, are of home manufacture. We have no need of sending abroad for schoolmasters or for city-builders, and if we adopt an invention or a discovery from beyond any ocean, we are apt to improve on it, and also to return an equivalent in some invention or discovery L INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY. 259 of our own. Nor have well-to-do artisans and agriculturalists left comfortable homes to embark in hazardous enterprise on these shores. Our better class of farmers arid mechanics are not foreigners. The first great mistake of the English colonies in America, was the importation of Africans as slaves. That ever-to-be-abhorred Dutch craft which in 1620 landed the first twenty black bondmen at Jamestown was the curse of God upon America. It was worse than the repartimientos of the Spaniards ; for the enslaved Indian would die, while the more stolid African would not. There was too much work yet to be done in America, too much need of that brain-force and muscle-force which only work gives, for the colonists and their sons and daughters to fold their hands and depend solely upon others for supplying their wants. Hence the sting of the infliction. African slavery,aside from its inhumanity, was a curse. It blasted the soil and the products thereof; it blasted the air and all who breathed it; it blasphemed God and humanity, morality, religion, and all the institutions of progress. It had not even the excuse of the slavery of savagism, as these negroes were not prisoners of war, but were stolen; civilized Christians stealing, and selling, and working human beings like cattle. For nearly two and a half centuries the evil grew until, midst mighty convulsions which well-nigh destroyed the integrity of the nation, the tumor burst, scattering its horrible stench far and wide, and in the cure engendering almost as great an evil as during its growth. Having these emancipated chattels on our hands, to the number of little less than four millions in 1860, and being moved with pity for the wrongs we had done them ; or, more truthfully stated, the dominant party needing votes with which to hold their power, this black and brutish horde was taken to our national bosom, which has been rank-smelling and sooty ever since. 260 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. It was not until after the war of 1812 that large accessions were received from Europe, and as new western states were then rapidly springing up, the impure atmosphere thus engendered was carried off into the wilderness. The current of immigration rose midst fluctuations from about 4000 yearly between 1784 and 1793 to 22,240, in 1817. The stream broadened and deepened until in 1875 not far from six millions of Europe's indigestible masses had been vomited on our shores, the rate being since 1820 over 100,000 per annum, not more than 300,000 having come over previously. Of these, over 2,000,000 were from Ireland, over 1,000,000 from Germany, a quarter of a million English, 50,000 Scotch, and about 200,000 French. Whatever may have been the material advantages of these fuliginous clouds, the wholesale adulteration of Anglo-American blood has unquestionably resulted in tenfold as monstrous moral and political evils as Africa and Asia combined has brought or is likely to bring upon us. To large land holders who wish to build cities and sell the suburbs to manufacturers in want of artisans, to merchants in need of customers, to lawyers looking for clients, and doctors in quest of patients, to politicians hankering for office, to traffickers, schemers, and non-producers of every quality, the speedy peopling of this land, and every part of it, seemed of all policies the wisest and best, and of all things the one most greatly to be desired. It is only a question of time when America will recognize her mistake. To behold America as it will be, we have but to look at Europe and Asia as they are. Europe and Asia overcrowded and with no outlet ; Europe and Asia teeming with a rapidly multiplying population of ignorant and diseased humanity with no America or Australia to empty it into. Westward civilization has crowded, until on these CROWDED HUMANITY 261 Pacific shores we front the east. The circle is complete. A few centuries, and in point of population, in point of packed and stifled humanity, America will be what Europe and Asia now are, only worse, infinitely worse, in having no outlet, save through war, or pestilence, or other dire inflictions which shall cut off before its time portions of the redundant race. Such inroads are contracted however by our civilization, which tends to the preservation of life, and to the speedier attainment of its geographical limit. The law of fecundity alone promises to increase our number with every successive generation, while the sources for food supply are correspondingly decreasing. However this may be, there is no danger of immediate distress, either from lack of land or increase of population. There is still left considerable good land, while in crowded and well-tilled countries like England agricultural products may readily be much increased. France does not produce proportionately as much as England, and America is far behind France in this respect. This aspect renders only more glaring the huddling in our cities of hordes of hungry laboring men and women, especially inflowing foreigners, howling against the rich, when by scattering on unoccupied lands they might prove a blessing to themselves and to the country, and banish poverty from America these hundred years to come. From this gathering result the many uncalled-for strikes, riots, and disorders which have disgraced our republican organization before the world. They are due to such alien rabbles as in San Francisco meet upon the sand-lots and threaten fire and pistol to all who employ Chinese labor in preference to their own. Not long ago with pointed bayonet we demanded commercial relations with China; now our bayonets are pointed against those whose friendly intercourse we so lately coveted. It is not the ultimate aim herein that we detest, as it embraces much good, but m 262 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. the means employed and the manner of it. In view of this, well might we exclaim with astounded Europe: Our civilization and Christianity, our boasted liberty and free enlightened institutions which aspire to set the world an example in progress and prosperity, what are they that they should fear the weak and inoffensive touch of paganism ? What folly in us to heap curses on others for practising the very virtues we preach daily to our children 1 We have suddenly grown, strangely concerned, fearful least a hundred thousand Asiatics, begging at our back door the favor of scrubbing our kitchens, that these shrinking, trembling creatures • should at some day, not far j distant, arise and with a wave of their hand overturn and scatter to the four winds the institutions of fifty millions of freemen. Fifty thousand Englishmen in Bengal hold in subjection one hundred million souls; and here fifty million Americans tremble before a hundred thousand Chinamen. Asia and America acknowledged the right of universal and unrestricted migration in the Burlingame treaty. In its fifth article both "cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance." After having trampled down the scruples of this mummyfied eastern civilization so far as to obtain this concession, we might blush to be foremost in breaking the compact, and acknowledging before the world that our institutions are unable to withstand the presence of heathenism among them. Our liberty, our Christianity, our intelligence, our progress are nothing if they do not offer mankind a fairer prospect, a brighter hope, a surer reward. No doubt we have been hasty in this as in many other measures; but if we wish to acknowledge the mistake, and revise our policy, then let our new ruling apply equally to all. One quality the people of the United States have developed in a remarkable degree—that of strain. IL AMERICAN STRAIN. 263 And very properly we may catalogue it among our many virtues. We delight in the accomplishment of great things. To accomplish great things we are willing to strain ourselves. Sometimes we strain ourselves over little things, thinking them great. Often we strain at the gnats of iniquity and swallow a camel. We strain at skepticism and swallow libertinism; we strain at political tyranny and swallow monopoly ; we strain at the low Chinese and swallow the low European. Perhaps the best way to exterminate a national or social evil is for all the people to rush upon it with one accord and stamp it out. It may sometimes be the only way. It may be the best way so to magnify this one evil, that all other evils, though there be among them some as great or greater than the one present pet evil, shall temporarily sink to insignificance beside it. Perhaps this evil has become so rank that the united power of the people is required to put it down, and in no other way can the strength of the nation be so concentrated as by taking up one thing at a time, or perhaps two, leaving all the rest alone until these be extinguished. There must be some tincture of fanaticism on the subject in order to bring men's minds to the proper state of frenzy where they can strike quick and heavy blows, regardless of the consequences. Cool opinions quietly expressed are not sufficient to stop dram-drinking. The matron's scowl of superior virtue on meeting an erring sister, is not sufficient to put down prostitution. There must be thrown into the cause that fiery heat which can only be generated by congregations wrought upon by speeches and discussions. But as to these, our standard evils, gambling, drinking, and prostitution, which the world has tried so often and so unsuccessfully to eradicate, though there are still spasms of reform in these directions, we generally have singled out some other monster to vent our righteous energies upon for the time. 264 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. For fifty years the good people of the northern United States took solid comfort in fighting the great dragon Slavery. In some sections this iniquity on the part of our neighbors stood out in such bold relief as to throw into the shade all the sins of the decalogue combined. In the eyes of the anti-slavery fanatics, nothing good could belong to any man who did not denounce slavery and the slave holders; and so filled with this frenzy were they, that no room remained in their minds or hearts for minor matters. And when the thing was dead they could not refrain from kicking the carcass for years afterward. Temperance zealots, too, sometimes forget that drunkards have rights, and may as justly prescribe what others shall eat, as to be by law restricted in their drink. Nor is it so easy a question to determine which of the two evils is the greater, negro suffrage or negro slavery. This may be the best way, the quickest way, the only way, even though it does lead to some excesses when the blood is up; even though we are thereby thrown into some absurdities, and forget ourselves, forget to exercise that right and reason which we so much desire always to see in others, forget that we are all sinners, that none of us live up to our high privileges in every respect as social beings and citizens, and that if we punish some offences unduly while letting others run at large, we are committing two great wrongs, in punishing one wickedness more than it deserves in comparison with another which is permitted to go unpunished, or so lightly corrected as to give the impression that it is only a small sin. Of late we have singled out two of our several great dragons, and are expending all our energies in their extermination. This is well; but it is well also not to lose our heads and fall into all manner of lyings and self-delusions. Probably there has never been as much nonsense written and spoken in America upon any two subjects, as upon those of polygamy and monuolianism. And in both cases the true cause EXTERMINATION OF EVILS. 265 of offense, the matter of. suffrage, is in the main left wholly out of the discussion—one votes too much and the other too little. In both cases about the only persons affected are the demagogues, whose business it is to pander to the prejudices and depravity of the people. Nor is the strange part of it that in our free and easy government the management of affairs should be so largely in the hands of false and deceiving men, —some of them self-deluded, unquestionably—but that the people at large should be so easily and completely gulled. In concluding this expose of the Chinese question we may say then: That the presence in our midst, in ever-increasing numbers, of low Asiatics, is a palpable curse; and for the people of the United States to permit them to swarm here ad libitum would be about as sensible as to welcome a plague of locusts. They are an abomination, worse than the gypsies in England or the Arabs in Spain. They lie, and steal, smoke opium, and gamble; they cheat, and swear in horrible heathen gutterals, to the horror of white Christians. The Chinese are clannish, crowding themselves into close, filthy quarters; they work too much, loaf about the streets too little, and do not spend money enough. They do not get up strikes; they are not good stump-speakers, they do not care to cut a figure on the floor of the national senate chamber, they do not want to be governor or policeman. White men do and want all these things. The Chinese do not amalgamate; they will not marry our daughters, or seduce our servants; they will not attend mass regularly, or be punctual at an orthodox bible class. They take the food out of the mouths of others lately imported, and now patriots at the polls, patrons of the corner grocery, curb-stone tenders, watchers of the public weal, and who very rightly scorn to shovel dirt never so slowly for less than two dollars a day, while the destinies of the nation are resting on their shoulders. Then again we are very sure that the four hundred f 266 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. millions of these people over the ocean, who have hardly standing room, have sent these fifty or a hundred thousand to our shores to open the way for the four hundred millions; who are even now making and buying a million of ships wherein to come and capture us all, to seize our lands and make us slaves. It is too horrible to contemplate; we must send those who are here back at once, and forbid the four hundred millions to come in their million of ships to capture us and make us slaves. It is quite different with the low African and the low European. They do not work too much, or at too low a wage, or economize too much, or pass by all the drinking shops without looking in, or neglect to run. up a bill at the butcher's if they can get trusted; they will amalgamate, make themselves at home in our houses, do our voting, beg, and steal, and breed beggars and thieves, build and fill our penitentiaries, go to congress, and read a newspaper. This is the kind of populatien we want; it is for the helping hither of such as these that we have immigration societies and secure large contributions. Perhaps it would be too much for me to assert that not one in a hundred of the intelligent men of California are really sincere in their tirades against the Chinese. No doubt they have acquired the habit of regarding these special people as an unmitigated evil, even while employing some of them as farm cooks and in like occupations, in which they excel, and white men and women do not care to engage in. But this I can say, that no clear-headed, unprejudiced, fair- minded and disinterested man can endorse the shiploads of twaddle constantly being written and spoken by demagogues of every denomination about the danger to our institutions, and the demoralization of our people by the Chinese. They are low, ignorant, debased, and filthy heathen; we likewise have low, ignorant, debased, and filthy Christians. Which are the worse ? We want neither, but why single out the HOLLOW OPINIONS. Asiatic to vent upon him this indignation, which is the result wholly of our own folly? As many sound arguments can be brought against tolerating here the African, and twice as many against the presence of the low European. In fact, sound arguments are seldom touched in this connection. The true cause of our special dislike for the Chinese is kept carefully concealed. The politician does not mount the stump and say that the Chinaman must go because he has no vote, but my black brother and my white brother may stay because they have votes. The newspapers do not admit that they say the Chinese must go because it is easier and more profitable to foster current opinion than to enlighten the people. The minister and missionary-do not admit that they say the Chinese must go, because they would lose their situation if they preached against popular prejudice. It is becoming an apparently difficult matter for the American people to please themselves in every particular. They seem quite satisfied to let the low European rule them through unprincipled demagogues, but they profess not to like the Chinaman because he will not amalgamate and meddle in politics. The Mormons, on the other hand, amalgamate too much, and are too many for their neighbors at elections; they vote only for their own candidates, and so politicians cry that they must go. Again, the Chinamen may have their Joss-house and secondary wives to their hearts' content, but not so the Mormons. If, as I have said, we could go back fifty or a hundred years, and say to all low foreigners, white, black, and yellow, " This American land we want for ourselves and our children; we propose to breed here a superior race, and we cannot have our blood debased by constant intermixtures with the common stock of other countries; hence you cannot come here,"—such ground taken would have been clear, logical, and sensible. True, we might not have rolled up wealth and 268 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. population so rapidly, but we would have had what is far better than wealth and population—a nobler race, a purer government, a less artificial society; we would have saved our lands for our sons and daughters, whom we might have taught to labor with their hands and brains, thus avoiding not one but a hundred evils. But we did not do this. While one part of the commonwealth was hugging close to its heart that monster, slavery, with no small blood intermixtures of white and black, the other portion of the nation was spending time and money in bringing to our shores the lower classes of Irish, English, Dutch, Scandinavians, and others of Europe, who presently were put upon an equality, politically and industrially, with the highest, the most intelligent, learned, and wealthy in our land. The most illiterate and stupid dolt, lately from the bogs of Ireland or the coal-pits of England, who had scarcely more intelligent ideas about government and right-doing than a fence-post, could be brought over from Europe, and his vote at an election, which a drink of whisky would buy, was estimated a fair offset for that of Daniel Webster; three of these donkeys were equal to Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. We used to pride ourselves that here in America should be throughout all time the camping-ground of the nations. AH the world were invited to come hither and be happy and be free. Our government was the best in the world; it made all men free and equal, no matter how many slaves it fostered, or how many foreign vagabonds it made citizens. Whatever nature had done, the American constitution was superior to nature, and made Caliban the equal of Pros- pero. So high-minded and free were Americans, with their rich lands and unapproachable institutions, that they soon began to regard with disfavor the older and less open-handed nations, and even went so far sometimes as to force the gates marked "No Admittance." No nation had a right to fence off a part of this earth, II UNDER OTHER CONDITIONS. 269 which was made by the creator of all for the free use of all, and say, "You shall not enter here." In all this a great mistake was made. Free religion is well enough, for heaven is large, and hell is larger still; but lands are limited, and whatever may be said in our self-glorification assemblages, whatever we think we believe about it, our true opinion of our free and enlightened institutions is shown when we take by the hand and politically make first our equal, and then our master, ignorant and rank-smelling foreigners fit only for tending swine. But fortunately we have learned the lesson in time to apply it at least to the people of one nationality. If with the low Asiatic we could at the same time keep out the low African and the low European, it would be better still, but we should be thankful to have had our eyes opened at last, and have taken steps to keep away one bad element, even if others as bad are permitted to come. Had no low-born foreigners ever been admitted, our sons and daughters would have been obliged to work, and work is strengthening and ennobling. It develops body and mind as no other condition or invention can do. The highest and healthiest civilization is not found along the most fashionable streets of Boston and New York; it is in the more rural districts, where life is less artificial and hollow, and men and women work with head and hands, living piously and virtuously, and rearing sons to take the foremost places in the marts of commerce and the halls of legislation. Young men and women brought up in the hot-beds of our cities to do nothing but minister to their own selfish and too often sinful pleasures are as a rule of little or no value. . They come and go like the soft south wind, leaving no mark. Now the Chinaman, howsoever degraded he is, is a thing that, works; he works diligently, and economizes closely, so that he may have enough to buy himself a small-footed wife when he goes back to r 270 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. China. But however valuable such qualities may be regarded in our children, we do not like them in the imported heathen; we do not want the Chinese here to deprive our children of the great blessings of labor. True, there is the African and European, who sometimes work, and we permit them to come, but that is quite different. They do not work much, or very hard; and then, after due washings and bleachings they intermarry with us, and by and by go to congress. The resulting progeny, it is true, is not of the best stock; there is too much mustang in it; and distributed generally throughout all the states of the union, with its never-ceasing inflowing current, it deteriorates and dwarfs the whole mass. But even if the effect is bad, we like the disposition. We do not wish to have the heathen come here and look down on us, our daughters, and our institutions; we do not wish when they have washed our doorsteps, to have them take the half dollar and spend it in China, though speculating manipulators may swindle the people out of millions, and spend their ill-gotten gains at the east and in Europe and have nothing thought of it. Speculating manipulators are not Chinese; if they were, it would have been a great blessing to this coast. Hence I say that the rise and development of opinion in California on the Chinese question presents one of the most singular anomalies in the history of human societies. It is not so strange in the conclusions arrived at, that the Chinaman here is a nuisance, an unbeliever, un-American, and altogether an unclean thing not wanted in our midst—this is not so strange as is the method by which we reach such conclusions. The arguments employed are so fallacious, the ground taken so fanatical, as to make a disinterested observer question our sincerity or sanity. Going back to the beginning of Anglo-American occupation in these parts, and the rush hither of men from every quarter upon the discovery of gold, and L ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS. 271 we find the great American miner promulgating with knife and pistol the doctrine—not that Asiatics alone, or more than others, should stay away, but that no foreigners should be allowed here. So they made raids on Chinese and Mexicans, Frenchmen and Englishmen—in fact upon all foreigners, killing some and taxing all severely on the ground that we had beaten Mexico fairly out of these gold fields, and that consequently the gold was ours, and not to be scooped up and carried to England, or Egypt, or China. Whether right or wrong in this, they were at least reasonable and logical in their proposition and deduction, and that is more than can be said of our people to-day. The American miners, after some beating and killing of Mexicans, Chinese, and Kanakas, with occasional growls at Englishmen, Irishmen, and Frenchmen, the placer mines meanwhile having been skimmed of their surface richness, concluded that it might be just as well to let foreigners have a share in the scrapings, but to tax them royally for the privilege. Of course the persecution fell heaviest upon the weakest. Under this treatment the Kanakas soon withered; the Mexicans returned to their homes by the thousands, the Europeans gradually moved off, leaving the Chinaman to catch the full force of the blows the great American man continued striking in defence of his life, liberty, and sacred honor. It is just a little farcical to see our great American men fume and bluster over these little Asiatics, who with others came here by invitation, and that of not so very old a date, threatening to annihilate them, to " chaw ?em all up," as did the giant to Jack, unless incontinently they go away and stay away; especially when these same blusterers were so lately before the walls of China, in company with their English brethren, threatening to batter down their gates if they would not let them in. It is just a little comical to see the white skins of this exalted Christian civilization in deep disgust cry 272 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. "pahl" to the smokers of the divine drug so lately forced upon the reluctant Asiatics at the point of the bayonet. As the years passed by, time and whiskey weakened the arm of the honest American miner, so that the Chinamen, burrowing as harmless as mules in thrice- worked-out river bars, found some respite. More of them came and entered upon other pursuits, such as washing clothes, cooking, digging ditches, making railroads, and working in factories; for they proved to be handy and not much given to drunkenness. For all this the true American man cared nothing; he did not wish to cook, wash clothes, or work on a railroad; he could do better; in fact he was glad to get in this wilderness so docile and efficient a servant, to relieve himself and family from some portion of their drudgery. And had these two races been left alone in the matter, nothing more would have come of it. There would have been no bugbear talk of a ■o Chinese invasion, for the American man well knew that he had no reason to fear that the Mongols who had walled themselves in for thirty or sixty centuries were all on a sudden to pour forth from their gates, buy a hundred thousand ships and come over and capture the United States. Had there been none to interfere between the great American man and the little China man, nothing would have been said about the pittance of gold the drudge carried away with him when he went home, leaving in its place the fruits of his labor in the form of a canal, or railroad, or other useful accomplishment, any more than we would think of complaining when the stock-jobber or monopolist carries away to the east or Europe his stolen millions, leaving along histrail thousands of shattered fortunes and moral and political debasement. Nothing would have been said about the poor pigtail's religion; let him have his little, gods, and scatter papers to the devil; what harm can it do? Nothing L ALL VERY LOW. 273 would have been said about indifference to citizenship and amalgamation, or refusal to go to congress. Who wants that good and patient servant, the mule, to become an American citizen, and who wants his blood debased by mixture with that of the African or low European? And yet the mule, the negro, or the European were never so persecuted as the Chinese have been. And the Chinaman is more a necessity in California to-day than was ever the steam-engine or gang-plough. Whether or not a mistake was made fifty years ago in admitting freely a turbid stream of population from Europe, which our people had constantly to absorb, to their eternal debasement, it is very safe to say that it was a great mistake to let this element come in and become our rulers. To have made the mule a voter and our ruler would have been no more foolishly absurd than to make a voter and governor of shock- headed Africans just emancipated from slavery. For such privileges and offices the Indian has more rights and the Asiatic more intelligence. But call this black enfranchisement a piece of pleasantry on the part of republican patriots—at which game they did not win largely—there is still a darker element in our politics. The greatest curse ever entailed upon our government and institutions was in giving the low European a hand in them. Herein lies the cause of most of the political vice and corruption of our large cities; herein lies the cause of our prostituted rights of high-minded and honorable self- government ; herein lies the cause of all California's troubles over the presence of the Asiatics. Instead of cursing the Chinese for having no desire to meddle in our politics, we had better curse ourselves for ever having allowed the negro and the low European to do so. Pythagoras divides virtue into two branches, to seek truth and to do good; whereupon we may conclude that the person or people who do the contrary are vicious. Nor will ignorance or inexperience suf- Essays and Miscellany 18 274 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. fice as a plea for wrong-doing. The immoralities of conventionalism are no less fatal in their effects than the immoralities of inherent viciousness and debasement. Good citizenship comes before pleasurable gratification or the indulgence of tastes; it begins with right conduct in the family, and ends in right conduct in the state. All rational human activities may be ranged under three classes, though not wholly separable: those which tend to the maintenance of life, those which tend to the highest social and political relations, and those which elevate the tastes and gratify the feelings. No doubt many of the champions of the anti-Chinese cause have been converted through their own persistent and dogmatical assertions. But they can hardly help knowing that the arguments they use in support of the cause are fallacious, and their statements are not always borne out by the facts. A disinterested observer cannot but feel that nine tenths of these assertions are insincere, or if those who utter them really believe in what they say, then is the standard of intelligence low indeed, while humbug and hollow cant hold in subordination our politics, our morals, and our religion. It is not the Asiatic, but this same turbid stream from Europe that debases our blood, discolors our politics, makes of republican government a farce, stirs up strife, and lowers the standard of our morals. It is not the Chinaman who does this, for he will not mix himself up in these affairs. The mule, at work upon the highway, does not affect our standard of morals, no matter what may be its habits, however filthy, or however different from humanity. So with the Chinaman; because he is not one with us, because he will not mingle or interfere in our affairs, because he likes his own gods better than ours, his own dress, his own food, his own customs—it is for these very reasons that, like the mule, for many purposes, he is our best and most patient drudge. FILTH AND IMMORALITY. 275 In regard to relative morality; it is by no means a proved proposition that the Chinese are more filthy, or more immoral than Europeans. The great unwashed of Europe on their arrival here we take to our bosoms; come election day we give them rum to drink, place votes in their hands, install them in the various offices of our government, and make them our masters. And thus in proportion as we elevate them we abase ourselves. With regard to the Chinese it is not so. In the presence of the little almond-eyed pig-tail we will assert our great American manhood. He shall not vote. He shall not sit upon the benches of our supreme courts of justice ; he shall not be our master. Nay, we will drive him from our shores before he shall do any of these things, before he shall swallow us up, before this little pig-tail shall swallow up our great American manhood I The Chinese in our small country towns are no more fifthy in their habits than the poor people there of other nationalities; in all large cities of America and Europe there are quarters occupied by white people as filthy and as fever-breeding as any of the Chinese quarters. The Chinese do not steal, or kill, or commit adultery proportionately more than white people. They have some system of purchase and sale of women for vile purposes; is that any worse than the American or European method of using women for vile purposes without bargain and sale, without ownership or protection, but casting them out as men tire of them ? And in regard to opium; will any one for a moment maintain that this drug is one tenth part so great an evil in America as alcoholic drinks and tobacco ? I can understand how the politician, pandering to foreign votes, whether as provincial demagogue or statesman standing on the floor of the national congress, feels called upon, whatever may be his true opinion, to denounce in season and out of season the presence of Asiatics in America. He would not long be a place-holder otherwise. The newspaper that m 276 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. does not energetically and persistently denounce the Chinese, and denounce all who do not denounce them, and that without regard to-any honest opinion of the editor, may as well close its office. Indeed our teachers and preachers are all personally interested. If they speak otherwise than against the Chinese, they could not retain: their places for a moment. But that the intelligent masses should be so bought over, shows two things—the extent and quality of their intelligence, and also what effect years of strong and persistent assertion on the part of newspapers and politicians will have upon the public mind. As I have said, I do not advocate Asiatic immigration, or European, or African, or any other immigration, if only the lower classes come; I advocate here only common-sense and common honesty in dealing with this question. I would urge upon our leading men, whether of the press, the political arena, or the counting-house, to stop pandering to these low foreign voters by heaping odium, by false accusations, upon a class less offending, less meddlesome, less troublesome, more industrious, and in many other respects better than their persecutors, and whose chief crimes are that they neither vote nor read the newspapers. In fine, from the presence of Asiatics in America flow essentially the same benefits and evils brought upon a superior people by base elements from any quarter. Even the irresponsible bachelorhood applies to large groups.of white men. As the low European and the low Asiatic each differ in mind and body, in characteristics and customs, so their effect upon us, our society, our morals, our institutions, our agriculture, manufactures, and general development are each different from that exercised by any other people; and this difference is one of kind rather than of extent. And when from our deep debasement we shall arise, peradventure, through fire and blood, and place under our feet political libertinism, when we shall THE NEW BY-LAWS. 277 restrict the ballot within wholesome limits, placing public affairs in the hands of men of integrity and intelligence, who have a stake in the community, then should we write in the by-laws of our new incorporation: That the infusion into the ranks of an enlightened and progressive people of any foreign faex populi, or low element, from any source, is debasing to the superior race. But times and conditions may offer counterbalancing advantages rendering their presence temporarily profitable. In no event, however, should a base foreign infusion be allowed to become citizens, or to participate in the government, though possibly their clarified children may be permitted to do so. The better class, the educated, the able and enterprising, the wealthy, we may profitably welcome. The Chinese, such as commonly visit our shores, being a low foreign element, their presence is injurious to the general and permanent welfare of America. Africans as a class being base-minded and unintel- lectual, their presence among us is not desirable. The influx of ignorant and low Europeans is detrimental to the highest well-being of America. In equity, all classes of our population should receive corresponding attention to their demands for restricted competitive immigration, and no nationality should be favored above another in the exclusion. Having reached the logical ending of the subject, we might let it there rest. But it will not rest. There is an aspect of the Chinese question outside of politics, outside of the demands of other foreigners or their tools, the demagogues, and outside of any social consideration. We may theorize as to what might have been, or what ought to be ; at the same time we may as well consider what must be, following the logic of necessity. Returning to California, and view- 278 TWO SIDES OF A VEXED QUESTION. ing the Chinese question from the quarter where the first hollow voice of office-seekers and politicians was raised against them, and we ask, What are we to do without them? Take from California to-day Chinese labor and industries will become paralyzed, commerce become stagnant, and absolute ruin overspread vast agricultural areas. So long and so loud has been the cry that the Chinese must go, so blinded are the people to the most vital interests of the commonwealth, that they will not see the approaching danger, or listen to a word against their unreasonable prejudices. The time will come, and indeedis near at hand when there will be the most urgent necessity for many thousands of additional laborers. For unless we have several times more than are in the country now, we may as well stop planting trees, as there will be no one to gather the fruit; we may as well abandon at once general manufacturing, and all those important industries which make a nation prosperous, and sit down satisfied with our present condition with no hope for future progress—yet not our present position, but infinitely worse, retrogression, stagnation. Our land for grain is worked-out; we cannot return to cattle- raising; fruit-growing, the coming chief and higher industry, will alone require ten times as many laborers as are in the state at present, or the fruit from the trees lately planted never will be gathered. Where are the laborers essential to our prosperity to come from ? Not from the sons of the soil; they are too independent; they are employers, or labor only for themselves ; the few who will hire themselves out do not figure in the labor market. Not from the African, who, as a free man is trifling, lazy, without ambition, or any probable intellectual improvement, a disgrace to the country, a foul stain in our politics. His place is in the south, or in the jungles of Africa. Were he here in sufficient numbers, which is neither probable nor by any means desirable, he could not be THE POLICY OF NECESSITY. 279 depended on as a laborer in our fields and manufactories. Mexicans and Indians of course are not to be mentioned; Mexico is paying a premium for Chinese labor to-day. The European : we have tried him, and know to what extent and in what ways he can and cannot be depended upon. Socially and politically ambitious, captious in his conceptions, wedded to his chuch and to towns and cities, from this; class some few are found to work as mechanics, but there are not enough of them for successful manufacturing, and in country labor they are but an inconsiderable factor. Wisely or unwisely we have placed ourselves in a position where certain work has to be done to avoid lamentable consequences. It is not a question of heathenism, / amalgamation, politics, popularity, or what will please other foreigners; we require to have our fruit gathered, our shoes made, our wives relieved from the heavier household drudgery; otherwise we will have to take long steps backward in progress and prosperity, and organize affairs anew, and on a basis such as our forefathers should have done, and are likely enough to find ourselves worse off at the end of another century than at present. It may be that our development would have been healthier and happier if we had invented and employed less machinery, but we cannot throw away machines now without serious inconvenience. It is clearly evident that the Chinaman is the least objectionable of any human machine we have among us. CHAPTER XII. THE JURY SYSTEM. For twelve honest men have decided the cause, Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws. —PuUeney, The Honest Jury. The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine. —Pope. Do not your juries give their verdict As if they felt the cause, not heard it? —-Hudibras. The mind of man, no less than the body, is born under bonds. Thick black clouds of ignorance and superstition encompass and overshadow it from its in- cipiency. Not only does darkness surround it, but the light of past ages itself gradually merges in obscurity before it. It sees nothing, feels nothing, hears nothing aright. Nature it misinterprets. Of its own self, its character, quality, origin, and destiny, it knows little. In the vain search for its maker and dominator, it sends forth dismal groans, fills earth, sea, and sky with fantastic forms, places here a heaven and there a hell, and in every thunder cloud and sighing breeze a deity. To emancipate itself from this thraldom is its eternal struggle. To ascertain truth and falsity, the feal and the mythical, is progress. Often we see portions of the race proceeding far in some directions while lagging behind in others. Among wise men we find the greatest follies. Nowhere are displayed greater absurdities than in the writings of the ancient philosophers, the wisest among mankind in some things. What shall we say of men capable of fair OLD AND NEW CONDITIONS. 281 reasoning who for wounds had recourse to invocations, and for the gout applied a weasel's tooth wrapped in lion skin—though the doctors gravely quarreled, some holding that the covering should be deer skin? Common to every nation as household words are many such absurdities, to say nothing of the multitudinous minor superstitions of daily domestic life, all of which have not left mankind to this day. To free itself from the constraining covering the mind puts on when first perceiving its nakedness is the sum of all aspirations, the end of all activities. And in this effort to escape exposure, often it employs divers suits and makeshifts, quickly arraying itself in one before fairly casting off another. In jurisprudence, and medicine, in merchandising and industries, as well as in religion, we see numberless infatuations from which the mind is gradually liberating itself, and in no age more rapidly than the present. These several makeshifts were not always unnecessary. On the contrary there is no evil, or what we of to-day call evil, or any subterfuge under which progressive peoples have sought to hide their intellectual nakedness, or any protection for their exposed condition but at the time was essential, if not to life itself, at least to progress. * Unable all at once to cast off its sombre raiment, to stand forth and eye omnipotence, to give unrestricted sway to expanding thought, the nascent intellect must blink, and stare, and creep, and lisp before it can see clearly, walk firmly, and reason intelligibly. War, worship, slavery, usury, and the like were once superstitions, were once blessings. K The right of trial by jury sprang from the advance of physical and intellectual freedom. Its origin was in no one time or place. It was a necessity demanded in the dawning community of tyranny, of great-man worship, the moment the mind had reached a certain point in its progress. Por several thousand years it has done good service; but like many evils which were 282 THE JURY SYSTEM. once blessings, society can now safely dispense with it, would indeed be better off without it. The circumstances which called it into being have changed in most countries. The people do not now have to fight with the sword for an acknowledgment of their rights to a hearing in questions of law, legislation, and government; they are the law and the government. Between them and the judges there are not now, as formerly, antagonisms; the judges are the servants and representatives of the people, and not arbitrary or independent rulers, opposed in many respects to the welfare of the people. Therefore, as these conditions no longer exist, the necessities and benefits once arising from them no longer accrue. Progressive peoples may therefore look at the system of trial by jury apart from past benefits, considering alone its present usefulness, and in so doing, doubtless we shall find that the system may now be safely embalmed. Under the patriarchal regime the pater familias was absolute ruler and the sole arbiter of disputes. Revenge, or the personal vindication of wrongs, was the primitive idea of justice; public crimes, and public punishment of crime were a later development. When patriarchal and roving bands united as nations and assumed despotism, with its attendant great-man worship, of necessity courts were established; but the jury must not be confounded with the court, as is too often done by legal writers. Jurors are no part of the court. They consist of members of the community summoned to ascertain the facts in a disputed case, to which the judge applies the law and delivers sentence. When these chosen citizens have pronounced on the facts, they can return to their several vocations, having thenceforth nothing more to do with the court than others. While England was not wTholly ignorant of the jury principle, the judicium dei and other ordeals and divinations were in vogue, in which fire, water, and red-hot ploughshares played conspicuous parts. ORIGIN OF THE SYSTEM. 283 It was not many centuries ago that any acknowledgment by a ruler of personal inherent rights among the governed was a great gain. Since the concessions wrung from despotism by the magna charta, trial by jury has been regarded as an inestimable boon, inseparable from free institutions. So sacredly was this sentiment revered, which thus secured to every accused Englishman the judgment of his peers, the verdict of a jury, or the law of the land, that Lord Camden adopted as his motto the quotation from the great charter, "Judicium parium aut leges terrse." But long before magna charta was trial by jury. Indeed, in all civilized nations, before the existence of regular codes, cr of any theory of jurisprudence, we find the germ of the present jury system, since developed and moulded to meet the exigencies of time and place. The system then has not one origin alone but many. Its appearing was spontaneous, and not the result of an}r act of king or parliament. To the dicasts of Athens, to the corresponding judices of Rome, to the Rachinburgen or Scabini of the continent, to the compurgators of the Saxons, to the Norwegian Gulathing, to the Geschwornen-Gerichte of Germany, to the sectatores and pares of feudalism, and to other sources the system points for its origin. Under the systems of ancient Greece and Rome we see much in common with our own. The body selected from the dicasts of Athens for hearing and determining causes numbered sometimes five hundred jurors for a single case. A Scandinavian tribunal was usually composed of twelve or some multiple of twelve. Over the dicasts presided an archon; other deliberative assemblages had no presiding judge. There was a time when at a Roman trial the jury sat alone. No praetor or other officer presided to regulate proceedings and determine points of law, but in every jury was one or more lawyers who lent their aid to reach a verdict. The deliberations of such tribunals as the Athenian 284 THE JURY SYSTEM. ekklesia and the Ronlan comitia were irregular, often violent, and their decisions were the results of appeals to feeling rather than to fixed principles. Tumultuous bodies of freemen having no presiding judge, governed by no rule or precedent, were poor places for justice. The first innovation on this method of adjudication in England was the introduction by the Normans of judges familiar with the forms of regular procedure as practised in Roman tribunals. The right of trial by jury comes to Englishmen more directly in the form of a victory. During the dark centuries, prerogative or despotism denied such a right. Though in England under the Tudors and Stewarts the practice obtained for the most part as at present, yet the popular pulse was then too low to baffle the subtleties of the royal prerogative, or of learned malevolence. But later, with increase of intellectual strength and material stability, the people intrenched themselves in their rights, and since the magna charta this privilege has been held the dearest of a progressive people. It was a right guarded with vigilant care, and for which intelligent freemen everywhere would fight and die. To America came this sentiment, and was embodied in the constitutions of the several states. The victory originally achieved by the people over the government by the establishment of the jury system was the right of participation in the administration of the law. No man might thenceforth be jeopardized in person or property without appeal to his fellows for redress. It was a sign of the increasing purity of political character, and growing love of honesty and fair play. When the government and the people were one the victory was complete. As with hero worship, the system with age and adulation became apotheosized; since which time men have thoughtlessly and blindly worshipped it as complete, God-given, and eternal,—the English jurist, Adam, terming it " of a perfection so absolute that it IL IRONY OF JURY-JUSTICE. has remained in unabated rigor from its commencement to the present time." Often when the jury decided contrary to the wishes of the king, or rendered, in the opinion of ■ the judge, an improper verdict, they were punished; therein the irony of ancient jury-justice displays itself in scarcely less degree than in modern jury-justice, where members of a jury decide as they choose, without any fear of punishment from God or man. Many cases might be cited—instance the Throckmorton trial, in which three of the jurors were adjudged to pay each two thousand pounds, and the rest two hundred pounds each; the trial at the Old Bailey in 1670 of Penn and Mead, in which the jurors were fined forty marks each and imprisoned till they paid, and others of similar significance. Many cases are on record where the jury were convicted of perjury, forced to retract, and heavily fined or imprisoned. In a land case arising under William the Conqueror, between the crown and the church, the jury first found for the king, and afterward acknowledged rendering a wrong decision. Such was the palladium of English liberty at that time. "It is not trial by jury that produces justice," says Herbert Spencer, "but it is the sentiment of justice that produces trial by jury, as the organ through which it is to act; and the organ will be inert unless the sentiment is there." Trial by jury means, as Blackstone says, that a man "cannot be affected either in his property, his liberty, or his person, but by the unanimous consent of twelve of his neighbors and equals." If it is intended that this sentiment should be construed literally, then like many legal maxims, age is its greatest merit. Of all men one's neighbors are least capable of judging fairly, are most liable to prejudice for or against the accused. To those nearest us we are never indifferent; we are apt cither to love or hate them. One remove, and the feeling still exists, though not in so intense a form. r 286 THE JURY SYSTEM: On local questions the popular mind is always more or less inflamed. The arguments, or rather the palpable evidence in favor of trial by jury, are protection from arbitrary or despotic rule, protection from biased or unjust judges, representation by the people in the administration of justice, the recognized right of judgment by one's peers, to which we might add the blessings arising by virtue of habeas corpus, and the advantage of equity from a standpoint of moral law and custom to offset the harshness and errors of technical ruling. It embodies the sentiment of fairness. It secures to the citizen a feeling of safety in his rights which cannot be disturbed by any fanaticism or malice. If accused he may be sure of the same impartiality from his neighbors that he stands ever ready to mete out to them. Furthermore, following M. de Tocqueville, it is an ever-open school instructing the citizen in his legal rights, giving manliness to character, and.clothing the citizen with a magisterial dignity. It draws the individual from his selfishness, which is the rust of society, and compels him to occupy his mind for the moment with other than his own affairs, To which might be added that it keeps the doings of the court directly under the eye of the people, and familiarizes them with judicial proceedings and the administration of justice, keeps ever before them their duty and responsibility as members of a free and enlightened commonwealth. It surrounds the rights of liberty with the strongest safe-guards, and strips fiom judgment bigotry and legal technicality. On the other hand, the system is not without its evils, which at the present day, and in countries with representative governments, more than counterbalance all its benefits. - # The principle of the right of representation in administering justice is no longer pertinent as an argument in the case, for the judge is now as much the representative of the people in courts of justice as the L THE BENEFITS OF DESPOTISM. 287 jury. Courts, people, judge, and jury are one, so far as power and representation are concerned. As to its fairness, one, or three good men may be as fair as twelve good men, and, indeed, experience proves that in numbers is confusion rather than clearer judgment. Meyer and others, while warmly upholding the system as applied to criminal cases, denounce it in the strongest terms in civil practice. And yet I find no arguments against the one which will not apply equally to the other. In fact, so glaring are the evils of it in criminal cases, so rank the iniquity arising therefrom, that if it could be discarded only in one I should prefer to see that branch of jurisorudence relieved in preference to the other. Every good government is based upon despotism. The weakest and most worthless of all governments is that which depends alone upon its constitution and statutes for support. A single despot, if he be wise and good, governing with unlimited power, is the strongest, best, and most economical of all governments. Such rule is most natural, and best accords with man's conceptions of supernatural rule. God is God, and Christ or Mahomet is his prophet. He is the one only all-wise and beneficent ruler of the universe. The forces of nature appear more conflicting, yet one harmony pervades the whole. This world was not governed these thousands of years by tyrants and despots for nothing. Republics, in particular, should beware of the rule of the rabble. Next to the single despot is the despotism of the whole; that is to say where the governed, in their several castes, classes, occupations, and interests, are so thoroughly united in sentiment and purpose as to constitute one body, with one mind, arbitrary and absolute. This is the republican form of despotism; and a republic without this species of despotism is the saddest of all pictures. In vigilance, in that rigid patriotism which sinks self in the general well-being L 288 THE JURY SYSTEM. of society, we see more vividly than elsewhere the part which discipline, and that reflection which accompanies responsibility, play in securing the self-reliance which imparts soundness to the desposition of the united masses. The value and utility of despotism depend upon the moral character, the political poise, and the social organization of the people. As Horace expresses it, "Quid leges, sine moribus vanae pro- ficiunt?" Apply these principles and virtues to the administration of justice, and leave it in the hands of properly vested despotism, instead of surrendering it to haphazard and vacillating ignorance. So long as it is necessary for men to fight for their rights and liberties, let them fight, but to thrust at the carcass and beat the air long after the enemy is dead is not wise. Nor is it at this late day an argument in favor of any polity or creed that it has been in force for centuries:. Age no longer lends reason or respectability to error. We are taught to regard with horror the picture of a murderer in prison with a weapon or with poison taking his own life. Prison-keepers are held responsible for the lives of those the law reserves for its examples ; and if unluckily the criminal commits suicide, and so cheats the gallows, censure follows. There are different lights in which any subject may be regarded. This popular idea of so carefully preserving life in order to take it artistically, legally, or for the entertainment or instruction of some, and as a warning to others, is not without its superstition. It is another of these cases in which the same result is obtained as when the law acts, but the law would not have its acts anticipated. If the law were a little more particular in arresting and punishing all who deserved it, there might be better reason to complain of infringements upon its monopoly. As the case presents itself, the murderer in prison suffering the mental tortures incident to the commission of his crime, as an act of humanity' to himself, a sentiment the law indulges when not in conflict with traditions, may THE HARI-KARI IN AMERICA. 289 naturally wish to anticipate the law's punishment. Or he may consider his crime sufficiently atoned, and in the desire to avoid further ignominy, kill himself. True, there is something repulsive in the idea of giving the criminal in his cell a knife or a pistol with permission to slay himself; but there is also much that is abhorrent in legal executions. We are told that the purpose of the law is to make a solemn example, not a revengeful or passionate manslaughter; but what could be more solemn, were we accustomed to look at it from that side, than the felon by his own act satisfying justice, stepping of his own volition into the immediate presence of his maker, appealing at once to the higher tribunal. Such proceeding has surely some things in its favor. It saves the prisoner much anxiety ; it satisfies justice; it saves the people much trouble; the example is every whit the same. Nevertheless I am by no means desirous of seeing the hari-kari, or happy dispatch principle of Japan, in general practice in America, unless as there, it be confined to officials, when it would doubtless have a very good effect, the officers of the government being then obliged to eviscerate themselves whenever the people, that is to say the ruling power, ordered it done. It is the province and duty of a jury to hear the evidence, weigh the testimony, judge the credibility of witnesses, and determine the facts in the case. These functions must be exercised under the direction of the judge, who ipso facto is better qualified to pass upon all the points himself than those to whom they are submitted. It is plainly apparent that men ignorant of the law are incapable of judging by the law. But may we not go a step farther and affirm that as society increases, and civil affairs become more intricate, and the manipulations of law become a science, persons chosen indiscriminately, without regard to qualification or experience, are less competent to deal with questions Essays and Miscellany 19 290 THE JURY SYSTEM. arising in courts, with guilt and evidence of guilt, and with the several biases the custom of courts permits to be thrown around them, than those trained by thoughtful study and constant experience to the task ? Then again, the wrong decision of a judge, involving reputation, and an honorable life-position, is far more to him who renders it, than in the case of the careless or indifferent citizen, forced, it may be from his business against his will, and where the responsibility and odium of a biased or passionate decision is divided among twelve. As in all matters relative to social and political ethics, practice is totally at variance with purpose. Take twelve intelligent men, enlightened by experience, accustomed" to close analysis of intricate subjects and to the subtleties of argument, who will form their verdict from the evidence alone and after calm and close reflection, unbiassed by education, interest, pride, sympathy or any other sentiment or feeling, and they no doubt would prove of assistance to a judge. But never did twelve such men sit as jurors in a case, and never will there be such a jury. The judge himself comes nearer the proper qualifications than the jury. Not half the jurymen who serve, chosen as they are from among our free and enlightened American citizens, have adequate ideas of their duties. They may know they are to sit upon a bench and listen to the proceedings in court, and after that retire to a room and say guilty or not guilty. They may even remember to have been told that while the judge will expound to them the law they are to determine the facts. But do they know, when rendering their decision, upon what they base it? Do they know whether they are deciding upon law, facts, or feelings? Not one juror in fifty has any true realization of his position, or what he has sworn to do; or if aware of it he does not care. He does not stop to consider that to free the guilty is as bad as to commit the deed; that to acquit a murderer is as bad as to com- L THE CRIME OF THE JUROR. 291 mit murder—nay, that the moral effect upon the community is worse, for to let escape one criminal is to invite a hundred others to become criminals. To prevent crime", punishment must be certain; and not to prevent crime, when it lies in one's power, is to commit crime. Or as Seneca says, "Cui prodest scelus, is fecit." It does not matter how excellent may be our judges, or how perfect our code of laws, so long as questions of fact even are left to a jury, no litigant, innocent or guilty, can know where he stands. It has become a by-word, that of all earthly things a jury is the most uncertain. And yet men reverentially cling to this shadow of support as to one of the greatest props of liberty. In early Saxon times jurors were witnesses as well as judges, and determined the law as well as the facts. Members of the tribunal were selected from the neighborhood where the crime was committed, and the more a juror knew of the affair the more competent was he to serve. The-principle of fama publica entered largely into jurisprudence, side by side with compurgation by oath, and divers other divinations. At the present day any knowledge of a case is deemed undesirable. Ignorance of the facts is a recommendation for acceptance as a juror; yet it is knowledge alone upon which rational judgment is formed, and surely the evidence of one's own senses is as direct and conclusive as that obtained through the senses of another. The sainted twelve must be docile, and profoundly impressed with the dignity of judges, the learning of counsel, and the sacredness of law; A keen practitioner deems his cause half won when he has his judge and jury satisfactorily selected and seated before him. Then comes lofty declamation, highly seasoned appeals, long and elaborate arguments, humor and pathos. The fictitious sentiment of privilege, inseparable in 292 THE JURY SYSTEM. the minds of a liberty-loving people from trials by jury, is no less gratifying to the law, whose officers thereby have an opportunity for a display of learning and skill not otherwise within their reach, than to the citizens of the commonwealth, who fancy themselves to be the court, and that justice can be administered only by themselves. Anyone cognizant with the manner by which a trial is determined in the jury- room can know upon how frail a foundation this latter idea rests. In impartial results, trials by jury are little changed since the days of Cicero. In his treatise on Oratory one might almost imagine him speaking of a modern court of justice. | Men are influenced in their verdicts," he says, "much more by prejudice, or favor, or greed of gain, or anger, or indignation, or pleasure, or hope, or fear, or by misapprehension, or by some excitement of their feelings, than either by the facts of the case, or by established precedents, or by any rules or principles whatever, either of law or equity." "It is lawful for you to use your gifts," said Sir Nicholas Throckmorton to his prosecutor when on trial for high treason in 1554, and better had not such use of gifts been lawful, "which I know God hath largely given you, as your learning, wit, and eloquence, so as thereby you do not seduce the minds of the simple and unlearned jury to credit matters otherwise than they be. For, Master Sergeant, I know how by persuasions, enforcements, presumptions, applying, implying, inferring, conjecturing, deducing of arguments, wrestling and exceeding the law, the circumstances, the depositions, and confessions, unlearned men may be enchanted to think and judge those that be things indifferent, or at the worst oversights, to be great treasons; such power orators have, and such ignorance the unlearned have." The special province of the jury lawyer is to move to mercy, to produce upon the minds of his hearers impressions favorable to the character and conduct of DISHONESTY OR INCOMPETENCY. 293 the accused, that he may appear to them a good but unfortunate man, deserving of generous pity, rather than a social viper such as he truly is. Under this system the worst element in the community is preserved, and at the expense of the best. The wicked prosper in their wickedness, while the virtuous are slain for their virtues. " Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur," says Publius Syrus. This is the dark side of the jury system. It is very seldom that a jury brings in a verdict of guilty where the accused is innocent; but it is very common for them to fail to convict where guilt is plainly apparent. In answer, we fall back upon the amiable position that it is better to err upon the side of mercy, that it is better ten guilty should escape than one innocent be punished. This is not an altogether sound maxim. The injustice is as great which clears the guilty as that which punishes the innocent, whatever may be the humanity or sentiment of the case. Nevertheless, we would not punish the innocent; neither would we let the guilty go. Nor is it necessary. If juries, since these thousand years of trial, still find compassion overpowering duty, they had better step aside and make room for judges of sterner stuff, in the -direction of whose certain judgments lies the true economy of mercy. Frequently jurors, when they first retire, stand eight or ten to four or two. Then begins the work of conversion, and the minority are badgered by the majority until finally opinion and conscience are sacrificed by the former, who do contrary to what they have sworn to do. This is the process in the jury-room, and this the perjury which is undergone in four fifths of trials by jury The merest accident often determines the decision of a juror. Entering a room with eleven others, some of whom are strangers, with the mind oscillating between the arguments ingeniously urged on either side, the weak-minded juror would often rather jump m 294 THE JURY SYSTEM. at any conclusion than appear to have no substantial convictions. Hesitancy and suspense under such circumstances are no less painful to him than to his companions, and many times the word and the vote of some strong-minded, dogmatic juror influences the next vote, those two the next, and so on until the whole twelve are brought to ballot, not in accordance with their own private and well-considered views, but in such a manner as will best give them the appearance before their fellows of prompt, well-opinionated, and decisive men Modest or sensitive persons, finding themselves in a minority, suspect the validity of their opinions, and hasten to recant and join the opposite side. But this is not judging honestly, considerately, or according to oath. Few like to appear ungracious or obstinate, and will forswear themselves sooner than seem obnoxiously conspicuous. Thus it is in almost every jury, there are those who yield their honest opinion to the force of circumstance, just as in society fear of one's fellows is more terrible than the fear of government or of God. This is the reason why comparatively few juries fail to find a verdict although men so seldom agree on any one point. The jurors do not all of them vote in accordance with the oath which they have taken, do not vote their honest opinion, do not vote justly according to the evidence as they have sworn to vote. Individual obligation is shirked, and the palladium of all our liberties becomes a puppet-show, with consent and connivance of the judge, who may keep jurors of different minds imprisoned in a room until the work of coercion is accomplished. If the jury system be, indeed, a further necessity, then a majority should be permitted to find a verdict. There is no advantage in the enforced unanimity of twelve blockheads, and often great wrong is done. In the large assemblages of Greece and Rome a majority found the verdict; and in the Scandinavian ENFORCED UNANIMITY. 295 and Teutonic nations the agreement of the majority obtained. In Scotland, after an ineffectual three hours' deliberation, nine jurors may find a verdict, but in England unanimity in a traverse jury has prevailed from the earliest times. A forced unanimity is absurd upon the face of it. There never yet were found on earth a dozen intelligent, thoughtful men who fully agreed on every point. What folly then for a court of law to force men by starvation and other coercive measures to break their oath and render a verdict which may be contrary to their conviction. Perjury is the result of such unanimity, and the sin of it is to be laid at the door of the law. Admit the jury system a necessity, and the requirement of unanimity yet remains a foul blot upon our legal practice. Aside from the objections already stated it gives one evil-minded or obstinate juror the power to invalidate a righteous verdict, and set at naught the efforts, perhaps, of eleven honest men laboring in the ends of justice. In an important land case in San Francisco, which lasted over a month, on retiring to the jury room probably not more than one or two of the twelve had determined on which side their vote should be cast. It happened that one of the jurors was agent for a line of steamers, and that the leading attorney for the defence was counsel for an opposition line. This wholly irrevelant circumstance prejudiced the case. The steamer agent determined that the attorney of his competitor should not triumph. Impetuous and plausible, he had, before many moments, more than half the jury his way of thinking, and the rest were finally brow-beaten into it, with the exception of one or two, who rendered the decision of the case impossible. In such instances men are compelled to leave their business, and devote time worth to them ten or a hundred dollars a day, in order to determine the private quarrel of two citizens, which 296 THE JURY SYSTEM. the judge could have much more rightly and quickly decided. Before court-houses, were courts. In Mariposa, in 1850, court was held under a tree, and the jury retired to another tree to deliberate. Under the classic shade was brought one day an American for assaulting a Mexican. The trial over, the jury retired. " Let's hang him," said number one. " Oh no," replied number two, "he only stabbed a man; we can't hang him for that." I Send him to the state prison for life," put in number three. "That'll do," exclaimed half a dozen at once. And so it was concluded, all agreeing to it. I It seems to me rather hard after all," ruminated number two, as the twelve started back for the court- tree, I to imprison a man for life, for merely stabbing a Mexican; besides, where is your prison ? I Let's acquit him,' said number one. "Agreed," exclaimed the rest; and so the man was set at liberty. In July 1851, after the San Francisco vigilance committee had been in session several weeks banishing and hanging desperadoes, thereby setting as it •was hoped a wholesome example to the officers of the law, the community was startled by a verdict before one of the courts, of twelve as enlightened and independent as any Galway jury. A young man named Barnes was tried for robbing a fellow-lodger of seventy-eight dollars. He was caught in the act and the precise amount found in his pocket. The jury had no doubt of his guilt, but in consideration of his being a member of a " respectable family in the east," they brought in a verdict of not guilty. By asking the judge to merely " admonish the prisoner," they showed their belief in his guilt. The young man was turned loose to continue his chosen career; and vet there were those who opposed the existence of a vigilance committee. MISTAKEN HUMANITY. 297 It is not in America, as in some parts of Ireland, sympathy with crime which causes this failure to convict ; it is a nobler sympathy, a sympathy with humanity, with misfortune. And yet, such sympathy is generally mistaken, and sometimes maudlim One of the strangest things about the vigilance committee was the Interest in and sympathy for the prisoner, manifested by those associated to punish crime. There is something in misfortune, whether deserved or not, which touches every generous heart. Here were strong men of the world, men of thought, of character, nerved to the work of punishment by threatened social anarchy, men determined to do their duty; and yet in almost every instance where the good man and the bad man are brought together, the former soon learns to regard the crimes of the latter with toleration. Truett, among the foremost of Terry's captors, was the foremost of his liberators. From advocate and defender of the accused, he, the stern, self-constituted instrument of retributive justice, became the prisoner's trusted friend, believing him no more worthy of punishment than his own brother. So with regard to Smiley in his intercourse with one of the greatest villians ever hanged by a vigilance committee. " Hetherington was a man of great culture," he says in his dictation, " one who was cut out for a parson, in my opinion. He had a strong religious under-current in his inner man. I knew him very well. He did not deserve hanging much, and would not have been hanged in ordinary times. It was a sort of long fight between him and Randall in relation to property. They had quarreled and Hetherington committed the first insult and Randall resented it." Here we see the inxeperienced judge, acting as counsel for the accused, pursuing unconsciously the same line of excuses as the criminal himself; he had lost himself and his sense of duty in his sympathy for the L 298 THE JURY SYSTEM poor fellow. And yet Smiley was wide-awake and clear-headed, and Truett was far-sighted, shrewd, and a close reasoner. You could not make Smiley believe in Terry's innocence—Smiley prosecuted Terry—no more than you could convince Truett that Hethering- ton should not have been hanged. There were several in the committee who thought poor little Cora's punishment too severe. Never were men more clear in their convictions; never were men more sincere, more determined to do right, more thoughtful, intelligent, and capable of discerning the right. They were not jurors by compulsion, but volunteers enlisted from an overwhelming sense of necessity. They had staked everything,. honor, property, and life itself in order to accomplish what they deemed a paramount obligation resting on them as citizens of a moral and independent commonwealth. If with all these fires of patriotism burning within them, these earnest and honest endeavors after the virtuous, the right, the true, such men fail completely the moment their feelings are touched, surely then, forced jurymen of lower intellect, of reason yet more easily bedimmed by sophistry, picked promiscuously from the mercantile or mechanical class, are no better fitted for sitting in judgment upon the life of a fellow-being. This Hetherington, when tried before a jury for his first murder, was acquitted. Even the judge, a Californian judge, accustomed to liberating criminals, was so struck by the clearness of the case that when the jury brought in their verdict he could not hold his peace. 1 Not guilty," was what they said, though why they said it, by what process of reasoning their consciences acquitted them of perjury, no one, not even they themselves, pretended to know. "But the man has committed murder!" exclaimed the judge, confounded at their wilful stupidity. Fifteen thousand dollars, Hetherington complained, this killing cost him. For that THE LAW AND THE FACTS. 299 sum the lawyers persuaded the jury that Hetherington couldn't help it; so they let him go and kill another man. It was an early and well-known maxim, " ad quaes- tionem juris respondeant judices, ad quaestionem facti respondeant juratores," and the only basis upon which the system could rest. The judges might determine the facts as well as the law, but the jurors could by no possibility determine the law, for they knew nothing about it. And yet this simple and just rule is set aside or evaded in some manner almost every day. The jury nominally may not pass upon the law, but in reality they do so, in a greater or less degree, in every verdict rendered. In all their decisions they consider the penalty, which they, directly, have no right to do, and so render their verdict as to bring the accused under the punishment deemed by them most proper. They do not even restrict themselves to the law, but judge according to their ideas of what the law should be. True, it is expected of the jury in a measure to mitigate the severe technical interpretation of the law by interpreting the facts according to moral law and custom, and so temper decision with the application of equity ; but in America, juries altogether exceed these limits of their functions. In all cases where popular opinion pronounces the law too severe, such as capital punishment for forgery, for theft, for irregularities incidental to popular movements, and the like, in every such case the jury is apt to take the law into its hands, judging of the law as well as of the facts. Indeed, too often it ignores the facts entirely, accepts overruled evidence or false hypotheses, and not being able to mitigate the penalty and bring in sentence inflicting milder punishment, it boldly and untruthfully asserts that the accused is not guilty. Instance the usual verdict in the case of a legal charge of murder caused by fighting a duel. m- 3Sl 300 THE JURY SYSTEM. How often has guilty life been spared and the nocent made to suffer, even by our latter-day juries How often by reason of predilection or passion have excessive damages been awarded, and glaring abuses fostered, so that the higher courts have been obliged to set aside outrageous verdicts with reprimands, or to bolster this defunct system by establishing rules as to the measure of damages, or by defining and restricting the duties of jurors. • This is one of the many anomalies of the system. Maxims say, and the law says, the judge shall determine the law and the jury the facts, and this will be reiterated in legislative halls and tribunals of justice century after century, and all the while the contrary is done with none of these Solons seemingly aware of it. The oath of a juror is of little value in restricting him to the evidence as the foundation of his verdict. The more stupid think themselves so restricted, think themselves under a load of responsibility, when in truth it is nothing but stone-blindness that affects them. Perjury is a crime of hourly occurrence in our courts. How easily an expert lawyer makes a witness contradict himself. And do we not see in almost every case brought up for trial the witness for the one side and the other flatly contradicting each other ? Men's consciences are elastic. Since among all classes the mind is being stripped by science of its superstitions there is little fear of divine wrath for swearing falsely. And of all men jurors seem to entertain the least regard for the oath they have taken. Some there are who hold out manfully against the importunities of impatient associates, but their motives are usually not directed by conscience. I do not say that there is much wilful perjury; quite the contrary. But what is the difference, in reality, whether the system fails through wilful or unintentional perjury ? In this connection the question arises: When the will of the people is against the law and judge that they have made, how should a jury decide, according MERIT OF IGNORANCE AND STUPIDITY. to the evidence as they have sworn to do, or according to popular prejudice ? We know how they do decide in such instances. In every important criminal case the more intelligent part of such citizens as are competent to serve as jurors is rejected on the ground of bias. Those who read the newspapers, who keep themselves informed of passing events, who take an interest in the affairs of the commonwealth; those who love justice, who hate wrong-doing, who think, form opinions, and dare to speak their minds; those in fact who alone are capable of weighing the evidence, determining the facts, and rendering a proper verdict, are too often ruled out as unfit to serve. It would seem at times, among a high-minded, active-brained community, that it w7as impossible to find* twelve men sufficiently stupid to meet the requirements of those whose profession it is to defeat the ends of justice. It would seem at times that recourse must be had to an inebriate or idiot asylum for jurymen sufficiently ignorant and leather-brained to satisfy the wise counsellors and learned judges who play fast and loose with vagabonds, and- all who prey upon the industrious classes. As John T. Morse, Jr, of Boston, writing in the American Law Review of July 1871 says of the jury in the Laura D. Fair trial, "At last, after a long period and careful search, a dozen men were brought together, presumably the most unintelligent creatures in California, so exceptionably imbecile as to be unexceptionable. These worthies sat solemnly in the box, listening to the harangues and theories of the learned and eloquent counsel for the accused lady, until it may be supposed that their mental condition became more confused than hers was represented to have been at the time of the commission of the deed of killing. Indeed it is not satisfactorily shown that they had ever been educated up to the comprehension of the idea that to shoot a human being is really an objec- 302 THE JURY SYSTEM. tionable act. Their finding was only what should naturally have been anticipated; and after all it was the law or the administration thereof which insisted upon having such men for jurors rather than the men themselves, that ought justly to be held answerable for their action." However this question may be regarded, of American justice one thing can truly be said. Crime is here pampered beyond all precedent. A moueyed criminal is almost sure of acquittal at the hands of our honest and intelligent juries. The petty poor offender they do not hesitate to punish for example's sake. Sympathy for the criminal if he has a dash of heroism in. him, or a mawkish sentimentality, shields the shedderof blood. Our juries seem to seize on any pretext to save the lives of those who so ruthlessly take the lives of others. Thus our courts are degraded, society demoralized, and justice ridiculed. How often do we see the deliberate and proven murderer either wholly acquitted or else found guilty in the second degree and recommended to mercy. Says an editor on this subject " Juries seldom visit the full penalty of the law on offenders, and often acquit those well known to be guilty." And thus a judge: "In this country crime and the legal penalties seldom meet. Too much is made out of juries and petitions for pardon. From these evils, long allowed, spring occasional necessities for vigilance committees. Hundreds of lives have been the price, in Idaho and Montana, of a few which escaped the law. in California." It would seem from the opinions and actions of our lawyers, judges, and jurors, that courts of law were established for the primary purpose of clearing criminals. In almost every community we see for one prosecuting attorney in criminal cases five who gain their living on the other side. This is painfully significant. Crime abounds. Prisons and law courts are established and maintained, at the cost of the people, to suppress crime. Social vultures prey upon COURTS FOR CLEARING* CRIMINALS. 303 the people, and so obtain the means, not only to indulge in rioting and debauchery, but to purchase their freedom from punishment. With the money thus fraudulently obtained from the people, criminals employ so-called respectable lawyers to procure their acquittal before tribunals likewise established and paid for by the people. To gain an unjust cause, known to be such when undertaken, lawyers do not hesitate to wilfully misrepresent witnesses, distort evidence, pervert facts, and bring upon honest men the foulest imputations. To perpetrate the diabolical deed of letting loose upon society a human hyena, one known to them to be such, they do not hesitate to pour torrents of slanderous invective upon the heads of the opposing counsel, the witnesses, and all who bar their progress in their infamous purpose. And all this with no loss of character or caste. All is professional, and strictly in accordance with law and custom. Indeed, the attorney, it is said, does not earn his fee unless he employs his utmost skill in the commission of a crime, perhaps, as great as that for which his client is being tried. If the trial goes against the defence, a few exceptions taken carries the case to the supreme court, where enough of them are usually sustained to secure a new hearing. If the verdict is for the criminal, and unsatisfactory to the public, who cares? Vice with its putrifying breath bellows approval, and virtue must needs stomach it. The Rosicrucian maxim is applied of binding the wound and greasing the weapon, in the hope that by some sympathetic, magical reflex action the cause of the evil should be its cure. After all, the blame attaches mostly to the system which tolerates such practice rather than to the practitioner. All lawyers, judges, and court and jail officials are supported by the people. This is bad enough to begin with. But when one sees half or three fourths of those so supported employing their time and talents in the promotion of injustice, in letting 304 THE JURY SYSTEM. loose again the comparatively few criminals who are brought to trial, it becomes abominable. The system of trial by jury certainly was once beneficial, but having served its purpose it is now unnecessary, and even pernicious, wherever representative government exists to offer better substitutes. Like war, great-man worship, despotism, human slavery, and all those savagisms which many still deplore, it was a necessary stepping-stone to a higher plane, to which it now clings a mere incumbrance. In its most important revival, the system marked the dawn of freedom. In as far as the spirit of liberty pervaded a people, in so far the principle of trial by jury is found enfolded in its legal forms. And almost everywhere the principle prevailed in a greater or less degree, for despotism is never absolute, any more than savagism can be fixed and complete. It would seem that justice might gain much and lose nothing by now laying aside the jury system, and in its place let one judge hear and determine petty cases, and three or five, or more if necessary, adjudicate in matters of magnitude, while greatly restricting appeals. May not a judge, or a bench of judges, learned in the law, practised in the administration of courts, experienced in listening to arguments, in weighing testimony, and in determining truth from falsehood, represent the people in their tribunals, and administer justice more evenly, more surely, more dispassionately than twelve common-place, not to say ignorant and inexperienced men, chosen indiscriminately from various trades and occupations? We are certain to come to some such plan sooner or later. Mr Forsyth says truly that "the machinery of our. law is too complicated, and its working too expensive to suit the wants of the present age; and it must be effectually amended, or it will run the risk of being rudely overthrown." For as in mechanics THE INJUSTICE OF IT. 305 the simpler the machine the less liability to derangement, so in government, the fewer the laws the less the inertia and friction in courts of justice, and the less the evils to society. The responsibility is too great, some say, to entrust to so few. But surely it is not in numbers that justice is found. Besides, the purity of the court can as well be guarded when under the sole direction of competent judges, aye, and much better, than when civilians attempt to interfere. King Alfred used to hang judges for false judgment; are the people of our republic less potent than King Alfred ? The law in every trial pre-supposes controversy, and men of average intelligence can determine most facts as well as the astute. But can they do so better ? Forsyth contends that they can. "No mind feels the force of technicalities," he says, " so strongly as that of a lawyer. It is the mystery of his craft, which he has taken much pains to learn and which he is seldom averse to exercise. He is apt to become the slave of forms, and to illustrate the truth of the old maxim, 'qui hseret in litera hseret in cortice.'" One can easily understand how a mind may be enslaved by educating and drilling it in forms and technicalities, but that brain must be weak indeed which, once educated in the intricacies of the law, cannot comprehend and determine facts. Such is not the talent intelligent communities place upon their judicial benches. The lowest average of such judges could hardly be inferior to the ordinary jury. Twelve men, the thicker their heads the better, are taken from their farms and from their merchandise, and placed upon the judgment-seat. What can they do that competent paid judges cannot do better? Unaccustomed to the weighing of evidence or to logical sequences, they are easily swayed by frothy appeals to their passions or prejudices, and in the hands of skilful lawyers are of all others the greatest bar to correct decisions. Essays and Miscellany 20 r 306 THE JURY SYSTEM. The recognition of their incapacity lies in the custom of the judge to review for them in plain language the evidence and explain the application of the law to the case. The jury, after all, is but a smaller edition of the popular tribunal which jurists so strongly condemn, only in many instances it is much worse, doing deeds which would put to the blush any western frontier lynch court. What justice might Socrates expect before a jury of five hundred and fifty-seven Athenian citizens, whose knowledge he had impugned and whose folly he had reproved ? Such juries are simply mobs. If I am guilty, try me before a jury; if innocent, before a judge. The system seems unjust, also, in that it exacts from the citizen a service without adequate compensation. As well might the state take property without paying for it, as to take the time of the citizens, paying them for only a tenth of its value. But, say the supporters of this system, will not the unselfish and patriotic citizen cheerfully and gratuitously render his neighbor that service which he is liable at any time to be obliged to ask at his hand? No; why should he? President, legislators, judges, soldiers, are all necessary, and might as equitably be asked to serve without pay. There is no reason why any person should serve the country in one capacity more than in another without just compensation. The pittance awarded first-class citizens by the law is no compensation for time taken from their business; and yet even this is often a heavy burden to litigants. Justice should be absolutely free; and the most efficient and economical plan would be administration by judges alone, which would greatly simplify as well as cheapen court procedure. It must be admitted that reformation embracing the excision of the jury system must also extend to other branches of the administration of justice. This involves the question in how far the purity of the bench can be assured by higher pay, life-tenure of office, PURITY OF THE BENCH. and other measures. Whether the popular election for term-tenure be retained or not, the election system needs above all to be reformed, for herein lies the root of all administrative ills. So long as a low foreign rabble, and the ignorant and vicious scum of the population, with little or no tangible interest in the community, are permitted under the leadership of unscrupulous and scheming politicians to control our ballots by their creatures, so long will corruption reign in judicial as wrell as political circles. A purified constituency will produce able and upright judges, to whom can be safely entrusted the entire responsibility hitherto shared with more immediate representatives of the people. The advantage of a jury composed of such official professionals will lie not alone in their special training and experience, but in their being, more than ordinary jurors,accountably responsible to the public for acts and decisions; subject to daily criticisms by lynx-eyed rivals and party press, and liable to indictment and disgrace and other punishment. The dignity and isolation of their office, moreover, exposes them less to those maudlin and baneful sympathies, and other objectionable influences, which sway the average juryman. Man in his proximate relations is not wholly fit to judge his fellow-man. He cannot do it fairly, dispassionately. He must first become somewhat of a machine, must go by the book, must acquire full control of the sympathies and feelings of humanity, and exercise mainly his reasoning faculties, regarding guilt in the abstract, in its effect on society, weighing calmly the plea of individual or circumstantial extenuation. He must be blind to partiality, yet not wholly so to pity and benevolence. The mother who commits a crime for a starving or injured child should not be punished in the same degree as the professional criminal. The youthful culprit must be reclaimed, not cast forth midst hardened offenders. Crime is a poison to be removed from the body politic not by cruel ex- 308 THE JURY SYSTEM. cision alone. The judge should weigh, although dispassionately, the fathomless depth of man's love and hate, his ignorance and environment, his weakness and temptation, Above the letter of the law should prevail the spirit of the law; above adamantine justice, equity. IL CHAPTER XIII. M0NO0LIANISM IN AMERICA. When the multitude hate a man, it is necessary to examine into the case. When the multitude like a man, it is necessary to examine into the case. —Confucius. At first it was regarded as a novelty, and most amusing to the curious Californians, the coming of the Asiatic. He added picturesqueness to the population. With Greek, Turk, and Egyptian, African, Indian, and Kanaka, all perambulating the streets and wandering about the mining districts, the fresh-imported and cleanly scraped Chinaman, with his half-shaven head, his long braided queue, his oblique almond eyes, his catgut voice; his plain blue frock, or, if a man of consequence, arrayed in a flashy silk tunic, with red sash, clean white stockings, and shining satin and wooden shoes, followed by a sleek little marketable wife with silver anklets and other jingling ornaments, and perhaps a demi-John or two—it was quite amusing to see them here and there and everywhere, and to show them to strangers as one of the many unique features California could boast. It put one quite in good humor with one's self to watch them waddling under the springy pole sustaining at either end a huge and heavily-laden basket; it made one quite feel one's superiority to see these queer little specimens of petrified progress, to listen to their high-keyed strains of feline conversation, and notice all their cunning curiosity and barbaric artlessness. It was easy to distinguish the new-comer from the old resident. The former appeared at first lost in amazement, bewildered, stunned by the strange sights; then as his senses (309) 310 MONGOUANISM IN AMERICA. slowly came to him, he manifested the greatest curiosity at everything that met his view, eager withal to know the meaning of things. The latter assumed an air of sedate superiority, as if familiar with San Francisco scenes from childhood. Yonder is an ancient— not many such are seen—with white hairs scattered over the chin, and covering the squint of the obtuse- angled eyes a pair of enormous spectacles, ugly beyond the power of words to express. These varieties mingle with other varieties of different origin and manufacture, giving color and odor to new compositions. The similarity in dress, and the want of beard, give them to inexperienced eyes a sameness of appearance, as if they had all been cast in one mould. This remark has also been applied to the Indian, whose resemblance to the celestial has been the frequent theme of travellers and scientists. It does not appear that the red man is flattered by the comparison, to judge from the abuse he is so ready to lavish on his rival. It is related that when John Young was once taking some monkeys to the museum at Salt Lake City, several Reno savages approached and examined them with characteristic gravity. Young asked them if they knew what they were. The chief looked up as if surprised at the simplicity of the question, and replied, "0, yes, me know well; China pappoose!" This may not be fair to the celestial urchins, who are really attractive and intelligent in eyes and features. With increasing years they retain a certain simplicity of expression, a childlike innocence, and a ready smile, which becomes somewhat spasmodic if forced into a laugh; but a characteristic and repulsive stolidity and unconcern settle upon them, as if the bright, unsophisticated mind had been rudely cramped within the narrow compass of bigoted custom and hopeless bondage before it had gained time to develop. They stand before us now, a mixture of the child, the slave, and the sphinx. The eye in particular is cold, meaningless, yet cunning in expression, and with a European L PHYSIQUE AND DRESS. 311 growth of hair the low forehead would probably increase this repulsive feature. Intelligent Chinamen have with frequent intercourse caught a gleam of Caucasian animation, but the almost slavish quietude of gait and manner is never laid aside. Many, especially among the better class, can be termed good- looking, even by a fastidious European. They are shorter than Americans, and less muscular, but possessed of considerable endurance. The women are proportionately lower in stature, and more squat of build. The monotony of figure is increased by the conservative dark blue dress, which adds neither to stature nor to grace. The laborers so frequently seen in our streets have made us familiar with the wide cotton trousers, barely reaching to the ankle; the equally wide and shapeless blouse which terminates above the knee, fits close around the neck, unprotected by any collar, and overlaps about four inches in front, where it is fastened with loops and small brass buttons. The sleeve widens gradually from the shoulder and reaches below the hand, but is rolled up above the wrist by the workman, or secured by a plaited rush cuff. The white underclothing of Canton flannel or cotton falls over the trousers and gleams below the blouse. In cold weather a sleeveless, quilted jacket, somewhat shorter than the blouse, is worn as an overcoat, or the quilted blouse is used. The rich dress of the wealthy is of flowery silk and fine cassimere, with less amplitude, and unrolled sleeves; the trousers, of equally rich material and often of gray color, are gathered and tied at the ankle. This strange costume does not altogether detract from the dignity, which, added to a polite manner, readily distinguishes the upper classes, whence the vulgar are barred by a rigid exclusiveness. A further indication of high caste is the long fingernails, with which manual labor can have no connection. A low cloth shoe, with its white band of pig-skin 312 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. L round the sole, and its frequently embroidered cover, forms a neat foot-dress for all seasons. The sole is of wood, cork, or layers of felt, or paper, the final layer being leather. It is about three quarters of an inch in thickness, follows the outline of the foot, is devoid of heel, and tapers somewhat at the toe, as it turns slightly upward. A loose, white, shapeless stocking protruding at the instep, is worn by the town-folk. The most common hat is the black or gray American felt, with straight rim and low flat crown; but field laborers use a wide umbrella-shaped structure of split bamboo, or rushes, gathering into a cone. Occasionally may be seen a short felt hat with the rim turned vertically up, even with the rounded crown. The wealthy wear a close fitting, stiff skullcap, without rim, surmounted by a bulb, the color of which is regulated by the rank of the wearer. Women use the blouse and trousers, but of greater amplitude. The plain-colored silken under-robe of the female of higher degree, has a narrow embroidery at the bottom which touches the feet, and over this a shorter satin skirt, entirely covered with fine embroidery. The waist is often bound by a silk sash, with trailing ends. It is the ambition of parents to achieve social importance, as indicated particularly by the size into which they can afford to compress the feet of their girls, in order to render them as helpless as possible, fit only for a wealthy husband. In early childhood the four small toes are folded against the sole, so as to grow into it, leaving the big toe to form a part of an elongated shrunken hoof of some three inches, which results from the treatmeut. The pain at first is severe; and though suffering in due time disappears, the gait always remains tottering. The Canton river women in America are not marked with this index of gentility, but imitate the gait by using a rounded sole which tapers at the*toe. Their neck is bare and unadorned, like-that of the SIGNIFICANCE OF THE QUEUE. 313 men, but the wrists and ankles are clasped by ivory or other rings. Ear-rings are also worn; but the rest of the jewelry is reserved for the hair; and the silk kerchief, which constitutes the only head-dress, is seldom allowed to hide the artistic rings and knots into which married women arrange their back hair, with the aid of gold bodkins, ribbands, and wax, surmounting the whole with artificial flowers. Girls wear plaits. The face is cunningly enamelled, red- tinged lips and cheeks, and the evident artifice is not unattractive. The fan, also carried by men of quality, is never absent. The circumscribed taste for finery finds a broader field in the child, on whom the mother lavishes color, bracelets, bells, and ribbands in profusion. Most striking is the shaven head of the men with the queue dangling obtrusively to the heels. There is no religious significance in this, for it is merely an innovation of the Tartar conquerors, forced upon the people in the middle of the 17th century. Great was the struggle to maintain the long heavy locks which prior to their subjugation they often gathered into a knot upon the crown; but gradually they became resigned to the innovation, and that which was once the symbol of enslavement became the most cherished appendage of their dress; so much so that the loss of it is considered' a disgrace, and few can even bear to coil it up, although it is often in the way while working. Many would be glad to adopt our fashion, but prejudice is too strong even for the religious convert. The English government at Hong Kong took advantage of this feeling to punish culprits with loss of queue in addition to imprisonment; and this measure was also adopted at San Francisco in 1876, after a failure to introduce it in 1873. The victims shrieked with horror at the sacrilege, and never recovered their former self-respect—in this displaying the quality of a manufactured conscience, L 314 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. Whatever neglect the body may suffer, the head receives frequent and religious care, as may be judged from the large number of barber signs displayed in their quarter. Here we have, instead of the striped pole of the ancient blood-letters, a grejen frame with four legs, each tipped with a red ball, in imitation of their washstands. The shop is generally a basement room, furnished with a stool for the victim, a wash- stand before it, and a bench for waiting customers. Every part of the skin above the shoulders is washed in warm water, without soap, and shaved, all except the small patch on the crown where the queue is rooted; for, until the youth attains the magic age of forty, he is not supposed to cultivate a mustache and goatee, which by that time may be induced to struggle into existence. As for whiskers, they are never seen, even on the rare individual who happens to possess indications of a crop. After scraping, polishing, and carefully inspecting the skin, the barber trims the eyelashes, tinting them at times, and probes, shaves, and scrapes the ears, nose, and tongue. Still greater attention is given to combing, cleansing, oiling, and inter-plaiting the queue with a long silk tassel. The Chinaman issues refreshed in spirit, and confirmed in his hopes of heaven. The abolition of the queue would be a great stride toward breaking the barrier of Chinese conservatism, and of opening the way for western civilization. The care given to the head is by no means extended to the body, although the dress indicates neatness. Among the Chinese in San Francisco there has not been found a sufficient number to support a single bath-house; one which was opened by a rash speculator had to close its doors. Nor are the accommodations of the lodging-houses of a character to admit even of a sponge bath. The favorable impression made at the first by the China boys, as they were called, was not destined to last. If John was mild-mannered, he was also artful CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS. and insinuating. Although he was so inoffensive, so unobtrusive and retiring, yet he was soon found to be no less positive than he was exclusive. To his unique dress and customs he had clung so long that he could not in a moment shake them off. The pro - gress which two thousand years ago was arrested in him, made frigid by the ghosts of his own conjuring, could not be immediately thawed even by a Californian sun. There was in him no sentiment or sympathy that Christianity could reach. Offer him what we most highly prize, he had better. Our clothes were bungling beside his. In eating, what is the use of so much clatter of knives and forks,when chop-sticks answer every purpose? Offer him our alphabet, and he shows us one his forefathers used when ours were yet savages. Offer him our religion, our God, our heaven, he has scores of his own manufacture better and cheaper. Offer him silver and gold, and there you touch him; that is his only vulnerable point. With the sudden arresting of his material progress, his mind likewise seems to have become fossilized. But not so his passions. Or if they were brought to a pause, it was after being thoroughly roused. For such unruffled outwardness when at rest, John has a most ungovernable temper when stirred. You may call it courage or desperation, but when once committed, he cares no more for his life than you for your little finger. He will not willingly rush into danger; in fact he will go far out of his way to avoid it; but once entangled there is no tiger more savage. It is when he has given up all hope that he is strongest. We like things because they are new; the Chinaman likes them because they are old. Water when immersed in sulphurous acid will freeze if thrown on a hot iron plate. So with the Asiatic, coated by the unwavering customs of centuries, when suddenly thrown into the furnace fire of the Californian Inferno. His traditions froze to him all the closer. Change 316 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. might be the only fixed phenomenon of the universe; it might apply to mountains, and seas, and planets, but the word had no significance for John. Lake omniscience, he is unchangeable. Neither have the Chinese been fortunate in converting America. Though they brought hither their gods, and erected temples, our priests were obdurate, and our people profane. Hard were our hearts, into which the truths of their ancient culture and their blessed religion would not sink. Our hoodlums made martyrs of some of them, or at least mince-meat; many of them we reviled, and some we crucified. The Asiatic olfactory organs were early educated to smells repugnant to the uninitiated; and the Chinese culinary and tonsorial arts, the chop-sticks exercise, and the vermin-hunting, as witnessed from the sidewalk, to say nothing of the winning wiles of cat- voiced sirens, by which were enticed from the paths of virtue the noble hod-carrier, the restaurant cook and the sailor, and the thick, putrid atmosphere which issued from opium and gambling dens—these and like infelicities turned the European stomach. And most unkind of all, most ungrateful, most diabolical, John would not become a Melican man. After all the advantages given him to cease his swinishness, and rise to the dignity of a member of this greatest of commonwealths, to become the first of created things under the first of creators, an American citizen, a voter, with the privilege to manipulate primaries, to stuff ballot-boxes, to fight and get drunk gratis at elections, to dodge^ his taxes, and swear big round Christian oaths; aye, and with the privilege even of holding office, with all its glorious honors and perquisites, such as bestowing favors and granting contracts, half the proceeds from which by some mysterious process should find their way into his own pocket; and accepting bribes, and punishing all honest effort made for the good of the country—as he declined all these blessings and privileges, the great American s CHINESE AND JAPANESE. 317 heart became estranged from its Asiatic brother, and we cursed him. Now, John might go to the devil; nay, he must go there. It became the immediate duty of every American citizen to send him there. Sunday-school teachers might make an angel of him if they liked, and give him wings; there was no special objection to that; but out and away, any whither, John must go ; for in California he had sinned unpardonably, he would not be a voter. He would not spend his money drinking bad whiskey; opium was good enough for him. Horse-racing, midnight roarings, faro, monte, poker, or seven up, he did not care to cultivate, preferring the old gambling games his mother taught him while yet a little boy in China. A half-century of steady cursing confirms the habit. The miners were the first to see that John would not do for America. For a time the Asiatic was a favorite along the foothills as in the cities. He used to build his little hut under the bank down by the stream, away from the rude noise of the camp, and at a respectful distance from the six-foot-four men from Kentucky and Missouri. Seeing the Melican men go forth to prospect, he, too, sought the ravines and upper forks of the streams which drained the Sierra slopes; and being as artless as he was innocent in those days, whenever he was successful he did not hesitate to display the results of his good fortune to his big brother of the free and great republic. But when told to leave the rich digging which he had found; when he saw outstretched from the brawny Tennesseean's fist a mighty finger, pointing away from his claim toward the old worked-out bars and river banks below, and heard the classic ejaculations, % Git! Vamouse! Go!" then the single heart became twenty, and the single eye saw divers ways, and John grew sly and cunning, and thenceforth would not tell his great-souled brother all he knew. The more the western border man abused the Asiatic, the more he hated him; and MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. thenceforth to this day John has scarcely had a friend in this all-embracing republic. In 1860 came from Japan distinguished visitors; and in truth it made the gods on high Olympus laugh to see these so lately white-skinned growlers toasting themselves drunk at public expense over Asia's latest sent, and all because they were not laborers who would interfere with the rights of our European masters. It was well to honor these great ones of Asia; and yet the gods did laugh I Were not these very islander-worshippers grinding their neighbors of the mainland day by day into the very dust, stoning them in the street, dogging them in legislative halls, and cutting their tails in court, and all because they were poor, and the uncombed voters from Europe demanded it ? To the naked eye there, is little in point of merit to distinguish between these men of Asia. One is a newer convert than the other; one wears the hair mixed with silk in a long pendant braid, the other docks the well-greased tail and points the stub forward ; one shaves all but the crown, while the other shaves the crown and nothing else; one wears wooden- soled shoes, the other sandals. Surely these grave distinctions should be sufficient to satisfy reasonable gods why men display worshipful affection for one copper-colored Asiatic and such diabolical hatred for another. A visitor to San Francisco's Chinatown feels as if he had been suddenly transferred to another land. Yet he finds no pagodas with curved eaves and numberless stories, no oriental palaces with gardens and cooling fountains, no picturesque bamboo huts with trailing vines, but only a series of dingy brick buildings in American style, mingled here and there with some old-fashioned frame house, but the whole bears, nevertheless, an outlandish look. Balconies abound, running either the whole length of the house, or appearing in detached fragments at the windows on SAN FRANCISCO'S CHINATOWN. 319 different stories. They are frequently of a clumsy construction, like coops, and disfigure the buildings with their superstructures of boards and trellis-work serving for pantries, and with their lines and poles whereon dilapidated garments are fluttering. Their chief use, however, is for holding plants, which relieve the dingy exterior with streaks of bright green, shed illuminating rays of beauty, and refresh the stale atmosphere. They form the sole adornment of the windows, whose curtains are the incrustated dust, draped in cobwebs and red paper charms. Many doors and windows, even in the upper stories, are protected on the outside with heavy wooden bars, forming souvenirs of the oft-threatening outbreaks against the occupants. Huge and tiny signboards, all length and no breadth, with vertical inscriptions in red, black, or gold, on red or green, white or black ground, flaunt their moral and florid titles in all directions. Often the board combines all the colors of the rainbow, as well as fret-work, and is surmounted by a canopy of red cloth. Every house in Dupont street, the central artery of this network of Mongolian veins, bears a number of these signs, indicating one continuous line of stores and workshops, whence issue the blows of hammers, the rasp of files, the click of sewing-machines, to mingle with the tramp of feet. The fountain-head of wealth and center of trade lie in Sacramento and Commercial streets, which are almost entirely occupied by the stores and offices of wholesale merchants, guarded by strong iron doors in green and black. The approaches are clean, and the interior woodwork has generally a yellow grained surface. Huge piles of rice bags and tea chests fill one side of the store, while the others are covered with pigeonholes and drawers containing silks, drugs, fancy goods, and samples. On one side of the entrance stretches a counter, behind which is seated a number of clerks in small, dark blue caps, with a red button in the crown, who regard the visitor with calm indifference, HI MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. while near the window, behind a red and green railing, is the book-keeper, busily painting hieroglyphics with his nimble brush. Numbers of loungers occupy the benches outside the counter, and chat or gaze with placid contentment on the scene before them. The retail stores are nearly all in Dupont street, and noticeable by their motley display in the window of white-soled slippers, opium and tobacco pipes, dominoes and markers, chinaware, from small tea bowls to stately vases, dolls, and images of fat-bellied gods and draped babies, charms, sham jewelry, fans, Japanese ware and cabinets, artificial bouquets illuminated with tinsel and set with images, and other strange gimcracks. The pigeon-holes within are closely filled with packages in curiously figured characters. Sometimes an entresol is to be seen, with a crowd of busy workmen, while below sit the usual loungers, mingling their tobacco smoke with the whiffs of the equally languid men behind the counter. From an adjoining store comes an unintermitting click, and within are a dozen Chinamen in dark blue habiliments bending each over a sewing machine, and turning out in rapid succession overalls and slop goods, shirts and embroidery, a work at which they have surpassed the white mother, encumbered with her troop of children, and are outstripping her delicate daughters. A little beyond is a cigar factory, still more crammed with a busy crowd, which, seated at a long table, roll soothing Habanas for raving anti-coolie men. On the opposite side are several tinsmiths, doing a large business not only for their own people, but for those enterprising white men who always seek the cheapest market. Here and there a watchmaker occupies a portion of a store, and finds good employment in mending alarm clocks for laborers, or watches for departing miners. At the entrance to a lodging-house a cobbler has installed himself with a stool and some implements, and is bending over his horn spectacles, intent on a boot of suspiciously white-foot dimensions. Just out- L HOME MANUFACTURES. 321 side, a fruit vender has erected his stall, glad, perhaps, to pay a rental for the privilege of obstructing the narrow sidewalk. The fruit is divided into tiny lots; leaves are rolled into cornucopias to hold a mixture of fig cake, almond, and melon, all cut into the smallest of slices. Dried fruits of uninviting aspect and strange appearance fill various compartments ; greasy cakes in yellow papers and of rancid taste mingle with buns and confectionery in towering pyramids. Near by stands a crowd, entranced by the celestial strains of twanging guitars and clashing cymbals, which issue from a gaudy building in front of them. The facade is painted in imitation of gray-streaked marble, which sinks in a bright green toward the upper story, and is covered with arabesque decoration here and there, surmounted by a gaudy cornice. It has two long low balconies of wood, with railing in red and green, and with innumerable fringes and fret-work in a medley of colors. Fanciful lanterns of paper and of figured glass, round and octangular, hang from the blue ceilings of the balconies, while the floors are set with long-leaved plants and dwarfed trees. Some of the windows have stained glass, and one in the center is circular, j This is one of the half dozen good restaurants in the quarter, doubly interesting from the fact that they are the only buildings of a true Chinese aspect, forming a most agreeable break in the monotonous dingyness around. The lower story is used as a store for the sale of crockery and dried, preserved, and cooked articles of food. The regular provision stores are met with at frequent intervals along the street, appealing to eyes and nose with squalid stalls and half putrified delicacies; disjointed pieces of meats are cast in all directions, and suspicious looking carcasses of smoked pig dangle from the hooks. Pigeon-holes and stands are filled with fresh, salted, and prepared vegetables, fish, and fruits; while a role of poles and strings in the ceiling support dried fowl, roots, and flitches of bacon. Essays and Miscellany 21 322 M0NG0LIANISM IN AMERICA. Every now and then a papered and lighted passage may be seen, turning off at an angle, and with a watchman at the entrance. They are approaches to the notorious gambling dens from which Caucasians have long since been excluded, owing to race antipathy and fear of denouncement. Almost side by side of them are workshops where there is no cessation of toil even on the Sabbath, and where Chinamen may be seen manufacturing boots and shoes or cigars, or bending low over their sewing machines, with backs that never tire. The sidewalks teem with life, particularly in the evening, when the workmen flock in from factories and shops, and on Sundays, when the outlying Mongol settlements contribute their quota to amusement-seekers and market-folk. It is then that the celestial cuticle most expands and adds to the odoriferous medley of burning sandal-wood and singed pig, of much-used gutters and reeking cellars. Despite the throng the order is admirable, and the almond- eyed glide noiselessly along in their peculiar single file, winding in and out between stalls and lookers-on, or, stopping occasionally to listen to the falsetto which wails to the twang of the guitar from the attic, or to the din of the orchestra from the theatre. With these vie the yells of the cake and nut pedlars, proclaiming the excellence of their wares, which for greater effect are stowed in a glaring red toy junk, illuminated fore and aft. Occasionally a rival shouter flits past with a board on his head, supporting a lot of tin cups with nondescript delectable compounds. Scarcely less crowded are the by-streets, where the roofs wave with showy linen, and where the sky is almost hidden by clouds of laundry-stuff; but all are hurrying along, for no show-windows, no illuminated restaurants, allure them. The most noticeable feature is, perhaps, the well-known sign of washing and ironing, painted in red letters on white ground, evidently by some Chinese artist, to judge from the wavy out- STREETS AND ALLEYS. 323 line of the .etters, and the precedence accorded to some among them, which rise above the level of the rest. A gust of wind comes laden with the peculiar odor of a Mongol laundry; a mingling of vapors from drying clothes, wasted opium, and singed linen. The interior has a tinge of the oriental in its bronzed figures, robed in short flowing drawers, and over them a wide blouse, both of spotless white cotton, an advertisement of their craft. Some are spouting a. fine rain upon the petticoats before them, others are busily passing and repassing the irons which have been heated on the stove in the center of the room, while a few idlers who probably form a part of the night gang of the scrubbing brigade, are smoking in dreamy indolence. At short intervals in the lane a gap invites into a labyrinth of alleys blocked by superstructures, frail corridors of wood which run along the upper stories, and form an elevated thoroughfare, after the fashion of Chinese cities, while the ground beneath is burrowed into a maze of cellar habitations. You shrink from one slimy, greasy wall only to encounter its neighbor; you step hurriedly off the rotten plank, spurting its mire, only to land in a cesspool; sleek rats cross lazily before you; puffs of fetor greet you from every opening; unhinged doors disclose rickety stairways to squalid lodgings, or dismal entrances to fetid cellars. Here, in Bartlett alley, the thieves and ragpickers hold their sessions; further on, in Stout alley, bedizened females beckon to the visitors from the square port-hole. The smoke from kitchen fires at the doors spread a haze around, as if to dim the glare of vice and shame. You gaze at the mass of humanity, you think of the narrow limits of the quarter, and you are puzzled to know how and where it lives. But John has thoroughly studied.the economy of space, and worked hard on the problem of compressing the largest number into the smallest compass, Nothing is wasted. L 324 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. Every nook, from garret to cellar, which can by any possible means be made to receive the body of a man, is made available. Every breath of air is pressed into service to fulfill its vitalizing functions. Yet the supply is here so restricted as to raise the question whether a Chinaman's lungs are not formed on a different principle from ours, or changed in accordance with the doctrine of adaptation. He certainly seems to thrive in stench where others would suffocate. This immense community of men, as it may be termed, is composed chiefly of the peasant class who knows little or nothing of luxuries or even comforts. They ask for bare subsistence and a nook, two feet by five —anywhere. It was not unusual to find a dozen men engaged in various industries, all within the confined space of as many feet square; and where the floor could not accommodate them, an entresol was constructed, so that the men lived literally on the top of one another, working and cooking on the benches by day, smoking and sleeping on or beneath them at night. In the alleys were rooms six feet square, and of the same height, containing five to six sleepers. During two months of 1875, 800 Chinamen were arrested under the cubic-air ordinance, and 75 of them were taken from one room in the Globe hotel, which contained a superior class of tenants, and was occupied by only about seven times the number intended to fill it. To secure them against police raids, many rooms were fitted with traps, in floor or ceiling, by which the occupants might escape before the door could be broken in. Yet policemen might daily be seen driving a team of Mongolians by their queues to the prison where they had to practise respiration in a still smaller cubic area till the fine of ten dollars was paid. The fire ordinance is infringed to a more dangerous extent. The chief safe-guard against a general conflagration lies probably in the filthy and moist condition of the. buildings. An army of police would be WITHIN THE WALLS. 325 required to enforce the various sanitary and safety regulations. As it is, hardly a due proportion, out of the police force of the city, has been stationed here, aside from the few specials employed by the Chinese. The proximity of the City Hall is regarded as a sufficient offset, particularly since the Chinese rarely attack white men. I have already dwelled on the repulsiveness of the streets and alleys ; but the neglect and squalor on the outside, the dust-encrusted windows, the stained and cracked walls, the cornices fringed with dirt, are as nothing compared with the interior. The walls ooze a fetid slime, the passages reek, the bannisters have a clammy touch. A dusky multitude crowds round the stairs; faces swarm at every door, inhaling poison, exhaling worse; eyes stupefied with drugs peer from every opening. At intervals, in passages, or in alleys, are small hearths, more or less rude, serving for kitchens. Chimneys are not regarded as needful, even in the rooms, and their absence may, indeed, be applauded as a sanitary measure. If the passages have repelled you, how much more will the rooms, if you can but nerve yourself to endure for a moment the concentrated odor from opium, putrified food, and human effluvia which belches forth on opening the door. The walls are lined with bunks, or rather shelves, about four feet wide, fixed or hanging, and one above the other. A straw mat forms the bed, for the celestial has a contempt for effimmating bolsters, and in this breath-heated place he needs but little covering, other than the underclothing which is retained for the night. At the head is a narrow bar, fixed a little above the shelf, or else a wooden block, to serve for pillow. A cross-piece holds the lamp, at which the occupant lights his never-failing pipe of opium or tobacco, wherewith he seeks the gates of paradise, and then the oblivion of sleep, for which he shows wonderful powers. In the centre of 326 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. the room is a table, and on it a lamp, consisting of a glass tumbler filled with oil, in which a peculiar Chinese weed supports the wick. Around this the occupants chatter and gamble, lounge and smoke. On Sundays washing and mending are the rule, for despite his surroundings the Chinaman endeavors to present a tidy person. There is often no room for a stove, and the fire for cooking is held in a brazier or dish. The Mongolians congregate no less for society than for purposes of economy. One dollar a month is ample to pay the rent, and yet he will divide this expense by subletting his bunk to another lodger during the day, a la Box and Cox. It is not rare to find one bunk occupied by three lodgers, each for eight hours. Such extreme economy, such misery, is not compulsory, even were he doubly the slave we suppose him to be. He evidently delights to burrow. If a town has a low, filthy quarter, he is sure to ferret it out and occupy it. He would revel in the Five Points of New York, in the Seven Dials of London, in the Marinella of Naples, and speedily render them doubly repulsive with crowds and odors. Belonging as he does to a water population at home, it is strange that he has not sought the North beach of San Francisco, with its congenial scents. His den has alsp its attractive features. The peculiar lily bulbs, set in a saucer half filled with white stones, and fed by capillary attraction on the water beneath, flourish and expand their emblems of purity; but in what an atmosphere! Strips of soiled red paper, with moral maxims for the practice of virtue and equity, flutter on the walls in all directions, and in many a bunk and window a bunch of joss-sticks, with red and gilt papers, burn to propitiate the household patron, and to exorcise the presence of evil. But what effect can these maxims have, what power this god, when sunk so low in material corruption ? A talented companion will often discourse with plaintive strain on the guitar, and lead his listeners to L POOR AND RICH. 327 scenes of happy childhood, recall the gentle admonitions of a mother, and the pure emotions of younger days; but alas, deep, dreamy reveries seem to be the only fruit of these efforts. All homes are not like these, however. The wealthy merchant is content with the one small room behind the store, but it is the embodiment of neatness. Matting or carpets cover the floor; the walls are adorned with landscape sketches on scrolls, in black and colored ink, as well as with American pictures. On one side stands a cushioned platform, about two feet in height, with red cushions, enclosed by damask curtains, and within a smoking-tray with all accessories. In this sanctum the proprietor may be found during a great part of the day, seated cross-legged, like a tailor, to enjoy his siesta and his pipe. Ranged along the wall are a series of straight-backed chairs and stools of hard shining wood, covered with loose red cushion mats. At intervals are small tables of the same material, and at their feet stand high, narrow, brass spittoons. Several cases of shelving may be seen, some for books, paper, and small hat-holders, others for tableware, wine, and fruit. Behind the door is the bed, with mat or blanket layers in lieu of bolsters, whereon the white sheets and blanket covers lie rolled up against the wall, and at the head a wooden neck-pillow. This is often devoid of a-cushion, but has a slight indentation for the neck, and is particularly prized by women to keep their complicated hair structure intact. A few images, artificial bouquets, and other ornaments are scattered about, and among them distorted roots bearing the form of dragons, which were probably installed during the house-warming ceremony, and have since remained as guardian patrons of the house. Married people indulge in a little more room than the bachelor of the same class, but the furniture even of the merchant's family home is of the simplest, and more limited than at the store establishment, save an extra plant or so. 328 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. Indeed, the wife is kept so secluded that all show may be dispensed with. On the whole we may conclude that the Mongolian shares with the antiquarian his superstitious veneration for dust, with the toper his inveterate fear of water, with the bat its dislike for light. To clean the steps and walls would be a loss of time and labor, which represent money, and his economic ideas recoil at the mere mention of such extravagance. To stop the innumerable rat-holes would result in opening fresh outlets. His considerations for health have brought him to the conclusion that the opening of doors and windows for ventilation might expose him to the danger of a cold, and disturb his privacy, for John is fond of this luxury in his own way. This desire has doubtless led him to discover that the in- crustated dust on the window panes forms a cheap and effective blind against the bleaching sunlight,as well as against the prying eyes of neighbors. Nor could he endure to make himself conspicuous by a proceeding so unusual and extraordinary as cleaning. Indeed, when we consider the combination of circumstances by which he is surrounded, living in a lodging house, and sharing his room with a dozen strangers, it is almost impossible for him to make even an attempt at cleanliness. Besides, the close air of a crowded room is far less objectionable than the stench of human effluvia, to which his.olfactories have longed been trained. The dirty floor, the oozing walls, are purity compared with the vermin-covered garments, the leprous sores, to which his eyes and touch have long since become familiar. Yes, he shuns not daily, close contact with men suffering from horrible diseases, and with lepers rotting away piecemeal before him. His pores, his throat, have probably become equally inured to the rank effluvia which would breed pestilence in anyone else. Perhaps the ever-present smoke which almost suffocates others, the smell of loathsome dishes, and the nondescript FILTH AND FOOD. 329 odors generally which fill us with nausea, may be preventives of the threatening pest; the very rats that scamper impudently before us, may prove to be the blessed scavengers they need. The peculiar rules of economy to which the Asiatic submits for shelter, are also made to regulate his palate. He is not particular as to the quality of his food, and of this the provision stores afford ample proof. The butcher who flourishes under the sign of Ten Thousand Harmonies, or some equally euphonious title, scouts the idea of scraping his block, or wiping his knife, as unproductive labor, and devotes the time instead to plucking the minutest morsel of meat from the bone before him. The mangled evidence of his efforts is exposed on the dingy board, where the purchaser may thumb and knead each piece to his heart's content, in order to convince himself of its quality. Beef is not much in vogue, for the Chinaman regards it as a sin to kill beasts that are of value for labor and trade. His religious tradition teaches that the slayer of an ox shall suffer torments in the world to come, and if permitted to be born again it will be only in the form of his victim. Pork is the favorite meat. Indeed, it is believed that the Chinese were the first to discover its excellencies, and the taste appears to be all-pervading, for every food, nay, almost every object among them has a larded taste, a greasy touch. .Whole pigs are roasted and displayed from butcher's hooks in smoky, shining repulsiveness. Poultry alone, however, satisfies the highest quality of appetite, and many are the tricks to which the celestials will resort to secure the bird. Split and flattened ducks and birds are imported from China, whence comes the greater part of their luxuries, but the American markets also receive a share of their earnings. Fish of all kinds are acceptable, and some are even brought in a fresh condition across the Pacific, with the aid of a paste in which they are - L 330 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. dipped. The Chinaman is quite expert at drying, curing and preserving food, in his way, for exact freshness is not regarded as essential; he has an innate respect for the antique, whether it is represented by a venerable gray head, or by a decayed chicken. The statement that he has a predilection for rats arises probably from an account of the extremities to which a famine-stricken district may be driven. The prisons of the confederate states during the war for the union furnished similar stories. If he likes dogs, surely we snail-eaters have no right to object. Whatever may be the truth of such insinuations, it is certain that the staple food of our Chinese is boiled rice, which constitutes their bread. With this they often mix the less favored potatoes, and flavor the whole with pork, fish, or spice. A bowl of this, together with the never-failing tea, suffices for a meal. Tea is drunk at all times, for water is rarely taken, and then only when warmed. The food is cooked on a brazier with an absurdly small amount of fuel. The produce-dealer often unites a kitchen with his business, where the customer may prepare his food ; merchants have usually their own kitchen. A large patronage is diverted to the various boarding houses, which graduate from well-appointed restaurants to filthy cellars. At the latter the accommodation is of the meanest kind: a bare plank table surrounded by benches ; a big bowl of rice and pork in the center of the mess, each of whose members is provided with a pair of fai-tje nimble lads, or chopsticks, about six inches in length, and with two small bowls, one for tea, the other for the rice. Scooping a bowlful from the common dish, and holding it with one hand to the lips, with the other the Chinaman grasps the fait-je between the fore-finger and thumb, supporting their center with the tips of the middle and ring-fingers, and sweeps the contents into the mouth in one continuous stream. Tea follows. The board COOKING AND WASHING. 331 at the cheapest restaurants costs from eight to ten dollars a month; but this is considered extravagant by the new-comer, whose means are not yet assured. By acting as his own cook, sleeping in the smallest bunk, and wearing the cheapest clothes, he reduces the monthly expenses to six dollars, but this does not include the cherished whiff of opium. As his savings increase he becomes more indulgent, and even ventures to patronize the superior class of restaurants, where good living may be had for from fifteen to twenty dollars a month, and where he speedily develops the national taste for a variety of dishes and deceptive mixtures, not unlike that of the French. He must have everything cut and minced, ready for the stomach. He objects to act as butcher at the table, like the European, or" to leave to teeth and digestive organs the work which may as well be done by chopper and masher. An indication of his culinary skill is the cunning with which he obliterates the original taste or essence of a food with condiments and processes. In the preparation of sauces he even surpasses Soyer's countrymen. The art with which Chinese washermen regulate the fineness and direction of the spray from his mouth upon the garments, has been a source of admiration to the uninitiated. Their admiration would increase were they to witness the dexterity with which the cook would mix the various condiments by blowing from his mouth the exact quantity needed by the dish before him. Many dishes depend entirely on adjuncts for savor; and the taste as a rule inclines to rancid oil and doubtful lard. In order to fully appreciate celestial cookery we must visit a leading restaurant. The outside beams with attractions: the facade is a gorgeous medley of colors, wherein red and green predominate; and balconies are filled with flowers, lanterns, and flashy tinsel. The ground floor is used as a provision store; on the second floor are the common dining-rooms, and on the third, the grand saloon for parties and first-class 332 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. customers. It has false archways, with an alcove for musicians, and is furnished with carved and richly polished stools, round or square, and ponderous, and with tables both of mahogany or dark Chinese wood, inlaid with marble, and the stools covered with small mats. This saloon is at times formed into numerous small divisions by screens or trellis-work, ornamented with foliage, birds, and monsters in various colors. Round the walls are lacquered boxes, and cabinets, musical instruments, and bills of fare; the whole presided over by the idol Kwan Sing. This is the place where the grand banquets are given, in honor of prominent men, on the inauguration of an establishment, or on the occasion of a windfall. Associates at a factory will meet here once a year and testify their gratitude to a kind employer by a supper, which often costs from two to ten dollars each. In case of an invitation by wealthy merchants, pink, gilt-edged notes of invitation are sent, with two enclosures, one presenting the compliments of the hosts or their proxy, the other announcing that a slight repast awaits the light of the guest's presence. The reception-room is furnished with tables, bearing trays with cups and smoking material, from which the arrivals are offered tea and cigars. The dining-room is all aglow with lanterns and teeming with waiters. The circular tables, with snowy covers, accommodate four to twelve guests, before each of whom stands a pile of tiny plates and saucers of fine porcelain, and a saucer of flowers which are at their disposal. By their side lies a white silk napkin, a porcelain spoon, and a pair of ivory chopsticks. Every guest, or set of two to four, is provided with two metal tankards, holding each a pint of warm tea and liquor respectively. The latter is a white brandy, or a red liquor, muo qui lo, distilled from rice and flavored with attar of roses. No spices are provided, since the food is supposed to be duly seasoned. Circular wafers, about two inches in diameter, a AMONG THE ARISTOCRACY. are often used to envelop mouthfuls of food. Many dishes are arranged in earthern bowls round the soup. When all are seated the host returns thanks to the guests for their attendance, and invites them to partake of the appetizers, which usually consist of cucumbers, pickled duck, eggs, and ginger, salted almonds, melon-seeds, celery, and a variety of nuts, not forgetting the muo qui lo, which is sipped between each dish after a seriatim bowing all around, and amidst a hubbub of conversation. The dinner proper now opens with, say, fried shark's fin and grated ham; stewed pigeon with bamboo sprouts; roast sucking pig; boned duck stewed with grated nuts, pearl barley, and mushrooms; fish sinews with ham; stewed chicken with chestnuts or water-cress; dried oysters, boiled; bamboo soup; sponge, omelet, and flower cakes; banana fritters; and birds-nest soup, made with minced ham and chicken- breast, and particularly with that rare delicacy, the mucilaginous sea-moss, picked from the waves by a species of swallow which frequents the coasts of Malacca and the Indian archipelago. Their nests are found on the sides of precipitous cliffs to which access can be gained only by lowering a rope from the summit. Their rarity, and the trouble of gathering, make them worth their weight in gold by the time they reach San Francisco. The taste of the soup is not unlike that of vermicelli. There are also other dishes which cost up to a dollar a mouthful. A sip of tea concludes the first course; and whatever the objections may be to many of the dishes, the stranger cannot but admit the superiority of this beverage, consisting of the first light infusion from the most delicate leaves, which cost not less than five dollars a pound. Green tea is avoided as being artificially colored. : Tea is served in tiny blue-flowered cups, without milk or sugar. The tea leaves are probably sent to the lower story to surrender the second and less delicate effusion to the servants. 334 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. Each dish is served cut and minced in quart bowls, many of which are silver-plated and provided with a metal heater in the centre, filled with coals to keep the food warm. From this the guests help themselves to one mouthful, with the aid of a spoon or chopsticks, and either transfer it directly to the lips or nibble it from the tiny plate before them. The host will sometimes honor the guest by conveying to his mouth a choice morsel with the chopsticks just removed from his own lips, or he will place his own cup of liquor to his friend's lips. After the first course the company retires to the anteroom for half an hour to chat, smoke and gather inspiration from the cymbal clash, the twang of guitars, and the shrill strains of the singers, preparatory to another onslaught. After this first course the chief men retire, in accordance with celestial etiquette; after the second course those next in rank or importance drop off; and so the diminishing continues until none but the commoner class remain during the following one or more courses, each of at least a dozen dishes. The second course opens with tea and liquor, followed by lichens; terrapin-shells, flavored with onion and seasoned with water chestnuts; mushrooms with hundred-layer leek; Chinese quail; brochettes of chicken hearts; more shark-fins, fungus, nuts, and mince pies; rice soup, stewed mutton, roast duck, pickled cucumber, and so on till the stranger gasps for breath, while the initiated, who knows what is before him, reserves his powers, and by only nibbling at each, manages to taste of all. After the second course there is an exchange of complimentary speeches. The desert presents an equally long series of fancy dishes, of rather delicate cakes and nuts of all kinds, and in the form of birds or flowers ; water-lily seed; jelly of sea-weed ; oranges apparently fresh, but filled with a series of jelly layers of different colors; the whole concluding with a variety of fruit, and the tea. END OF A GRAND BANQUET. 335 At the close of the long banquet it may happen that the liquor has affected the otherwise temperate Asiatic, who accordingly retires to the cushioned alcove in the adjoining opium room, either to sleep off the fumes or to seek the paradise hidden within the divine drug. The opium habit is fully as prevalent among the Chinese as smoking is with us, although the better class pretend to condemn it as severely as we do hard drinking. The annual import of the drug in San Francisco is over 45,000 pounds, retailing for nearly a million of dollars, and half as much more is probably smuggled in by steamboat employes and immigrants, despite the vigilance of the custom-house officials. The Chinaman is generally content to smoke in his own bunk, yet large numbers of public resorts are patrouized. The common den is not like the neatly cushioned alcoves of the better restaurants, where each may have a bunk to himself and an attendant. A dingy barrenness is apparent in the rooms of the lower class, despite the hazy atmosphere, and among the oppressive odors of the confined room that of peanut seems to predominate. In the centre is a table with a light, and the walls are lined with bunks or shelves, one above the other, furnished with a mat and wooden pillows, or at most with a suspicious looking blanket or mattress. Each shelf receives two men, who lie face to face, head to the wall, and share between them a peculiar lamp with a small flame. A fixed charge is made for this accommodation, with a pipe, but not including the opium, which may be purchased at any store. The pipe consists of a bamboo or wood stem, nearly two feet long, with a half inch perforation. To the side, near the foot, is screwed a covered bowl of stone, clay, or hard wood, nearly two inches in diameter, with a small orifice on the cover for the reception of the drug. This is kept in a tiny horn box, in the form of a thin black paste, from which 336 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. the smoker takes a drop on the tip of a wire pin, turns it over the flame for a couple of minutes, when it bubbles and hardens somewhat, after which he pushes it into the orifice of the bowl. He then holds the pipe to the lamp, and placing the lips against the end of the tube, he takes a deep pull, the pellet hissing in response, and the tube gurgling. The smoke is drawn into the lungs, retained for a moment, and expelled in a white cloud through nostrils and mouth. It takes but a few whiffs, and about one minute, to exhaust the charge, and the smoker proceeds to replenish it, meanwhile growing more and more hilarious or sullen, according to his temperament. At last after half a dozen or a dozen charges, with an expenditure at times of nearly an ounce of the drug, the smoker becomes stupified, the hand and pipe drop, the head falls back, the body relaxes, and the spirit wings its way to realms of bliss. Mundane realities fade; a paradise reveals itself wherein fairy-like palaces invite the sleeper to enter, and bright fresh gardens allure-him to repose; where the air vibrates with melodious strains; where angel forms float upon an ether of delicious perfumes. After a feast of nectar and ambrosia, the soul meanwhile revelling in joys which words cannot describe, he awakes nervous and uncomfortable, with a yet stronger desire for a renewal of the debauch. Many use opium in moderation, as a soothing relaxation after the fatigue of the day, and as a panacea for the ills of the flesh; but the drug is most insidious, and more apt to gain ascendency than alcohol. By inhaling the smoke the system becomes saturated with the poison; and as the victim becomes lost to its influence he passes the day in listless misery, waiting only for night when he may escape it by another trance. He takes up his abode in the den, and lies on the bunk a ghastly pale figure, heaving spasmodically, and with glassy vacant eyes. He sinks into physical and mental imbecility, and hurries to an early grave. L THE OPIUM HABIT. S37 Good opium costs as much as twenty-five dollars a pound, but the scrapings from the pipes are mixed with the cheaper kind sold to the impecunious. Numbers of strictly guarded dens were kept especially for the accommodation of white men of all classes, and of abandoned women, who mingled in reckless disorder. The municipality of San Francisco was finally induced to repress this growing danger by imposing heavy fines on keepers and frequenters; but Chinese servants must have aided to spread the vice, for large quantities of opium are bought by others than Chinamen. The not uncommon habit of eating it is still more dangerous, as the poison then enters directly into the blood, and is almost certain death. The Chinese also are great smokers of.tobacco. They use an aromatic tobacco for cigarettes, and also for pipes. Their tobacco-pipes are ponderous metal cases of square or fancy shape, with a receptacle for the weed on one side, and a pocket for water on the other. A small narrow tube fits into the pocket, and into this the tobacco is placed so that the smoke may pass through the water. On the side of the pipe are sheaths for holding trimming and cleaning-sticks. Betel nuts are chewed by many. The most conspicuous evidence of the Mongolian's presence among us, next to his own striking person, are probably the signboards with their persuasive inscriptions of Shun Wo, Hang Ki, Ah Lin, and the like, which stare us in the face at every turn. The laundry-keeper who appeals to our patronage has so far infringed upon his conservative principles as to announce his calling in a style suited to our barbaric ideas, but not so in his own quarter. Here the presence of another civilization is at once made manifest in the orientalism of the gaudy red and gilt lettering on the black signboard, which hangs vertically, significant of the isolated and stationary character of that culture. The words may not sound musical to Essays and Miscellany 22 338 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. our ear, but when translated they certainly are most flowery, partaking indeed of the sublime and heavenly. Wo, for instance, with its doleful reminder of terrestrial misery, becomes "harmony" in their language, and is a favorite denomination with merchants. The mean sounding Tin Yuk is transformed into "heavenly jewel." Each place of business or abode has its motto or title, which is chosen with the most careful consideration of its lucky import, denoting some cardinal virtue, wish, or phrase of welcome, and couched in classic or poetic terms. The sign is duly installed with religious ceremonies and conjurations, and beneath its potent charm, for the invocation of higher powers, and for the allurement of weak mortals, does the merchant hide his own cognomen, in accordance with the code of celestial humility. Every object in the establishment is blessed in the same way, amid appeals to various idols, and in particular to Psoi Pah Shing Kwun, the god of wealth, to whom all address their prayers for prosperity and riches. The motto is often made to denote the object of the establishment. Thus, Fragrant Tea Chambers, Balcony of Joy and Delight, or Chamber of Odors of Distant Lands, are applied to restaurants. Hall of Joyful Relief, Great Life Hall, or Everlasting Spring cannot fail to indicate an apothecary shop. Clothiers sport the elegant and ornamental, and, to make doubly sure of recognition, the weaving or embroidery of the lettering is made suggestive. The jeweler's sign is Original Gold, or Flower Pearls. The butchers hang their notice, "we receive the golden hogs," beneath the motto of Virtue Abounding, or Brotherly Union. Lottery establishments allure with Winning Hall or Lucky and Happy, while Fan Fan saloons urge you to Get Rich and attain Heavenly Felicity. Besides auspicious signs of this character, stores have another board with notices of the goods they sell. The interior is also decorated with a profusion of red slips bearing moral quotations, good wishes, or exhortations, where- L SHOP-KEEPING. with to inspire the visitor with confidence in the virtues of the place. Over the door may be the announcement Ten Thousand Customers Constantly Arriving, and immediately after this patent falsehood he reads the assurance that Neither Old nor Young will be Deceived; but, of course, if he is a Chinaman he knows better than that—or if he knows that he will be deceived, then he is not deceived, and the motto holds good. Nor is he likely to abate one iota of his chattering before the notice, One Look, One Utterance Will Settle the Business. Safes, scales, and other articles bear such talismanic inscriptions as Amass Gold, Be Busy and Prosperous. Private houses are equally well provided with wishes. The entrance bearing such words as May the Five Blessings Enter; the stairway, Ascending and Descending Safety and Peace; the room, Old and Young in Health and Peace, or May Your Wishes be Gratified. One more they might have added, Familiarity breeds Contempt, and then have thrown away the whole. For here we have the explanation, why the celestial always remains so passive and devoid of reverence in face of the array of sacred and social admonitions. Nevertheless, they serve a purpose in the code of oriental politeness, for he of our western east does not plunge at once into business on making a call. Time is taken to exchange compliments, partake of refreshments and to chat, during which the maxims frequently serve as a theme. Shrewd as the Chinese traders are supposed to be, they have none of the enterprising spirit of our dealers. No attempt is made to display goods. The few articles exhibited in the windows indicate no attempt at tasteful arrangement, and no care is taken to allure the customer who enters. Everything is packed so as to occupy the least space possible, although in admirable order, and but little room is left to move in. Several branches of business are often carried on in 340 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. the same shop, each with its desk,where the clerk is busy painting letters on their light brown paper with brush and Indian ink. His system of book-keeping appears somewhat complex to the uninitiated, but is doubtless as clear and correct as the method of calculating on the abacus by his side. Among his duties is to send around advertisements of new goods, and for this purpose almost every place of business is provided with a limited set of types, engraved on pieces of wood, one and a half inches long by three eighths of an inch square. In printing, each type is separately pressed on an ink-pad and stamped on red paper, one sign below the other, according to the Chinese mode of reading. This is the limit of their enterprise as traders, for although merchant and clerk are profuse in expressions of welcome and offers of refreshment and services, yet the moment business is entered upon they assume a dignified nonchalance that is truly discouraging to the stranger. Only the goods demanded are produced, and this in abstracted manner, as if theit thoughts were bent on other subjects. There is a number of firms who have amassed fortunes, chiefly by saving, although a few have fallen naturally into a large share of the China trade, wherein several millions have gradually been invested. These great merchants keep their goods stored near the wharves, and have merely an office for the transaction of business in Sacramento street or elsewhere. To facilitate affairs they erected a kind of merchants' exchange as early as 1854, but no other banks exist than the counting-houses of the different merchants, to whom savings are intrusted on interest, and who issue checks. Where they keep the large sums which are so readily forthcoming when called for is not revealed. Money-brokers exislTwlio are prepared to grant loans to well-known merchants on their word alone, which is never broken. Indeed, these men have a better reputation for honesty than the Americans. At New DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR 341 Year books are balanced, and all debts settled. Failing in this they are cancelled or grace is offered, but with loss of credit to the non-payer, who is henceforth dishonored, unless his efforts to retrieve himself are successful. It seems to be a matter of honor with insolvent debtors to kill themselves, for death alone cancels unpaid debts. It is a pity this rule does not obtain in America and Europe. The six companies wield power over all, and permit none to leave the country who have not settled their debts. Mine uncle, the pawnbroker, likewise is John, and drives a thriving business among the poor opium- smokers. His dealings are regulated by a guild, and licensed by American authorities. Everything on which a bit can be loaned is found hypothecated by needy persons and gamblers; even prospective wages are pawned, and in return for the deposit, besides the money loaned, they receive a ticket corresponding to the tag attached to the article. If they do not possess all the various adjuncts of our enterprising commerce, they at least learn quickly enough to take advantage of them. It is related that a Chinaman had insured his life for a considerable amount, and on being brought near to death by an accident, his friends sent to the insurance company to say that the man was half dead, and that they wanted half the money. Behind the innocent exterior of the celestial is hidden much cunning, and the white men who are tempted by this appearance to make him the butt of their jokes, or to take an unfair advantage, often find themselves the victims. One day a Chinaman entered a Cheap John shop on Commercial street^ and picking up one boot of a pair examined it attentively. "How inuchee?" at length he inquired. "Five dollars," replied the shop-keeper. "I give you two dollar," said the Chinaman. The shop-keeper looked at the heathen for a moment in mingled disgust and contempt; his features and r 342 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. lips then wreathed themselves into what by some might be called a smile. "All right, take it," he at length replied. The Chinaman paid the money, and was about picking up the other boot to make the pair complete when the shop-keeper laid his hand on him, and breaking into a loud laugh exclaimed, "No you don't, you heathen! I sold you one boot only. Pay me three dollars more, and you may have the other. Ha! ha! ha!" Not a muscle in the Mongolian's face moved, but the coppery tincture common to his features changed to a brassy hue, so deeply stirred was he; then drawing from his pocket a knife, he opened it, and before the faintest suspicion of what he was about to do crossed the mind of the shop-keeper, the Chinaman cut the boot he had bought into shreds, threw it on the floor, and walked out of the shop, thus spoiling the pair for any future sale, Chinese merchants form partnerships, often of a dozen members, who live in their store, where they keep a cook and other servants, and maintain a strict exclusiveness from the common people. Their education, refined manners, and liberality have gained for them great esteem among our merchants. Prominent among them was Chung Lock, a member of the firm of Chy Lung & Co. since 1850, who died August 30, 1868, and whose funeral was attended by many Americans. Their largest dealings are in rice, tea, opium, silk, clothing, and fancy goods. The extent of the wholesale trade may be judged from the customs duties, which in 1877 amounted to $1,756,000. From these houses are supplied hundreds of retail stores, many of which, especially those keeping fancy goods, appeal to American patronage. Many of them are branches of the wholesale establishments. In contrast to the fancy goods warehouses, and remarkable chiefly for their odor and filth, are the provision stores, with their mangled chunks of meat on dingy COMMERCE AND INDUSTRIES. 343 boards, floor, furniture, and walls smeared with blood, dark holes filled with suspicious-looking food, vegetable and nondescript. Poles and strings cross one another with repulsive loads of fish, pork, and ducks, undergoing a curative process in the smoky atmosphere, and adding to it their quota of putridity. To become a shopkeeper appears to be as much an object of the Chinaman's ambition as the Americans, but the main point is to get rich', as indicated by their New Year's salutation. If he has not the means to open a shop and await patronage with dignity, he can at least stock a peddler's basket, and armed with the license issued by the municipality for ten dollars per quarter, he braves the raw morning, the hoodlums and the dogs, to offer vegetables, fish, fancy goods, matches arid, other articles at the doors of the people. The limited use of beasts in China has habituated the inhabitants to carrying; and however large the business may be of the peddler or laundryman, no wagons are used. The vegetable venders may daily be seen panting at a swinging and never-relaxing gait, beneath 150 pounds, all packed and arranged with admirable care. They are under control of certain associations or masters, some of whom have an arrangement with market-dealers to receive all unsold and rejected stuff. Faded vegetables are sometimes taken to a cellar, where they are freshened with water and picked. In 1876 the number of Chinese peddlers in San Francisco and Oakland was estimated at three hundred. And not alone vegetable peddlers are thus controlled, but dealers in all branches of trade; tea merchants, washermen, shoemakers, cigar manufacturers, and ragpickers are likewise subject to guilds and trades unions, whose rules modify competition, fix prices, and determine other matters. The industries of the Chinese in California were chiefly of the ruder kind, as the immigration comprised for the most part unskilled laborers; hence the rail- VIM 344 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. ways came in for a large share of their attention, so much so that in 1866 more than one fourth of all the Chinese in California were employed on them. Every railroad on the coast has used their labor, thus hastening the completion of their roads. Their efficiency as pick-and-shovel men has been tested also on wagon roads; on the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's dep6t, where they cut away the hill and filled in the bay; on the Pilarcitos creek . reservoir which was chiefly constructed by them ; and above all by large extent of reclaimed land and irrigation canals. For this work they were particularly fitted by their training in the native rice fields, and for its cultivation they have shown themselves equally well suited. Among the large Chinese contractors was the Quong Yee Wo Co. of San Francisco, which underbid eleven tenders for the ditch of the Truckee and Steamboat Springs Canal Co., offering to dig it for $36,000. The company keeps an army of laborers on the various contracts held by it. Their value as farm laborers has been generelly recognized ; and but for their ready and cheaper labor the farmer would often have been at a loss to clear his field or gather his crop. Whole parties flock to the potato diggings and help to cheapen this needful food. Most of the small fruit is gathered by them. Indeed, the long belt of orchards along the Sacramento and its tributaries in 1876 employed over 2,500 of them to a score or so of white laborers The stooping posture the European cannot so well endure, and the neat handling and trimming he does not attain to. Often the small value of the crop will not permit the payment of high wages for gathering it. .• For the cultivation of sandy and less productive soil, and for the hot and marshy valley of San Joaquin, they prove more efficient than white men; and in particular for the introduction and cultivation of rice, cotton, coffee, tea, sugar, and similar products *fbr which southern California is admirably suited,.but for which she must OHINAMEN AS LABORERS. 345 have cheap and experienced labor in order to compete with countries whence we now import them, they are indespensible. Rice has not succeeded as yet, but silk culture is promising, and in 1869 a firm at San Gabriel contracted for forty Chinese families to attend to its mulberry plantations. The contract was for four years; but if they remained permanently they were to receive as a gift a house and garden for each family. As vegetable gardeners the Chinese were scarcely excelled. They had regular plantations on the Sacramento and elsewhere, where they worked for the proprietor, who furnished teams and some implements, and attended to the sale of the produce in return for his half share of vegetables and grain, and three-fifths of the fruit. The tenants employed countrymen la-« borers at from ten to sixteen dollars a month, with board: Others leased land for a money rental, and some even ventured to purchase farming land. Above Rio Vista was a rancho of 2165 acres which was bought by a Chinsse joint stock company for thirty dollars per acre, stocked and improved. Another tract of 1000 above Benicia was purchased for twenty-seven dollars an acre by Chinese. That favorite commodity of the fruit-dealer, peanuts, was largely produced by Chinese. In 1868 one man made $1500 by employing his countrymen to pick wild mustard in Monterey county. They also had extensive arrangements for the hatching of eggs by artificial heat. Wood-cutting, clearing fields of stubble, and burning charcoal were branches of work undertaken by them. Until stopped by trades unions, manufacturers were glad to employ them, particularly since contractors were willing to guarantee them from loss by pilfering, for which they have a penchant There was scarcely a trade.into which they did not enter in competition with white men whom they sometimes succeeded in ousting. They were to be found in lumber, paper, L 346 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. and powder mills, tanneries, rope-walks, lead-works, tin-shops, and factories for jute, oakum, sack, bag, blacking, soap, and candles. Some were employed as cabinet-makers and carvers, others as brick-makers, competing with the convicts, and in condensing salt from the sea. At Isleton near the mouth of the Sacramento, they worked in a beet-root sugar refinery. At Marysville a number of broom and sack makers employed them, and the woollen-mills in San Francisco had about 160. The three woollen-mills in San Francisco employed about 700 in 1876. The Eureka hair factory could not maintain itself but for their cheap labor to gather and prepare the soap root; they also assisted in making curled hair and coir for upholsterers. There were at this time thirty Chinese clothing manufactories with male and female employe's, the females doing the light finishing work. Overalls and underwear for men and women could not be made here so as to compete with eastern manufactures except with the cheap and efficient aid of Chinese, of whom over 1000 used to ply the sewing machine. In 1876 there were seventy Chinese establishments for the manufacture of boots and shoes, and to compete with them the American firms were obliged to employ a large proportion of Chinese, especially for making women's and children's shoes. Some of the largest manufacturers, who employed Chinese and white men in about equal proportion, were in consequence exposed to great danger at the hands of agitators ; but recognizing their inability to maintain their establishments with exclusively white labor, their own white employes organized into a force to guard the factory during an excitement. The shoemakers' union presented a dark picture of the distress among its members, and said that the Chinese workmen, of whom there were 3000, had deprived more than half of the 1200 members of work, besides monopolizing the slipper trade. These men forget, however, that were the Chinese CIGAR-MAKING AND LAUNDRIES. 347 labor dispensed with, the factories would succumb before the eastern trade, and the white men employed by them would be added to the idle. In this light the Chinese may be considered, as before remarked, rather as benefactors to industry. This argument applies to a number of other industries such as the woollen-mills, sack, jute, and hair factories, which could not be maintained, and perhaps could never have been established, but for the cheap labor which enables them to compete with the rest of the world. The prices paid to Chinamen are, as a rule, less than for white labor, the former receiving in San Francisco woollen mills $1 a day, against $1.75 to $2 for skilled white operatives, and from $1 to $1.60 for women and girls. If the Chinese encroached largely on the shoe trade, they nearly appropriated the cigar manufacture. The cigar-makers swarmed between Sansome and Front streets, and in the loathsome dens of the Chinese quarter, where the cheap weeds patronized by the hoodlums were chiefly manufactured. They numbered from 4000 to 7000, and nine-tenths of the cigars and cigarettes were from their hands. Germans introduced them to the business, and had later reason to dread their rivalry. In 1862 the white cigar- makers rose to drive them out, but failed. A room fifteen feet wide and twenty in length, with a gallery for greater economy of space, would hold nearly fifty men, who worked under a foreman; they smoked and talked at pleasure, for the work was by the piece, at from five to fourteen dollars a thousand, according to quality. The average earnings were one dollar a day. The tobacco passed through three processes, after being moistened by a fine spray from the mouth. The stems of the leaf were extracted by one, another rolled up the filler, while a third enveloped the whole in a wrapper, pasted it, and twisted the end into shape. Cigar stumps from the streets formed a part of the filling for cheap cigars, Besides the legit- 348 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. imate manufacturers, there was a number of illicit makers, whose wares were hawked by peddlers, who kept the cigars hidden in their sleeves or close to their bronzed skin. The Chinese dealer was constantly evading the tax by omitting to destroy the stamp on the box ; they got rid of low grade ware by placing a few good cigars on the top in the box. In the laundry business the Chinese gained as strong a footing as in the cigar trade. In 1876 San Francisco alone contained some -300 Chinese laundries, employing on an average five men each, and 1,500 more were employed at white establishments. Almost every block in the city had one or more laundries; hotels, boarding-houses, and other institutions had generally one of their own. There is scarcely a village on the coast without them. Although not very enterprising as business men, they have acquired to some extent the American art of soliciting orders, and families are sometimes applied to with the not very clear inquiry, "You dirty?" followed by the explanation, " Me washee belly clean." They are not particular as to the quality of the work, but with impressive persuasion they may be made to understand that spots and wrinkles do not add to the finish of a shirt-front; still more difficult is it to prevail upon them to spare the material, which rapidly decays under their system of pounding and the use of acids for bleaching. The sprinkling process is most effectively performed with the mouth, and ironing is often done with hollow irons containing glowing coals. Arsenic is said to be added to the starch to give a gloss. The economic principle is carried so far that the proprietor will employ two gangs, one for the day, the other for the night, in order to utilize the shop and its stock in trade to the fullest extent, or two washing companies will alternate. Their laundry rental for 1877 was $152,000 and the water tax $68,800. Laundries are not desirable in any locality, for people naturally, object to such neighbors, and will SONG OF THE SHIRT. not take adjoining houses except at a lower rent. The odor is objectionable, and the danger from fires is increased, owing to the crudeness of the fire-places, and the absence or defect of the chimney. In a Chinese song of the shirt to his cousin at home the wash- man in California thus complains: Workee, workee, AH same workee, No time thinkee, No time see, Me no likee, Why for workee, Dampoor ricee, Dampoor tea. Washee, washee, All day washee, All day gettee, One rupee, No buy smokee, All dam boshee, No buy drinkee, Poor whiskee. Chinee countree, All one samee, John have ] Big ladee, Here no likee, Big damshamee, All John havee, One Paddee. Another work extensively engaged in by the Chinese, and for which their home training on the river has particularly fitted them, is fishing. In 1857 we find them employing twelve vessels and several hundred men in the pearl oyster fishery to gather aulones, as the meat of this oyster is termed, for the San Francisco and China market. The Chinese fishermen spread rapidly along coast and inlets, and carried on their quest with such energy that the legislature of 1859 was induced to impose a tax of four dollars per month. In various parts of the bay a series of piles or sticks may be seen rising from the water | to which nets are attached. At the turn of the tide the junks or sampans come round with their queer cross-ribbed sails to receive the catch, including the tiniest minnow, for before the law was passed regulating the size of their meshes nothing was allowed to escape them. The haul is sorted on shore, and the big fish placed in perforated boxes and kept in the water till the market boat leaves. The minnows, which include our choicest food fishes, are dried in the sun and shipped to San Francisco and China. Shrimps are also caught and dried, and beaten with sticks to release the shell; both meat and shell are then packed for export, the latter being used for fertilizing purposes. The manifest of the steamer for China, in May 1877, 350 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. showed an export of 945 sacks of shrimp shells, 600 of shrimps and 765 of minnows, valued at $22,000. Other steamers took similar lots, showing a total export for the year of nearly one million dollars worth of this, article alone. This wholesale extermination has made the fish scarce; for notwithstanding the law regulating the size of the meshes, the Chinese readily pay the fine and repeat the offence. Between Vallejo and Sau- zalito alone about one thousand Chinese prey upon the fish, and obstruct navigation with their piles. Under such circumstances it is useless to plant ova. Near Point Pinos, two miles from Monterey, was a colony of 400 or 500 fishermen, with women and children, who made a good living by catching and drying smelts and shell fish, with occasionally some cod and other species. Whaling was not indulged in, being too dangerous. The settlement consisted of about 100 frail shed-dwellings, with gardens, pigsties, hen-roosts, and drying-poles, guarded by dogs no less than by the usual odors of celestial quarters, among which that of dead fish here predominated. Yet the huts were rather tidy, and protected by moral inscription and an idol patron before which joss-sticks and prayers were constantly offered. It needed but a small portion of the revenue from fish and fish oil to supply the few extra articles required by these temperate people, such as rice, tea, opium, and joss^wood, for the sea and garden supplied the rest. The Chinese were not content with waging war upon the labor of white men, but arrayed themselves also against the women, the number of house servants furnished by them amounting to 5000 in San Francisco alone. A Chinese servant is as a rule more willing to do what is required of him than a white woman who is apt to offer objections at every turn, insisting on superior accommodation and inconvenient privileges. " Asiatic servants are generally neat in L LITTLE CHINA. 351 person, quiet, and not at all objectionable in their habits. Their wages were maintained through all the raids against them, and in 1887 were nearer those of white women than in 1857, many housekeepers preferring them to Irish or German girls at the same rate. Rag-picking rose into a profession in Little China, and was of considerable benefit to manufacturers. A large building on Verina street, formerly used as a church, became the headquarters of perhaps two hundred vagabonds, who increased their revenue by robbery and murder. They worked in squads, under the direction of a chief for whom a corner was set aside at the alcove consecrated to the idol patron. The rest of this abode was filled with a miscellaneous assortment of dilapidated household ware, apparel, pieces of food, and scraps of every imaginable material. The filth was repugnant, the odors overpowering, and vice and disease reigned in the most loathsome form. So far the Chinese are principally confined to the lower walks of our industries; but here their lack of originality and inventive ingenuity is very conspicuous for such apt imitators, and militate against them. Their mechanical contrivances at the mines and elsewhere have been, elaborate, but wasteful and inefficient. The Cornell watch factory at Berkeley introduced their labor with most flattering results. Indeed, there was a number of watchmakers in the Chinese quarter to whom any work might be safely intrusted. Still, the genius of the Mongolian does not rise above imitation, and at this he probably surpasses the white man, for he masters a trade in a few weeks, which the other requires months or years to learn. On the first entry of the Chinese colony into San Jose, the head man, who wanted ten houses, hired a carpenter to erect one. While he was constructing it, the Chinamen lay around, smoking and idling, but not without an object. No sooner was the first house ready than the carpenter was dismissed with the dec- 352 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. laration that the "Chinaman sabee all same Melican man," and would now build the rest without his aid. The stone for a corner building on Montgomery and California streets, San Francisco, was brought from China, where the granite blocks were cut and fitted, the Chinese workmen accompanying the car^o and aiding to erect the building, in 1852. It is not exactly a model of beauty or of skill, but did good service. The cost was $117,000, and it rented at first for about $40,000 per annum. A Chinaman at the machine shops of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company in San Francisco had not been there long before he made a working model of a locomotive, which was exhibited at the Sacramento fair. Their skill at carving is too well known to require comments; a Chinese portrait-painter established himself on Kearney street in 1869, and received many orders. A sea-captain sent a picture injured by a rent to a painter at Hongkong, requesting him to make a copy. In due time he received the work, but was amazed to find that the rent and stitches, had also been reproduced with such exactness that it required a close examination to discover whether the rent was real or not. Chiar-oscuro, perspective, and other principles are little understood, and brilliancy of coloring constitutes the chief merit of the art, as illustrated in the well-known rice pictures. Besides these, the most common products of the Chinese easel are plain and colored outline sketches on silk, similar to the lantern patterns, mounted scroll fashion on the walls, and representing chiefly landscapes, wherein a fair linear perspective is noticeable. Straight lines and uniformity are carefully avoided, and elaborate maze-like and symbolic lines enter as the favorite mode of decoration, reflecting the instability of the national character. Europeans in China are obliged to be painfully cautious in dealing with them, and if the traders here L RASCALITY, WHITE AND YELLOW observe good faith, it is ascribed to self-interest and fear. The same motives may rule engagements among themselves, but they are well observed. The regular payment of debts at New Year, and the fear of the disgrace which attaches to a defaulter, are admirable features that do not conform to our general experience of them; but the barbarian may be regarded as fair prey. With us they overthrow a contract or break an engagement on the least whim, listen unmoved to our remonstrances, and as soon as we have finished they turn their back and walk away. While they are at work for you, however, they generally attend closely to their duties, and there have been found among them rare instances of disinterested fidelity under trying circumstances. After all the yellow man is not so very different from the white man or black man, whether their creators are the same or not, the chief characteristics of the Asiatic in America being a slightly surly and reticent timidity overlying a disposition easily roused to reckless revenge, but always preferring peace, and often displaying happy content and attachment. There are many honest Chinamen, and there are Chinamen who steal. I do not know that the yellow man in this respect is any worse than the black or the white man. Indeed our greatest thieves are found among the rich manipulators; after them the politicians and office-holders, and lastly the low foreigners, including celestials. The thieves' repositories in the Chinatowns are protected by every inhabitant, out of pure anti-barbaric spirit. Occasionally the police are enlightened by a " ghost" or a spy,-and swoop down to pry into corners. The inmates are profuse with bland smiles and "no sabbe ", and when the spoils are uncovered under their eyes, they still maintain their blandness and denial. It is hard to say what will ruffle their equanimity. An expose' of baseness or rascality raises no blush; a grotesque exhibition draws but a smile; an event Essays and Miscellant 23 f 354 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. which would create a ferment of excitement among white men does not stir them. The nonchalance1 of their death-condemned is well known. They chat and smile, eat heartily and sleep soundly, without a thought apparently of the scaffold and its dread beyond. The unconcerned exterior betokens an unsympathetic nature ; yet while laughter and chat are "freely indulged in round a funeral bier, sympathy and self-denial are common. The neglect of the sick, and the exposure of dying persons, who are allowed to starve to death beneath their eyes, indicate a heartless indifference, but this after all displays a fatalism, a resignation to the inevitable which helps them through their own dark hours. Men overtaken by reverses, struck down by disease, or pursued by justice, yield to fate, and do not hesitate to turn upon themselves, plunging into the unknown. Indifferent to their surroundings here, the memory of home fills their breast; and formal as may be their worship of the gods, fervor creeps over the soul as they bend before the ancestral tablet. The maxims of the Great Sage rest upon their lips; the gentle admonitions of the mother dwell in the heart. The duty toward their fellow-creatures, inculcated from early childhood, is centred in the sacred obligation toward their aged relatives, which extends into a commendable respect for those old enough to be their parents, and declines into a feeble clannishness for their immediate district folk. The latter may depend on their aid for certain occasions; patriarchs commend their deference; but the respect for parents deepens into adoration. For them the son's toils are pleasure; for them he sacrifices luxuries; for them he saves from his pittance; and on their graves he sheds his only tears of pure grief and sympathy. With this absorbing virtue are bound three others, patience, industry, and economy. The former are impressed on them in school, the latter at home. They become, in consequence, regular, precise, and plodding, IDEAS AND IDIOSYNCRACIES. 355 and these are qualities which the contractor appreciates in connection with their temperate disposition, adaptable nature, admirable imitative powers, and nimble deftness; while the housewife delights in their noiseless step, quiet conduct, polite and unobtrusive manner, and neat appearance. But, alas! even in their virtues the enemy finds stains. Beneath the Mongol lurks the Tartar. The neatness is allowed to be superficial only; politeness covers deceit; meekness is but cowardice, and an index of slavish subjection. Their economy sinks either into miserly greed, or springs under the promptings of vanity into extravagant recklessness. Their imitative powers are but mechanical, and have never risen to the inventive spirit of the Americans. Their stunted minds have failed to grasp the progressive enterprise of our institutions. Their speculative ideas are spurred to action by the gambling table. Their energy never rises above a sluggish perseverance which sinks into inertia when the task is done. Like a child they learn rapidly the rudimentary principles, but the effort seems to exhaust them. Herein lies a clue to the stationary condition of their empire, awed by the antiquity of its civilization, trammeled by its unwieldy system of education, and overwhelmed by an excessive populace which, absorbed by the struggle for existence, has sunk into superstition, and writhes beneath the iron heel of an autocratic despotism. So write we them down, good and bad, particularly bad: when we cross the water to work for them what will they say of us? Queen of the Celestials in the golden mountains of California, during the year 1851, was Miss Ah Toy, though the mountains proper she never saw, her Olympus being the Dupont-street hill. There she reigned, white men kneeling at her shrine, and frightening back birds of darker hue—white men presently to shout "the Chinese must go!" Aye, the lovely Miss 356 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. Toy must go. The glories of this Eden reaching the ears of the sisterhood at home, soon the pathway of the Pacific was strewed with frail fair ones from the Flowery Kingdom. Women are cheap in China. Poor indeed is he who, wanting more, has but one wife; though prostitution is not held in great disrepute, the men very justly ruling that the women's sin cannot be greater than their own. Indeed, if many of the female infants were not drowned at birth, Mongolian millions would long since have smoked opium in American wigwams. It was a fine traffic, bringing peris to Paradise, and the honorable Hip Ye Tung company, heaven-com- pellers and highbinders trading into San Francisco bay, were rich men before the end of 1852, since which time 6000 of these delectable chattels have been brought hither at a good profit, thus proving the taste of the people. Immediately on landing they were taken to the house of the company. If introduced on speculation, they were placed on sale at from 100 to 300 per cent profit on cost in China, and were critically examined by purchasers from town and country. If introduced for account of others, the women were held till their owner paid the initiation fee of $40, in return for which the company agreed to defend his rights to the chattel against American authorities, rival slave dealers, and lovers, the latter being particularly dangerous. A regular weekly or monthly tax was furthermore levied on every prostitute for the same purpose. It was through no fault of theirs that they were what they were. Omnipotence must be questioned about it. The poor creatures were generally obtained by purchase among the large-footed river population; many were decoyed by dealers under false promises, or forcibly abducted. The famine-stricken parents found it hard to resist the temping bait, and many were only too glad to secure for the child the promised comforts. L THE FEMALE ELEMENT. 357 They were little more than children, these girls, say from twelve to sixteen, many of them, and they knew as much of the world as kittens—as much of what were their rights here in America, and of what was morality throughout God's universe. They used to stand at the open door, enameled, bedizened, and in gaudy apparel, to invite the passer-by; but the municipality shut the door, whereupon they showed their faces at a wicket or window, proclaiming their presence by voice and taps when the police were not too near. Within was a front room, relieved occasionally with flowers and drapery, occupied by from two to six, or even more, women; and behind were a number of tiny rooms, or frail partitions with a rough alcove bed provided with a mat, pillow, and chintz curtain; a chair, perhaps a cupboard, with a lamp, some chinaware, and tinsel completed the furniture. Some brothels supported on an upper floor boudoirs with rich furniture, where brilliant robes and perfumed air charmed the more fastidious patrons. Chinamen did not usually consort with the class devoted to the Melican service, but visited a special set. Celestials share fully in the general weakness of the lower strata of mankind for holidays, and possessing no such blessed institution as the Sabbath, they have supplied the deficiency by a series of festivals in honor of deities, heroes, ancestors, stars, seasons, and elements, which embrace one third of the year, and form the movable feature in the fixed institutions of the Flowery Kingdom. The official almanac gives due notice of their approach, as well as of lucky and unlucky days, chang::, xli dress, regulations, and other matters, for no step of importance may be undertaken without consulting its rules. Not content with the formidable list of prescribed holidays, the priests arrange celebrations from time to time with a view of increasing the sale of prayers, incense, and candles, a scheme for which they find a powerful ally in the 353 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. popular superstition. There are besides birthday mtes, not only in honor of living friends, but of deceased ancestors; and steamer days on which to greet arrivals with news from home, or to take leave of departing friends who shall bear messages to the old folk. Hence, any person with the will and the means can always find an excuse for recreation; but since this inclination is not prevalent among our Chinese, owing to the restless strife for the dear dollar and the restraint of our customs, only a few of the most prominent festivals are observed, and generally in a quiet way, the rest being abandoned to the care of the temple assistants, who occasionally honor them by lighting a candle or two and hoisting a flag over the edifice. It was found necessary to conform to a great extent to our usages, and adopt Sunday as the day of rest, and for it have been reserved the various functions of washing and mending, marketing and promenading, visiting and gambling. A number devote the day to reading and writing, and several hundred attend our Sunday-schools. Laundrymen, miners, and traders, are less yielding in this respect, except in so far as to indulge the appetite with a few delicacies. This enjoyment occurs more particularly during their own f6tes, and a sure indication of their approach is afforded by the demand on pork butchers and poultry dealers. The New-Year festival overshadows all the rest in solemnity as well as fun, and none, however poor, busy, or friendless fail to celebrate. Families, laundries, factories, and railroads are all left by servants and employes to shift for themselves, mission schools are neglected, and outlying settlements, mining camps, and ranchos, are abandoned, if possible, for the central settlements, where a round of pleasure awaits them for a week or more. When the thing was possible they used to prefer a trip to the home country, to attend the family gathering, and witness the grand celebrations at the capital of the provinces, which L THE NEW YEAR. 359 continue for three weeks. Hence tlie China steamers that left San Francisco during the latter part of the year were well filled with passengers. The Chinese year begins with the first new moon after the sun has entered Aquarius, between January 21st and February 19th. The year has twelve months, which correspond to the moons, and are designated as the first, second, or third moon, as the case may be. This gives the year six months of twenty-nine days, and six of thirty days, leaving a surplus of days to be combined into an intercalary month, in order to regulate the year with the sun. The intercalation takes place about once in three years, by doubling or repeating one of the spring months. The years are named according to their position in the C3rcle of sixty years, a computation which began 2637 years B. C. They are also formed into epochs, each of which corresponds to the reign of an emperor, a system introduced in 163 B. C. The year 1870 would correspond to the seventh of the seventy-sixth cycle, and the ninth of the emperor's reign. The preparations for the festival are most elaborate. House, body, and clothing undergo a general cleansing and renewal; useless or worn-out household articles, clothes, and rubbish are consigned to the bonfire with prescribed ceremonies, and a fresh supply procured. Scrolls of joy-portending red paper are pasted over entrances and shrines, on walls and furniture, bearing moral inscriptions, and talismanic mottoes, especially the word fuh, happiness, and the five blessings of health, riches, long life, friends, and prosperity. If the past year has been prosperous, the old mottoes are retained; if not, others are selected in the hope of propitiating fortune or exorcising ill-luck. Booms, windows, and balconies are hung with bright paper, tinsel, bunting, and lanterns of slight bamboo frames covered with transparent paper, bearing fanciful inscription and drawings of birds, flowers, and other figures. For the amusement of the children 360 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. transparencies are attached so as to revolve by the flow of the heated air. Natural and artificial flowers form a great part of the decorations, particularly the lily bulbs in white saucers, the emblem of purity, which it is sought to bring into bloom for this season of renovation. The facades of restaurants and stores are gorgeous in the extreme, and generally repainted for the occasion. The person must be thoroughly bathed even at the risk of a cold, the head shaven, the queue rebraided, and the richest attire procured that means will buy or hire; for not only has the season to be honored, but family pride must be upheld, with respect for superiors, to the confusion of rivals and the awe of inferiors. The inner man also participates in the general change, and eschewing the frugal diet of rice and tea the palate shall revel in the choicest viands, to which the ambrosial flavor of the idol's benediction has been imparted. No joy is unalloyed, however. Bills must be paid, and all accounts settled before the great day, and this at a time when so man)' demands are made on the purse. Merchants make preparations for the emergency, and stock-taking with balancing of books, is the rule during the final month. Collectors are despatched even to the most remote corner of the country, and expressmen groan under the pressure of business. A few persons who find themselves unable to pay their creditors, or to make satisfactory ttrrangements, will hide till the old year has expired, for during the New-Year's season there must be no intrusion of business. Of course, there are disagreeable persons who will forget good manners and mortify a debtor by appearing at his door on New-Year's morn, with lantern in hand to indicate that they are still engaged on the old-year errand. But as a rule nothing but o-ood wishes and joy are manifested at this season; old rancor must be buried and friendship renewed; friends may die by the score, yet no allusion must be L CEREMONIES AND CELEBRATION. 361 made to anything which might cast a gloom over the festivities—private sorrow may not intrude on public happiness. Not only temporal affairs are settled at this time, but tradition has it that the gods also balance accounts with men, and pass before the close of the year with their statements into the presence of the supreme ruler, the Pearly Emperor, whence they return on New-Year's day or shortly after. It behooves the multitude therefore to look to their spiritual debts, so that they may not be represented as defaulters, and, truly, the temples are crowded by old and young of both sexes, bearing offerings of prayers, incense, food, and toys. As the eventful midnight approaches, the people bid farewell to the old year with prescribed ceremonies, giving thanks for blessings received; and then the new year is ushered in with a toast in wine. Occasional discharges of fire-crackers have betokened the impending demonstration; the streets are filled with people, windows teem with expectant faces bent toward the rows of fireworks which, suspended on poles, protrude from windows and balconies, ready not only to greet the dawning year and to manifest the general happiness, but to give a wholesome warning to bad spirits, to drive off the evil influence of a past year, and to propitiate the gods. No sooner has the witching hour struck than a deafening explosion succeeds, one house opening the fire and the rest following in close succession, so as to allow no cessation of the noise. It is like a rattling fusilade amid the boom of cannon. The streets seem to be ablaze, and soon a dense smoke settles on the neighborhood, while the ground becomes matted with red and brown remnants of fireworks. Neighbors appear to rival one another in departing as much as possible from their usual quiet life, and in creating the? longest and loudest uproar. If ordinary means of explosion do not effect this, they discharge the bombs in barrels and tin cans. 362 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. Patriarchs vie with youngsters in pitching stringed explosives from roofs and balconies upon the heads of the scampering throng, or in firing a bomb at the feet of staid citizens and demure matrons. The characteristic economy appears to have been discarded with the departing year, and wealthy establishments expend several hundred dollars on fireworks, besides large amounts on decorations and for hospitality during the festival. The first morning of the year is fraught with the greatest din, but explosions are frequent all through the week, if the police permit them, and when they cease at intervals, the ear is assailed by booming drums, clashing cymbals, and squeaking fiddles, as if, as with us, enthusiasm were measured by noise, and patriotism by burned powder. In the early part of the morning every household assembles in holiday attire to assist at religious service, directed by the head of the family. Heaven and earth are first adored, then the various gods of wealth, war, hearth, mercy, and other departments before whom offerings of incense, candles, food, and toys are placed, to remain for several days. Ancestral tablets, and senior members of the family are adored with low prostrations, and all join in spreading choice viands for the departed, who are implored to grant their mediation and protection. The next duty is to visit the temples, which are constantly filled with a devout multitude of praise-givers and favor-seekers, adding their quota to the mass of offerings. Almost every day during the first half of the month has its specified ceremonies, for different classes of society. The pious set aside the greater part of the first day for worship, reserving feasting and rioting for other days, but there are not many of our Chinese who overburden themselves with devotion to peaceful deities, and since the rioting itself keeps off the fiends and imps they feel safe in abandoning themselves to revelry. The early crowd of merry-andrews, spectators, and NEW-YEAR'S CEREMONIES. 363 temple-visitors is soon varied by a throng of silk- decked callers, and of servants who rush to leave cards of congratulations on those friends of their masters whose inferiority of rank or age obliges them to make the first call. "Kunghi, kung hi!" "I wish you joy," or the phrase "new joy, new joy ; get rich, get rich!" is on everbody's lips, in street or house. To this is added a wish for increased prosperity, continued health, and other blessings appropriate to the condition of the person addressed. To merchants the wish is expressed that he may strike good bargains and make large profits; to officials, that they may advance in rank with increased pay; to old folks, that their years may be numerous; to married people, that a son may come to them. When a visitor arrives, the host advances toward him more or less, in accordance with his rank, each one grasps and shakes his own hand as he bows, and then follows a series of the many observances of etiquette in gesture and language with which these people are afflicted. Elegance of compliments and extreme self-deprecation are the main propositions. If one inquires, " How fares your illustrious consort?" the other replies, "The mean occupant of my miserable hovel is well." The question, "Is your noble son doing well?" solicits the answer that "the contemptible dog is progressing." Inferiors bow their deepest and drop on one knee, while children prostrate themselves and press the ground with the head before their parents and elders. The housewife, if there is one, appears at intervals to challenge admiration with the minarets and wings which crest her elaborate hair structure, while demi-Johns toddle around hi spangled cap and bright clothes, protected by amulets innumerable. Every caller is expected to implore the pot-bellied idols for their blessing on the house, and to honor the lavish hospitality by tasting of paste, fruit, or sweetmeat, sipping a tiny cup of tea or liquor, and taking a cigarette, all of which stand prepared on lacquered trays. Liquors and cigars are 364 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. chiefly reserved for white callers, who receive a polite welcome, despite the well-known anti-coolie character of the majority of these thirsty souls. Cards of neat red paper, with stamped name, are exchanged, and their number and class exhibited with considerable pride, and even kept permanently on view. Presents of fancy articles, toys, and sweets are also customary. At night the Chinese quarter assumes a brilliant aspect, with the rows of fanciful lanterns, the glittering tinsel, and the windows ablaze with light. The streets are almost deserted, but from the homes come the sounds of music, chat, and merriment, particularly from the restaurants. The great effort is to crowd all possible amusement into this season. A holocaust of pigs and poultry, liquor and betel-nuts, opium and tobacco, tempt the palate and oppress the stomach, create hilarity, and lead to ebullition. Theatres open in the morning and keep the play going till past midnight, with brief intervals for refreshments, while the gambling-hells allow no rest whatever. The delirium lasts a week, and then comes the awakening, with aching heads and empty pockets. The younger members of the community overcome the weakness of the fiesh with more natural diversion. In the alleys may be witnessed the favorite game of shuttle-cock, played with an elastic ball, one inch and a half in diameter, made of dry, scaly fishskin, weighted with a copper coin, and set with a few feathers three to four inches in length, to give it poise. The players form a circle and seek to keep the ball from touching the ground, by batting it with toe and knee; or sometimes only with the sole of the shoe, a movement which requires a peculiar and agile twist of the leg. Kite-flying is also a popular amusement, the kites representing the forms of birds, fishes, and other creatures. Crowds of boys may be seen marching from house to house with a huge dragon of bamboo frame covered with cloth, borne aloft on sticks, Which are raised and lowered to impart motion to the IL OTHER FESTIVALS. monster. With this sacred image they offer to drive out evil spirits from any locality for a small consideration. The next festival of note is the Feast of Lanterns, in honor of the first full moon of the year, which is extensively participated in, since it takes place in the evening. The houses are illuminated, within and without, by fancifully colored lanterns, and adorned with scrolls, and a procession parades the streets with banners and lights, discharging fireworks and discoursing celestial music. The moon is again the object of adoration during the harvest festival; but since this concerns chiefly the agricultural classes, it is not closely observed in California. There is a considerable immolation of pigs and fowls, however, on Epicurean altar, and out-door gatherings, with Dian worship and stellar observations, which bring revenue to astrologers and butchers. The four seasons of the equinox and solstice are observed with more solemnity, and a well-clad multitude throngs the temples with offerings to propitiate the idols during these momentous turning-points of nature. Shortly after the spring festival of the Feeding of the Dead, described under burial, a temple celebration takes place. The abodes of the deities are adorned with the usual tinsel, streamers, and symbolic banners, and before the chief idol a roast pig is presented amid bursting bombs and orchestral din. Meanwhile a procession is formed, and presently the van-guard appears, bearing poles strung with fire-crackers which maintain an incessant rattling, each pole being remounted with fresh explosives for a new fusilade, while the others are taking their turn. Musicians follow with drums, cymbals, and stringed instruments; then a band of women with lanterns, leading a display of gigantic animal figures, and carcasses of consecrated pigs, the fumes from which allure a jaunty personage behind, arrayed in rich and ancient costume, and attended by a long retinue bearing embroidered banners, fans, r 366 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. curious weapons, and flowers. Behind them march the representatives of various guilds, and last of all a number of giants of astounding make, who do not fail to attract a crowd of admiring followers. After holding religious exercises before the temple an exhibition is given on consecrated ground. Bombs are expldded containing small parachutes, and whosoever is able to secure one of these as they descend is assured of good fortune. There is quite a crowd of aspirants, and the struggle is awful to behold : clothes go to wreck, physiognomies are ruined, yells rend the air, and after all his exertions the victor may not gain more than a tattered remnant as an evidence of his prowess. The chief attraction for the amusement-seekers is the drama, the taste for which must be stronger than with us, since a community so poor and small comparatively as the Chinese can support two theaters with a large force of artistes, devoted almost wholly to what may be termed legitimate drama. The drama is of celestial origin, as may be expected, although tradition has failed to shroud it in the customary mist of antiquity. Only some eleven Centuries ago, during a celebration in honor of the moon, an imperial servitor became so fervent in his adoration, that he flung his ^taff as an offering to the luminary. But lo! the staff was transformed into a bridge, upon which the servitor and his exalted master passed from our planet to the pale satillite. A garden and palace of wondrous beauty opened before them, and beneath a cinnamon tree they saw a bevy of noble-looking women seated on white birds which warbled the most delicious strains in response to still sweeter melody from unseen lips. On their return to earth, the imperial composer was charged to reproduce the lunar music, and this was performed by 300 singing girls in dithyram- bic form, in the emperor's pear-orchard. Play-actors are for this reason known also as the pear-orchard fraternity. L THE DRAMA.- 367 The first of these celestial performances, which, like our Bacchanalian chorus, have gradually developed into romantic drama, was given in San Francisco at the American theater, and then in a building brought from China, which was erected on Dupont street, #ear Green, and opened on the 23d of December, 1852. The interior was ornamented with paintings, lighted by twenty-two variegated lanterns, and fitted with all the paraphernalia incident to their play-acting. Since then various localities served for the drama till 1868, when the first one of two theatres was erected on Jackson street. The second rose in 1877 in Washington street under the title of Look Lun Foong, Imperial Show House. Both have a large troop of actors, who are provided with board and lodging in the building. The exterior presents the usual dingy brick facade of the quarter, with a simple name sign over the entrance. The passages leading to the interior are lined with stalls for the sale of fruit, sweetmeats, betel-nuts, and other delicacies. The auditorium is even more dingy and unpretentious than the exterior, devoid of decorations, save a scroll here and there, and not even on a par with a travelling circus for comfort. The ornamental lanterns have been replaced by bare gas-fixtures. There are two divisions, a pit and a gallery, both fitted with rough, uncush- ioned benches with back-rests, rising one above the other. The gallery extends on both sides, the whole length of the room, the extreme left of it being set aside for women, and the right fitted with three boxes, equally comfortless. The parquette of the largest theater, on Washington street, holds 600 persons, and the gallery accommodates two-thirds more. They are generally well filled, and present one sombre mass of black hats and dark blouses, without a relieving streak, save where a visitor lifts his hat for a moment to air his shining pate, or where some comfort-loving spectators have kicked off their shoes and planted their feet against the backs of their neighbors. 368 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. The stage consists of an open raised platform, like that of a lecture hall, without wings, shifting scenes, drop-curtain, or stage machinery. In the rear are the doors, closed by red curtains, the right to enter by, the left for exit, both leading to the green-room, which is also the property-room, although a part of the paraphernalia and wardrobes is kept in big boxes on the side of the stage. By the side of these stand some chairs and tables, which serve for scenery as required, but are at other times used by the actors to lounge upon while waiting for their cue. Deprived of the pleasing delusions of curtain and scenery, the audience is obliged to rely on the imagination to cover the glaring incongruities and supply the many deficiencies. Change of dress is often made in full view of the spectators ; a warrior will fall, undergo the terrific death struggles, give the final throes, and rise the next moment to join his chatting and smoking confreres on the side of the stage. Actors, and even spectators, who are allowed on the stage, will cross to and fro between the players, and perform other improper acts during the most interesting part of the drama. Scene-shifting is replaced by posting placards giving notice that the scene is a city, farm, forest, or interior of a building. To increase the effect, a box or stool is added to represent a mountain or a house. Occasionally an imaginary line is drawn in the air to denote a wall, against which the actor will kick with ludicrous earnestness. If the playwright wishes to represent a man going into a house and slamming the door in the face of another, the serving-man hands a chair to one actor, who walks across the stage and plants it violently at the feet of another player, taking his stand beside it to intimate that he is now within the house. To represent the crossing of a bridge, the ends of a board are laid on two tables, which stand a short distance apart; an actor mounts with the aid of a stool, crosses on the board, or imaginary bridge, from one table to another, and thence steps to the L UPON THE BOARDS. floor. A horseback ride is pictured by mounting boylike an imaginary steed, and applying an equally unsubstantial whip. Giants and other figures are introduced with but little effort to deceive the audience as to their composition. However crude and grotesque such representations may appear to us, they are quite comme il font to the children of the Flowery Kingdom. Equally different are their ideas of music. The orchestra is placed in the background of the stage, between the doors, and consists of four or six per* formers, who keep up an incessant extempore jumble of banging, scraping, and piping, as terrific as it is unique, varying from a plaintive wail to a warlike clash as the play demands, and as the individual taste of the musician may dictate. When the actor spouts his part there appears to be no abatement of the noise, but rather an effort to drown his words, which he resists by shouting at the top of his voice. The more excited the actor becomes, the more earnestly the musicians puff their cigarettes and strive to do justice to the strength of their arms and the material of their instruments, without any other method apparently than to break the musical bars, to blend all discord into one, and to run riot generally. During certain recitatives and arias the violin is allowed to predominate, and a melody is produced which would not be unpleasing were it not for the jarring plaintiveness of the tones, which reject the sensuous element, and are devoid of graceful modulation. They possess .an imperfect system of notation for melodies, but no knowledge of harmony and other important elements. The musical and dramatic arts are equally backward, and have probably made no advance for a millenary under the sumptuary laws which hamper all development in the orient. A retrogression may just as likely have set in, for although musicians are raising themselves to high honors and imperial favor, our ears cannot discover the charm and influence by which they do it, Essays and Miscellany 24 370 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. and on which their Great Sage has so loftily discoursed ; nor can we find any relic of the skilful artists spoken of by tradition, who, like Orpheus and Amphion, moved the very stones with their strains, and cast a spell upon the organic creation. The musical instruments are quite numerous, however, and each member of the orchestra is required to manipulate several, at one time or successively. The percussion instruments which form the pieces de resistance, consist of a big tomtom standing on its end, another, small and flat, like a covered tambourine, a tambour, a gong suspended by a cord, a small, sonorous mortar of wood, having the rounded upper side covered with skin, and a tiny square sounding-board, fastened to the side of a stick, all of which are beaten with drumsticks. There are also the cymbal and castanet, the latter being a heavy black piece of wood, some nine inches in length, which is held in the hand while the other piece, connected with it by a cord at the top, is made to fall against it. The stringed instruments embrace guitars of several varieties, one being a flat, solid, pear-shaped sounding-board, with a short neck, curved at the head, and bearing four strings, which are fingered in pairs; another kind has a smaller, circular board, with a long neck and two strings. Some "have bodies of small, flat tomtoms with long neck and one to three strings, but with less frets than our guitars. They are usually struck with a bone or flint. The violin is a small, heavy tambourine, with a long neck, upon which two strings cross one another, holding between them, below the crossing, the bowstring, which accordingly touches one string on the upper the other on the lower side. Wind instruments consist of trumpet, two connected | hautboys, like the Greek double flute, and bamboo flutes, some with lateral blow-hole, and about six finger-holes. The play appears to be a mixture of melodrama, farce, and circus performance, representing a train of events or an epoch from ancient history, with love THE PLAY. 371 incidents and battles, rendered in dialogue, recitative, and pantomine. Modern events are not in favor with this antiquated people. One drama continues for weeks or even months, and is given in nightly installments of a few scenes, or an act, like the serial in a magazine, taking up the hero from the hour of his birth and giving his career as doughty warrior, or pompous emperor, till he descends into the grave, laden with glory. There is no condensation or rapid development of plot, as in our modernized drama, but every puerile triviality, obscene detail, and revolting deed, is elaborately portrayed, and nothing is left to the imagination except scenery and artistic effect. Purely pantomimic passages are not frequent, for voice and mimicry generally combine, the sharp falsetto predominating to a disagreeable extent, both in male and female parts, mingled with screams and shouts. At intervals a force of dignitaries, soldiers, and dependents enter in procession to display their rich dresses of costly fabrics and embroidered dragons, birds, flowers, «and tracery in gold, silver, and silk of all colors. The face is often enamelled, or smeared with paint, especially for grotesque characters, and warriors strut in plumed helmet and fierce mustache. Women are excluded from the scenic boards, their part being assumed by men who are trained from childhood to the gait, manner, and voice, and deceive even a close observer by their disguise. The fingers are often tapered from infancy, and the feet confined in small boots, or stilts are used when they act, the feet of which resemble ladies' shoes. Dancing is occasionally introduced by actors, but it is not much in vogue, for Chinese regard it as a vulgarity and a fatiguing exercise, and leave it almost entirely to the Tartars. In the early days of California, the latter gave special exhibitions of the poetry of motion, wherein men and women appeared, advancing and receding with an ambling gait, chang- but without joining hands. ing sides and bowing 372 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. During the course of the play a band of warriors enters the scene, capering and frisking on imaginary chargers, standing at times on one leg and whirling around, at others dashing headlong forward. Suddenly the men throw one foot into the air, wheel round and waft their prancing steeds into vacuum. They then form in line and begin the onslaught in earnest, dealing spear-thrusts, sword-cuts, and. blows, with a rapidity that betokens long practice and extraordinary skill. Combatants fall fast and thick during the action, but rise the next moment to restore the vital spark with a cup of tea, and be ready for a second extinction. Blood and thunder realizations are evidently in favor among the timid celestials, and probably not one of the original characters remains alive at the end of the piece. After awhile the struggle becomes hot, and the men strip to the waist. Warriors pursue warriors; high tables are cleared in a bound, and the performers land on the bare floor, falling heavily on the flat back or side with a shock as if every bone has been broken; buf> ere the inexperienced visitor has time to make an exclamation, the men are up, and pirouetting wilder than ever; performing somersaults one over the other, spinning like tops, wheeling on hands and feet, doing lofty tumbling, and concluding with extraordinary contortions— all in confused medley, yet in eager rivalry to surpass one another. This is the most interesting part of the entertainment to a stranger, who is apt to conclude that the strongest dramatic power of the Chinese actor lies in his feet. The "imitative propensity of the people is not displayed to full advantage on the stage, for although the mimicry is excellent at times, and assists the tongue to render the acting more lively and suggestive than with us, yet there is a lack of soul, of expression, a failure to identify one's self with the role, to merge the actor in the character. The degraded position of actors has tended to oppose advancement in the histrionic art; but another cause L RETURN OF SIT PING QUAI. 373 may be found in the undemonstrative nature of the people. The incident depicted may be ever so exciting or ludicrous, the character ever so grotesque, yet the audience manifests neither approval nor dissatisfaction, beyond a quiet grin of delight, to which the actor responds with interest. Trivialities do not appear to tire it, as they would us; cruelty is witnessed without a thrill, and obscenities pass as a matter of course. All is not riveted attention, however, for when ears and eyes fail to convey the full measure of interest, the other senses come to the rescue. Loud talk is unconcernedly indulged in, and pipes, tea, sweetmeats and the like, are generally discussed, as if it were resolved to make the most of every moment, and let no pleasure escape. The play usually begins at seven in the evening and continues till one or two in the morning. Those who come early pay twenty-five to fifty cents, at ten o'clock half price is charged, and towards midnight the price of entrance falls to a dime. The length of the drama makes it almost impossible for even the most devoted theatre-goer to follow the whole rendition, and submitting to the inevitable he is content to catch a glimpse of a scene or an episode. If you desire to witness one of these plays, and can make up your mind to endure six hours a night for a month or two, a mixture of the vilest stenches that ever offended civilized nostrils—opium effluvium, tobacco-smoke, pig-pen putridity, and rancid asafcetida, step with me and seat yourself on any of those board benches. But first, and as a means of self-defence, light a cigar and smoke, for by so doing alone can you clear a cubic foot of space about your head of its intolerable odor. The portion of history played to-night is entitled, "The Keturn of Sit Ping Quai." Many, many years ago there lived in the Empire of the Sun a poor young man named Sit Ping Quai, who had married a young wife, likewise poor save in beauty and accom- 374 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA, plishments. Her name was Wong She. Sit Ping Quai was noble though poor, and Wong She had a pure and faithful heart. Happy were the days the gods granted them each other's society. But hunger pressed heavily. Wong She faded. The color fled from her face affrighted. Sit Ping Quai could not endure the sight. He joined the army of the great emperor, determined to win Wong She a happier lot or die. Rising rapidly he was made general, and sent at the head of a large army against the King of the East. Sorrowful was the leave-taking and inconsolable was poor Wong She; but Sit Ping Quai must depart. Hastening hence he fought and won a great battle; but by some mischance, separating from his army, he was captured by the princess Linfa, only child and heir to the King of the East. Linfa loved her captive, who durst not tell her he was wedded; for in love the free find favor while enthralment makes its victim uninteresting. The rich, the beautiful, the powerful, the susceptible Linfa caged her loved one in her castle, drove back his army with great slaughter, and then wedded him. Sit Ping Quai, though honest as married men go was mortal; and to tell the truth* he began to like it. With the dove-eyed Linfa to love him and minister to his wants it was easy to forget poor Wong She. A letter, however, brought by a messenger revived his former love and patriotism, and set his brain at work devising means of escape. Now none might leave the Kingdom of the East save by royal permission. Linfa, however, always had in her possession a copy of the king's license, but how should Sit Ping Quai obtain possession of it? In vain he begged it of her, first under one pretense and then another; love was tquick-witted and suspicious. Finally he made her insensible with wine, and while in that condition he seized the license and mounting his horse rode rapidly away. The servants told their -THRILLING SCENES. 375 mistress, who roused herself and rushed after her faithless spouse. And now behold the flourish of the whip and spur about the stage and the plunging of invisible chargers as Linfa overtakes her lord and demands his destination. " I am only riding over the hills for pleasure," Sit Ping Quai replied, but meanwhile he gave his words the lie by driving his spurs into his horse and breaking away. But the princess was not to be baffled. After him she rode fleeter than the wind, and catching by the tail of his horse she held to it as only a wife can hold to a renegade husband. At last he was obliged to yield himself her prisoner. Then when all else failed he began to beg. Dismounting he told her all his heart, told her the story of his former life and love for Wong She, showed her the letter, and begged, begged like a beaten husband. Love and duty struggled in Linfa's bosom, and drawing her sword she prayed her lord to liberate her soul. Then, sorry unto death, both fell flat on their backs and mourned their sad lot. Sit Ping Quai was first to revive. Starting up he sprang upon his horse, promised faithfully to return, and soon was out of sight. Then repented Linfa; with womanly repentance she cursed herself for permitting the recreant's escape. As quickly as she could she followed him. Perceiving the princess pressing upon him, he dashed across a bridge, that is to say, the board resting on the two tables, and throwing it down after him, he watched with much complacency the princess tear her hair and rend her garments. Then she throws herself from the table, falls full five feet, and strikes upon her back with a force sufficient to dislocate the joints and maim for life any white princess in Christendom. Thus ends the first part of the story of the Return of Sit Ping Quai. The second part of the drama details the sorrows of Wong She, who, left alone to grapple with penury and mourn a husband dead, became reduced to need- L MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. ful extremities. The tidings of her hero-husband's capture and probable death struck Wong She from the high estate in which her lord had left her, arrayed her in widow's weeds, and tuned her voice to mourning. Secluding herself, and nursing her affliction, she refused to see her friends, and gave herself up to grief. Messengers were dispatched to learn his fate, but failed in their endeavor. Thus years rolled on; spring flowers bloomed and withered, and autumn fruit ripened and fell, and still Wong She mourned faith- fully. Saint-like and effulgent grew her beauty under her great grief, so much so that the poor simple-minded people who saw her come and go in her daily search for food well-nigh worshipped her as a being not of earth. Many offers of marriage were made her, but she treated them all with scorn; yet so straitened in her condition was she that she was obliged to dig roots by the roadside to support life. While thus engaged one day, a man of noble bearing, but dressed like a courier, accosted her as he was passing by. Sit Ping Quai, through his unwonted dress and bronzed, thick-bearded visage, was not recognized by her who loved him, though instantly he knew Wong She. Scarcely could he refrain from clasping her to his heart as she modestly drew back from him, but as she did not know him, he thought to practice a little upon her before he declared himself. First he represented himself as a messenger from her captive husband, but when she demanded his credentials he could not give them to her. Then he declared himself a rich nobleman, praised her beauty, and offered her money, all of which advances she rejected in disdain. Then he swore he knew her husband, swore he was false to her, but when he pressed her hand she threw dust into his eyes and flying to her house shut herself in. Half blinded^ Sit Ping Quai followed, and loudly GAMBLING. proclaimed himself through the bolted door. Faithful Wong She thought this another subterfuge and would not let him in. He protested, entreated, stormed; all was of no avail. The insulted and enraged wife did not believe him to be her husband, until at length he drew forth her letter to him and threw it in at the lattice. And now comes a scene eminently oriental. Wong She had grown suspicious. This man had come to her in the form of a fiend incarnate, in the shape of a libertine and a liar. This letter might be another deception, a forgery. But, heaven be praised, she had the means at her command of testing it. In lands celestial letters are often written on linen or satin. I have said Wong She was poor; cloth she had none suitable on which to write to her lord. But there was the fine inner garment she wore, relic of more opulent days; and in her strait she cut from it a piece on which to write to her husband. And now is she not supposed to be within her own chamber % With bewitching naivete the chaste Wong She—remember, she is a man—raises her skirts, and fits the returned epistle to its former place. Heaven be praised, 'tis the very same! This was indeed her husband. The door was opened; husband and wife are reconciled, and the entertainment ends. Evidently the Chinese dramatist throws himself upon the pure-mindedness of the audience, for he scruples at nothing that nature does not scruple at, and the birth of a child, and like scenes, are. of common occurrence. More attractive than the drama, and more absorbing than any other vice, to the Chinese, is gambling, in which probably not one of them fails to indulge to some extent. Thousands economize and begrudge themselves even necessaries, in order to save wherewith to pander to a passion which appears so opposed to their usually prudent habits. They number probably more professional gamblers than any other nation, r k 378 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. and despite the raids upon them in this country their dens flourish in large numbers. In early days white folk were freely admitted, but as the gap widened between the races, Caucasians came to be excluded as unruly and not jfco be trusted. Under the alluring motto of Riches and Plenty, or the Winning Hall, hung a signboard that the game was running day and night. Within were further attractions in the shape of half a dozen male and female musicians, who aided a richly dressed singer in creating celestial symphony. Cigarettes were freely supplied, and a huge tea kettle, with tiny cups by its side, stood prepared to minister to the refreshment of. victims, many of whom were the dupes of oracular utterances of idols and fortune-tellers pretending to reveal a lucky combination. The former commodious hells with several tables, brilliant lights, and gaudy decorations, declined under the pressure of police and hoodlums into dingy garrets, hazy with smoke. Access was had, by Chinese only, by means of a long passage, with perhaps a rickety stairway and a second passage after that. At the entrance, on the street, stood a dreamy-looking yet lynx-eyed sentinel, who on the least suspicion of danger pulled a hidden cord to warn the inmates. In a twinkling one or more heavy plank doors with sturdy bars closed before the intruder, and ere the police could force their way to the den, the occupants had disappeared through openings in the floor and wall. They had little to fear, however, for the weekly fees given to the police made it to their interest to shield them, and raids were made only on delinquents for the sake of appearance, since not Americans only, but the six companies repeatedly urged the restriction of a vice which creates so much misery, idleness, and crime. Beside the weekly fee of five dollars to the special police of the quarter for immunity and guard, the gambling and lottery establishments paid a large tax to one who raised himself to A CELESTIAL HELL. 379 the superintendency of their guild, and professed to protect them against raids by means of bribery, by despatching informers, and by engaging counsel. He was said to receive $3000 a month, and to account for less than half of it, the remainder going to swell the large fortune which became his within a few years. Nearly all the dens were devoted to the favorite game of tan, ox fan-tan, meaning "funds spread out." There was rarely more than one table in the room, which was illuminated by a tong toy, a candlestick supporting a bowl with oil, on the rim of which was a series of wicks. A wire frame was attached, bearing a paper shade, four inches in width. At the head of the table sat the banker and croupier, with a heap of buttons before them, or more usually bronze counters, known as chins, or cash, being coins of about the size of a cent, but lighter, and only one tenth in value. A square hole in the centre, surrounded by Chinese characters, served for stringing them together in bunches of 100 to 1000, for the convenience of trade in China. From the heap of cash the croupier separated a part at random, and covered them with a bowl, whereupon the gamblers began to bet against the bank by placing their money on a square mat with marks and numbers on the centre of the table. The croupier then lifted the cup and counted the cash deliberately, raking them in fours to one side with a stick slightly curved at the end. On the last four counters, or the fraction thereof, depended the issue. The majority of the gamblers bet on their turning out odd or even, while the others wager with smaller chance on the final number being one, two, three, or four, whereby they made larger winnings if successful. The game seemed fair, yet the chances were greatly in favor of the banks, since they were not only able to pay heavy bribes to police and highbinders, but grew rich. It is hinted that in Chinese gambling when the bets are heavy on one side, the croupier is I 380 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. able to make the counters odd or even as he pleases by dropping one from his sleeve, or by other sleight of hand. The fear of raids gave rise to a more innocent game, known as sick, wherein four or five dice were thrown in turn by different players. They bet on the larger result of certain throws, and settled their losses chiefly with drafts on Chinese bankers representing certain amounts. Dominoes were in great favor, each player taking six from the well-mixed heap, after determining the turn of playing by dice-throws. The first choice placed the first domino, and then followed the usual matching of pieces. Cards were narrow strips of pasteboard about three inches long by three quarters of an inch wide, marked with circles and peculiar hieroglyphics, and were not so easy to handle as ours. Cash or counters were regarded as indispensable to make the game interesting. Lotteries were numerous, and conducted on different plans, with drawings as often as twice a day. Agents for the ^sale of tickets were to be found at almost every Chinese cigar-store and laundry. It must not be supposed that the Chinese in general have been ready to appeal to our courts. Their conservative spirit, the antagonism of races, their non- acquaintance with our language, and the striking difference between our liberal institutions and their autocratic system, have held them back. Nor have they felt inspired with the necessary confidence in our tribunals, on finding that their right to testify against white persecutors was restricted, and on observing that law-makers united with law-dispensers to falsify, distort, and evade the ends of justice. Their only remedy was to protect themselves, and in this they merely followed the example set them by our own society, first by miners, and then by the committees of vigilance. The Chinese companies and guilds combine not only TRIBUNALS OF JUSTICE. the benevolent, social, and political phases of our own numerous societies and trades-union, but also to some extent the military character of our guards, and the judicial power of our popular tribunals. Their rules prescribe for the settlement of disputes, the holding of courts, and the arrest of offenders, the levy of assessments to provide for rewards to captors, for lawyers' fees, and for bribes, the lending of weapons to responsible members, and so on. They claim, of course, that the system indicated is merely a persuasive arbitration, and' that the parties whose case is brought before the company may appeal to the American courts, to which heavy offenders are handed over, but the evidence is strongly against this plea. It is rare for them to bring a case before our courts unless the police have gained notice of the affair. We also learn that they have secret tribunals and inquisitions which overawe their whole community, and which are composed of the leading members of guilds and companies, men who control coolies and manage the associations with an iron hand. It was not unusual to find posted on some street corner, in the Chinese quarter, a notice on red paper, subscribed by a firm, offering a reward, generally of $500 or $600, for the murder of a designated person. Such notices were produced before the congressional committee in 1876, and witnesses testified that, in case the assassin was arrested by American authorities, it was understood he should be provided with good counsel; if sentenced to prison, an extra recompense would be paid, and if doomed to death, the reward would be paid to his relatives. These inducements were strong enough to prevail on any number of men to undertake the task, and the fate of the objectionable person was regarded as sealed. It was still more common for associations to issue death-warrants to their own members, or to call directly upon assassins and arrange the deed. Although Chinamen as a rule confine quarrels to angry words and gesticulations, 382 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. yet they have an extreme disregard for life when bent on a purpose. The men usually charged to carry out the decrees of the secret tribunals were known as Highbinders, who form several associations in different parts of the country, of varying strength, but all subject to the rules of the guild. They were als^ called Hatchet- men from their most common weapon, a six inch hatchet with a short notched handle. Many of them were engaged at honest work, but ever ready to obey the call of their leaders, who protected the interests of women-venders, attended to the collection of debts, the levy of blackmail, robbery, pillage, and murder. Their weapons were pistols, hatchets, and daggers, the long,, keen blade of the latter being sheathed in a layer of cloth, by which the tell-tale blood might be at once removed. The name of the chief company was Hip Ye Tong, or Temple of United Justice, numbering some 300 desporadoes, whose chief revenue was derived froHi a $40 fee from every prostitute, besides the regular tax and extraordinary assessments wherewith to bribe Christians, fee lawyers, spirit away witnesses, and check interference generally. Little attempt was made to suppress vice in Chinatown, for that would have required an army of police. As it was, both the Chinese and the police engaged in the quarter submitted to circumstances, and the latter accepted not only a regular pay from all classes, but found it profitable, as well as safer, to receive bribes from highbinders and others in return for noninterference. Occasionally the American courts were employed to assist at wreaking vengeance on obnoxious Chinamen, surrendered on some trumped-up charge, and the crime fastened on them by means of hired witnesses. The manner of administering the oath to Chinese witnesses in American courts was to cut off the head of a fowl, and as the blood dripped the witness would swear to speak the truth, invoking upon himself a fate L ADMINISTERING THE OATH. 383 like that of the bird in case he spoke falsely. The fowls thus consecrated to heaven could not be eaten by Chinamen, but were given to less scrupulous white persons. A saucer was sometimes broken, or salt scattered on the ground, with a similar invocation; or all the three rites combined were employed. Finding that even the triple oath was disrgarded, the Confucius formula, so called, was tried in 1861. A slip of yellow paper with the oath inscribed in Chinese characters, and signed by the witness, was set on fire. Taking the slip in his left hand to waft the spirit of the oath to the gods, the witness raised his right arm and repeated the oath, calling on heaven to crush him in case he failed to speak the truth, and declaring that in testimony of the promise made he offered the burning paper for the perusal of the imperial heaven. A criminal was not unfrequently personated by an innocent person for a pecuniary consideration. Witnesses were readily obtained to testify as desired. The restraint and seclusion of the prison offered little terror to him who had been used to the confinement of a crowded workroom by day, and to the narrow space of a bunk at night; nor could its regime prove very objectionable to the hard-worked coolie who subsisted on a cup of tea and a bowl of rice. The proxy artifice was once exposed in the case of a prisoner who had been sentenced to a term of three years, aud served two. Owing to good behavior he gained promotion in the prison service, whereby he learned the art of cooking, received good clothes, and enjoyed comforts which he would not otherwise have expected. On his release he found himself possessed of a fair knowledge of English, and a good occupation, besides a sum of money paid him by the real culprit. Notwithstanding the foul atmosphere of their quarter, no epidemics can be traced to them. The death rate there is smaller than in any other part of the city; but they have few children, which weakens the comparison. That MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. the small-pox has been spread by their infected immigrants may be true ; but America suffered more from this disease before the arrival of Chinese, as shown by the records of the decimation among our Indians on this coast and elsewhere. A physician, who has resided a long time in China, declares that inoculation, which is a surer prophylactic than vaccination, is almost universally practised there; others qualify this statement by asserting that the inoculation is faulty and has often spread the very disease it is intended to check. There is no doubt that the steamers from China have frequently brought infected passengers, and that hidden sufferers have been' unearthed in the Chinese quarters. The prevalence of the scourge is shown by the large number of pock-marked Chinamen. It was testified before the congressional committee in 1876 that of 800 passengers brought by a China steamer a few years before, 740 were found by the examining physicians to have had the disease at some time, chiefly in a mild form. A scourge much more feared, owing to its insidious approach and effect on future generations, was syphilis, which existed very generally amongst Chinese females, who with their cheap allurements attracted silly boys and sowed in their system the germ of this malignant disorder, which may overwhelm a whole race. A prominent physician testified that the large majority of our youth afflicted _ with the taints, received it from these women, and many is the life which has been ruined thereby. A third disease prevalent among them was leprosy. There are several degrees of the malady, all incurable and some very contagious, particularly if the virus happens to touch a delicate or sore part of the body. Some persons have been infected for years, without being aware of it, till the taint was found in their offspring. The police could readily point out any number of lepers in the Chinese quarter of San Francisco, in various stages of the disease, from the DISEASES AND REMEDIES. simple white or red spots, and swollen flesh, to the blue lumps, dark ulcers, and putrified sores eating away the flesh and leaving sickening gaps. Few persons can endure the shock to sight and feelings, or venture to come in contact with these unfortunates. In an alley on Pacific street were two cellars wherein lepers and incurables congregated, were left to struggle for life as best they might, and die the death of a dog. Contributions from visitors formed their chief means of subsistence. There were a few in the American pest-house, eight of thirty-six Chinese inmates in April, 1876, being lepers, the rest suffering chiefly from syphilis. The less afflicted were scattered through the quarter, and finding no commiseration among their countrymen, they were driven to seek Christian charity, either by begging or by peddling their tainted cigars and matches under the cover of night. In China they are dreaded as much as here, but are permitted to wander around in bands to scatter terror and extort tribute. Wherever Chinamen have immigrated leprosy appears to have developed. On the Sandwich Islands the scourge carried off large numbers. The white race cannot be regarded as exempt from the contagion, for English sailors have several times been stricken, and it has prevailed in Lombardy. In view of our intimate relation with the race which washes our clothes, manufactures our cigars, and cooks our food, a certain degree of apprehension is justifiable. In case of a slight indisposition the Chinaman is content to seek that panacea for physical and mental ills, the opium pipe; but if the symptoms assume the least complication he hurries to seek more reliable nostrums; and to judge by the quantity he consumes, he is evidently not in favor of homoeopathic doses, even if that system is upheld in other respects. The first recourse is probably to Wah To, God of Health, whom he approaches with offerings and propitiatory rites, asking him to designate a remedy or a doctor. The framer of the oracle has not been a whit Essws and Miscellany 25 T^m 386 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. zealous of the influence of his god than Pythia of the Olympian deity, and gives only the vaguest of answers, unless the bribes of some particular member of the Esculapian fraternity have overcome the scruples of the priest, and make him designate with greater exactness who the healer is in whom the gods delight. When gods and god-keepers must have money for .their favors, we should have more charity for men. The more prudent sufferer applies directly to one of the 280 works containing the medical lore of the celestial kingdom, with full description of herbs and drugs, their property and mode of application, the regime to be observed by patients, the influence of natural and supernatural causes on different portions of the body, and how to court or avoid them, the internal structure of the body, and other useful matters. Despite the deep study given to medical art, its condition is lamentably backward; and although theories on diseases and remedies are numerous and elaborate, they are founded on a wrong basis, and their practice is pampered by the most absurd superstition. The study of physiology and the art of dissecting are not in vogue, and glands, nerves, ducts, the organs, the circulation of the blood, and other features, are therefore misunderstood or entirely unknown. It is taught that different parts of the body require distinct treatment, and that the drugs destined for them are conducted there with the aid pf particular medicines, by means of certain channels or cords. The condition of the body is determined by the state of the several pulses, making, with their several forms of developments, twelve in all, which, again, are classed under several heads. Some medicines are supposed to drive out diseases, others to coax them away; and if one kind fails the other must be tried, according to the indications of various natural and supernatural influences, behind which the doctor finds convenient refuge in a dilemma. Similia similibus curantur is a favorite L CURATIVE CUSTOMS. 387 idea; again, members and organs from a sound individual and animal, or matter relating thereto, are prescribed for those who are weak therein. Among the curious remedies obtained from the human body are, the placentas, ashes of nails pared from a pregnant woman, woman's milk, plasters of hair cut fine, a hair from a mustache, a bone from the forehead, and other matter taken from felons or young children, whose remains are not sacredly guarded like those of respectable adults. From animals are taken such articles as the hoof of a white horse, bull's excrement, the tip of deer horns, the hair of a cow's tail, dragon's bones. The bulk of the medicines are obtained from plants, however, many of them unknown to us. The ngau tzat root, which runs deep into the earth, is frequently administered to guide to the lower extremities such medicines as are destined to act there. A famous prescription invented by a distinguished individual reads as follows : Frankincense and myrrh, one mace (one tenth of an ounce) each; one dog's gall dried in the sun; one carp's gall dried in the shade; sal ammonia, two mace; striped frog's spittle, two mace; dog's bezoar, one mace; musk, one and a half mace; white cloves, forty-nine berries; seven centipedes dried and pulverized; beeswax, three mace; black gold stone, one mace; one gill of the milk of a woman after the birth of her first child, which must be a boy; king fun (a stone), powdered, one mace; hung wong (also a stone), one mace; quicksilver, roasted and powdered till made white, three mace; to be mixed and made into pills, the size of the green bean, and administered in doses of one pill for a child, and three to five for an adult, in cases of chills and fever, ulcers and swellings, and in violent attacks of sickness. ! The patient must be put to bed and perspiration induced. The sick man who after all this refuses to revive deserves to die. Like all the prayers of man to his gods, like all the appeals of man to the supernatural and unknowable, 388 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. the more mysterious the virtues of these remedies, the more inexplicable their effect, the greater the demand for them, and not a shipment of importance leaves San Francisco for the interior of which they do not form a considerable proportion. They are mostly prepared at one of the dozen apothecary shops in the Chinese quarter, where several men are constantly employed to dry, peel, crush, distill, and mix from 500 to 1000 varieties of medicinal substances, according to the prescriptions of the books, but without an attempt to form anything like a scientific compound or extract, for chemistry is an unexplored field to the Chinese. Apothecaries may be found at any large settlement under the suggestive names of The Hall of the Approved Medicines of every Land, Great Life Hail, or Hall of the Hill with Two Peaks, referring to a famous doctor of a past age. There is humbug enough among our own medicine men, but those of the Asiatics are, if anything, worse. The Chinese have an infinite subdivision of branches in all trades, including the medical profession, and more reliance is placed in those who modestly proclaim themselves as specialists. Some among them offer to cure certain diseases for a fixed sum, including the cost of medicines. The intricacy of the branch requires deep study, and this in itself indicates sufficient learning to assure the practitioner of an honored position among his countrymen. Political as well as guild regulations have in China aided to check researches tending to advance their art, and the profession is restricted to antiquated methods, with heavy penalties for the bad results that may follow innovations. Experience has, of course, led them to discover many efficient methods, and they are quite expert^ in the treatment of simple ailments, but superstition enters largely into all operations, even of respectable physicians. The condition of the patient is determined by feeling the pulses for the different parts of the body, under varying circumstances, a task which re- SUPERSTITION LN MEDICINE. 389 quires some time, despite the wonderful accuracy and fineness of touch of the experienced doctor. The organs are also examined, and aided by the statement of the patient, the diagnosis is formed and the remedy prescribed with due regard for the state of the weather, the moon, planets, and various other subtle and occult influences. Gods good and evil must be continually invoked and spirits exorcised to comfort the sufferer. While the examination progresses the doctor does not fail to impress the patient with his profound knowledge of the disease and its treatment by reciting the wonderful cures effected by him, as many of our own doctors do. Counter-irritants, such as rubbing, pinching, pricking, and applying caustics are much used, particularly by barbers; and the victim submits with unflinching stolidity to the most severe tortures. Surgery is not understood, for Chinese have a decided objection to cutting or amputating; hence they have few of our numerous surgical instruments, and none of the apparatus for the cure of deformities and kindred treatments. In cases of broken limbs, simple bandages and poultices are applied. Of most operations they have peculiar ideas. For a female suicide from an overdose of opium a live kid was procured, into whose throat an incision was made, and the warm blood caught in a syringe and thrust down the throat of the dead. She did not, like Lazarus, return to life. Obstetrics is left to women, whose chief fitness lies in tact and experience. Liberal in the use of drugs, the Chinaman is also free in the employment of doctors ; and since different parts of the body require different treatment, he will often seek several doctors to prescribe in their respective departments; and if the desired effect is not obtained, he is quite ready to bestow his confidence on other healers who offer to cure all diseases, even those unheard of, and whose sole claims to the profession are the possession of a few medical books and a ready r 390 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. wit for mummery, so soothing to the feelings of the poor. At one time there was quite a mania among white women to test the skill of the mystic oriental. Clairvoyants prescribe in accordance with the revelations they receive in their visions. Another class of men frequently consulted is students whose enthusiasm has led them to dip into Esculapian lore, and being more disinterested than prefessionals, they enjoy the confidence of the prudent. The regulations of the Chinese companies provide for the care of sick members ; the first regular hospital established in San Francisco was the Chinese asylum on Union street, for which the city granted a lot. Two or three other hospitals were supported by the companies, whose sick members were there made to work as long as they could move a limb. These establishments were situated in back-rooms and cellars without furniture save a few thin mats, and where no regard was paid to cleanliness and comfort, or even to the sustenance of the helpless and often famishing patients. The charge at these places was extremely moderate, and even among those belonging to the very lowest order, who were friendless and entirely destitute, there was always room for the sick and dying in the out-of-the-way corners of Little China, where were always found some neglected by all, lingering in filth and misery. This was particularly the fate of the women, who were less esteemed than men, and less apt to have relatives here to care for them. It would seem a good business for the boastful doctors, buying sick women to cure and sell, but for the rule that if they should prove obstinate, all flesh 'having sometime to die, the funeral expenses must be borne by the person at whose house the death takes place. And if the body be not properly cared for by the unlucky landlord, the spirit returns to haunt the place. Another sensible view taken was in their fatalism. Of course every one knows what is to be will be; and what the Chinaman knows he usually acts upon. L PRODIGALITY LN DEATH. 391 So when once in the thin waters of a mountain lake, some fisherman might easily have saved a drowning comrade, and did not, their maxim was proved correct, for thus the fates had ordained. The Chinese may be economical in this life, but they are liberal enough in regard to the life to come. And indeed it costs but little more to have many gods and several souls, than one of each. After death the body is laid on the floor to be more under the protective influence of earth, the universal mother; and while in this position the three spiritual and seven animal souls are liberated, one of the spiritual souls passing at once to the eternal judge, the second into the ancestral tablet, and the third remaining to hover round the tomb. The corpse is washed, dressed in its best clothes, or in rich new garments, paper clothing being used by the poor, and placed in the coffin, together with some rice, fruit, and tea by its side, and a bonne bouche between the lips, whereupon it is covered with a pall of white cloth, the mourning color. Coffins, or "longevity boards," are made of the most durable material, generally rosewood and at times richly mounted, In China they often form a favorite present with children and are placed in the ancestral room as an assurance to the parents that their remains will be properly cared for. Colored candles and incense- sticks burn round the pall to light the soul on its journey, and propitiate the inhabitants of the spirit world to accord the new-comer a friendly reception, A quantity of choice offerings is displayed beside the coffin on several tables, guarded by two small figures, male and female, which stand beside a miniature mountain, covered with trees that bear red leaves and silvered-paper fruit. Huge platters support whole carcasses of pigs and sheep, grotesquely ornamented, and flanked by chickens and ducks in strangely distorted shapes. Five kinds of the meat must be cooked and five uncooked. Around these stand rows of choice dishes in great variety, with cups of wine and tea, and 392 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. pyramids of cakes and fruit, artistically prepared and arrayed, and interspersed with flowers, ornaments, paper toys of all description, and make-believe money to pay the way in spirit-land. While these preparations are going on, a priest in yellow robe with black stripes chants the ritual, with several assistants dressed in simple white surplices, tied at the waist, and with white strips round their heads. There is kneeling and bowing, gesticulation and grieving, accompanied by shrill and clashing music, and the explosion of fire-crackers, to keep away the ever-watching imps of evil. Still louder rises the wail of paid women, and well-simulated sobs, sometimes accompanied by the genuine article. Words of lament over the irreparable loss sustained by surviving friends are spoken, and eulogies on the deceased, in improvised or prescribed form " Alasl alas 1 why was it not I that had died rather than be doomed to remain in the land of the living, an inheritor of trouble and grief, while thou art removed. Thou, so talented and wise; thou sliouldst have been spared to become an officer of the empire, even a pillar of the royal palace. In the parting our heart is torn; but we hope that after death thy soul has joy and peace, having ascended to the heavenly palace, there to confer prosperity on thy children and grand-children." White men are less selfish in this respect, being willing to undergo the trials of earth a little longer and let others die. Neighbors flock in to respect and criticize the display for the dead, to whom they refer as having departed, passed from this world, ascended to the sky; yet with all this respect for the deceased they laugh and talk unconcernedly among the mourners. They know that funeral faces, and sighs, and groans will make no difference. Soon the wailing is interrupted by the arrival of the hearse, carriages, and wagons, and the procession starts for the cemetery, attended by the imp-scaring music, L FUNERAL RITES. 393 and the scattering along the road of colored bits of paper with square holes, representing money wherewith to buy the right of way from the spirits. In the front carriages may be noticed the female mourners in white robes and hoods. If the deceased was an old or a prominent man, the pomp is proportionately greater, and one or more young men are engaged to walk behind the hearse, bare-footed and in coarse, dirty, white garb, with the head deeply bent over a cane, and supported by a person on either side. They represent sons of the dead, and their appearance is emblematic of the sorrow caused by the bereavement. Humbler acquaintances bring up the rear in wagons, several of which are laden with the offerings. The procession is received at the cemetery with a volley of crackers, and the body is placed before the grave, surrounded with burning candles, and incense-sticks, and platforms set with the offerings. Incisions are made in the meats for the spirits; some rice is scattered, and wine and tea poured out while every one present bows profoundly and goes through certain pious gyrations. The various toys consisting of tiny chests of clothing, furniture, horses, servants, ornaments, all made of paper—a flimsy trick of celestial economy, which goes so far as to pass forged checks on the helpless spirits—together with tobacco, flowers, and certain clothing, are now burned and transmitted to spirit land for the use and service of the departed, amid a rattling discharge of crackers to speed the parting soul of things. After several prayers and acts of devotion, the body is deposited in the grave, and on the mound is placed a board with an inscription, together with the remnants of candles and incense-sticks. More tea and wine arte poured out, and rice scattered for the benefit of other hovering souls, whereupon, the company return to town, bringing away the food of which the spirits have inhaled the essence, to serve for a riotous feast. It is even stated that some of the pigs and fowls probably find their 394 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. way back to the seller from whom they had been borrowed. Each of the six Chinese companies has a special section at the cemetery, with an altar here and there for ceremonies. The courtesans' graves have a separate altar, with a tablet before which expensive offerings are at times made, generally by keepers of brothels, who by these ministrations to the dead hold their influence over the living. Having no descendants, these women cannot hope for greater post mortem care in China than here, and their bones are, therefore, as a rule left to moulder in the foreign soil. The belief that spirits have the same need for food, clothes, shelter, and amusements as the living, is somewhat akin to the Christian's idea of earning here glory and happiness for heaven; and as they cannot rest in peace in a foreign land, the Chinese are extremely anxious to have their bones sent home, where friends will provide for their wants in spirit-land, either from love, or from fear that the neglected soul may haunt them. In early days it was not unusual to send home the whole body in a leaden coffin, but now it is rare to send anything more than the bones. Rather more than half of the number who have died on the coast have so far had their remains sent back. An account is kept of the time required for the body to decompose. The grave is then opened, the bones collected, scraped, dipped in spirits and water, well rubbed with a brush, without being touched by the hand, and packed into as small a box as will hold them. This duty is performed by special societies. In China the site for the grave must be carefully selected by diviners, who usually choose hill slopes facing a bend in a river, which is supposed to bring good influences to the spot. All the hills round the cities are dotted with tombs, which must on no account be disturbed. There are also ancestral temples, where the tablets of the family or clan are erected, lights kept burning, and festivals held at certain in- AFTER DEATH. 395 tervals. A substitute for these may be found at the company houses in San Francisco, where the names of deceased members are inscribed on an altar, illuminated by a constantly burning light, and provided with a table for offerings. At the home of the deceased a tablet is also erected with his name, and perhaps with his image, bearing a panegyric phrase. If the family is wealthy, a niche or room is devoted to dead members. Before these tablets the descendants bend in adoration, keep the lamp burning to light the path of the spirits and to honor them, and make frequent offerings of food and toys Lengthy eulogies are suspended in the bereaved home for forty-nine days after death, wherein the spirit is implored to leave his blessing. On the fourteenth day after the funeral, on every thirtieth day thereafter, and on the anniversary of the death, prescribed mourning ceremonies, with offerings, are observed. On the fourteenth day the mourners repair with temple assistants to the grave, where food is presented and paper offerings are burned, attended by the pretty conceit of liberating four song-birds, to speed the soul of the offerings and cheer the spirit with their warbling. The moon-eyed priest rings a bell, mutters an incantation amid responsive groans from the assemblage, which thereupon marches round the grave, the priest leading with his bell. Parents are most deeply lamented and cared for, and honored by the children with a three years' mourning in white or slate-colored clothes, with collar and white cord in the queue. Other members of the family receive much less attention, and young women and infants are scarcely accorded a thought after the meagre funeral rites have been rendered. Filial devotion is manifested by the prominence given to the Festival of the Tombs, or the Feeding of the Dead, also called Tsing Ming, the Pure and Resplendent Festival, which takes place usually in the end of March, and forms, next to New, Year, the MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA, most sacred celebration in the Chinese calendar. All who can by any possibility suspend work do so, and abandon the abode of the living for the precincts of the dead, to worship the ancestral manes who on this day are released from the world of spirits that they may mingle with their descendants on earth. In a continuous throng they proceed to the cemeteries with baskets full of delicacies which they share with the hovering souls, giving them the essence while reserving for themselves the substance. The smoke of burning incense-sticks and tapers, lighted from the consecrated temple fire, curls upward in fantastic figures, and rises jointly with the prayers of the devout and the fragrance from flower-decked graves,to honor and appease both gods and spirits. A clod of earth is added to the mound, and a paper affixed to commemorate the visit. A second feeding of the dead takes place about August, a/t which spirits having no living kindred receive special attention. They, as well as other neglected souls, are otherwise under the protective care of Kwan Yin, the goddess of mercy. Food and presents are displayed at the windows and balconies, or hung on lines across the street, and left at the graves, so that the roaming phantoms may feast and be merry. A procession adds lustre to the festival with music, banners, and idols. Prominent among the latter may be seen the ten-foot-high image of Kwan Yin, bristling with armor from head to foot, and looking like anything else than a goddess of mercy; but the hungry spirits are apt to quarrel over the feast, and to keep them in check it is necessary for her to assume this fierce guise. When the offerings are burned, the image ascends the pyre also, and the stern warrior passes again into the form of the gentle spirit which superintends the distribution of the gifts that are to last the hungry souls till the next festival After the lapse of from three to seven years, a public ceremony, called the Universal Rescue, is held for a week for the benefit of all spirits not yet released THE SPIRIT WORLD. 397 from earthly bonds, and notice of this is sent to them by burning messages on yellow paper. Altars and rooms are purified, incense burned, and propitiatory offerings made, amid the chant of priests and the clash of music. On concluding, the priest burns paper images of certain idols, the names of interested spirits, and certain records. The imperturbable disposition of the Chinese admits little or none of the spiritual exaltation or sectarian fanaticism so prevalent among other nations. Their religion is rather a teaching and a formalism than a faith and divine bond. They have a trinity, but it is one of systems, moral, metaphysical and materialistic, represented by the doctrines of Confucius, Lao-tze, and Buddha respectively, which exist commingled and coordinate without rivalry. Although every person is allowed to give prominence to the cult chosen by his inclination, yet few have adopted any one system exclusively, while all combine in the observance of certain features, such as the worship of heaven and earth, particularly at New Year, of the kitchen god, whose only temple is the shrine in the household corner, and especially of ancestry, which may in one sense be regarded as the basis of the combined systems, since the gods and genii are nearly all apotheosized rulers, heroes, and men who have earned popular gratitude and esteem. Confucius, or Kong-fu-tze, is, however, the controlling power in Chinadom. All its social and political institutions are founded on his teachings, which are identical with the" main principles of the leading religions of the world; and his simple, practical code of ethics is the officially recognized guide of every Chinaman, for Kong the Teacher, as the name signifies, taught and practiced a moral philosophy combined with a mystic cosmogony which avoids all inquiry into theologic dogmas, and commits itself to no creed, except in promoting ancestral worship. Yet he be- 398 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. lieved in omens and advocated divination, and numerous stories are told of his superstitions and.eccentric habits. No images desecrate his temples, but a plain tablet faces the worshipper, with the simple yet grand inscription, The Great and Holy Sage. Contemporary with the youth of Confucius was Lao-tze, the founder of the Taouists, or Rationalists, born in the year 604 B. C, whose transcendentalism proved too abstruse for the masses, and forced the introduction of many superstitions until the system became transformed into a gross, confused, spiritualistic idolatry, largely mixed with Sabianism, and suited rather for the ignorant. Many traditions are current regarding Lao-tze, depicting him as a pantheistic essence, a spirit who assumed the forms of deities, kings, and teachers, and at one time descended from heaven on a sunbeam, fell into the mouth of a virgin, and after eighty-one years' gestation, was born in the form of an old, white-headed man, whence his name, which signifies Old Boy. Himself too exalted to be the immediate object of worship, prominence is assigned to the medicine god, the dragon, and a host of other euphemistic gods and genii presiding over inferior departments. The system concerns itself less with preparations for a future life than with the requirements of the present, and its temples, idols, and worship are therefore insignificant compared with those of the Buddhist. Buddhism with its meditation, its practice of virtue and self-abnegation, its belief in a final ideal unconsciousness, a Nirvana, might never have become established in China but for the leaven of superstitious rites and beliefs, partly the remnants of a former national religion, which was added to suit the popular taste. In this corrupted form it filled a void in the yearning spirit of the celestials, and spreading rapidly from the time of its introduction in the beginning of the Christian era, it became tolerated, and even generally accepted, despite the persecution of alternate L THE CHINAMAN'S RELIGION. rulers and the sneers of the learned at the incongruous idolatry wherein the masses had engulfed both this and the Taouistic religion. Materialistic in his tendencies, and devoid of reverence, the Chinaman is prone to neglect the superior deities, to whom his mind cannot so readily be lifted, who, absorbed in their grandeur, concern themselves little with insignificant humanity, and who will not harm him, since they are the embodiment of goodness and mercy. But yielding to his fear, he cringes before the minor gods and spirits who may injure him, and with whom he has filled every earthly object. Nature is to him a sealed book, and having nothing wherewith to replace these childish fancies, phenomena and incidents appear but as the sport of imps and deities. The more wonderful and inexplicable their manifestation, the more readily he yields them worship. It is by offering the means to avert or control the ever-threatening prodigies that Taouism has managed to sustain itself, despite the encroachments of Buddhist ideas. Belief influences the Chinaman less than fatalistic adherence to custom, and thus we find even the superior mind bending to the inevitable, and accepting not so much the gross superstitions as the higher principles and the hopeful prospect of a future, painted by the Taouist in the existence of genii, and by the Buddhist follower in a more ideal absorption. Confucius also speaks in his book of heaven, but the references are too vague for definition, and many scholars give them a pantheistic significance, which appears supported by the worship of heaven and earth, evidently as a dual, alh pervading essence. Others recognize in these phrases the acknowledgment of a supreme being. The worship of heaven is regarded as pertaining rather to the superior dignity of the emperor, as the son of heaven, and as ruler not only of men but of spirits; as the embodiment of universal will, acting on individual and inexorable destiny, and as the unified spirit of the family, which is the state. MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. wherein patriotism takes the form of family piety and ancestral worship. The future existence of the soul depends upon the purity of its mundane career, or rather, it would seem, upon the amount of incense and offerings wherewith the gods have been propitiated. It is believed that the poosah, the minor gods of various departments, keep account of the actions of men, and pass annually, at the close of the year, to report to the supreme ruler. The god of the hearth is even supposed to render a monthly balance sheet, and the divinity occupying the cynosura to take account thereof, and shorten the thread of life in proportion to the deficit The three spiritual and seven animal souls of the body represent the male and female principles respectively of the dual power of nature. What becomes of the animal spirits or senses is not defined, but of the male principle, or souls of reason, one remains by the body, the second enters the ancestral tablet, and the third speeds to the other world to be arraigned before the ten judgment gods. His good and evil deeds—as represented by the bribed divinities below—appear as defenders and accusers, and sentence is passed in accordance, condemning him to a higher or lower form of existence, to the sphere of gods and genii, or to the circle of suffering wretches and abhorred beasts. There is generally a probationary gradation to either destiny, but he may attain bliss or misery at once. The punishment accords with the crime; gluttons may be plunged into lakes of blood and filth, or changed to starving wolves; liars have the tongue pierced with scorching pincers; and the most wicked are cast into burning furnaces. . There are many incongruities in the system, and to account for the multitude of hovering spirits is a puzzle even to the priests; they may belong to beings who have not yet been assigned forms wherein to be reborn. Whether the souls become gods and genii or not, they still continue to crave for the same wants as the living, apparently TEMPLES IN REMOTE LANDS. unable to help themselves to anything that is not specially offered to them. When the offerings are burned, and the soul of things despatched to them by loving friends, their attention must be called to the consignment. The custom of offering food and other gifts to the ancestral tablet and at the grave indicates either that the spirits inhabiting these places have separate wants, or that they communicate with the soul in the spirit world, who is allowed to mingle with his living friends only on certain occasions, during the festivals to the dead. There was quite a number of temples in the Chinese quarter. Five of the six companies had one each, and several of the guilds had others, which as a rule occupied a room in the upper story of their buildings. They owed their existence to small subscriptions from the members of the associations, who were glad to contribute a dollar or two for the privilege of having their names inscribed on the registers posted round the temple walls; but the piety of liberal patrons was also evident, and speculators were not wanting to invest money in a scheme which promised good returns. Many years ago,when the region beyond Union square, in San Francisco, was yet a mass of sand and brush, an enterprising celestial resolved to stimulate individual piety to aid him in making an investment of this kind, whereby he might live at ease and grow wealthy by the sale of prayers and candles. The corner of Post and Mason streets was the site chosen for the divine abode, and there it rose, facing the rising sun, though hidden from eyes profane by a high board fence. The initiated recognized the place by the Chinese characters over the gate, which announced that the Imperial Heaven spreads out to these remote lands, which were indeed dependencies of the Flowery Kingdom. Nevertheless, the intrusion of barbarians compelled the removal of this divine advance post, and it was left to other speculators to rear the monuments of devout enter- (Essays and Miscellany 26 402 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. prise within the precincts of their quarter. There was nothing grand or awe-inspiring about these edifices; quite the reverse. A few were situated on the main streets, with tolerably decent approaches, but the rest must be sought in a labyrinth of noisome alleys, as if to illustrate the apothegm that it is not a broad pleasant path which leadeth to heaven. The most extensive temple, with the largest constellation of divinities, was in a narrow passage connecting with Dupont and Jackson streets, and presenting a most uninviting aspect of greasy, smoky walls and shaky superstructures, with odors puffing from every door and window. Tearing himself loose from the importunities of a fortune-teller, and a series of bedizened females who blockaded the approaches, the visitor reached a dingy brick building, the two lower stories of which were occupied as workshops and dwellings. Ascending an outside stairway of the most rickety description, he came to the third and highest floor, where dwelt the gods in gloomy solemnity, and in an atmosphere laden with odors of sandal-wood, smoke, and incense. If cleanliness is akin to godliness then assuredly Satan reigns in pagandom. The only notification of the sacred proximity was afforded by a small "gilt sign over the entrance. Just inside* stood a huge plain screen with inscriptions to exclude the intrusive glare of daylight, and before it hung a three-foot wide tablet, with gilded figures of men, animals, foliage, and pag in high and demi-relief, depicting incidents from tl lives of the gods. The right-hand corner throned s idol in a rather flimsy shrine, surrounded by a few scroll decorations, and with a case of extinguished intense tapers before him. This position is often assigned to Thing Wong, god of the wall and moat, or lord of the province, whose image rises in every town in China, to defend it from enemies, and to promote its welfare, to control the spirits of the dead, and to regulate the rains. In time of drouth, the image roaas, in GODS AND THEIR DUTIES. 403 is exposed to the scorching sun, that it may feel the heat and observe the neglect it has been guilty of. To aid the god in retrieving his error, food is cast into the rivers to feed the waters and appease their spirits. In the opposite corner, to the left of the entrance, stood a platform, seven feet high, resembling an office- stool, which supported a tomtom, and beneath it a bell of bronze, both serving to rouse the gods when special appeals or offerings were made. Behind this was a brick oven, wherein were burned the toy presents for gods and spirits, releasing their souls from the earthly substance that they might pass to spirit land and serve its inhabitants. A small dust-covered skylight allowed a dim light to penetrate into the temple, and revealed in the center of it a cabinet of dark wood, three feet and a half in height and four feet in length, with an elaborately carved front, protected by glass and wire, and representing figures like those on the tablet by the entrance, but finer and on a larger scale. Upon the cabinet stood a dozen neatly moulded vases of zinc, or pewter, and brass, holding bouquets of artificial flowers mingled with tinsel and dolls, and candlesticks in the form of carved and colored tubes, all guarded by a dragon of bulldog aspect. 'Dragons also occupy a prominent position in the Taouist worship as rulers over seas, rivers, and ponds, and are, therefore, appealed to in rainless seasons. Immediately beyond this cabinet, stood another of plainer construction, with similar vases, a few tiny images, and a bronze bowl nearly filled with ashes, wherein was stuck a number of burnt sticks which had once supported colored candles and incense tapers. The tapers were made of sandal wood rolled in paper. The walls were covered with a bountiful sprinkling of long, narrow tablets and gay-looking red and yellow paper scrolls, occasionally set with cotton strips and fringes, and all inscribed in characters of scarlet, blue, and gold, forming panegyrics on the gods, 404 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. and with prayers for worshippers, and lists of subscribers, with the amounts donated for the erection and maintenance of the temple. A few lanterns of glass and of paper, with an oil lamp chandelier, adorned the center of the room, but were lit only on festive occasions. Above the second cabinet rose a false arch of scroll and fret-work, with gilt and colored surfaces, forming an alcove of the inner department, and bearing the inscription Shing Ti Ling Toi, spiritual gallery of the all-powerful gods. Behind this was a silken strip with the words Shing Shan Mo Keung, gods whose holy age is perpetual. In the recess of the alcove were three cabinets surmounted by elaborate frames of scroll work and arabesque, gilt and colored, over which hung red canopies, drawn back and knotted. These were the shrines, guarded by sitting dragons. In the central shrine, which was larger and finer than the rest, three idols were enthroned with sceptres and other insignia in their hands. Heavy, black mustaches and imperials ornamented their faces, and long, red veils fell from their heads to either side. Above their heads were symbolic characters, representing their attributes, and before and around them was a profusion of ornaments of artificial flowers, brass, and tinsel. The central and larger idol was Quong Muh Tien Wang, the clear-eyed heaven king, trampling on snakes and reptiles, who with the aid of his two companions protected the people from ills. This central place was often given to Yum Ten Tin, god of the sombre heaven, who also guards against conflagrations. At his feet stood several cups with cold tea to prevent the pangs of thirst from ruffling the ^ divine temper, and by their side a bronze bowl with the stumps of tapers, one of which was still smouldering and offering its incense to the -august nostrils. Above this hung a lantern of figured glass, set in a black frame, wherein burned the vestal fire which cast a perpetual although dim light on the path of the gods. m ONE OF THE ONLY TRUE RELIGIONS. 405 Before the other idols hung simple glasses with oil, not always lighted, however, and equally neglected were their incense bowls. In the shrine to the right sat the god of wealth, Tsoi Pah Shing Kwun, grasping a bar of gold, which attracted the frequent invocations of his lucre-loving people ; and to the left was Wah To, the god of medicine, with a pill between his eight fingers. He flourished two millenaries ago as a great scholar, possessed of wonderous healing power, which he exercised among the poor. Having on one occasion administered a wrong medicine with fatal results, Wah To became so stricken with grief that he disposed of his worldly affairs and followed his patient, only to be raised to godship, and be forever pestered with appeals for the preservation of health and the cure of diseases. His prescriptions were obtained by means of the divining slips to be found in an urn on one of the tables, the characters of which were explained by the temple servants with the aid of the mystery books ; and they also sold medicines prepared according to the recipes therein. Pin Tseuh is the name of another deified physician. Ranged along the wall between the arch and the shrines were the eight precious emblems, in duplicate, one set on either side of the room, mounted on poles and having the appearance of imperial insignia. By their side were a few shabby standards and bannerets of silk, with gold and colored embroidery. Several plain deal tables were placed here and there to receive offerings, but were seldom used except at festivals. Passing through a side door to the right, the visitor entered a second room, more scantily furnished than the preceding. A few scrolls of paper and cotton adorned the walls here and there; two dark paper lanterns hung from the ceiling; and on the floor stood a plain cabinet with zinc vases for candlesticks and bouquets, and a few common deal tables for prospective offerings. This chamber was consecrated to 406 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. L Kwan Yin, the goddess of mercy, a princess whose origin is lost in the mist of antiquity, but of whom tradition relates that her opposition to a marriage, arranged by the king, her father, so enraged him that he ordered the Buddhist convent whither she had fled to be set on fire. Her prayers turned aside the flames from herself and companions, and they escaped, while all around them crumbled into ashes. This miracle caused her to be adored under the title of Savior from Distress. She is generally represented as a maiden, seated in a lotus flower, the emblem of purity, with a roll of prayers'in her hands, round her head a halo, and over it. a cloud with a flying parrot which holds a rosary in its beak. Sheets were sold at the temple bearing this representation of the goddess, together with several prayers, an extract from which read as follows : I Revolving, shining goddess, goddess of repeating goodness, great heavenly king, Ah Nan, goddess of the well-ordered palace, mo yau mo yau, tsingtsing, pi yau; cause litigations to be quieted, and deliver us from all courts and judicial business. All ye great gods, all ye five hundred distinguished disciples of Buddha, save, me a true believer, and deliver me from distress and trouble; then will I make mention of Kwan Shi Yin ; without laying aside the ceremonial cap, diligently will I rehearse this formula a thousand times, and then of necessity calamities and troubles will be dissipated." Another of the forms assigned to this goddess is that of a mother dressed in white and holding a child in her arms. To her appeal the young wives who desire issue. She also appears in the garb of a fishmaid, as the patroness of fishermen; or in the form of a monster with four faces and eight arms, significant of her protean attributes. Twenty days a year are set aside for her worship, and her festivals occur on the 18th day of the second and sixth months. ^ On all souls' day she is borne in procession in the guise of a gigantic and fierce warrior, to keep order among the POVERTY-STRICKEN DEITIES. 407 hungry spirits. Despite the prominence of her divinity, the shrine was not carefully tended, for a common oil lamp glimmered feebly on nothing but cold tea, and extinguished the incense tapers at her feet. On the other side of the room, in a plain niche, was the only other idol in the room, a dark, erect, little man, gaz- ino* forlornly on the extinguished lamp and taper- stumps before him. The third and innermost room was filled with smoke and odors from an adjacent kitchen, and was of still meaner appearance. The wall ornaments were rarer, and the cabinet of the plainest. Facing the side entrance was Tu Ti, god of earth in a poor shrine, or box, level with the floor, and arrayed in a miserable cotton blouse; yet this idol had great influence, owing to his supposed power to grant prosperity, and to protect houses and streets from evil spirits. He was originally a prefect, in which capacity he managed to procure the emancipation of his department from a yearly slave levy; and in recognition of this service a grateful people raised him to godship and spread his worship all over the empire. Deceased heroes and honored residents of a place are often exalted to local proxies of the god, and receive honors during his festival on the second day of the second month. In the recess of the alcove stood a large shrine, plainer than the alcove shrines in the other rooms, and containing the image of Wah Kwang, the giver of wisdom, with three eyes, whose festival takes place on the 28th day of the ninth month. With the third and never-slumbering eye in the forehead, he is able to see 1000 miles around him, and protect his adherents against conflagrations. On his left stood two smaller idols, the nearest having three eyes like himself, and on his right is a black-faced deity, with a roughly- made tiger by his side, before which was an egg and some scattered rice to appease the evil propensities that seem to lurk in its eyes. The idols were draped statuettes of wood or plaster, 408 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. one and a half to three feet high, according to their importance; usually fat, grotesque, and often crosseyed and inane in appearance. The complexion was in conformity with its character, and the males usually wore mustache and imperial. The sculptured dress was made conspicuous by paint in imitation of embroidered silk ; glass and tinsel ornaments were added. Few wore any other fabrics than a long red cotton veil, which fell from both sides of the head over the shoulders ; and although most of them were flimsy affairs, there were a few images in the quarter arrayed in costly, embroidered silk robes and jewels, one in Doctor Li-po-tai's temple costing several thousand dollars. They were brought from China where their consecration is attended with elaborate ceremonies to induce the deity to occupy the image with a portion of his spirit. Through a hole in the back are inserted the heart, lungs, and intestines, of silver or zinc, without which the idol cannot live and be effective. The local idol manufacturers confine their skill to the production of images for household use, of shrines, clothing, and presents of paper, which are sold by the temple servants, who keep in their office a large stock of candles, chiefly of red color, tapers, incense, and printed prayers. Paper money and certain other offerings require to be consecrated with prescribed ceremonies, including a long array of prayers, in order to have effect. Of course, a large quantity is consecrated by one process. The neatest of the several temples in San Francisco was that of the Hop Wo company, on Clay street, which occupied the front portion of the top story. Attention was called to the building by a clean, painted balcony, with two gilded signs and a couple of lanterns, backed by windows of tinted glass. There was only one room, but it was clean and comparatively bright, enabling the visitor to examine to his satisfaction the red sil£ bannerets, standards, and ceremonial umbrella with \ heavy curtain fringes, all richly em- CHINESE MYTHOLOGY. 409 broidered with gold and silk of different colors, representing dragons, birds, and foliage. The carved cabinets and shrines, with gilt figures, were finer than those already described, and the wall-tablets were neater. This abode was dedicated exclusively to Kwan Tai, the god of war, whose image, with red face, glaring eyes, and red flannel surtout, was enthroned in the gaudy shrine. He was powerful not only in settling riots and disputes, in conferring bravery and intimidating the enemy, but also in financial matters, and might consequently be found presiding at almost every store. Sixteen centuries ago Kwan Tai played the r61e of a successful general, who, on the conclusion of a long war, declined all honors and rewards, and joined a holy order for the practice of benevolence. Formerly a leader of bloodthirsty soldiers for the relief of towns and government, he now led pious monks to the relief of the poor and sick. Once only he left this duty to save the empire from the rebels, but returned immediately afterward to his task of mercy. While so employed, there appeared at the convent a distressed and wounded pilgrim, in whom he recognized the defeated rebel chief. The duty of the soldier struggled with the spirit of charity and succumbed. The wanderer was relieved and sent on his way rejoicing, while Kwan Tai surrendered himself to the unyielding law to suffer death. The grief-stricken emperor did not interfere with the course of justice, but he exalted him to the ranks of the gods, and as the patron of the Manchu dynasty Kwan Tai has often appeared to aid the imperial arms. A few other temples in San Francisco were consecrated to special divinities. That which once stood on Post street was originally dedicated to Tien Han, queen of heaven, the comforter in trouble, especially of sailors. In conformity with the euhemeristic ideas of the Chinese, she is traced to a common mortal who lived about eight centuries ago at Po Tin, on the seaboard of Tukien, the daughter of. a seafaring family. 410 MONGOLIANISM LN AMERICA. Her extraordinary beauty and talent drew a host of admirers, but they vowed in vain, for heaven itself had selected her for a bride, and removed her early from their midst. She had been subject to epileptic fits, during which her spirit was said to fly to the rescue of storm-ridden crews. This belief gained acceptance among her countrymen, who speedily exalted her to a divinity, and raised temples for her along the seashores and river banks, whence they invited the worship of passing mariners. A favorite emblematic adjunct of the idol is a full-rigged junk, with eyes in the bow wherewith to find its way across the pathless ocean. To her temple in San Francisco was afterward added the image of Kin Wah, the guardian of children, to whom pretenders to motherhood made appeals. The Traviatas had also a patroness. For so little religion, the Chinese had many gods. In the temple building of the six companies might be found altars bearing the names of deceased members, and tablets were erected in the households to receive the adoration and offerings of loving descendants. Several traditions exist to account for this the most sacred and widespread worship among the Chinese. One relates that many centuries ago an officer who was travelling with his prince through a famine- stricken district of the empire cut off a piece of his own flesh to sustain his beloved master. This so exhausted him that he died by the way, and the prince on hearing of his devotion erected a tablet to commemorate it. Another story runs that a man who had been in the habit of ill-treating a female relative became so repentant after her death that he raised an image to her in the household. On one occasion when the man was beating his wife, in pursuance of the old habit, the latter pricked the image, in anger or appeal, whereupon the statuette manifested her sorrow at the family feud by shedding blood as well as tears. This miracle was noised abroad, and it came gradually to be a custom to erect images or tablets to TEMPLE GUARDIANS. 411 ancestors, whose spirits were evidently watching over the household. The guardians of the temples are not regular priests but merely attendants, who wait upon the idols, trim the lamps, supply incense tapers, sound the tomtom, keep clean, and aid in ceremonial acts. They are supported by the revenue which results from the sale of incense, candles, prayers, toys, and talismans, and assist to dispose of the choice food offerings presented to the gods. They also act as diviners and exorcists, and if the attendance becomes slack at any period, a miracle is readily invented to stir the slumbering piety into activity, or little festivals are extemporized to induce guilds or particular classes to patronize them. The attendants as well as the temples may be hired by the day or hour for the performance of special services, when thanks have to be rendered for favors, or appeals made for divine aid. The ceremonies for special services vary but little from those observed daily during the festivals. At certain intervals during the day the attendants appear in robes of dark and light blue silk, and march round the idol-chamber chanting a hymn. They then kneel before the idol, bowing a certain number of times, rise and circle round, and halt before the incense-table, where the arms are extended in ceremonial gesture. A third march round brings them once more to the idol, to whom food is humbly offered after a seriatim bow to one another. Having propitiated the deity they return to the incense table to consult the divining urn, and the book of mystery, a task which is alternated with several more processions, attended by chants and orchestral music. The music has in view the twofold object of rousing the drowsy god, and keeping him in good humor. On ordinary occasions little or no reverence is shown to the gods, probably because they are supposed to be napping, and attendants move round in their sacred duties of lighting tapers, placing offerings, •'• :K 1 412 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. and so forth, as unconcernedly as if they were performing a household task. Worshippers are equally nonchalant. The hat is retained on the head, the cigar is not removed, and talk as well as laughter are freely indulged in. On approaching the idol to make an offering, they place it on the table or altar, light the incense taper, and retire without more ceremony than a quick, careless chin-chinning, that is, three low bows. It is only for special reasons that they exhibit more devotion. If health has been restored, a journey safely accomplished, or a fortunate bargain made, then may they consider it prudent to return thanks in order to insure the continuance of divine favor. Still more devout in prayers and offerings do they become when a favor has to be sought, the careless bow is then replaced by humble prostration, wherein the head strikes the floor before the shrine, and prayers are repeated on the rosary beads. This devotion is particularly noticeable among the women, who appear to feel their inferiority. If the worshipper has a request to make, he turns from the god whom he has propitiated to the divining urn, which contains a score or more of bamboo strips, and either picks one, while muttering his wish, or shakes the urn, until a strip falls out. The mark on this strip refers him to the yellow book of oracles, wherein lies the answer of the god, worded in parables, or mystic sentences, which may be construed into almost any form. For instance, " The ancient man Luk Shun suffered captivity in a labyrinth. Like a person in his cups, he sees forms confused and deceptive. Suddenly he meets with an honourable man who leads him safely out. This person, thereupon rejoicing, escapes from the net." Another may read: "Desiring one, he obtains two. Venturing little and gaining much. Both public and private business mutually aid each other. There is extreme profit in asking for wealth." The former reply is evidently favorable, while the latter appears like an admonition not to feel de- L GOOD AND EVIL OMENS. 413 spondent, but to try again at a future time. Another and simple mode of questioning the gods is to appeal to the divining blocks. These consist of a pair of wooden half-moons, round on one side, and flat on the other, representing the male and female principles of the dual power in nature. Framing his wish, the worshipper drops them on the floor, and if one falls flat, while the other remains on its rounded surface, then the answer is favorable. If this happens twice out of three times, he is satisfied; if not, he struggles with fortune thrice the sacred three times; or, if the enterprise is of great importance, he will consult the gods and the blocks for three successive days. It is also the custom to seek divine answers in a dream, and after propitiating the god the worshipper will spread his mat on the temple floor, praying for a whisper from spirit land. This ceremony is frequently performed at home, where the kitchen god is the usual personage addressed. The direction of all affairs in life does not pertain immediately to the gods, however, but falls under the control of imps or spirits, whose disposition must be studied before an enterprise can be carried out. The almanac, issued under the auspices of the combined wisdom of imperial counselors, is an indispensable guide in these matters. It points out the lucky and unlucky days and signs; when a man should or should not enter on official duties or important transactions, when it might be disastrous to engage in a battle, when risky to speculate or gamble, when dangerous to slaughter or to apply certain remedies, and so on. Rules like these may cause expense, inconvenience, and misery, but they also afford a good excuse for ignoring the calls of duty. Every unusual phenomenon, every accident, every peculiar occurrence, is fraught with portentous significance. If a cloud assumes a strange form, if the candle is extinguished by a gust of wind, if the wick curls, or a spark falls, if a muscle twitches, then may good or 414 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. bad fortune be expected, according to the hour and circumstance. If a crow or hawk flies over one's head, it is a bad omen; but a singing bird is a harbinger of joy. To overcome or to neutralize the ills which beset the path of life at every step, becomes a serious business. Fortunately there is that compendium of wisdom, the almanac, to consult. It directs that if a house suffers evil by being overshadowed by a tree, or by the higher dwelling of a neighbor, then a flagstaff may be erected of a certain length, and in a certain position, or a lantern may be suspended, bearing the inscription, " peace," and the divine name of Tz-mi-yuen, and the influence will be neutralized. Houses and furniture may be made of a peculiar form, to attract fortune or repel evil. Doors, walls, and effects may be charmed with sacred inscriptions, dragons, or other figures. Charms also protect the person, and the ankles of children and women are encircled by ivory rings; round the neck hang amulets of sandal-wood, archaeological relics, or a gilded bag; in the ears are talismanic rings; and bells and images cling to the dress. In matters so momentous which concern health, prosperity, and life itself, the Chinaman dares not, of course, trust to his own judgment, aided only by the limited rules of the almanac and the vague oracles of gods ; he must hie to one of the numerous professional mediums, astrologers, and sorcerers, who are deeply read in spirit lore, and hoary with experience. They will call any given spirit to lift the veil of the future, consult the Fung-shwui, or winds and waters, sketch a career, guide to fortune, and surmount obstacles. Mediums who commune with spirits are generally old women, called Kwai-ma, and the most popular are those, who, anterior to being reborn in this world, are supposed to have allied themselves by friendship and gratitude with a soul yet awaiting birth, and which lives in their body, aiding them to confer with other spirits. Some mediums acquire control over a spirit L ASIATIC SPIRITUALISM. 415 by placing an image among the graves, and seeking by long prayers and attractive offerings to induce a wandering soul to enter therein and become their aid. Others fasten their evil eye on some person of ability, and seek to cast a spell over his soul, obliging it to take up its abode in the image after his death which is said to follow very quickly with such practices. No subject is too trivial or too vast for the greedy medium, and she is prepared to act for anyone who brings the necessary adjuncts of a little rice, three incense sticks, and, above all, some money, wherewith to allure the spirit. She endeavors to learn as much as possible of the history of the applicant, in connection with his wishes, and then, lighting the sticks and placing them in her hair, she scatters some rice about her, closes her eyes, and mutters words of mystic import as her head droops over the table before her. After a while the spirit appears, and addresses the applicant through the unconscious medium. If the spirit is not in a favorable mood, it may be necessary to appease it with a choice meal. While discussing its steaming essence, the mutterings may assume vague reference to the wishes of the dupe, who is usually recommended to perform certain religious rites, in order to attain his object. Even the temple ,and the class of offerings are indicated to gain for the medium the additional profit of a percentage from the priests. A favorite mode of spirit communication, even with the intelligent, is for two persons to hold a stick, with pencil attached, vertically on a board covered with sand, and invoke the spirit to write the oracle under their tremulous hands. Fortune-tellers are more patronized than mediums, and may be found in considerable number, prepared to write out the past and future, disclose the prospects of an undertaking, and point out the way to employment, to investments, and to happiness. Their stock in trade consists of a table ; an urn containing divining sticks, which are strips of wood with characters in- 416 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA. scribed; a slate and some paper, with pencil and India ink; and a few books with explanations of various methods of divination, including phrenology, palmistry, theomancy, sciomancy, and sortilege, illustrated with diagrams. The principal method is by aid of the Confucian system of the dual principles of nature, male and female, the former representing the heavenly attributes of light, heat, and perfection, the latter, the earthly, of darkness, cold, and imperfection, symbolized respectively by — and . By forming these lines into parallel couples, four combinations are obtained, to which have been applied the names of the cardinal virtues, piety, morality, justice, and wisdom. By forming them into triple parallels, eight combinations result, which symbolize heaven, earth, fire, air, water, mountains, thunder, moisture. By further combination of the virtues and elements sixty-four aphorisms result, on which have been framed not only the answers of diviners, but a system of ethics and a cosmogony. The applicant for mystic glimpses draws one or more divining strips, the characters on which are noted by the fortune-teller, and combined with the above symbols according to a prescribed form. The result is conveyed generally in an abscure, non-committal answer, which is greedily puzzled over by the dupe, and twisted into the most flattering versions possible. Instead of the strips, three copper cash, marked with similar characters, may be used by the applicant. Shaken in a box, they are cast by him thrice three times, and the different combinations of characters formed into a diagram by the numismancer, who, as a close observer of human nature, also calls his penetration to aid in framing the answer. He further discovers the cause of diseases and their remedy, and keeps a supply of medicine to palm off upon his impressible patients, or throws custom into the hands of certain doctors and apothecaries. Spare moments are besides devoted to writing letters for the illiterate. In the upper strata of the divining profession stands li^ p ASTROLOGY AND DEMONOLOGY. 417 the astrologer, who paves his way to respectability by charging from one to five dollars for what the humbler brother will do for as many dimes, and who sustains his reputation by a larger collection of books, treating on soothsaying, cosmogony, and stellar influence. The dual character of the hours, days, months, and years of a cycle, are formed into eight diagrams, each having several scores of combinations, some marked with lucky red, others with ominous black. With these are connected the ethic diagrams of the fortune-teller, and the kings of the four seasons, represented by four figures, on the various parts of which are marked characters denoting the different hours of the day and night, changed in position on each figure. If a person has been born under the character marked on the head or hand of the king, prosperity awaits him; under other characters his prospects are more or less favorable, but the sign on the foot bodes misfortune. Provided with the hour, day, month, and year of birth, the astrologer forms the horoscope by connecting their characters with those of the five elements, the zodiac, and the kings, till the diagram develops into a perfect chart, generalizing destiny for decades, or detailing the prospects of every month, if the fee is large enough. The periods are pointed out which fall under the influence of evil stars and phenomena, and the course of conduct indicated wherewith to pass safely through the danger. The happy epochs are also marked with precautionary regulations for neutralizing the appearance of a crow or other evil omens that may cloud the horizon. The best year is pointed out for making a fortune ; when to build a house and where; when a son will be born, and so on. Palmistry, phrenology, and physiognomy are frequently made use of to perfect the diagrams. Many revelations of diviners attribute the cause of troubles to some of the evil spirits which haunt the children of heaven on every side. When a house is Essays and Miscellany 27 418 MONGOLIANISM IN AMERICA* built, a new lodging occupied, or a new suit of clothes put on, an imp is sure to inveigle himself into some cranny, and being aware of this the Chinaman has timely recourse to exorcism and charms, in order to secure himself. A common method is to take a tray with some rice and three cups of liquid, place a burning incense-stick at each corner, light some paper of the yellow, talismanic color, and empty the three cups upon the flaming paper, while scattering the rice. This has the effect of driving away demoniac spirits and of appeasing the good. But there are unguarded moments when a charm may have been neglected, and free entry allowed to the ever-lurking spirits, whose second entry is far more serious than the first, as the holy book teaches. In such cases it is safer to call in the experienced aid of one of the professional exorcists, known as Nam Mo. If a house is haunted, for instance, the charmer commences by burning incense before the family gods and mumbling incantations, while preparing a sacred liquid consisting of water mixed with ashes from yellow charm scrips, which bears a curse in vermilion or red letters. Armed with a sword and a magic wand engraved with three stars and the name of the Thunderer, he proceeds to rave and stamp, to brandish and whirl his implements, and to squirt in every direction from his mouth the sooty liquid, yelling to the demons to depart in a manner that makes it appear as if they had possession of him rather than of the house. A similar procedure is used to relieve a possessed person. If the diviner finds that an ancestral spirit troubles the afflicted, the cause must be looked for and remedied by more liberal offerings, or change of tomb. CHAPTER XIV. MONEY AND MONOPOLY. Of man's injustice why should I complain? The gods and Jove himseif, behold in vain Triumphant treason, yet no thunder flies. —Coffins' There is something in the handling of money for gain that tends to the demoralization of the finer faculties. It- sears the more generous feelings, and makes the heart like the metal, cold and hard. There is a difference in manipulating one's own money or another's, the former tending to the higher selfishness. There is a difference in this respect even between the commercial banker and men of the savings bank, to the disadvantage of the former, in whose occupation there is less of the sentiment of benefit to others. There are few positions more unfavorable for mind and soul development than that of bank-teller, where the man becomes a counting-machine, the mind being forced to fix itself attentively on the work in order to avoid mistakes, while ground down by dead monotony. This, however, is totally different from the occupation of the manager, who is obliged constantly to arbitrate between the interests of the bank and the necessities of applicants for loans. The aristocracy of England, when ruling trade and money-making from their higher atmosphere, could hardly have selected less improving occupations to be followed with some degree of respectability by necessitous lordlings than those of banker and jeweller. Monopoly exercises a more vicious reflex influence upon the man than usury or any other form of exact- 420 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. ing gain from one's fellows. The system of slavery is demoralizing to the master, because no man can practice injustice toward his fellow-man without being himself injured and debased thereby. So it is with the gambler, whether in the shares of the broker's board, or in the cornering of wheat for an advance, or at the faro-table in the club-room,—any system of extortion, or obtaining from or forcing persons to pay money unjustly, and without giving full equivalent, is not only injurious to the victim and the public, but most of all to him who pockets the spoils. Twenty years ago half a million of dollars was considered quite a fortune; ten years ago three or five million-dollar men were becoming plentiful; to-day for a person to be remarkably rich he must have from ten to fifty millions. Some of these large fortunes have been legitimately made, others of them have not; hence, not unfrequently we hear the question asked regarding a rich man and his money, Did he come by it honestly ? During these days of strong competition and well- defined business channels, the largest fortunes are not made by merchants or manufacturers, but by manipulators of mines, railways, or grain. The lands of a large holder may so increase in value as to make him enormously wealthy, and there are many cattle-kings among the millionaires; but as a rule the great fortunes come from gambling ventures, trickery on a mighty magnificent scale, or downright rascality barely shielded by all-accommodating law, but all under various degrees of indirection. The manipulation of capital in a speculative manner, and the making avail of opportunity, which in the Pacific States have led to so many large fortunes, were primarily due in a measure to the placer-mining occupation which predominated throughout the Pacific coast. The pursuit, with its chance results, now a competency, now a sudden fortune, but usually blanks, with its desultory work, its wandering life, and its ORIGIN OF THE GAMBLING SPIRIT. 4£1 loose habits, all tended to confirm the restless and gambling propensities of the adventurers who flocked hither. The example of those who returned, the news and fancies spread from the enchanted shores, and the marked effect of the new region on our trade and industries, filled others with speculative ideas. Then, with the opening of the Nevada silver deposits, came regular gambling in mining stocks at special exchanges, in which all classes frantically participated, to the impoverishment of thousands, whose investments and assessments disappeared into the capacious pockets of unscrupulous managers. Eastern men caught the infection, which received no small stimulus from the fluctuations in gold values during the war, and was marked subsequently by the transplanting of western mining stock deals into their midst, in fitting association with corners, rings, trusts, and other vicious devices. We pass laws to suppress gambling with cards where the chances are fair and the game honestly dealt, and call it vice, and so it is; but we not only tolerate but patronize mammoth gaming establishments where the poor and inexperienced are regularly victimized by rich and reputable sharpers. We are shocked to see a man enter a club-room and lay his money on a monte-table, but prim matrons and puritanical preachers and churchmen can bet with respectable impunity on what shall be the value of stocks or grain a week or a month hence. In the race for wealth loftier aspirations are too often trampled under foot, many devoting themselves heart and soul throughout life to the fascination of gambling and cheating within the pale of law. Barren in all the nobler attributes of intellect, and in heart and feeling cold as ice and hard as stone, the souls of these pauvres riches are shrivelled to slag, their consciences utterly benumbed. Selfish and unprincipled, they play upon the necessities of others, using the power their wealth gives them to increase its already 422 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. enormous bulk, by impoverishing poor producers; by lying in wait for opportunities to get something for nothing; by regulating elections so as to put their tools in power; by originating plausible schemes to rob the people; by inflating or breaking the stock- market at pleasure, so as to gather at one fell swoop the small accumulations of those thousands of smaller gamblers who are foolish enough to stake their all on games beside which faro and three-card monte are honorable and fair; by bribing assessors so that the burden of taxation shall fall on the laboring classes and honest merchants. Whipple says of them: " Such men we occasionally meet in business life; men who have not one atom of soul, but have sold the last immortal grain of it for hard cash. They have received the millions they desired, but have they made a good •bargain ? The difficulty with their case comes from their having no capacity for enjoyment left after the sale. Coarse, callous, without sympathy, without affection, without frankness and generosity of feeling, dull even in their senses, despising human nature, and looking upon their fellow creatures simply as possible victims of their all-grasping extortion, it would seem as though they had deliberately shut up, one by one, all the sources of enjoyment, and had, coiled up in their breasts, a snake-like avarice, which must eventually sting them to death. Some men find happiness in gluttony and in drunkenness; but no.delicate viands can touch their taste with the thrill of pleasure, and what generosity there is in wine steadily refuses to impart its glow to their shrivelled hearts." But preaching against the passion has little effect. Some worship wealth with greater intensity than others, but all love money. Every man thinks if he had it he could master it. He is quite sure it would not master him. As the adage says " Qui uti scit, ei bona." To him who knows how to u e them, riches are a blessing; to those who do not, they are a curse. L ILL-GOTTEN GAINS. 423 What power of gold that can make of hell a heaven, or of heaven a hell I Whether a curse or a blessing to the possessor is of small moment as compared to the effect on the community at large. And this we know, that great wealth in the hands of individuals does not usually redound to the greatest good of the greatest number. In the decay of the republic, says Plato, an intemperate thirst for wealth and the licentiousness and extravagance resulting therefrom, breed in the state a race of grasping misers and ruined spendthrifts. The first stage of decay is a timocracy marked by ambition and love of gain; the second step in its decline and fall is an oligarchy "where gold is all powerful and virtue is depreciated; and the state becomes divided into two hostile classes, one enormously rich and the other miserably poor; and in it paupers and criminals multiply, and education deteriorates." In monopoly per se there may be nothing wrong. There are various kinds and phases of monopoly. Monopoly, in and of itself, signifies simply exclusive right or sole ownership. This sole possession or exclusive right to buy, sell, or enjoy may have been obtained honestly and exercised justly. The law gives authors and inventors the monopoly of their works for a time that they may secure proper remuneration for their labors. So if with his own money a man buys a right of way and builds a road he may monopolize traffic, but he cannot rightly employ money to prevent other roads from being made, or other persons to engage in the traffic. It is a swindle upon the public for a steamboat company to pay money obtained from the public to a rival craft in order to get more from the public than is fair for the people to pay. It is impossible for a monopolist who stoops to any indirection to be anything but a dishonest man, and a curse to the community. Further than this, the sudden acquisition of great 424 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. wealth is usually attended by fraud. How do presidents and directors of great corporations, beginning on nothing, by simply manipulating other people's money, so quickly make it their own? Or, as the Roman once more pointedly put it to Lucius Cornelius Sylla, "How can you be an honest man who, since the death of a father who left you nothing, have become so rich ?" True, in some instances, public benefactions flow from these large accumulations, to the applause of the thoughtless and dazzled masses; but as a rule the greedy monopolist hugs his ill-gotten gains with miserly tenacity, or spends it in infamous ways for infamous purposes. Even if large sums are sometimes spent in charity, or in the erection of some conspicuous institution and benefaction by those who cannot carry their wealth into the other world, how much of thanks should be given them by those from whom they fraudulently obtained this wealth, and who per- adventure would prefer distributing their own gifts rather than have it done by robbers ? Then, too, we might ask, How much restitution of stolen wealth does it take to condone the offence? Knowing themselves to be frauds, knowing that all men are aware of it, and knowing that all men will bow down and worship a wealthy fraud, such men can at least console themselves in the reflection that howsoever they may rank in knavery, they are envied rather than despised by the great majority of their neighbors., Yet there are men in this world who will not worship besotted wealth. Let Croesus with his ground-out gains build him a Galiana palace; let him fill it with rare and costly furnishings, and invite his parasites to enter and eat with him; nevertheless, like the soulless monster made by Frankenstein out of the fragments of men gathered from dissecting tables and churchyards, and imbued with life by galvanism, his first consciousness being a longing for companionship, he is shunned by every true man. THE ALLUREMENTS OF WEALTH. 425 By a lucky stroke of fortune, not by industry, not by merit, not by mind, the man of nothing yesterday is to-day the man of millions. The individual himself is in no whit changed; he is just as ignorant or learned, just as stupid or intelligent, just as vulgar and rascally, or as refined, pious, and honest as before. Yet some resplendent virtue seems, in the eyes of his fellows, suddenly to have taken possession of him, and his every movement is watched by eager admirers— of his money. These doff their hats and bend their backs, and he, poor idiot, thinks it to himself and not to his lucre the time-servers do obeisance. Mind bows before money. Brave, indeed, must be the struggles that overcome the allurements of luxury, the subtle, sensuous influence of wealth, entering as it does the domains alike of intellect and the affections, opening nature, widening art, and filling enlarged capacities for enjoyment. Yet he who would attain the highest must shake from him these entrancing fetters and stand forth absolutely a free man. I cannot but choose to say to poverty, with Jean Paul Richter, whose thoughts roll off in swells of poetry, "be welcome, so thou come not too late in life. Riches weigh more heavily upon talent than poverty. Under gold mountains and thrones lie buried many spiritual giants. When to the flame that the natural heat of youth kindles the oil of riches is added, little more than the ashes of the phoenix remains, and only a Goth has had the forbearance not to singe his phoenix wings of fortune." It is not a pleasing feature of the existing condition of things for an intelligent and fair-minded freeman to contemplate, that a few selfish and grasping men, rating as respectable—that is, as more respectable than the swindlers whom the law punishes—are ever plotting to gain some undue advantage over their fellows, over those less cunning and unscrupulous than themselves. Pursuing the even tenor of their way, presently these citizens of simpler minds and more contented 426 MONEY AND MONOPOLY hearts feel themselves and the whole community to be enfolded in the suffocating grasp of some demon monopoly. They awake, perhaps, to find seized every avenue of approach to the city, by land or by water, to find every traveller and every article of merchandise that comes to the country taxed to support the monster, their own money being taken, first «to make -rich the monopolists, and then to buy off legitimate competition, so that more money may be wrongfully extorted from them; to find merchants made serfs by tricksters who lord it more bravely than ever did feudal baron, to the everlasting shame of those who endure it. It is worse than the autocratic tyrant, who perpetrates his abuses openly, while this insidiously attacks us under the guise of conferring benefits, attacking us indeed through the very benefactions bestowed upon it by ourselves. If we must have kings to rule over us, better feudal kings than modern money-kings, one-eyed cyclops who can see nothing but gold, and in whom with their retainers, their courtiers, lawyers, legislators, and judges, the interest of the people are sunk in a close corporation with a one-man power for its center, and for whose sole benefit the property is manipulated. My friend Charles Nordhoff sends me his little book Politics For Young Americans. I open it and read: I Napoleon III. held France by the throat for eighteen years, and all the meaner sort of mankind glorified him as the wisest of rulers." This is the tone we love to assume in teaching our children, in comparing our government with that of other nations. No wonder we are puffed up and ignorant. When I look upon the prostitution of principles in my own country ; when I smell the rank corruption of our legislative assemblies and municipal halls, when I see villainy, in the similitude of men, bought and sold as in the rankest days of licentious Rome, when I see WANTED, BETTER GOVERNMENT. 427 disease creeping toward the vitals of this intellectually young and strong commonwealth, and thousands of black African and parasitical European patriots with their vile leaders feeding the plague instead of stopping it, then I must confess, with no small thank's for the enlightenment acquired, that I am one of the meaner sort who prefer honest despotism to rotten republicanism. Men have always depended too much on government and too little on themselves. Setting up judge, governor, and legislature, they call upon these creatures of their own creating as on gods, begging to be delivered from wrath of every kind. Looking upon our legislators and our governors, and knowing nothing of the gifts of gold so freely passed to them by those who would buy justice or injustice, both of which are always for sale, we feel with Oxenstierna when he exclaimed, | See, my son, by how little wisdom we are governed 1" What we want is more of the old-fashioned despotism ; not the despotism of the mob, or of money, but of the despotism which punishes rabble outbreaks, and bribery, the despotism which hangs iniquitous monopolists and unjust judges; for when the cohesive force of despotism is absent from the government, and the cohesive force of virtue is lacking in the people, beware of trouble. We may be very sure, that without intelligence and morality, despotism or anarchy are inevitable, and of the two I prefer the former. Nevertheless, monopoly is too prominent a feature of that selfishness which forms the chief motive for our actions, and consequently for progress, to be utterly decried. It is condemned merely in the abuse, especially as manifested by soulless corporations— soulless in their acts as well as in the sense of Chief Justice Manwood's demonstration that God alone creates souls, not political authorities to whom corporations owe existence. Abuse began with the very 428 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. first strife in the chase between savage men, when the winner secured for himself the entire body or the larger proportion. It assumed magnitude with invasion and conquest, when the source for wealth and subsistence was seized upon in the land, which in itself was an enslavement of the inhabitants. The iniquitous monopoly is evidently objectionable in every respect, while the just and legitimate species implies a bargain • of one favor for another, a reward for benefits received or to be conferred. The strongest illustration hereof appears in patents, which grant to the inventor the sole control of his idea or machine for a term, as compensation for sharing their advantages with the public. . Similar benefits are expected from charters conceded for railways, manufactures, and other commercial and industrial purposes. But for the expected blessings to flow therefrom they would not be allowed to spring into existence ; for the attendant evil, aside from the exaction of the reward or price, is signified by the stipulations, especially as to term of life, which varies according to the magnitude of the concession.. A patent endures for only a few years, but the piece of land is given in perpetuity, in return for settlement and cultivation, while the railway charter embraces certain facilities which yield to the holders a monopoly dependent on circumstances. Long before the expiration of the terms, the impatient public, with poor memory for past favors, begins to growl at the exclusiveness and the consequent restriction or burden on itself, and this becomes louder as the holders, by means of their prerogatives and acquired strength, seek to extend and prolong their power, or take additional or undue advantages. The murmur should be equally directed against the king or government or system which make concessions without due foresight as to equivalents and results. Monopoly has borrowed its main strength from the organization and cooperation which form such important ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. 429 factors in civilization. Its growth indeed has been apace with progress, and with the expansion of freedom. The success of man in shaking off political despotism and attaining to greater liberty of thought and action, has brought to the surface or intensified a number of hitherto suppressed evils—the usual result of all experiments, as the republic still is in a measure, and as the present industrial development is in particular, with novel steam-power, machinery, and railways, which form the great implements for monopoly. Under a despotic government such outcropping is readily checked; but in overthrowing the political autocrat and distributing his prerogatives among themselves, the people gave power to this and other obnoxious elements. Instead of one tyrant rose many. Midst the scramble for position and wealth the strong and the supple elbowed their way forward, pushing the weaker to the wall. The very privileges vested in them for the general welfare they diverted to their own purposes. The faculty to associate for the achievement of great enterprises, which must have had its greatest impulse in the need for protection, especially against hostile neighbors, was particularly well developed among the Aryans, nourished by their system of kinship, property-holding, and adoption of new members. The practical Roman attained to preeminence in this respect. The collegium rose as the artificial substitute for the Aryan household, to unite religious and political bodies, commercial and industrial, social and benevolent. The most useful forms of it were adaptations of Punic institutions, notably from Carthage, which in itself presents a prototype for the later India companies of Dutch and English. In the universities we behold a corporation of corporations, of which the Christian church exhibited in due time the most extensive consolidation, with spiritual, social, and material aims. Among the early Teutons the facilities for combi 430 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. nation were inferior, partly from their scattered condition, with little concentration in towns. Trade, nevertheless, asserted its influence in this direction, and with the growing abnormities of feudal times, merchants and artisans were obliged to elaborate the guild for the protection especially of labor, and with regulations of prices as well as methods and apprenticeship, and social and charitable performances. In England it assumed formal shape only after the Norman invasion, although based on Saxon customs. In France the Roman model prevailed, and here merchants early separated into a distinct class from that of crafts or metiers, with their grades of petty masters, companions or journeymen, and apprentices. Early monopolies were almost always beneficial. Recognizing these corporations in a measure as the stomach of the body social for the employment of. especially skilled labor in the transmutation of raw labor and raw resources or capital into new forms, sovereigns found it to their interest to favor them, partly with a view to reduce the power of the nobility; so guilds and barons were pitted against each other. The former, as a fulcrum for the autocratic lever, received a number of privileges, notably for municipal government. The Germanic independence of character which asserted itself in the strife for a share in sovereignty and administration by nobles and commoners, lords, and tribes, and municipalities, stood manifest in the socio-political nature of the guilds, on which, indeed, local administration mainly rested, guided by guild laws. Sometimes a merchant guild alone held sway. The parish corporations of England display the relics of the system. At one time all classes were embraced therein, London, for instance, conferring the full enjoyment of citizenship only on members. In China the system of associations is widely diffused am ong all social branches, but with a slavish conformity to habit rather than to utility, while the latter motive forms the chief in- L MATERIALIZATION OF INDUSTRY. 431 centive among Americans, who rank as the foremost practical organizers. Organization and cooperation have been great levers of progress, for elevating the masses, yet their very success breeds elements of corruption. The leading bodies in a certain branch, incited by greed and ambition, seek to crush minor competitors; others grow exclusive, and render admission difficult for apprentices. In other cases more prosperous and shrewder members will absorb the shares or influence of others, and with growing strength oust obnoxious partners by means of assessments, manipulations, and other trickery. When the successors of Charlemagne united state and church to crush the peasantry, the towns' guilds were implored to aid their brethren. They selfishly refused, and looked calmly on, confiding in strong walls for their own safety. Similar was the attitude of the burghers and craftsmen of England. These classes, indeed, joined in oppressing the classes below them. In this manner were developed the objectionable features of the manse organization, whereby barons and abbots reduced so large a proportion of the peasantry to a servile condition, with the aid of a war corporation of knightly adherents, while in the towns the guild leaders unfolded into a moneyed aristocracy, which was courted to sustain the other wing of state and church. The invention of the steam-engine, and its vast train of novel machinery for all branches of industry and trade, proved the means for cheapening food, for increasing creature comforts, for opening fresh and readier outlets for a surplus population, for elevating intercourse, and other benefits calculated especially to improve the condition of the masses. Nevertheless, out of these very blessings capital snatched its strongest means for oppression. Instead of petty masters working at home with their small band of journeymen and apprentices, as in weaving, labor-saving machinery called for united operations at one locality. 432 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. Factories were erected with a large plant requiring capital; rich men and corporations come into control of enterprises hitherto divided among a large number of small bodies or individuals, and petty masters were reduced to wage-workers. Machinery tended, moreover, to a wider subdivision of labor, wherein lay both economy and perfection,-but it also made factory hands more helpless and dependent on their employers. Economy in working and cheapness of results being usually in proportion to the magnitude of operations, monopoly was hereby fostered by forcing minor and weaker establishments from the field. Improved communication lent its aid to extend the influence of the larger concerns to remote localities. In trade, likewise, the larger shops undermined the small shopkeeper by economy of service and by offering a greater variety of goods. Competition and overstocked markets give employers frequently no alternative save to reduce wages or suspend work, and the existence of a small body of idle men in. a town suffices by the consequent demand for employment to lower the earnings of entire classes. In both cases the blame for the reduction lies mainly with the laborers, who crowd into cities and offer themselves as willing tools to capital, instead of striving, in America at least, to build up their fortunes in the country. The prospect of temporary hardship repels most of them, and improvidence tends to disable them. The wielding of power is too enticing to be resisted by the employer, and shielded from public gaze or personal responsibility by the mask of corporation, and by the paid manager, his scruples readily vanish before the visions of enrichment. The conscience of a corporation is remarkable only for its absence; where such a thing as a corporate conscience exists at all it is extremely callous. The individuality which loses itself in the body corporate LACK OF HONOR AND PRINCIPLE. 433 does not scruple to receive the cruelly or illicitly extorted gains of the corporation. Here is their creed. Let your watchword be expediency. Policy is the best honesty. Strict integrity does not pay; a little of it, mixed with policy will suffice as leaven for a large loaf of appearance, which may be fed to those from whom favors are desired. Thus credit may be established, and credit is money—-especially where one can cheat one's creditors without too much damage to reputation. In principles, winding cross-paths, though longer than straight ones, are safer and more attractive, and hence in reality are the shorter. Love yourself; hate your enemies; let neither friends nor sentiment stand in the way of success. Keep within the pale of the law; forgive your creditors. Finally, clothe your misbehavior in sanctimonious garb, and thus be happy and virtuous. Such are the principles by which corporations allow themselves to be guided in extortion and nefarious transactions. Employes are oppressed, the public defrauded, and the authorities hoodwinked. Legislators are bribed to promote or cover up their schemes; rivals are absorbed or subsidized to neutrality; employes are subjected to coercion. Combinations and corners, trusts and other iniquities are imposed upon the helpless masses. In one instance outlets and means of communication will be closed or obstructed to check the competition of rivals, as in the infamous tactics of the notorious eastern oil company; in another, access to raw resources or finished material will be impeded by lease or purchase, without intention to utilize them until the holder finds it convenient. In this way salt and coal fields have been taken up and kept closed for the benefit of a few firms in distant states; small stock-raisers have been cut off from water as well as markets; and so with other branches of industry. The absorption of competitors is constantly illustrated by railway, steamer, stage, and Essays and Miscellany 434 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. telegraph companies. Combinations of different firms in a trade, for sustaining prices and taxing the people, are no-less frequent, and are even formed in open conventions. The modern 'trusts'find it profitable to pension into idleness a number of mine and factory owners out of the gains extorted from the trade. In this manner may be extended the list of gigantic frauds practised upon the public. Unless restriction is imposed, none can tell where monopoly impositions may stop. They extend not alone over all industrial and commercial enterprise, but to the surface and bowels of land and sea, and may embrace the very atmosphere and sunlight, as illustrated by Congressman Phillips in an oriental story. A speculator applied to a monarch for a lease of the wind within his domains. This was granted, much to the amusement of the people. The laugh was soon turned against them when a notice appeared forbidding the use of the breezes for navigation, windmills, winnowing, and other purposes, except under license or sub-lease, in accordance with the contract. A general murmur ensued, followed by appeals for a revocation of the absurd lease. The speculator entered a counter-protest against a repeal without due compensation for his expenses and prospective profits, as 'an infringement on one of the dearest privileges of man, property rights. The sovereign recognized the validity of the objection. Yet, as it did not answer to drive the people to desperate measures, a tax was levied to buy off the claimant, or rather to swell the royal purse. Aware of the indignation that would fall upon them if their transactions were made public, many corporations keep secret their real accounts, and make reports to suit their purposes. Few iniquitous schemes could be floated without such precautionary deception. What a host of mining and other companies have drained the pockets of dupes through their fictions I l RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE. 435 Society has a right to investigate all concerns which affect its well-being. This indeed is applied by the granting of charters and licenses for railways, telegraphs, banks, insurance companies, manufactures, and other industrial purposes, as well as for trades- unions, military, fraternal and benevolent associations. The rights and duties of corporations, whose object it is to bestow the character and properties of individuality on a changing body of men, are by this charter restricted to the purposes for which they were formally organized. They may conduct operations under their own proclaimed by-laws, but as creatures of the government they remain subject to its laws, and may be restricted or dissolved when found injurious to public weal, or when failing to fulfil the obligations assumed. Railway companies present the most conspicuous form of incorporation in the United States for public benefit, but they have too often proved vampires as well. The value of railways stands demonstrated in the building up of states and cities, as the main channels of interior traffic, cheapening food on one side and opening avenues for enrichment on the other, and as the great medium for beneficial intercourse. They were chartered to construct a public highway and to act as public carriers, and so high an estimate was placed upon the advantages thereby to accrue to the people that the government gave not alone liberal land grants but occasionally advanced money wherewith to aid the construction, while states, counties, and towns each contributed funds and lots. In many cases the money thus obtained sufficed to build the road, so that the company without any real outlay came into the possession of immense tracts of land and a valuable business, both rapidly increasing in revenue. ^ Not content with such easy acquisition, such mu- nificent^ rewards, the managers, once in possession, turn alike on immediate associates and on the public, to plunder friends and patrons either by insidious MONEY AND MONOPOLY. manipulations or brazen trickery and extortion. To this pernicious end' is used the very money and power entrusted to them for individual and general benefit. Both public and private morality have been ruthlessly trodden under foot by these unscrupulous men. The rising generation is taught that any rascality short of that which reaches the prison-cell or the hangman's rope, may properly be resorted to in order to insure success. Truth, honor, honesty, morality, fair- mindedness, and good citizenship, are obsolete terms, not to be employed by men in life's battle, but fit only for the nursery and the Sunday-school. Thus is iniquity sown broadcast throughout the land. Before the great modern development in railway- building there were few of those stupendous frauds in manipulation and management so common afterward. The enormous wealth rolled up by government subsidy, stock inflation, and discrimination, aroused of course the cupidity of imitators. All over the land, not only in railroads but in all kinds of business, there was a universal decline in commercial morals. It is well known that many roads have been built by construction companies, on the credit mo- bilier plan, upon a nominal investment, the greater portion of the shares being distributed as dividends. Of the capitalization of these roads, not one dollar in ten represented actual investment. Sometimes all the resources of the company were protected by the builders, who made construction contracts with themselves at three times the actual cost. And when the road was thus finished they would continue the same course, bleeding the public and leaving the government to pay their debts. Such dealings with a government which had loaned them the money with which to build the road, and with the people, can be designatecLbut by one word—swindling. The government debt from year to year they would sometimes alter and manipulate in congress, CORRUPTION AND FRAUD. 437 evading their agreements, pocketing everything, paying little or nothing, and never intending from the first to pay a dollar out of the ample dividends on the roads which cost them nothing. We teach our children that he who borrows without reasonable prospects of repayment, borrows dishonestly; how, then, is it with those who borrow with the deliberate intention of never paying ? Corruption and spoliation attend almost every measure of such companies. Congressmen are bribed to obtain valuable concessions from the general government; local legislators and lesser officials are enlisted in like manner to beguile states, counties, and towns with delusive promises; all this tending to gild the bait held out to the general public. Then, in connection with the fraudulent construction contracts by the managers with themselves, additional debts are accumulated to pass straight into the pockets of the controlling clique. This is a good opportunity to frighten undesirable shareholders, and force them to sell really valuable stock at a discount; or, as happens in some cases, to sell out to a confiding public before it becomes aware of the depreciated character of the paper, and then probably purchase at ruinous rates for further manipulation. Watered and other fictitious stock facilitate subsequent speculation, cover up dubious transactions, and provide a plausible excuse for the next raid on the public, in the shape of exorbitant rates. In this kind of railway building, however, the people, stupid and long-suffering as they are, do in time begin to feel that the roads which their money have constructed are not operated in their interest, but in the interest of the agents with whom they had entrusted their funds. Tariffs of fares and freights are established, based, not on the cost of tranportation, but on the amount that passenger traffic and the freight on each article will bear without ruling the same entirely off their fines. 438 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. Remote regions, where there can be no competition, are left entirely at the mercy of the managers, while districts accessible to other roads, or near water routes, secure transportation at rates which seem barely to pay expenses. Discrimination is also shown toward persons and places from which the managers expect other advantages. Corporations follow a similar practice against interior manufacturers in order to restrict their operations, or kill incipient industries, so that the traffic of the road may not be injured by such local sources of supply. Nor do they hesitate to resort to persecution where their profits or feelings are concerned. Has any town or individual offended, woe be to them; -the town shall be passed by and another built in its place; the individual shall be crushed. Since the first days of the republic there has been no such iniquity attempted by one class of citizens against another, no such indignity endured by a free, intelligent people, pretending to independence and self- government. It is an insult and an outrage upon a city or a country, upon the merchants, manufacturers, and consumers thereof, upon all the people who are thus placed under tribute, to pay an unjust tax on every article of dress, every mouthful of food, every thing that is bought, sold, or used. Competition might remedy many of the evils, but it is the special policy of such railway management to prevent competition by combinations and pools, with the special object of putting under foot all the laws of trade. To this end the assets of the corporation are freely used in buying a controlling interest in rival lines, and then absorbing their traffic, often to the destruction of districts which had sprung into existence under the early favoring auspices of these roads. James F. Hudson characterizes the "policy of buying up or bringing competing roads to an agreement," as the "perfection of tyranny." It is claimed that the pooling system carries advantages to the public in improved service. And further, THE POOLING POLICY. 439 says the railway manager, have we not the same right as the merchant to seize advantages and opportunities, and to charge one customer one price and another •customer another price ? Decidedly not. A private merchant is not a public carrier. But were it so that the discriminations of the merchant affected the rights and welfare of a community to as great an extent as that of a feudal baron, then such merchant should be put down, even as the feudal barpn was long ago put down. The public benefit derived from pooling is slight as compared with the j abuses which it covers. No one denies the right of persons to build railways with their own money, over lands fairly bought from the owners, and to charge what they choose; but it is a moral, and should be a legal, crime to interfere with others who likewise desire to do business in the same section; it is a moral, and should be a legal, crime for the railways to bribe transportation companies or other competitors to charge advance rates in freight so as to force from the people illicit gains. On the occasion of collisions between capital and labor, railroad men complain of secret, oath-bound organizations, under despotic officers, refusing to work themselves and preventing others from doing so, even resorting to violence and murder when so ordered. It is an absolutism in a republic, they say, which seeks to control both capital and labor. This seems to be the position of the railroads as well—absolutism, and not only the control of capital and labor, but the control of all traffic, of all commerce and manufactures, of all rights of way, avenues of business, and liberties and rights of man. "No one denies the right of the laborer to cease work," continue these railway logicians, "when terms are not satisfactory, but it is a moral, and should be a legal, crime to interfere with others who desire to work. The use of force or other wrongful act to prevent the earning of property does not differ in principle from the forcible taking of property." This is L 440 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. very true, and applies admirably to the position taken by the railroad men in the management of railroads. If the people call upon the authorities to redress the evil, the railway magnates laugh their efforts equally to scorn. Not only are public and private rights made subordinate to railway influence, but honesty and morality are thrown to the winds. Bribery and corruption are openly and unblushingly practised. All over the .United States these manipulators seem to have no moral sense; they profess to have none ; they glory in having none. They openly boast that when they want a legislature they buy it. When they want a judge they buy him. If a commission be appointed to investigate or regulate their acts, they buy it. And as their wealth and power increase, the cheaper becomes the price of officials, of public morality and private honor. There are many ways of bribing without actually handing over the money. Judges and legislators are mortal like other men. They all want something. They are no more satisfied with what they have than the bonanza or the railroad men. One aspires to high political preferment, and would so warp the law as to enable him to decide almost any way for the votes of a vast corporation. Another covets lesser distinction—a dinner with Croesus, various uncommon courtesies, a few shares in something profitable. There are a hundred ways to offer a bribe; and if of suitable quality and tendered in the right way, there is slight chance of its being refused. There are many who like Paris scorn the power of Juno and the wisdom of Minerva for the fascinations of a Helen, be she lobbyist or siren. Others, like Danae, are too willing to receive the visits of Jupiter in a shower of gold. It seems strange sometimes that the people will tamely submit to it. Time was when they were quick to discover fraud and insult, quick to rise in the defence of their rights and honor. And* even now, A PUSILLANIMOUS PEOPLE. 441 should the impositions of monopoly be put upon the people in the name of unrighteous rule or foreign interference they would shed their last drop of blood in opposing it. But, done by neighbors, and in the name of commerce, of progress, their own money being employed to forge the fetters, to rivet chains on them more disgraceful to wear than any which ornamented the serfs of feudalism, they bear it, pusillanimously licking the hand that smites them. The fact that great benefits flow from the building of railroads, does not make right a system of wholesale robbery. If railways are a benefit conducted on discriminating and unfair bases, would not a greater public benefit accrue if they were conducted on honest principles? With all great blessings, railways are all the more a curse when turned from their proper uses. Whatever their benefits, if they make a hundred new states, and a thousand prosperous cities, if at the same time they bring demoralization, decay, and death to the body politic and the body social, they are a curse. The theory of our government, that all power is lodged in the people, and is to be used only for the equal benefit of every individual, is perverted by the discriminations of corporations made and supported by the government. The railway owes its existence to and is the creature of the government, and should be promptly checked in a course so glaringly in opposition to laws, morals, and public weal. In the right of eminent domain is an implied principle that the land of a private individual, condemned for public use, must be used in the interests of the public, and not for the exclusive benefit of another private individual. The railroad is a public highway, built largely at the expense of the public, and subject to regulation by the public in rates and other respects, in consideration of the privileges and grants accorded to it. When this creature of the government becomes a conspirator L 442 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. against the community, it is time the people should assert their sovereignty in the matter. " Every man in the nation ought to know," says Hudson, I how public rights are affected by the abuses of the existing system. To know that corporations are powerful and that individuals are weak, will not suffice. It should be as familiar to the public mind as the multiplication table, how the monopoly of the railways in transportation enables them to discriminate in rates, to crush out independent trade, to extinguish small merchants, and to dominate great commercial interests; how their combinations to control industries tend to oppress production and to keep down wages; how they suspend work through indefinite periods for selfish ends; how their efforts to establish a centralized control over the entire transportation of the land, by a single unauthorized and irresponsible agency, has resulted, and may again result, in oppressing the consumer of the great agricultural staples while impoverishing the producer, by imposing artificial burdens upon the interchange of products; and, finally, how the tendency of their practices, as a system, is to concentrate all the profits and rewards of industry in the hands of a few, while the people at large have little share in the benefits accruing from the march of improvement. If the railways go on as they have begun; if they continue to purchase legislators, to count seats in congress as their property, and to nominate judges to the higher courts; if they continue to warp legislation to the support of railway supremacy; if they continue to erect artificial barriers to the free operations of great industries, and to concentrate the profits of commerce by their favors to the privileged few; if they continue to secure the enforcement of laws which protect their privileges, and to nullify those which restrict them; if they delay and prevent the passage of laws to regulate them and restrain their power, and cozen the public with deceptive measures—in a word, if all the REFORM OR REVOLUTION. 443 features which now mark the influence of great corporations in politics are maintained and perpetuated, in defiance of efforts to restrain them by peaceful means, the result will inevitably be, that one day their injustice and usurpation will be punished by a revolt of the classes they have wronged, beside which the French revolution will seem an equitable and peaceful reform." The franchise of a railway, as a public highway, should not be used for gain save for public benefit. The road should remain subject to the supervision of the government, and be used by all citizens on equal terms, without discrimination or respect to places or persons to and from which business is tendered. Nevertheless, there is a loophole for excesses in the latitude to accept low rates in order to secure business, and to levy higher rates on a costly road than on one of comparatively easy construction. These points alone, together with the need in general for supervision of so important a public institution, call for government interference of more effective character than has so far been displayed. Among proposed remedies is government ownership of railways, as existing in some parts of Europe. But until our politics are purified, monopoly is the lesser evil. The worst feature of government management in this republic, which is less strict than in France, would arise in rings, jobberies, and other corruption by unscrupulous politicians imbued with the spoil system. When we consider the extent of the present bribery, vote-selling, spoliation, and other infamies among officials and legislators, what might not be expected when the control of additional interests, involving thousands of millions of property, were surrendered to such hands? Other reasons might be adduced to stamp the plan as hopeless under existing conditions. This is the view taken by Mr Hudson, who proposed, instead, the opening of railways, like turnpike f 444 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. L roads, for free public use, the railway companies constructing and maintaining the lines in good order,, with repairing and inspecting forces, signal-men and the like, leaving to any public carrier to operate passenger and freight trains, each competing with the other for public patronage by offering special dispatch and handling, superior comfort and attractions, as in the case of stages and steamers. This system looks plausible; but the objections are that the railway company would retain as much latitude as ever in favoring certain carriers, with profitable connivance, and with less responsibility for obstructions and accidents, when these could so readily be shuffled from one shoulder to another. Moreover, the company which controls the road could clearly enough, with its primary advantages, operate trains with greater dispatch and cheapness, and would do so surreptitiously to the disadvantage of ordinary carriers and consequently to the public. The restriction of companies to mere road toll would check enterprise and retard the extension of such costly work to remote or isolated regions, and hinder the development of settlements. Finally, this system has been tried elsewhere, not alone in the partial degree occasionally practised in this country, where several companies use one line for a certain distance, and it has not been found to answer. Another remedy is suggested in a freer competition, even within the limits assigned to certain railways, when these fail to conform to stipulations. Such competition has unfortunately not proved enduring, for the stronger company has generally succeeded in crippling or driving into bankruptcy the obstinate rivals by a prolonged reduction of rates below a remunerative basis, or it has persuaded the others to enter into secret or open combination, unless it could acquire a controlling interest in their management by purchase. Railway commissions have been appointed to fix rates, to enquire into discrimination, and to watch GOVERNMENT INTERPOSITION. 445 over public interests generally, but how unsatisfactory their ministration has been is attested by the frequent and wide condemnation of their acts and attitude. It is most difficult to ensure such a body against the insidious approaches of a powerful corporation. Official weakness and corruption stand in the way of all public reforms. To the government must we nevertheless look for redress, whatsoever the proposed plan of reform may be. More effective laws must be passed to regulate traffic on railways, and a special department at Washington, removed from local influences at least, should be entrusted with the task of watching over their observance and applicability, in order to report amendments for eliminating obstructions and improving the valuable features of such laws. Its power could probably not be extended over state commissions and state regulations, but the reform achieved in inter-state communication alone, the most important under consideration, would be of great benefit, and serve as a standard for inter-state management, so patent to all as to greatly enforce compliance, even with a corrupt local commission. Reform is needed also in other directions. Besides the three great monopolies, which are fas.t uniting into one, railroad, telegraph, and express—there are other monopolies with power likewise unscrupulously wielded, which is dangerous to the American people. In the great corporations constituting these monopolies is every essential element of despotism— permanent privileges, with legal rights and accumulated powers, superior to law and society. It is the lust for power, the most ominous among humanity's vices, a power which shall make one man master and many men slaves, that is the governing principle in all iniquitous monopolies. Fastening themselves on federal, state, county, and town governments and courts, like leeches they suck the life's blood of the nation, leaving it a weak, inert, 446 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. and flabby thing. Worse than this. Into the aperture thus made they inject a subtle poison, which, though it may work slowly, works surely. The time will come when this truth will be recognized by all: these iniquitous monopolies must die, or the nation will die. The people of the United States are a patient, long-suffering race, but when fairly aroused no social, political, or industrial enormity can stand up against them. It is for the people to look for themselves into all these matters, and determine whether they will be bond or free. Society has a right to enforce the doctrine of perfect equivalents in all bargains affecting its interests, be it in charters, patents, licenses, in the manufacture and disposal of wares, in the intentional or accidental control of large resources, natural or artificial, or in the aim and attitude of all manner of associations. Corporate privileges are a public trust, to be resumed by the people when detrimental. Hence all public organizations should be under supervision of the authorities, with free access to their books, so as to prevent all confidence operations, misrepresentations, and inflations. Disbursements should be duly accounted for, as well as the reason for loans and the application of profits. In many instances interference may not be advisable until a sufficient number of members demand investigation. In other cases the investigation should be periodical., Regulations should embrace the suppression of stock-gambling, and all business conducted on bases of chance or misrepresentation. Mill objects to the concentration of manufactures and other industrial branches in the hands of a few. Equally undesirable is the accumulation of immense wealth by individuals. To place a limit on acquisition might deal a blow to enterprise, but taxes could be so regulated as to fall heaviest on those best able to bear them, that is, they could be increased in proportion DESPOTISM OF WEALTH. to the fortune possessed, without hampering the talented and industrious,or unduly burdening corporations that have worthy objects in view. This idea is applied in many countries in the exemption of incomes below a certain amount, and in the usual subjection of luxuries to duties in preference to necessities. Nevertheless the enforcement might be widened and made stricter. The ease with which assessors at present allow rich men to escape from paying their rightful share of taxation is shameful. It is becoming a serious question in this country, how much wealth it is safe for one man to control. If with five millions legislators may be corrupted, judges and juries bought, the laws trampled under foot, as is done before our eyes every day, how much of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness may be diverted from constitutional channels by the possessor of a hundred millions? How many white, freeborn American citizens does it take to make a million of dollars? When we consider that the majority of immense fortunes have been accumulated by speculation, tinged, more or less, with pernicious gambling and fraud, to the impoverishment and oppression of 'thousands, and when we behold capital resort to practices damaging to the citizen; when it resorts to unjust monopoly, bribery, and moral, political, and commercial corruption, practices more damaging to the commonwealth a hundred fold than murder, highway robbery, and all the rest combined, may not those who made the laws change them to meet the emergency ? As a rule, inequalities in fortunes receive a natural readjustment in the distribution among children. Yet this is not effective in all cases. A tendency is manifested among rich men in the United States to imitate the primogeniture system of Europe. France struck a mortal blow at this custom during the revolution, as the basis for the maintenance of an objectionable aristocracy of nobles and drones. Primogeniture and r i 448 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. class privileges are utterly inconsistent with republican ideas, and indeed with social interests. Some theorists advocate the reduction of hereditary fortunes by tax on legacies which should be so increased with each subsequent transmission as to leave comparatively little, say for the fourth generation. Enforcements would be difficult, yet some such remedy would be welcome, for it is undeniable that idlers, supported by inherited wealth, set a bad example to society, and form a phase of monopoly, exacting a tax from their neighbors for the use of land, houses, money, or other possessions, of which an accident of birth has made them masters. What most grates upon the feelings of the less fortunate is this acquisition by accident, in perpetuity, of what is denied or meagrely accorded to worth and ability. They desire that all citizens should do their share of labor and produce something. The most objectionable feature of accumulation consists in the monopoly of land. As the main source for the food of all, it should apparently be for the benefit of all. Its primary acquisition rests upon unjust might, upon the sword between nations. Conquerors apportioned between themselves the subjugated territory, even if they did not also enslave the people. In Egypt the humbler and conquered classes never were allowed to regain any portion of the soil, for it remained with the king, priests, and soldiers, the vitality-absorbing drones of the nation. The Spaniards in America held largely this position, and the Anglo-Saxon has been free with the sword if not with the yoke. In India, where no proprietory rights in land existed, they have sought to create a land- holding aristocracy. The ownership of land is dear to our race, and has proved one of the strongest incentives to progress. Nevertheless, the time may come when exclusive rights therein may be declared detrimental to public weal. The crofter troubles in the northern part of Great Britain have created a general sentiment that LAND-HOLDING. 449 good land should not be withheld for useless personal purposes, where the community requires it for subsistence. It also seems unreasonable that one man by virtue of accidental discovery, or first occupation, should claim exclusive right to large tracts for his family, in perpetuity, when future generations may be sorely in need of a share. The acquisition of land should undoubtedly be restricted to limited holdings. The rule enforced by the republic for homestead and preemption grants, this century and more, which concedes a title only upon proofs of occupation and cultivation, might well be extended to all land-holders. Indeed, that rule points to the communal interest in the soil, by requiring a good use to be made of it. It is the patrimony of the nation for the benefit of all its children, not of a few. Most reprehensible and injurious is therefore the loose system in the United States which has permitted rich men, foreigners, and speculators, to absorb so much of the richest lands in areas unlimited, while the poor man has been kept strictly to the letter of the law. The remedy for this abuse lies in equalizing the taxation, or rather unjnst assessment, so that holders of uncultivated tracts in a cultivated district may be forced by the burden to make good use of it or sell it to those who shall do so. It may be well also to hasten the reduction of large estates, especially inherited, by increasing the taxation with the size of the tract, as Mr Phillips proposes. In common with Mr George he is opposed to ownership in land, and urges that it be merely leased to the highest bidder, with transmission of possessory rights under condition of good use. Taxation would as a rule enforce the latter stipulation. In England taxation has of late assisted in reducing holdings, and augmenting the shares of the masses. In France the law against primogeniture has hastened the distribution, and the increased prosperity resulting from a large class of peasant proprietors, numbering Essays and Miscellany 450 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. about four millions, demonstrates the advantage of small holdings alike to the country and the individuals. They promote also better cultivation and improvements, increased production, and higher wages, the latter by the constant advance of laborers to proprietorship. The elevation of labor by this means is one of the most promising phases of American progress. The greater the number of land-owners, the greater the interest in the nation's weal and in the preservation of peace. It may be objected that our improved machinery and methods render cultivation cheaper on large tracts. Where this becomes evident, as in large valleys, farmers may unite in cooperative efforts as well as purchase of improved machines. Experimental efforts on a small or large scale may be entrusted to agricultural societies. Such combination of interests cannot fail to benefit everyone concerned, by incentive, method, and increased profits, besides achieving all the advantages claimed for large operations. Judicious taxation for the purpose of reducing large holdings is evidently in favor of the masses and of general prosperity. Nevertheless I cannot agree with Mr George's scheme of burdening the land alone with the entire tax levy of the country, for such a tax would fall heaviest on the main necessaries of life, and consequently on the poor. Luxuries can better sustain a larger share of the burden, as under our present system, and should do so, if only for the moral benefits thereby attained. In connection with the general reform must enter a number of accessory or subordinate regulations, such as the restoration and extension of timber regions, in return for access to their resources; and the apportionment of pastures so that scanty water deposits may not fall to a few. Water should even more than land be for the general benefit. This has been recognized by several nations in enactments which reserve for the public not alone navigable rivers but all running streams. In England riparian laws prevail, and L THE WATER PROBLEM. 451 have been adopted in the United States, because the problem of irrigation has not entered into serious consideration until lately. Now, the conditions are changing with the occupation of the Rocky mountain region and the Pacific slope, once regarded as deserts, but proved to be rich land if reclaimed by irrigation. This requires free access to water. It becomes evident that laws framed for a country not dependent on water-channels for cultivation should not be applied to a region which is so dependent, owing to scanty or unequally distributed rain-fall. The aim of laws is to promote the common good, and must naturally be adjusted to suit changing conditions. Rules governing a nomad people or regulating slavery are inappropriate for settled freemen. Where laws have become injurious they must be amended. The objections of a few riparian property-holders must not stand in the way of the prosperity of entire districts, or imperil the existence of entire communities. Elsewhere I have considered the reasons and local precedence for amending riparian laws, and the methods for arriving at a proper distribution of available waters. The most encouraging phase of progress since mediaeval times has been the elevation of the masses, to which the invention of gunpowder, compass, and printing-press gave the great impulse. This amelioration is constantly augmenting under the daily additions to ideas, methods, and machinery, for cheapening food, increasing comforts, and spreading enlightenment. The transformation has been especially marked during the last half century, and to the suddenness of the change, beyond all expectations, and in advance of knowledge wherewith to frame restrictive laws, must be ascribed such attendant evils as monopoly, oppression of factory hands, and the like. The greater the present excess, however, the quicker will come the surfeit, and the swifter the scattering and the deliverance. Mill believes that the relation of master and work- L 452 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. men will be gradually superseded by partnerships, by associations of workmen with capitalists, and of workmen alone, the latter to predominate in due time. As the toiling labor of to-day is entitled to greater consideration than the capital of yesterday, so it seems just that labor should by preference be controlled by organized labor—be independent, self-governed. Cooperation has so far not succeeded well in industrial branches, from a lack of the necessary training in self-control and self-reliance. The solution lies chiefly with such associations as the trades-unions, which sprang up among the working people when the guilds, undermined by capital, fell into exclusive hands. They have of late assumed huge proportions, corresponding to the growth of antagonistic monopoly. Harmony and proper organization are still the elements wanting for success. A great stride forward has been taken in the federation of hitherto scattered unions, for mutual relief as well as more effective action. The absurdity and failure of so many strikes, even when encouraged by the federation, indicate the lack of an efficient head. The members of unions should learn a lesson from the administration of the republic, with its representative and legislative councils and its executive, and the patient submission of the people to their directions, which constitute the supposed wish of the majority. Dissatisfaction with existing enactments can be expressed in the election of better representatives. With intelligent consideration of pending questions by a council, sustained by harmonious cooperation among the members, errors will be avoided and satisfactory success achieved. Discord must above all be eschewed in the face of the stupendous struggle before them. Nationalities have been undermined thereby no less than social and industrial bodies. Such an organization, when duly perfected, could aid the establishment of cooperative works in different branches and localities, and issue general rules for their ORGANIZED COOPERATION. 453 guidance. It could, like any government, call for levies or loans wherewith to provide plant and working capital. Proposed cooperations might for that matter obtain credit from outside sources, when once confidence has been infused by judicious and responsible organization, whether this be of federal or central type, under the direct supervision of one general council, or of special councils for each branch of industry. Under the guidance of similar assemblies may be adjusted the relations between employers and employed, or between associated workmen and capitalists. The interior management of cooperative concerns should in turn be subject to its own elected council and constitution, with the necessary officials. In fine, a good republican form of government applies admirably to industrial organizations. Without wise rule and due submission arise corruption and anarchy. But even here, as in any well-regulated republic, there should not be indiscriminate voting. Association of this character would be able to study markets, methods, and other conditions with great effect, by maintaining exchange of ideas with similar foreign bodies, as merchants and manufacturers endeavor to do under present defective arrangements. One good result would be to check the over-production which now manifests itself in periodic stagnation, bankruptcies, and distress, with occasional severe panics. Another would be to obviate suffering among operatives by pointing out the condition, avenues, and prospects of trade. For that matter cooperation or protective associations could readily be extended to the pension system now organized by the German government, and, farther, to an equable division of labor and profits, with a corresponding reduction in working hours and increased leisure for improving and enjoyable entertainment. The constant invention of labor-saving machinery tends naturally to such reduction, and the growing ease of intercourse assists to weld the nations into one brotherhood. Similar mil- 454 MONEY AND MONOPOLY. lennial though by no means visionary methods can evidently be applied to commerce, agriculture, and other industries. The objection rises that such combinations tend to the perpetuation of new phases of monopoly, as exhibited in fact by trades-unions in many directions, by injurious strikes and other arbitrary proceedings. But the remedy lies with the government, whose anticipated measures may, as we hope, soon relieve us from the present abuses by capital monopoly. Questions not readily reached in that manner can undoubtedly be settled by appeals to the intelligent councils and heads of the coming corporations and federations, with settlement by common-sense and by the simple arbitration which is rapidly gaining favor among all classes. The foremost consideration must of course be for the interest of the greatest number, for the common good, and to this must be subordinate the aspirations of mere classes, although with due regard for minority requirements. Inventions are hailed by all, as tending to increase the general well-being and enjoyment. When machinery revolutionizes a certain branch of industry and throws a number of people out of work, a class must suffer for the public welfare, and adjust itself to new conditions. The strong and rich likewise must restrain their aspirations for excessive wealth and power, and for the enjoyment of luxuries which may injure other classes, or come in conflict with the reformed national principles. To such sacrifice and ab- stenance may in due time be accorded rewards beyond the pleasing consciousness of social duty performed, to the furtherance of happiness and of general progress. CHAPTER XV, LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. Tout homme est forme par son siecle 5 bien peu s'elevent au-dessus des moeurs des temps. — Voltaire. Under the heading of literature I propose to embrace not alone the elegant and imaginative, but to some extent the scientific and instructive branches of the subject, in order to convey a clearer view of the progress made in this farthest west toward the higher realms of authorship. This becomes particularly desirable in the infancy of literature, and in conn- trie's where the practical and didactive predominates; where unsettled conditions permit little attention to arts that depend for perfect development on the leisure and refinement centring in great cities. In Mexico we behold one such centre, for Spanish America; in San Francisco another is forming for the Anglo-Saxon possessions. In both, the fostering co-efficients have encountered formidable obstacles. The cultivation of letters has here been spasmodic and erratic. In Latin America a long period of colonial tutelage, with rigid censorship, followed by distracting civil wars, has had a retarding effect, augmented by the indolence and superficiality prevailing among the people. North-westward, the youthfulness of the states, the pre-occupation with mines and other industrial resources, home-building, and the eager pursuit of trade and speculation in the metropolis, preclude so far any wide efforts to set aside the over shadowing influence of the eastern states. (455) 456 LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. On the other hand exist many favoring elements. In Spanish America the religious orders, as elsewhere, became the depositories of knowledge and the trainers of a host of orators and writers, from among whom issued many a brilliant light to illuminate every department of literature. The most interesting feature is the presence of an aboriginal factor, which in time left its impress on the productions of anew, composite, and vivacious race, tending to a departure from Iberian models by presenting new themes and fresh inspiration, patriotic and social, and by adding a leaven to the admixture of central and western European styles, wherewith to foster the creation of a new school. Northward the favoring causes must be sought in strange environment, peculiar incidents, and abnormal development, which, acting on a cosmopolitan medley of select representatives from different nationalities, have unfolded a dash and energy unparalleled, as manifested in great ideas, novel experiments, and vast undertakings. These traits have extended to literature, and the success achieved in several directions hold out the most flattering promises for the future, in original and varied as well as prolific efforts. The minds of both regions have been primarily cast in eastern moulds, those of California mainly in the Atlantic states centring round Boston and New York, which again draw no little inspiration from the transoceanic shores. The Hispano-Amerieans yielded for centuries a slavish adherence to the one mother country, whose sources and models still remain their principal shrines, notwithstanding the influence of varied intercourse during the last six decades, and the admission of other types. In both regions the early dabbling in literature, and indeed much of the subsequent performances, were necessarily due to immigrants, so that the local claim to their ownership stands in questionable light. ^ Those efforts do, nevertheless, belong largely here, inspired L PHYSICAL INFLUENCES. and framed as they were by new environments nature and society, without which they would never have become manifest. Each formed besides an incentive and standard for succeeding productions, which rapidly followed amid new interests and new homes, in no contemptible rivalry with the exhibits of the mother soil. Mexico, as the capital from the beginning of a vast and rich state, became the political head of all Spanish America north of the Isthmus, and continues the social and intellectual centre. Nevertheless, the region between Panama and Guatemala takes precedence in both chronologic and geographic order for review, as the fountain if not the scene for historical and scientific reports, oratorical and theological productions, and even poetic effusions, for about two decades prior to the discovery of New Spain. The novelties of aspect and circumstances cropping out at every turn were a constant source of inspiration. And what a panorama is presented to the historian as well as the poet in Central America, with its varied fields for conquests,. its diversity of physical conditions, from miasmatic coast lands to high plateaux and lofty ranges crowned by smoking volcanoes ; a region often stirred by eruptions and earthquakes, while nature otherwise lies masked in all the luxuriance of tropic vegetation, alive with song from birds of brilliant plumage, aglow with brightness from a sunlit sky, and fanned by etesian zephyrs. Two vast oceans bathe the winding shores, on one side with quickening currents from the orient, the cradle of civilization, which seem to evoke a response in the numerous evidences of life and culture, while the comparatively inferior types and less alluring features of the eastern slopes reflect rather the dark continent fronting it. Thus we find here the ruder, naked fisher tribes, largely mixed with negro blood, while in the adjoining lake-dotted Nicaragua flourishes a people as advanced as any in Spanish America. Further north 458 LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. this race has inherited the glorious prestige of such ancient nations as the Quiches and Cakchiquels, famed for high culture and great achievements. This culture is above all indicated in the phonetic elements of the picture-writing with which priestly chroniclers recorded myths and rites, heroes and rulers, incidents and institutions. Of a more complex form than the Nahua hieroglyphics, the Maya books have unfortunately remained sealed to us, despite the efforts made by Landa and Brasseur de Bourbourg toward deciphering them.1 The esoteric nature of these records, however, tended to strengthen traditional knowledge among the people, and to this we are indebted even in Aztec matters for most of the information relating to times before the conquest. A type of Maya writing is presented in the Popul Vuh of the Quiches, transcribed from memory in the vernacular, but in Roman letters, by one or more well-informed natives. It tells of the creation of the world, as understood by this people, the progress of culture, the wanderings and struggles of their own national heroes, and the growth of the Quiches. The religious element predominates throughout, with a striking intonation of the mysterious, the terrible, which form the chief characteristics of the worship. These features, indeed, seem to cast their dread spell on the narrators, who tell the story with a marked awe that weighs heavily upon their spirits, and allows little of the lofty soaring that allures and transports the reader of similar Hellenic lore. There is more approximation to the sterner, cold-blooded incidents in the Scandinavian mythology, yet without the bold and grand conceptions of the free and hardy Northmen. A sadness pervades every page, denoting less the regretful musing of a conquered race, fallen from high aspirations, and deprived of its cherished institutions, than one whose spirit has been broken under long centuries of despotic rule and cruel rites. The trait is strongly marked to this day. ABORIGINAL RECORDS. 459 Not only is the diction rather bald throughout, but the phraseology is stilted. The writer appears too deeply impressed by his facts to permit much digression toward either dramatization or embellishment. The inferiority in these respects is due greatly to the influences already mentioned, and it becomes more marked by comparison with the traits of northern Indians, free in their vast hunting-grounds and less dominated by the terrible in religion. Limited as their vocabulary may be, it finds a ready flow in dignified and even majestic harangue, full of beautiful imagery. Nevertheless there appear scenes in the Popul Vuh which stir even the grovelling serf. The first dawning of the sun evokes for instance an effort to depict its splendor. "Great is my brilliancy. Before me have men to walk and to stand still, for my eyes are of silver, resplendent like precious stones, stones which are green like the heavens.2 My nostrils gleam like the moon. My throne is of silver; and the earth brightens as I advance. I am sun and moon for the enlightenment of my vassals." In the very first line we perceive the bending of the awe-stricken adorer instead of the lofty paean of the inspired admirer. The similes have a barbaric and circumscribed stamp instead of soaring grandeur, and poverty of language is indicated in repetition as well as in the use of green for blue or azure. Select paragraphs like the above are not very frequent, still a certain poetic originality shines forth now and then, and the strides toward eloquence, while short and unsustained, and due largely to the translator, are perceptible also in the emphasis so frequently though crudely employed, notably in the addresses and invocations. Whatever may be the faults of style, the native records are full of themes as varied and alluring as those that stirred the mediaeval romanciers and trou- r 460 LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. badours. We find indications enough in the pages of Oviedo, Las Casas, and other early writers on aboriginal times, but they are mere glimpses, and to the efforts of later resident authors are we chiefly indebted for a fuller display of the subject. It is by no means so thorough however as in many Nahua records. These men came too late to rescue more than fragments of either records or traditions from the ravages of time and fanaticism. The inroads have continued to our days. Religious biogotry yielded the foremost place to military marauders and prejudiced chroniclers, and the result is a deficiency of public and private archives that is appalling. Guatemala alone presented at the close of the colonial period a collection at all worthy of such a term, and this had to suffer at the hands of invaders under Iturbide, Morgan, and others, with foreign relic hunters in the wake.3 •Such general neglect could be associated only with a criminal indifference for literary treasures; and this has been the case until recent times, when men like Squier and Brasseur de Bourbourg set a beneficial example in research and in collecting. Similar previous attempts were isolated, and as a rule directed toward some special object, as writing a history or elaborate report with a view to personal fame or profit. The repeated demands from Spain for historic material gave no doubt an impulse, but it was almost wholly confined to colonial incidents and conditions, with little or no regard for aboriginal times; and European Spaniards obeyed the call more than Creoles, who should have manifested the greater interest. * The intellectual revival inaugurated toward the end of the century in the colonial possessions of Spain, and which in Guatemala received its cue from Mexico, was directed almost wholly to the acquisition of new scientific and philosophic learning by the higher classes, with a slight general dissemination of more practical WRITINGS OF THE CONQUERORS. 461 knowledge. In Anahuac aboriginal subjects received very naturally a good deal of attention at the same time; but in Central America the efforts in this field were comparatively feeble, partly because the field proved less varied, partly because less material existed to form a base for research, and to allure and guide the investigator. There were also less population, wealth, and emulation to encourage antiquarian and historic labor. The scattered and fragmentary nature of the contributions to the colonial history should have proved incentive enough for a more complete and comprehensive account, replete as those writings are with stirring incidents, often related in a manner both graphic and eloquent. For instance, in the Relacion of Pedro Alvarado which presents the first view of Guatemala, we find a vivid description of scenes and events connected with the conquest, and this by a leader famous alike for his daring exploits and his cruel disposition. The latter stands forth in bold relief above every other trait, though closely linked with restlessness and ambition, with an indomitable will that superstition alone could bend. Simple is the diction of the soldier, and terse like his words of command, while an admirable clearness pervades the whole. Equally stirring though less revolting are the Cartas of his chief, Cortes himself, whose famous march to Honduras and operations there occupy a large space in his letters. While the lieutenant delights in slaughter and wades in blood, the chief exhibits his endurance and ingenuity in transporting a great army across vast marshes and over mighty rivers, guiding it through trackless forests and arid deserts, and climbing cloud-clapped ranges. The latter struggles against the forces of nature, against sickness and hunger; now to set the example in fortitude, encouraging the faint-hearted and succoring the feeble; now to circumvent a treacherous foe; again to quell a conspiracy, or to overcome some for- 462 LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. midable barrier. Never did this man appear a greater hero; never did his varied talents shine to greater advantage. The subtlety of the diplomatist combine with the energy and resources ol the leader and the frankness of the soldier, while religious fanaticism is softened by a naive reliance on providence. All these qualities are displayed in his writings, which rise far above the average of the time in purity and clearness, fluency and conciseness; evincing also a training in rhetoric, legal forms and business habits. His Latin, is introduced with taste, mingled with courtly phrases, and occasionally an ornamented sentence reveals a pen which had oft enough dabbled in verse. Even the easy flowing diction of Gomara, his biographer, sometime professor of rhetoric, pales before the outpouring of this great mind moulded in experiences so varied. What a contrast do we find in the pages of the contemporary Oviedo, who covers more particularly the southern provinces of Central America, where he himself figured. He had a passion for writing which gratified itself in bulky folios, but he lacked the power to plan and to generalize, and the aptitude to profit by his manifold lessons. Thus, while aiming at judicious treatment he loses himself in the vastness of his subject, and presents a series of versions as they reach him; often repeating, now entering into tiresome details, now skimming the surface or making mere useless allusions. While striving to be concise, he becomes verbose and rambling, yet he redeems himseif somewhat in occasional displays of eloquence and purity of style. While possessing no less literary education than Corte's, he shows less abilityandtaste in using it, in criticism and diction. Later his inclination for gossip and moralizing was allowed freer range than ever. Unscrupulous, like the rest of the early colonists and conquerors, the cavalier Oviedo attracted the frown of the ecclesiastic Las Casas, the champion of EARLY HISTORIANS. 463 oppressed natives, whose tongue and pen were equally absorbed by his noble cause, to defend his charge and to lash the persecutor. But his fiery zeal too often carried him away. While Oviedo used little discrimination in accepting any version, or incident, or natural phenomenon, Las Cases as readily listened to accusations which national pride alone should have urged him to sift ere he used them to damn his countrymen. Intent chiefly on his great cause, he was easily swayed in most directions by partiality, and his absorption promoted carelessness in diction as well as facts and treatment. All this tends to detract from the vigilant subtlety attributed to him by his learned opponent Sepulveda; but his fluency of thought and expression is evident, and marked by frequent outbursts of stirring eloquence and strains of biting irony. Gomara availed himself of these preceding authorities to form a general, concise work, wherein, however, he sacrificed truth and research to style and partisan spirit in the effort to please his patron and to court popularity. This roused the ire of the soldier, Ber- nal Diaz, jealous for the prestige of himself and his comrades. Printed books, private memoranda, and a somewhat treacherous memory, all serve him in his striving for truth, and in contrast to his opponent he sacrifices for this, style, and to a certain extent, popularity. But it is not a voluntary surrender; for personal vanity, and a sympathy for brothers-in-arms, prompt him to sturdily vindicate his own party. Though others suffer somewhat, yet he is not ungenerous. As for style, this has been irremediably neglected, amid the toils of the campaign and pioneer life. He is graphic, however, in bringing before us scenes and adventures from camp and field, and grows animated and pathetic by turns; but the garrulous tendency is^ strongest, and leads to wearisome details and digressions. In the Italian, Benzoni, we find a less generous and frank spirit. His motive for writing was chiefly per- LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. sonal spite, which peers forth in sarcasms and exaggerations, or even falsehoods, while a ready credulity allows free entrance to vague gossip, quite in keeping with his uncultured style. But he is valuable in presenting testimony not partial to the Spaniards. Toward the end of the first century, Herrera, the royal historiographer, appears to combine all these and other narrations into one general history, and to become the standard historian for his field and period. But his examination of material is not careful, and his method is faulty. A slavishly chronological treatment interferes with the spirit of the narrative, and breaks the interest; religious and patriotic zeal overrule truth and humanity, and a bald and prolix style tires the reader. What an opportunity is here among so many fragmentary and faulty versions to complete, to compile, to summarize, to restudy and comment, with such varied models, and attain results prominent for simplicity and- clearness, for purity and eloquence, for conciseness and discrimination, for truth and order, while the contrasting and more general defects serve for the same end by warning the student 1 The appeal was not unheeded by colonial men, but they were cramped by false training, and party spirit ruled high, so that models and warnings served to stimulate zeal rather than direct the method.6 The first to awake to the necessity for a special work on Guatemalan history were the Dominicans, who from their centre in Chiapas exercised a wide influence. Antonio de Remesal was intrusted with the task of compiling the records of their religious provincia, interweaving it with secular events. He proceeded with extraordinary diligence to ransack different archives which were then, in the opening of the seventeenth century, in good condition, and he was also exact, as may be noticed in both facts aud GUATEMALAN HISTORY. 465 style; yet the latter is clear and pleasing, and comparatively free from redundancy. The bias of the zealous friar is strikingly apparent wherever his order is concerned, and here coloring and assertion are made subordinate to feeling, and to what he deems duty, while the imagination is largely drawn, upon for speeches and conversation wherewith to uphold Dominican prestige. On the other hand he strives, in imitation of Las Casas, as champion of the Indians, to lash their oppressors, and this with a fearlessness that evoked a storm against his book before it was published. Otherwise he upholds the colonists, and shows often a graceful forbearance that covers many objections. For a whole century did the Historia de Chyapa of Remesal flaunt before the world the supremacy of the Dominicans in this region, to the ill-suppressed anger of the Franciscans. At last, in 1714, the latter gave vent to their feelings in the Chronica de la Provincia del Santissimo Nombre de Jesus de Guatemala, by Francisco Vazquez, printed at Guatemala, a circumstance which renders it more thoroughly a part of Central American literature. It lacks, however, the ability and pertinent research manifest in many preceding works. It displays, no doubt, a certain amount of investigation, but also a large amount of culling from Remesal, and other ready sources, without giving due credit, and it dwindles in the main features rather into an argument against the claims of the opposite order, taking, on every possible occasion, a contrary view. In this effort on behalf of his brotherhood, Vazquez shows as little hesitation as the other party to exaggerate and misinterpret, and he freely upholds the Franciscan plea for cooperation of the cross and sword, by stoutly defending the conduct of the conquerors, and declaring the Indians undeserving of the sympathy lavished upon them by artificial piety. These weaknesses are not redeemed by literary treatment, for the arrangement is defective, guided greatly Essais and Miscellany SO 466 LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. by unreflecting impulse, and a large part of the work is^ occupied with verbose details concerning obscure friars, which reflect on the discrimination of the writer, as compared with the more clear-sighted and concise Remesal. The latter opens his volume with appropriate directness, while Vazquez begins with a conventional preamble of the pulpit order. The phraseology is rambling and involved, and the diction florid, with a frequent parade of Latin and scholastic quotations. The latter features are by no means regarded as blemishes among Spaniards, with whom the inflated cultismo was still at its height, never, indeed, to be wholly eradicated from the language, for it accorded with the very traits of the people. The same observations apply almost exactly to the Recordacion Florida de la Historia de Guatemala, written two decades before by Fuentes y Guzman, but never published. It forms the first recognized secular history of Guatemala, and has for us the additional interest that the author is not only a Creole, but a descendant of the soldier chronicler Bernal Diaz, who settled in the old city of Guatemala where Fuentes was born. With such family traditions one cannot expect from him anything but a blind advocacy of the acts of the conquerors, and the policy of the colonists ; he not only disregards testimony and suppresses damaging facts, but he inserts statements to suit his aim. The style shows a ready appreciation of G6n- gora's school; but it is redeemed by considerable descriptive power, with not infrequent elegance of diction.6 While Fuentes y Guzman is entitled to the representative place as historian of Guatemala, it has been occupied before the world by Domingo Juarros, whose Historia de Guatemala is the only well-known work on this country for colonial times. He came across the manuscripts of his predecessor, and perceived at once his opportunity. The country was ripe to receive such revelations, for the wave of intellectual awaken- GUATEMALAN HISTORY. 467 ing had rolled across the Atlantic, and aroused a more vivid interest in history. He had the tact,how- ever,to create a special interest in his book by calling it a history of the capital, and by the clever manoeuvre of devoting a large space to the biography of her notable men. "No existiendo su historia, sino es en el deseo de los verdaderos patriotas," he adds. He recognizes geography and chronology as the "two eyes" of history, and promises to use both. He accordingly opens the volumes with the aid of the former, applying it successively to every province in Central America; for Guatemala, as the leading state, was often assumed to comprise those to the south. The capital, the cherished city of his birth, receives special attention in her buildings, institutions, and renowned children and leaders. This has evidently been a labor of love, for a good deal of investigation is exhibited in connection with archives of church and state, to which his position as synodal examiner procured his ready access. In the second volume he confines himself more particularly to history, beginning with pre-conquest times, which apply only to Guatemala for want of even traditional records elsewhere. In taking up the account of subjugation and settlement by Spaniards he passes from one province to another, and seeks to complete the narrative by adding institutional matter and curious items. The book is just what one might expect for a country little written upon, and from a man eager to tell all about it. Not that he is exhaustive, for he fails to present any adequate view of society and industrial condition, and in the history he follows the unreliable Fuentes without exercising due care or discrimination, or supplementing with sufficient additional investigation. This, together with the lack of sequence and symmetry, imparts a fragmentary and unsatisfactory character to the work, which is besides unrelieved by any beauty of diction; yet the style possesses a conciseness and clearness that is remark- 468 LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. able for a preacher of Spanish America. Equally refreshing is the comparative freedom from bigotry and credulity in a Roman catholic priest of this remote corner, except when treading on scientific or other new ground. He rarely intrudes his pulpit sentences, and if he occasionally upholds miracles and asceticism, it is but duty to his profession.7 Among representative historical writers of the present century, must be placed Doctor Francisco de Paula Garcia Pelaez, archbishop of Guatemala, whose Memo- rias para la Historia de Guatemala present the most complete account of colonial times in Central America. He treats less of ancient history and conquest, which more than one accessible author has fully spoken of, but displays close observation on subsequent matter, with particular attention to institutions and society, to government policy and the unfolding of trade, industries, education, thus approaching closely to later ideas as to what should constitute material for the history of a people. To this end he has applied research of no slight extent, and a careful arrangement, without pretending to offer a history in the proper sense of the word. Indeed, the work is rather a series of collected statements from different authorities, arranged under topics and in historic sequence, with little or no attempt to present or to reconcile differences, or to combine scattered facts or hints in explanatory or complimentary shape, or to offer conclusions which should result from anatysis and comparison. Nor has any use been made of foot-notes, wherewith to relieve the text from trivial details and bare references, which are therefore left to interfere with the connection and obstruct the style. There is no effort in the latter direction, however, and even stirring incidents are related without the least animation; yet the language is pure and clear, and the sentences-smooth. The valuable features of PalaezV work become more conspicuous when contrasted with other contributions in this field, of the same period. These are chiefly FIRST PRINTING. 469 political pamphlets by leaders or hangers-on in defense of parties or individuals, full of loud assertion and bombast, sustained by fiery emphasis, and disguised by rambling digression. Occasionally the compact yet disjointed style, with its forensic stamp, drifts into reiteration and mere bombast, with faulty punctuation, revealing in both forms the crudeness of diction and phraseology. The use of foot-notes is little understood, but there is usually an appendix with corroborative documents. Superior to these in style are the productions of such men as Alejandro Morure, though occasionally marked by ill-sustained efforts at florid declamation.8 As for sifting of evidence, study, and deduction, there is little or none. The domination of idea, party, or passion is almost everywhere glaringly apparent, together with a glossy superficiality that shields the unstable reasoning of the polemic, and the lack of profundity in his attainments. The scantiness and defects of Central American literature are greatly due, as I have intimated, to the paucity and scattered distribution of the population, and in modern times above all, to the continual civil wars which have absorbed the attention of the superior classes, and created such disorder and neglect of progressive measures as to keep the masses in abject ignorance, and greatly to diminish the means for instructing the rest. Spain was ever the classic country from which the colonists drew their knowledge and obtained their models, and so it still remains, wide as the political and social gulf may be between them. With so small a circle of readers, those fitted and called to wield the pen found little encouragement, at least for works of an ambitious character. Heavy as well as light literature was brought from across the sea, and from Mexico, a fair proportion coming from France, for whose people and productions a warm sympathy has always existed, and whose language found ready learners from its similarity to the Spanish. 470 LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. The backward condition of literature can be readily understood when it is learned that the printing press was not introduced at Guatemala until 1660, when Joseph de Pineda Ibarra figures as the first printer.• The first publication is said to have been a letter by President Caldas to the king concerning the conquest of the Lacandon country; but the claim to be the first book is made for Relation de la Vida y Virtudes del V. Hermano Pedro de San Joseph Betancur, Guatemala, 1667, by Manuel Lobo.19 After this, publication became not infrequent; for works from all parts of Central America, hitherto sent to Spain or Mexico to be printed, were now forwarded to Guatemala, which has ever maintained the lead over the other states, owing to its greater population and interests. Some of the provinces to the south did not obtain presses till long after the independence. Guatemala early followed the example set in Mexico of issuing a periodical, a monthly Gaceta, started in 1729 by Sebastian de Arevalo, which has amid different suspensions and revivals managed to pass into the present century, and to sustain itself later as a weekly, and generally as the official organ.11 In 1797 Villaurrutia began to publish a weekly paper in connection with his Sociedad Econdmica, devoted to general advancement, both of which suffered temporary suppression as too advanced in spirit for the Spanish government. In 1820 two journals appeared, and after this new ones spring up almost every year, occasionally as many as ten within the twelve months, although few survive. Among the other states Salvador follows with about twenty-four journals within eighteen years, beginning in 1824, less than half the number issued in Guatemala. Honduras has eleven within thirteen years, and Nicaragua nine, both beginning in 1830; Costa Rica falls to seven between 1832 and 1842, and Panama declines to even less." They were with rare exceptions political organs, full of polemics and stale news, with occasionally scien- RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY. 471 tific articles, and feuilletons translated or copied from foreign papers. Liberty of the press entered with the independence, only to find itself obstructed or suppressed now by some dictator, anon by formal law from legislatures, yet with intervals of absolute freedom. The most severe legislative measure appeared in 1852, when close government censorship was established.13 One effect of the independence, and the dissemination of liberal ideas from France, manifested itself in a lessened religious feeling among the educated classes, which has finally led to the suppression of convents, and to a diminished influence for the clergy with every successive effort of theirs to assert themselves. This is only too apparent in the bulk of political pamphlets which in modern times form the main feature of publications, replacing the former excessive production of theological treatises, sermons, and saintly biography. Of the last class we iind good specimens in Lobo's Relation de la Vidxi de Betancur, already mentioned as the first book proper issued in Central America, in Antonio de Siria's Vida de la Venerable Bona Ana Guerra, and in such works as Remesal and Vazquez. The latter, for that matter, rewrote Lobo's Relation, and made copious additions to the biography of Betancur, who was.highly venerated in the country as a religious founder and humanitarian.14 This work is in the usual exalted, visionary spirit of the seventeenth century, with special prominence to abstract and ascetic features, the monotony of which Vazquez has increased with his verbose inflation, rambling phraseology, and florid diction. Yet the last would no doubt add to the interest for lovers of such lore, while the earnestness pervading every line, .and the mysticism, serve to impress on the devout the lesson intended to be inculcated. 472 LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. In colonial times the oratory of the bar and pulpit was never allowed the full range accorded in protes- tant Europe, where appeals reached the head as well as the heart. With the liberty conferred by revolution and fostered by the debates of assemblies and the demand of elections, the pent-up spirit found free vent, and astonished itself by its rapidity of progress in this new path. A vivacious temperament, a ready flow of words, and the stirring subjects of national birth and men consecrated to the people as heroes and martyrs, all assisted to impart an eloquence which met with prompt response among an emotional audience. Depth and logical sequence were lacking, however, and rules of elocution were not allowed to interfere greatly with the natural flow and the impulsive rather than studied emphasis so frequently employed, and so characteristic of the oratory. The revival in learning, which became manifest toward the end of the eighteenth century, naturally gave an impulse to the demand for works of a scientific nature, notably in connection with industrial arts, as indicated by the reports of the Sociedad Economic a begun in 1797; but the disorders under republican rule have allowed far less room for progress in this direction than could be expected from the promising number of names which, during the later colonial period, are connected with similar topics. Bias de Pineda y Polanco had, in beginning of the eighteenth century, collected 27 volumes of material on natural history and geography, in dictionary form, with illustrations. The most ambitious efforts were by Juan de Padilla, a presbyter, who wrote on mathematics and astronomy, the latter subject embraced in a bulky manuscript folio of 585 pages entitled Teorica y prdctica de la astronomia. He was long an authority in this branch for Guatemala. Fuentes speaks of an earlier student in the field, Juan Jacinto Garrido. The creole friar Joaquin Calderotrde la Barca figured as a mathematician about 1735; while Ignacio Ceballos SCIENTIFIC WORKS. 473 of Guatemala became an academician of Spain and assisted in forming the first great dictionary.15 The great variety of Indian tribes in this extensive region, which attracted the missionary zeal, gave rise to a number of linguistic productions, wherein Friar Francisco Jimenez shines with particular lustre. I have collected a number of these works, vocabularies, grammars, and religious text-books, in connection with my studies on aboriginal languages as expressed in my Native Races, but Brasseur de Bourbourg applied himself more especially to the subject, as indicated in his several writings. In this connection must be mentioned the Historia de la Creation del Cielo y de la Tierra by Ramon de Ordonez, presbyter. Assisted by the aboriginal records and traditions and the hieroglyphics and sculptures at the then recently discovered Palenque, the author attempts to explain the Maya theory of the creation, and to follow the wanderings and adventures of the founders of the cultured nations in this region. Guided by the scripture, he finds no difficulty in connecting them with Chaldea, and in supporting this assumption by a comparison of rites and customs. The ingenuity and boldness of his interpretations are as striking as the transparency of his arguments. But the mystic nature of the subject, the evident research, and the profusion of reference and learned allusions, all lend a glamour to the book that sustains the earnestness and high character of the author.16 Spanish poets have not failed to seize upon the grand achievements connected with discovery and conquest in America, unsurpassed for range, interest, and beauty. Nevertheless these themes have been left in a great measure to the conquerors themselves, such as Castellanos, who, in his Elegias de Varones Ilustres de Indias, ambitiously seeks to cover the whole field, and to commemorate the glories of all the leading heroes from Columbus' time far into the opening 474 LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. century of Spanish rule. His is rather a versified narrative, however,of varying form, with vivid description of incidents and novelties, yet combined with a great smoothness and rare purity of diction. The stirring deeds of the Castilian invaders are related by him in a very incomplete manner, yet the Creole descendants of those invaders have not felt moved to continue the song of the soldier bard. Their versification was confined chiefly to odes and sonnets on the occasion of birthdays and other celebrations in honor of royalty or high officials, and more ambitious efforts sought rather a foreign and seemingly more alluring though well-worn topic. La Thomasiada of Friar Diego Saenz is a passable epic on the angelic doctor, and noticeable here rather as one of the first publications of Guatemala. Of greater interest is Raphael Landivar's Rusticatio Mexi- cana, a didactic poem in initation of the Georgics, embracing natural features, resources, and industries of Central America as well as Mexico. Landivar was a native of Guatemala, and professor there of rhetoric and philosophy in the Jesuit college. On the expulsion of the society in 1767, he proceeded like most of the members to Italy, there to seek consolation in literary labors. The Rusticatio contains the outgrowing of his very soul, while reviewing scenes dear to his memory, and displaying to the world the wealth and beauty of his native land. In the dedicatory verses to Guatemala, the longing of the exile and the love of the patriot find a touching expression. The selection of Latin instead of Spanish must be attributed both to his environment while writing, and to the pride of the scholar, who entertained a hope that the work might be adopted as a text book in his own country—an expectation not unfairly based on an appropriate subject, a pure diction and classic form. The ready adaptation of the Spanish language to classic verse has led to several minor imitations, notably in Virgil's vein, but they are seldom above the POETRY AND SONG. 475 barest and dullest mediocrity. Instance the eclogue of Ruiz y Lara in honor of the prominent Nicaraguan, Larreynaga, of 1834. The glorious memories of the independence have provided appropriate and freer topics, to be revived at the annual celebration, largely in satiric form. The feelings of the vanquished patriot and exile seek utterance at every turn of fortune's wheel, while woman reigns supreme above all in her power to inspire, as may readily be understood with regard to a people so devoted to gallantry and other amenities of society. The ode and the elegiac strain appear to be the happiest efforts, and octaves of undecasyllabic triple measure the most common form. A poetry which, like the Spanish, so readily admits the free, irregular, improvisatory verse known as silvas, must not be scanned so rigidly as ours. The metre, for that matter, retains to a certain extent the classic features of emphasis and idiomatic rhythm, and the mixture accords well with the impulsive, declamatory bent of the Hispano-American. It requires often an interpretation of its own, and this individuality is also marked in elocution generally. While the method may be erratic, it must not be supposed that the theme is such, although the Spaniards are somewhat addicted to broad allusions. The tone of the amatory pieces before me is most chaste, and the similes belong, as a rule, to the sweeter and grander elements in nature. As specimens of elegiac pieces I will cite from the recollections of an exile : Venid con la luna Y estrellas brillantes, Ciial ricos diamantes Tambien rutilad. El recuerdo es mi perfume Con que el alma se adormece: Tierno lirio que aparece Cuando el tedio nos consume. Es pintada mariposa, Que vagando entre las flares Roba de ellas los olores, Que nos brinda carifiosa. Es un eco desprendido De concierto misterioso; Blando, suave, melodioso, Y entre sombras escondido. This is from the pen of Juan de Canas, which also LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. contributes a number of odes and sonnets, the latter less happy. Another poet of Salvador, Carlos. Bo- nilla, sings at the tomb of a wife: Tan solo de inmortal, seca corola, Del Saucey,del cipres las tristes hojas Me quedan, en lugar de flores rojas, Para adorn ar tu losa sepulchral. .And farther: Una arboleda plantarecon ellos, Melancdlica al par que fun eraria, Que circunde la fosa cineraria Que encierra tu despojo terrenaL Antftesis dolorosa, Que el corazon ha sufrido, Cual arbolillo batido Por furioso vendabal. En esa cuna me queda El pimpollo de una rosa, Y en esta sombrfa fosa, Queda seco mi rosall Here it must be admitted that the oral ballads of the populace are not so pure as might be desired. And this observation leads me to a few closing remarks on the songs o|f the Indians. While undoubtedly retaining many aboriginal features, they have been greatly influenced by Spanish subjects, melodies, and rhythm, under constant association with the conquering race, and diligent training of priests and church choirs, whose art entered also into secular pastimes. The theme concerns the duties of the husbandman, the hunter, the fisherman, and the attendant adventures or dangers, or it dwells on the charms of budding woman, with many a broad reference to the snares laid for her by strangers. Only too frequently the vagaries and weaknesses of the parish priest meet with sarcastic exposure, and the slumbering feeling against the ruling class, with its Castilian pride and affectation, is still nursed in the popular verse, which, moreover, displays a lingering predilection for ancient rites and superstitions, midst covert sneers at Christian dogmas. Both subject and form are simple, of an improvised character, with frequent repetition of lines, generally in antithetical and paraphrastic form: He roamed through the forest with axe on the shoulder, With axe on the shoulder he roamed through the forest. It was night—deep night; in the sky not a moonl Not a moon in the sky; it was night—deep night! FORMS AND CONDITIONS. 477 Refrain: In the distance rolled the sea, the great sea; The sea, the great sea, was heard from afar, As it sadly groaned, like a wounded deer, Like a wounded deer, which sadly groans. With axe on the shoulder he roamed through the forest, He roamed through the forest with axe on the shoulder. The iteration is undoubtedly effective despite its frequency, but the poetic imagery occasionally indicated is rarely sustained. In alluding to the charms of maidens, flowers, and gold, sunlight and birds are generally used to form the simile, although not always appropriate. Tula, the pretty one, with teeth so white, with eyes of gold,, Loved to roam in the forest; around in the forest to roam, The flowers she gathered to adorn her long tresses Appeared in the gleam of her eyes so much brighter. And little birds from trees around, all robed in sunlight, They flew when she came, to perch on her lips so pretty, And sweetly carolling on her shoulder they nestled. Satiric compositions, with their short round stanzas, contain at times very neat epigrammatic lines, but as a rule form is sacrificed to the subject and euphony. Sweet girls and young maids, Place buds in your hair, But let them have thorns, The curate to sting. Sweet girls and young maids, Show pesos and gold, And priests will display Their old paradise. The refrain is not always fit to translate. The stanzas close with a couplet in which the audience joins. It is usually taken from the opening lines, or consists of a meaningless jingle. A striking feature is the sad strain which enters into nearly all these songs, especially toward the close, and which pervades most of the melodies. This predominant tinge has not failed to reach the poetry generally of Central America, to judge by the prevalence and • success so far of elegiac verse. The satiric and mystic elements of the aboriginal have also left their impress; the former accords well with the sly, retiring disposition of the Indians as compared with the other castes, their suspiciousness and assumption of even more than their natural stolidity, while it also points to a lack of power for loftier ex- LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. pression. Similar remarks apply to the mystic form, which supplies with vague allusions what utterance fails to convey, j The impulsive intonation and bombast manifested in odes and oratory is, on the other hand, from a Spanish source, evolved under congenial circumstances with the new race, and given free sway by the revolution. The independence opened wide the door for foreign influence toward research, method, style, in all branches of knowledge and art, and the press seeks to extend it, although as a rule, indirectly, through the medium of Mexico, which, under improving communications is rather strengthening her authority as the chief source, model, and market for Central American readers and writers. Paucity of population, and ignorance, and lack of ambition among the large proportion of Indians, add obstacles which it will take long to overcome. The people must learn above all, however, that peace is required to establish the secure prosperity which alone can give a fostering impulse to art and literature. 1 There is some reason to believe that the Mayas attained even to an alphabet. The sculptured hieroglyphics in regular compact squares, at both Copan and Palenque, seem identical with the written characters of surviving manuscripts, and bear a stamp superior to those of the Aztecs. The failure of the several attempted solutions has not dampened zeal in this direction; in California alone more than one student has taken up the problem. Las Casas touches upon the subject eloquently in his Hist. Apobg., MS., iv. 367. The manuscript Troano published by the French government, the Dresden Codex, included in Kingsborough's work, and one other document in a European library, are the only written specimens left to us. 2 Scherzer points out that the Quiche language does not distinguish between green and blue. Ximenez, Hist. Orig. Ind., 15. 3 Brasseur de Bourbourg joined in the rush for relics, but his effort was to save from destruction, and nobly has he proven his intent in publications as priceless as they are interesting. Pelaez, Squier, Stephens, and Scherzer fiff- ure by his side in rescuing and supplementing the earlier labors in this field of such men as Jimenez. Panama lost ita archives chiefly by fires, which involved also to a great extent those of Nicaragua and other provinces depending on Guatemala and Lima. In Salvador earthquakes engulfed much material, while everywhere civil wars by invaders or factions assisted conflagrations and neglect in completing the destruction. Thus it is that records of the early history of Central America must be sought chiefly in works written beyond its limits, in Spain and England, and above all in the manuscript and printed collections of documents issued from peninsular archives, where copies and originals of letters, reports, and even elaborate books on NOTES. 479 the provinces accumulated, partly in the ordinary course of official routine, partly in obedience to repeated orders for transmission of material for the use of royal chroniclers, ' Para que se pueda proseguir la historia general de las Indias.' Recop. de Ind., i. 629. *The incentive to collect historic material lay in the duty and personal motives prevailing among the European Spaniards who held nearly all the offices. Specimens of their reports have been frequently cited by me throughout these volumes in the original or copied manuscripts of Alvarado, Monte jo, Gil Gonzalez, Gerezeda, Estrada Gallego, Cadena, Miranda, Niebla, Castello, Avila, Duarte, Aninon, Izaguirre, Hermosillo, Velasco, Haya, and more from the Squier collection ; in the printed accounts issued in the collections by Pacheco and Cardenas, Squier, Ternaux-Compans, Arevalo and others. 5 For an account of the life and works of the chroniclers of Central America, I refer to the bibliographic notes scattered throughout the first two volumes of my histories of Central America and of Mexico. 6Fuentes' Norte Politico forms a suitable adjunct to his history in giving an account of the duties, privileges and ceremonies of the ayuntamiento of Guatemala, whereof he was a member. Allusion is made to this manuscript in the records of the city council for 1.700, which refer a dozen years previously to Fuentes' researches in the local archives. While his history is the first recognized as such, Beristain refers to an earlier Historia de Guatemala by Friar Estevan Aviles, which remained in manuscript, and has disappeared. It may have been used by Fuentes. Contemporary with him, were the military leaders Nicolas de Valenzuela and Pero Ursiia, engaged ify the conquest of the Itza country, of which the former in particular wrote a very minute account. This and other material was used by Villagutierre Soto-mayor relator of the India Council, to form a very complete Historia de la Conguista de Itza, with the necessary information concerning the discovery and features of the country. The book opens in a most direct manner, but drifts gradually into trivial details. The author has evidently no aptitude for florid cul- tismo ; but while the diction is not inflated, the phraseology is loose and involved, so that altogether interest finds litrie means to sustain itself. The work is rather on than of Central America. More in the style of Vazquez is the Informe sobre la Sublevacion de bs Zendales, a manuscript of 78 folios, by Friar Pedro Marselino Garcia. The Creole, Jose Sanchez, wrote a history of Guatemala, MS., dated 1779, but it is little known and by no means the connected or complete review of events and institutions indicated by the title. Father Ramon Leal, of the Dominican order, wrote at the end of the seventeenth century the Guatemalensis Ecchsiai Monumenta, which relates more particularly to the capital. 7 Similar to Juarros in its descriptive features is the little Memoria His- torica de Chiapa, by Mariano Robles Dominguez de Mazariegos, deputy to the cortes for his province, which shows a clear, plain, business-like hand. 8 For an account of these different grades of historical writings and their authors, I refer to the bibliographic notes of my historical volumes. There 1 have shown that however defective the style and treatment may often be, the value of the contributions to the investigator is not overlooked, particularly in such instances as Manuel M. de Peralta, who modestly confines himself to an able presentation of original documents on the history of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama, rather than to strive for the more ambitious effort of using them for historic dissertations. His merit shines no less brightly, however, in the \ ast research, the careful arrangement, and the appropriate notes. 'The name of the first printer in Guatemala appears by a slip as Sbarra, mPelaez, Mem. Guat., ii. 260. Ternaux writes Francisco de Pineda. Noav. Annates des Voy., xciii. 25. According to Echevero, the first matrices for r 480 LITERATURE OF CENTRAL AMERICA. 40. type made in America must be credited to the printer Arevalo of Guatema in 1742. 10 Of the first Guatemalan work there is a copy in my library. Terna has an epic, La Thomasiada by Diego Saenz, printed the same year. UU » Pelaez mentions some later books, and one for 1663, which seems to be Lobe 11 Arevalo was evidently a relative of the contemporary Mexican journ ist, who in 1731 alludes to this journal. Arevalo, Compendio, preface 2. 1 first suspension occurred in 1731. Valdes dates its existence about 1" Gazetas de Mex. (1784), i. 3; Id., x. 207; Mex. IHario, vi 206, etc. 12 Marure gives a list of journals published between 1821 and 1842 in five of the Central American states. Efemerides, 77-9. His number for Guatemala is 57. Reichardt states that Nicaragua had in 1852 only one press and one journal. Nic, 222. In 1872 the Porvenir de Nicaragua of Dec. 8th, enumerates four, while Guatemala possesses ten and Salvador fifteen. Of the four, two are supported by the government, and the other two barely manage to exist. La Universidad Nacional, begun in 1875 at San Salvador, is one of the brightest of the few literary and scientific journals of Central America. During the California gold excitement, and for some time after, polyglot journals appeared in Nicaragua and Panama, with the aid of English editors, or even French, and at Panam£ this feature has proved permanent. Instance the Panamd Echo of 1850, and the surviving Star and JIov.lt/. 13 The final abolishment of censorship in the northern states took place in 1871. Guat. Recop. Leyes, i. 4; iv. 240-7. Yet in the following year an outcry was raised against Costa Rica for prohibiting, under imprisonment and other penalty, any strictures on the authorities. Nic Semanal, Oct. 31, 1S72; Porvenir Nic., Nov. 10, 1872. See also Rocha, Codigo Nic, L 173-6; Gaceta Guat., June 18, 1849; El Sigh, May 15, 1852; Gac OfU. Hond., 30, 1852, Jan. 20, 1853; Nic, Decret. y Acuerd.. 1860, 140-2; 1872, 3 Nic Informe Min. Gob., v. 2-3; vi. 16. Bonds were generally dun, from editors. Notwithstanding the decline of ecclesiastical influence enactments have appeared against impious as well as pernicious books. Guat. Recop. Leyes, iii. 286-7; Cent. Am. Pamphlets, v. pt. vi. 14 The original manuscript of Vazquez, a closely written volume of over 200 folios, in double columns, dated 1724, is in my library. It was never printed. Siria's work was issued at Guatemala in 1716 in 4* form of 330 pages. To these may be added the Vida de la Virgen and other religions treatises by the Jesuit Juan Antonio de Oviedo, a native of Bogota, educated in Guatemala but chiefly connected with Mexico. He died in 1757. The Dominican Father Leal who wrote the Ecclesic Monumenta, containing the lives of the bishops of Guatemala, was a Peruvian; and the Jesuit Jose" Ignacio Vallejo, author of Vida de S. Jost, came from Guadalajara. 16 Friar Pedro Sapien, Pedro Jose Arrece, a presbyter, Friar Pedro Mariano Iturbide, and Friar Juan Lerrasa, all of Guatemala city, wrote on philosophic subjects; and Friar Miguel Frausesch, Friar Jose" Antonio Goi- coechea and Friar Matias de Cordova on educational topics. 16 The work never saw the press, but the contents were plagiarized by Doctor Pablo Feliz Cabrera and published in condensed form, with certain new interpretations, under the title of Teatro Critko, in connect ion with Rio's Description of an Ancient City, London, 1822. Both translated into German, Berlin, 1832. Besides these I have in my library one of the two or at the most three copies extant of Ordonez' work. Moreover, a great portion of the bulky tome before me is in the original, marked by frequent corrections. Ma ided CHAPTER XVI. LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. Nescire autem, quid antea, quam natus sis, acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. —Cicero. Mexico was the first city on the American continent to own a printing-press and to publish a book, a claim that adds not a little to the prestige of the Aztec capital. The press came out with Viceroy Mendoza, who arrived in October 1535, and appears to have been in charge of Juan Pablos from Lombardy, acting for Juan Cromberger, the owner of a printing-house at Seville. Cromberger died in 1540, and although permission was granted for the widow and children to continue his business, Pablo must have bought their interest, for after 1544 he obtained royal permission to carry on printing exclusively for a term of years.1 The first book issued was the Escala Espiritual para llegar al Cielo, Traducidode Latin en Castellano por el Venerable Padre Fr. Ivan de la Madalena, Religioso Dominieo, in 1536. The work had been originally written in Greek by San Juan Climacus, the hermit. Madalena was the cloister name for Estrada, the son of Governor Estrada, the successor of Cortes, a feature which lends additional interest to the work.2 The Escala no longer exists, and the history of its immediate successors on the press is involved in doubt. Only two books of the fourth decade are said to survive—the Breve y Mas Compendiosa Doctrina Christiana en Lengua Mexkana y Castellana. At the end, "By order of Bishop Zumdrraga, by Cromberger, 1539," Essays and Miscellany 31 (48i) 482 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. 12 leaves in 4to. The other is a Manual de AduUos, by Logrono, printed by Cromberger, December 13, 1540, which recently found its way to London.8 Half a score of other books printed before 1550 are now known to bibliographers, one of them in my library, and about six dozen more exist with dates of the sixteenth century. Of these Icazbalceta gives a catalogue of 44, which are nearly all in Mexico, several in his own possession. Harrisse presents a fuller list, and less complete ones have been printed in several. works. Those issued before 1550 are, besides the three enumerated above, Relation del espantable terremoto.. .el Guatemala, 1541, Cromberger; Doctrina breue of Bishop Zumarraga, 1543; Tripartito del.. .Iuan Gerson, 1544, Cromberger; Compendio breue que tracta.. .de ha^cer lasprocessiones, 1544, Cromberger; another fuller edition of same year; Doctrinaexpiana.. .por Pedro de Cordoua, 1544, Cromberger; Doctrina Christiana, 1546, Cromberger is not mentioned; Cancionero Spiritual of Las Casas, 1546, Juan Pablos here affixes his first imprint; Regla Christiana breue, 1547; a Doctrina of 1548, Juan Pablos; another Doctrina, of doubtful date; Ordendcas y copi- lacion de leyes: hechas por.. .Antonio deMedJoca, 1548, Juan Pablos.4 A few more sixteenth century tomes may no doubt be brought to light, particularly in the Mexican convents. Among the existing number, twenty-seven are minor ecclesiastical works, such as manuals of church ceremonies, catechisms, and doctrinas, reprinted for the most part from Spanish editions, and of no value save as rare samples of New World typography. Of the remainder, thirty-seven are works similar to the above, but partially translated into various native dialects, chiefly the Aztec, together with a few vocabularies and brief grammatical rules. Ten others are ecclesiastical works of a somewhat higher class, notably regulations of the religious orders. There are two medical treatises, and two FIRST AMERICAN PRESS. 483 classical commentaries. Two present secular laws and the ordenanzas of the Viceroy Mendoza, one an account of a terrible earthquake in Guatemala, and another an account of the funeral ceremonies of Philip II. These first fruits of the American press were many of them issued in several editions. Among the authors figure such notable men as Zumarraga, the iconoclast, first bishop of Mexico; Father Gante, the first teacher in New Spain; Father Veracruz, the zealous missionary ; Molina, who formed the first Aztec vocabularly, even now a standard work. Latin is the most frequent medium after Spanish, then come Aztec, Tarascan, Otomi, Miztec, and Zapotec. The type is Gothic, Italic, and Roman, with frequent abbreviations and rare woodcuts of a rude character, re-introduced into different works. The size varies from folio to octavo, the small quarto predominating. The binding is usually the plain vellum wrapper. Printing was hampered by too many restrictions to attain any flourishing condition, and only the leading towns like Puebla, Guadalajara, and Vera Cruz could exhibit presses. At Mexico it appears there were six in 1761; but at the beginning of this century only three remained.5 These printers had to obtain licenses, not being allowed to print without official sanction. The introduction of books was rigorously supervised, so as to exclude anything that savored of heresy, or too great liberty of thought and speculation; and even books authorized in Spain were often excluded as dangerous to the loyal or moral tendency of the more unsophisticated children beyond the sea.6 While the inquisition possessed the main censorship, interference came also from other quarters to protect the public. Notwithstanding this strictness, many books were smuggled in and read even by prelates, as appears from charges made. Latterly the government became more indulgent. 484 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. t Periodicals were ever strictly watched, even so far as to frequently exclude from their columns narratives of ordinary events, and to render them of comparatively small value to the historian. A sort of special journal was issued in early times on the arrival of the fleets, with accounts of important occurrences, of appointments, and the like, but the first issue of a regular periodical was begun at Mexico in 1693, with the Mercwrio Volante of Sigiienza, which reached four volumes. In 1722 Juan Ignacio Maria de Castorena y Ursua, precentor at Mexico, and later bishop of Yucatan, presented in the Gaceta a publication more in accordance with our idea of a journal. • The issue stopped for some reason the same year, but was resumed in 1728 by Arevalo.7 It continued monthly until 1739, reporting events in different provinces and towns and in Europe, and giving notices of fleets, books, and curious things. Then came a long interval until 1784, when the Gaceta de Mexico reappeared permanently in about the same form, in semi-monthly numbers, occasionally weekly, and with supplements and illustrations. In 1805 it expanded to semi- weekly numbers.8 Meanwhile the Mercurio had been twice revived, in 1772 by Bartolache who issued a few numbers on scientific subjects. This higher sphere of periodicals received its first reliable support from the learned Alzate in his Gacetas de Literatura, devoted to arts, science, and critical reviews. In 1805, about ten years after Alzate's paper stopped, a similiar daily publication, the Diario de Mexico, made its appearance, with preference for light literature, yet with a small proportion of political matter. It continued for several years, and consisted generally of two small quarto sheets. The projector was the alcalde de corte, Villa Urrutia. Reports of transactions by societies became not infrequent even before the independence. The revolution gave rise to a number of small sheets, an,d the greater liberty accorded to the press PERIODICALS. 485 after 1810 gave impulse to all classes of literature. Periodicals were issued also at a few other places^as Guatemala and Vera Cruz, but these could not infringe on the exclusive rights granted to the official paper at Mexico to publish certain foreign and local information.9 With the limited range of education and the restrictions on literature it can readily be supposed that collections of books were not numerous, beyond the convents, where more or less extensive libraries very naturally collected, almost wholly of a theological nature. To these, different chronicles of the orders refer as the source for their data. The chief collections were at the head convent of the provincia, to which flowed all reports, and where the chief school of the order was situated. The few colleges accumulated sets, as in San Juan de Letran, the Jesuit institute, and the university. The churches had also respectable libraries formed by donations from chapters and prelates, and so had the public offices, notably the audience court from which the royal chronicler drew his data.10 From what has been said about the strict exclusion of foreign books and the zealous efforts of churchmen to banish also light Spanish literature, it may be assumed that the collections were even more national in their character than would be expected in a colony; that is, composed of works written within the country, and vastly preponderating in theologic lore. True, the standard authors of Spain, scholastics, legal lights, chroniclers, poets, dramatists, formed the gems, the nucleus, of the sets; but we can readily imagine the proportion of local writers and of subjects for the rest, when it is shown that merely the Franciscan authors of New Spain, who until 1800 inflicted their verbose and monotonous narratives and dissertations on a submissive people, numbered over four hundred,11 and 486 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. when it is considered that the religious teachers guided public taste, and strove to obtain a circulation for their own productions. This feature is of certain significance, since it stamped to a great extent the literary taste in all directions. The friars were not what were called well- read men. Many missionaries in the out-lying provinces, who have contributed so much to history, possessed a merely rudimentary education; others had taken degress at their colleges without dipping into other lore than that furnished by the fathers of the church. Medina points out that his order heeded well the exhortation of St Francis to his followers— not to profess sciences and books, but to study humility.12 Such writers as Torquemada, whose knowledge of Greek and Latin classics created some attention for him, were therefore rare; yet even this class had been so moulded in the religious element of their studies, and by the ascetic influence around them, as to leave the impress thereof on every page. Since every work had to pass through the hands of censors, notably the rigid inquisition, it became almost necessary to give a pious tinge to the pages in order to secure permission to publish, and above all to suppress whatever savored of acquaintance with works not favored by the church. Every book, even the petty pamphlet, is prefaced with a host of certificates to vouch for its orthodox and local sentiments, and the absence of anything that might disturb the desired frame of the public mind. Add to this the control of schools and colleges by ecclesiastic teachers, bound by training and duty to leaven the youthful mind with religious dogmas and forms, discouraging physics and cognate subjects, and strictly excluding speculative thought of a liberal character; even the study of medicine would probably have'been frowned down but for the exigent demand of health. Thus bigotry stifled intellectual life. A lamentable superstition is apparent in the works even CENSORSHIP. 487 of later writers, who, like Veytia, had travelled and dipped widely into foreign literature. Critical and satiric writings were banished, the eloquence of the bar and pulpit depressed, and didactic works circumscribed, a certain outlet being permitted only in poetry and the drama, which from the pressure of pent-up feeling in this direction became tinged with undesirable elements and colors. All this was but a reflection of the influence at work in Spain, intensified here where the people for various reasons must be held in stricter pupilage. Born amid the strife of battle, literature had sprung forth endowed with the strength of its mountain home, and fired with the enthusiasm of heroic spirits. Similar influences fostered it also on the Andhuac plateau, where the chivalry romances, with Amadis in the lead, urged the conquering hordes to fresh deeds and wider roaming. Yet this early period was one of transition from a decline to a revival of letters, whereof even Bernal Diaz, with all his crudities, affords an indication. The new impulse came from Italy, to which the gilded youth of Spain had been led under the victorious banners of the Great Captain, only to fall captive in the meshes of an intellectual influence that was slowly to change the national form; a form hitherto colored only by Moorish sources, from which the ballads in particular had borrowed so much material. Although the new school met with strong opposition in certain quarters, and failed to find root for all its branches, the effect was wide-spread and vivifying, even to the conservative faction. This is instanced by the splendor of the Vega-Calderon period, and even in such prose writers as Solis, wherein, however, affectation and floridity reach a degree that is unendurable to the Anglo-Saxon ear, though not equal to the still wilder revelling of the Concettisti. Among these our Sala- zar y Olarte may well figure as a representative, and their spirit has found only too wide a response in r 488 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. American literature, with its extravagant and unsus- tained soarings in fancy and diction. What was excusable in poetry became a glaring defect in prose. The latter indeed received comparatively little study in historic and didactic branches, and fell far behind poetry in appropriate development. Not so, however, romance, which continued to flourish, intimately connected as it was with the prevalent ballad spirit so rooted on the peninsula. But it took a departure from chivalry romance in the picaresco9 roguish novels, which are distinctively Spanish, yet owe their rise greatly to Italian fiction. A high standard was reached in those wherein Cervantes has challenged universal admiration. The establishment of the Bourbon dynasty prepared the way for another change where Italian influence was displaced by French. This met with similar opposition from the national party and affected literature in a less radical manner than the former, yet it infused everywhere a more classic and sedate tone, even when direct application failed. It seems, however, as if the bridle proved also a check on genius, for the eighteenth century produced no poet at all comparable to those of the preceding period; but prose was lifted to a higher level, and early national literature came into favor transformed to some extent after the new models. The royal academy, founded in 1714, sougthto confirm the taste by praiseworthy efforts in different, directions, notably in the dictionary, its crowning task. Gallic influence is above all to be accredited wjth assisting to break down the barriers so long maintained by bigotry ; and herein the Benedictine Feijoo proved an admirable* instrument by his long and persevering onslaught against the prevailing dialects and scholasticism, and by his exposition of scientific studies. That this sketch of peninsula literature applies to New Spain is evident from the fact that foreign books were excluded, while teachers and guides had nearly all been trained in Spain. The difference lay in the OLD AND NEW SPAIN. 489 slower introduction of changes, in their greater curtailment, and in the modifications imparted by a variety of races. The Creole was precocious and impulsive, but unsustained, non-persevering, and his indolence of spirit, added to the non-reflective bent of the Castilian, imparted a shallowness to his efforts. Nevertheless, the catalogue of prominent writers contains a large proportion of local names, many of which cast a lustre that has obtained for them a trans-oceanic fame. Among the Indians also a long array of writers stands forth to redeem the race from the obloquy with which caste, distinction, and short-sighted policy have assisted to cover them; and while their mind is almost wholly imitative, lacking in breadth and subtlety, and strikingly devoid of imagination and invention, yet their aptitude for mastering mechanical details tends to hide many imperfections. It would seem as if the bloody rites, monarchial despotism, and popular serfdom had from remotest times left an impression on their literary efforts. In aboriginal times they were naturally hampered by the imperfect system of writing, which consisted chiefly of figurative and symbolic characters, with a mere admixture of phonetic elements. It was fully understood alone by the priesthood who kept the records, and by the select educated few, while another less advanced class comprehended the more common signs, with their narrow range of exoteric subjects, and stood in this respect above the mass of the people. The Nahuas, and perhaps even more so the Mayas, stood conspicuously forward as the'most advanced in culture on * the American continent; and nothing so strikingly illustrates this superiority as their picture-writing. Rising above the use of representative and symbolic pictures as adequate only for temporary purposes, they conceived the idea of permanent records, and consequently developed and per- 490 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. fected their hieroglyphic system until they had added a phonetic element. The realization of the want was the true beginning, was almost the accomplished fact; all the rest followed as naturally as the plant germinates from the seed. With them the painted likeness of glistening drops no longer signified, as in more primitive stages, simply the pictured substance ail, as it would have signified, with equal clearness, water, eau, or agua to the Englishman, Frenchman, or Spaniard ; but it conveyed to the reader's mind the sound or syllable ail, or even a, in many words which retain in their meaning and derivation no reference whatever to the fluid depicted by the character. The transition to the phonetic element is strikingly illus-. trated in the illustrated rebuses—children's hieroglyphics—as when charity is written by drawing in succession a chair, an eye, and a chest of tea, chair-eye- tea. The sounds of the word have their meaning. To the Frenchman the same pictures, chaise-oeu- the would have no significance. One stage of development only, that from representative syllabic character to an arbitrary literal alphabet, remained, to which the native American litterateur might aspire. But we must not picture too broad the gulf that separates Aztec literature and its aboriginal amateurs from the writer and printer of the present day. The future scribe, seated on the pedestal of the centuries, may consider the difference slight, and condemn our signs as crude. Every phase of human knowledge is a development from a germ, a result, grand or otherwise, built by gradual accumulation upon small beginnings. The wheel of'progress, now whirling with such lightning speed through the nations, accomplished but slowly and with frequent rests its primary revolutions. And yet the first triumphs of our race were the most glorious and the most important. From these have sprung all subsequent conquests of mind over matter. The naked, primitive man, who, threatened by superior ABORIGINAL ATTEMPTS. 491 animals, first defended his life, and opposed brute force by intelligent cunning in the use of a projectile, became thereby a just claimant to some part of the honor due the inventor of the rifled cannon. The aboriginal who first bethought him to call into requi- istion a floating log for crossing the river, was the true originator of the ocean steamer. In painting and sculpture, the actual old masters were those whose latent power revealed itself by caricaturing in lines of coal or berry-juice, or rudely modelling in river- bank mud the forms of familiar objects. In literature, as in all art and science, "c'est le premier pas qui coute." The first wild bohemian who, by a mark on a forest tree indicated to him who came after the route taken, was the founder of written language. He who signed the tree record with his name, ' The Panther,' by an outline carving of the beast whose appellation and qualities he had assumed, achieved a greater triumph than did in later times the inventor of movable types; and the first faint conception of a phonetic in addition to a purely representative use of the native pictures was one more pregnant with results in the interests of progress than was that of the printing-press. Every wild tribe from Alaska to Panama^ before its obliteration, had made more or less progress in representative picture-writing. Their primitive pages, carved or painted on wood or stone, are open to inspection in every one of the Pacific states. Some of the pages doubtless contain also symbolic writing; surely many of the figures represent no natural object in the heavens above or the earth beneath. The savage who, to save labor, gradually omits features, limbs, and body from the picture by which he indicates 'a man,' until nothing is left but a line arbitrarily crooked, certainly makes no small advance in the direction of shorthand. His idea is a grand one; not that it enlarges greatly at first the scope of his recording abilities, but by reason of the possible re- IF^ 492 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. suits to which it may lead. Symbolic writing, in its abandonment of clues for general interpretation, often leaves no positive proof of being a class of cipher; not a few of the curious characters that so sorely puzzle antiquarian investigators may be fairly attributed to the propensity possessed by savages, in common with children, to seek amusement in the tracing of meaningless lines. These picture-pages of American savagism, proving as they do that their authors were on the road to letters, are, nevertheless, utterly devoid of meaning to us. Enthusiastic attempts to explain their significance have signally failed, and theories reared on the Digh- ton rock inscription have proved inapplicable. The ludicrous failure of Domenech's Book of Savages has dampened the ardor of many. Representative and symbolic hieroglyphics, unaided by the phonetic or alphabetic element, may rarely be handed down to a following generation. Left alone the native germ would have developed, but it was not so decreed. All honor nevertheless to the dusky scribes! They did what they could before us in trying to decipher the mystery. Thanks to the efforts of our ancestors for hundreds of centuries past, rather than to any merit of our own, we are enabled to work systematically for the attainment of a desired end, and by means and devices which shine in comparison with those of the remote past, as they will pale before those of the less remote future. The Aztec system of writing, altHdugh imperfect, was adequate enough to their by no means small or simple necessities. By its aid they could intelligibly commit their language to sheets of cloth or skin, but chiefly to long strips of the native metl, or agave-paper, rolled or if preferable folded fan-like into a form convenient for use Thus they recorded the laws of their complicated code, the tribute-rolls of their conquered domains, ritual tables of feast-days, and sacrifices appointed to honor the divinities of an over-crowded AZTEC RECORDS. 493 pantheon, genealogic lists of kings and noble families, with the chronology of their succession, and the events of their respective reigns; in fact their history —for they, like Europeans of the same age, deemed the deeds only of kings and priests worthy of the recorder's notice. Over this magic hieroglyphic art a veil of mystery was cast. The priesthood controlled it as they did all else in this American Middle Age, and only a chosen few could aspire to fathom its secrets. The million could only stand aloof and wonder as they listened to the vague rumors afloat respecting the wonderful powers of the god-like literati with their charmed scrolls. The last native triumph in letters was won. Fate, envious of their indigenous success, refused to the Americans a few centuries m'ore in order to enlarge and perfect what they had so nobly accomplished. Their literature and civilization, their priesthood and religion, withered at the touch of foreign interference, never to revive. Not only was the further unfolding of Nahua letters effectually checked, but the light which the Aztec records might have shed on the American past was in a great measure extinguished in the flood of foreign fanaticism. Before the coming of the Europeans the native documentary records, comparatively few in number, were collected in the principal religious centres, and locked in the archives of the capital cities, there to be seized and destroyed by order of catholic bishops. Not alone to the barbarian invasions, civil broils, or Roman catholic zeal is due the infamy of book-burning, an infamy as much more odious than human slaughter as knowledge is better than life. The calif Omar burns the writings of the Greeks lest they should not agree with his holy book; the catholic fathers burn the writings of the heathen lest they should not agree with their holy book; and later and stranger infatuation than all, protestants burn the books of the catholics be- 494 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. cause in their opinion they do not fairly represent the faith which both accept. In the reign of Edward IV. the reforming visitors of the university of Oxford purged the public library of popery; leaving only a manuscript of Valerius Maximus, they burned the remaining writings in the market-place, or sold them to low artificers. A cartload of manuscripts, including even mathematical figures, rubrics, and astronomical demonstrations, was thus taken from the library of Merton college. The Reverendissimo Senor Don Fray Juan Zumar- raga, a most venerable and illustrious Franciscan, was a man of great learning, as learning then went. A native of Durango, a city of northern Spain, his early life was devoted to the strict observances of the rules of his order, which led to his appointment as guardian of the convent of Concepcion, and later of Abrigo, a convent near Valladolid, whither Charles V. was wont to retire during holy-week; and so greatly pleased was the monarch with the priest's devotion, that when Cortes captured Montezuma, Zum&rraga was made first bishop of Mexico. His zeal was surpassed only by his bigotry; and for this the natives had reason to curse, while blessing him, because he discouraged their indiscriminate abuse. Zumarraga was a good man, a pious man, an honest man. His was an enlightened conscience in so far as light had as yet reached this planet. His trouble was excess of conscience. His piety overwhelmed his humanity. He would do men good if he had to torture or slay in order to accomplish it. Because, forsooth, the Christian's devil lurked between those barbaric pages; because characters unex- plainable by papal Daniels must be scrawls of Satan, traced by pitchy fingers to the eternal confounding of these poor heathens; because of a learned infatuation well nigh incomprehensible to us of the present day, there must be sacrificed and lost to progressive man treasures inestimable, pictures of primitive ABORIGINAL HISTORY. 495 thought, incipient civilizations, of a progress in ^ some respects which might put to blush that of these iconoclastic teachers. Even were those heaps of horrible scrawls what you regarded them, ohl holy fanatics, better to have kept them amongst us, better to have kept and read these written instructions of Lucifer, and to have learned therefrom, to our further safety, how by his arts he deluded these poor barbarians, than by fire to have sent his missives back to him unopened. But now both Aztec manuscripts and fanatic fathers have gone their way. Saved from the fires which Zumarraga's bigotry kindled, or copied by ecclesiastical permission before serving as food for the purifying flames, or trans- scribed from memory by converts, many specimens of picture-writing were sent by the conquerors to Spain in the sixteenth century as curiosities of New World art. These excited momentary attention by their mysterious devices ; then they were scattered, and for two centuries forgotten. When attention was again directed to these relics of an extinct civilization, and their importance began to be appreciated, search was made throughout Europe, and such scattered remnants as survived their long neglect were gathered and deposited in public aud private libraries. Eight or ten such collections were formed, and most of their contents, with plates and explanations, published by Lord Kingsborough in a work of nine mammoth folios, which cost him his reason and his fortune. His reason was wasted in the absurd attempt to prove the Jewish origin of American indigenous races. If bulk or bull-dog determination can prove a proposition, surely this half-demented English lord should be believed, and all mankind forever agree with him that the American aboriginal descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel, which wandered over to these shores, either by sea or land, and here, abandoned by their god in their propagations, became dusky and 496 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. degenerate, so, that later, Christians coming hither might easily kill them. The remnants of Tezcuco's aboriginal archives were bequeathed by her last king to his lineal descendant, Ixtlilxochitl, who used them extensively, albeit not always judiciously, in his voluminous historical writings. From this scion of a royal race, these may be traced more or less clearly as in the possession successively of Sigtienza, Boturini, Veytia, Ortega, Leon y Gama, Pichardo, and Sanchez, and finally to the National Museum of the University of Mexico, their present and proper place of deposit. In the hands of some of these owners a portion of the manuscripts were scattered; others by personal research augmented their collection, as Boturini, who added 500 specimens. These were confiscated by the government, but surrendered to the historian Veytia for consultation in the preparation of his work on aboriginal history. Gemelli Careri and Clavigero had had similar access for public benefit. At the death of Leon y Gama, a portion of his inherited hieroglyphic treasures was sold, and from this source Humboldt obtained some specimens for the Berlin collection. During the revolution and subsequent civil war, many papers were transferred to Europe, and mostly secured by M. Aubin. Still, a rich collection remains in the Mexican archives, and ardent students of the Aztec hieroglyphic system are not wanting, from whose researches the future has much to learn respecting the American past. The zeal of a few native scholars, and the practical use made of the native pictures before the courts during the years following the conquest, fortunately prevented a loss of the key to their interpretation. Respecting the value of the native records de~ stroyed there can be only conjecture. That the Aztecs felt the need of recording their past, and possessed a hieroglyphic system fully adequate to the NAHUA WRITINGS. 497 purpose, and yet did not use it, is hardly to be supposed. There can be no manner of doubt that they wrote all they knew concerning their history; the only question is how much they knew. The annals were certainly detailed and tolerably accurate for the two centuries of Aztec domination ; but prior to that nation's rise, the point where history fades into tradition, in American as in Old World annals, cannot be definitely fixed. Traditionally, the branches of the Nahua peoples preceding that known as the Aztec were no less skilled in the art of picture-records; but tradition also tells us that the scrolls with pre-Aztec annals were destroyed by one of the Mexican mon- archs, ambitious to blot from the knowledge of human kind all details of greatness preceding and exceeding that of his own achievements. The Nahuas were proficient also in other phases of intellectual development, as instanced by the remarkable knowledge of astronomy and other branches set forth in my Native Races. Moreover, there existed at Tezcuco an institution under the name of Council of Music, whose exclusive aim it was to foster arts and sciences, and above all oratory, poetry, and similar literary efforts. Its members, selected purely on the ground of ability, held daily sessions, and formed a tribunal which decided on the merits of productions by authors, and conferred prizes that were at times munificent. This academy exerted a decided influence throughout Anahuac, for the Acolhua capital, although secondary to Mexico in political power, retained the leading position • in arts and refinement acquired during the days of Chichimec grandeur. The emulation evoked and the taste impressed under such auspices could not fail to produce their effects. Oratory received particular attention, owing to its intimate connection with public and social affairs and life, for speeches were the rule on every conceivable occasion. Prayers to the gods were of a most Essays and Miscellany 32 498 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. elaborate character; addresses salutatory or of condolence, and dinner-speeches received studied care; declamations and harangues flowed incessantly at feasts or reunions ; correspondence was largely carried on by orators. If with all this fostering care the art does not possess any marked excellencies, the fault must be attributed to the lack of imaginative power so generally assumed for the aborigines. Indeed, the style of the orations so abundantly recorded by Sahagun and other writers is bald, with rare outbursts of eloquence, and with similes as a rule stupid or commonplace. The range of the latter are limited to certain choice objects ever before the eye, rather than to the grand or subtle phenomena which stir reflection and poetic instinct. Thought and language alike rather abstain from lofty flights, to grovel with the speaker in self-abasement. Terror and awe find frequent display, with maudlin plaintiveness, to which a response of tears is readily accorded. These reflect the despotic government and bloody rights which enslaved both mind and body. Apostrophe and emphasis dwindle into feeble wails and appeals, while redundancy and periphase with loose sentences characterize the construction, if we may judge by Spanish translations. The garrulous and didactic prevail. Of poetic efforts fewer specimens have been preserved to us, but the most authentic are evidently by a man of greater inspiration, from Tezcuco itself the Athenian centre, with its purer idiom and greater refinement. The poet is King Nezahualcoyotl, famed as philosopher and law-giver, whose mind had freed itself in a degree from the shackles of bloody and debasing superstition around him, and sought a mightier God, a primordial cause. Full of vicissitudes, his life displayed to him rather sad phases and his verse assumed an elegiac cast. The abundance of treasures and joys, Are but nosegays that wither and die. As the birds thrill their melody, And nectar is sipped by the bee, So ye enter to revel, In the seasons of flowering spring. ABORIGINAL POETRY. 499 In another poem he dwells on the qualities and symbols of precious stones with less happy effect; but in speaking of the brevity of life he again presents attractive similes: The rose preserves its beauty of color and aspect so long as the chaste buds collect those particles formed by dawn into rich pearls, to be evaporated in liquid spray. Rivers, brooks, and waters rush onward, never returning to their joyous sources. They rather hasten toward the vast domains of Tloluca (Neptune), and on approaching the wide border they fashion the gloomy funeral urn. The awe-inspiring tomb is really a cradle for the sun ; the dismal shades are brilliant lights for stars.13 Owing to distortions by translators it is difficult to form an opinion concerning the real merits of the pieces; the above lines can hardly be relied upon. Nevertheless, beauty of comparisons must be admitted, with a preference for native objects, and even characterizes the natives to this day. A true poetic spirit is evinced far above anything indicated in oratorical and other prose extracts. The longer poem cited in the Native Races, while marked by several effective outbursts, is uneven, with a reiteration of metaphor that reveals circumscribed power. The similarity of strain pervading Nezahualcoyotl's verses, and the tendency displayed in oratory, indicate that the happiest efforts were produced when sadness stirred the emotions. Rhyme does not appear to have been used, but cadence and metre received much attention, with a preference for iambic verse, according to Granados. The introduction of unmeaning syllables to accommodate the measure seems to have been common, and the frequent use of agglutination, in accordance with the character of the language, encumbers the verse with ponderous words, sometimes a single word to a line. These crudities must greatly reduce the glowing estimates by Clavigero and other champions. With the advent of the Spaniards a more perfect language came to the assistance of native thought. The multiplicity of aboriginal dialects rendered not 500 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. undesirable the adoption among all classes of a tongue so smooth and uniform as the Spanish. But many new obstacles intervened against any marked development. Besides political and social restrictions, an intense religious spirit entered into every feature of life, placing the children of the soil especially in close leading-strings, from which they were never released. While the characteristic mental defects remained an obstacle, the imitative bent enabled the Indians to readily adapt themselves to the wider field opened. Their Spanish poetry, modeled on the productions of spiritual guides, does not indicate in its crudeness and mediocrity the liberation of a mind hitherto shackled by language; yet these defects may be due partly to the novelty of medium and the limitation of range by submissiveness and bigotry. Translations into native tongues, chiefly of religious discourses, vocabularies and grammars, form a large part of their contributions; and so do sermons by ordained and lay preachers ; while the more valuable part relates to ancient history and rites, based on documentary and traditional records, interesting and absorbing to them from patriotic motives. Among the more prominent writers may be mentioned three bearing the princely name of Ixtlilxochitl, Fernando Pimentel, his son Antonio, and Fernando de Alva, all three intent chiefly on recording the glories of their Acolhuacan ancestors. Alva stands in the foremost rank of earlier Indian historians, both for style and extent of writings, as manifested in the Historia Chichimeca and Relationes, the latter a series of versions of the same aboriginal history. Indeed, his diction is so far above the average of his surroundings for clearness, purity, and conciseness, as to have procured for him the name of the Cicero of Anahuac. But the structure of sentences is uneven, and only too frequently lax and ambiguous. The general grasp of the subject is fair, but less so the conformity of details. Juan de Tovar, who also obtained the Ciceronian CLASSIC AZTEC WRITERS. 501 epithet for his proficiency in Aztec, gave a more liberal share in his history of the lake region to provinces adjoining the classic Tezcuco, as did his father, Antonio Tovar, while Tezozomoc devoted himself more to the south-west section of the valley. The latter evinces greater appreciation for the descriptive, although lacking in spirit and power of expression, with a more prolific and crude phraseology. The annals of the valiant Tlascaltecs again found less finished recorders in such men as Tadeo Miza, Ca- margo, and Zapata y Mendoza; Chimalpain ranks higher and is more critical; Pomar wrote on ancient rites; Aguero ranked high among philologic contributors, and the brothers Ortega attained distinction in ecclesiastic subj ects.u The lack of imagination is apparent throughout these productions in the utter indifference to dramatic opportunity, and in the feebleness of descriptive efforts. It can also be recognized in the very excellency of the opening paragraphs, which proceed at once to the subject instead of wasting themselves upon florid and often inappropriate prologues, as with Spanish writers of the time. The poverty of language herein manifested is also revealed in the want of embellishment, so that the diction is rather bare, while obscure pleonasms, at times very marked, result from the same defect. The characteristic gloomy disposition crops out frequently, and so do the inherited manifestations of awe in. alluding to huge or grand objects. Religious influences have here supplanted aboriginal terrorism, impressing upon the mind its own littleness, and assisted by the inherited mysticism, account in a measure for the poverty of language. A veiled satire can be traced in many of the writings, in consonance with the observant yet shy disposition, and the suspicious subserviency of the natives. These several traits have widely stamped themselves upon the new mestizo race, in topics, treatment, and diction; yet the sanguine and vivacious 502 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. temperament imparted by the superior Iberian stock has naturally maintained the ascendancy for the Spanish type, so assiduously impressed during a probationary period of three centuries, by masters, language, and national affinity. During the colonial times it is often difficult to draw the line in the literature of New Spain between productions that properly belong to it and those that appear to do so. There are writers born on the peninsula but educated in colonies; some arrive there at a later age, yet are manifestly influenced by their new environments; while others remain in sympathy and methods true to old ideas; and still others, of Creole birth, receive their training in Spain, with its political and literary impress, or they remain there to gather laurels which belong by rights to Mexico. Again, in early times especially, a large proportion of their writers were Spaniards who remained only for a time in quest of fortune, yet whose productions were wholly inspired by New World associations, which affected to a great extent also the form. We can, for instance, hardly fail to associate with the writings of this country the celebrated Cartas of Cortes which depict therein much of the beauty and wealth that have since disappeared; which took an impress from it by means of the political and social sympathies of the author, and which left an influence as one of its most prolific sources for history, and as a model for style in lucid, pure, and frequently elegant diction. As for Bernal Diaz, the gossippy old-soldier chronicler, he was really modeled by new world experiences, and his camp and field life may be recognized in the frank and graphic descriptions and occasional crude outbursts of eloquence, while the similes due to a certain amount of classic reading, and the monotonous garrulity, were acquired during later retirement as colonist. For over half a century is he identified with New Spain. And so with many others, especi- ■ FRIAR AND SOLDIER CHRONICLERS. 503 ally of friar chroniclers, who not only grow up with their districts, but train the generation as teachers and writers. Such a one was Father Motolinia, whose rambling and naive writings characterize his life and mind, and serve as material for subseqent enquirers into aboriginal and early colonial society and incidents. Several of his robe follow the example, from duty or from a desire to record deeds by themselves and companions—deeds in the missionary field, for the cross gradually replaces the sword and becomes the dominant symbol of conquest and rule. And how stirring are the incidents attending these invasions through the midst of hostile and savage tribes, through arid wildernesses, in rugged mountain regions, along malaria-stricken shores, fighting both men and nature I At times soldier and friar unite, or the one paves the way for the other; but more and more the long-robe advances, alone and unarmed to suffer privations, rebuffs, insults, and danger of every description, often to meet a martyr's fate. When successful, how great is the triumph of virtuous example, of eloquence, of superior mind over inferior intelligence ; and how glorious is often the result! It is the advent of the modern-culture hero, who gathers roaming tribes into settlements, transforms the bare ground into blooming gardens, clothes the naked, cares for the sick, and replaces base or bloody rites with gentle, elevating worship. Turn our eyes wherever we may and these peaceful heroes meet them, no longer as of yore deified, but sheltered beneath forgotten tombstones, and their names and acts commemorated alone in some vague tradition, and in the chronicles by themselves or their brethren. Unfortunately the record is not in the form of epic, or invested with romantic glamour, but in the barest or most turgid of prose, weighted with insufferable verbiage and ambiguity, and by crude and careless construction, while inappropriate digressions tend still 504 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. further to break the interest. It is a dreamy disconnection in which both writer and reader lose themselves, with numerous pitfalls dug by credulity and superstition; the whole stamped by the scholastic method that prevailed till close upon the present century. , Such is the average character of the friar chronicles and provincial histories; and no wonder, then, that the most splendid achievements are so veiled in the obscurity of treatment and of poor, pedantic or inflated language as to remain unnoticed or misunderstood by the ordinary reader, and to require the careful labor of the student to disclose. The style was a natural result partly of imperfect training, for the friars were not wefl-read, any more than those in Spain; and even the studies of the more educated had a very narrow range, chiefly theological lore, while few had ventured into classic or scientific precincts. They were not taught to sift and weigh; they accepted almost any tradition with the naive confidence demanded of true believers. Their minds had ever been directed to the holy precepts of their order, as paramount to any knowledge, according to St Francis, and they regarded it a duty to their own repute and to their order to impress this upon the reader. While the countrymen of Lope de Vega cannot be said to lack dramatic power, these chroniclers seem to avoid the use of it, or the display of appreciation for the grand, the beautiful. It is mere tedious narrating of details, wherein the general and important features are almost lost, with special attention for traits of virtue and piety that can point a moral and afford an excuse for digression. Whatever the defects of these Chronica* de las Pro- vincias, they are in many respects the most important and valuable source of information concerning the Hispano-American territory. As the largest part of the country was occupied by mission establishments, and as the work of exploration and conquest of the native races was so largely carried on PROVINCIAL HISTORY. 505 under the auspices of the church, these chronicles constitute an almost complete record of the earlier periods of history. Some of them were written in the chronicle form direct, as a record for the particular district or circle with which the author was connected ; yet they passed like ordinary mission reports to the head convent of the provincia, there to bide the time when the leaders of the order should assign to a specially fitted member the task of compiling from them an authorized chronicle. In accordance with this procedure, Mendieta prepared at the close of the sixteenth century the most complete history so far of Franciscan labors in New Spain, interspered with matter on politics and society. While not showing great talent, the writer cannot be accused of verboseness, and the style has the advantage of a simplicity which promotes clearness. It would appear that the defect of diction became so glaring to the compiler that he perforce corrected himself. This is also evident in Torquemada, who, through the failure of Mendieta's work to appear in print till our time, took advantage of his labor, as well as a host of other writings, to issue the Monarquia Indiana, which attained the just distinction of standard history for New Spain, and fame.for the author as the Livy of this region. He embraced every historic knowledge within his reach, from the earliest aboriginal times, including rites, society, strange phenomena, the achievements of his Franciscan order, and the lives of its members. He rises above the mere monk chronicler and strives to interest his readers by variety of topics, as well as by treatment, which receives no inconsiderable aid from a descriptive power of rare occurrence among his confreres; other faults remain, however. While concise enough in the narrative generally, he abandons himself to inappropriate deviations and wordy argument, and revels in learned references. He is engrossed with the outpouring of his patristic and classic lore, rather than with critical consideration, and to r 506 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. this end sacrifices also phraseology, which is marked in particular by numerous parentheses. A less voluminous but more prolific writer on political, civic and religious history is the Creole, Father Augustine de Vetancurt, who in his„ Teatro covers very nearly the same ground as Torquemada, with additional matter for the seventeenth century. All this he condenses in a much smaller space; and it is only in the religious subjects more directly from his own pen that he yields to discoursive laxity. An earlier creole, Friar Antonio Tello, author of Cronica de Jalisco of about 1650, excels in vivid portrayal and a certain dramatic skill, although the diction hardly displays a proportionate advance; but this is the fault of his school, not of his mind, wherein patriotic zeal for his native provinces combines with natural abilities to produce one of the most attractive colonial writers. Inferior in style is the history of the same province written nearly a century later by Mata Padilla, a townsman of Tello. His earlier profession as a lawyer and his later adhesion to the priesthood are both discernible in an occasional forensic form, and in the preference given to miracles and church matter, neither of which lends interest to the pages or raises our estimate of his judgment. Equally defective is the Cronica de Meehocan by Beaumont, born in Europe, partly of French descent, and educated as a physician before he became a Franciscan. While pretending to record merely the progress of his religious provincia in Michoacan, he plans it on a scale ambitious enough for a history of the Indies, and fails to carry his task beyond 1565. The same inequality applies to expression, marred also by faulty Spanish, and to discrimination, which is overruled by pertinacity and religious bias. These blemishes are less excusable for the advanced period in which the work was written, about 1777. Contemporary with Vetancurt were the friars Bal- WORKS OF THE FATHERS. 507 tasar Medina and Davila Padilla, both natives of Mexico, and ranking as Franciscan and Dominican chroniclers respectively. The former exhibits more research, but also an excess of patristic lore, combined with an exalted inflation, while the latter inclines to digressions and moralizing. The worst features of these monk scribes, coupled with defective treatment generally, are displayed in the first Jesuit chronicle of the same period, by Francisco de Florencia, born in Florida, but otherwise wholly connected with New Spain. And yet this man had achieved fame as a preacher and distinction as a manager for the society. It is evident that prose, with the rare exceptions signalized in such men as Sigtienza and Tello, does not show any improvement during the first two centuries and a half of colonial rule, either in treatment or style. Scholastic methods and ideas retained too firmly the control, throughout the marked variation introduced by the Gongora school, with its soaring inflations. Solis became here one of the great models for ornamental form, by means of his famous history of the conquest, which also assumed the Thucydidean manufacture of speeches. If floridity itself did not become general, it must be partly ascribed to the slower acceptance of the changes effected in Spain, owing to the cultivation of older models; partly to the unsus- tained exaltation of the Creoles and the lack of imagination among the natives. The rarer mestizo writers evince, indeed, less appreciation for the cultismo style. The marked prevalence among them of aboriginal traits is manifested also in naivete and crudeness of diction, while a tendency to flippancy and verbiage is derived from the other race. A representative of this class may be consulted in Father Duran, who reveals in the Historia de las Indias not only poverty of expression, but a slovenly pen. It is relieved, however, by earnestness, and a certain ability to portray character. The contemporaneous Noticias Historicas 508 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. of Suarez Peralta displays many similarities to the chronicle of Bernal Diaz'. Towards the end of the last century the revival emanating from France in favor of a more classic and sedate tone became conspicuous, notably so in the writing of the Jesuits, Alegre, Clavigero, Cavo, and Mariano Veytia, who rank as the foremost historians of their period in New Spain. All were Creoles by birth, and animated by the patriotic spirit which was rapidly spreading, and fostered both political and literary ambition. Clavigero had acquired a sympathy for the aborigines, and resolved to uphold their prestige against the attacks of De Pauw and Robertson. The result was a work on their history and customs, together with the Spanish conquest, that wholly eclipsed every previous attempt in this direction for comprehensiveness and philosophic treatment, for clear and even elegant style. It was written in the language of Italy, whe^e the exiled Jesuit had sought a new home, but the dedication is directed to the native country. Veytia wrote also on the ancient history of the Mexicans, from Boturini's collected records; but while throwing additional light on the subject, he shows far less ability. I have spoken of his other works elsewhere. His townsman, Francisco Javier Alegre, had a similar training, except that he devoted himself to classics instead of aboriginal studies, and attained such distinction in theology as to be ordered to write on ecclesiastic institutions, his famous work being published at Bologne in 1789, a year afte'r his death. Besides several treatises on mathematics, he translated the Iliad, and produced original poems. His sentences are studied and the diction is chaste and unaffected, but the same praise cannot be accorded to the arrangement, and consequently to handling, which lack connection and generalization, while subtle casuistry and doubtful ratiocination seek ever to shield or gild the Jesuit cause. CREOLE WRITERS. 509 Andres Cavo is not devoid of the latter fault, but he has less occasion for it, since he writes rather the political history of the country. While more succinct and orderly, he is too strictly chronologic for the requirements of true history, and sinks through this method into the annalistic form to which Alegre is led by a somewhat different road. His style is less pure and rounded, yet not diffuse. The pages present the pleasing evidence of research in foot-notes, which, as a rule, however, are mere titles of authorities used. Still, it is a departure from the long-established fashion of marginal references for quotations, with which the text was burdened to the interruption of the regular narrative. A smaller size of volume also begins to prevail in lieu of huge folios or bulky quartos with double columns. The influence of new models is everywhere apparent.15 Biography was a field to which churchmen gave much attention, as a means to inculcate upon their flocks the lessons taught by the observance of virtuous and ascetic friars and hermits. But the aim must have been greatly nullified by method. Amplification of petty details concerning the uninteresting lives of such persons, with monotonous recurrences to their devotional acts in cell and chapel, and to crude rhapsodies, could hardly have given weight to their instruction. Nevertheless, the earnest tone of the narrator must have influenced the reader, while the exalted mysticism of the topic could not fail to counteract in a measure the defects of style. Involved phraseology might almost be declared suitable for such details, and rambling discourse accorded with the general gossippy taste. After Gongora's time grandiloquence added its faults and allurements, and is particularly illustrated in the obituary eulogies bestowed on wealthy individuals and published by devoted families. Toward the end of the colonial period we come to works of greater merit, as instanced in De Vitis aliquot r 510 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. Mexicanorum, by Juan Luis Maneiro, an exiled Jesuit of Vera Cruz. Here is displayed the yearning patriotism of the refugee, combined with the classic bent of the scholar, the lives and characters of prominent men in little known Anahuac being faithfully portrayed, while fellow-exiles, as Clavigero and Landivar described her antiquities. Although there is no apparent effort at the investigation or analysis required in modern biography, the author enters with spirit into his subject, and introduces most happy comparisons, frequently expressed in neat and graceful sentences. The first efforts in didactic treatises were directed toward the civilizing of the natives, or rather their conversion, for little instruction was imparted, save in religious lessons and the rudimentary knowledge required to master them. The catechisms and moral disquisitions in use were based on authorized versions from Spain; but their translation for the benefit of teachers and pupils gave rise to an array of vocabularies and grammars, owing to the multiplicity of languages and dialects, as set forth in my Native Races. The natives appear prolific in this field, either as assistant or independent authors, yet they were anticipated by early friars, such as Father Gante, Jimenez, and Molina, whose Aztec Vocabulario remains the standard to this day; and later they were surpassed by such men as Becarra Tanco.17 To the friars also are mainly due the educational and philosophic treatises occasionally issued, as well as works on geography, botany, and medicine. In none of these is shown any marked development, although a few discoveries were made with which to supplement the more valuable and standard books by specialists, which either covered the field beforehand or served as guides toward it. Alegre and Palafox figure prominently as writers on ecclesiastical institutions. Ancient history, and rites and speculations con- DIDACTIC TREATISES. 511 nected with it, had naturally engaged the attention of patriotic natives, allured by ancestral glories and records, which often proved their only consolation amid the oppression practised upon them ; but the investigation of archseologic remains was neglected, and only toward the close of the last century did it receive official patronage, and become prominent under the auspices of scholars like Gama. The revelations made in this connection on aboriginal astronomy gave fresh encouragement in general to scientific studies, in which there had so far been only occasional dabbling. The earliest to achieve prominence in this field was Siguenza, a man of most versatile attainments, figuring also as historian, philosopher, essayist, and journalist, the first to issue in Mexico, in 1693, a periodical for promoting literary and scientific knowledge. His voluminous writings embraced contributions on archa?ologic subjects and geography, and he created wide-spread attention by his attacks on superstitions connected with comets and astrology. While so much in advance of his time in these respects, he was by no means free from bigotry in other directions. He rejected the most flattering appointments in order to devote himself more exclusively to religious and benevolent duties, and to study. His fertile pen had recourse also to poetry, of a sacred cast, and of no mean order, as may be judged from the attractive, even elegant style of his prose. Hardly less versatile was Becerra Tanco, as mathematician, linguist, and poet, and the scientist anc critic Algate, who flourished nearly a century later and occupied by means of his Gazeia and other publications a position corresponding to that of the reformer Feijoo in Spain.18 Eguiara and Beristain rank as the first recognized bibliographers of New Spain, the main reliance for all who may follow in this path. Their sources lay in lists partial or complete by chroniclers of religious provinces, but they unearthed a mass of new material r 512 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. and groped also in the pages of European investigators, such as Nicolas Antonio, whose typical work, Bibliotheca Hispana, assumed under the hands of Mars and others so complete a condition, marred though it is by much confusion. More facts, if less inspiration, did they draw from Antonio de Leon y Pinelo, who in his Epitome de la Bibliotheca Oriental i Occidental, Ndutiea i Geografica, Madrid 1629, presented the first American bibliography. This formed but a small abridgement of the vast material wThich his long and close researches had amassed, and their value becoming more apparent, Bar- cia, in 1737-8, under superior auspices, iss'ued an enlarged edition, in three volumes, enriched from different sources, for Pinelo's manuscripts had nearly all disappeared by this time. The division indicated in the title of the first publication is maintained also here, and a triple index gives ready access to any work; but far less care and thoroughness is evident than could have been expected. Pinelo is of special interest to us in being not only a creole, born in Peru, but official chronicler of the Indies, and one of the editors of the Recopilacion de Indias, in which latter post he was succeeded in 1634 by Sol6rzano Pereira, a change pointing no doubt to his death about this time. Stimulated both by the material and deficiencies of these sources, Juan Jose de Eguiara y Eguren undertook his Bibliotheca Mexieana sive eruditorum Historia virorum, Mexico 1755, which is really a historical and bibliographic dictionary of New Spain writers. Unfortunately, death in 1763 put an end to his task at the letter J, and only the first three letters appeared in the above rare volume. Although prolix and non- critical, the work possesses merits which must ever cause us to regret its abrupt termination. Eguiara was born at Mexico in 1706, of a distinguished family, studied at the university there and long held one of its theologic chairs, receiving a number of important commissions and in 1751 the offcrof the Yucatan see, PULPIT METHODS. 513 which he declined. He is one of the most prolific of Mexican writers on biography, jurisprudence, and chiefly religious subjects, but only a small part of his works exist in print, of which my library contains more than a dozen, while bibliographers notice only a few. His bibliographic manuscripts wrere not left to oblivion, however, for Jose Mariano Beristain Martin de Souza, of Puebla, dean of Mexico and rector of San Pedro college, celebrated both for varied attainments and eloquence, took up his labors and made use of them for the Biblioteca Hispano-Americana Septentrional, Mexico, 1816-21, containing nearly 4,000 literary notices, which form the most complete series prepared on New Spain, yet are so faulty, with mutilated titles and careless statements, as to induce Icaz- balceta to report against the revision and reprint of a work esteemed chiefly for its rarity. Many of the defects,including the omission of anonymous works, are due to his nephew, who edited the last two volumes, for Beristain died in 1817 at the age of 61. He had proved a valiant champion for the expiring monarchy in the new world, and most of his published orations, poems, and other writings served to uphold that feature, even to servility.19 It has been said that Spanish genius is opposed to forensic eloquence; and Iberian institutions certainly were so to oratory in general, for with the suppression of the (mnunidades no opportunity for parliamentary discussion arose till the present century. Pulpit rhetoric also met with restrictions in the very nature of the. religion, which was one of form, with appeal to the senses rather than to the soul. Preachers accordingly inclined to descriptive and exhortative appeals to the emotions, instead of seeking to reach the higher faculties of the mind. While illustrations from the scriptures formed a primary element, it was deemed necessary to introduce Latin quotations and patristic lore, and this with such profusion as often to lose sight of Essays and Miscellany 33 r 514 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. the main object, the teaching of moral lessons. Others abated somewhat from theologic learning only to weave the text in florid redundancy. A third class reveled in metaphors and mysticisms to such an extent as to lead astray both preacher and audience in the maze of words and ideas. Certain others indulged in polemical harangues or yielded to an innate bent for anecdotes, not always appropriate, yet serving the purpose of vehicle for the exhortation. Among the bright lights in these fields may be instanced the Jesuit Avendano, toward the end of the sixteenth century, whose eloquence procured for him the appellation of the Mexican Vieira; Mancilla, who acquired celebrity for his ancedotal discourses; Leon, noted for mysticism and metaphor; Robles, Jesus Maria, and others famed for floridity and lore. In marked distinction to these appear the chaste and pointed addresses of men like Archbishop Munoz de Haro y Peralta, for a time viceroy, with his true moral teachings, drawn from life as well as books, addressing now a tender invocation, now an effective argument, then a lofty apostrophe, anon a stirring appeal.a# Another man of remarkable prominence as orator was Conde y Oquendo, who figured both in the forum and the temple of Mexico, although born and educated at Habana, and who received the prize of the royal academy for one of his efforts.31 Of more profound talent was Francisco Javier Gamboa, the bright star of Mexican jurisprudence, from the eminence which he attained as regente of the audiencia, and for the impulse he gave to the study of the profession. He was born at Guadalajara in 1717, and early evinced a talent which caused his parents to dedicate him to a literary career. After his father's early death Oidor Cerda of that city fulfilled his desire by sending him to the university at Mexico to study law. r The prospects in this path were splendid enough for his ambition, since a lawyer of standing could make as much as $50,000 a year, despite the restrictions placed by ORATORY. 515 statutes on his gains. The sudden death of the licentiate under whom he was practising, presented an opportunity for public display which at once launched him into fame. The board of trade entrusted him in 1755 with important commissions in Spain, and so well did he use the means cast in his way that he figured ten years afterward as a member of the audi- encia. Suspected of partiality for the Jesuits, he was in 1769 summoned to Madrid, but behaved with such discretion as to be sent back five years later with the rank of oidor. He finally attained the high position of regente of the audiencia, after having for a time occupied a similar office at Santo Domingo; he died in June 1794. Besides a vast number of briefs he left treatises on sciences, statistics, and other subjects. Of three volumes printed, one, the Comentarios d las Ordenanzas de Minas, was highly commended." With the example of Gamboa before them, and the avenues opened by revolution, the modern Mexican has developed a marked aptitude for at least emotional oratory, to which impulsiveness, volubility, and self-confidence lend their aid. The impulsiveness of the Spanish character, coupled with a light gaiety which appeared at variance with the stately punctiliousness then prevalent, but which really formed a natural offset to it, in accord with universal duality, found an appropriate vent in metrical motion as well as metrical language. The two forms agree well together, for the poetry is chiefly lyric and dramatic, and it must be admitted that little evidence is to be found in verse of the lofty and sustained efforts demanded in the true epic; indeed the national character has become less favorable for this higher combination. As for the heroic themes of old Spain, they found no effective response in the indolent Creole: none of the strong imagination needed to mould the fancies of a prevailing orientalism into clearer forms, or to elude the restraints of r 516 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. tradition and rule. The latter applies more to the peninsular stamp, however, for Spanish poetry is strongly national, despite the successive influence of Italian and French schools, which affected it only in certain features. The distinctiveness is due no less to the national character than to the marked suitabihty of the language for versification, notably in forming rhyme, not only consonantal, but alliterative and assonantaL The last is so common and brought to such perfection as to be considered a Spanish feature. With its aid double or even triple rhyme is readily produced, and poems of considerable length may be found of one continuous rhyme, as in Arabic literature. The Spaniard in this respect prefers the predominant intonation to monotonous endings. Notwithstanding the facility for this form of rhythm, great abuse has crept in, degenerating into mere recurrence of unaccented consonants, and similar license. The favorite metre is trisyllabic and redondillas, or octosyllabic quatrains; stanzas of four lines are the most common form of verse. While the ballad has ever retained its hold on popular taste, sonnets were even more frequent than in Spain, as might of course be expected from the prevalent formality and imitation, and the direct influence of the Italian school. The true elegy, with its. subued gentleness, accords less with Spanish disposition, and this applies also to satires of a personal character, but epigrammatic verse is common, though it inclines to erotic sentiment. The pastoral, which attains so true a ring amid the happy environments of the Iberian uplands, fails to obtain a full response, and descriptive poetry still suffers from apathetic neglect, although not to such extent as manifested by the early Spanish verse-makers, who passed by with comparative indifference scenery so stirring as that presented in a transit from the miasmatic lowland of the gulf coast, through the varied features of the tierra tern- POETRY AND SONG. 517 plada wrapped in eternal spring, on to the lofty plateau seamed with snow-peaked ranges and smouldering volcanoes. The Mexican poet turns to nature incidentally rather than from appreciative admiration, and like the child spoiled by over-indulgence, he yields it reluctant tribute, placing it in subservience to other incentives. Notwithstanding the obstacles against the highest realms of fancy, the facilities presented by the language and the musical tastes of a vivacious people led to wide-spread attempts in this direction, under the fostering amenities of serenading, of social reunions, and of frequent religious and official ceremonies. The church had implanted a predilection for festivals with her numerous celebrations, and the Creoles, ever glad of an excuse, yielded readily to the allurement. Too proud to engage in occupations in which inferior races and classes competed, and allowed only a limited share of political and ecclesiastical offices by a suspicious government, which favored its more immediate proteges, the upper colonial elements were forced into the condition of idlers, led by training to the cultivation chiefly of letters, and especially of poetry, as best in consonance with their indisposition for earnest application. Besides these incentives for their muse, opportunities presented themselves in the custom of participating in the published efforts of friends by prefatory observations on the work or its writer, naturally of a eulogistic nature, and chiefly in metric form. The origin of the practice lay in the obligation imposed by Spanish laws for presenting testimony from persons of reputed learning and of experience in the subject treated, and from ecclesiastical and political authorities, vouching above all for the moral and loyal tone of the book. In order to promote its successful passage through the censorial office, as well as to court public interest, authors sought as many influential and friendly commendations as possible. Not infrequently these en- 518 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. comiums surpassed in volume and beauty the theme itself. In all this there was little spontaneous outpouring of soul, but rather a toying with verse for pastime and pandering to vanity, to a display of skill in construction, and acquaintance with classics. The simple style of the sixteenth century had small attraction for such triflers, but as they grew in number, relief came to them during the following century, after a course in the lyric channels of Herrera, the dramatic of Calde- ron, and in the cultismo of G6ngora. Its false glitter and floridity, its tropes and play on words, seemed a revival of the inflation which, under Lucan, marked the decline of Roman poetry. It supplied the lack of inspiration and ideas with word painting and pedantry, but instead of approaching the combination of sense and gilding of a Pope, it degenerated rapidly into a meaningless jingle. Anything was accepted, so long as it rose above despised simplicity. Meaningless terms and phrases are, for that matter, common among Spanish-Americans, in harmony alike with Creole traits and inherited aboriginal forms. The lack of imagination among Indians, and of depth and earnestness among the other races, combined here to procure for the conceptisto element of the G6ngora circle a wide and lasting response; yet this extravagant flight in both fancy and diction is by no means so inappropriate to Spanish language and spirit as it would be to us. The predominance of religious topics is due not alone to long, bigoted training, but to a disposition among the masses to be readily impressed by an exalted mysticism lost in immature and half-defined expressions. Another characteristic of the poetry is an intermingling of fanciful, though only too often forced, conceit, manifested in epigrammatic points and half-mischievous jests, corresponding to the gracwso spirit of the drama, and particularly conspicuous^ in the rustic villantico songs, with their refrains^ which form a usual accompaniment to the dance music. HISTORIC VERSE. 519 The achievements of the conquerors could not fail to stir descendants who at their feet had listened to narratives of dangers encountered and scenes beheld. Indeed, the generation after the subjugation found the Creole, Antonio de Saavedra y Guzman, initiating the topic with El Peregrino Indiano, which commemorates in ottava rima the doings of Cortes and his companions; but he lacks dramatic instinct and spirit, and descends to a rhyming chronicler of somewhat vulgar stamp.23 A similar attempt was made more than a century later by Francisco Ruiz de Leon, who gives his epic the very appropriate title of Hernandia. It is really a synopsis from Solis, beginning with the discovery voyages to New Spain, and closing with the fall of Mexico, the whole comprised in twelve cantos of about one hundred and twenty octaves each, issued at Madrid in 1755. No appreciation is shown for scenery, and little tact in depicting incidents, or portraying character. The strain is more ambitious than the preceding, however, with frequent use of classic terms and metaphors, although as a rule forced. For instance: Eolo desata de su Grata opaca El voluble Esquadron, que en silvos roncos, Rompe los Montes, con que mas lo atraca, Y Escollos parte, quando buela Troncos; Retirase el Alcyon de la resaca, Busca el Echensis los Periascos broncos, Y los mudos Delfines testifican El tiempo, que, avisados, pronostican. The author was a native of Tehuacan, and lived in retirement.24 Midway between these two, between the simplicity of Saavedra and the floridity .of Leon, may be placed a fragment of the unfinished Nuevo Mundo by Francisco de Terrazas, a son of Cortes' mayordomo, which, together with some lyrics from the same pen, indicate a study of Herrera's classic style.25 A number of verse-makers figured during the intervals marked by the above representative historic poems, and strove in vain to obtain a place by their side, in 520 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. notoriety at least, for similar productions. Among these may be mentioned the Historia de MSxico en verso castellano, 1623, by Arias Villalobos, which seeks ambitiously to cover all preceding events, from traditional times. In Saavedra's simple flow runs the Conquista de Xalisco, by the Dominican Parra. Early Zapotec history received commemoration in crude quatrains at the hand of a Zapotec cacique named Antonio Lopez.86 Into similar neglect, though published at Alcata, 1610, fell the Historia de la Nueva-Mexico by Gaspar Villagrd, one of the participants in the conquest of that region. The book is very rare, and has lain forgotten by students from the apparent absence of historic material in such metric form, while the public in general felt no desire to accord favor to simple verse so utterly cast into the shade by the then rising school of grandiloquence. In accordance with my system of sifting every class of wisdom, I examined the work, and w7as gladly surprised to find it exceedingly comprehensive, and covering many a gap in New Mexican history for which no records are extant. The homeliness of the thirty-four cantos, in blank-verse, with little attempt at confusing ornamentation, and with the occasional interpolation of official documents in prose, assists to restore it to the proper status of a chronicle, which, since the discovery of its merits, has been gaining wider appreciation. Among descriptive poems must be mentioned Gran- deza de Mexico, by Bishop Balbuena, whose fame as a poet shines brightly in his epic, El Bernardo, and his pastoral romance, Sigh del Oro, both among the finest of their class in the Spanish language. While born on the peninsula, and living chiefly in the West Indies, he was educated at Mexico, and there carried off a prize for poetry in 1585. The Grandeza has the additional interest for my purpose of not only concerning this country, whose capital it describes, its site, buildings and institutions, but in wielding a certain influence on colonial writers. It is in endacasyllabic THE GUADALUPE MIRACLE. 521 tiercets, divided into eight chapters, and is full of attractive lines with many striking metaphors.27 Besides the conquest there were two subjects which allured the most ambitious poets, the sacred passion and the Guadalupe miracle. The latter concerns the apparition in 1531, to a humble Indian, of the virgin, who leaves to him her full length portrait miraculously impressed on his rude mantle. This is deposited at Guadalupe and becomes the object of veneration throughout the country. Voluminous treatises have been written in defence of the miracle, and verses innumerable in honor thereof, several of the latter aiming at epic completeness. Siglienza, the philosopher, made an attempt in his Primavera Indiana, which contains several poetic flashes, but insufficient to redeem it from the mass of puerilities, metonymy, and hyperbole. He also wrote a poem in honor of Saint Francis Xavier, and Poesias Sagrad,as. Affectation are their chief defect, but this was the prevalent evil of his time, as recognized by the award of a first prize from the university for. a most unintelligible song of his. La Octava Maravilla, Mexico 1729, by Francisco de Castro of Madrid, is still further marred by rhapsodic mysticism and strained classic similes. In like ottava rima measure is El Triunfo del Silencio of Joseph Agustin de Castro, of Valladolid, relating to the martyrdom of San Juan Nepomuceno, wherein phantastic figures replace the classic element. A later attempt to portray the feelings and meditations of a convert shows less artificiality, and accords well with the chastening of spirit he is supposed to have undergone.28 This class of poetry, including moral exhortations, is exceedingly bulky, as may be understood from the influences of the church and the predilection of its members, who outnumbered all others in the literary field. The nature of the pieces and the circumscribed language and tone of the authors, from duty, bent, or Il LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. reverence, operated against any marked excellence. A not uncommon performance with the friars was to reduce the rules of their orders into prolific verse, as did Pardo for the Franciscans. Among those who have sung the passion I will instance three representatives in their respective method of treatment. First the Jesuit, Carnero, who gives a mere rhymed description, spiritless and with often absurd coloring. Second the presbyter, Friar, devotes one thousand octaves to the subject in Descenso y Humiliation de Dios, Mexico 1769, beginning with the causes in the fall of Adam and ending with the resurrection. The writer seems impressed by the incidents before him and imparts this feeling in the. simple earnestness of his strain, but without rising to the grandeur of the theme.29 The third, Luis Antonio de Oviedo Herrera y Rueda, shows himself in his Poema Sacro de la Pasion far superior. He opens with dramatic tact at the arrest of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, and closes with the catastrophic phenomena attending his death, illuminating the subjects with frequent pleasing imagery marred by little extravagance. In accordance with the term romance applied to his Poema he uses the redondilla measure, with asonantes, while the others write in ottava rima. The seven parts of. the poem are called estaciones. The author is a descendant of the Oviedo who achieved for himself the title of Conde de la Granja, and settled in Peru. Referring to the approach of the posse intent on arresting Christ, he says: Entre el horror de la noche Embuelta, abultando sombras, D£ mas cuerpo £ sus horrores. Solo el silencio se oye. And alluding to the death scene: Aqui rasgando el cielo Y las sombras & girones, Abrid los ojos el dia Por ver al Sol que se pone. Above any of these as a writer of sacred verse ranks Fernan Gonzalez Esclava, whose Gohqwws espiri- tuales, Canciones Divinas, and Poeshs were published at ■ HAPPY INHERITANCE. 523 Mexico in 1610, after his death. They exhibit a rare combination of pure diction, good versification, and natural grace, yet have from this very reason been pushed aside by the more bombastic appeals of less able pens. The Teressiada, sive Teressia d Jesu, by friar Juan Valencia, a Mexican of a few decades later, serves mainly to exhibit his skill in Latin hexameters. The contemporary Jesuit, M. Castroverde, excelled in such verse. Bishop Deza y Ulloa of Huexotcingo received a premium from the university for his Spanish octaves; F. Cochero Carreno's Desagravio de Cristo achieved a certain celebrity. The nun Teresa de Cristo belongs to this period. Among the mass of shorter poems, odes, sonnets, elegies, satires, and epigrams, we find by far the happiest specimens, as may be supposed, from the impulsive but linsustained spirit of the people, and from the mingling of gay effusiveness and lofty gallantry inherited from Spain, with the sad yet sly traits of the aborigines. Church festivals, public inaugurations, celebrations connected with the royal family or prominent citizens, and reunions, gave occasion for display in this field which frequently assumed the form of contests. The number of participants and interested auditors afforded ready opportunity for reproducing the different pieces in print, prefaced as usual with a number of similar verses by crities, or by the admirers of the contestants. They are generally weighted with classic lore, strained metaphor and grandiloquent nothings, the main effort being evidently to exhibit learning and express eulogy. They embrace all imaginable forms of verses, with acrostics of the most intricate pattern. In such representative volumes as Castillo, Letras, on the- occasion of taking the oath to Luis Fernando I. Carlos III, Real Proc; Rodriguez, Augusto Rum.; Soria, Descript, at a church festival, we find the participants range from pompous prelates to humble friars, from staid professors to youthful pupils. LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. Special mention must be accorded to Matias Boca- negra, whose Condon a la vista de un desengano became very popular and was widely adopted as a model during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, although by no means finished in form. A contemporary elegy by Zapata on the death of the brothers Avila is noticeable for many effective lines. The sword which brings them death he depicts as: Una vivora de lumbre Porque a sus impetus muera. Con veneno de Centellas Suplid el llanto de los.ojos La region del aire vibre, El defecto de la lengua. Juan de Gaona, a Franciscan friar, who wrote several works in Aztec, Latin, and Spanish, attracted attention by his Poesias Castellanas en alabanza de la Virgen. Francisco Placido, an Aztec noble, wrote some Cdnticos which Chimalpain preserved. E. Sa- lazar de Alarcon, a native of Madrid, who resided many years in Guatemala and Mexico as oidor, and was made a councillor of the Indies in 1601, left a highly praised Silva de Poesia; some of his letters are said to be masterpieces. The freer development of lyrics during the following century will render a later consideration more satisfactory. Mention must be made of one whose varied power and productions have procured for her a recognition far above any other truly national poet of colonial times. This is Juana Inez de la Cruz, to whom even contemporaries of the peninsula gave the extravagant appellation of tenth muse. Pacheco compares her to Camoens, and Feijoo lauds her critical and philosophic mind. She was truly a prodigy. As a child her thoughts seemed to find appropriate utterance in verse alone, and she became the wonder of the viceregal court. Her sylph-like beauty also drew admirers and fortune smiled brightly. Suddenly a change came over her. Imbued with sensitiveness and exalted imagination, she felt keenly the slight thrown upon her Creole caste; she felt the want of sympathy, JUANA INEZ DE LA CRUZ. 525 the failure to be understood. Clinging more than ever to her beloved books, she sought at the early age of seventeen the seclusion of the convent, abandoning the future opened to her in society as lady of honor, to devote herself to letters. A deep religious feeling can hardly have been the chief prompter, as some declare; there was something more, for pretended happiness and quiet suffering are frequently revealed in her lines. Undeniable is the bigoted interference of religious advisers, who finally persuaded her to abandon even books and writing for ascetic penance. Freed from worldly distractions at least, she yielded to the bent of her mind, and poured forth a prolific flow, chiefly of lyrics, which roused deserved admiration from their delicate tone, their varied imagery, and their smooth versification. The religious sentiment predominates, relieved by many a lofty allegory, but coupled also with a mystic speculation that smacks of forced patristic inculcation, and is often of questionable taste; yet the light emotions are also touched, and with charming naivete in the love sonnets. The elegiac tone is frequent, indicative, perhaps, of a wounded heart, and certainly of her treatment within the cloister and by the world. Si al arroyo parlero A cuantas mira intima su cuidado, Ves galan de las fibres en el pradu, En su corriente mi dolor te avisa, Que amante y lisongero Que a costa de mi llanto, tiene risa. This is, indeed, a smile amid tears. Al dulce iman de su voz Quisieran por asistirla, Firmamento ser el Movil, El Sol ser Estrella fixa. Tan bella, sobre canora, Que el amor dudoso admira Si se deben sus harpones A sus ecos d a su vista. No dupliques las armas, Bella homicida, Que esta ociosa la muerte Donde no ay vida. She can also sing in a merry strain. Her eclogues are pervaded by a bantering vein, and her ovillejos and other jocose pieces vie with the sonnets and romances for the foremost place. There is a number of satiri- r 526 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. cal compositions, and several detimas of true epigrammatic form. She displays, moreover, a profoundly critical mind. Before entering the convent she astonished a committee of learned men with the variety and depth of her attainments. Juana also wrote several dramatic pieces, notably two autos, or religious allegories, and two comedies, Amor es mas Labyrinto and Los Empehos de una Casa, preceded and interspersed with the customary has, letras, saynetes, and saraos, or dialogues, farces, and songs. The last-named piece, the only one that has received much attention, embraces Mexican life, and has some tender love scenes, with occasional stirring verses; yet it is cold and wearisome on the whole, and stamped by the defects of the times. Imitations of such men as Seneca and Calderon are only too apparent, but she allowed herself, above all, to be influenced by the cultismo spirit, with its inexcusable mannerism and trivialities, and the religious surrounding proved another restraint on her naturally graceful flow, while strength and originality flag in the more prolonged efforts. It was her misfortune to live in the period of dramatic decadence in Spain, and during the unfolding of corrupt G6ngorism, and to be permeated by the levelling influences of both. Hence it is that her works gradually passed into oblivion, notwithstanding their evident mark of genius, their rich form, and grand symbolism. Mexicans did not appreciate the Nun of Mexico so much as the peninsular readers, with all their penchant for national personages. They were too deeply engrossed with transatlantic models to give due consideration to local talent.30 The drama begins in Mexico with the representation of autos, religious or allegoric pieces, which owe their derivation from the mystery or passion plays introduced from Italy into Spain, there to acquire a distinctive elaboration and stamp, under the different the drama: 527 methods of Vicente, Lope, and Calderon. They were early brought forward as an attractive medium for promoting conversion among the aborigines, and produced partly in the churches, but chiefly in the open air. Friars adapted or composed the pieces, sometimes translating them into the vernacular, while the neophytes were trained in the r61es. The subjects were chiefly biblical, the adoration of the magi being a favorite, the Indians applying to themselves the divine summons herein indicated to pagans. Allegoric and complicated composition found more favor in the cities, for edification of the white classes. Here also the productions were more apt to be enlivened with comical passages. In course of time, indeed, they were so burdened with this and other abuse as to hasten the suppression and decline of the autos, as in Europe. Nevertheless, they still survive in remote country districts. The contemporary has, eulogistic declamations by one or more dramatic persons, largely used as prologues, survived somewhat longer as independent pieces for production at different public festivals, as the arrival of viceroys and prelates, installations, and the like. The first prominent local writer of autos and loas was Fernan Gonzalez Esclava, the Andalusian presbyter, whose religious poems rank so high in Mexico. His Cohqwhs espirituales, issued there in 1610, and lately rediscovered and reprinted by Icazbalceta, consist chiefly of allegories with moral and theological figures. In diction they partake of the good qualities of his sacred verse, but their dramatic aspect indicates so little of the elegance and vivacity of Lope, or of the lofty thoughts and rich form of Calderon, as to lower them to a secondary position on the peninsula, yet one of conspicuous merit in New Spain. The drifting of the auto into farce, was a natural response to the light-hearted disposition of the Creoles, if not to the staid bent of the Indians. Comedy 528 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. ranked foremost among Spanish Americans, as may be judged from the character of the dramatic lights of Iberia. Their most popular pieces were of the capa y espada class, cloak and sword, signifying a theme on love and jealousy, productions marked by complicated and ingenious plots, piquant portrayals and striking situations, with" alternating passion, sarcasm, and caricature, impertinent inuendoes and strong double entente. The most conspicuous features are a gallantry and intrigue which stretch the line of delicacy far beyond northern ideas. So little were these vagaries heeded that even a devout soul like Juana de la Cruz employed her pen in delineating intrigues; yet the restraints of her training and surroundings are evident in defective dramatic taste and flagging spirit. These inequalities apply also to a diction at times rich and even elegant, but more frequently marred by puerilities and verbose bombast, which indeed preponderate to such extent as to stamp the productions as hopelessly dull. The same may be said of the specimens by other local playwrights of the period, as Eusebio Vela, the most prolific dramatist of the seventeenth century, who left a dozen comedies in manuscript; Juan. Arriola of Guanajuato, who transmitted one production in print; the promising Salazar y Torres; and Francisco Soria. All these are pronounced imitators of Spanish model, but the last, while burdened chiefly with the extravagances of Calderon, rises nevertheless above the others in merit and appreciation." All these are eclipsed by Ruiz de Alarcon,who was by birth and education a Creole, although he wrote in Spain, and there achieved for himself a place among her great dramatists. Some of his pieces were at first ascribed to his foremost rivals, and Corneille, among other borrowers, derived, with glowing acknowledgment, his Menteur, from the Verdad Sospecfwsa^ of Alarcon. This, Todo es Ventura, and other comedies, written chiefly in redondilla measure, brought him ALARCON Y MENDOZA. 529 prominently into notice about 1621, although he appears to have tried his pen fully twenty years before. By 1634 nearly thirty pieces had appeared, including the celebrated Exdmen de Maridos. Their character-* istic feature is Alarcon's adhesion to the Latin models, and from Terence he has above all imbibed the spirit which was to guide him, while the Italian method has not failed to leave its impress. Nevertheless he stands forward as one of the most original and varied writers, though less prolific and imaginative. His diction is more formal and his versification purer than Lope de Vega's; indeed, he ranks rather as a classic who strove to infuse not only a more correct style, but a healthier moral tone into comedy, which was still entangled in a licentiousness from which the church was seeking to rescue it. His effort was to bring into prominence noble qualities, and expose the evil of vice, rather than to draw from the sources of chivalric romance, and offset it with broad buffoonery. These admirable features were too strongly drawn for his age, and thus he failed to attain that popularity while living which has since been enthusiastically accorded him in both hemispheres by a posterity of more elevated taste. Mexico has adopted him as father of her dramatic literature. Juan Ruiz de Alarcon y Mendoza came of famous descent, the last name denoting a connection with Viceroy Mendoza. He was born about 1580, not as generally supposed at Tasco, where his father owned mines, but at Mexico. After graduating at the university of this city, he perfected his studies at Salamanca during the opening years of the following century, and then adopted the legal profession, returning in 1658 to Mexico to exercise it, and obtained the position of acting corregidor of the capital. A few years later he went again to Spain as office-hunter, and after many struggles with adversity, aggravated by a hunchback deformity, he secured a post as relator in the India council which he held for some 13 Essays and Miscellany 34 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. years, till his death in 1639. In 1599, during the opening studies at Salamanca, he appears to have made the first attempts in a career which was to bring him surely though slowly to fame.32 The neglect of Alarcon and the paucity of dramatic writers in New Spain, and the existence before 1790 of only one theatre in the country worthy the name, leave the impression that the stage was little appreciated. The indications are not quite reliable, however, for dramatic performances, sacred and profane, were frequently given at public festivals and private entertainments, in convents and private mansions, notably at the palace, where the viceroy sought to encourage native talent by attending presentations. These were often mere loas, which failed to see print, while the pieces generally offered to the public came from Spain, as did the more appreciated actors." Comedies by Lope de Vega and others were even translated into native tongues. The slight esteem accorded to home productions, even by those who ranked with the Creole party, was due greatly to the authors themselves, who drew inspiration, method, and even subjects from Spain, thus upholding her too exclusively to the colonies as the model which she still in a great measure remains. Even Alarcon found tardy appreciation at home only after the peninsula had given her approval, and La Cruz rose far higher there than among her own people. The all-influential class of officials also turned public sentiment with their disdainful affectation away from the less esteemed Creoles, and the clergy exerted a greater control here in directing preference to chosen literature from the mother country, and in restricting local talent in scope and treatment. Nevertheless the new direction and impulse imparted from France, came to be felt in the colonies toward the end of the last century. As in Spain, it produced no immediate brilliant result in literature, although the first effect was less depressing; but by pointing to the necessity NOTES. 531 for deeper and more varied studies, especially of classics, it laid the foundation for a higher development. This is indicated in the efforts of Abad, Clavigero, Alegre, and other exiled Jesuits, and more strikingly by Jose Rafael Larrarlaga, who produced the first complete translation of Virgil's work^ into Spanish heroic verse. It is marked by an exactitude and close adherence to the spirit and form of the original that is lacking in the more elegant partial versions of Friar Luis de Leon and Hernandez de Velasco, and gives Mexico the greater reason to be proud of so influential a guide during the dawn of revival." 1 The chroniclers agree that the press came under the auspices of Mendoza, Hist. Mex., ii. 378, this series, but they differ about the year, Gonzalez Davila, Teatro Ecles., i. 23, giving it as 1532, for instance. The name of the printer was probably Paoli, which became Pablos—the plural of Paolo —by translation. Cromberger is also printed Crumberger and Kromberger, but was probably written Kronberger or Krummberger in German. He was preceded in the business at Seville by Jacobo Cromberger, who figures there in 1511, and may have been his father. The name of Pablos does not appear in the colophon till 1546; it seems eight years later in the Constitu- ciones del Arzobispado, he styles himself \ primer impresor en esta... ciudad de Mexico,' a term which has also been interpreted foremost or leading, for a rival printer existed about that time in the person of Antonio Espinosa. This late appearance of Pablos, together with the fact that Cromberger alone figures during the first years as printer, has led to a very general belief that the latter actually had charge of the press; but the colophon of a book printed at Seville in 1541 alludes to him as lately deceased, and Icazbalceta, who has given this subject a share of his scholarly attention, rightly assumes that the owner of a flourishing business at Seville would hardly exile himself to a remote corner of the earth with its petty prospects. It is possible that a son of his may have gone; but since this is a mere conjecture it will be preferable to accept the statement of two chroniclers who declare 'Juan Pablos, primer impresor que £ esta tierra vino.' Davila Padilla, Hist. Fond. Mex. 542. 'El primer Impresor fue Iuan Pablos. Gonzalez Davila, Teatro Ecles., i. 23; Medina, Oliron. 8. Diego, 233; Concilios Prov., 1555-65, p. v. Padilla not only lived near the time in question, but he had every facility for knowing. In 1542 the viceroy granted to the widow and children of Cromberger the right to continue the printing and importation of books for ten years. Datos, in Cartas de Indias, 786-7. The grant appears to have been exclusive, and Pablos must therefore have bought their establishment. 2 Estrada is called 'Hijo legitimo del Virrey,' by Fernandez, ubi sup. He died in 1579. Davila Padilla; Hist. Fond., Mex., 543. This author gives several columns to the life of Estrada, who joined the Dominicans in 1535, and tells how neatly and quickly he made the translation. It is probable that only a few copies were printed for use among the novices, who soon destroyed them. The title and statement are given in Gonzalez Davila, loc. cit., although with the date wrongly placed as 1532, and the facts are confirmed by Fernandez, HM. Ecles., 122, who writes 1535, by Padilla and other creditable chroniclers. See also Panes, Vireyes, MS., 73, r 532 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. 8 The Doctrina of 1539 is described by the editors of Cartas de Indias, 786- 7. Icazbalceta acquired notice of the Manual. Gonzalez Davila states that the first catechism in Aztec was written by the Dominican Juan Ramirez, later bishop of Guatemala, and printed in 1537. Teatro Ecles., i 7, but this of course cannot be accepted with any confidence. Mendieta alludes to an Aztec vocabulary by Jimenez, one of the first Franciscan apostles, as the first of the kind although not printed. He seems to credit Motolinia with the first printed Doctrina 'la cual anda impresa.' Ribas and Cisneros, also of the twelve, wrote various pieces. Hist. Ecles., 550. Thomas, Hist. Printing, i. 194, leaves the impression that Puga, Cedulario, of 1563, and Molina, Vocabulario, 1571, were probably the first productions of the Mexican press. In my library are also earlier specimens. The British museum not long ago catalogued the Doctrina of Cordoba, 1544, as the first book. Such was the ignorance on this point until lately. North of Mexico the first book appeared only a century later, in the Whole Booke of Psalmes, issued at Cambridge in 1640, the year after the press was introduced. 4 Eguiara, Bib. Mex., 221, adds: Ordinationes legumque collectiones 1549, but Harrisse and Icazbalceta identify it with the preceding Spanish Ordenan- zas; Opera medicinaUa, Auctore Francisco Bravo Orsumesi is assigned to 1549; but the name of the printer, Ocharte, and the dedication to Viceroy Enri- quez, indicate that the date is a misprint, not a forgery, and should be placed between 1568 and 1580. 5 A list of the printing houses which figured at Mexico in the sixteenth century may stand as follows: Cromberger 1535-44, Pablos 1542-60 or 1562, Antonio Eapinosa 1559-73, Pedro Ocharte 1563-91, Pedro Balli 1571- 97, or later, Antonio Ricardos 1577-79, Melchor Ocharte 1599. The dates are merely approximate. Icazbalceta gives additional valuable details. Harrisse upholds him in asserting that Ricardos, an Italian like Pablos, went to Lima in 1580, as the first printer there. At Puebla the first book appeared in 1650. Nouv. Annates Des Voy., xciii. 42-9, mentions other more doubtful places and dates. Ziiniga y Ontiveros owned the chief printing office in Mexico at the opening of the present century. Estalla, xxvi. 350; Diario Mex., vi. 23. Mexicans early showed a fondness for fanciful type and embellishment as indicated by specimens on my shelves, letters in gold and red being very frequent, with floriated capitals. 6 Orders came frequently for officials to ferret and burn all obnoxious literature, Ordenes de Corona, MS., iii. 14, and Bishop Palafox devoted even his private funds to buy up and destroy comedies, novels, and other works regarded by him as unhealthy. "Accion. . .bien digna," comments Calle. Mem. y Not, 40. Even the colonial authorities were mistrusted in respect of censorship by the supreme government. By a law of 1559, no book treating of the Indies could be published before it had been examined by the India Council, Recop. de Ind., and in the following year came orders to collect and send to Spain all books published without royal privilege. Puga, Cedulario, 210. Regulations for publishing are given in Montemayor, Sumarios, 64, etc. In Gaceta de Mexico of 1728 and following years there is an advertisement of new books at the end of almost every monthly number, averaging about two in each. 7 Arevalo stamps his Gaceta de Mexico of Jan. 1728 as No. 1. By the end of 1730 it formed 37 numbers, all of which were bound, indexed, and dedicated to Archbishop Vizarron by Hogal, the. printer. The volume forms a small quarto of 295 pages. A rude cut of an eagle on a cactus, with a snake in its beak, and surmounted by a star and crown, figures on the first page of each number. Of all these early papers it is hard to find more than scattered fragments. At Guatemala a monthly periodical was issued for about the same time. I have found them of greater value comparatively than the periodicals of later stirring times. . . 8 Valdes began the Gaceta in 1784, in accordance with royal permission. See Belena, Recop., i. pt iii. 195. In 1805 it was under the editorship of Can- celada, who became noted for the persecution he suffered, as related else- NOTES. 533 where. Throughout its career there were frequent interruptions, from lack of printing material and news, and from official interference. 9 The first periodical at Vera Cruz was the short-lived Correo Mercantil of 1804. In 1806 came the Jornal Economico, which was succeeded in 1807 by Diavio Mercantil, and later by Dkirio de Veracruz, which continued after the independence. Lerdo de Tejada, Apuntes Hist., 344. The Observador Americano is said to have been printed with wooden types at Soltepec in 1810. Mosaico Mex., vi. 41. Among Transactions, I have that of the Sociedad Econdmica of Guatemala, begun in 1797. 19 Copies of documents from all American departments passed to the India Council in Spain. Regulations for the guidance of the royal historian, and for the care of the archives, are to be found in Zamora, Bib. Leg. Uit., i. 381- 2; iii. 509; Recop. de Ind., Ordenanzas Reales del Consejo, folios xxi.-ii. Basa- lenque shows that in 1576 the Augustinians had four respectable libraries. Prov. S. Nic, 39. The university opened to the public in 1762. The Jesuit college had, in 1797, 4300 volumes, and the Letran had grown in modern times to more than 12,000. Alaman, Hist. Mej., i. 120, mentions four private libraries at Guanajuato with over 1000 volumes, besides the select collections of Intendente Riafio and Doctor Labarrieta. Zamacois borrows modern statistics to give size to old libraries, so as to raise the estimate for colonial times. Hist. M6j., pp. 1206-7. 11A list of 419 is given in Papeles Franciscanos, MS., i. 7 et seq. Vetancurt also gives lists in Cron., 140, etc.; Menolog., 436-56; and Davila Padilla, Hist. Fond. Mex., 653 et seq., gives Dominican authors. 11 See exhortation in Medina, Chron. de S. Diego, 64-6. 13 For additional specimens of Nahua verse I refer to my Native Races, ii. 494-7. Speeches are frequently introduced into the same and following volumes. See also, Granados, Tardes, 90-4; Kingsborough's Mex. Antiq., viii. 110-15; Doc. Hist. Mex., serie iii., torn. iv. 286-93; Muller, Reisen, iii. 138- 41. The verses preserved by Pesado in Las Aztecas are so distorted by rhythmic transformation from translated versions as to be valueless to the student. Clavigero declares exuberantly that ' il linguaggio della lor Poesia era puro, ameno, brillante, figurato, e fregiato di frequenti comparazioni falle colle cose piu piacevoli della natura.' Storia, Mess., ii. 175. 14 For particulars concerning the host of literary lights among Indians, I refer to Eguiara, Bib. Mex., i.; Beristain, Bib. Hisp. Amer., i.-iii.; Boturini, Catalogo, passim; Alcedo, Bib. Am., MS., i.-ii.; Granados, Tardes Amer., 145 etc.; Clavigero, Storia Mess., iv. 262, etc., wherein is given a long list of writers in Indian dialects; Zerecero, Mem. Rev., 436 et seq.; Zamacois, Hist. Mej., v. 215-20, 482, 719, etc.; x. 1230 etc., app. 91-5; Gallo Hombres Bust., i.-iv.; Dice. Univ., i.-x.; Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, epoc. ii., torn, iv., 136, etc.; Ortiz, Mex. Indep., 179-228. 15 Burgoa and Ribas present important chronicles for Oajaca and Sonora, respectively, in the old-fashioned ambiguous and verbose style. In more advanced form is the bulky history of Mexico by Ignacio Carrillo, a prolific expounder of the shrine lore of New Spain. The work remains in manuscript, which is the more to be regretted as the information relates largely to institutional matter of great interest. Nicolas Segura ranks before the time of his religious brother Alegre as a prominent writer on theology. 16 His work in three volumes bears the imprint Bononia, 1791-2. I have had frequent occasion in the earlier volumes of this series to refer to the different kinds of biography, which appear besides to profusion in the chronicles, notably Vetancurt's. Among special representative books may be mentioned Torres, Vida Ejemplar de Barbara Josepha de S. Francisco, (1723); Rodriguez, Bida Prodigiosa del.. .Fray Sebastian de Aparicio; Ximenezy Frias, El Fenix de hs Mineros Ricos, 1779; Velasco, Elogio Hist. The Bibliotheca Mexicana of Eguiara, in Latin, is really a biography of writers but by no means equal to the preceding. I. Lazcano wrote in the middle of the century a number of Jesuit biographies. 17Torquemada furnishes a list of early Franciscans who figured as philologic LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. writers. Among the earliest was Friar Juan Bautista Vetancurt, Cron. 140 etc.,Menolog., 436-56, has additional names, Davila Padilla, Hist. Fund. Mex. 6o3 et seq., gives Dominican authors, Cogolludo, Hist Yucathan, 439-40 mentions writers in the Maya tongue, added to by Ancona, Hist Tuc iii' 247 and others; Clavigero, Storia Mess., iv. 264, enumerates aboriginal contributors ; as in Soc. Mex. Geog., Boletin, 2a ep., iv. 148 etc. In Zamacois and other authorities may be found further details. 18 In Alzate's footsteps follows the curate, Diego de Alvarez, a prolific writer on arts and sciences, as well as theology. Hipdlito Villarroel figures about the same time as a political essayist, and Fausto de Elhuyar wrote on the coinage system. For more detailed accounts of these and other writers I refer to the foot-notes of the earlier volumes of my History of Mexico, and to the works of Eguiara and Beristain. 19 Of Beristain's numerous works, of which only a few are noticed by bibliographers, I have more than a dozen, including manuscripts. Among the sources used by him without acknowledgement were the notes on Mexican literature by Azcarate y Lezama, whose pen figured also in jurisprudence, biography and poetry. Another Creole of colonial times who prepared a bibliography was Alcedo, of whom I speak elsewhere, but his BMioteca Americana of 1807, remains in manuscript, of which my shelves contain one of the few copies extant in two volumes. The supposition that it embraces little more than the later edition of Pinelo is hardly just, for I am indebted to it for much important information. 20 Cabrera Quintero was an eloquent presbyter with a prolific pen. Sermons of all classes are well represented on my shelves, one set alone consisting of 49 volumes, with specimens from three centuries. Among these several volumes embrace specimens from Haro y Peralta, with Latin foot-notes instead of the usual marginal references of previous and contemporary sermons. Several are printed at Mexico in about 1777. 2lConde y Oquendo's prize speech was the Elogio de Felipe V., published by the academy in 1779 and at Mexico in 1785. He left three volumes of orations, a dissertation on the Guadalupe image, Mexico 1852, and some minor pieces. After figuring as professor and canon in New Spain he died at Puebla in 1779, 66 years of age. Arellano, Elogia Selecta, 1-91, contains specimens of orations by college graduates. 22Gamboa was a man of great magnetism, 'tanto elvirey y real audiencia como los dos cabildos.. .recommendando su merito,'observes Alzate, iii. 378. Beristain, Bib. Hisp. Amer., art. Gamboa, credits him with 17 volumes of writings, chiefly briefs. The Comentarios & las Ordenanzas de Minos was issued at Madrid 1761 and London 1830, in translation, as a work of great merit and value. See also Otero, in Dice. Univ., ix. 317 et seq ; Galh, Hombres II- ustres, iii. 15-34. Here may be mentioned Lardizabal y Uribe, whose opinions are highly esteemed. Among treatises for the guidance of aspiring orators, I find the Discurso Historico Critico sre la Oratoria Espunola y Americana, a bulky manuscript work of the last century, wherein the author seeks to analyze the elements of the art and the proficiency exhibited by different nations, notably the Spaniards on both continents. He is full of learned references, and also of cumbrous quotations, and wanders sadly from his subject, so that but little is gained by the reader. 23Saavedra's Peregrino, issued at Madrid 1599, and consisting of 20 cantos of 16,000 lines concludes the main conquest; a promised second part failed to appear. Balbuena places him among the excellent poets of the West Indies, and Lope de Vega, in a sonnet dedicated to Saavedra Guzman, calls him Cortes' Lucan. Vicente Espinel speaks of the Peregrino as a 'pura cendrada y verdadera historia.' Pinelo Epitome, ii. 605, and Antonio Bib. Hisp. Nov., i. 125, notice him, and Eguiara, Bib. Mex., 272-3, devotes two columns to his work, which was written in 70 days, ' quod post modum edidit. 24 Beristain mentions several shorter poems by Ruiz de Leon, and rightly attributes his defects chiefly to the prevalent bad taste. He also wrote Li Tebaida Indiana, concerning the Carmelites. Icazbalceta lately discovered his NOTES. 535 Mirra duke para aUento de pecadores, Bogota 1790, which contains over 300 ten-line stanzas depicting the virgin's sorrow at the foot of the cross, which manifest an exuberant variety. 26 Terrazas figured in 1574 and received the honor of praise from Cervantes in book vi. of his Galatea. Carta de Ind., 181, 847. His assumed father, the mayordomo, is identified with the Anonoymous Conqueror, who wrote on the conquest. 26 The caciqueship of Lopez adds interest to his collection of traditions, which remain in manuscript on my shelf. Parra's poem, in 31 cantos of 40 octaves each, covering the history of Jalisco between 1529-47, also remains in manuscript, at the museum of Mexico and in my library. L. R. Ugarte wrote a Cid which received the praise of Balbuena. 27 The Grandeza de Mexico of Balbuena was issued at Mexico in 1604, a copy of which rare edition is in my collection. Reprints have appeared even in modern times. 28 Castro's Triunfo is dated 1786, and the Gratitudes, 1793. The latter is in octo-syllabic quatrains, with asonantes. Viage de America a Roma, Mexico, 1745, is by a namesake friar, in running verse, a mere rhythmic narrative, in dreary monotone of what the writer saw on a journey to Rome. A. M. Pastrana wrote several pieces in honor of the Guadalupe virgin, notably the Cancion Histonca, 1697, which was praised as a blending of Virgil and Gdngora. The first of the above Castros, Francisco, was a native of Madrid. 29 Among the customary prefatory eulogies Frias' book contains a lira from his printer. 38 Juana de la Cruz had a double claim to Creole blood on the mother's side, with patriotic sympathies. Little Juana Ines de Asbaje y Ramirez de Cantillana, as she was called after her parents, was taken to Mexico from her home at San Miguel de Nepantla, on the slope of Popocatepetl; she died in 1695 at the age of 44, in the convent of San Jerdnimo at Mexico, of the Concepcion sisters, after having lived there for 27 years. ' Asistio todo el cabildo en la iglesias,' says Robles, Diario, iii. 466, implying that a pest carried her off. A model for her later life had been a sister of the same convent name, Juana Inez de la Cruz, whose life is given in SigiXenza y Gongora ParaysoOccid., 129-52, aud for whom steps were taken toward canonization as shown in Ordenes de Corona, vii. 60-1. Of our poetess Father Calleja gives the earliest sketch in a preface to the Barcelona 1701 edition of her poems, and to this little is added by later Mexican writers, such as Gallo Hombres Rustres, ii. 353-72, Ortiz, Mex. Indepent., 201-3, Zamacois, Pimen- tel others. Many of her writings appeared during her life, at Mexico, Pue- bla, and in Spain, some of them unknown to our biographers, yet represented on my shelves. In 1690 a set of collected poems was issued at Madrid; others followed in 1693, 1709, 1714, at different cities, and in 1725 came what is termed a fourth complete edition in three sm. 4o volumes, far inferior in shape to the preceding. An issue seems to have appeared in 1801. The Amor, comedy, placed in ancient Greece and marred also by anachronisms, is partly from the pen of Juan de Guevara, of Mexico. 31Soria's comedies were much appreciated in the eighteenth century notably Genoveva and Guillermo. The manuscript of Vela's comedies is nearly all lost. Some of Arnola's sacred poetry is on my shelves. Besides comedies balazar left two autos sacramentales, a loa for the comedy Thetis and Peleus, a drama for the university of Mexico, a collection of lyrics under the cT5 a ??ara de APola, and some fables. He died at the early age of 33 Ortiz de Torres and G. Bederra are remembered for their loas, and Ramirez Vargas for El Mayor Triunfo de Diana. ™ ?^if Alarcon's works twenty comedies were issued in collected form at Madrid m 1628 and 1634, although his name had already appeared in print This number by no means includes all the pieces from his pen, many of which were long ascribed to his greater rivals. Reprints have since been issued at Mexico and Madrid, and a voluminous biography at the latter place in 536 LITERATURE OF COLONIAL MEXICO. 1871, by Fernandez-Guerra, under the auspices of the royal academy, which deserves the prize accorded to it for exhaustive and careful research. In Galh, Hombres Ilustres, ii. 284-330, and several Mexican works, ample reference is made to him. Ticknor and other historians of literature have hardly done him justice. Pinelo barely alludes to him, but Antonio Bib. Hisp. Am., iii. 354 is somewhat more generous. Medina speaks of his brother Pedro who attained some prominence in the church, and was«rector of San Juan de Letran. Chron. S. Diego, 251; Ximenez y Frias, El Fenix. 33 Diego de Asis Franco is claimed as the first creole actor of note in Mexico, figuring about 1740. Concerning theatres I refer to Hist Mexico, iii. 773-4, this series. Among the manuscript sets on my shelves, under the title Comedias en Mexicano , are several translations into aboriginal tongues from Lope and other dramatists 34 Larrafiaga's Virgil was published at Mexico in 1787 in 4 volumes. His brother joined him in other translations and original poems. Vicente Torija also translated Virgil's works into Castilian verse, but failed to achieve publication. He wrote a letter from Dido to iEneas, beginning: Cual cisne moribundo Sobre el htimedo cesped recostado, Del lleandro profundo Tierno se queja del rigor del hado; Asi yo, con impulso mas divino Canto la ley de mi fatal destino. L CHAPTER XVII. LITERATURE OF MEXICO DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY. In all that affects the weal or woe of communities, mind-power is greater than steam-power. — Whipple. The impulse given to education and literature at the close of the last century manifested itself among other forms in the accumulation of books, and later in the issue of periodicals. Unfortunately the revolution and subsequent disorders checked the one, and gave an irregular and less desirable direction to the other. Aside from the ravages of war, and attendant insecurity, which caused the destruction of archives, and the exportation and sale in Europe of such inestimable libraries as those of Andrade and Ramirez, a blow even more severe was struck in the extinction of religious orders, which involved the disappearance of books and manuscripts never to be replaced. Monks were here as elsewhere the stern censors of literature as well as its watchful guardians, a bane to contemporary flocks, a blessing to future generations. In a few states zealous persons interfered to save a remnant of works as a nucleus for public collections, but the supreme government took no effective steps to form a national library before 1857. Meanwhile a number of private collections had been made and cared for, that of Icazbalceta, for instance, including many early and rare Mexican volumes, while others exhibit a wide range of subjects, equal to the enlightened aspirations of the country, or rather of the cultured classes, for the masses remain sunken in igno- (537) LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. ranee, caring little or nothing for books or even newspapers.1 Men of letters combined moreover to organize literary societies for the accumulation of books, the fostering of taste, and the publication of meritorious efforts. The first of the kind, the Instituto, was opened in 1826, on April 2d, with such members as Lucas Alaman, Carpio, and Roo; but like the Colegio de Jesus of Doctor Mora, opened under the auspices of Gomez Farias, it failed to survive. Ten years later was started the Academia de San Juan de Letran, which also sank, yet rose again in 1850 as the Liceo Hidalgo, recently reestablished by Alta- mirano, together with the more imposing Academia Nacional de ciencias y literatura, founded by Maximilian and given impulse under Juarez. A special linguistic association rose in accord with that of Madrid. The most vigorous of this class has been the Instituto Nacional de Geografia, which since its creation in 1833, chiefly by Minister Angulo, has done great service to the country in collecting historic, descriptive, and statistical data from all parts. Others of a more social character, or with less ambitious aims and operations, appeared at different state centres to the number of four score, of which three- eighths are scientific, the rest artistic and literary, with the latter increasing.2 Their influence on the cultivation of letters has been of value, and promises to become greater, to the achievement of many important tasks, among them probably a dictionary, which the ever-growing number of idioms and new words seem to call for. The societies assisted to spread the taste for French writings and methods which has so widely entered into rivalry with the models. In the liberal reception of foreign ideas Mexico surpasses the mother country, which lies so much nearer the centres of culture, and she drinks readily at the classic founts. The fact is she remains nearly as much as ever a LIBERATION OF MTND. 539 copyist, only her range is wider. There are so few independent efforts, and those not sufficiently vigorous or striking to impart a new direction. One cause lies in the withdrawal of so many of the best men into political life, with its alluring prospects of position and wealth, to the neglect of the literary field, which is accordingly left too open to foreign influence to prove encouraging to the local writer. Nor can it be expected that literature should assume great strength amid the disorder so long prevailing. Nevertheless the liberation from colonial thraldom is apparent; liberation from the narrow-minded policy of isolation, from the lack of facilities for printing and of patronage, and from the rigid censorship of state and church, which excluded anything that might in the least shake child-like independence, loyal devotion, and orthodox sentiment; from anything which might render the suspected Creoles equal to Iberian prototypes, and therefore insufferably conceited, puffed by dangerous aspirations. Rewards were reserved for Iberian imitators, while attempts at originality or foreign admixtures were frowned down. Home productions were despised, and soaring geniuses like Juana de la Cruz were actually induced by bigoted churchmen to abandon verse-making as pernicious to the soul. The stirring incidents of the revolution and of independent rule gave certain encouragement and direction to the liberated mind, although less than might have been expected. The subsequent fratricidal wars could hardly prove a fountain of inspiration. The main stimulus came in intercourse with hitherto excluded nations, notably France, whose law and precepts furnished also the incentive for a more liberal yet critical recourse to the ever-cherished models of the peninsula. The bond of language and race was too strong to be broken by mere political differences. The attenuated ligament received indeed a negative recuperation, in the direction of literature at least, by the lack of sympathy on the part of the Teutonic peoples. LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. To Central America likewise was opened the enlivening foreign intercourse, but it did not possess the massed population or the large centres of Mexico, and least of all a fostering capital, with inhabitants numbered by the hundreds of thousands, the seat for the wealth and culture of a vast country, where libraries, archives, museums, and learned societies provided sources and incentives innumerable; where an imposing series of newspapers and magazines offered channels for productions, for training and remuneration, and where influential patrons figured as Maecenas for a host of aspirants. The foreign influence is observable not alone in the improved thought and form,*but in a change from the religious element which predominated in colonial times to more profane or eclectic topics. The descriptive and objective have yielded greatly to reflective or subjective. The artificial and borrowed similes from classic mythology have been widely supplanted by aboriginal sources and nature. Variety, rich simplicity, and comparative ease and freedom have replaced the old conventional monotone. The most conspicuous evidence of the revival is presented in the press, and notably, for our purpose, in literary periodicals. They have been imposing in the aggregate, and although as a rule short-lived, un- sustained in contents as well as existence, like the efforts of the Creoles in general, yet the fugitive contributions, and still more numerous clippings from abroad, could not fail to prove attractive. l In the decade after the independence, several literary papers appeared, only to perish at the outset. Heredia issued at Tlalpam in 1821 the Misceldnea Periddwo crttico y Literario, in duodecimo form, with a very attractive medley. The Euterpe sought a field at Vera Cruz in 1826, and the Misceianea de Literatura was started at Mexico on Oct. 4, 1828. El Observador and La Minerva heralded the regeneration of poetry. In the following decade, two of somewhat heavier stamp were EPHEMERAL PUBLICATIONS. 5M1 essayed in the Begistro and Revista. In 1840 and subsequent years several quite successful efforts were made, and after that a series of more or less ephemeral publications come forth in swifter succession. The illustrated Mosadco reached the seventh and last volume in 1842; the Museo, likewise provided with cuts, had more than one interruption between 1843-6. The Liceo of 1844 and Album of 1849 attained to only two volumes each, but the Ilustracion went further. Among the host of less notable specimens stands prominent the Presente Amistoso, with its fine selections and attractive appearance. Sheets devoted to humor, satire, and arts figure in the list, and also industrial journals. Several of the outlying states swell the number, even Yucatan exhibiting before 1850 the literary periodicals Museo and Registro, and later the industrial paper of Bar- bachano. Their lack of support is due greatly to the encroachment of the newspapers, which so generally supply the public with feuilletons, poetry, and other light reading matter. This class of publications received a perceptible impulse from the acquisition of independence, when every state and many a party became eager to sustain an organ. In 1826 flourished fifteen, six being at Mexico and four in Yucatan. Before the middle of the century there were as many as fifty within the republic, of which the capital boasted about a dozen. Since then a marked increase has taken place, amid fluctuations greatly due to government restrictions which presidents, governors, and their parties found it necessary to impose in order to maintain their often illegally acquired power. Itur- bide suppressed two leading journals in 1822. While some were thus disposed of, others were forced by regulations from the field, or into submission, or subsidized to support the government. The restrictions were in some respects as bad as during colonial times, but they were fortunately not LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. permanent. The frequent change in administrations gave relief and recuperation, and the latterly prevailing liberal form of government imposes Umitation only in certain directions. There are now about two hundred journals in the republic, of which three dozen are claimed by literature, science, and art, two dozen by religion, and the rest by politics and attendant variety of subjects, fully half belonging to the capital.8 The uncertain liberty of the press, tne large proportion of subsidized papers, and their limited circulation, all tended to lower the influence of the public journals. Nevertheless they did good service to literature in training and bringing before the public the writers of the country. Indeed, the foremost public men in politics and letters have been and are connected with the press as editors or contributors, either for the literary columns, or for editorials, which are remarkable for their forcible, although too often abusive spirit, and compare well enough for thought and style with average productions of the world. The collecting of local news receives little attention as compared with gossip and party warfare, and the varied selection of items on history, industries, arts, and sciences, so freely supplied by Anglo-Saxon journals, and serving so high a purpose in the education of the masses, yield here to frivolous feuilletons; and these are as a rule copied from French and other foreign sources, original notes being rare. The characteristics of the editorials are more pointedly exhibited in the new outcropping of republican times, the political pamphlet, the voice of the budding orator which seeks this means to reach the multitude, or, of the popular one, to extend or impress his utterance, and to further relieve his pent up feelings. With the constant strife between innumerable factions and the impetuous temperament of the parti- zans, it is but natural that they should seek the surer method of special appeal, since the circumscribed NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALS. 543 limits of the press afforded so little scope. Bold assertion here replaces fact, and emphasis diverts attention from the inherent weakness in charges or defence, while a fiery tone and occasional bombast strive to stir the feelings. Many appear in the form of catechisms, allegories, political testaments, and the like. Superficiality and vapor have unfortunately been allowed to stamp nearly every branch of literature, attention being directed rather toward brief and petty than grand and elaborate efforts. So also in critical essays the writers are prone to pick out trifles, and exhaust themselves on details, instead of grasping general features. There is a manifest lack of discrimination, of judgment, with a leaning for the Quixotic traits of Zoilus, rather than the staid observations of an Aristarchus. I need here instance only Pimental, one volume of whose Historia Gritica de la Literatura comes to hand after the writing of this treatise, yet in time for the interpolation of a few remarks upon it. He displays varied reading and a retentive memory of foreign literature no less than of the critical works of Schlegel, Sismondi, Ticknor, and others, and applies their analysis of European literature with great effect, so far, to Mexican poetry by classes and in general. But there are many drawbacks, as in the application of rigid, tasteless rules to the measurement and versification, and in the encumbering of the text with prolonged dissections of isolated words, wherein a mass of very proper expressions are ruled out as prosiac; words like naked are condemned as indecent, and so forth. These inequalities and extremes, which are national rather than individual, do not, however, overshadow the many excellencies of a work which promises to be the first history of literature for Mexico, by one of her ablest literary men. Among earlier critics La Cortina has achieved consideration, although too great attention to trivialities lowers the value of his efforts. Estrada y Lecler and Ignacio Ramirez reach a higher o44 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. plane in treatment, but give less evidence of originality and insight. Literature is stamped throughout by the volatile disposition of the race, covered to some extent by a Castilian dignity of exterior, yet -peering forth in the extreme politeness of manner, and in the superficiality of education and application. A prominent trait in connection herewith is the disposition for frivolous banter and playful mockery, which find utterance in humorous and satiric sheets, and wide response from the social circle, with its mischievous yet innocent gaiety, and from the more severe sarcasms of the pamphleteer. The latter resorts to broad similes or direct allusions rather than to subtler delineations; hence the presence of many features, objectionable to the differently trained ideas of northern people, but which on the other hand are far less prevalent than supposed in the amatory poetry. Satire pertains- to the Indian element as much as to the Spanish, although the latter bears an impress of its refined Horatian prototype. It comes therefore more naturally to the Mexican than humor or wit. For the last he possesses vivacious readiness, but not originality; for humor he relies chiefly upon a rollicking mimicry in accord with the talent for imitation, but which differs alike from the sneering conceit of the Briton and ,the contrasting self-ridicule of the American, while striving to approach the middle course of the French. An innate vanity and the easy structure of the language forbid the adoption of the successful American method, while peculiar race and class condition and a democratic spirit oppose the other. During the colonial regime the indulgence was held within bounds, but the revolution gave it free reins, and it turned particularly against the then expanding taste for French models, against a declining clergy, and against political parties, with their scrambling aspirants. SATIRE AND HUMOR. 545 Foremost in this field were Fernandez de Lizardi andJuan Bautista Morales, the latter well known through his Gallo Pitagorico, suggested by Lucian, and abounding in vivacious comments on society and politics, wherein he has figured as governor. Far more prolific, though less spirited, was Lizardi, one of the first to avail himself of the liberty of the press, granted in 1812, by publishing the sharp political journal El Pensador, a name ever after applied to him. Persecution only gave zest, and his pen flowed freely amid the dissolution of social and political institutions, doing good service to the cause of a regenerating independence. His attacks in different sheets or pamphlets concentrated gradually against the obnoxious elements in church and society transmitted from colonial times. His chief work in the satiric novel El Periquillo Sarmiento, of the Gil Bias type, although approaching more closely to the pwaresco form of Lazarillo de Tormes, with features borrowed from Montesquieu. Its observations on society are attributed to a traveller, whose comparisons are mainly drawn from Chinese manners and institutions. The political feeling of the time, and the state of transition, tended toward the success of the book; although it never was well received by the higher classes, and not unjustly so in view of its vulgar tone and unsavory incidents. Nor can it exact much admiration for inventive power or spirit. There is an excess of cold moralizing, and too little humor. Nevertheless the work stands foremost in its field for Mexico. His Don Catrin and Quijotita are both of the picaresco order, that is, good-naturedly malicious, the former less pretentious but far better than the other. The author was the son of a doctor, born in Mexico in 1771, and well educated; persecution and comparative neglect long attended him.4 Lizardi wrote some fables which are still quoted. In this line he had a rival in J. N. Troncoso, the publisher of the first journal at Puebla. Both were sur- Essays and Miscellany 35 546 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. passed in due time by Jose* Rosas y Moreno, whose simple yet elegant productions merit for him recognition as the La Fontaine of Mexico no less than as the children's poet. Ochoa, the lyric and dramatic writer, contributed some satiric letrillas which may be classed among the best in the language. El Jarabe of Zamacois presents a series of jocose and piquant sketches of Mexican society, widely appreciated. Among satires of a political stamp are several of Carlos Bustainante's shorter pieces, and such specimens as Arellano's Ados, although neither exhibit the humorous vein that runs through Gimenez' Ensayos Magneticos, 1849. Santa- cilia's Genio del Mai, 1861, is directed against the clergy and aristocracy, but with a less pronounced burlesque spirit. The effects of independence on oratory became evident in more than one direction. Secure in the absolute sway to which government policy lent every aid, the pulpit in colonial times confined itself leisurely either to the conventional homiletics or to descriptive appeals. The revolution roused it from this contented indolence and opened a wider field. This movement, started and led by clergymen, in itself induced the cloth very generally to dwell on political questions, while the spread of liberal or even heretical views stirred them to action for the defense of the church and professional existence, and for retaining their hold on the public. Infidelity had to be met with arguments, and stolidity with eloquence. Doubt was encountered with arms drawn from the very country of Voltaire, although in imitation of a Bossuet and Massilon. Hidalgo himself found it necessary at the opening of his campaigns to rise in defense of the church; and this in an address which confirms the oratorical power of the great leader. That stirring period gave rise to several orators, which an epigram thus characterizes: Sanchadiverts,Sartorio converts, Uribe assumes, and Dimas confounds. Sartorio, if not ORATORICAL DEVELOPMENT. 547 a perfect speaker, deserved to have applied to him the words, "vir bonus, peritus dicendi" of the ancients. The revivalist tours, especially of the religious orders, assisted to maintain a fiery delivery; but the lofty and profound eloquence exhibited in France is of rare occurrence in the Spanish race, and rarer still in the Indian. The change in judicial methods, in accordance with suggestions presented by foreign tribunals, has. not failed to disclose a wider range for the legal profession, with additional incentive for rhetorical display. But the great feature in oratory has been its development in connection with politics, which is indeed a new phase, since no assembly existed in colonial times wherein to foster debate, and no election field for the unfolding of harangue. Fluency of tongue was innate, as well as vivacity and grace; they needed but freedom of speech and motive. Both were granted by the revolution, whose great cause gave the primary inspiration, while stirring themes were presented in its incidents, its heroes and martyrs. If the discourse lacks depth, conviction supplies a gap; if unity and sequence fail, a sympathetic cord is touched; while soaring and inflated language, intoned by loose impulsive emphasis and freely assisted by gesture, shed over all a gloss and infuse a spirit which cannot fail to influence audiences equally emotional. The Mexican possesses a natural eloquence, which, like his volatile disposition, brooks little the interference of studied order and intonation. The latter does not accord well with our ideas, for it follows a quantitative rather than accentuated rhythm. Among parliamentary speakers Ezequiel Montes, of Queretaro, received the special encomiums of Cas- telar. Luis de la Rosa, a minister of state like the other, wielded great influence with his eloquence. Gutierrez Otero also ranked high, and Governor Chav- ero now stands among the foremost, although some prefer the more fiery alcalde, or point to inspired Zamacona. 548 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. The formality of the Spanish epistolar* writing, aggravated by the frequent use of titles and polite terms, was intensified in America with caste distinction and strife for position, and gradually a stiff legal phraseology crept in which accorded well enough with inherited Spanish dignity. Indeed, the few admired? specimens date back to the time prior to Juana de la Cruz, whose Carta a Filotea is stamped by the pedantic turgidity of the period. The acknowledged masterpieces are from the pen of Oidor Salazar de Alarcon, figuring at the advent of the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, several women of the present age assist in upholding here the superiority accorded to their sex in this branch. The characteristic fondness of Iberians for proverbs has by no means been lost in transplanting, and the additions made are many of them peculiar to the new environment. The same spirit that prompted the issue of political pamphlets impelled to a great extent the more ambitious efforts at history writing. The beginning of revolutionary movements brought out several persons eager to rush into print for the defence of principles, or personal conduct, such as Cancelada, known chiefly as a journalist, Alcocer, and Villa Urrutia; but lack of time, means, and patronage limited the projects to insignificant productions. A higher aim animated Doctor Mier y Guerra, a Dominican from Monterey, whose unjust persecution for certain liberal expressions in a sermon led him to abandon his profession and become a wanderer and pamphleteer. His ability induced Viceroy Iturrigaray to engage him as a writer in his defence, but he drifted into pronounced revolutionary sentiments; the patron withdrew, and the doctor was cast into a debtor's prison. This cut short the continuation of the work, limiting the narration from 1808 till the beginning of 1813, a period of unsurpassed interest and importance for Mexican history. Research and erudition are evident, but marred by a CARLOS MARIA BUSTAMANTE. 549 lack of calm discrimination, and by strong bias. The treatment is, moreover, rambling, with inconsiderate digressions, and the text is burdened with quotations and trivialities, defects which the frequent instances of vigorous and pleasing style are not sufficient to redeem. Doctor Mora, of Guanajuato, clergyman, and later foreign minister, took a wider view of the same subject in tracing its causes from the very conquest, and its effect in the social and political condition of the republic. While seeking to correct the false or partisan views of others, he falls into equally narrow ruts, and does not display sufficient depth in his speculations, but he surpasses in clearness, and comprehensive and symmetric treatment. These qualities have not been displayed by the chronicler Anastasio Zerecero, who while borrowing liberally from preceding works, restricts himself in the main to an apologetic review of Hidalgo. Lorenzo de Zavala, on the other hand, uses the incidents of colonial times rather as stepping-stones to a description of the disorders during the first decade of republican rule. He sides with the lower factions in a most decided manner, intrudes his own person and gubernatorial acts on every possible occasion, and breaks the historic chain with frequent controversies and deviations, which are not infrequently redeemed, however, by vivid portrayals. The most comprehensive historian for the first half of this century is Carlos Maria Bustamante, a man who figured prominently throughout this period, and early attached himself to the cause of independence, henceforth to become the most zealous champion of republicanism. With a passion for writing, he drifted from law into journalism, and thence into history, and is said to have left as many as eighty volumes of diaries alone. The Cuadro Historico, in six volumes, forms the beginning and the most important of the historical series, which contains more than a dozen LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. sets, although several are to a great extent mere elaborations of periods already covered in preceding parts. He also wrote a number of biographies, religious dissertations, and other treatises, and edited several valuable works on aboriginal rites and history, and on colonial rule, adding notes and supplements. The edited Series may be regarded as an introduction to his own, so that the two combined embrace all Mexican history to 184*8. While showing diligent research he is careless and hasty, and ever ready to accept even absurd statements so long as they do not interfere with his personal bias. In earlier works he is, for instance, quite rabid against the Spaniards; later this feeling is turned against the Anglo-Americans; and throughout pervades a bigotry which is singularly extreme on religious topics. To this he subordinates everything else when they meet, and only too frequently he seeks a divine or miraculous agency to explain incidents. After independence he constituted himself a censor of nearly every administration. His strong prejudices and fiery and erratic impulses are perceptible in style, marked by unmethodical arrangement, unwarranted digressions, and consequent lack of coherency. While not wanting in graphic, and even lofty passages, the diction is on the whole inflated and slovenly, with a stamp of fitful emphasis. In short, the absence of study in subject, treatment, and language tend greatly to lower Bustamante's claim as historian; but his material, based partly on personal observations, partly on documents now inaccessible, will remain an imperishable monument to his indefatigable and patriotic zeal. An instance of the use to be made of his labors is given by Mendivil,who in 1828 found it well to reduce the Guadro Histdrico to the more reasonable form of a Reslimen in one volume. A most striking contrast to this voluminous writer is presented in the works of the able minister Lticas Alaman, who, with almost equal ardor, combined HISTORY AND POLITICS. 551 deeper research, irreproachable care, and admirable discrimination. He not only declaimed against the bitter tirade of Spanish historians, and the blind zeal of Mexicans, displayed in accounts of the revolution, but he saw the need for a more impartial and thorough version. At first a fear of public feeling withheld him; but finally he acquired courage, and issued the Historia de Mejico, which is undoubtedly the most valuable publication of its kind. He proposed to cover also the republican period, but the apathy with which the first volumes were received must have discouraged him; he certainly hurried his work to an abrupt close. Conscientious research is evident throughout, but despite the striving for impartiality, marked prejudices crop out. The instincts of the aristocratic Creole cling to him, and he cannot conceal his contempt for the Indian and mixed races by and for whom the revolution was mainly achieved. To him they are an inhuman rabble, and in their leaders he recognizes nothing meritorious. Toward the royalist he is even tender, while Iturbide is persistently upheld as a hero above all comparison. The treatment of his subject is able, and the style, while frequently constrained and laden with Americanisms, is clear and attractive, and even elegant. The Americans are purposely introduced, with an assertion that it is but right and appropriate to do so in a Mexican work. The length of this history, the Iturbidist bias, and other defects induced Liceaga to issue a condensed and corrected version of it in 1868.' Alaman's research and careful study are still more displayed in the Disserta- eiones, a series of revised lectures on episodes in colonial times, notably on the career of Cortes. With the establishment of republican regime, Santa Anna comes into prominence as the leading figure, round whom all others may be said to group; and this position he holds, with occasional intervals until Juarez rises like him on the ruins of an ephemeral empire, but to a nobler elevation. Santa Anna's LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. career is stamped rather with intrigue and jugglery than patriotism and statesmanship, sustained chiefly by the party spirit created by him and engaged in bitter contention, while he watched to turn the issue to his own advantage. The history for all his period bears the impress of this division and strife, certain writers like Suarez y Navarro assuming the defence of the dictator, while others, like Portilla, Payno, Tornal, and Filisola, uphold the conduct of his opponents or subordinates. The Revistas of Minister Iglesias on the French intervention is a disjointed mass of material hastily prepared in the interest of the Juarez party, and full of gaps, repetitions, and misstatements. Vigil and Ibi- jar's account for the same and subsequent periods of operations on the west coast is more complete, but it descends rather into a biography of General Corona, and is confusing and dull in detail and style. Far abler than these, and more in the style of Alaman, although with less research and effort at impartiality, is the Mejico of Arrangoiz, whose main object is to defend the upholders of Maximilian's empire. Ignacio Alvarez attempted a comprehensive general history of the country; but while exhibiting both system and symmetry he is superficial and biased, and careless in style as well as statements. Zamacois covers the same field in a voluminous series, which dwindles however into a mere feuilleton history, compiled from a few of the most available books on each period, with evident haste, to the sacrifice of both uniformity and critique, from a Spanish standpoint, and with marked hostility toward the English race. He is indeed a Spaniard, although long connected with Mexico. His productions as poet, novelist, and journalist are also conspicuous in style, with its tiresome prolixity, exaggerations, and digressions, its inappropriate dramatic efforts and florid diction. A superior historical method, combining considerable research, careful arrangement, and great fairness, PATRIOTISM AND PARTISANSHIP. 553 must be credited to the Historia de Yucatan of Governor Ancona, which wholly eclipses any provincial work of the kind in Mexico. It may well serve as a model both to writers in general and to the many special state historians who are now endeavoring to cover a long existing defect, and to supply material for a more thorough work on the republic. To this end serve also a number of annals for towns, which authors have been led to undertake no less from family reasons than from an anticipation of local patronage connected with the district pride so strongly developed in Mexico during colonial isolation, and subsequently during long revolutionary feuds. Romero, Gil, Rivera, and Gonzalez are among prominent local annalists, and Manual Pay no, Esendero, La- cunza, Arr6niz, Barcena, and Lerdo de Tejada figure with credit as contributors to history.5 Among historical commentators who have sought to combine a review of events with social and political science, may be named Gonzaga Cuevas and Tadco Ortiz, both imbued with most sound and liberal views for the regeneration of their country, and Victor Jose Martinez, who exhibits greater profundity, but also decided religio-aristocratic leanings that accord little with progressive republican tendencies around him. The wide attention roused by Prescott's work on Aztec culture and the conquest served to impart method to the reviving interest of Mexicans in these topics, and the foremost scholars of the country, such as Alaman, Ramirez, Icazbalceta, Orozco y Berra, Pimentel, and Larrainzar hastened to supplement the production by publishing documents, notes, and essays, on which much labor and thought had been bestowed. Orozco y Berra went farther and resolved with the light of the latest investigations to undertake a new examination of the whole subject, including the history of the aborigines, based more largely on their own testimony. Upon this task he concen- 554 LITERATURE OP MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. trated the fruit of his previous researches on geography, idioms, and peoples. The result was a work which for comprehensiveness and value in this respect, surpasses any native effort. Unfortunately the author has not bestowed sufficient care on the arrangement and treatment of his material. Subjects are introduced without due sequences, and at different times, with repetitions; the text is burdened with discussions and trivialities, and the interest is further broken by needless straggling. In this connection may be mentioned the ambitious work of Larrainzar on American ruins, notably those of Mexico, with speculations on the origin of Indians and their institutions. It certainly bears the evidence. of both learning and research, but the descriptions and comparisons are hardly ever followed by any original observations of value, and quotations and points from a vast array of authorities are often introduced with little discrimination as to value or fitness. Indeed, the main effort of the author appears directed to a display of his acquaintance with classic and archae- ologic lore, and of his turgid style.6 The defects observable especially in the last two writers are shared more or less by almost all their brethren. It would appear as if they had still before their eyes the random chronicles of the inflation period. The real cause of the fault lies, however, in the national impulsiveness, which chafes under the restraint of method and prolonged application, and delights in superficial gloss. In yielding, therefore, to the bent for imitation, they are apt to seize upon surface attraction, passing by blindly or impatiently the pervading principles, the subtler thoughts, spirit, harmony, and philosophic sequence. Generalization and reflection exhibit the lack of system and depth in false or imperfect views, and where more elaborate efforts appear they are usually governed by a mathematical adhesion to studied rules which fails to grasp the main truths. The course of events in Mexico BIOGRAPHIES. 555 seems to be impressed upon the style of their record. Freed from the depressing sway and censorship of colonial days, writers pressed forward in tumultuous partisan attacks, and in defence of patrons and standard, the liberals and conservatives, or churchmen, forming the two principal bodies. Adhesion to one of these sides seems imperative, to the sacrifice of truth and justice. Even Alaman, so punctilious in his striving for impartiality, stumbles over race and class feeling. Passion, fickleness, and impatience overrule critical discrimination and treatment, and the structure of the language favors redundancy and looseness. Notwithstanding a certain dramatic instinct, striking episodes rarely receive effective presentation, most attempts in this direction relying on florid display. The achievement of independence and the consequent revival of local traditions and inherited glories, with the exaltation of contemporary as well as ancient leaders, gave impulse particularly to collective biography. The general strife for political and military positions, and a conspicious vanity, tended in the same direction. With a change in the taste which marked the colonial period, from the lives of ascetics and martyrs to hero worship, concentrated on such men as Hidalgo, Iturbide, and Juarez, numerous followers manifested a desire to share by association in the lustre of their achievements. The most voluminous writers in this branch are Manuel Rivera and Francisco Sosa. The Gobernantes de Mexico of the former is really an account of events under the rule of the respective viceroys and governors, full of tiresome detail massed with little symmetry or judgment, and partaking of the other defects observable in his Historia de Jalapa; yet it fills a perceptible gap. It presents a contrast to the many so-called histories of epochs in Mexico, which are properly biographies by partisans, or disguised autobiographies. 556 LITERATURE OF MEXICO-NINETEENTH CENTURY. Of more general character is the Biografias de Mexi- canos Distinguidos of Sosa, which claims to embrace prominent men in all the liberal professions, as well as statesmen and soldiers, but the selection displays a preference for writers, including a host of petty poets, notably of Yucatan, to whom he devotes a special little volume. The sketches are mere outlines of career, with little or no attempt at analysis of character. His more pretentious Episcopado Mexicano possesses greater historic value by devoting itself to so influential a class as the archbishops of a priest- ruled country, but in treatment it is no improvement upon the former, for conciseness is here broken by the introduction of petty detail.7 Far superior to either in careful selection and style is the Hombres Bustres, edited by Gallo, and written by a number of the ablest literary men in the republic. It falls largely into tame narrative, but several of the sketches exhibit research as well as study and critique, and tend to lift the work to the foremost rank in its line. Among individual biographies the first place must properly be accorded, by virtue of its form, to Baz' Vida de Juarez. It does not surpass the choice articles in the preceding work; indeed, the delineation of traits, the study of effect and counter-effect between the man and his acts and surroundings, the sounding of the depths in human nature, are little considered; yet these are general rather than personal short-comings, and the work remains one of the best specimens of extended efforts by Mexicans in a field well occupied, chiefly by obituary panegyrics, marred by efforts at rhetorical display. The church now appeals less to biography as a means to inculcate devotion. The cause lies not alone in the transition of its members from somewhat passive to more active life, enforced by political changes and public opinion, but in the suppression of monastic orders. The independence war brought about a him il- PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. 557 iarity of mingling which detracted greatly from the influence of the clergy. Similar was the result of their subsequent attitude as the chief promoters of the prolonged patricidal wars, in the struggle to maintain control over the masses and to perpetuate superstitions. Their defeat and humiliation and the satiric abuse of the liberals all tended to lower religious feeling and foster among the men at least a wide disregard for topics once held sacred, and a parade of atheism. One effect has been to give a truer direction to clerical labors, to pulpit oratory, and to special periodicals and tracts. The decline of pastoral, moral, and symbolic theology among publications is due also to a change in taste among the reading classes, under a wider range of topics. Yet it is to be observed that among notable writers, in the latter respects, figure prominently such political and civil personages as Bustamante and Mendivil. Both uphold zealously, in bulky pages, the miraculous appearance of the Guadalupe virgin image, a subject likewise defended by Marin, Guridi and others, against the growing skepticism. This tendency has not failed to produce a change in polemic efforts, from the so exclusive patristic, to a more rationalizing method, wherein the utterances of Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Chateaubriand are freely used or debated. The position here held in the preceding century by men like Palafox and Alegre was prominently occupied, among others, by Bishop Munguia of Michoacan, whose defense of the church against government encroachment has procured him no less fame as a champion than his contributions to moral theology as a thinker, and spirited and elegant writer.8 For their philosophy the Mexicans have as a rule been content with translations from European writers, and so with political economy. Synoptical compilations are well represented, and have assisted to guide the numerous essayists, prompting them also to wider study and to original speculations, as instanced in Mora's Libertad cfe Comercio, and in Pimentel's article. LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. While efforts in linguistics have not been so frequent as before, with the decline of the religious orders they have developed into the higher analytic and comparative studies for which the country presents so vast a field. Herein the talented Gomez de la Cortina has distinguished himself as a prolific writer, and Pimentel for comprehensive and admirable investigations. His Cuadro received wide recognition as one of the most important works on American languages, and was rewarded with a gold medal from the Instituto of France. An admirable adjunct to it exists in the Geografiade las Lenguas of Orozco y Berra, whose varied contributions on geographic and statistical subjects procured for him much popularity and honor. More numerous on these topics, and marked by clearness and judgment, are the works of Garcia Cubas. Diaz Covarrubias stands forward as the most prominent among Mexican astronomers; his treatises in this field and also on geodesy have been received as text-books, and commanded.attention also abroad for their new methods of observation. In geology and botany Mariano Bare en a has achieved for himself equal distinction. Many more are following in paths opened by these men, to strive for similar usefulness and success, and to advance still further the honorable position acquired by Mexico in scientific circles. Payno, Gil, Hernandez, and San Miguel figure among the host of statistical workers, roused by the precepts of the geographic society of Mexico, which has also fostered the study of natural history, physics, and similar branches of science, and incited travellers to publish their observations for the benefit of the home-dwellers. In nearly all of these productions however, there is so far a marked unevenness, with a frequent admixture of puerilities and enthusiastic vagary, while the examinations and discussions are either imperfectly carried out or lacking in depth; but better methods are gaining ground. FICTION. 559 Among the paternal measures which characterized colonial regime was one restricting the circulation of prose fiction as dangerous to the political and moral condition. The more mature folk in the peninsula might indulge in works even decidedly loose and blasphemous, but the colonists were regarded somewhat like children, who must be the more closely guarded against the absorption of noxious ideas, since they were so remote from the controlling hand of the ruler. The ecclesiastical powers were only too eager to support a law which operated above all in their interests, and Bishop Palafox took active steps to suppress all novels and similar books that he could find.10 Spasmodic as were these efforts, they served at least to increase the difficulties with which a local aspirant in this field would have to contend. The taste for reading manifested toward the close of the colonial period could not fail to direct attention greatly to fiction; and France, and Spain, and even England and Germany were called upon to meet the demand. The clergy continued to wage war on the immoral publications which flow freely, especially from France, and prevailed on the government to lend its aid. These sources are still so extensively drawn from, that Mexican novelists, who may be said to have come into existence only within the last few decades, find comparatively little encouragement. The most pretentious are historic novels by such men as Juan Mateos and Riva Palacio. The Sacer- dote y Caudillo and Insurgentes of the former treat of the independence struggle, the Sacerdote representing Hidalgo, and his Sol de Mayo touches the French intervention. Palacio continues the subject in his Gal- varh y Tabor, closing with the overthrow of Maximilian. The latter deals chiefly with the lower •classes, and introduces a number of stirring incidents from their life to sustain a flickering interest. Mateos rises to a higher social level, and keeps close to the military leaders who form his heroes; but while 560 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. the frequent introduction of battles and political affairs give a historic value to the volumes, the nature and place of the digressions are such as to interfere greatly with the interest, although the appeals to patriotic sympathies no doubt serve as compensation. Lack of .symmetry cannot be complained of in the similar class of novels by Ancona, the able historian of Yucatan, who has also used the romantic incidents culled during his annalistic researches, with such effect as to merit a reprint at Paris of two stories. Nevertheless they are somewhat weighted by the hand of the journalist and investigator, and this becomes more apparent in the Mestiza, which differs from the others in relating to middle-class life. Far inferior to these is Trebarra's Misterios de Chan, relating to insurrectionary incidents in Yucatan, which represents a class of novelettes, disjointed in treatment and in style, and springing from the brain of feeble enthusiasts. The Gil Gomez of Covarrubias, which covers the same scenes as Mateo's Sacerdote, has a more Spanish stamp than the preceding, and concentrates its strength rather upon love incidents; the author feels therefore at home when treating of ordinary life, as in La Close Media. The tender passion is all-absorbing with Florencio del Castillo. He leads indeed in sentiment, but the sameness of mould in which his heroines are cast, pure and sweet, yet melancholy, and the general tinge of sadness, are apt to pall upon the reader. He introduces absurd and broadly suggestive climaxes, as well as strange and inappropriate phrases, and exhibits other crudities hardly in accord with the praise lavished by admirers, who call him the Balzac of Mexico. His best work is Hermana cfe los Angeles. Roberto Esteva's few efforts savor of the same spirit. Fernando, Orozco y Berra, brother of the archaeologist, wrote a novel in the style of Karr, which, like his poems, breathes the sorrow of disappointed love, and indicates the broken spirit that faded POETRY. 561 away with the completion of the volume. J. M. Ramirez represents a large class of feuilleton novelists, whose productions seldom pass into more permanent form. Maturer in their aspect of life, and of wider scope, are the works of Jose de Cuellar; but while marked by a vivacious flow the plot is feeble and the narrative rambling. Nearly all the novels savor of French models, in style as well as subject. Nevertheless, affairs of the heart are depicted in a more tender vein, a reverential mean between the impassioned fervor and extreme suggestiveness of the Gaul. Indeed, the love scenes surpass any other in attraction and power. They exhibit in a marked degree the soft melancholy which so widely pervades the literature. The portrayal of character is not effective, and it declines either into surface delineations, or leaves very marked gaps. In the adherence to subject and the evolving of plot, there is also a neglect that mars otherwise spirited narration. The Mexican is altogether too absorbed with particular features to maintain the necessary balance, or attend to symmetry. There is a tendency to apostrophize, to indulge in vague, imperfect philosophizing, which is attributable partly to the affectation and floridity impressed during the cultismo period, and still widely sustained by language-structure and popular predilections. The dialogues are easy and vivacious, although stamped by the general lack of completeness, of finish. From this it may readily be understood that the short tales which abound in periodicals, signed by Payno, Fidel, Barcena, and others, possess many excellencies, from the mere necessity for conciseness, which favors the more effective features to the exclusion of the defects pertaining to elaboration in larger and more pretentious works.11 The close of the colonial period forms in Mexico a transition epoch also in poetry, from the revival of classic models so general toward the end of the cen- Essays and Miscellany 36 562 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. tury, to the liberal admission of French, English, and even Teutonic literature. The change could not fail to prove beneficial, for the imitation fostered by the revival was so slavish as to shackle the imagination and hamper all effort at independent flight. The opening of a wider field, and the free entry of varied types, gave opportunity and impulses that affected even those who still clung to the Latin masters. Spanish ideas remained supreme, however, and during the transition becomes apparent the influence of Me- lendez and his companions, who in the peninsula were struggling to establish a new school in connection with the philosophic spirit then invading its limits. Although the disorders of the revolution and subsequent republican regime were a serious drawback to the cultivation of letters, and political aspirations assisted to draw devotees to more absorbing pursuits, nevertheless poetry, like history and certain other branches, found herein fresh sources for inspiration, prompted by newly acquired freedom. At times, indeed, war and patriotism wholly overshadowed the other sources for lyric efforts, in public and private reunions and celebrations, and in the serenade and cognate amenities of a peculiar courtship, here fostered by the seclusion of woman. Foreign intercourse gave zest also to other verse, chiefly by presenting varied forms for study, since the country itself provided an abundance of themes, and offered ever-increasing encouragement to writers through multiplying periodicals and associations. While turning from religious topics, the foreign schools fostered subjective and reflective compositions in richer and freer courses, and instilled a higher regard for nature. In each of the different branches appears a special revival or inaugural under successive leaders, the first being lyric and descriptive. The Latinists, headed by Abad, and the G6ngorist-tinged followers of Ruiz de Leon had both to yield before the new order of things, heralded >by the Franciscan friar Manuel POETRY AND THE DRAJMA. 563 Navarrete, who shines during the opening decade of our century with a lustre so surpassing as to procure for him the cognomen of the American swan. He was a native of Michoacan, born in 1768, and began writing at an early period, but modesty restrained him from giving any poem to the public till 1805, and then anonymously. When on his death-bed, in 1809, he burned a number of his productions, including dramas, it appears; but enough of printed and manuscript pieces were gathered by Valdes, and issued at Mexico in 1823 to make two 12o volumes. Editions also came out in Peru, and at Paris in 1835, while many poems were reprinted in collections. His vast superiority over almost every predecessor in New Spain is evident throughout his range of pastorals and varied lyrics. While the first are pervaded by a light jocular vein, strains appear even here of the sweet melancholy which stamp the greater part of his productions. Como en un ramillete Advierte en esta obrilla, Las mas preciosas flores Que los tiempos marchitan I Ay edad halagiiefia! Huyeron tus delicias, Sin dejarme otros frutos Que punzantes espinas. His bucolics are least regarded, and justly so, for there fashion and imitation left the strongest mark. Although a friar by profession, he was an apt disciple of Anacreon, though chaste tenderness and purity breathe in every line. His greatest power lies, however, in religious and elegiac efforts, which abound in touching sentiment and rise occasionally into lofty imagery. In El Alma Privada de la Gloria he surrenders himself freely to impassioned monody. Melancdlico vago por el mundo, Como hurtando el semblante a la alegrfa, Conformes solo con mi triste idea Son tus lugubres sombras, tu profundo Silencio, noche obscura i Eterno Dios! de donde se desprende Contra mi alma el raudal de tus enojos Que en tu furor la enciende. 564 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. I Fallezco ? en el instante me parece Que el hermoso espectaculo del mundo Con sempiterna noche se oscurece. Sale del hondo pecho, el mas profundo, El ultimo suspiro, en que lanzada Va mi alma a tu presencia Aterranla tus ojos, y el sereno Resplandor de tu rostro le parece Nube que anuncia rayo formidable Cuando truena el Olimpo y se enardece. He has evidently read Young, as well as Melendez and others. His defects are of the time no less than of himself, as instanced by the often inappropriate use of mythologic similes. While uneven and faulty in prosody, he is fluent and unaffected. He is sweet rather than strong or profound, and the swan is a designation quite in keeping with his strain, and also with the change now coming over the spirit of poetry. He could rise to fiery vigor, however, as shown in his celebration of Fernando's ascent to the throne, for which he received six prize medals. The insurrection begins, and servile loyalty is transformed into bombastic patriotism. Heroes and national martyrs take the place of kings and governors; fetters are cast off, and portals are opened to liberal and cosmopolitan ideas. Several poets feel the impulse and sing to the dawning era, notably Sanchez de Ta- gle, who had long remained loyal, but finally turned to the new dominant power, hailing it in lofty odes. Satisfied with duty performed, he thereupon sought the more alluring range of erotics; yet this was hardly his forte. He lacks the tenderness of Navarrete, and displays a robust vivacity which hovers round surface attractions to the neglect of the spiritual traits. In the sonnets he approaches Argensola, and in the more exalted paean which- contains his. happiest lines he reveals a study of Herrera. Of Humboldt he writes: Aguila audaz, que remontando el vuelo Por los orbes de luz sin pausa giras, Y con ardiente celo Les dictas leyes y obediencia inspiras; Pesas de cada cual la masa inmensa, La drbita encuentras, Ja distancia mides. POETRY AND THE DRAMA. 565 To God he sings: Bajo tus pies, el tiempo en raudo vuelo Pasa, arrollando deleznales seres : Pueblan voraz el suelo, Y pasan, y no son—ij tu? Siempre eres. His imitation is limited to form, however, and above all to the classic. Herein he stands the foremost representative of the century among his countrymen, admired for chaste unaffected diction no less than for vigorous and fiery inspiration. Like Navarrete he consigned most of his poems to the flames, but his son preserved enough to form two volumes. His death was hastened in 1847, at the age of sixty-six, by the United States invasion, the deplorable incidents of which struck deep into the patriotic soul of a man who had for several decades served his country in important positions, as Spanish regidor and deputy, and as republican senator and governor for Michoacan, his native state. Quintana Poo, a prominent journalist and president of the first independent congress during the revolution, ranks among the earliest restorers of good taste in Mexico, with his correct and graceful verse. A later exponent of the classicism is Manuel Perez Salazar, a prominent Pueblan ; but with less originality than Tagle, he sinks too frequently into a cold formality, which has not tended to gain favor for his school. He excels in didactic pieces. In the path of Tagle moved also the brothers Lacunza, especially Juan, whose early death in 1843 cut short a promising career. With vivid imagination he combined a passionate tenderness and sweet sadness that shone admirably in his amatory verses. Equal suavity, but less range of fancy, is displayed by Francisco Bocanegra. The influence of foreign intercourse is observed in the departure inaugurated by Eodriguez Galvan, best known as the dramatist who introduced the romantic school. His forte lies in patriotic appeals, wherein he exhibits a spirited idealism, combined with a clear, chaste style, a sensitive delicacy, and a pathos border- 566 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. ing on profound melancholy. The latter pervades all his verses to some extent, reflecting the sorrows and disappointments of his curtailed life. It is particularly displayed in his Busion, which is described as * * * Un soplo leve Que la lampara reanima Y la apaga. Es cual rapido placer Que arrebata & la muger Su hermosura. Brisa que mece las flores Robandoles sus olores Y frescura. His translations from Lamartine and other French writers are exceedingly good. Galvan has been considered as the poet who introduced romanticism in Mexico. Fernando Calderon takes a step further into the romantic, and fairly, revels in ideal creations that combine noble ardor with tender passion. In singing to Amira, he neatly observes, Tus risas son amores, Y amor es tu mirar. But he is above all effective in patriotic pieces, uniting lofty thoughts with fiery utterance, and reaching at times a vivid intensity that places him in this field above any countryman. Glory, he calls, * * * palabra sonora, Que repiten la tierra y el cielo, Del sufrido soldado consuelo, De los heroes brillante deidad. The Sueno del Tirano is of Byronian strength. Del lecho se lanza Con grito doliente, Se inunda su frente De frio sudor. Parece que escucha La voz del destino, Y el trueno divino, De justo furor. Sus ojos cansados Anhelan el llanto, Mas nunca su encanto Probd la maldad. The rhyme is after Garcilaso. Among his best lyric and descriptive compositions are El Soldado de la Libertad, Los Becuerdos, La Rosa Marchita, of eclectic type, and El Porvenir. Marcos Arr6niz represents the ultra-romanticists, with a Byronian pessimism POETRY. 567 tinged by the bitterness of rejected love. The novelist Covarrubias indulged in similar effusions. The sentimentalists have a striking exponent in Juan Valle, related to the first president of the republic. Blind from early boyhood, he was, nevertheless, exposed to political persecution for his ardent party spirit, and had thus a double origin for his pathos. He was essentially the poet of the revolutions, but indulged also in sacred and erotic verse, pure and fluent. His descriptive lines leave no defects to indicate his affliction. ' . The, love bard is a cognomen applied to L. G. Ortiz, from the predominating character of his pieces in the two volumes so far issued. The imagery is delicate, and frequently of a high order. The sonnets are admirable. Ortiz has also acquired reputation for translations and novels. M. M. Flores is a rival in his particular field, whose fiery invocations, combined with a certain originality, procured a speedy second edition for his Pasionarias collection. Another contributor of great fecundity is A. L. Gallardo, of Guanajuato, the founder of a Spanish journal in California, where he died a few years ago. The three volumes issued by him, including some tales, breathe the spirit of the love-stricken exile. Of a different stamp are the productions of A. M. Ochoa y Acuna, a priest by profession, and of pure Spanish descent, whose best known pieces indicate one of those . portly, merry curates to be found in Hispano-American country parishes, but who) really appears to have been of a sedate temperament, addicted above all to books. His extensive reading was displayed in numerous translations from Latin, French, and Italian writers, which found little appreciation. From his own pen flowed odes, sonnets, satires, the former altogether too imitative, with less sentiment than piquancy and suggestion. Their light-tripping lines were especially adapted to the satires and epigrams on which his fame mainly rests, and for which LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. he stands unapproached among his countrymen. Indeed, in many respects he equals and even surpasses Gongora and Quevedo, the foremost Spaniards in this field. He is good-natured and quizzical rather than stinging, free from trivialities as well as personalities, and observes a decorum and delicacy that raised him far above Lizardi. Another merit is the avoidance, both in translations and compositions, of the gallicism which was corrupting the language. One instance of his style will suffice: A un paje nada dormido Dijo, dandole un papel, Cierta dama: ve con el Y entregalo £ mi querido. No era la primera vez Que iba el paje, pues tomo El papel, y preguntd: Senora £& cual de los diez? Lines of five syllables are frequently used. Of the two volumes of his poetry issued at New York as Poesias de un Mejicano, the second is devoted to this class. He lived between 1783-1833. Satire comes readily to the aborigines, no less from natural bent than from the effect of their enforced subordination for centuries to autocrats and castes, as already observed. The cultured manifestation of the faculty has been restricted by obvious circumstances, but of late years it is finding more numerous exponents. As their leader, by virtue of pure Indian descent and seniority, as well as a high order of production, may be placed Ignacio Ramirez, sometime minister of justice and public works, and professor of letters, yet best known for the varied flow of his pen in prose and verse. Aboriginal sentiment seems less amatory than that of some of the other races. Class peculiarities strike them most readily, and to the long-abused clergy is dispensed a full quota of the banter and ridicule to which they are exposed from all quarters. Even the most sacred of subjects are no longer respected, and several attempts have been made in the vein of Avila y Uribe, who among other things wrote a comic version of the Guadalupe miracle. It remains in manuscript on my shelves. ABORIGINAL EFFORTS. 569 In this connection may be mentioned the droll and suggestive verses of Telesforo Ruiz, who issued a collection in 1866; the exuberant lines of Tidel; the neat epigrams of Tellez, mingled with equally attractive sonnets in his Ratos Perdidos, and the critical satires of Zarco, in the spirit of Larra. The Spanish residents, Zamacois, and Zorrilla, have written much verse of this character, which is widely read in Mexico. The observations so far made apply very well to characterize the classes and styles of poetry among modern Mexicans. In more ambitious compositions they have as a rule been content with translations of some ancient and modern classics. Yet epics have been attempted, the most pretentious being the And- huac of Rodiguez y Cos, which treats of the conquest, a subject that should have allured more writers amid the reviving enthusiasm for aboriginal prestige. The poem is in heroic quatrains with asonantes of a more sedate tone than that of Ruiz de Leon, a century before, and reveals indeed less spirit and ability. Portraiture is hardly attempted, scenery is little noticed, and dramatic opportunities neglected. While Ruiz sings the achievements of Cortes, Rodriguez seeks to commemorate the glories of Montezuma and Quauhtemotzin, and to this end he warps and colors an otherwise close adherence to historic narrative. The thirteen cantos, of about ten thousand lines, were published at Mexico in 1853, and dedicated with profuse compliments to Santa Anna, the dictator. Turning from him to Jose Joaquin Pesado, whom we have met in history as senator and minister, we find a poet, who, in La Revelacion, displays a lofty sentiment and a beautiful imagery that rouse our highest admiration. Unfortunately the cantos prove to be in subject as well as form an imitation of Dante's Inferno. The horrors of the doomed, and bliss of the angels are successively pictured, and even a Beatrice is found in Elisa, only to reveal by comparison how far behind the model are these verses in soaring r HP 570 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. grandeur, in penetration and feeling. Borne by an angel to the infernal regions he sees: La interrumpida luz, Mnebre, escasa, De un fuego subterraneo que £ lo lejos Un monte inmenso retumbando abrasa, Entre nieves lanzando sus reflejos, El rastro alumbra, de la barca pasa: Atdnitos mis ojos y perplejos Ven las olas rodar, correr los montes, Y ensancharse los negros horizontes. The blessed dwell .... en sombrosas selvas dilatadas, Auras serenas y corrientes puras, Moran aquesas almas, entregadas De humana ciencia i. inciertas congeturas: Hablan de las edades ya pasadas, De las horas presentes y futuras. Better known from the nature of the topic, is the lyric descriptive poem La Jerusalem, in nine parts, the earlier centering in the career of Jesus, the later treating of the subsequent vicissitudes of the city. The evident suggestions from Tasso assist to unfold the many beauties which have procured for the piece so wide an appreciation. Translations of Petrarch have also left their impress on Pesado, yet his sonnets bear more distinctly the touch of Garcilaso. In erotic pieces he is reverential, and his pictures of nature have a dreamy beauty, both features forming the main characteristics of his unquestionably sweet and graceful verse. Whatever the objections to his bent for imitation, he has performed thereby a service of great value to his countrymen in pointing out the best features of a variety of models and infusing a superior taste. Although reaching the highest elevation in religious topics, marked by pure idealism, the greatest credit should be accorded to him for his efforts on national themes, on scenes and sites, and in the elaboration of aboriginal lore, as in Las Aztecas, wherein he strives to preserve the native spirit. He stands the representative eclectic poet of Mexico, in applying the IMITATIONS AND TRANSLATIONS. 571 classic form to the best features of romanticism. His works received the compliment of several editions, beginning in 1839, and of recognition also in Spain, whence many honors were conferred upon him. Imitations of Dante and Milton are observable also in the epic production of La Venida del Espiritu Santo, by Francisco Ortega, but with less^ happy results, for the verses are weighted with a tiresome formality except for a few occasional episodes. In the minor pieces issued in 1839 under the title Poesias, Leon appears a conspicious model. Color and feeling seem however to be subordinated to prosody, which he illustrated by example and by special treatises. Unevenness and irregular divergence are the rule rather than exception. In some imitation dims the lustre of at first striking passages; others in striving for originality mar the picture by defective plan, bald or over-wrought portrayal, and inappropriate similes. Neglect of form has overshadowed many spirited essays, but, with the naturally imitative tendency in the people, still more have been borne down by too close study of models, which has fettered inspiration and neutralized other higher purposes. This is observable in Franco and Lafragua, who conform closely to the severe quintan a, and in Diaz, of Jalapa, whose patriotism led him first to a distinguished military career, and subsequently to the commemoration of historic incidents and legends, so much so that he is widely regarded as the leading poet romancer of Mexico. Others accord this position to Peon y Con- treras, a doctor and senator of Yucatan. His Romances Historicos are modelled after Duque de Rivas, but while inferior in form they fully equal his in brilliancy, in description and metaphor, with an appropriate change of versification to suit the theme. His lyrics received the compliment of a reissue. P. Araos, of the same state, has achieved a certain reputation in the same field for traditions and fables. Roa Barcena figures prominently in historic LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. themes, chiefly from Aztec sources. Although relieved by occasional flashes, his verse evinces a neglect of the finest opportunities for description and pathos. Similarly defective, and faulty in form, is the volume of lyrics which preceded his legends. Castillo y Lanzas, Arango, Jose Segura, Busto, and Alcaraz are best known for translations, from which they have borrowed the characteristics of their original poems. Alcaraz shows himself an apt student of Byron in his rich oriental tints that accord so well with Spanish expression, forming indeed a part thereof ever since romancists followed the cross into the crescent precincts of Andalucia. Luis de la. Rosa approaches him in coloring, but lacks in strength. Jose Segura left some neat sonnets and hexameters, but his brother Vicente reveals greater promise in the freshness of his few contributions. Barbacero made a pretentious translation into verse of Chateaubriand's Martyrs. Castillo published a small volume, half of it translations, half mediocre lyrics. In contrast to these more modeled productions may be placed those of Guillermo Prieto, Felix Escalante, and the Yucatan poet Alpuche, who display less restraint and carry the reader along with their strong impulsivness. The last excels in the fiery ardor of love, and Prieto in patriotic zeal, while Alpuche combines both features in somewhat thundering periods and passionate appeals. P. Tovar indulges in socialistic strain, and Agapito Silva arrays himself as the champion of the laboring class. They are uneven, as may be supposed, and a few brilliant flashes are interspersed with much crude and commonplace matter. This applies also to Jose de Cuellar, Emilio Rey, Gal- lardo and even to Sarinana, who shows considerable feeling, but as a rule is like all the rest continually on the verge of something promising, without realizing the expectation roused. Miran appears to have read Ossian, Gavarni indicates a taste for portraits, RELIGIOUS POETRY. 573 Couto shows a curbed enthusiasm, and the mysticism so dear to native fancy is embraced by the priests Martinez and Sartorio. The latter belongs to the revolutionary period, and may be classed as a representative versifier, in whom a pious adoration of the virgin could alone infuse a scintillating spark. Yucatan has been comparatively prolific in writers of no mean order, although they are little heard of. By the side of Apulche figure Ildefonso Perez, Montero, Peraza, Iruzillo, Estrada, and Zorrilla, whose verses have a rather formal stamp. The Spanish Zorilla finds an apt follower in P. J. Perez, who yields in soaring metaphor to an ardent patriotism. Aznar Barbachano sings in tearful accents; Aldana has achieved recognition for fanciful embellishment; and Justo Sierra is a promising poet, who made his first mark by introducing the causerie column in Mexican journals. Notwithstanding the excellencies of several among the preceding writers, the rank of favorite poet must be assigned to Manuel Carpio. By some he is esteemed as the representative in sacred themes, by virtue of his own devotion, of the character of his more pretentious pieces, notably in honor of the virgin, and of a marked degree of originality. A closer analysis reveals many defects. The epic verse is faulty in plan and proportion, as instanced particularly in La Im- maculada Concepcion. At some of the most interesting points of portrayal or reflection he hastens onward abruptly, to dilate instead on less striking phases. There is also a repetition of imagery with slight variation of form, and some glaring prosaicisms. These disappointments of expectation, and lapses, are not infrequent. Yet they are here to be ascribed less to un- sustained power and resources than to vagarious taste and impulsiveness, and to lack of appreciation for symmetry, all short-comings of a national rather than individual stamp. Compared with those of his confreres the flippancies are therefore not serious, and they are LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. fully balanced by the truer poetic ring of the lines, the unaffected flow of diction. The forte of Carpio, however, lies properly in descriptive poetry. Herein he occupies undoubtedly the representative place. While impressed by the solemnity of religion and its sublime adjuncts, he finds his real inspiration in the grandeur and beauty of nature. He beholds the splendor of spheres, he recognizes the majesty of towering peaks, he delights in the variegated aspect of pastoral scenes, he feels the desolation of the ruin. In La Inmensidad de Dios he writes: Asi, Dios sublime, td llenas los mundos De un lado hasta el otro del gran firmamento, Y muy mas arriba se eleva tu asiento, Adonde no llegan los rayos del sol. He seeks evidence of the creator in all the panoramic phases of nature till he reaches the flower in the field. Fasada la lluvia se alegra la yerba, Y al aire se mueve su tallo florido, Y en tanto mis ojos te ven escondido Alia entre las hojas de la humeda flor. In this class of composition the blots mentioned are less obtrusive. Here his soul revels in unrestrained ease, with oft-surprising maintenance of power. It becomes apparent that the descriptive passages in his sacred verse are the chief props and attractions; that the abstract was imposed upon him by piety rather than innate disposition. He is an objective rather than subjective writer, excelling in observation rather than reflection, and surpassing in certain loftier topics the celebrated Heredia, a Cuban exile long associated with Mexican affairs. Here is also more conspicuous the influence of his classic studies, in the admirable equipoise of diction which eschews floridity and seeks adornment in bright traceries of fancy—a combinati&n of simplicity and elegance in accord with true poetic instinct. He delights in vigorous utterance, as illustrated partly in the consonant rhyme, yet abhors ex- WOMAN. 575 aggeration no less than artificiality, as instanced in his epigram on frenetic writers. Este drama si esta" bueno, Hay en el monjas, soldados, Locos, animas, ahorcados, Bebedores de veneno, I unos cuantos degollados. In lighter verse he is less at home. The tenderness of Petrarch and the grace of Anacreon both fail to appear, and the more evident imitation sinks into commonplace. Born at Cosamaloapan, in Vera Cruz, 1791, the son of a Spanish trader and his creole wife, he studied first at Puebla and then at Mexico, where he afterward acquired a high reputation as doctor. He long held the chair of physiology and hygiene at the capital, and while in congress was elected speaker of the house. Archselogy, classics, and theology were the favorite pursuits of this eager student, and several literary and scientific societies enrolled his name. Not till after passing his fortieth year did he give any productions to the public, the first being in honor of the virgin. After this he became a frequent contributor to the journals, and to some books. His pieces were collected and published under the auspices of Pesado and Couto, and received more than one reprint. He died in 1860. While endowed with relatively stronger mind than her European sisters, woman in Mexico has been kept more in the background under the duenna system, which stifles her budding youth, and leaves her ever after unfit to encounter the responsibilities of life. The modesty and gentle sense of the Creole women ever prompt them to accord preeminence to their lords, who accept the concession with conceited self- assurance.^ With spreading education and infusion of liberal ideas from the adjoining republic, woman is beginning to understand and exert her ability under the guidance of an able group of leaders. LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. Among these stand prominent Ester Tapia de Castellanos, of Michoacan, a lyric poetess of no mean order, far superior to the average of pretentious and better-known singers of the other sex, and whose worth must in time raise her nearer to the elevation to which she is entitled. Her Flores Silvestres, issued in 1871, commanded attention in so many quarters as to encourage the publication some years later of Can- ticos de los Ninos, a theme appropriate for the woman as well as mother, and promising to add popularity if not higher fame. Her lines have smoothness of flow markedly in contrast to the common impulsiveness and exaggeration, and her pictures are refreshingly pure and daintily delicate. Hers is no slavish imitation ; images form in natural and appropriate order, and while not soaring to the sublime, they reflect deep feeling and emotion hidden from ruder eyes. She js essentially chaste, and happy conceits dance along in graceful rhythm. In answer to a child's question what is fatherland ? she answers : ese nombre adorado, Es manantial de emociones; Es lo que hay mas venerado, Es un conjunto sagrado De recuerdos e ilusiones. She finds it in the air and soil, in hearths and temples. Es la brisa perfumada Que mece las frescas flores Eu la ribera encantada, Do la rosa nacarada Luce ufana sus colores. She thus neatly compares the humming-bird with love: Es inconstante Cuanto es hermoso; Es engafioso Cual la ilusion. La grata esencia Se va robando, Y va volando Como el amor. In this tripping metre she succeeds admirably. Among aspiring contemporary women may be mentioned G. I. Zavala and R. C. Gutierrez of Yucatan. DRAMATIC WRITERS. 577 Teresa Vera of Tabasco, and Dolores Guerrero of Durango, died both at an early age after leaving fugitive pieces of the most promising nature, chiefly elegiac. Guerrero has been compared to the Mexican m The condition of affairs is not favorable to dramatic art in a country with a decided predilection for balls, parties, and similar gatherings of an actively participative rather than auditorial character; where there are few towns populous enough to support theatres, and where managers find for their infrequent performances ample and cheap recourse in Spanish dramas, or in translations, especially from the sympathetic French, of pieces whose fame abroad had roused a general desire for local presentation. In the face of such imposing competition for the meagre opening at hand, there is little encouragement for native playwrights. Nevertheless, considerable numbers have cropped up, stimulated by literary and dramatic associations, and content with the applause of friends at the rare and crude production of their efforts. Among the names, three have risen to distinction. Foremost stands Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza, the restorer of his art in Mexico, as the first to write good comedies after the decline, and who ranks with the leading dramatists of his time in Spanish literature. He was born at Vera Cruz, where his father was governor, on account of whose death he was taken to Spain at an early age. His brother induced him to adopt the military profession, and he attained the rank of a lieutenant-colonel; but in 1823 we fmd him an exile in England. His talents and liberal ideas had attracted the attention of Mexico, and henceforth until his death, in 1851, at the age of sixty-two, he is connected wholly with his natal country, as foreign minister, and in other exalted positions. He served in the war against the United States, and being taken prisoner at Churubusco, was treated bv the victors Essays and Miscellany 3 7 L 578 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. with both kindness and respect. He can therefore be claimed as a Mexican as fully as his great predecessor, Alarcon. The dramatic instinct was innate, for he began to write in boyhood, but achieved fame only after 1815 with his Indulgericia para Todos, a comedy wherein a sprightly fiancee entraps her betrothed into several scrapes, and proves to the joy of all that he is by no means the spiritless and insipidly virtuous man painted by reputation. The most striking incident is the winning of his love by the bride in an assumed character, which results in a sham duel with her brother. Contigo Pan y CeboUa, from which Scribe borrowed one of his successes, is.even superior to this, and El Amigo Intimo, Don Dieguiio, and others in verse and prose, sustained both his popularity and merit as a writer. The subjects belong to the middle class of life, and reveal an intimate knowledge of society and human nature, depicted with much humor and neat raillery, yet with great purity of tone and language. He rearranged several works of others, and translated a number of French dramatic compositions. Gorostiza must be placed by the side of Moratin the younger, to whose school of Moliere's type he belongs, but whom he surpasses in spirit if not in sentiment, thus aiding essentially to promote a taste for the classic elements with which it was sought to remodel the drama. Besides special publications, a collection of his early works appeared at Brussels in 1825, in two volumes, and a number of select pieces have been reprinted in such publications as Biblioteca Mexicana, Mexico, 1851. His plots are ingenious, and the use of different metre to suit the varying action adds to the animation. Close to Gorostiza as dramatic restorer or initiator must be placed Ignacio Rodriguez Gal van, already spoken of in connection with the romantic school of poetry, to whom is credited the introduction of modern drama into Mexico. He, himself, lays claim to Munoz, Visitador de Mejico, as the first original Mexi- THE DRAMA. 579 can production in this field. It was presented at the capital in 1838, midst great applause, as the first national historic dramatization. The subject is the amorous infatuation of the infamous Munoz, who held sway over New Spain in 1567. The woman scorns his advances, and in his fury he causes the object of her love to be slain; she falls dead upon the corpse. In the effort to depict the tyrant, the author goes to an extreme that becomes monotonous; nevertheless, there is a number of fine and strong passages, which indicate an exalted imagination, while the accessory figures and dialogues show a due appreciation for effect. El Privado del Virey, also taken from early colonial history, and published four years later, is not so strong. While imbued with romanticism, Galvan tempered it by a close study of Alarcon, to him the supreme master in the art, as he declares in a dedication to this personage written in exaggerated imitation of old Spanish. The defects are to be attributed to immaturity of age and training. Curbed ambition and disappointments had tinged his spirit with the melancholy observable in nearly all his works. He had struggled since boyhood for a, humble existence in the book-store of his uncle at Mexico, devoting the late hours of night to study. In 1842 he received a tardy recognition in an appointment with a legation to South America, but died of yellow fever on the way, at the age of twenty-six, in the midst of the most brilliant promise. In this connection may be noted Bocanegra's Vasco Nunez, which appears to have been influenced to some extent by Garvan's pieces, and Encarnacion Rosas by Pablo Villasenor, relating to the defence of Mescala during the revolution. The latter is cruder, with not sufficient spirit in incident and language to sustain it. It was well received at Guadalajara in 1851, despite the temperate treatment of the Spanish side. Francisco Ortega, the poet, wrote as early as 1821, " Libre, a drama celebrating the acquisition ^f 580 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. L independence, and which in a measure sets aside the claim of Galvan to priority in this direction. He left another historic piece, Camatzin, relating to the conquests, and also a comedy. The same epoch as in Mejico Libre is touched in Sarinana's Entrada Triunfal de Iturbide, but it lacks dramatic art, and is remarkable rather as a poem imbued with the well-known feeling of the writer. Ochoa had also appeared in this field with a tragedy and two comedies, one of these in his humorous vein. A short piece by Gonzalez Castro reveals promising lines in the same vein, directed against political parties. The work begun by Galvan was taken up most successfully by Fernando Calderon y Beltran, who perfected the modern drama, although not from national subjects, but from sources more suited to his romantic ideas. To this he applied such inspiration and finish, in addition to a prolific production, as to assume rank as leading dramatist of the republic, that is, apart from comedy, for herein Gorostiza enjoys the undisputed preeminence. His neglect of local topics is not to be expected of a man who has taken so active a part in public life. As an enthusiastic liberal he joined in revolutions at the expense of his health and estate, exiled as he was both from his nativeocity of Guadalajara and from Zacatecas, his adopted state. Pardoned in consideration of his genius, he here entered anew into the political arena, figuring as deputy, magistrate, and other positions suited to his training as barrister, until his death in 1845 at the age of thirty-six. His efforts were guided by a study of Breton de los Herreros, which certainly tended to his popularity. In truth, the success of his comedy, Ninguna de las Tres, depicting the vain efforts of three unworthy suitors to gain the hand of a prudent widow, lies greatly in its imitations of Breton's Marcefa. Yet it must be admitted that the exposure of social weaknesses is neat, especially the assumption of those who after a trip abroad come back only to criticise every- MX THE DRAMA. 581 thing at home. Calderon's best work lies however in a heavier line, notably in chivalry pieces, in which his romantic sentiments and soaring verse find free scope, and fitting subjects in proud knights and noble dames. In the mist of mediaeval times he can safely depict ideal heroes with all the finery of enthusiasm, with lofty aim and sounding words and fiery love. Historic truth is not allowed to interrupt his flow, and he almost scorns to mar scenes so stately with artifice of plot. His love soars above the sensual to the spiritual, along with his intense patriotism; and notwithstanding the fame acquired as a playwright, he remains above all the poet, and his verse now mainly sustains his works. The foremost place may be assigned to his Herman, a young crusader who returns to find his betrothed surrendered to an elderly duke. While seeking an interview with her he is surprised by the jealous husband and is condemned to death. His mother comes to the rescue by disclosing him to be the natural son of that personage. He is recognized by the duke, and returns to die for the holy cause. El Torneo turns on the adventures of a youth abducted from the creole, who at the supreme moment finds both his parents and his bride. Ana Bolena is a stately piece, but plays havoc with historic truth. Eight earlier pieces had been performed at Zacatecas and Guadalajara, the first, in 1827, being Reinaldo y Elvira. El Caballero Negro was left unfinished. Two editions of Calderon's works appeared at Mexico in 1844 and 1849, and appreciation has also been manifested abroad, particularly in South America. J. Seon y Contreras of Yucatan has attained conr siderable popularity in the republic with his capa y espada or love-intrigue pieces, so peculiarly Spanish in form and estimation. He follows the old school too closely, however, and is moreover hasty. J. A. Cisneros, an elegiac poet, outranks him in priority as the first dramatic writer of his peninsula, where he also aspired to the foremost position as satirist. He 582 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. claims the credit of several reforms in his art, such as the suppression of monologues. Mexicans delight above all in the farcical, and a typical piece in this respect is presented in the Borrasca de un Sobretodo by Palacio and Mateos, depicting the troubles into which the careless and graceless owner of an overcoat is led. It is full of the droll incidents and conceits so characteristic of the people, yet it descends too frequently into puerilities for the northern mind, which also objects to the sacrifice of connection and consistency to momentary gain. The Odio Hereditaria accords better with the vein of these historical novelists. While the comic would seemingly prove attractive to local writers, those possessing the ability expend their efforts as a rule on short verse, and aspirants to sustained contributions for the theatre are too frequently carried away by more ambitious themes. Thus in society plays the sentimental strain becomes marked, with a tendency to unhappy love, as expressed in Peon Contrera's Castigo de Dios, and Cellar's Deberes y Sacrificws. The latter exhibits the patriotic devotion of a husband for a refugee friend, who, again, sacrifices himself by' declining the love of the wife which had meanwhile turned to him. El Mulato of Torvella relates in prose the unhappy passion of a slave for the daughter of his master, for which he is persecuted and driven to suicide. It finally appears that he is an offspring of the cruel master. In this vein run several among the score*of dramas written by A. L. Gallardo, the exiled editor and poet of San Francisco, the best being, however, Maria Anto- nieta de Lorena, in Galvan's historic form. Camprodon dwells in Flor de un Dia, on the brighter subject of a woman who marries a man for his title, grows unhappy, but is finally won by the noble traits of her husband. An equally attractive subject is El Beso of Carlos Escudero, whose several excellent comedies brought him much local fame, and induced a dramatic society to adopt his name for a title, Among other writers LATER WRITERS. 583 must be mentioned J. M. Vigil, the historian and poet; Es Anievas, Senator Ortega, General Tornel, whose prose work, La Muerte de Ciceron, hardly accords with the times and circumstances; Valle, the blind poet; R. Aldana, of Yucatan ; A. Silva, the democratic poet. M. Gutierrez' Una para Todos, recalls Calderon's Ninguna de las Tres. F. Orozco y Berra, the poet, wrote the comedies Los Tres Aspi- rantes and Los Tres Patriotas. Moreno, renowned for his fables, and F. de Soria left comedies, and Ignacio Austria, Antonio Hurtado, Emilio Rey, Jose G. Za- mora, Zayas y Enriquez, Zer6nimo Baturoni, Joaquin Villalobos, F. M. Escalante, and Tovar have likewise tried their pens as playwrights. Finally must be mentioned one conspicuous member from the other sex in Isabel Prieto, who, while born in Spain, came to Mexico in early childhood, there to be educated and married. As a poetess she sings of maternal love and family joys, and this sentimental spirit is noticeable also in her works for the stage, more than a dozen in number, notably dramas of the temperate romantic school, with neat female characters, supplemented by some comedies of Bretonian stamp. Few of these productions have survived the first presentation, less have seen print, and many have remained unheard and uncopied. The cause lies not so much in defects due to lack of experience or dramatic taste or inspiration, as in the lack of opportunities, to reach the stage, as observed before. The result has been partly to discourage authors, particularly from original efforts, and to foster the imitations observable even in Calderon and Galvan. The tendency is deplorable from one aspect, but the superior training thereby acquired must in time make itself felt, and permit a departure leading, perhaps, to a truly national school. The array of aspirants in the field, despite all obstacles, indicates how wide-spread is the taste inherited from forefathers among whom flourished Lope, Calderon, and Cervantes, and what may consequently r 584 LITERATURE OF MEXICO-NINETEENTH CEN TORY. be expected from a country which has cradled Alarcon and Gorostiza, not to mention the immediate successors of the latter. The government has occasionally manifested a desire to promote local talent, and to foster taste, but the subsidies have been misdirected and spasmodic, owing to distracting party struggles and constant changes. In 1831-2 a credit of $20,000 was opened, and Maximilian showTed himself equally thoughtful, two theatres receiving from him $300 a month each. Musical performances were chiefly favored. One care of the censor appointed in 1828 was to expose royalty and its accessories as objects for scoff or tragedy." A censorship has generally existed, and while little aversion is shown for extremes of French style, objectionable features are glossed or turned into a more acceptable channel. A characteristic effort is always made to save appearances. The disposition for show and effect, combined with unreflecting impulse, reveals itself, especially in ambitious themes, by inconsistency and lack of historic truth, and a yielding to rhapsody and the fantastic rather than the imaginative. The best efforts of the Mexican poets must be sought rather in fugitive pieces, prompted by an impulsive vivacity, than in more elaborate compositions, requiring a sustained plan, and a harmonious coordination of details. The attempted epics have, as a rule, dropped down to plain narrative poems, or shone for a time in the borrowed lustre of more or less glaring imitation. The inclination to copy, marked enougn in this respect among the Spaniards, has been intensified with the infusion of aboriginal blood. When confined to Spanish or classic models, it seems to have stultified the students. Later, the art of all Europe was opened to them, and although they lingered rather exclusively within the Gallic border, taste failed not to derive benefit, as instanced by Alcaraz, Lacunza, and others. Their strength lies above all in amatory poems, so POETRY. 585 much in keeping with their gallant disposition, sociability, and mobile passions, but here neither the bluntness of the Spaniard in ordinary life, nor the extreme suggestiveness of the Frenchman, can be said to prevail; rather an impetuous tenderness that imparts a special charm to the verse. To this must be added the tendency toward elegiac strains which is so marked among the aboriginal ancestry. It is not deep, however, for the Mexican is after all a sprightly individual, inclined to frivolity, and little intent on the cares of to-morrow. Hence his affection for the Cas- tilian proverb and epigram, which, united to the native bent for satire, have tended to form a droll suggestive kind of humor of a picaresque order, that to the foreigner smacks of puerility. It is innocent, however, for it attacks classes and class traits rather than individuals. While the ode is a favorite form of verse, whether prompted by patriotism, or by the inspiring beauty and grandeur of nature, it must be confessed that on the whole the efforts in this direction fall short of their aim; the will is there but not the power, and exceptions sustain the rule. Of patriotic lines it may be said that they are pitched too.high for us, with thundering apostrophes, strong invectives, and glittering sentences. In philosophic themes the shallow treatment is either broken in upon by rash utterance, or left markedly unfinished: the mysticism of the scholastic era has faded with the influx of new ideas. Incompleteness also stamps the portrayal of character or individuals, and the description of scenery, due partly to want of depth and criticism, partly to inherent lack of appreciation. The Indians are noted for a love of flowers, but the Spaniards reveal little taste for any natural object, and the feeble efforts of the Mexicans in this regard appear to be prompted by foreign models; a prompting also indicated by the choice of subjects, with insufficient regard for the rich aboriginal sources. 586 LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. While the study of classic metre has left its traces, the declamatory bent of the people also leads to the idiomatic and quantitative rhythm which characterizes it. The irregular improvisatory silva is much used. Otherwise the old national redondUla and the ottava rima measures may be regarded as the favorites, notably the latter, although the short verse is undoubtedly the happiest with them. The leaning toward versos de arte mayor, as longer lines are called, is greatly due to affectation, although fostered by the remarkable adaptiveness of the language for rhyme, extending in the consonantal to two, and even three syllables, and to three or more lines. Indeed, there are long poems with a predominant or unchanging rhyme. The mo-. notony of this Moorish feature no doubt influenced the reaction manifested in the asonante compromise between blank and consonantal endings, so purely Spanish, and so pleasing. Occasional rhyme is also used, and the form of Garcilaso in connecting one stanza with the following. The tendency to inappropriate language and imagery, to vehement terms and a multiplicity of adjectives, is partly idiosyncratic, and must not be judged by the same strict rules governing less volatile nations. With all the study of models, the laws of prosody, of euphony, are frequently invaded, as might of course by expected from the impetuous temperament of the Creoles, impatient under sustained regulations. It must be admitted, however, that they possess a wide and choice range of words, strikingly manifested in comparing the vocabulary of the lower classes with that of corresponding Anglo- Saxon ranks; and this facility, combined with easy rhythmic flow and natural vivacity, imparts an undeniable attraction. The use of Americanisms is widely approved by leading writers, yet not very marked. While the academy dictionary is upheld, the number of translations current, and the affectation of foreign imitators has led to the introduction of foreign phrases, and a PROGRESS. 587 French form at times very glaring; others affect an antiquated style, with enclitics and other features. The use of lo and le in the accusative, and certain other points differ from the peninsular rules. The orthography is strictly phonetic; nevertheless the confusion with b and v, g, j and x, c, q, s and z, i and y, and h, with accents and other forms, even among the best writers, shows the prevalent instability, and the need of concerted action among men of letters under the guidance of another Cortina. In such a case it might be commendable, in a patriotic sense, to yield to the party clamoring for Mexican distinctiveness, yet the modern tendency toward universality and simplicity, toward progress, would undoubtedly demand greater accord with peninsular taste. Mexico has more than kept pace with the universal advance during the present century, when her backward position during colonial days is considered. The masses then were restrained in aspirations not alone by state and church, as in other catholic countries, but by class and race jealousies. With the achievement of independence, mestizos advanced to the front in public life, and to contend with the pure Creoles for supremacy also in literature and other fields. The Indian was held back awhile by political intrigue, by the effect of centuries of suppression, and by natural diffidence. Nevertheless he gradually crept forward, and his progress would have been greater but for the struggles of the church to retain her control. The creole fashion of despising local productions and writers had to yield before the revolution to the aptitude and vivacity of the mestizo, and now has passed away in all directions with the rise of rulers, savants, and industrial leaders from every class and race. The revival so widely observed of aboriginal traditions and glories must acquire firmer hold under the auspices of such men as Juarez and Alvarez, Ramirez and Altamirano; and with the elevation of LITERATURE OF MEXICO—NINETEENTH CENTURY. national topics and local writers, Andhuac will soon boast of schools of her own in different departments of letters. From this aspect names like Gorostiza and Calderon recede before that of Galvan, who, although less prolific and brilliant, performed a greater service for his country in presenting a national drama and directing taste to historic as well as local sources. The efforts of lyric poets in' the same direction were less meritorious, impelled as they were by circumstances, in response to general public demand. With them the credit shall be perseverance, for Mexicans, by their own admission, are backward in many branches, and lack, for instance, a national epic of a high type. There is also room for improvement in form. The simple style of the sixteenth century was abandoned for the artificialities of G6ngorism, wherein the striving was to surpass in extravagance and floridity. A reaction set in, but the disposition still clings strongly, favored by the structure of the language and race characteristics. A deeper study of Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic models offer the best antidote. The growing participation of Indians in literature may have a good effect in opening additional founts for inspiration, and in toning the inherited Spanish exuberance, as well as imparting strength to deficient branches. The precocity of the mestizo, resting partly on the fact that he enjoyed superior advantages, may be balanced by the greater depth of the less volatile natives, which again reminds us that these, with their inferior range of imagination, promise to excel rather in the solid branches, leaving -to the more sprightly Creole and intermediate races lighter and more fanciful topics. Nevertheless satiric no less than mystic veins are innate with the aborigines, and their keenness of observation and conspicuous love for flowers, and for open air life, indicate an aptitude for descriptive and pastoral themes. Now with peace assured, with the spread of educa- THE FUTURE. tion through rapidly multiplying schools and periodicals; and with growing intercourse, especially toward the enterprising and enlightened United States, a .vista opens so far unequalled. Thousands hitherto distracted by the turmoils of war and- attendant political changes will turn to the cultivation of letters, under the incentives of inherited taste and leisure, and of widening fields for observation and expanding opportunities. 1 Concerning the national library, Mex., Archivo, Col. Ley., vi. 709-10, refers to appointment of regular officers, in 1861, and the grant of aid. The largest collections in the country, of the university, cathedral, the former Jesuit college, and others, were absorbed by it, so that over 100,000 volumes were counted within a few years after the formation. Soc. Mex. Geog., Bol., serie ii., torn. i., 359. Covarrubias in 1875 enumerates 20 public libraries, with 236,000 volumes, of which three are at Mexico. Instruc. Pub. Reference to public collections in different states may be found in the Mex. Diar. Ofic, Nov. 20, 1870, etc.; Boletin de Notic., Jan. 2,1861, etc.; Diario de Avis., Feb. 11, May 6, 14, 1857, with decrees; Wappaus, Mex., 120-1; Iris Espan., Dec. 2, 1846; EcoNac., Jan. 19, Aug. 28, 1857, Aug. 21-2, 1858; Estandarte Nac., Jan. 19, 1857, etc.; Dice. Univ., i.-x., passim, in connection with towns and colleges; also in Pensamiento Nac, La Nacion, El Tiempo, etc. The establishment of reading-rooms is spoken of in Mex. Mem., Sec. Estad. (1823), 39- 40, and later in Amigo del Pueblo, Sept. 6, 1845. No circulating libraries for the people exist even now—none worthy the name. Their reading is confined chiefly to religious books, sayu Bulloch, Across Mex., 277. 2 In 1876 Covarrubias, Instruc. PubUca, enumerated 73 associations, of which 29 were scientific, 21 literary, 20 artistic, and 3 mixed. For description of several provincial societies, I refer to Album, Mex, ii. 62; La Cruz, iii. 467; Diario de Avis., Apr. 8, 1857; Universal, Apr. 14, and other dates of 1850; Mex., Diario of, Jan. 18, Feb. 7, 1871, etc.; Mex., Col. Leyes, 1848, 270-1. Campeche boasted until lately the best archaeological museum next to Mexico. Four other states possess collections of a varied character. The Academia de Letran counted among its founders the Lacunzas and G. Prieto, the Liceo Hidalgo embraced J. Navarro and Granados Maldonado. For opening and associates of the Instituto, see Instituto de Ciencias, Literatura, y Artes, 1-42. Concerning its struggles, see Congreso, Constit ult Adios, 18-19; Mex., Cor. Fed., Mar. 20, 1828; Pap. Var., cxlii., pt x. An informal Arcadia existed before the revolution, and the academies known as La Encarnacion y San Jose, S. Felipe Neri, Troncoso's, and others. 3 The code contains a mass of decrees concerning liberty of press and cognate subjects under almost every year of republican rule, and histories and journals abound in comments thereon. A republican organ was established in 1812 in Oajaca. Alaman, Hist M6j., iii. 330; v. 401-6, 645. Mex., Cor. Fed., Dec. 3, 1826, gives a list of contemporary journals. In Liceo Mex., i. 77, for 1844, are enumerated 19 in the provinces and 13 at Mexico, the latter including one French and several literary and satiric periodicals, but only one daily newspaper, adds Calderon, Life, 326. Fossey, Mex.., 288, gives 52 for 1850, of which ten were issued at Mexico. The censorship reduced the number after 1853. For 1861, Hernandez, Estad. Mej., 278, appends a list of 56, of which eight at Mexico, five in the state of Guanajuato, four in Michoacan, four in Zacatecas, the other states having from one to three. By 1871 Mexico city alone had 19 of all classes. Aim., Leon y White, 1871, 42-3; Pap. Var., cviii., pti., 61-3. Barbachano, Mem. Camp., 69 et seq., gives those that have flourished in Yucatan; also Registro Yuc, i. 233-7; Wappaus, Mex., 590 LITERATURE OF MEXICO-NINETEENTH CENTURY. 120-1; Rkhihofen, Mex., 166-71; Ternaux-Compons, Nouv. Annates des Voy.f xcm. 49; Mex., Cor. Fed., Sept. 30, 1828; Dm Aim en Mean., 48-9, 84-6; La Cruz, in. 607, etc. Universal, Feb. 22, 1850, etc., exposes the subsidies paid. 4 With more care Lizardi, observes Beristain, 'podia merecer, si no el nom- bre de Quevedo Americano, a lo menos el de Torre* Villaroel Mexicano.1 Bib. Hisp. Am., ii. 191. Senator M. Barbachano ranks as the leading satirist of Yucatan. 5 Rivera claims precedence for the most bulky of local histories in Historia de Jalapa, in five volumes, which cover the republic in general, however, though imperfectly and unsymmetrically. Baqueiro's incomplete Enmyo on the later history of Yucatan is stamped by similar defects. 6Carrillo is an enthusiastic priest who has written much on the history and relics of that country. The chief work of J. Arroniz, the well-known general writer, was a history of Orizaba. The publications of the geographical society embrace a most valuable series of such local material, largely of statistical nature. The diffuseness of both general and local histories has brought about many abridgements, as instanced in the cases of Bnstamante and Alaman. Arrangoiz forms from the latter an introductory synopsis to his own book. History of Mexican Revolutions is the virtual title of Mora, Zerecero, and Zavala's works. The first added a Obras Sueltas, Paris 1817, which really forms a supplement to his history, with its reviews and articles. Zavala issued the first journal in Yucatan. 6 To Larrainzar, who figured as minister of state, is also due an acceptable history of Soconusco, and an imperfect essay on Mexican history-writing. J. M. de Barcena wrote an abridged history of ancient Mexico. Vigil has done good service by the publication of many forgotten chronicles and documents. 7 Similar to Sosa's is a small volume by Arroniz, forming part of an incompleted descriptive series known as Encyclopedia Hisp. Amer. In the Mexican supplement to Dice. Univ^. is similar material. 8 Munguia also wrote on psychology and political science. The religions Meditaciones of Quintana, father of the famous patriot and writer Quintina Roo, passed through three editions. Bustamante, among others, undertook an energetic defense of the Jesuits. One of his earliest essays was in behalf of the aristocratic shrine of Remedios. There are plenty of tracts and brief essays on these fields. 9 Cortina was widely honored abroad. He resided for a long time in Spain and represented her as minister. His Sinonimos received the commendation of the Spanish academy, and his manual for diplomats was widely accepted as a guide. Orozco y Berra acquired distinction for geodetic work, and rose to the position of minister of public works, and to the supreme bench, bnt by accepting service under Maximilian he lost much of his influence, and was even fined and imprisoned for the misstep. Garcia Oubas is well known for his maps, on which he was assisted by Covarrubias. The latter headed the Mexican astronomic expedition to Japan in 1874; later he went as minister to Guatemala. Barcena has had many plants named after him. J. P. Perez and J. Ruz stand prominent in Yucatan for linguistic studies. The books of travel by Zavala and G. Prieto have achieved a representative character with their descriptive and reflective passages. 10 Bishop Palafox had search made for novels, and they were either bought or seized and burned, religions books being substituted. ' Accion....bien digna de que los demas la imiten en toda la Christian<lad,, comments Calle, Mem. y Not, 40. . f 11G. Prieto frankly admits that 'no se bosquejan caracteres sino retractos, Castillo, Horas, p. iv. In this edition of Castillo appear El eerebro y el cora- zon, Uasta et cielo, and other pieces. Among Cuellar's works is Las Gentes que son asi, in two volumes. Lizardi's satiric novels have been considered else wh ere. M Concerning government subsidies to theatres I refer to Mexico, Memoria de Hacienda, 1831,118, etc; Payno, Cuentas, 719-20; Amigo del Puebh, iv. 21-2. CHAPTER XVIII. EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. The advancing man discovers how deep a property he has in literature, in all fable as well as in all history. —Emerson. The remarkable strides made by California in material advancement are not unattended by a corresponding intellectual development, though the latter has in it more of the practical than of the aesthetic. While yet too young to boast of a literature wholly her own, she has achieved prominence in the field of letters by the number and variety as well as quality of books emanating from her midst. Just what proportion of these writings properly belong here is a question, for our leading authors were none of them born, or to any great extent educated, on the Pacific coast; nevertheless, there are present the conditions of development which have contributed essentially, if not wholly, in producing certain results. Environment moulds the mind for opportunity; both of these all-important factors were here provided. The one acted imperceptibly, the other by waiting. Elsewhere scenery exists equally inspiring; indeed, it is not wisdom to dwell too much on the influence of snow-crowned sierras, Yosemite pictures, stately forests with towering sequoias, puffing geysers, and a land overflowing with industry and wealth. Temperate air, with pleasant and healthy surroundings, is more conducive to every kind of culture than the miasmatic tropics or hyperborean rigors. Our climate is that of Italy freed from its impurities, and reen- forced with a bracing, quickening current, which pro- EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. motes energy of body and mind. There is, as a rule, no depressing cold, no enervating heat to retard the machinery of life; on the other hand, there is everything to foster activity, as evidenced in the bustle that surrounds us. There is exhilaration in the air, and in the unfolding of countless resources in every direction, following quickly upon one another since the all-compelling discovery of gold. The excitement of constant disclosures, of ever-changing phases of fortune, has imparted a buoyancy, partaking frequently of fever- ishness, that might be regarded with apprehension but for the sustaining qualities of the soil and air. While these features influence literary life, it cannot be said that they are particularly creative, for no indigenous civilization sprang here into being, or found even a halting-place in this latitude. The superficial, vivacious Mexican brought no mental elements to be developed, but inclined rather toward sports, local turmoil, and patriarchal simplicity. Intellectual de- volopment came from the east, brought by adventurous, enterprising men with liberal ideas. Every element for the formation of a most progressive commonwealth was thus all at once introduced. The traits of a dozen nationalities served to modify and improve the predominating American mind. They were full-fledged pioneers, and as such their efforts, physical or mental, might be claimed for their respective natal states; but without the stimulus here imparted their energies would have taken a very different direction, or, indeed, have lain dormant. These adventures, and the attendant opportunity, proved the cradle for productions stamped by those same agencies as distinctly Californian. Consider well the inspiring effect upon the mind of the physical surroundings, earth, air, and sky, after a tedious trip across the plains, or a long, monotonous voyage by sea; and above all, of the new social conditions, of peculiar life, strange happenings, and exciting pursuits, restless activity, and great achievements UNDER MEXICAN RULE. 593 in developing character, and producing physical and mental exuberance. Letters poured eastward to friends and journals, revealing in their graphic narration the development of the new era. Local periodicals displayed their side of the picture, and occasionally enthusiasts tore themselves away from all-absorbing business and enervating excesses to elaborate their impressions in books, for which the universal interest in the country provided a popular reception. Nor were these productions few when compared with those of other states. Indeed, more volumes were written in California within the quarter century following 1849 than in all the other states and territories west of the Mississippi. They number nearly two hundred, .some of which sought a wider publishing field in eastern centres. These progressional phenomena are in striking contrast to the condition of mind in colonial times. During the period of Mexican rule, from 1769 to 1846, not a single literary effort appears worthy of note, and what was written consists almost wholly of letters and reports by officials, friars, and a few leading residents, which have swollen in course of time to a voluminous mass, as indicated by a series of shelves in my library. They relate to the growth of the colony, to local disturbances, and even to petty revolutions; "while rare foreign visits evoked a flood of details proportionate to the fears, jealousies, and. excitement created. They are pervaded by the tone of bustling officioushess, from men intent on asserting their importance, and their pomposity becomes amusing when compared with the insignificant jurisdiction and interests concerned. The friars treat of the economic and spiritual administration of their charge, varied by disputes with the military commanders. Their communications breathe the self-sacrificing spirit of superstitious men who have voluntarily exiled themselves for the fancied cause of duty and humanity. Essays and Miscellany 38 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. 1 The style compares favorably with similar emanations in Mexico; but on the whole it has less of that floridity and inflation which, however undesirable, indicates a bent for writing. It would seem as if the migration from the pleasant slopes and highlands of Anahuac to the wild border had depressed any aspiration of the fancy to the level of the immediate surroundings. The lack of educational facilities operated against a development of taste on the part of the rising generation; yet the nature of the language, and the punctilious character of the people, compensated for a disadvantage that among our race would have left a more glaring deficiency; for the lower classes of Hispano-Americans display a remarkable correctness and fluency of expression. The general punctiliousness has led to that formal and forensic phraseology so characteristic of Mexican epistolary and narrative productions, and so conducive to loose and involved construction, which serves as additional hindrance to beauty and interest. Nevertheless, the natural sprightliness will find an outlet, even amid the exaggerated account of dangers and isolation on the distant frontier, prompted by the forlorn condition or longings of the exile. Several of the above writing's have seen the light in government documents, journals, and collections, but only a few within the covers of a special book. The earliest production of this kind, prepared within the territory and by a resident, is the Belacion His- torica de la Vida of Junipero Serra, founder of the missions, by his companion and successor, Francisco Palou, printed at Mexico in 1787. Although a biography of the pious labors of an examplary friar, it aims to give the history of California to 1783; and to this end the rhapsodies and prolix dissertations so common in such works are almost entirely dispensed with. While disposed to affirm the merits of his hero and his order, Palou displays much good sense in the treatment of the subject, without rising to any marked UNDER MEXICAN RULE. 595 excellency in his rather prosaic narrative. The same ground is covered with greater completeness, although less elaboration, in his Noticias, the sources for the former work, the publication of which made that of the other less needful at the time. The country did not possess a press until 1833; and of its productions, less than three score in all, seven attained to the respectability of book form. There were the Beglamento Provisional, 1834,16 pages, rules for the legislature; Manifiesto, by Governor Figueroa, 1835, 183 pages; Catecismo de Ortologia, by J. M. Romero, 1836, 16 pages; Ecspocision, by Comandante-general Vallejo, 1837, 21 pages, suggestions concerning trade and custom-house; Botica general de los Bemedios, 1838, 16 pages, reprint of a Cddiz medicinal pamphlet; California, Comandancia General, Comunicaciones del General M. G. Vallejo, 1837-9, 21 pp., a collection of decrees. The last is a small 4to, the others vary from 12mo to 32mo. The imprint of the first three books is Monterey, the following are dated at Sonoma. Later the press was restored to Monterey, as indicated by the Catecismo de la doctrina, by Ripalda, 1842, 12mo, 8 pages. In most cases the other orinting was poor and devoid of taste, the type being worn and the press warped. The only volume of any pretension is the Manifiesto of Governor Jose Figueroa in defence of his administration from 1832 to 1835, particularly in regard to his attitude toward the colonization project of Hijar and Padres; }retit does not rise above the usual style of such political documents among Mexicans. Besides the Catecismo of Ripalda reprinted here, the friars circulated a number of catechisms and sermons in manuscripts, which they had translated into different native dialects. In this connection were produced several vocabularies and grammars, two of which, by padres Arroyo de la Cuesta and Sitjar, form part of Shea's collection.1 Zalvadea left several'translations, and President EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. Sarria some impressive sermons, in autograph. Friar Boscana prepared an account of the customs and myths of the Indians round San Juan Capistrano, which was translated into English,' and printed at New York in 1846, under the title of Chinigchinich. While condemning the superstitions of the natives, the friar himself displays a prejudice and leaning hardly less excusable; but he strives for truth and seeks naively to explain every peculiarity. The work was issued as a part of Life in California,, by Alfred Robinson, a citizen of the United States, who had for several years been established here as a trader. His proposed introduction to the Chinigchinich gradually expanded into a volume of over 200 pages, in which from personal experience he describes places and people, scenery, resources, and customs, together with an interesting outline of history. Appearing at the time the conquest of the country was undertaken by the United States, the book created no small attention, and this was sustained by the attractive nature and treatment of the subject. A ready appreciation of salient and interesting topics is apparent, tempered by a generous and good-natured spirit, which led to rose-colored statements in favor of his California friends.2 With the occupation by Americans, it was not long before the characteristic newspaper presented itself, beginning at Monterey on August 15, 1846, with the Californian, under the auspices of Walter Colton, chaplain of the United States frigate Congress,- and Robert Semple. It was not an imposing specimen in its foolscap size, printed on rough paper with worn and deficient type, and with the rickety California press of 1833, now rescued from a garret; but it was pregnant with the patriotic aspirations of the conquer- orsf although extremely subservient to the military authorities. On January 9th following, another weekly paper, the California Star was issued at San Francisco THE FIRST AMERICAN DECADE. 597 by the Mormon, Sam Brannan, assisted by E. P. Jones, as editor.3 It was larger and neater than the rival sheet, but reflecting only too frequently the sharp, coarse traits of the provincial lawyer and dogmatic leader, as compared with the fairer and gentler spirit of Semple and Colton.4 The two papers were consolidated after the suspension caused by the excitement attending the gold discovery, and merged, on January 4, 1849, into the Alta California. Four months later an offshoot appeared at Sacramento in the Placer Times; after this sheets began to multiply rapidly in towns and mining camps, as elsewhere fully related. Every party, class, and nationality sought to be represented. The French made several attempts to establish organs, the first in January 1850. The Spanish residents were courted by the Gallic journals, but obtained a special sheet in 1854, while the Germans had one two years earlier. In September 1850 the Illustrated Times made a vain bid for favor with cuts, and the early humorous and satiric sheets, beginning in 1851 with the Hombre, fared no better. Religious denominations strove to promote their efforts with the press, the Christian Observer of the same year being first in the field. The Academy of Sciences began its reports in 1853, the Agricultural Society in the following year; doctors issued a journal in 1855, and so publications increased. Journalistic enterprise in California is commensurate with the phenomenal rise of the country. No state in the union can show so large an average of newspaper circulation among its inhabitants. Even New York was for years surpassed, and the average there amounted to nearly treble that of the other states. In this by no means unenviable respect, California consequently stood foremost in the world. There has also existed a more than ordinary intimacy between the press and the public in the interchange both of information and opinions. Moreover, the number of persons engaged on newspapers has been extraordi- 598 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. narily large, over one thousand figuring in this connection in San Francisco during the ten years ending in 1858. During its earlier period such a press must have been very partisan in character, the medium of cliques, rather than of the public, organ instead of mentor, rising and falling with parties and interests, fluctuating like its fickle supporters. The journals of the eastern states maintained a large share of patronage till the telegraph drove them back; railroads effected local revolutions of equal importance. It may be readily understood that this instability has not tended to establish a high character for honesty, learning, or originality among the journalists. They have not been chosen from the fittest ranks, for that matter, but from all grades of society, and the result is evident in the material they furnish, chiefly made to fill space, and to serve some personal end or prejudice, and framed in language by no means of the choicest, displaying numerous errors in grammar, many Americanisms, and much vulgar slang. In these respects it may not be below the average throughout America, which compares rather- unfavorably with the European, but the taste for the sensational adds a feature to the many undesirable elements in this medium for popular education and guidance. It must be conceded, however, that California is not devoid of journals and newspaper productions of a higher order, and bright with promise. Among prominent editors may be named Gilbert and Kemble, who established the Alta, the former, the first elected congressman for California, being a high-minded though foolish fellow, who fell in a duel for his principles; Soule and Nesbit, associated on the first history of San Francisco; the versatile Noah Brooks*; Avery, sometime minister to China; John S. Hittell, the well-known statistical writer; the pungent Frank Pixley; George, the author of Progress and Poverty; Gorham, Bartlett, G. K. Fitch, Sey- bough, George H. Fitch and John P. Young of the THE FIRST AMERICAN DECADE. 599 Chronicle, T. T. Williams of the Post, Jerome A.. Hart of the Argonaut, John P. Irish of the Alta, and S. C. Carrington of the Sacramento Becord- Union. On this last journal was once George Frederic Parsons, later literary editor of the New York Tribune, and one of the ablest writers in America. In early times purely literary efforts did not receive adequate support, owing to the unsettled condition of society. Later the wider range* and superior character of eastern periodicals attracted too much of public attention, and humorous, satirical, and critical journals can alone be said to have flourished. The best early paper of this latter class was the Bon-ton Critic, issued in March 1854, and the latest is the Argonaut. Nevertheless, there have been repeated attempts to establish literary publications. The first, the weekly Golden Era, dated from December 1852 ; but its pages contained a large proportion of newspaper matter, and were suited rather for the taste of the less exacting portions of the rural and mining population. Of similar papers none, have equalled it in popularity. The first monthly issue of a higher order was the Pioneer, published in January 1854, and continuing for two years. The editor was F. C. Ewer, later well-known on the Atlantic side as a high-church episcopalian clergyman. The articles consisted chiefly of semi-historical and descriptive pieces, interspersed with more poems than tales or novelettes, and closing with a review of events, soqi- ety, arts, and. sciences, somewhat too staid, perhaps, for the period. James M. Hutchings fancied that he understood the public taste better, and in his California Magazine, begun in July 1856, he introduced a larger portion of light matter, with special attention to humorous sketches. The size was somewhat reduced, and the editor's department cut down, but the pages, received instead the addition of wood-cuts, of a mediocre and at times decidedly trashy stamp, like much of the text. It existed for five years, improving somewhat 600 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. toward the close in tone. It might have lived longer but for the rivalry of The Hesperian, started in May 1858, as a semi-monthly journal of literature and art, and consisting largely of items. Mrs F. H. Day, who soon took sole charge, converted this with the second volume into a monthly magazine, of a higher order than the preceding, with a juvenile department, with more reflective and instructive articles, and with a few excellent illustrations. It changed in 1863 to The Pacific Monthly, under less firm editorship, and died not long afterward. The contemporary California Magazine, with its predominance of novels and fashion items, appealed to the fair sex. The California Mountaineer, begun at Tuolumne in 1861 by H. S. Brooks, adopted some features of the early Hesperian, and a number of less notable magazines sprang up at intervals to seek a share of favor.5 Finally, in 1868, appeared the Overland Monthly, the hightest of its class, and started under the editorship of Bret Harte, who was then rising into fame. His contributions to it, during a period of two years and a half, were indeed a main feature, and gave no small impulse to the circulation, besides bringing the writer into that notice which later drew him to wider fields in the eastern states and Europe. A mass of slumbering talent was awakened by this medium, and their scattered offerings in prose and verse have since in several instances, reappeared in special books. Harte's pieces formed an important feature of three large volumes, and so with Coolbrith, W. C. Bartlett, Avery, J. Miller, Clarence King, Stoddard, Clifford, Cremony, Scammon, Victor, and others, who shallbe noticed in due course. Bartlett assumed, temporarily, the editorial chair, until Avery accepted it. ^ After his departure as minister to China, the magazine declined and was suspended in December, 1875. The original publisher, A. Roman, revived it in January 1880, under the title of the Californian, which three years later merged into the Overland Monthly again, THE FIRST AMERICAN DECADE. 601 called the second series. It has ever adhered to the proclaimed mission of | developing the country," by devoting a proportionately large space to instructive and descriptive articles concerning the coast. These, indeed, form its best material, and next ranks the poetry, which, despite its doubtful admixture is decidedly superior to the average fiction. Its influence, like that of the preceding magazines, has been less marked in directing public taste, over which the newspapers and the eastern periodicals exercise greater control; but it has rendered good service in fostering local talent, and in bringing new writers into notice, even beyond our borders. No country has probably roused so sudden, widespread, and intense an interest as did California, when reports of her gold-beds flashed throughout the world. The discovery of Columbus did not attract half the attention, and the invasions of the Tartar and Crescent hordes failed to create the same excitement, even in Europe, partly because news travelled slowly in those days, and overspread the world so gradually as to lose its effect. What scenes, what incidents, what budding fancies are not associated with this last great hegira and its halt at this earth's end I Books innumerable have alluded to, or dwelled at length on, these romantic phases; and not a periodical out of the thousands existing but has added to the halo surrounding the name of California. But the most valuable of all material for the history of California lies in the thousand manuscript dictations and experience of those who helped to make the history of the country, and which I have been accumulating during the last quarter of a century. Many of the early settlers wrote or dictated matter which swelled into ponderous works, sometimes of four and five volumes, and covering all subjects, from sober history to romantic tales, from reviews of natural features and industrial resources to social types and 602 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. amenities. Some, like Salvador, the Indian fighter, and Amador, a name commemorated in that of a country, tell their story in the blunt style of the mountaineer and soldier; others, like Vicente Gomez, rely on pointed anecdotes and racy_ humor; still others, like Torres, Jaussens, Hijar, Arce, and Fernandez, are intent on certain episodes; Botello and Coronel on formality of style, at the expense of freshness and vigor; while a large number sacrifice essential elements of history to the feeling of importance which pervades them in being called upon to estimate men and events. They are, above all, impressed with a desire to perpetuate their own achievements, to glorify the ego and proceed with their narrative, as if truth were an incidental rather than primary requirement. While prolix and full of details, they care little for exactness, and general ideas and plans are lost sight of in the aim to apply a certain coloring, and to create effect. Sequence and completeness are so little regarded as to stamp most efforts as unsatisfactory and fragmentary. The humorous is not neglected, however, and the narratives are frequently enlivened with some bright sally or good story. But for all this, as I have said, used with proper care and discrimination, they constitute the very foundation of California history. Governor Pio Pico may be regarded as the representative of a class, in his disjointed and contradictory volume. Manuel Castro is more connected and fluent and clear, but unscrupulous in his skillfully woven tissues. Osio, on the other hand, is swayed by prejudices, despite himself. He is also uneven in treatment and style, beginning his character sketches and scenes with animation, and evincing considerable aptitude as he proceeds, only to digress and leave them unfinished, or even to contradict himself on later pages. In the same manner pleasingly told paragraphs are frequently broken by crude and puerile phrases. This caprice is greatly due to the infirmity of age, as MANUSCRIPT DICTATIONS. revealed in garrulous details. Governor Alvarado positive, rather than prejudiced, and supplies a vast amount of information, marked by a clear judgment. Bandini conveys his less valuable memoirs under a pretentious title, and regards them evidently as admirable ; yet he disclaims any attempt at writing history, or any striving for elegance and method, and this declaration he certainly adheres to. Far more acceptable are Botello's records, and still more so the imposing tomes of General Vallejo, a man imbued with enthusiastic regard for the history of his country, as well as for his contributions to it. This zeal leads him often to exaggerate, but the reader cannot fail to be impressed by his sincerity and striving for truth, and readily overlooks an all-pervading pompousness, which for that matter accords not ill with his services and prestige. He combines strong descriptive power with due appreciation for fitness. Notwithstanding the several peculiarities of the Latin race, where the evidence is so full the truth can always be reached. Side by side with the recollections of Hispano-Cal- ifornians, which apply chiefly to Mexican times, I have arranged on my library shelves those of American and other pioneers, which are even more numerous, and relate to the journey out, to the conquest by the United States, to the gold discovery, and to the subsequent development. They are more matter of fact and exact, but while questions are considered with due regard to their importance, the style savors too frequently of the free-and-easy intercourse of early days, and compares unfavorably with the more dignified tone and choicer diction of the Mexicans. This inferiority belongs only to a class, however; for the rest, headed by such men as Senator Gwin and generals Sutter and Bidwell, exhibit admirable features in treatment and language. The influx of gold-seekers ignorant of the country, its resources, and the methods in vogue, led to the 604 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. early publication of books for their guidance, among the first of the kind being California as it is, and as it may be, San Francisco, 1849, 8vo, 76 pages, by F. P. Wierzbicki, a Pole, who is said to have made a considerable sum of money by its sale. John J. Worth followed with A Dissertation on the Besources, Benicia, 1851; and then came Crane in 1855, Bushnell, De Groot, Truman, Menefee, Hutchings, and a host of more or less special treatises, some referring only to certain counties or districts. . A larger number would no doubt have been issued in early years had not the eastern states and Europe anticipated the movement by a flood of books and pamphlets, some prepared by returned miners, others compiled from different sources. Their incompleteness and misstatements induced John S. Hittell in 1863 to issue The Besources of California, which speedily passed through several editions, one of which attained a local prize, offered for a book of this character, prepared wholly from material which might be obtained within the state. Its success led to the publication in 1868 of The Natural Wealth of California, and later of the Commerce and Industries of the Pacific Coast, the most comprehensive and exhaustive work on the country. Both are embellished with cuts and complemented by historic and geographic sketches, yet not sufficiently digested and elaborated. Both of these leading works were issued under my auspices. In The Gfolden State, by R. Guy McClellan, there are sketches of the other Pacific states. I. I. Powell provides a similar work on Nevada, whose silver mines had been calling universal attention to this region. Mrs Victor's works on Oregon and Washington excel in a descriptive view and sprightly tone that impart a particular charm. To this class may be added directories, which embody much historic and statistical matter, and give testimony of the progress made by population and industries. The first was issued at San Francisco in September 1850 by Charles P. Kimball.8 EFFECT OF GOLD. 605 For several years after the gold excitement everything concerning California was read with avidity, partly interwoven in novels, partly in equally alluring narratives of travel and life, based on personal experiences, more or less colored, and due chiefly to the pens of eye-witnesses, such as E. Gould Buffum, prominent in the state since 1847 as lieutenant of Stevenson's volunteers, as member of the legislature, and journalist. He committed suicide at Paris in 1868, leaving the manuscript for Lights and Sensations in France to be printed by a brother. His Six Months in the Gold Mines is disjointed, both in plan and style, under the pressure of a hurried publication. It was issued in 1850 at Philadelphia, as the better market; but similar narratives began to appear within the country, at first in newspaper columns, and gradually in book form, among the first being Carson's Early Becollections, Stockton, 1852, which is even less finished than the preceding, and intended chiefly for an emigrant guide. The California Pilgrim, by J. A. Benton, printed at Sacramento in 1853, is an embodiment of scenes witnessed and characters encountered in towns, camps, and country, but described as seen by the writer in a dream, and in imitation of Bunyan's treatment and style, yet with an admixture of ordinary dialogue on every-day topics, political and social, and with moral reflections at the end of the chapters, here called lectures, for as such they had been originally delivered. In the same year Delano began the Life on the Plains and other sketches, which have procured for him a place among the humorists. With the establishment in 1854 of the monthly magazine, narratives of this kind received a more appropriate repository, and accordingly greater elaboration than those destined for mere newspapers. In the Pioneer is a long serial piece, California in 1851, by Shirley, running through its four volumes, and remarkable for this time it being from the pen of a woman. It is in epistolary form, EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. showing a cultured mind and feminine grace, yet with some characteristic defects in prolixity and trivialities. Another resident female, Mrs Farnham, prepared about the same time a more formal and prosaic account, full of valuable information, but also with an excessive intrusion of her private troubles, colored by religious thoughts. It was published at New York in 1856, as the first book written by her sex in and on the country. The Captivity of the Oatman Girls may also be regarded as a woman's narrative, although edited by a man, R. B. Stratton, also a resident Californian. In a preface to the second edition he seeks to remove the doubts cast upon his literary taste for indulging in florid and melodramatic style. The latter served well with the readers of such matter to convey a harrowing effect, and so rapidly did the two California editions of 1857 sell that the book was in 1858 issued at New York. A favorable contrast is presented in the natural and appropriate tone of The Adventures of James Capen Adams, San Francisco, 1860, wherein Theodore Hittell relates the life of a mountaineer and bear hunter. The publication in San Francisco in 1857 of Travels on the Western Slope of the Western Cordillera must be attributed rather to the closer interest which San Francisco was supposed to take in the resources and features of this region ; yet it indicates a remarkable confidence in the bent for reading among Californians, the more so since the information is imparted in a series of short ,and prosy letters. Less pretentious in size, but more attractively written, is Stewart's Last of the Filibusters, Sacramento, 1857, relating to Walker's Nicaragua expedition. To these new fields for the pen was added another in Seven Years' Street Preaching in San Francisco, by Reverend William Taylor, published the same year, but in New York. It was not likely to engage the attention of the rollicking people on this coast, for the book treats almost exclusively of religious efforts in dens and alleys among the ruder SECOND DECADE. 607 classes, and with a monotonous sameness of both subject and language. His California Life, published two years later, is more varied, and gives an instructive account of society and development. Numerous illustrations have been added, although some of them hardly accord with the predominating religious strain. About the same time appeared a number of minor publications bearing on the vigilance movements, notably McGowan's Narrative, which relates his persecution by the popular tribunal and his escapes, together with a defence of his career as a politician. Such is the outline of a characteristic class of books presented to the public during the first decade. The same range of subjects continues to attract writers, but while pioneers still cling to the golden dreams of early days, others follow the progressive phases around them, in style as well as theme. Lack of due care and elaboration still mark their efforts; nevertheless, there is a manifest improvement, due no less to the emulative example of prominent eastern competitors than to the refining influence of a society now approaching the normal family proportion, and to ready intercourse with other countries. A striking feature is the predilection for humor, reflecting the boisterous times of 1849, and the convivialities of a community consisting almost entirely of bachelors, with the varied aspects of a cosmopolitan people. Another trait is the love for scenery, indirectly strengthened no doubt during the toilsome march over plains, ranges, and deserts, or the irksome voyage by sea. The monotony of the route, heightened by the dullness and hardship, caused the newly found country to be invested by the weary wanderer with exceeding fairness, a picture gilded in course of time by bright memories. The newcomers hailed, besides, from a ruder clime, in comparison with which the present seemed a perennial spring, an Arcadia festooned with vines, and shaded by cypress and fig-trees, varied by snow-tipped peaks 608 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. and mighty canons, with spouting geysers and stately trees, with cloud-enbosomed lakes and winding caverns. It is impossible not to feel the influence of scenery so grand and beautiful, and Californians may well be pardoned for dwelling with fondness upon it. They display their admiration not alone in books, but in the enjoyment of nature by summer saunterings and camping expeditions. The numerous descriptions given in periodicals, guide-books, and more pretentious works are a fair record of wide experience. Foremost among such sketches must be placed Clarence King's Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, written originally for a California magazine amid the scenes depicted, and by one who has long been connected with the country. Lofty summits and rugged cliffs attract him most, with mantling glaciers in their encroachments on border vegetation. His spirit responds to the inspiring vistas that unfold on every side, past the circling shades of forests to green-clad slopes, and into peaceful dales half shrouded in misty blue, and his description comes forth in the same variegated colors of language, mingled with thrilling accounts of adventures, vivid portrayals of character, romantic episodes, and touches of quaint humor. Popular appreciation is shown by the issue, in 1882, of a sixth edition. His contributions to the reports of the geological survey of California have earned for him an enviable reputation. The picturesque is generally affected, and frequently attained, in such books as Truman's Semi-tropical California and Occidental Sketches, Tamil's California Notes, Powell's Wonders, Avery's California Pictures, and a host of others, aiming to instruct the immigrant or guide the visitor. The style of Avery, for a time editor of the Overland, and later minister to China, is fluent and harmonious, but there is a tiresome sameness of scenes and a marked subordination of topic to diction. SECOND DECADE. 609 Society and institutions on this remote ocean border sprang up as it were in a day, with their strange commingling of races, of dreamy indolence and stupendous striving, of glittering acquisition and reckless prodigality these topics furnish ever-alluring sources for pen and eye, as instanced in the sketches of A la California by Evans. With keen observation and quick appreciation of the beautiful, the useful, and the droll, he seized upon all salient features of scenery, development, and character as they passed before him during a series of trips through the country, and fixed the pictures with fresh and pleasing touches, adding now some excellent descriptive bit, now some ludicrous trait or racy anecdote. If they lack finish and symmetry, they are at least interesting in subject, and sparkling in treatment. The book was published at San Francisco in 1873, after his sad end on the Atlantic, while on the way to Mexico. He had visited that country in 1869-70 with Seward's party, and left a record of his observations in Our Sister. Bepublic, Hartford, 1870, of the same type as the preceding, although somewhat more connected. A large part of his checkered career as pioneer, soldier, lawyer, banker, and writer was spent in California, chiefly in connection with the press. He wrote for eastern journals, and his works are chiefly culled from published articles and letters. A marked tendency in all such sketches is to exaggerate in order to strengthen the story, and this has been the case particularly with the gold discovery period. The reader may" seldom object, but it certainly touches the feelings of many a class and frequent protests have been uttered. In A Picture of Pioneer Times, William Gray makes a special effort in this direction, while seeking to impress his own not wholly unselfish or unprejudiced views about men and events. The narrative is plain, though gossipy, and interspersed with a number of racy anecdotes. The Lights and Shades in Sa7i Francisco, by Lloyd, dwells Essays and Miscellany 39 610 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. on later aspects of society and institutions, with a sensational partiality for low life, while Isabelle Saxon in her Five Years Within the Golden Gate, and other contributions, depicts rather the superior classes. There is a strange mixture of credulity and good sense in her observations, marked, also, by the rather stubborn English idea of fitness, and by a refreshing absence of feminine diffusion. Mrs Bates' Four Years on tlw Pacifw Coast, stands midway between the two in treatment and in describing interior village and mining life. Of a higher grade are KirehhofFs Beise- bihhs, and W. M. Fisher's Californians, the latter forming a series of clever character sketches, albeit somewhat strained and pedantic. W. Wright, long a journalist on the coast and writing under different noms de plume, chiefly that of Dan De Quille, presents in the History of the Big Bonanza a curious medley of historical facts and . humorous phases of society in connection with a mining excitement that brought about, in a measure, the repetition of flush times of El Dorado, and raised Nevada from a county appendage to a state. It is full of stirring incidents and anecdotes, and delights in rough characters and dialects ; but the illustrations are, as a rule, more amusing than the too frequently strained attempts to imitate Mark Twain. A central picture in sketches of California society has ever been accorded to the Chinese, who with extreme conservatism, preserve almost intact their peculiar customs in the midst of hostile and absorbing elements. They occupy a district wholly to themselves, where their curious habits form a never-ending source of interest to other nationalities, and the visitor may gather a very fair idea of the Celestial empire from this miniature. The most comprehensive accounts of them have been furnished by the missionaries Loomis, Speer, and Gibson, here established. The former contributed his in a series of articles to the SECOND DECADE. 611 Overland; Speer's swelled to a bulky volume, TIw Oldest and Newest Empire, with his previous experiences in China, and with lengthly arguments in answer to their traducers and political assailants. In this Gibson supplements him in his Chinese in America, 1877. Their religious tone and partisan spirit have afforded room for additional, though less extensive, observations from different standpoints. Another class of recollections pertains more directly to travels. Stillman's Seeking the Golden Fleece is occupied chiefly with his voyage out round Cape Horn, and the return journey by way of Nicaragua in 1850, with an intermediate diary of incidents in California. The appearance of the book is too pretentious for the crude journal it embodies, and the incoherency and want of polish appears greater when compared with an introduction on the gold excitement, which reveals that the author had the ability to revise his work. The Log of an Ancient Mariner, by Captain Wake- man, may be termed a series of yarns, with occasionally humorous passages, spun by a blunt and somewhat conceited yet good-natured sailor, in connection with his cruises, chiefly along this coast, to which he belongs since 1849. The book was edited by his daughter, who carefully preserves the quaint dialect as an essential feature. Interior movements with pictures of Indian life is presented in Cremqny's Life Among the Apaches, giving the experiences of an active participant in frontier wars, who comes to the conclusion that in the extermination of red-skins lies the only safety for settlers. The book is unsymmetrical and the diction careless, though graphic. Stephen Powers goes over the same ground'in his Afoot, but he dwells mainly on the pastoral phases; depicts the varied scenery in word-painting that is at times exquisite ; gives glowing pictures of budding settlements, and portrays the life within in graphic touches, relieved by veins of satire and softened by a veil of sub- 612 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. tie humor, rising now and then into happy witticism. Nevertheless, the narrative drags at times, and only too many pages have been filled with dull anecdotes and dialect pieces. His Muskingum Legends, partly reprinted from the Overland, are a series of sketches from different climes, well studied and finished; gems sparkling with all the beauties of the preceding, and with hardly any of their defects; full of happy observations and conveyed in picturesque language. Both he and Cremony have left some useful manuscripts on Indian dialects. More distant scenes are presented by Swift in Going to Jericho, by way of the land of the Cid through the Halicarnassian stamping-grounds. His aim is to be entertaining rather than correct, and to this end he strains somewhat the Derbian vein, which he has evidently cultivated; nevertheless there is a sufficient flow of natural and genial humor and frequent bursts of real eloquence, mingled with delicate sentiment, to sustain the intimations made, and to atone for occasional lapses in taste and effort. Readers who delight in harrowing and pathetic stories may turn to McGlashan's History of the Donner Party, describing its terrible sufferings during the trip to California. A great proportion of the several hundred manuscript contributions to my library by pioneers belongs to the class of historic biography, dealing more with tangible facts than abstract analysis or moral influence, but generally relieved by quaint drollery and piquant anecdotes. Their value to history is of the highest, bearing as they do on the different phases of California's unfolding. Few of these men have even attempted to give their memoirs in print, their direct or indirect articles in public journals referring chiefly to episodes. Perhaps the most important contribution among them is the Becollec- iions and Opinions of an old Pioneer, by Peter H. HISTORIC BIOGRAPHY. 613 Burnett, the first governor of the state. The first half describes the land journey to Oregon, and his career there as judge till the gold excitement lured him to California. The flush times, early political affairs, and industrial development from a banker's standpoint are successively reviewed, interspersed with reflections and personal matter. The tone is egotistic, and the phraseology ungrammatical. The Biver of the West, by that most versatile writer, Mrs F. F. Victor, belongs properly to Oregon, but deserves special mention here for its attractive weft of mountain and trapper incidents, with descriptive and anecdotal matter. The Personal Beminiscences of Judge Field, printed in 1880 only for private distribution, relate almost exclusively to his professional experiences, supplemented by Some Account of the Work of Stephen J. Field, 1881, filled mainly with his decisions. O'Meara's Broderick and Gwin delineates two political leaders with the subtlety of a calculating partisan. Biographic anecdotes of early men find special consideration in Barry and Patten's Men and Memoirs, a disconnected book, full of trivialities and poor anecdotes as retailed in the wine-shop. Numbers of clergymen have added records of their efforts in furtherance of religious and educational advancement, notably the reverends Williams, Willey, and Woods, in A Pioneer Pastorate and Times, Thirty Years in California, and Becollections of Pioneer Work. The first attained a second edition in 1882, and dwells on the history of the presbyterian church at San Francisco, founded by him ; the second extends his observations to ecclesiastic labors generally; and the last swells his account with sketches of early times and characters, in a chatty style, marked by considerable naivete, and frequent attempts at eloquence. The Checkered Life of Ver Mehr concerns above all himself and his old-world career, and reveals a weak character with little talent, buffeted by a hard, practical world, as may be judged from the puerile 614 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. sentiments and trivialities of the story. General biography has also received attention. Oscar Schuck prepared matter which grew to two volumes, but his effort was far surpassed in size, treatment, and appearance by the Contemporary Biography of California's Bepresentative Men, edited by Professor Phelps, and illustrated, forming the most pretentious specimen of book manufacture on the coast. Amid this flow of contributions toward history, Californians did not lose sight of the main object for utilizing them. Men like Edmund Randolph, Alexander Taylor, Benjamin Hayes, and others energetically advocated the need for a formal history of the state. Some became so interested as to form in 1870 the California historical society, and went so far as to issue a reprint of Paloii's Notida. Randolph gave an earlier example in 1860 by issuing An Outline of the History of California till 1849, in less than seventy octavo pages, which, brief as it is, reveals considerable research for that time. Like them, Taylor collected material,. and gave to the public a portion of his treasures and studies in journalistic articles on mission regime, biography, and other topics, confused and incorrect in form, and pedantic in execution. Hayes, on the other hand, modestly confined himself to the laborious task of forming scrap-books of newspaper clippings and manuscripts, classified by locality and subject, and extending to scores of volumes^—all of which I purchased as one collection. Others contributed to the press, as did Taylor, on special episodes or districts, and R. F. Ryan at an early date wrote for the Golden Era a series of chapters under a sensational heading on the history of the state, beginning with the expedition of Cortes, but even less satisfactory than Randolph's sketch, and very fragmentarv. Outlines more or less complete and general may be found appended or embodied in descriptive and statistical works on the country. SOME HISTORICAL EFFORTS. 615 In 1851 John F. Morse began the Blustrated Historical Sketches of California., with special attention to the history of Sacramento, issued in cheap numbers, and with little evidence of research or elaboration, defects which no doubt assisted to render the attempt a failure. In the following year appeared The Annals of San Francisco, with a historical introduction, a description of society and institutions, and a series of biographies; the former lacking investigation and care, the social pictures savoring strongly of the sensational, and the biography of fulsome flattery, the historic text being also frequently marred with personal notices. It may be classed as a book intended to sell. It was not till eleven years later that Franklin Tuthill issued the first History of California deserving the title. He was fitted for his task by varied training and experiences as doctor, legislator, and journalist in his.native state of New York. In 1859 he came to settle in California as an editor of the Bulletin. Perceiving in him a natural taste for historic research, I requested him to undertake the work, and as it was in a measure connected with his duties, he readily acquiesced. Unfortunately, there were many obstacles to hamper him. He had neither time nor opportunity for investigation, and adopted, often with insufficient study, the accounts of the most accessible printed sources. For later times the newspapers enabled him to • be more complete. In treatment he is not symmetrical, and skims many momentous and thrilling incidents, while according to others an undue share of attention. Although revealing a commendable grasp of generalities and a clear judgment, he shows a similar unevenness in often failing to seize essential features. The same characteristics apply to style, which is essentially cramped, a stiff adherence to Macaulay's laconisms. He seems chary of words as well as space, and while the acknowledged possessor of a flowing pen he governs it too rigidly by the superior claims 616 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. of fact recital. There are occasional plays of wit and fancy, but he. is not always happy in similes, despite his range of diction and lore. Altogether the work leaves an impression not wholly satisfactory to either student or casual reader. Excess of work fostered an organic disease in Tut- hill, and in 1 864 he undertook a European tour for his health, only to succumb at New York in the following year, at the age of forty-three. .His last moments were given to revising the proof-sheets of the history. While printed at New York, it was written and published in California. A Youth's History of California, by Lucia Norman, may be regarded as an abridgment of the above. Compact form and cheapness were the chief causes for its success. Nearly all the pre-American history of California, extending over three quarters of a century, turns on the missions; yet to this period and features little attention has been given by the new occupants as compared with the flood of information on the decade beginning with 1846. This is pardonable in view of the stirring incidents herein grouped; but as their splendor passed, and observers recovered somewhat from the dazzling effect, they reverted to the quieter scenes of the past, round the cradle of their state, and saw there the heroic struggles of self-sacrificing friars, braving danger and enduring hardship for the saving of souls and the planting of civilization. Thousands of rude beings were undoubtedly made better and happier, even if they served mainly as stepping-stones for colonization; and thousands of somewhat higher beings were lifted to comfort and enjoyment in the farms and towns that sprang up along the path of the cross. This was the wand that transformed a wilderness into a flourishing territory. It is but natural that the church which had laid the foundation for an empire should desire to record the great achievement, neglected as it was by civilians, and this it has sought to do in a, History of the Catholic SOME HISTORICAL EFFORTS. Church in California, by W. Gleeson, professor in St Mary's college. The work was printed at San Francisco in 1871-2 in two volumes, with illustrations. While adhering to the title, the text treats also of secular events linked with the main topic, notably those that led to the occupation of this country. There is a disproportion between the topics, however. The missions very properly receive the greatest space, but those of Lower California embrace nearly one third of all the material, and evidently because their history lay ready for the compiler in well-written volumes. For the northern establishments he has, nevertheless, gathered some excellent facts. After 1850 he ignores political data, and swells his pages with tales of wonderful conversions. He is not alone strongly partisan, but he upholds modern miracles, and gives undue importance to the traditions of pre- Golumbian visits by St Thomas and the Irish fathers, whose traces he fondly unravels in North American mounds. These peculiarities are not balanced by any particular excellence of treatment or style. Indeed, he lacks TuthiU's dignified regard for history, and displays less ability and care. The centennial celebration of the United States was, by suggestion from congress, widely commemorated by a production of local histories, in California no less than elsewhere. Among them was one of San Francisco, which expanded into a large volunie, embracing incidentally an outline of state occurrences. It was prepared by John S. Hittell, the leading statistical writer on the coast, and marked by his characteristic formality of treatment and independent, clear, and comprehensive style. While surpassing in completeness any previous effort, it is to be regretted that a still better use was not made of his opportunities by an author with such wide experience and versatility of themes. Connected with the press of this city almost since its beginning, he has exercised a marked influence on public thought, and placed himself prominently 618 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. before it in a number of publications, notably the Besources already spoken of, and A Brief History of Culture, written with special attention to industrial development, and in a measure complementary to Draper's Intellectual Development It does not attain the same lofty range as this famous work, and is deficient in the inductive and deductive study and treatment to be expected; nevertheless, its value is undoubted, forming as it does the first popular book of the kind in English which combines scope and conciseness. The issue, in 1857, of a Plea for Pantheism indicates his bent of thought. He wrote on phrenology, translated several German scientific treatises, dabbled in drama, and touched a variety of other sub-, jects. One of his latest tasks wa& to edit the Commerce and Industries of the Pacific States, at my request. Among other local histories of California must be mentioned Dwinelle's Colonial History of San Francisco, which passed through several editions, and which presents an exhaustive argument before the court, with a series of documents establishing the early existence of this city as a pueblo, and tracing the colonial policy of Spain and Mexico toward such settlements. The History of San JosS-—by F. Hall, author of the Life of Maximilian, and legal adviser to this ruler—is a very full and rather.ambitious work, considering the subject. Tinkham wrote a much inferior account of Stockton. Hugo Reid and others early contributed articles to the press on county history, wherein Isaac Cox takes the lead with his Annals of Trinity County. This is a class of books which of late .years has been issued in great profusion by speculative firms, based on the vanity of pushing settlers, whose biographies and estates form the main topics. With all their undigested and fulsome details, often embodied in florid verbiage, they contain many valuable facts. Little superior to these is the pretentious Bepublicanism in America by R. Guy M'Clellan, which may be called an apology for the republican SCIENCE. 619 party, to whose prejudices it appeals. It is uneven in treatment, hastily thrown together, and not very dignified in style or logical in spirit. That Californians are interested in scientific subjects is demonstrated by the foundation, in 1853, of the Academy of Natural Sciences, which has grown in importance ever since, and contributed much to the enlightenment of the people in its special department. The source for admiration herein lies not so much in the early date of its establishment, for the heavy immigration to California brought a large proportion of educated men with a taste in this direction; it is its steady growth, amid exciting incidents and absorbing pursuits, which attracts our attention. Mining was naturally the main incentive for investigation, and called for a vast number of more or less elaborate and learned treatises, either in the several journals devoted to this branch, or in special form. Among the latter must be mentioned the reports and hand-books of William Blake, Kustel, Phillips, J. J. Powell; and above all J. Ross Browne and Clarence King, the former reporting to the federal government. The latter was connected with the geological survey of California, begun in 1860, and from which resulted several bulky volumes on the different subjects falling within its province. William P. Blake, later connected in this state with the university, had in 1853 made a geologic survey for the federal authorities, and thereupon a special examination. An amateur investigator in this field is John Muir, whose enthusiastic researches, embrac-. ing-several important discoveries and theories, he revealed in articles to periodicals. Professor Joseph Le Conte's studies on this and other subjects have appeared also in book form; those of his brother, John, likewise professor at the university of California, relate mainly to physics, astronomy, and medicine. Both have an attractive style. Medical and agricul- EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. tural journals are here in respectable number, with articles of as high an order as elsewhere, and several doctors have, like Toland, published lectures and dissertations. Members of this profession have also been foremost in botanic research, Kellogg setting a good example more than twenty years ago with his illustrated articles for the periodicals. R. H. Stretch and W. H. Edwards, the former mineralogist of Nevada, the latter an actor, wrote extensively on lepi- doptera; Grayson contributed to the knowledge of California birds, and left much material on Mexican ornithology, and Scammon prepared interesting articles for the Overland, which were afterward incorporated in his elaborate work on Marine Mammals. Davidson of the coast survey has made important additions to the knowledge of geography, meteorology, and astronomy. Comparative philology has engaged the attention of Adley Hook Cummins, whose contributions to the study of old Germanic languages have procured him an enviable record. George Gibbs has acquired prominence as a writer on aboriginal languages, and on the ethnology of this coast. I have already spoken of the vocabularies and grammars prepared by the friars, and by later writers like Powers and Cremony. There is room for much similar work, with an ample field among the numerous tribes of the country now rapidly fading away. John Swett stands prominent as a writer on education. E. S. Carr, sometime professor at the university of California, has given the annals of the farmers' movement in his Patrons of Husbandry. Hilgard, Hyatt, and Perkins have supplemented his treatises by valuable researches on agriculture. Political science shows such writers as C. T. Hopkins and Henry George. The latter, an able editor, achieved celebrity with his Progress and Poverty, a work that revives in an effective manner doctrines enunciated by Quesnay and De Gournay for placing taxation mainly on land. George urges that land be JURISPRUDENCE. 621 vested wholly in the government, and propounds several other theoiies stamped by certain originality as well as by strong imagination and vigorous style. The success of the book was greatly due to the socialistic excitement prevalent at the time of issue, savoring as it does of communism, and revelling in utopian fancies. The introductory review of economic principles and writers is not treated with sufficient consideration. The peculiar conditions attending the occupation of land and mines in this country has led to an amount of litigation unparalleled for extent and importance, and consequently to vast additions in forensic literature, remarkable not alone for research but for eloquence and depth of thought. Of the former class may be mentioned the compilations of M. M. Estee, J. N. Pomeroy, and those begun by Proffatt, now grown to one of the most voluminous issues of decisions ever made. The efforts of legal lights, partaking of Dwinelle's argument on pueblo lands, or Gregory Yale's Water Bights, will be found noticed elsewhere. Suffice it here to allude to those of H. W. Halleck, whose justly esteemed International Law found its beginning in questions decided by him as early as 1846, during the conquest of the country. Halleck had before this issued Elements of Military- Art, which obtained a second edition in 1861, and A Collection of Mining Laws of Spain and Mexico. This and the first-named work were published in San Francisco. The devotion to scientific and practical studies is marked in California among the men, and in accord with the general activity in developing the cumulating resources. This observation is supported not so much by the number and labors of societies, which are chiefly of the literary and debating classes, as by the records of libraries. These have been rapidly multi- olying and enlarging since the momentous year of 1849, with a commendable predilection for useful and 622 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. standard works, notwithstanding the strong demand for sentimental novels by a mass of leisure-ridden women.8 Religious feeling on this coast is far less wide-spread or intense than in the countries from which its population is drawn, as can be readily judged from the observance of the Sabbath, with its .excursions and local entertainments, and from the want of fervor among those who attend church. The adventurous spirit that prompted most of the comers to this far off shore; the very object that allured them, and which has continued to be so all-absorbing; the roaming life of many, and the unsettled position of others—r-all this has contributed to the prevalent indifference for devotion, fostered also by the tone of an influential press. Materialistic tendencies are common among its writers, a few with German sympathies inclining to such teachings as are given in John S. Hittell's Plea for Pantheism, San Francisco, 1857. It must not be forgotten, however, that since California has been made a state, the people of New England have cast off much of their superstition; so that after all our coast cannot be considered freer from fanaticism to-day than the intellectual and cultured circles of the east. The most fervent believers in old-time doctrines and traditions are no doubt those of the Roman catholic church, which appeals greatly to the senses and emotions, and relies chiefly on certain classes. Rare, indeed are conversions like that recorded by Governor Burnett in The Path which Led a Protestant Lawyer to the Catholic Church, New York, 1859. It bears traces of priestly pens. The conversion took place while he resided in Oregon, and was attributed by opponents to ambitious motives. This the book seeks to disprove. Teachings of the Ages is a book, issued in 1874 by A. C. Traveler, advocating a universal church, having for its creed the general principles underlying Christianity. It is stamped by Swedenborgian views, how- RELIGION. 623 ever, and full of feminine rhapsodies and diffuseness. Judge Widney, of Los Angeles, wrote a very able and orthodox work entitled The Plan of Creation. With this mingling of indifference for the pulpit and attention to estranging thought, ministers have struggled hard to maintain their influence, and have only too frequently resorted to more or less sensational adjuncts, in theme of sermon, in music, and other contrivances to attract the wayward flock. Theirs has in a great measure continued to be a missionary field, with demand for teachers and guides rather than theologians and thinkers. Thus, while our protestant clergy include in their ranks men of the latter stamp, they have both in their preaching and writing sought to conform to the claims of their profession. Bishop Kip, so long connected with California, is the author of a number of books bearing on his field, but they are all of what may be termed popular treatises both in size and treatment. His series on the Jesuit missions are extracts from the old and curious Letters Edifiantes, The Early Conflicts of Christianity, The Church of the Apostles, and the better known Catacombs of Borne, illustrating the earliest unfolding of the faith, and impress lessons which are happily brought home in Unnoticed Things of Scripture. Several of these volumes reached a number of editions, particularly the Double Witness of the Church, which is a defence of episcopal principles, a cause also espoused by F. C. Ewer, rector of Christ church,, for protestantism generally in his Sermons, New York, 1869. This talented man was in early days connected with California, notably as editor of the Pioneer magazine of 1854-6. Another prolific church writer was W. A. Scott, an able though somewhat egotistical and dogmatical presbyterian, whose opposition to the vigilance committee of 1856, and to the war for the union in 1860-1, created some excitement at the respective dates. His subjects were mainly the portrayal of bible characters 624 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. whose example he seeks to uphold, while investing the story with many of the alluring features of the historic novel, including pictures of Oriental society. This is especially the case with Esther, the Hebrew- Persian Queen, intended for female readers. In Daniel he addresses young men, and The Giant Judge, a study of Samson, is intended to promote the purity of marriage and domestic life, while The Church in the Army points to early centurions as guides for soldiers. Their publication was due to the success, especially in the eastern states, of his Wedge of Gold, 1855, with its lessons from the life of Achan against extravagance and love of money. The diction and phraseology are frequently biblical, and the religious strain is perhaps too intense, in its continuance at least. Trade and Letters, on their relationship and moral tendency, is more profane in tone. Moses and the Pentateuch forms a reply to Colenso, and in The Christ of the Apostle's Creed he arrays himself against Arianism and kindred dogmas. This is the most pretentious of .his works, and reveals indeed research of no mean extent, in addition to the study impressed on all his pages, with its admirable display of analysis and deduction, and further, a liberality of opinion which is demonstrated in his argument against sectarianism in schools. In this he was opposed by his confrere, W. C. Anderson, who eloquently upheld the use of the bible for schools. It is to be regretted that such pronounced abilities and severe study should b in the main wasted on puerile subjects. In the sermons and addresses of the unitarian minister, Thomas Starr King, Christianity and Humanity, Patriotism and other Papers, we .find thought clothed in picturesque word-painting, and in the author a magnetism that drew crowds of admirers. His stirring eloquence found a fitting theme during the union war, in the midst of which he died, regretted by people of every religion and of no religion. e ORATORY. 625 To the above may be added the discourses of the Reverend Wadsworth, and the rarer sermons of a few others, besides memoirs elsewhere noticed. More publications could not reasonably be expected, for the clergy of California lived in an age of action rather than of thought. The scenes depicted in Taylor's Street Preaching stamp to a great extent the early struggles, with which only too many are still occupied, although others have passed through different stages to a more settled condition, here or elsewhere. Their most effective appeals were probably those in which they roused attention by interweaving illustrations from professional pursuits and home life, and drawing lessons in prudence, integrity, manliness, and kindness. Among these practical preachers were the congrega- tionalist A. L. Stone—see his Memorial Discourses, Boston, 1866—and J. B. Thomas, a baptist, with scientific tastes; also Kincard and Briggs. Others like Jewell, the methodist, aroused interest by anecdotes from common life, inclining somewhat to the sensational. Cox and Pierpont approached the revivalist method, with its play upon the emotions, the loftier and purer phases of which were admirably touched by Wadsworth. Scenes and characters from the bible were treated with comprehensive thoroughness, not alone by Scott, but by the congregationalist Noble. Kip inclined to historic subjects, and the congregationalist, Burrows, was strong in the classical and in social analysis. In Piatt of the episcopal church we meet the philosopher; the unitarian, Stebbins, is more metaphysical, and also the methodist, Stratton. The term ethical applies best to Beckwith and Ijams, congregationalists, Gray, baptist, and the presbyte- rians, Eels and Williams—the latter brought before the public also as editor of Confucius and the Chinese Classics, San Francisco, 1867—also Gibson and Loomis. and such eloquent preachers of the Roman church a3 Gibney, Grey, and Prendergast. The spirited Buchard may be classed as a polemic, like his Essays and Miscellany 40 626 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. opponent, Hemphill, a somewhat bigoted presbyterian, disposed toward the sensational, yet endowed with a natural-form of eloquence. Sensationalism has lured many from the dignified attitude associated with the pulpit, partly from the pressure of circumstances, but also from innate disposition, and political questions have frequently been discussed with indecorous heat, notably by the baptist, Kalloch. Another desecrator of the cloth, Van de Mark, the universalist, excelled in elocution. For picturesque eloquence Guard, methodist, stands unsurpassed; Macdonald, episcopalian, had a studied brilliancy, and Starr King shone in his strength and magnetism. In the oratory of the bar and assembly are equally bright names, and among them California claims also a share in E. D. Baker, a prominent debater of his day in the United States senate, who, during the opening decade of the state's development, exerted his magic eloquence in behalf of patriotism, moved the heart with his lofty tenderness, and dazzled with his superb word-painting. Colonel Kewen possessed the latter quality in a high degree, but with too marked floridity. Thomas Fitch excelled in imagery, and George Gordon is conspicuous for poetic strains. John B. Felton, with his love for the heroic and great in human nature, revealed a strong emotional vein. Then there were Edmund Randolph, deep with historic lore, the epigrammatic W. S. Ferguson, Til- ford, J. A. Collins, George Barstow, Charles A. Sumner, James A. McDougall, Volney Howard, and Henry Edgerton ; while native Californians find representatives in men like Sepulveda and Del Valle. Their efforts are naturally more or less colored by the greater excitability of temperament around them, drawn from the very air and soil, and manifested partly in enterprise, partly in a taste for the sensational rather than for the reflective. The audience is accordingly less cold and critical, and easily swayed by humorous fancies or sarcastic sallies, PECULIARITIES AND CONDITIONS. 627 stirring impulses or lofty emotions, the sentimental being rather exclusively left to women. Volubility and self-confidence cannot be called lacking among the orators, and thus fortified, they are able to exert their power with considerable freedom. Subjects are not wanting, sharing as we do in all the great and glorious incidents in American national life and in its constant and varying political struggles, and possessing besides a history of our own, unequalled for vivid pictures, with a triple array of pilgrim fathers from semi-legendary times through vistas of fierce frontier wars, thrilling hunting adventures, and calm pastoral pursuits, all merging in brilliant transformation scenes. The foremost oi these, the gold discovery, is a never ending source for appeal and flattery, as progress and liberty are for incentive and exhortation. Equally characteristic are the embellishments, chiefly scenic imagery from a truly beautiful and varied landscape and an Italian sky. If the objective theme be often vapid and meaningless, its background is at least grand, and the coloring warm and animating. From one must spring taste, from both lofty aspirations, and with them a strain of originality drawn not alone from our novel social phases, and manifested in human dialects, and other classical abnormities ; and not al^ne from inspiring scenery ; but from a combination of ethical and physical circumstances which holds forth the brightest promise. California has a certain literature of her own revolving round the incidents and characters of mining camps, the novelty and peculiarity of which sufficed to impart a special stamp to the narration. It depicts frontier life in the diggings, in the towns of sheds and tents sprung up within a day, and oft as speedily abandoned to solitude and decay. Weather-beaten, bushy-bearded men formed the bulk of the community, with a sprinkling of effeminacy and wreck in broken-down topers and empty-headed tyros, with 628 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. gamblers and dupes, villains and bullies. Catastrophes, wild orgies and rash deeds, streaks of fortune and mishaps, alternate in rapid sequence, narrated largely in the racy frontier vernacular, with varied admixture of brogue. Life was a gamble, centring as it did on ever- expected yet rare realizations of riches, which were usually dissipated with the reckless disregard accompanying easy acquisition. It took a mazy turn and motley coloring, and the predominance of males imparted a rough masculine stamp. There is a marked appeal to sentiment, particularly in allusions to a distant home, to exile longings, and to death-bed scenes; yet love episodes are wrought in a spirit of droll bluntness. The spectacle is too extravagant in its picturesqueness and incongruities to be described in ordinary language. It moulds diction as well as fancy. Writers fall irresistibly into a, fictitious style, and swell the improbable with exaggeration and anomaly. Thus grew a class of tales and novels, known in some directions as Californian, which achieved wide popularity, from their novelty of form and subject, from the broad interest taken in the country, and from the excuse they afforded* to certain classes to indulge their secret penchant for a tabooed blood-and- thunder and flashy literature. The leading figure is the honest miner, in woollen shirt and high boots, with pistol and bag of gold-dust at the belt. The piquant soubriquet under which he is introduced, like those of his camp and gulch, presents the individual peculiarity which marks him throughout the progress of his career, in persevering effort or reckless abandon, in rollicking indulgence or sage discussion; yet underlaid by a tender-hearted disposition which peers through the oath-laden vigor of his talk. A swarthy Mexican or South American is introduced to bear the obloquy of certain crimes, a love tragedy or vendetta, L INFLUENCE OF WOMAN. born of a jealous disposition or a slighted and revengeful soul. Around the outskirts hovers the last survivor of some Indian tribe, to point out the degradation lurking in rum, to illustrate in his devotion the magnetism and superiority of white men, or to personate the devilish instincts of scalp-hunting savages. The r61e of gentleman, in white shirt and semi-Mexican picturesqueness of covering, is usually assigned to the gambler, but its inferiority to that of the horny-handed digger is indicated by pronounced black-leg proclivities. The ever-welcome doctor is accordingly invested with the garb of honored toiler, relieved alone by more studied speech. In truth, the dandy is either hypocrite, maudlin numbskull, or rascal, while frankness, generosity, and bravery lie in the rough diamond, who discovers the slumbering treasure, or achieves the culminating success. Woman usually dawns like a heavenly vision upon the camp, where her sex has not been seen before. She is enshrined the guardian spirit, the queen, or sprightly elf of the place. Or she may be a romping wild flower, self-reliant and keen, abounding in slang, and in familiar comradeship with admiring courtiers, to a certain limit. Beyond the magic circle flits the stray waif, in a glamor of compassionate regard, which sur- sounds even the beldame. Some noble sacrifice or generous trait adds its redeeming halo. Woman is the; sole aristocracy. The rest mingle in the democratic equality which here assumed a level never before attained. But it is a reckless community, frequently bordering on lawlessness, although restrained in the nick of time by the valiant hero; brawls and murders do alternate, likewise plots and vigilance committees, all in quick changes, with striking tableaux, full of improbability and paradox, of humor, pathos, and above all, eccentricity. In Indian and Spanish communities are also many striking and attractive features, which have found popular approval in novels of the Bamona type. The new social 630 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. circles arising in connection with southern California health and pleasure resorts and colony tracts offer additional topics for the many Writers joining in the California pilgrimage Specimens of the border or " tale " class of fiction, founded on experience or unvarnished recollections by pioneers, are common enough since all-inspiring '49, especially in periodicals, but it was given to Francis Bret Harte to invest it with marked excellence, and to attract world-wide attention, thus gaining for himself the credit of having founded a new school. The grounds for this claim appear less substantial when we consider the evolution of the tales in question, and the similarity of his methods of writing to those, say, of Dickens and Lowell, with traces, also, of Thackeray and Irving. Nevertheless, he exhibits a combination of traits so admirable as to entitle him to the credit of positive genius, and to explain why he has been so widely imitated. His strength lies, above all in appreciation of the grotesque, which crops -out everywhere, now in broad veins, now in subtile tracery, investing even solemn and tragic incidents with a border of humor that turns the most serious affairs in life into burlesque. With this is mingled an undercurrent of satire, the more pleasing because unobtrusive, although it often bursts upon the reader in swelling volume and force; and then a pathos' so tender, yet so penetrating, as to change the smile into a tear. He is full of quaint ideas and eccentricity, but he subdues the offensive, intimating rather than uttering, and seeking ever to cast a veil of mercy or doubt over even the worst characters, whose traits he has otherwise so graphically delineated in colors true to their strange environment. The analytic power underlying his creations is revealed especially in the Condensed Novels, parodies wherein he-exposes the mannerism, shallowness, and other defects or peculiarities of authors. He is also skilled in the use of words, as may be seen also in his neat sketches of scenery, al- FICTION. 631 though this frequently degenerates into a striving for effect. Such are indisputably the merits of Harte as displayed in his best efforts, notably those connected with The Lack of Boaring Camp, however much may be due to the inspiration born of environment and association since boyhood, with their striking realities. But he has also his deficiencies. He sought for years before he struck the happy vein which bore him on to success, and upon this he worked till signs of monotony and weakness indicated that it had been well nigh exhausted. Then he tried the novel and the drama, only to fail and to disclose the narrow limits of his range. Even in his best sketches there is an ominous sameness of features and of phrases. The sentiment degenerates to the commonplace, and the melodramatic exaggeration assumes a glaring prominence in the inferior pieces. We must not expect from him sustained efforts involving plot, symmetry, consistency ; but be content with the surpassing excellence of his short California pieces, which are not likely, however, to bring him enduring fame. His training, no less than his greatest successes, were as intimately connected with California as his career was a happy illustration of its bohemian vicissitudes. He came of mixed English, German, and Hebrew blood, and was born in 1836 at Albany, New York, where his father held the position of teacher at a female* college. In 1854 the family came to this country and Bret—originally Brett—for three years passed through the experiences of miner, expressman, teacher, and the like, mingling with the strange characters of the mining region, and observing their peculiarities with an acuteness sharpened by novelty and by developing faculties. After this he went to San Francisco as compositor on the Golden Era, and began to contribute sketches which attracted friendly notice from men like Starr King, who procured him a sinecure clerkship in the mint. Harte made good use 632 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. L of his leisure by devoting himself to studies and writing, and to editing the Californian, where appeared the Condensed Novels, the first production to attract for him trans-continental notice. In 1868 he was entrusted with the editorship of the Overland Monthly; and in making it a literary success, mainly with his California sketches in prose and verse, he also achieved for himself that recognition on which his fame rests. California readers were backward in according their approval to the credit given him on the Atlantic slopes. In 1871 we find him in the eastern states reaping the reward to which the Heathen Chinee gave the decisive impulse, and later consular appointments in Germany and Scotland afforded a change of scene both for studies and honors. His contributions to newspapers and magazines have all been collected since his first decided success, and issued in book form under such leading titles as Condensed Novels, The Lack of Boaring Camp, Mrs Skagg's Husbands, Flip, and Tales of the Argonauts. Gabriel Conroy, an 8vo of 466 pages, is the largest and worst story, and next to it is The Story of a Mine, a 12mo of 172 pages. None of the collection equal in the aggregate that of The Luck of Boaring Camp, with its admirable Outcasts of Poker Flat, Tennessee's Partner, Miggles, and the title piece.. Harte's theme had been cultivated in different veins since the year of the gold fever, as may have been seen in stray sections of early books on California and in periodicals. For Ralph Keeler may however be reserved the claim of having written the first novel of any merit on California life. It was published at Boston, but failed to attract attention. Keeler figured later in eastern magazines and as a foreign correspondent. Josephine Clifford has been among the happiest contributors of short tales, based on personal observations in Arizona and California. * The Mexican population takes a prominent place in the strong incidents: depicted, and* share in the neat bits of character portrayal, which together with the FICTION. spirit of narration and smoothness of diction impart an unflagging interest. Her Overland Tales, published in 1877, take their name from the magazine from which they were reprinted. B. C. Truman issued in 1881 a similar collection, the Occidental Sketches, which are vigorously traced, and enlivened by frequent streaks of humor. Cremony's contributions to the Overland possess similar attractive qualities. • Noah Brooks is a prolific writer for the same magazine, as well as S. Powers and P. Mulford. Gaily's Sand, and Big Jack Small attracted much attention in 1881. Grey's Phneer Times contain three stories on early California experiences which do not lack interest, but which reveal in their many naive and crude passages an untrained pen. Daggett's Braxton Bar is abler, and displays some of Harte's conspicuous features. H. Busch attempts, in the German Harry Plower- field, to follow the steps of an early gold-seeker, but his style is too stiff to suit the subject. Joaquin Miller's tales are uneven, like his poetry, while full of the dramatic incidents that have led to adaptations on the stage of the Danites and other pieces. One of the most meritorious of elaborations on Pacific coast life is J. F. Swift's American novel, as he styles it, Bobert Greathouse. It deals with the career of a dare-devil gambler of the Nevada mining region, of good descent, whose many graceless schemes and escapades stand redeemed by certain strict ideas of honor inculcated by family pride, and by a patriotic devotion which finally, during the union war, consigns him to the grave of a soldier. The vein of humor noticed in connection with his Going to Jerhho, assists to brighten the well-sustained incidents and characters. Phases of the unfolding of fashionable and artistic life at the western metropolis are touched. upon in Mary W. Glascock's Dare, while its temptations find an exponent in Annie Lake, who delights in extravagant ideas no less fanciful than her word painting. 634 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. L Trivial dialogues add to the defects of her On the Verge. The struggles of humbler classes in England and America are revealed in Madame Jave Jurk and Joe, in imitation of Dickens, by Mary Borneman. J. F. Clark strives in The Society in Search of Truth to expose the evils of stock-gambling, in which he as broker had taken an unfortunate part. But the manipulation of bonds has evidently not tended to improve that of the pen. Another moralist is Andre, who in Overcome advocates the virtues of temperance, but with a feminine effort at delicacy that here unfortunately transcends into insipidity. Even anti-Chinese declaimers have sought fiction as a medium for impressing their arguments, as instanced by A. Whitney's Almond Eyed, of somewhat coarse grain. A more imaginative production is the Last Days of the Bepublic, by P. W. Dooner, although marred by a socialistic tone and stiff pretentious diction. It assumes a swelling immigration of Mongols until the entire United States is overrun and surrendered to the control of the new masters, who thereupon remodel all institutions to suit their ideas. The operations of the celestial system, a century hence, are minutely outlined. The taste for sensational stories among the early miners, in harmony with their own feverish life, is indicated by the favor accorded to the contributions of Rowena Granice (Steele) to the Golden Era, so much so as to prompt the reissue of several. Of a similar though higher grade are the weird tales of W. H. Rhodes, partly collected in Caxton's Book, whose ingenious and scientific weft, with many a humorous thread, partake both of Poe and Verne, and have like them found imitators in different directions. The affectation for English customs is upheld in Behind the Arras by Constance Maude Neville, whose name harmonizes with the somewhat pompous, and stereotyped style and character of the book, laden also with feminine intensity and adjectives and bordering FICTION. 635 on the romantic, as truly set forth by the title. The theme concerns a strayed brood of children of aristocratic lineage. Religion and love are judiciously mingled in Laura Preston's In Bonds, and in Leah's Confessions, for the edification of scrupulous Sunday readers. The former relates to two women, one of clouded descent, the other tainted with negro blood, whose sufferings seek expression in ungrammatical form, and in frequent forced rhapsodies of the revivalist type. Leah assumes the plaintive strain in confessing her unhappy love, but offsets the weakness with a series of strong-minded opinions. Nellie Brown, by T. Detter, is remarkable only in being written by a colored man. The Greek Slave, describing the devotion of a girl of the classic peninsula who married a detested man to save her father, indicates in its gushing effusiveness the recently escaped school-girl. Superior to most of these rises Edna Verne in Fidelite, in describing how two lovers, separated by a jealous intriguer, reunited in California after many struggles, and on the eve of the bride's proposed sacrifice of her hand in behalf of her father's tottering fortunes. With still more pleasure can we turn to the shorter stories of Frances Fuller Victor. Rising alcove affectation and trifling sentiment, she invests her characters and incidents with a vividness of tone that appeals to the reader, while the poetic instinct which first gained her popular approval weaves an appropriate tracery. Her apparent preference for Oregon topics has arisen from the discovery of a fresh field, in opposition to California, which has been so often depictured. The references already made to this writer give evidence of a rare versatility in heavy as well as light branches of literature, and in this and other respects she stands unapproached among the female authors of the Pacific coast. In the eastern states her sketches, novelettes, and poems had 636 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. since the forties procured for her wide recognition, and after her arrival here in 1863 she at once took a prominent place in the literary circle for varied contributions, embracing also historic articles and essays, and humorous-satiric pieces, the latter chiefly connected with the nom de plume of Florence Fane, which so long assisted to maintain the popularity of the Golden Era. Only a few of her writings have been collected for the New Penelope, and this together with the Biver of the West, a historic biography relating to the fur-hunting era of the slope, and the fascinating descriptive work, All over Oregon and Washington, constitute the sole specimens in book form bearing her widely appreciated name. In juvenile books, Laura Preston reveals a graphic simplicity and strength not found in her novel; yet she stands surpassed by Carrie Carlton (W. Wright), whose vivacity drifts at times into delightful abandon, and again rising to enthusiasm. Fanciful legends and bits of poetry add to the fascination of her Inglenook. K. D. Smith combines happily the sympathetic, sprightly, and picturesque in the The Shry of Patsy. The collection in No Baby in the House is spirited yet tender, and that in The Candy Elephant has a redeeming vein of fun. It will be noticed that love stories and society novels have fallen almost exclusively into the hands of women; the men, seizing upon the more pertinent realities before them, found therein sufficient of the picturesque and extravagant to exclude the desire for conjuring up sentimental fancies. The large proportion of women contributing here to all light branches of literature is due to conditions which will be considered elsewhere. Their superior fitness in many directions is conceded, if only from the intuitive penetration and the keenness of observation in social matters lacking in men. Society is still in course of formation, but this by no means detracts from the scope of subject, for already there is found a most cosmopolitan admix- THE DRAMA. 637 ture and the frequent changes of fortune, which bring forward a great variety of figures in rapid rotation, together with an abundance of singular characters, and food for caricature and humor, notably among the shoddy and ambitious class. The fact that there is little encouragement for literary productions among this population, which barely supports even a few magazines, has encouraged the writing of short tales in preference to elaborate novels, which seldom repay even the cost of printing. The striking incidents which form so abundant a source for the short tale could not fail to suggest themselves as admirable for the stage. Eastern dramatists early made use of them, and several local observers hastened forward with productions founded in their entirety on this highly-colored material, as Delano in A Live Woman in the Mines, Harte in Two Men of Sandy Bar, Miller in the Danites, My Partner, and similar pieces. Their strong seasoning soon relegated them, however, together with other frontier dramas, to inferior theatres. Only a few have managed to sustain themselves midst the predilection exhibited for foreign productions, especially of the society class. Even loud melodramas from such a source were deemed acceptable, if presented as successes from some decent theatre of London or Paris. In California the desire to behold reputed pieces from the east and Europe proved still stronger, bound as the public was by so many ties to those regions, in addition to curiosity. With a paucity of theatres and competition, managers felt little inclined to risk their efforts on doubtful local compositions, when so rich an array of assured merit lay ready for plucking beyond the mountains and the ocean. The spirit, nevertheless, moved many a local aspirant to reduce his ideas to paper, among them C. E. B. Howe, who issued, in 1858, a five-act play on Joaquin Murieta., the noted bandit. He paints him as 638 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. a hero, who passes unstained through the butcheries that surround him, and spouts noble though ungram- matical sentences, scintillating with many a " 'tis " and "yonder." Similar coast characters are touched in Mc- Kinley's Brigham Young, and Webb's Our Friend from, Victoria. Mrs Burton reveals her innate Spanish taste in the five-act comedy of Don Quixote. Lake exposes the Dark Seance. De Chado, Bansman, Barnes the lawyer, and J. S. Hittell also figure among playwrights. .The last strives for a lofty topic in dramatizing Goethe's Faust under everyday conditions, from which the scenic and supernatural are omitted. The theme has been too closely wedded to music, however, with other striking adjuncts, to be appreciated in barer form, despite its many excellencies, as many other writers have learned to their cost. Of late a few triumphs have been achieved, but chiefly with adaptations, as the safest middle ground on which to encourage managers, and to train and inspire confidence among writers. In the production of such pieces another obstacle is a lack of stock companies with which to bring them forward. They have been tried at different times, with only partial success, and theatres are for the most part surrendered to travelling bands or to actors of renown, or with special pieces, for whom support is hastily collected from amongthe numerous devotees to the histrionic art abiding at San Francisco, and there developing under several teachers of reputation. Students are by no means few. The city of the Golden Gate is one of the most amusement-loving places in the world, although with a bent for the Teutonic rather than Latin form of gayety. The cause lies in the excitable temperament developed during the gold fever, fostered by climate and speculative operations, and displayed in drinking, mining gambles, and other excesses. The preponderance of men on the coast, for whom the city is the great centre of pleasure as well as business, directs entertainments chiefly to theatres, billiard HUMOROUS WRITINGS 639 halls, and the like, with a preference on the stage for hilarious rather than grave pieces. Numbers of associations have formed for purposes of amusement, and among them a large proportion of dramatic clubs, whose reunions, though ending usually with a dance, are marked by the presentation of amateur as well as standard plays. Even here local writers rarely find an opening, while in Mexico such talent is specially favored by associations. Their influence must be felt in time, 'however, when the expansion of other branches shall offer greater opportunities also for dramatists. A marked feature of the California tales is the humorous vein pervading a large proportion of them; a vein which rapidly culminated in productions of so exceptional a character as to attain a rare popularity in that particular field. It is a humor in most respects as cosmopolitan as the region whence it sprang. It partakes by inheritance of the English predilection for individual and class traits, though with little of its characteristic sneering conceit and irony0 It tends in fact toward the broader, though more generous mood of the German, yet does not descend to the grossness of the Mediterranean nation, nor to the veiled suggestiveness of the French. It sympathizes also, with the droll roguishness of the Iberian, without approaching the puerile admixture of the ■ Spanish• Americans, and reveals a tinge of the Irish infringement of logic. It found a prolific source in the miscellaneous gatherings at the gold fields, boisterously active for work or play, and with striking characters and occurrences on which to direct a keen observation. The region was replete with those odd contrasts wherein lies the germ for wit; with abnormities of a grotesque order; with peculiar figures and habits; visionary expectations and consequent disappointments; ambitious strife and race feeling; and a variety of dialects and 640 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. brogues. The paucity of women, and the degraded nature of so many of them, did not produce the corresponding levity of speech that might have been expected, owing to the large admixture of superior men, and to the lingering effect of early training among the numerous descendants of the puritans. The humor here originating partook largely of that audacious western vein, of which Lincoln's stories present a moderated form, and of the dialect-twisting associated with American border scenes, while yielding less to the characteristic play of eastern writers on the absurdities of English orthography, thus separating alike from Breitmann and Nasby,' with their quaint learning and blundering wisdom. It gives preference to facts and form rather than to words, the pun coming less naturally to the Californian than to the English, to judge partly from the slow response of galleries to burlesque contortions of that class, and to the labored demonstration attached to journalistic specimens. It delights in the characteristic American exaggeration, extravagant, distorted, and incongruous, and in the affectation of simplicity and surprise, with a mock self-abasement or underrating, in contrast with the British supercilious sarcasm. The foremost place among writers of California training in this field is Samuel L. Clemens, (Mark Twain). The experience of the young Missourian in printing-offices and on the deck of Mississippi steamboats served to develop the innate appreciation of the grotesque, which presented itself in so concentrated a form before his eyes during a journalistic career on the Pacific coast extending from 1861 to 1866. His Jumping Frog, and other tales, as collected and issued at London in 1867, first brought him to notice, and inspired the confidence which enabled him to give to the world the more elaborate Innocents Abroad. This established his reputation and brought him pecuniary reward. He now revived his Pacific experiences in Boughing It, infusing his HUMOROUS WRITINGS. 641 peculiar facetiousness into the class of incidents and characters displayed in California stories, and investing this west coast product with fresh interest. In like manner he turned back to his Mississippi steamboat experiences, without striking here or in subsequent writings the same attractive chord. While Boughing It pours forth the most natural and copious stream of whimsicalities, and reveals their California source in form as well as substance, the Life on the Mississippi applies a more serious undercurrent, with a surface flow of farcical anecdotes, absurd burlesque, and hoax sketches often of a ghastly type, yet so clothed with details as to leave a strong impression of truth. The Innocents is marked chiefly by flippant caricature and an exaggerated criticism which respects neither the sacred nor solemn, neither the classic nor the crude. His fancies are seldom strained, and one reason for their sustained interest lies in the connected story forming their frame-work. Mark Twain had a host of imitators on this coast, as elsewhere, filling the press and a number of volumes with'every degree of scintillation, but only a few have succeeded in lending thereby additional interest to their production.. Several writers on mining episodes, as Dan De Quille, (Wright), seek to cast their narrative in facetious and satiric mould, and very acceptably. Old Block, (A. Delano), did so in a dry suggestive tone, breaking out in occasional wTord play. Swift has a natural fund of humor, which in Bobert Greathouse takes the form of Boughing It, while his Going to Jericho, corresponds greatly to the Innocents Abroad. Ross Browne exhibits a similar jocundity when treating of miners and Indians. Prentice Mulford possesses a genuine vein of criticism which illumines nearly everything he writes, and is frequently marked by epigrammatic flashes. All of these, even Clemens, have studied to some extent the productions of George H. Derby, the earliest of California humorists, better known as "John Phoenix." His Essays and Miscellany 41 642 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. exuberance found vent during a six years' military service on the Pacific coast, and a warm welcome was subsequently accorded to him and his books in the eastern states. He was a spontaneous joker, ever ready with an anecdote or burlesque, and fond of bantering in the abstruse topics harmonizing with his superior education and taste. Harte approached him in fineness of grain, as a satirist. Carrie Carlton, (Mrs W. Wright), the best known female humorist, under the name of Topsey Turvey, partakes of Delano's style. Light-hearted as ever, and with a preponderance of rollicking, bachelor Californians cultivate the comic aspect of life with promising assiduity, and several journals have devoted themseves especially to their edification. The competition of eastern periodicals, with their striking advantages, tends to overshadow them, however, and developing lights seek naturally the broader fields of the Atlantic slope Music and poetry are widely associated with semi- tropic lands like the Iberian and Apennine peninsulas, although England leads in the profuseness and beauty of metric effusions, and Germany and Sweden reveal in the number of concert gardens and glee clubs their devotion to the lyric element. The influencing cause has to be sought not alone in physical surroundings, but in language, habits, and other features. California combines several favoring conditions, in grand scenery, delightful air, and a motley representation from cultivated nations. Musicshops and teachers are exceptionally numerous in San Francisco and other centres ; pianos and other instruments resound in all quarters, and verse is sandwiched into all grades of entertainment The taste is conspicuous since early colonial days, when the Spanish facility for versification was illustrated among settlers in ready improvisation on local topics, at social reunions, aided as they were by the easy assonance rhyming. In political circles satire flowed freely. Their effusions POETRY. 643 can hardly be said to have reached the grade of poetry, however. This awaited the influx of educated people after the memorable gold discovery. It might be expected that the display here of strange scenes and novel and varied conditions which burst upon the immigrants, after a long interval of monotony and hardship on the march and voyage, would prove inspiring. The country undoubtedly presented itself a paradise and treasure-field, but the preoccupation of mining and other pursuits, and the unsettled state of affairs, gave little opportunity for verse writing. As society began to crystallize, however, and journals multiplied, together with ephemeral magazines, the poet's corner lured onward a fast growing contribution. In the second decade rhymesters could be counted by the hundred. They pertained to the spasmodic grade, which too clearly pointed to the prevailing utilitarianism, and to imitative or inculcated forms which overshadowed proximate objects, and exhausted themselves in vain and idle pursuit of loftier themes, too often utterly remote and inappropriate. This neglect, though mainly due to lack of poetic instinct, gave the opportunity which brought fame to the two men who so far figure as the representative poets of the coast, by virtue of training, characteristic subjects, and high excellence. Bret Harte carried the California stories into verse, and therein likewise affirmed his position as the founder of a newr school of dialect writing. Nevertheless his foremost element here is the exquisite satire which first lifted him to fame in the Heathen Chinee. He adds the analysis, pith, and expressiveness displayed in the Condensed Novels, and intensifies the pathetic and descriptive power of his tales. The poet of inspiration is Cincinnatus Heine Miller, born in Ohio, but belonging since his teens to Oregon and California, where he also passed the first decade of manhood, though in a roaming and desultory 644 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. manner. The first collection of poems was issued at Portland in 1869, under the title Joaquin et al, a name he had adopted out of admiration for the noted California bandit, Joaquin Murieta. It received sufficient recognition to encourage his aspirations for wider fame. And so he started for the Atlantic states and England, there to obtain an attention, perhaps not equal to his own expectations, yet somewhat startling to his coast compatriots, who had looked down upon him as a flighty bohemian. The Songs of the Sierras had an alluring western ring for the British ear, and its championship of oppressed Indians added a claim on New England sympathisers. The subjects are largely based on personal experience in the wilds and the mountains, among his former companions, the aborigines and miners, and under the banner of Walker, the filibuster. A " loose and uncouth bouquet," he calls the book, and so it is, though with many a beautiful flower. The imagery, frequently rich and striking, degenerates too often into the fantastic and absurd. Vigor and puerility, the gorgeous and bare, stand side by side; lofty inspiration and crude prosaism with slips of grammar. Now a series of Byronic flashes, then an impetuous flow of verbiage. These glaring defects long maintained a current of ridicule against him, especially at home, but more impartial judges abroad recognized that although uneven and little polished, the diamond had the true sparkle of genuineness. A reception was assured for his Shadows of Shasta, Songs of the^ Sun- land, and other verse, which continue the initial topics, and he acquired a position among second-class poets. Tales, novels, and dramas point the profitable variety of his pen, yet indicate no improvement in method. Harte was instrumental in procuring wider publicity for a number of early California verse-makers, by issuing in 1866 a selection of their work under the title of Outcroppings. While little noticed abroad it POETRY. 645 created much local attention, chiefly on the part of the overlooked aspirants. After an exchange of sharp pen-thrusts they prevailed on Mary Wentworth (Mrs Neumann) to do them justice by sending forth a larger collection under the imposing title of Poetry of the Pacific, which utterly ignores the preceding volume, repeating its choicest bits. The selection is certainly more representative and embraces such well knowo names as E. Pollock, C. W. Stoddard, L. and J. T. Goodman, F. Soule, the veteran singer J. Linen, J. R. Ridge, W. A. Kendall, J. F. Bowman, H. C. Dorr, and on the female side with an equal array; F. F. Victor, who enjoyed the preeminent distinction of having achieved a place in the gallery of American poets prior to her arrival, partly by means of her volume entitled Poems of Sentiment and Imagination, 1851, and who here sought especially to link the fancies of the Sacramento and the Columbia; Carrie Carlton, the humorist E. Lawson, E. A. Simonton, Page, Clara Clyde, May Wentworth, Mrs Field, and Ina Coolbrith. Most of these must be assigned to the period of and after the union war. Among the earlier lights Pollock stands alone, credited with a certain degree of originality, but his pieces were not of such a character as to attain special publication after his death. Stoddard, wdio ranked close to him, soon turned his reflective and descriptive fancy into the idyllic prose sketches on which his reputation now rests. Among the most gifted of female poets ma}^ be placed Mary H. Field, who wrote An Arbored Song. Among the first metric effusions published in special form in California, was Idealina by Harry Quillam, which sold well despite its stilted mediocrity. Some exquisitely written and illustrated volumes have been issued by Mrs M. B. M. Toland. Women swelled the ranks of writers in this as well as other lighter branches of literature, in ever growing numbers after the first decade, and exhibit a comparatively greater improvement in shorter pieces, for 646 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. their ambitious efforts are unsustained in power. From their fugitive pieces alone could be formed an anthol- °gy appropriate to the coast, which might safely challenge comparison with the productions of older states. Those of California were imitative like all colonial efforts, and still remain so in a great measure, sipping alike from eastern and British sources. Nevertheless, an early independent flight is observed in Bret Harte, and a wide recognition for true poetic spirit was obtained in another, beside which we behold many a gleam of originality in contemporary essays. The mass is remarkable rather for subdued sweetness and pathos, however, than for thundering apostrophes or fiery enunciation. In spiration was found less in nature's aspects, although scenery is both grand and compact, with the infinite ocean on one side and the snow- crowned Sierra on the other. It sprang rather from the novel and varied social conditions. Harte observed the deficiency in descriptive and pastoral efforts, and ascribed it to absence of well-defined seasons and to the consequent monotony; but another and fully as strong an influence is to be observed, which affects also the tone in general with an elegiac strain, particularly in reflective passages. A restlessness and yearning is noticeable of pending aspirations, of incomplete fulfilment, which harmonizes with the struggle for wealth, the speculative bent, and the unsettled state of affairs so greatly due to a stimulating climate. Hence the soaring paeans corresponding to the instilled exuberance of thought and action; followed by depressions, of pensive melancholy—like the two seasons of bustle and idleness, of rain and sunshine. Within the past decade or two pastoral has markedly increased, following upon the of social evolution like other branches of art. comic aspect stands revealed in the California so fruitful, a source for compositions, and so extreme verse heels . The story, ENGENDERING CONDITIONS. 647 in that deviation now observable among Americans from puritan reverence and soberness. It does not however descend to the flippant gayety displayed in Mexican poetry, w7hich is affected by a similar undercurrent of sadness. In California both elements are modified by a more practical tone and a greater strength and independence of mind, which, reacting likewise on the pervading exuberance in society and the attendant unpromising fluctuations of character, may in time assert themselves in lofty and sustained productions worthy of an auspicious beginning and of enduring reputation. Gold and the cross play similar r61es in Spanish America and along the Pacific coast, in planting the foundation for settlement, and impressing their respective stamps on society and literature. Gold, with its pale sister, proved the more energetic and enterprising. More potent than royalty or religion, it ignored or overcame obstacles which were deemed impassable under any other auspices, impelling onward explorers, conquerors, and colonists, converting the wilderness to civilization. The cross followed close behind to seek a share in the unfolding treasure, and strengthening pillars for its power in aboriginal converts. Encouraged by success it pressed onward when the other leader faltered before the shattered fable of golden cities, and the dwindling veins of precious metals. It beckoned the conqueror on to glory, and joined with settlers in bending the Indian to the yoke. It infused fresh spirit, and with aid of the harpy-visaged inquisition stamped all efforts with its seal. It occupied the historic field with naive chronicles; filled biography with dreary ascetic experiences ; crowded out science with scholastic polemics and homilies. It immured the foremost muse of Mexico within a convent, and walled the masses round with ignorance; but it also raised monasteries as depositories for learning toward a later revival. 648 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. When during the republic men fell off in allegiance to wrangle on battle-field and in legislative hall, the church still retained the hold on impressionable women and children. Through them mainly was retained in California a foothold for the church which had changed it from a savage hunting-ground to a prosperous pastoral colony, centering round the fast crumbling missions. California became the scene of the greatest subversion of religious influence in the democratic levelling which attended the gold discovery; and this extended also over Oregon and beyond, to Alaska, where occupation had been established under missionary auspices. Gold asserted once more its superior might by sur-. passing the slow advance of clerical leaders in the sudden transformation of desert valleys into populous states. It provided the grandest of topics for history and poetry, the finest of wefts for fiction, great characters for biography, and a new field for science. It moulded every aspiration and utterance, and brushed away the cobwebs of conventional influence and tradition ; it produced the condition on which rose the California story, to lift to fame humorists, dialect writers, and poets. The profane assumed absolute sway, and though California was once more declared a mission field, into which different sects poured their apostles, and began under the powerful patronage of inflowing women a work of regeneration by means of congregations, tracts, and religious journals, naught availed against omnipotent gold. Doctrines and worship sank to their proper level as mere refining agents. Progress, unhampered, sped on its way, leaving California's former mistress still struggling to free herself from the burden of the cross. Besides the all-compelling gold and cross, many other influences have impressed themselves on literature. In Mexico conquest and race feeling, an oppressive state and church policy, and the Spanish dis- SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 649 regard for and suspicion of Creoles, enforced a noncommittal tone in so many directions that emotions had to seek a disguised vent, notably in religious topics and amatory poetry. With the revolution asceticism was to some extent cast aside in favor of the fiery patriotic spirit which invaded all branches of literature. This was sustained by internecine wars and foreign invasions, and spread in feeble reflection to California and other frontier regions. Here however rose more potent factors in the wrake of the vast "metal discoveries: an adventurous intercourse by sea and land, the influx of fleets, the rise of camps and towns, the unfolding of resources on a scale of unparalleled magnitude, the growth of new race antipathies between Latin and Teutonic Americans, and against intruding Mongols. This and the vagabondage fostered by the roaming life of miners gave a foothold for socialistic writings, w^hile the growth of monopoly, particularly in land, suggested the widely read works of Henry George. Camp life with its incongruities started a new dialect literature, with racy humor and satire. Later and more sedate developments promoted a taste for idyllic compositions. The union war imparted a glow to smouldering patriotism, and the extending intercourse with adjacent countries opened wider fields for observation. Both Mexico and California cherished the exuberance which is so largely associated with mining and frontier settlements. It appears in the extravagance of the California story, in the bent for irreverent and exaggerated witticism, in imitations of Poe's weird fancies, in soaring oratory, and sensational novels and dramas. Mexico partook of similar fancies, especially the droll, gay, and satiric, while the floriated Gongo- rism in style found here a more abiding home than in Spain, owing to the natural disposition of the people for artificial effusiveness. The elegiac strain, which seems a natural antithesis to this exuberant spirit and activity, harmonizes with 650 EARLY CALIFORNIA UTERATURE. the idea enfolding this extreme western shore. It is the terminal land for the Aryan march of centuries from their Asiatic cradle to the borders of the great ocean intervening between them and their ancient home. While the tone here is greatly due to climate, in Mexico it comes also in inheritance from the aborigines, among whom it lies impressed by centuries of tyranny and bloody worship, followed by serfdom under Spain. The Yankee has likewise been termed by many observers a mournful soul, in his innermost depths, despite his dry humor. Grimaldi was a lugubrious fellow at home. We know of Irish gayety, but also of the melancholy which pervades his favorite standard songs, and of the doleful refrains of the cronies at the hearth. Amatory poetry and sentimental tales occupy leading places in Mexican literature. The cause may be traced to a semi-tropic clime and to the propensities arising with race mixture, but is greatly due to the oriental seclusion of young women, drawn from Moorish-Iberian custom, with the attendant serenade. Yet like the prevailing conventionalities everything is glossed, leaving the passionate impulses in the undercurrent. Allusions to the family are reverently tender, but satire is apt to be somewhat gross. In business intercourse, words and promises count for little, and in partisan affairs no one ventures to come forth without an array of substantiating documents to prove statements. Of all this an inkling comes to us through the colonial occupants of California. The different traits and habits of the colder Xnglo-Saxon revealed little of such tendencies. Nevertheless, the climate and peculiar social conditions have effected certain changes; and it is to be noticed that a number of sentimental novels have been written, almost exclusively by women, and frequently in a tone far from healthy. Women have here contributed an exceptionally large proportion of light literature, owing to the ABORIGINAL. 651 preoccupation of men with exacting business pursuits. The striking scenes of actual life were, besides, too absorbing to allow for the latter to yield much of their attention to maudlin fancies. The adulation of woman, the general affluence, and the disposition for hotel life to the avoidance of household cares, provided her with an excess of leisure that impelled many to enter the literary field. The productions affirm the verdict of her inferiority to the man, as may be expected under the deterring influences of frontier life, which have until lately held back the higher grades of her sex. In Mexico, on the contrary, women stand more nearly on a plane of intellectual equality with the men, although neglected in education and socially restrained, as illustrated in the duenna system, which stamps them with an absurd irresponsibility. When married, prudence concedes a flattering deference to their lords. Nevertheless, a number of promising female lights have appeared of late in poetry and prose fiction, from which in time may emerge a fitting successor to the Mexican nun, who in Spain ranks as the tenth muse. California has no rich aboriginal sources from which to gather inspiration and prestige for her literature ; nothing beyond some puerile hieroglyphics on rock walls, and a few vague myths concerning faded tribes and geographic points of interest, half intimated in the musical names transmitted to us. Spanish- America rejoices in an abundance of native records, backed by traditions, and mingled with legends bearing the impress of both a Hesiod and an Ossian. And what may not the unsolved Maya picture-writings disclose to a coming Champollion I Race influences are apparent in both regions: in Latin America in triple degree. The aborigines, after long providing merely topics, have recently entered into active competition in letters, to balance with their sedate tone the florid exuberance of the mestizo. The sprightly vivacity of the latter has led him 652 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. to the exaggerated cultismo, and his spasmodic energy and love for gloss to superficiality. The less imaginative and more patient Indian inclines to history and science, leaving the lighter branches chiefly to the soaring taste and aspirations of the other. The Spaniard, who used to give the impress to colonial productions, responded to the varying fashions of peninsular style, yet in a more stately and dignified form than the extreme-loving half-brother. In California both the latter are perceptible in the transmitted memoirs and records, chiefly in manuscript. After the Americans came the Latin element declined to mere subjects for writing, together with the fast disappearing Indian; yet both figure so prominently and attractively on the pages as to impart a marked character to them, and they promise to gain in interest as traditional features. The predominating influence comes, however, from England no less than from the Atlantic states, and is sustained in all its freshness, by periodicals and books. The German and French impress is indirect and slight. The effect of these inflnenceson the two fields of literature is strikingly revealed in the newspapers, which by systematically courting public taste, attain the form of an index to it. The California press, while sensational and careless in style, gives preference in the odd columns to sport, science, and art. It presents a mean between the ponderous and dignified tone of British journals, and the frivolously bright sheets of France. Spanish-Americans cling to the latter, and indicate their lighter fancy by a demand for feuilleton novels, although women there take little to newspapers. The aborigines of North America are accredited with a flowery diction, which borrows much of its beauty from nature, and is rendered the more lofty by an association of striking objects with deities and spirits. This is applicable to the region southward only in a limited degree. We behold allusions in ABORIGINAL. 653 Quiche* tradition partaking of a certain eloquence and nature painting, but they are crude, and the natives of to-day reveal a deficiency of imagination. Although the Aztecs and other unmixed tribes are conspicuously fond of flowers and of the open air, their imagery is subdued and stunted, as if the oppression of centuries had dwarfed their fancy and restricted it to minor and immediate objects. Mexicans did not inherit a much wider taste for scenery from the immigrants of the bare uplands of Iberia. Nevertheless, they are now cultivating the descriptive to some extent. The peculiar climate of California, and the restless activity prevailing there, have also circumscribed this class of writing; but the inspiring variety of landscape in the sunset land, which attracts -an ever growing number of tourists and camping parties, is asserting itself more and more. The successive supplanting of languages in California has been an improvement in every instance. The musical intonation observable in native names applies only in a limited degree to the mass of dialects there existing. The smooth flow of Spanish is well- known, however, with its ready assonant rhyme, so favorable to improvisation; but it lacks the strength and expressiveness of the English, which possesses, moreover, a tuneful iambic rhythm, or euphonious ring, and a flexibility and variety permitting a wide range for choice between the softer and harsher words. The displacement of aboriginal dialects was a gain in many respects. Crude and poor languages yielded to those of a higher inflected type. The substitution of many tongues for one promoted in Spanish-America a healthful unification among the races, which had so far been held estranged by linguistic and other barriers, and torn by strife. It promoted intercourse and civilization, notwithstanding the new obstructions interposed by a narrow state policy. The introduction of English was a still further advance, by virtue of its superior qualities, and by 654 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. reason of its wide sway, so favorable to the exchange of ideas, to peaceful intercourse, to progress. The services which the Spanish tohgne alone has rendered illustrates the advantages of a universal language. To this we are clearly drifting, despite the narrow patriotic efforts in different directions to increase the number of distinct tongues by reviving many, neglected and decayed, as in Ireland and Finland. This raising of barriers for the sake of sustaining antiquated national forms and empty traditions is to obstruct culture and advancement. It imposes on future generations the burden of mastering several tongues, or confines them within the limits of less effective forms of expression, excluding them from free participation in the glorious revelations of sciences and arts, which seek outlet in the richest and most wide-spread language. It taxes and distorts every scrap of needful information by the trouble, cost, and defects of translations. Enlightenment will not long suffer such shackles. A universal tongue must in time prevail. Destiny points to English as the medium of the most progressive peoples, who numerically surpass all other linguistic groups, save the Chinese, holding sway in North America, Australia, southern Africa and Asia, and in the island cradle, besides controlling most maritime centres and districts of the world, the distributing points for practical culture. Its adaptability alike for poetry, narrative, and science is unequalled by any other language. With the simplest of gram- matic structure, it is easy to acquire. Its only great defect lies in the orthography, which can readily be remedied, and is fast improving, if not under the radical method of Pitman's phonetic spelling, at least under the efforts of societies and literary leaders to gradually eliminate useless forms. When remodelled, it need fear no competition from such artificial substitutes as Volapuk, of uncouth aspect. The wide support given by philosophic Germans to this new medium LANGUAGE. 655 indicates the growing strength of the universalizing idea, and should stimulate English-speaking peoples to push the necessary reformation of defects, which are no less harassing and burdensome to them than to foreign students. Spanish is unsurpassed for harmonious orthography, and its value is demonstrated in the purity of diction among all classes in Spain and America, where even the beggar speaks correctly, almost elegantly. True, the national character contributes its influence. Nevertheless, Americanisms have crept in among the colonists, although they are nearly all of so commendable a grade that the learned and exact Alaman advocated their recognition in Mexico, as consistent with colonial writing. These innovations are more numerous in English, and indicate in a measure the rise of dialects, of which, the language in its insular evolution has left strangely broad tracks in so small and unbroken a country as England. Improved communication and the'increase of schools and newspapers are fast contributing to the obliteration of such corrupt and undesirable distinctions. The originality and practical sense of the Anglo-Saxons account partly for the growth of Americanisms, as they do of vulgar but expressive slang. The character of neither people nor language in Spanish America is favorable to the latter class of inchoate epigram, whether from classic or common source. California has been very free in adopting new words, with her unconventional and reckless frontier and mining traits, which delight in expressive and concise utterance. Much is Spanish, as inculcated and in vogue among early American settlers. Under a comparatively recent development-America escaped the varied influence of foreign schools, which made themselves felt in England as well as Spain. It confined itself chiefly to one fount, sipping the clarified essence of manifold distillation. Mexico underwent, however, a greater degree of buffeting in EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. style than the United States, partly owing to the less even course of the Spanish language, as compared with the English, since Shakespeare. Yet she remains essentially a copyist of Spanish models, with an admixture chiefly from France. The United States accepted a broader tint, under the influx of Teutonic and Latin colonists, with which to temper the predominating British standard. California adheres to a judicious mingling of Anglo-Saxon types from both sides of the Atlantic. She follows the guidance of eastern centers, yet reveals in scenes, characters, and terms the effect of intercourse with Spanish settlers, which has not, however, led to any appreciable study of Iberian literature. Notwithstanding her youth and preoccupation, and the discouraging competition of eastern literature for local patronage, California has repaid her indebtedness to universal knowledge with rare promptness and profusion, revealing the intensity of her -intellectual as well as material development. She contributed writers of world-wide fame in nearly all the leading branches of letters, and assisted to give new direction to research and thought, fancy and feeling. The last is instanced in a certain democratic levelling and irruption on puritanic soberness. Mexico's response for similar cumulative inheritance has been very meagre, considering her age. The cause lies greatly in an objectionable colonial policy and a disturbed condition, in too rigid adherence to models, and lack of earnestness. Yet the United States was nearly as backward during colonial times, and it is only since the union war that this country can be said to have acquired a position in literature commensurate with its national importance. The isolation of the first two decades, prior to the opening of railway communication with the east, favored, in a measure, the local cultivation of letters, as indicated by the more flourishing condition of light periodicals. A much smaller population sup- PHYSICAL CONDITIONS. 657 supported since the early fifties a series of magazines, provided with illustrations and other costly adjuncts, while, subsequently the only representative periodical of the kind, in cheaper form, found it difficult to subsist, or to offer adequate inducements to local talent. Indeed, the three brightest lights of that period took flight toward its close to seek and receive more generous recognition abroad. Facilitated intercourse with the eastern states turned attention to the more attractive publications of the other slope, in the same manner that increased state railways spread the influence of the San Francisco press. The consequent lack of fostering mediums tends to account for the uncovered gaps since the departure of the fanciful lights above alluded to. In other directions strides were made, however, which have attained wide reputation for method, research, and depth, as well as for magnitude in size and scope. Aside from the various natural and social influences which have been pointed out as affecting letters in California, an element exists in the high average intelligence and education of the immigrants, forming: as they do the choice manhood from their respective countries. The distance, cost, and hardship connected with migration to so remote a point served to reduce the proportion of undesirable admixture, and the general opulence has favored the maintenance of that standard by permitting a liberal education of the children. The recent large influx is likewise of a superior class, in harmony with the new era of horticultural development so promising for the highest progress. The east has with slight variations been the master, mentor, and light for the west; but the centre of learning and domination has been ever moving onward in the path of the illuminating and vivifying sun—shifted by the advancing Aryans to the Euphra^ tes, to the Nile, to Greece, to Rome, and thence north-westward The late strides of the United Essays and Miscellany 42 658 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. States also in literature is already drawing the intellectual centre perceptibly from the line so long encircling it in Europe. Here even Chicago, though far inland, has become a publishing point of importance. With the expansion of population the Pacific coast will in due time assert her strength and the claims which she put forth in -the earlier days of her career. Her sway promises to assume a vast range, to jud^e from the centralization at the Golden Gate of trade throughout the Pacific, with lines converging from oriental Asia, Australia, Spanish America, and the north -west. Into several of these quarters her children have penetrated as apostles of practical progress, and may in future carry also the seeds of a higher culture. The geographic advantages which establish San Francisco in her position of metropolis for the coast, with the concentration here of its greatest wealth and patronage, assure also for this vicinity the seat of letters. Literature and art depend too much on the patronage clustered in large trade centres to separate from it* Thus New York is rapidly overshadowing Boston. Round the metropolis of California are grouped within convenient range all. that is most inspiring in nature along the entire slope. Additional interest is vested therein by the enfolding glow of tradition from a fading Indian race, from a fast merging Spanish people, and from Caucasian pioneers, whose advent stands recorded in mighty enterprises and transformations in original thought and methods. Such are the sources, precedents, and prospects for the new race, which rises to inherit the attributes and aspirations of its varied and select prototype, and to be influenced by the electric atmosphere and environment that gave rise to world-stirring material and intellectual efforts. irTne linguistic works of padres Cuesta and Sitjar were printed in 1861 and 1862, two score years and more after they were written. Cuesta 8 vocabulary and grammar occupy a volume each. The Smithsonian publications embrace also two catechisms by fathers Serra and Cabot. Some translations by Zalvadea, and Sarria's impressive sermons, in autograph, are on my shelves. NOTES. 659 aThe coloring of the biographies in Robinsons California was so marked as to call forth condemnation even from native Californians. Alvarado, Hist., MS., ii. 242; HartneWs Narr., MS., 8-9. The work was evoked to some extent'by Mofras' French book and Forbes* Hist. Cal, 1839, compiled in Mexico by an Englishman, with a view to call the attention of his countrymen to the advantages of the territory. 3An advance 'extra' of the California Star appeared on November 1, 1846, its press having been in operation since September. It is even claimed that a part of the type for the Star had been set at New York in December, X845. * Colton published at New York, in 1850, Three Years in California, Deck and Port, and other books treating of his voyage to California and short stay there. The attention they roused was due not alone to the subject, for the treatment is interesting and the style flowing, although somewhat florid; the exaggeration is easily detected. 6 Among poets in the Pioneer figure the names of Pollock, Charles Havens, Linen, Mrs Downer, J. Swett, Soule, and J. P. Anthony. In 1864 a woman named Lester controlled the Pacific Monthly. Among the poetic contributors were Sproat, John Taylor, Tolles, Dorr, J. J. Bowman, Ridge, Mr and Mrs Strong, editors in 1863, and the women Page, Clarke, Wilburn, Fader, and McDougal. Subsequently flourished the San Francisco Pictorial Magazine, in July, 1857, the weekly Californian,- where Bret Harte began to shine; Golden Gate in 1864, at Sacramento, by Mrs MacDougal; Every Day Life, in 1867, by Mrs Wright; Howard Quarterly, in April, 1S67, by a religio-literary society; Ladies' and Gentlemen's Magazine, in 1869, of very small size; Berkeleyan, in 1872, by the literary societies of the university; Berkeley Quarterly of 1880, from a similar source, but devoted to social science; Oakland Monthly Review, 1873; Californian, in June 1876, a name afterward adopted for the Overland, and used for a time 6The first San Francisco directory of 1850 contained about 3,000 names. Many addresses refer to mere tents and sheds; a staff of policemen are recorded, half a dozen express offices, four places of entertainment, including a 'Bull Fighting Arena,' seven places of worship, and the same number of newspapers. Sacramento issued its smaller directory in January 1851, and Stockton and other places followed in due time. 7 The discrimination shown in the biographies of The Annals of San Francisco gave rise to the chief local criticism. The numerous illustrations are generally good and the whole appearance is fair, beyond what San Francisco could at that time produce; the book was issued at New York. Of the three authors, on the title page, Frank Soule, John H. Gihon, M. D., and James Nisbet, the latter appears to have prepared the historic part. He was born at Glasgow, Scotland, where he practised law, wrote a novel, and lost his money in speculation. In 1852 he sought California and was here engaged on the press, ranking as an able and worthy journalist. He perished in 1S65 with the Brotlier Jonathan on the way to Victoria, V. I. 8 Reading-rooms were founded prior to 1850 and small collections of books existed in several quarters. In that year the legislature passed a bill for a state library. Cal. Jour. Sen., 1850, p. 1310, etc. In 1855 its law dept was a feature, Cal Statutes, 1855, pp. 147, 267, when steps were taken for a special law library. Cal Jour. Ass., 1855, pp. 375-6, 902. The San Francisco law library was opened to the public in 1870. Cal. Statutes. 1869-70, 235-8. The Mercantile Library Assoc, of Sacramento took the lead in opening a general public library in February 1851. A course of lectures was arranged to aid the struggling concern. Sac. Transcript, Feb. 14, 1851. The well-known mercantile library of San Francisco, although organized only in Jan. 24, 1853, dates properly from 1851, when the disbanding committee of vigilance contributed a considerable collection of books tor public use. Bluxome, Com. Via., MS., 16, gave 50^ volumes This was the nucleus for that library. S. F. AIM, Dec. 24, JS52. Concerning legislative aid, see Cal. Jour. Sen., 1853, 649. The first annual report may be consulted in 1854. Hunts Mag., xxxiii. 660 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. 317-22; Merc. Lib. Assoc. Re/ports; S. F. AUa, Jan. 11, 1853, Mar. 29, 1855. A gift concert provided funds for the fine new building erected for it in 1870. Cal. Libraries Scraps, p. 3 et seq. Later it declined, and the foremnbb place was taken by the Mechanics' Institute Library, organized in 1855. The Odd Fellows' Library, formed in 1854, ranks third. The Free library, he inaugural steps for which were begun in 1877, is however fast outstrip-) ping them all under the generous aid extended from public funds and contributions. A number of minor collections pertain to different societies, as Young Men's Christ. Assoc, Cal. Pioneers, Academy of Science j, the Military Library, S. F. Verein, the French, existing since 1853, AUa, Jan. 5, 1853; the Spanish, of recent years. In addition to a review of works by Americans, it may be of interest to glance at the early books and manuscripts on America, partly from the influence exercised by them over it. As one of the turning points for progress, in giving a signal impulse to voyages and enterprise, to conquest and settlement, America imparted also zest and direction to writing, especially on the achievements mentioned. The productions speedily became numerous and striking enough to awaken a thirst for wider reading and for elaborations in other branches of literature, even in epic form, by virtue of emulation and response to demand. Historians and biographers were stimulated to place before the reader the incidents and heroes of the New World. Scientific men were stirred by the novelties here unfolded. Poets were inspired by scenes and feats of arms. Philosophers and theologians found food for thought and speculation in the revelation under strange conditions, of a new race whose benighted intellect invited friars and priests to mission work, and to advocacy of their cause against rapacity and oppression. The church delighted in so vast an addition to its fold, as an offset for the inroads of the Mahommedans and protestants. So absorbing was the interest in the New World that few of the books published during the sixteenth century failed to refer to it in some degree. The number was not large, for the days had not yet arrived of a press, which, although encroaching so much on all branches of literature by its eclectic collection, has intensified the taste for reading and increased the monthly publication of books by the thousand. Publications on America, beginning so soon after the discovery of printing, serve to illustrate the progress of the manufacturing art, from block and black-letter to script and modern type; from plaquette and parchment-bound books, and ponderous folios in wooden covers with clasps, to elegant cloth, paper, and varied bindings of to-day. It is a change in harmony with the development from simplicity and striving for thoroughness, to superficial gloss and smattering; the latter enforced indeed by the expansion in number and range of branches to be studied, and the other by the growing artificiality of intercourse. Only four original works on America are known to have been printed in the fifteenth century, namely, two letters of Columbus, dated 1493, one of which underwent a number of translations and reprints; a letter to Syllacio, one of Columbus' companions, printed about 1494; and a papal bull of 1493. They are all in the form of plaquettes, or small thin pamphlets without covers, printed in black letter. The originals are exceedingly rare and of great value as specimens of early printing. . In 1503 some papal bulls relating to America were published; in 1505 a letter of Columbus describing his fourth voyage to the tierrafirme. In general the few printed narratives of his voyages had a very limited circulation. Between 1502-8 appeared over a score of different editions of Amerigo Vespucci's Mundus Novus, describing his third and fourth voyages. The regiaqp stumbled upon by Columbus were supposed to be part of Japan and India, but here was evidently another country, sufficiently large and important to be called the New World. This roused greater interest in the discovery, and assisted to procure a wider circulation for Vespucci's reports than for NOTES. 661 those of the great admiral, together with the application of his name to the discovery. A collection of his four voyages appeared in 1507 and subsequently. In 1510 Globeo printed an account of a shipwreck by a voyager to the Isthmus. In 1511 the first decade of Peter Martyr appeared m two editions. Three decades were issued in 1516. The complete eight decades were first published in 1530. Translations and reprints of parts or total were frequent. Martyr's Opus Epistolarum, of over 800 letters, was first printed in 1530. These two works were the chief source for compilers during the century. The Ptolemy GeograpMa of 1513 presented 20 new maps. Enciso's Suma de Geografia of 1519 gave personal observations on America. The ltinerario of Grijalvas voyage to Yucatan bears date 1520, in two versions,.by Diaz and by an anonymous writer. In 1522 the famous Relaciones of Cortes began to appear; a letter in verse to stir by romantic incidents a fresh ecxite- ment in regard to the New World. The achievements of Pizarro, as narrated in his letters after 1533, added to the flame. A letter in verse by the im- famous Pediarias Davila was printed in 1525 concerning events on the Panama isthmus. Oviedo's De la Natural Historia de las Lndias bears imprint Toledo, 1526. The first part of his Historia General de las lndias did not see the light till 1535. The only complete edition thereof came out only in 1851-5 in four folio volumes. One of the two papal bulls of 1530 urged on Charles V. the conversion of the Indians 'by force and arms if needful, in order that their souls may partake of the heavenly kingdom.' One of the earliest specimens of American typography was a plaquette of 1541 describing the terrible earthquake in Guatemala. About this time letters began to pour in from the missionaries treating of all the varied subjects of interest in the colonies, which found ready circulation in special and collected form. These works influenced not alone local investigations and ample accounts, but they started in Europe also a desire for inquiry and exploration in similar fields hitherto neglected. After 1550 books on the Pacific states territories increased rapidly. Among the most prominent were Las Casas' treatises on the Destruction of the Indies, that is, the maltreatment of the natives of 1552. His chief works, the Historia de lndias, existed until recently only in manuscript copies; of which I used one The nature of his advocacy and the severity of his charges brought forth numerous replies, as Sepulveda's Apologia, and gave rise to speculation on the rights of aborigines, and on the value of America to the church, and its influence on European nations. Gomara's Historia de Mexico and Historia General de las lndias were printed in several editions between 1552-4, followed in time by a score more. Ben- zoni's Historia del Mondo Nuovo of 1565 obtained likewise several reprints and translations, and served to affirm the unfavorable idea of Spanish greed and cruelty. Doctor Monardes' Historia Medicinal of the same date was completed in 1574. Columbus' biography by his son reached several editions after 1571, under the increasing demand for biography, embracing heroes like Cortes and Pizarro. In 1587 Palacios' Instruccion Nautica appeared to guide navigators in West India waters, and Ortelius' geographical work. Two years later Acosta's De Natura Novi Orbis, followed in 1590 by his Historia de las lndias, both of which received wide circulation in different forms and languages, and tended to promote a philisophic inquiry into American resources and affairs. The appearance in 1596 of Padilla's history of the provincia of Santiago in Mexico was the signal for the periodic publication of the priestly chronicles which constitute the most important historical writings during the following two centuries. Of voyage collections, so numerous in later times, five appeared in the sixteenth century, beginning with the Libretto de tutta laNavigatione of 1504 by Vercellese, now disappeared; the Paesi Nouamente retrouati by Montla- baddo, 1507; the Novos OrUs by Huttich, prefaced by Grynaeus, 1532, which is founded on the preceding. Both received several reprints and translation. All three were fragmentary in their" information as compared with Ramusio's 662 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. Navigations et Viaggi, in three bulky folio volumes, which appeared in 1550 1553, and 1559, respectively, and in subsequent editions. The last volume relates wholly to the New World, and contains summaries from Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Cortes, and other conquerors and explorers down to 1542. The set ia admirably printed in close old style black-letter, with maps and illustrations, and forms one of the most valuable of collections. At the turn of the century, in 1599-1600, appeared the famous English compilation of Haklayt in three volumes, the last devoted to America. It adds to selections from Ramusio a number of later explorations and voyages, notably by Drake and Candish, and dated as late as 1597. These collections of voyages are a new form of the cyclopedic works on cosmography and universal history. Several of these had been written long before the invention of printing, had been rewritten and furnished with notes and additions at frequent intervals by different editors, and the same custom was continued after the printing-press had superseded the pen in the multiplication of copies. The 1498 edition of Pomponius Mela's De Orbis Situ is said to have been the first of this class to include the New World. The ^Eneids of Sabellicus, and the De MirabiUbus of Albertini follow in 1504-5. The Supplementum Chronicarum of Bergomas began to include the New World in 1503, and ten editions followed before 1600. My copy of 1513 has only a short paragraph, of less than half a page, on America, beginning * De quartuor p' maxim is insulis in india extra orben nuper inuentis. Maffei's commentaries were often republished between 1506 and 1544. The Cosmographio3 Introductio of Hylacomylus, or Wald-See-MiiUer, of which four editions appeared in 1507, contains the first printed account of the first and fourth voyages of Vespucci, and the first proposal to name the New World America. Ptolemy's Geography of 1508 had the first engraved map in which any part of America was shown. The name America was first used, in accordance with the suggestion of Hylacomylus, in the Globus Mundi, printed at Strasbourg in 1509. The name was first used on a map in the Enarra- tiones of Solinus-Camers of 1520, while the first protest against the use of that name is believed to have been in Schoner's Opusculwn of 1533. The cosmographical writings of Apianus, beginning in 1522, and of Munster from 1541, are the remaining works of this class, which I find represented by most frequent editions on my shelves. Of the long list of similar works may be noted the Cosmography of Nebrissensis, 1498, Ludd's Speculum Orbis, 1507, the Chronicon of Eusebius, 1512, De Natura Locorum by Albertus Magnus, 1514, Reisch's Margarita Philosophica, 1515, Loritz' Geographia, 1527, Bordone's lsoU delMundo, 1528, Franck's Weltbuch, 1533, the Epitome of Vadianus, 1534, Steinhowel's Chronica Beschreibung, 1535, Sacro-Bosco's Sphera, 1537, Dionysius' De Situ Orbis and Copernicus' Celestial Orbs, 1543, the work of Frisius on Astronomy, 1544, of Glareanus on Geography, 1544, Honter's Rudiments of Cosmography, 1546. Many others were published during the last half of the century. The first printed mention of America in the English language is supposed to be in Brant's Shyppe of Fooles of 1509. The New World is also mentioned in the New Interlude of 1511 and 1520, and in a* treatise on the New Landes of about 1522. , ^ , . , ... About one hundred additional books, m more than one hundred and titty editions, issued in Europe during the sixteenth century, contain more or less extended notices of the New World, drawn from original or compiled sources. The list begins with a collection of treatises and letters of 1493, by Canon Ortiz; two orations by Carvajal and Almeida of 1493. Indeed, there is hardly any class of publications during the period noti represented va. the list of those containing mention of America. The newly found land, with all its belongings, was a marvel, was well-nigh a miracle, to the lnhalu- tants o'f Europe. Such mention was often attached to orations of any class and to sermons; to scientific treatises, as by Lilio in 1496; to dramas, as by 1^ NOTES. 663 Stamler in 1508; to Seneca's tragedies in 1510; to panegyrics, as by Sobra- rius in 1511; to poems, as by Cataneo in 1514; Giustimani's edition of the Psalter in 1516; to a romance by Oviedo in 1519; to the travels of Marco Polo in 1528; to works on syphillitic ailments in 1531 et seq.; to the letters of Trithemus in 1536; to the annals of various European countries by different authors; to treatises on navigation and sailing directions in 1544 et seq.; and to rudimentary treatises on cosmography and other branches of science and art. During the latter half of the sixteenth century papal bulls, laws, orders, and instructions multiply rapidly. Of compiled laws the Nuevas Leyes of 1543 form the first of the class relating to America, although the Ordenanzas for the Casa de Contratacion of 1547 were first proper collection. Viceroy Mendoza's Ordenanzas y Copilacion de Leyes, of 1548, was the first book of laws printed in America. Puga's Cedulas extends the collection to 1563, when it was issued at Mexico. The compilations of Encina3, Yrolo, Aguilar, Pinelo, and Cordova, preceded the famous Recopilacion de lndias of 1681. The seventeenth century opens appropriately with the first general history published on America, the Historia General de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Mas y tierrafirme del Mar Oceano, by Antonio de Herrera, chronicler of the king of Spain, issued in 1601-15, and subsequently in four quarto volumes, and forming the first general history published on America. Torquemada's Monorchia Indiana appeared in 1613 in three large volumes. It is a richer store-house of information on the indigenous tribes of America than had before been printed, together with the history and description of the country. Thomas Gage's New Survey of the West Indies, the first English account of western affairs, was first printed in 1648. Although somewhat exaggerated in tone, and severely criticised by catholic writers, I regard Gage as the best writer on America up to his time, and for a hundred years later. Boturini gave, in 1746, suggestions concerning sources and method for a new history of America in his Idea. It may have proved of value to Munoz in preparing the Historia del Nuevo Mundo, which stopped with the first volume in 1793. Robertson's attractive History of America came out in 1777-96. Among notable sectional histories, from which the general chroniclers were supposed to cull most of their information, I would mention a rare and forgotten little book, almost unknown to historians, Gaspar de Village's Historia de la Nueva Mexico, del Capitan Gaspar de Villagra, ano 1610, in epic form, which is exceedingly valuable as the foundation of the history of New Mexico. To the Isthmus and adjoining region relate Timon's Noticias Historiales, 1626, Piedrahita's Historia general de las conquistas del nuevo reyno de Granada, and a large number of tracts respecting the famous Scot's colony at Darien, which began to appear in 1699. Stachlin's Neue Nachrichten, 1776, is invaluable for the history of Alaska. In 1632 was presented the so-called true version of the history of Cortes' conquest in the Historia Verdadera of Bernal Diaz. Fifty years later Soli3 issued his less reliable account in the Historia de la Conquista, which, accepted as a model of elegance, passed through more editions and translations than perhaps any other Hispano-American standard work. A sequel to it was published in 1743 by Salazar y Olarte, in the most extreme of inflated Gdn- gorism. The defects of these writers were remedied in Clavigero's Storia Antka del Messico, 1780-1, in 4 volumes, which covers the conquest as well as aboriginal annals and customs, and treats the subject with admirable common sense. To this class pertain the missionary chronicles of the provinces or orders to which the authors respectively belong. Written with a naive religious zeal and faith, facts suffer somewhat, yet with experience the sifting becomes easy. A large number have reached my shelves in the manuscript form beyond which they failed to pass. First on the list stands Davila Padilla's Historia de Santiago de Mexico, of 1596, revised in 1625; MemesaVs Historia de 664 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. S. Vincente de Chyapa y Guatemala is a very rare and valuable record, printed in 1619.» Puente's work on the order of San Augustin in Michoacan, and Grijalva's Cronica de la orden de N. P. S. Augustin de la nueva Esparto,'bear date 1624. A Latin chronicle of the Franciscan order was published in Europe in 1625. Lizana's Yucatan appeared in 1631, and in 1635 and 1643 came two chronicles of the Provincia de S. Pedro y S. Pablo in Michoacan, both surpassed by Beaumont's Cronica de Medvoacan, which has only recently seen the press, after I had secured a manuscript copy... The Historia de los Triumphos, by Ribas, 1645, is one of the rarest of the series, and relates chiefly to the Jesuit missions in northwest Mexico. Andres de Guadalupe's Provincia de los Angeles dates from 1662. Burgoa's Palestra Historial and Geografica Description, of 1674, are very rare, and the standard authorities, especially on the early history of Oajaca. To the eighteenth century belong the missionary chronicles of Vasquez on Guatemala, 1714; Arlegui, Chronica deZacatecas, 1737; Espinosa's Chronica Apostolica y Seraphica de todos los colegws de Propaganda Fide, 1746, continued in Arricivita's Cronica de Quere'taro, 1792; Venegas' Noticia de la California, 3 vols, 1757; the Apostolica Afanes of the company of Jesus, 1768; accounts by Baegert and others on Lower California missions; Palou's Relacion, or life of Junipero Serra, founder of the missions of Upper California. Diaz de la Calle's Mernarial y Noticias, 1646, is a statistical handbook on New World affairs. The Epitome Sumario, 1659, relates to the Mexican inquisition. Gil Gonzales Davila's Teatro Eclesiastico, 1649, narrates the lives of early church dignitaries, and constitutes a valuable history of early church affairs in America. In 1607 appeared Garcia's famous Origen de los Indios de el Nuevo Mundo, in which he aims to present all the theories entertained on the origin of the Indians. The same question was weighed during the century by Grotius, De Laet, Horn, Spizelius, Wagner, and in the following century notably by De Panco. It is fully reviewed in my Native Races, v. Solorzano Pereira's great juridical work De Indiarom Ivre, was published in 1639. Montemaya de Cuenea treated on repartimientos in his Discurso Politico-historico-juridico, 1658. The swelling bulk of the American sections in the world-descriptions of the old cosmographical works so numerous during the past century, and still published to some extent, suggested a series of compiled works devoted purely to the New World. They are quaint old volumes, generally in black- letter and quite bulky, with maps and numerous wood cuts, and engravings of monsters and abnormities. Among them may be named Ens' history of the West Indies, the West und Ost Indischer Lustgart 1618; the Nova Typis Francacta navigatio Novo Orbis of Philoponus, 1621; the Westlndische Spieghel, 1624; Gottfriedt's Neue Velt, 1631; De Laet's Novus Orbis, 1633; D'Avity's Le Monde, 1637; Ogilby's America, and De Nieuwe en Onbekende WeereU of Montanus, a fine old Dutch work, clearly printed and elaborately illustrated 1671. The profusely illuminated works of Doctors Hernandez and Erasmus Franciscus on American botany are among the curious relics of the seventeenth century. This class and their prototypes, with quaint illustrations, diminish rapidly after 1700. Voyage collections continue in favor. Hulsins, De Bry, and Purchas are the most noticeable of the seventeenth century, although all of them, so far as our territory is concerned, are remarkable for their rarity rather than for their intrinsic importance. The work of De Bry is a series, rather than a collection, of voyages to the East and West Indies, published in both Latin and German at irregular intervals from 1590 to 1634, in hastily rehashed editions, culled from the readiest source, with illustrations drawn from fancy to fit the narrative. The series is divided by the sizes of the volumes into l great 'and 'little voyages, the first alone relating to the West Indies or the New World. The engravings were of a high artistic order however, and assisted to sustain the mania for forming complete sets of the work. The Hulsins collection, Sammlung von Sech und Zwarmff Schiffahrten, is a similar series dating from 1598 to 1650. Its text is considered more accu- NOTES. 665 rately edited than De Bry, and a complete set is also of greater rarity. Asher has devoted a volume to a bibliographical essay on Hulsins, and Camus has done the same for De Bry. Of Pvrclias his Pilgrimes an edition was published m 1514, but the complete and now rare edition in five large folio volumes appeared in 1525-6. During the last quarter of the century began the narratives of the voyages of Lussan, Sharp, Dampier, Wafer, and the long series of buccaneers who infested the Spanish-American waters. Gemelli Carreri's Giro del Mundo, including a visit to Mexico, was published in 1699. Narrations of voyages round the world, and in the northern Pacific, are numerous and important during the following century, including Woodes Rogers, 1718; Shelvocke, 1726; Anson, 1748; Betagh, 1757; Cook, 1773-84; Parkinson, 1784; Portlock and Dixon, 178Q; Meares, 1790; Vancouver, 1798; and. La Perouse, 1798. Collections of similar accounts are accordingly more numerous, if not more important, than formerly. The Harris collection, in two folios was published in 1705; a Naaukeurige Versameling in thirty small volumes was printed in 1707 by Pieter van der Aa, and reproduced in Gottfriedt's German collection in four folios in 1727. The Churchill and Harleian collections, forming together ten folios, were issued in 1745 and 1752. Drake's appeared in 1771; Forster's in 1786; Berenger's, at Paris, in 1788; and the Spanish Viagero Universal in 43 vols in 1796. I have, moreover, a score of minor collections published during the century in different languages, for the most part without the name of editor or collector. Adjuncts to these are Linage's Norte de Contracion of 1672, translated into English in 1700 as the Spanish Rule of Trade, and Cabrera Bueno's Navega- don Especulativo Practivo printed at Manila in 1734, and which includes a kind of Coast Pilot of the western coast of North America. AntufiezyAce- vedo's memorial on the commerce of the Indies appeared in 1797. Villa-Sefior y Sanchez' Theatro Americano, 1746, is of a geographic-statistical character, which finds more concise and complete form in Alcedo's Diccionario Geografico-Historico, 1786-9, in 5 volumes. Leon Pinelo's Epitome de la Bibliotheca, 1629, in three volumes is the earliest attempt at American bibliography. Ahate's Gacetas de Literatura, 1790-4, marks an epoch in Mexico, and the same may be said of the Gazetas de Mexico, begun in 1784 as a periodical summary of events, and continued till 1821. This valuable set of 49 volumes is very rare. Many of the preceding publications may be recognized as the product of the few presses existing in the New World during the preceding centuries. The chief emanations from this source consisted, however, in catechisms, rituals, vocabularies, calendars, regulations of the several religious orders, and the like. Biographical sketches of American priests and missionaries beginning perhaps with the life of Cordova y Bocanegra in 1617, are very numerous, dealing with the Christian virtues of the subject rather than with the events of his life. Then there are hundreds of printed accounts of the Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and of other miraculous incidents. Sermons are found in still greater number. It seems to have been customary from the earliest times for clergymen to have obituary sermons printed, with eulogistic dedication ; they are often of a mystic character, or of verbose vapor in which the deceased is often not mentioned at all, or accorded slight allusion in praise of certain qualities. But on the title page of the book, the printing of which, as a matter of course, the patron or deceased pays for, there is compensation in the fulsome flattery according to the amount of money donated. The method is judicious, for it assures recognition on the only page that is apt to be read. The scientific revival preceding the opening of the present century found fit representation in the works of Alexander von Humboldt, based on personal observations during his travels in Spanish-America from 1799 to 1804. His Vueodes Cordillire, Examen Critifjue de V Histoire de la Geographic, and Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne are monumental in Pacific coast literature for their revelations in historic and scientific branches, and for the in- 666 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. L centive they gave to wider investigation. .Civil wars supervened to check efforts along the new path, while calling attention to regions so long withdrawn from the world. Intercourse and trade with enterprising nations serve however to strengthen the dawning aspirations on both sides for learning more of each other. The result is particularly observable in the historic, geographic, and statistical publications emanating from or under the auspices of societies devoted to such studies, and which were rapidly organized in the late Spanish colonies. The Sociedad de Geografia y Estadistica of Mexico ha3 signalized itself in this work by voluminous, exhaustive, and varied reports in all sections of the republic, in emulation with the travellers and students belonging notably to the American Antiquarian and Ethnological societies, to the Royal Geographical and Hakluyt societies of England, the Societi de Geographie of France, and the Academic der Wissenschaft of Germany. Private books on similar topics are instanced by Escudero's Noticias on Chihuahua and Durango, Squier's Central America, Brantz Mayer's Mexico, and others. While priests and conquerors united in establishing the outlines of South America, the north-webt remained involved in mystery until the Russians, in the middle of the eighteenth century, established its separation from Asia by Bering strait, and incited the jealous Spaniards and English to renewed explorations under Cook and Vancouver, and by the Sutil y Mexkana, which revealed the true outline of the coast. The search for the north-west passage disclosed, a few decades later, the water boundary along the north, although impracticable for navigation. Books are our boon companions, ever fresh, ever entertaining, and no less welcome for their savoir vivre than for their antique wisdom. Printed books are social, but there is something like sacred reserve in a manuscript, particularly if there be no copy of it. Then it stands an incarnated soul, whose visible being may by vandal book-burners be blotted out, even as the assassin speeds hence the soul of his victim. Among the printed books of a library there are many faces familiar on other shelves, but manuscripts have their distinct personality. A printed book has its alter ego in a hundred or a thousand different places at one time; a manuscript is like a man, one and indivisible. In America, manuscripts readily span the entire period of occupation, and have therefore an inestimable chronologic completeness. The slow introduction of the printing-press into the different colonies prompted greater dependence on pen and ink records. Involving as these do the beginning and development of nearly all existing orders of things, their importance is correspondingly increased. They represent in Spanish America the efforts of three successively dominating races, and in the Anglo-Saxon sections of the energetic founders of states, planted midst warfare and hardships. They reveal in the chirography the characteristics of these men and races, and breathe in the style the spirit which animated here cruel conquerors, there peaceful missionaries, fearless explorers, and enterprising settlers, oppressed natives, and struggling communities. They embrace edicts and regulations by political and ecclesiastical authorities, memorials and petitions of towns and individuals, reports and statistics by officials and mission fathers, correspondence of traders and industrial representatives, and of private persons who picture the inner phases of society. They are originals and select copies, and dictations from pioneers and prominent men in all branches of life, giving their experiences and views of affairs. This and more is contained in that particular portion which I regard as the gem of my library. Arranged and bound in volumes, the official and private correspondence in itself presents a complete historic outline. The dictations cover it in another form, the number of testimonies on each point serving to substantiate the principal facts, in each occurrence. One series of shelves contain, in concise form, the entire archives of California from 1769 for the following hundred years, as reduced from the official depos- NOTES. 667 itory, and weeded of superfluities. The value of the California manuscripts, original and copies, can best be estimated by the statement that from them alone can be written a far more complete history than from all the printed accounts and books extant; these latter being, for that matter, very defective on, or containing no allusion whatever to, some of the most interesting episodes. Thus far in illustration of the importance of American and particularly Pacific manuscripts. Still greater treasures would have reached us but for the vandalism, first of bigoted ecclesiastics, at whose hands the shadow of knowledge received more attention than the substance. American gold was Christ's, but American art and science were Satan's. Bishops led the way in raids on the choicest specimens of native craft, and even of the fruits of immortal mind black smoke-clouds were made which should obscure still more the rays of the engendering sun. The raids revived later during the internecine wars, which in Spanish America led to the destruction of archives and to the scattering of libraries. To the latter my shelves bear witness in thousands of volumes gathered at the sale of such collections as the Andrade-Maximilian. Among these manuscripts are four bulky tomes containing the original acts of the first three provincial councils held in Mexico during the sixteenth century, together with the various petitions and questions on civil and religious affairs submitted to their decision, and provided with the autographs and seals of the king, prelates, officials, and men of note. Their value may be understood when we consider the important role played by the church in affairs of state—in open council or behind it—even during later times, in the wane of her power, and her continued influence over the individual by means of pulpit and confessional. The spiritual administration, and even secular branches, in the whole of Spanish northern and central America, were regulated by the decrees of the three councils of bishops contained in the four volumes of original records before me; and their rules, approved by popes and kings, have in a greater or less degree controlled the destiny of the Spanish-speaking race in America till the present day. The first council was convened in 1555 by Alonso de Monttifar, second archbishop of Mexico, assisted by four bishops; the second ten years later, by the same prelate, attended by five bishops; and the third in 1585, under the presidency of Pedro Moya y Contreras, archbishop and viceroy, with seven bishops, one by proxy. The principal points referred to are, the profession of faith, instruction books, Indian regulations, church decrees, sacraments, ceremonies and rites, testaments, feasts, marriage, regulations for clergy, tribunals, notaries and alcaldes, usury, sorcery, blasphemy, and immorality. The acts are signed by the several members of the councils, with a rubrica, or elaborate flourish, which forms the essential part of Spanish- American signatures, or with an initial affixed to the episcopal title. Some of the regulations point to laxity among the clergy in connection with gambling and women. Several of the catechisms and doctrinas, regulations, and commentaries by these councils form special volumes on my shelves, signed by the presiding prelates. A pastoral of Zumarraga is interesting as being from the first bishop on the continent, relating to the foundation of the cathedral at Mexico, and containing an order signed Yo la Reyna—the usual autocratic form of Spanish sovereigns—by Queen Juana, mother of Charles V. _ The nature of early Spanish manuscripts reveal the predominance of friars and churchmen in clerical tasks, as missionaries and as attendants of explorers, conquerors, and pioneers. The reports and correspondence are largely from their pen. The religious feeling enforced and sustained by the • church, and the work of converting the numerous natives, gave moreover a preponderating stamp to pen productions in the form of sermons and pastorals, devotional exercis?s, sacred allegories, comments on miracles and shrines, saintly panegyrics and biographies. The regard for these efforts is 668 EARLY CALIFORNIA LITERATURE. further indicated by the frequent illumination of text and title pages with capitals, traceries in blue and red, scrolls, floral decorations, arches, and pedestals, with shields and emblazonings, cherubs, and symbols, in imitation of the mediaeval monk productions on vellum, as in the elaborate MoraUa S. Gregory, Pape, a commentary on the book of Job in 35 parts, by the saintly Gregory. It is written in small, close, Gothic type, so even as to resemble printing. A monument of patient industry, it is also an attractive specimen of ornamentation. Many of the early chronicles which failed to reach the press lie on my shelves in original or copied manuscript, yet present fully as valuable material as those in published form. This has lately been recognized by the printed issue of several among them, under the auspices of societies and zealous scholars. This is also the case with such documents as the Ltbro de Cabildo of Mexico, with the enactments of the first city council on the North American continent; likewise the reports and memorials of early Central American and Mexiean explorers, from Columbus to Alvarado, and later. Diaries form an important section; scientific and philosophical treatises abound. The originals of the prolific Mexican historian and legislator, Busta- mante, revealed to me much important matter suppressed when they were sent to the printer, and shedding additional light on his period. The Mexicans have a forensic phraseology in their correspondence, and the mass of legal papers seems to indicate a fondness for juridic mysticism. On the other hand, the declamatory style and softness of their language lead naturally to versification, for which their vivacity, social gayety, and gallantry afford frequent excuse. Numerous collections of unpublished poems, and single pieces, especially lyric and satiric, bear witness to the disposition. CHAPTER XIX. PLATO REVISED. Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum!—Lucretius. Socrates. Can this be Plato ? Plato. It is he. Socrates. Where are we? Plato. In hell or heaven; I know not how the place is called; but howsoever called it is the same, and, let us hope, a happy conservation-ground for the gods. Socrates. Is it a long have I slept ? Plato. If we are not awake, then is it no place—• perhaps in any event more a condition than a place ; and if it be within the realm of eternity, the measure of days is not employed. Some lately come hither from where time is told say there are a score and more of centuries since the affair of the hemlock. Socrates. Ah I I remember. I was permitted to kill myself because Melitus said I did not believe in the gods—that I sought too curiously into things above the earth and under it, and made the worse appear the better. Plato. Ill commonly befalls him who speaks against time-honored traditions, dissuading men from their favorite opinions. Socrates. But what if they believe a lie ; what if there are no gods on Olympus, no reserved heaven of happiness, no hades, with infernal enginery for the torture of departed souls ? Plato. Men would rather not know, than know (669) PLATO REVISED. what likes them not. Besides, Socrates, you never taught that doctrine. You have ever upheld all respectable deities, would not tolerate Homer where he criticises their conduct, would not even admit that it were possible for them to do wrong. If you believed not in the gods, why ordered you a cock sacrificed to ^Esculapius ? Socrates. As being is to becoming so is truth to belief, and believing to doing. Habit is strong within us, and worshippers must not too closely scrutinize the character and morals of the object of their adoration ; else they will not long be worshippers. We may truly say that the gods have much to answer for, man having sacrificed to them many of his noblest impulses, Plato. You have ever listened to the divine voice, my master, and possessed the wisdom to apprehend ignorance, even if found within yourself; for it is no less the mark of wisdom to know wherein we know not than to know wherein we know. Your philosophy comes humanized from heaven. Socrates. I have always loved knowledge, my Plato, deemed it virtue, and the condition of soul incident thereto the highest good, and preferred the study of human nature of which we may know much, to that of the divine nature of which we can learn so little. Plato. In that thou showest true wisdom, O Socrates. A proper apprehension of the nature of ideas unfolds a system of perfect and perpetual types as the foundation of all morality. PhilosopTiy is not alone knowledge, or speculation, but wisdom, that is wise action, and virtue, which is nothing less than practical reason. Socrates. Yes, Plato, notwithstanding its occasional transcendental flights, your philosophy is essentially altruistic. Virtue is wisdom and vice folly; moderation and justice are two of the chief Platonic virtues, moderation meaning sound-mindedness, and justice PLATO REVISED. 671 assigning to acts and functions their proper places. Yet Platonic philosophy, though altruistic and practical, is eminently theologic, action being the highest aim of man, morality the ideal of action, and God, author of all, the ideal of ideals, or supreme source of virtue and excellence. Plato. Platonic philosophy, as you are pleased to term it, comes from Socrates and Greece, and embodies, like the teachings of the Buddha, and all subsequent founders of new and great religions, all that was best in all that previously existed. You, my master, were a moral phenomenon, appearing midway between two other great teachers, the Buddha and the Christ. In conjunction with a lofty soul you displayed strong animal propensities, and had, if you remember, a flat nose, prominent eyes, and were not remarkably fine looking. The comic poet Aristophanes ridiculed you in his comedy of The Clouds, yet not in the least to ycur discomfiture. You taught in poverty without pay, overturning false systems, and inculcating superiority of soul and the true welfare of man in preference to worldly pleasures. You were captious and critical, dealt freely in sarcasm, pricked bubbles, and despised meaningless phrases. You were always attacking popular opinion. Any doctrine whose logical conclusions were palpably absurd you would promptly put away. Knowing little of natural science, you turned from physical phenomena to the sovereignty of truth as revealed by man's consciousness. It was because you denounced popular vice, exposed sophistry, and scourged folly that you were persecuted. It is the fate of reformers. Socrates. Enough, my Plato. Of you I will only say that your effort to combine poetry and philosophy in your writings was most successful, the result being a model of artistic perfection united with tie most profound philosophic acuteness. Yet you arc a little too polemical some might say, and at times onesided, particularly when the supremacy of thought 6/2 PLATO REVISED. comes in conflict with the claims of the senses. Again, ethics and ontology are so blended that it is often impossible to apprehend your meaning, and when you descend to deal m the unknowable your superiority is wholly lost. Am I right in my surmise, O greatest and best of men, that you adopted the dialogistic form, following the Socratic idea, not so much to communicate knowledge as to lead to the spontaneous discovery of it ? Plato. Quite right, Socrates. Socrates. In the Thesetetus we find developed the Platonic theory of knowledge, which, I might say, is too idealistic for practical minds. Plato. In the formation of conceptions mind rather than sensation is the dominant factor. Socrates. True; but I surmise that times have changed since our happy days at Athens, and that in present affairs the real stands above the fanciful. Plato, therefore, must we forever continue our negative discussion of the philosophy of life begun in the ancient dialectics ? Socrates. Assuredly not. Plato. Yet, how far shall we venture, 0 Socrates ? Are you prepared to ask yourself, Is the divine reached through the human, or the human through the divine ? Socrates. Before attempting to answer that question, Plato, I would know something more of the moral atmosphere of this place, and what advance, if any, has been made toward fathoming the secrets' of the universe since we were in Athens. Long laid away the mind becomes musty, and I could never talk well in the dark. Plato. Nothing new is known; nothing can be learned even here. Some backward advance has been made, which is indeed sometimes the greatest progress forward, in unlearning what was wrongly learned. Long has been the time of meditation, and hard the words to utter, even by mouths of gravest PLATO REVISED. 673 wisdom, that of the unknowable man can know nothing. Socrates. But who shall say there is aught to man unknowable, either on earth or in heaven? Let mind be matter, and matter immortal; let soul be nature, and nature God; then is it not folly for man, a half-finished product of the universe, to limit the powers of nature and of mind ? Plato. Since coming hither and finding neither entity nor nonentity, I have been tempted to review somewhat my own and others' teachings. Socrates. Little have I taught, though questioning much. They say I professed ignorance as a foil to sarcasm. Little need for feigning, as I am reminded by my present surroundings. On what based you, Plato, the knowledge that you taught ? Plato. On traditions and intuitions. Socrates. Of what ? Plato. Of origin, agency, immortality, and the rest. Socrates. In the everything there is Timseus it is written that for a cause; for the creation of the world the father of all, the best of causes, who, being good, and finding things in disorder, framed the universe, this world, his fairest work, becoming a living soul, with divine life of everlasting motion. Plato. It is so written. Socrates. And, having been created in this way, the world has been framed with a view to that which is apprehended by reason and mind. Plato. Yes. Socrates. And that the beginning of everything should be according to nature. Plato. It must be so. Socrates. Where shall we look for the beginning, Plato? * Plato. As I have said, in the best of causes, the father of all. Socrates. Tell me, what were the things which Essays and Miscellany 43 674 PLATO REVISED. I the father of all found in disorder when he framed them into a harmonious cosmos ? Plato. Chaos, that vacant, infinite space, or confused shapeless mass, out of which sprang all things that exist. Socrates. And God was there, God and Chaos, only those two; and what and whence were they, mv Plato? Plato. Out of chaos arose all things, and gods and men. Socrates. Who made the gods and men and all things out of chaos ? Plato. The great artificer. Socrates. That is to say, God ? Plato. Socrates, yes. Socrates. Plato, who was first, Chaos or God ? Plato. By Jupiter ! Socrates, why do you ask me such a question? Socrates. Not that I expect an answer, truly, but that I may ask another. Plato. What is that ? Socrates. You say that everything that is must have been created by some cause. God exists and chaos was. Which was first, God or chaos, you cannot tell; how can you better know or better explain the creation of the universe out of chaos than the creation or existence of chaos ? Plato. I know, Socrates, you merely wish to talk, and though I see no profit in it, I will humor you. Socrates. I would to God, Plato, I might do more than talk. Many bubbles have I pricked, many false doctrines exposed, but here would I gladly be established. Plato. Whether we will guish cause from condition ; where cease to question for condition. Socrates. Then why not take up the question of cause from some real and tangible condition ? or no, we must distin- or rather we must some- a cause and accept the PLATO REVISED. 675 Plato. There is no law against it. Socrates. But when asked, was the world created, or had it always existence, created, you reply, being as you say, visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible, as more fully explained in your Timaeus. Plato. Yes. Socrates. And you further state, in that not too logical effusion, that the causes God employs are of two kinds, intelligent and unintelligent, and the product is made up of necessity and mind. Mind, you say, the ruling power, persuaded necessity to bring the greater part of created things to perfection, and thus in the beginning, when the influence of reason got the better of necessity, the universe was created. All this is pure fancy, as any one may know ; and you finally admit that you cannot explain first principles, and will not discuss the origin of things, though you have your opinion thereon. Plato. You are wholly correct. Socrates. But my dear Plato, how can you better explain the ways of God than the origin of God ? You will admit that you know no more of one than of the other; that you were no more present at the creation of the world than at the creation of the creator. And yet, while you decline to discuss the one you will discourse upon the other till doomsday. Plato. The world being visible and tangible, I said it had a creator; the creator being invisible and intangible, I said I could not account for his becoming. Socrates. That does not answer my question, which was, how can you better explain the acts than the origin of an invisible creator, knowing nothing of either ? Plato. We must fall back on tradition, Socrates, which has had more to do in forming opinion than all other evidence and influence combined. Socrates. What has tradition to do with it ? Did G76 PLATO REVISED. the earlier and more ignorant men know more of their maker than we ? Plato. Of the origin of the great artificer we have held that it is sacrilege to question; to tell of other divinities and to know their origin is beyond us, and we must accept the genealogies of the poets and the traditions of the men of old who affirm themselves to be the offspring of the gods, and they must surely have known the truth about their own ancestors. Socrates. How should they know ? Plato. They were so told. Socrates. Who told them ? Plato. Their ancestors. Socrates. And who told their ancestors ? Plato. Those who lived before them. Socrates. Ye gods 1 Plato; and is this the only basis of your belief ? Plato. How can we doubt the word of the children of the gods ? Socrates. Do you know there were ever any gods, or if so that they had any children, or if so that they ever so asserted ? Plato. It is true that they give no certain, or even probable proof; yet, as they declare that they are speaking of family traditions, we must believe them in obedience to the laws. Socrates. By the dog of Egypt I Plato, that were stout, argument for the blockheads of Athens, two thousand years ago—we must obey the law and believe them ! My dear friend, where have you been since I last saw you ? Although I have slept, I am aware that all these centuries there has been progress, which is indeed eternal as the gods themselves, and that I am now with all the world far away from the Greece of old. One cannot sleep a single night and awake to find himself the same ; much less can the soul lie dormant for centuries. Plato. Socrates, you speak the truth. I, too, am not the Plato of old, else I were not Plato, beliefs PLATO REVISED. 677 having so changed, and knowledge having so wonderfully increased. But when you question after the ancient way, constrained by my custom I answer in like manner. ' As to our gods, I really doubt if they be worth further recounting. There are Oceanus and Tethys, children of earth and heaven, from whom sprang Phorcys and Chronos and Rhea, and many others; and from Chronos and Rhea sprang Zeus and Here, and their brethren and children; and there were many others, as we all know. Socrates. I know that you have said that Homer and Hesiod, and others of the poets who catalogue the gods, have ever been the greatest story-tellers of mankind, their fault being that of telling a lie, and what is more,, a bad lie, whenever a representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes. Plato. Nevertheless, the fact that the poets were not always truthful does not prove that traditions are false. What I understand to be the modern doctrine of emanation, or a philosophic transformation of the idea of an original creation of the world, which makes the universe a product of the divine nature, but at the same time a physical rather than a moral act, had its origin in the east ages ago, and differs little from the. modern theory of evolution, though somewhat reversing the order of things. Socrates. Let us question for a moment the value of tradition, and see where the ancient manner of discussion thereon will lead us. Whence comes tradition, Plato ? Plato. Answering after the former method I should say from those the gods first made. \ Socrates. I notice, Plato, in your Statesman you give a tradition which you say may be proved by internal evidence. Plato. Yes. Socrates. Had the children of the gods intuitions ? Plato. Certainly. Socrates. And their children had traditions? 678 PLATO REVISED. Plato. Yes. Socrates. And we have both ? Plato. We have. Socrates. Then we may prove tradition by intuition and intuition by tradition? Plato. That is the logical conclusion. Socrates. The study of evolution raises a doubt as to the construction of this world out of nothing for man's supremacy. Where now are the gods of Olympus, and that golden age of wisdom and happiness of which poets sang? In vain we search the by-paths of history; no trace of gods or demi-gods remain. And the one invisible God, creator of all, has been driven by science farther and farther back, until now he is well-nigh lost to us. Plato. The traditions of the Chinese, and other nations called half-civilized or savage, seem near akin to the truth, affirming as they do that their primogenitors went naked, had no fire, lived in caves, ate raw meat, and that many ages elapsed before any consciousness of their uncomfortable state dawned upon them. Socrates. There are the seen and unseen, the apparent and non-apparent, the material and the spiritual, but all natural, each living in the other, the universal forces ever passing from one to the other, all cooperative in endless evolution. Plato. So vsays science. Socrates. To come back to the origin of things. You, Plato, who were taught music, gymnastics, and literature, who essayed poetry, and who in philosophy sought the ideal rather than the real and material, investigating mind rather than matter, surely you, if any one, should be able to give mankind some reasonable and apprehensible explanation of the source of existing phenomena. Plato. In fathoming the mysteries of existence, 0 Socrates, surely my. ideal philosophy, which plays with art and poetry and feeds on inborn conceptions, PLATO REVISED. 679 is of no more value than your searching and discriminating analyses of things and beliefs, which seek the definite and certain as the foundation of knowledge. Socrates. In the Republic, and also in the Laws, you prove, to your own apparent satisfaction, and in the main to the satisfaction of the people of Athens, and all the world, the existence, nature, and origin of the gods and of the universe, how all that is was made, and by whom, and endowed with soul and immortality; what soul is, and mind, and matter, and the rest; you, the profoundest and divinest of philosophers, appearing in the centre of the World's highest culture ; you explained minutely all this, and much more, of which man could know nothing, but which, however, was largely believed by many, some of your speculations being entertained to this day; tell me, I pray you, whence came your so-called vast knowledge of things so far beyond the apprehension of the ordinary mind ? Plato. I told you, Socrates, from tradition and intuition. Socrates. Are oral or written communications deemed most reliable ? Plato. Obviously, written communications. Socrates. Classify traditions as secular and sacred ; would the former prove mostly true or false ? Plato. In the main, false. Socrates. This is proved by history ? Plato. It is. Socrates. If the early traditions regarding the real are mostly false, may we not infer the same or worse in regard to the fanciful ? Plato. Yes. Socrates. Then what shall we say regarding the thousands of conflicting traditions ? Plato. Some of them must be untrue. Socrates. When we consider how creeds originate- and are preserved, expression born of fear and expla^ 680 PLATO REVISED. nation forced, heaven's conviction falling from imagination-clouds, and breathed into the soul midst the fervid feelings of unrest, we can see how but a step further the substance and shadow become one, the attainment of a good being made to depend upon the self-enslavement of intellect and the prostitution of reason, to the extent of willing a belief in the existence of that good. The creed accumulations of the centuries, gathered now into books of divers names, each an abomination to the others, are placed before the youths of the various religions, all being told to believe their particular book under penalty of the severest punishment a benignant deity can invent. They must not question; they must only believe. Later, skilled teachers explain away absurdities, while flat contradictions and impossibilities are placed in the category of things not at present to be understood. The works of the creator are examined ; where they are good the creator is praised ; where bad, the blame is thrown on another deity which omnipotence cannot or will not annihilate. If this be the best method to arrive at truth, why not employ it in worldly affairs, where, if we do not use our reason, and trust for results to the knowledge of experience, we are justly blamed or punished ? We must know and understand before we can believe. .Evidence, based on sense or reason, lies at the foundation of all belief. To repeat parrot-like a formula and cry credo 1 is not belief. And if evidence carries reason away from tradition, let not theology be filled with horror, and insult the almighty by saying that savagisras and superstitions please him better than the exercise of that noblest of faculties found in his creation. Plato. And what say you with regard to intuition Socrates ? It has been held that as one of the agencies through which works the almighty, man should pay heed to the sympathies voiced within him. "Socrates. But these intuitive sympathies which many mistake for beliefs are multiform, opposed one PLATO REVISED. 681 to another like traditions ; how then could they have been implanted by the same reasonable and all-wise being ? Plato. Does not inward longing imply the existence somewhere of the means of gratification ? Socrates. Have all your intuitions come true, Plato? Plato. By no means. Socrates. If, then, intuitions are not a sure guide, of what value are they ? Plato. To what end, * then, are intuitions implanted ? Socrates. What essence is to generation, truth is to belief. These are your own words, O Plato, put into the mouth of Timseus twenty-three hundred years ago. Plato. In treating of things beyond the domain of the absolute, we can only speak according to our enlightenment. Socrates. Have we any enlightenment whatever regarding things beyond the domain of the absolute ? As the author of all, one refers us to the fiat of an extra-natural creator; another to mechanical action in pre-existing atoms; another to an eternal function or potency of the universe. The first hypothesis assumes something to have been made from nothing ; the last two may be called one ; none of them begin at the beginning, the existence of the extra-natural creator, the pre-existing atoms and the eternal potency all having to be accounted for. What have you to say to the first ? Plato. There is nothing to be said. That which is made from nothing is nothing, and all reasoning on it begins and ends in nothing. Socrates. Such a theory assumes in the beginning a universal nothing, or at least a dead universe, God alone having life, his first creation being lifeless. It is a theology of automatic emotion based on illogical phenomena, in the discussion of which the premises 682 PLATO REVISED. are.taken from tradition and not from reason. Nature, on the other hand, points to life as an essential faculty of the universe. You may choose for yourself which is the more rational hypothesis. Plato. If nature is not God, it is wonderful how like a God she works, moving ever on with infinite patience in lines intelligent for definite ends. Hundreds of millions of years were occupied by nature in making man. Socrates. Then how long does it take this same protean power to make of man a god ? Plato. They say now that the earlier gods were but the ghosts of dead heroes. Socrates. Says the Veda : Who knows exactly and who shall in this world declare whence and why this creation took place ? The gods are subsequent to the production of this world. Then who can know whence it proceeded or whence this varied world arose, or" whether it uphold itself or not ? Immature in understanding, the Hindoo poet sings, undiscerning in mind, I inquire of those things which are hidden even from the gods, what are the seven threads which the sages have spread to envelop the sun, in whom all abide. Yet we are here assured that once there was nothing, vacuity absolute—no world or sky or aught above it, nor water deep or dangerous. Plato. Nevertheless, while the Hindoos worship the sun, fire, and lightning, not as superior beings but as agencies to be propitiated, and because their assistance is wanted against enemies, Brahma, in their religion and philosophy, signifies the universal spirit, an eternal self-existent being, the ground and cause of all existence ; not so much, however, a deity to be worshipped as an object of contemplation. Socrates. Vishnu is one of the forms of the sun. The Chaldeans worshipped the heavenly bodies; the gods of the Parsees, Ormuzd and Ahriman, evolved themselves out of primordial matter, while out of a PLATO REVISED. 683 cosmic egg issued the Egyptian god, Phta, who created the world. Plato. But with these same Egyptians worship became chronic; for, not content with a god for every day in the year, they must needs resort to the worships of the cat, the dog, ibis, and hawk. Socrates. We know that among the world's theologies, savage and civilized, there have " been hundreds of theories of the origin of things, one as good, or as bad, as another. But, let us call matter created, or at all events existing, whence comes intellect ? Or, as the Hindoo poet asks, From the earth are the breath and blood, but where is the soul ? Plato. If we are ready, O Socrates, to accept the answer to that question of modern science, it is this: Mind exists in matter, has always directed matter ; there is no such thing as mindless life-stuff. Every form of life involves sensation, which is the basis of all knowing. Throughout the long journey from protoplasm to man, from the carbonic acid, water, and ammonia,in whose conjunction first appears the phenomenon of life, to mind, and that intelligence which apprehends itself, there is no break, no new developing agency appearing, no new factor of evolution introduced. All organic life thus evolving from the primordial protoplasmic cell falls into co-related and classifiable groups, assuming sentience and heredity, and proceeds from the simple and physical to the complex and ethical, until the monad becomes the animal who thinks and reasons. Socrates. Of all the millions of deities created for the confusion of man, how many have evaporated I And yet enough remain, and more than enough. Plato. In searching among the forces behind events for a cause of causes, monotheism and the unity of nature and mankind were invented, the deity being still apart from, and above, nature. Socrates. And after monotheism ? Plato. After monotheism, Socrates, atheism, which PLATO REVISED. in my Laws is set forth as a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of the understanding. Socrates. You, O Crito, and you, Phssdo, Apollo- dorus, and Evenus, have been abroad somewhat, and should have gathered knowledge; tell me, I pray you, about what are men now most concerned ? Crito. As always, power. Socrates. What would they with power? Thereby to eat better, to sleep better, the better to study the ways of wisdom and lead mankind heavenward through happier, holier paths ? Crito. Not so. The gods claim all rights to such dispensations. Men ape the gods and fawn upon them, scrambling among themselves to gather the fallen crumbs of deity, that they too, like the omnipotent ones, may lord it over their fellows, make slaves and concubines out of good human flesh, and riot in worshipful wealth, until death takes pity on the earth and thrusts them under. Socrates. And then? Have men now no religions? Crito. Yes, truly, plenty of them, and some very good ones. Indeed, religion still holds the human race bound in iron fetters; beliefs of all qualities and grades, from the crude conceptions of savagism to the more refined and involved theologies of civilization, the latter, however, gradually fading in the more intellectual quarters before the lights of advancing reason and natural science. Socrates. Has philosophy done nothing for humanity ? Are men no better than they were ? Crito. Outwardly, yes; inwardly, no. Notwithstanding the vast period and endless processes employed in its becoming, human nature appears to be a definite quantity, as fixed and immutable as any primary element. Men's natures are as treacherous, their instincts as brutal, and their hearts as immoral as ever; only by a cunning use of the arts of refinement they are not so grossly apparent. Thou PLATO REVISED. well knowest, 0 Socrates, that civilization creates nothing, but only refines. Socrates. Are the gods no better than they were ? Crito. In the great race of progress the gods scarcely keep pace with their human subjects. I have heard you say, my master, that the worst of all evils is belief in a bad god, and now I almost question if there has ever been a good god. Apollodorus. And I note that very many about the world begin to question if ever there was a god at all, never one of any age or nation upon good authority having been seen, or heard, or felt. Think you, O Socrates, that the world can exist without gods ? Socrates. Gods are but human ideals projected upon the infinite unknown, and theologies take color and character from the time and place of their originating. And all must change; all that is must cease to be, men, nations, and religions. Phsedo. And it would seem, further, that in this world man was becoming more and more master— master of himself and his environment, moral and physical, master of his beliefs, mind dominating matter and reason supplanting ritualism. Socrates. Ah 1 then the gods indeed have had to go to the wall. Crito. Thousands of them have been driven to the wall, and other thousands hurled over it; and yet the world lies bound, as I said, fifty millions of so-called teachers being still occupied in perpetuating the falsehoods of the past. Apollodorus. Critias says that man was once lawless and beast-like, the slave of force, paying no heed to the good or bad; wherefore a wise man arose, and the deity was made, with thunder and lightning at his command, that terror might be employed; Socrates. Men make their gods upon their own pattern; they have no other. They endow them with their own qualities, good and bad, but in a mag- 686 PLATO REVISED. nified degree. The gods of savage races are as wild and uncouth, as cruel and groveling, as themselves. The gods of civilization are never above but always below the standards of morality and equity set up by the people. While pretending to superhuman justice and benevolence, they are licensed to indulge in all the wickedness which men deny themselves, such as vengeance, robbery, tyranny, and every species of cruelty and injustice. Crito. When we consider the spontaneity of evolution, and the uniformity in many particulars of the independent generation of ideas, customs, and contrivances in widely separated parts of the world, all under pressure of similar engendering causes and conditions, it is not difficult to see how gods are made. Thus the Mayas, Germans, and Chinese, each invented the printing press ; Mexicans, Peruvians, Egyptians, and Chinese, each unknown to the other made bronze ; and Zoroaster, Confucius, and Christ in like manner promulgated the golden rule. Evenus. There is but one true religion, one correct code of ethics. Crito. That is what they all say. Evenus. You surely would not class the religions of savagism and barbarism with that of the highest civilization and intelligence ? Crito. Intelligence has nothing to do with it; it is from lack of intelligence that religions are first ma'de. Phsedo. The barbaric days of dogmatic theology are passing away. Barbaric nations make their gods of wood and stone; civilized nations carve theirs out of the imagination, and for everything that civilization and science does for them they thank their ideal deitv. Apollodorus. The gods of Egypt have been wholly subject to the manufacture and manipulation of the priests from the beginning, while the minds of the millions subject to their sway have been as stolid as stones. Plisedo, The cure of being is not to be, pays the PLATO REVISED. 687 Buddha; existence is the sum of all evil, birth the origin. Had we never been born we had not known misery, old age, and death. Apollodorus. It would scarcely seem to demand, Phsedo, the perfect contemplation of Sakya-muni to attain the summit of wisdom and enlightenment of which you speak. Phsedo. The Brahmins taught the doctrine of a single invisible supreme being, an omnipotent, omni- scent creator, preserver, and destroyer of all, who was the soul of the universe, or the universe itself, and who manifested himself in three forms, Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the destroyer. Zoroaster tried at first a single supreme god, but it was finally found necessary to divide it in .order to represent the two principles of good and evil, to which the names of Ormuzd and Ahriman were given Apollodorus. Confucianism contains no trace of a personal god, no attempt of a creation out of nothing, the idea in this respect varying little from the anima mundi of the classical philosophy; good and evil are found existing, and the life of the religious devoted to promoting the one and extinguishing the other, with little concern as to their origin or nature. | To what sublime religion do you belong ?" asks one of another imChina, where three great systems exist peaceably side by side ; and the answer comes, | Religions are many ; reason is one ; we are all brothers." Phsedo. True, Apollodorus, and the Chinese threaten their gods with deposition, one if he fails to give them victory in war, another if he fails to send rain; the super-civilized thank God for success in war, and importune him for rain when desired. Wherein lies the difference, unless it be that the Chinese way has less of absurdity in it than the other ? _ Apollodorus. Civilization not only threatens deposition but deposes, many of the best and wisest men every day emerging from the clouds of superstition. origin was man PLATO REVISED. Crito. There are to be accounted for the and existence of God, of chaos, and of man or chaos first ? Apollodorus. Man, he being a product of the elements. Crito. Who made the elements ? Apollodorus. The gods. Crito. Who made the gods ? Apollodorus. Man, they now say. Crito. Man made the gods ; the gods made the elements ; man is a product of the elements; therefore man made himself. Apollodorus. As well so as that the gods made themselves. Phdedo. You are nearer the truth, my friends, than you yourselves imagine. Man makes not only his own gods but himself. He has had to physically fashion himself, working his way outward and upward from the protoplasmic cell through millions of ages, improving form and features, making his tools, customs, beliefs, literature, arts, and the rest, adding on the way organs and accomplishments, one after another, until from atoms and force he becomes body and mind. Socrates. In your" Republic, Plato, you make God, that is to say, Zeus, a being unchangeable, and not the author of all things, as the many assert, but of a few things, of the good only; for few are the goods and many the evils of life. As to variableness he is no Proteus, no magician, deceiving us by appearing now in one shape and now in another; God is simple and true in both word and deed. In knowledge he is absolute, as we find in the Parmenides. In the Laws you say that God governs all things, and that chance and opportunity cooperate with him; but design takes part with them, for there is advantage in having a pilot in a storm. Plato. I have so said. PLATO REVISED. 689 Socrates. You cause Timseus to say that nothing can exist without having been created, and nothing can be created without a cause, and that of which the perfect artificer works out the form and nature after an unchangeable pattern must of necessity be made fair and perfect. This world, the product of a cause, is the fairest work of creation, and the creator only good. Plato. True. Socrates. Instead of imputing evil to God, the supreme creator, or making him the author of evil, or opposing to him a devil, you commit the lesser or lower works of creation to inferior deities, and fasten on them the many faults of creation. From the evil inherent in matter, and which he cannot annihilate, God detaches himself, that he may be forever guiltless. Plato. You state my views correctly, Socrates. Socrates. Do I understand you to say that God first made all, worlds and gods and men, but that in finishing off his work he employed the inferior deities to assist him, and that these subordinates spoiled some of his work, intermixing evil therewith ? Plato. It must have been so in a measure. Socrates. You say further, Plato,, that God is the author of your laws—that is Zeus in Greece and Apollo in Lacedsemon. Plato. Yes. Socrates. Yet they are made by men. Plato. They are made by men, yet all declared good, and of divine origin. Socrates.^ Are gods thus made and declared good and of divine origin ? Plato. It may be so sometimes, though I know of no such cases. Socrates. If all laws and all gods were so made, and so declared divine and good, and some of them proved to be bad, would these latter be good or bad ? Plato. What are you aiming at, Socrates ? Socrates. There are bad gods as there are bad laws. Plato. Yes. Essays and Miscellany 44 690 PLATO REVISED. bad, good and Socrates. Yet all laws, whether good declare good and divine. Plato. Yes. Socrates. There are some bad gods. Plato. Yes. Socrates. Yet men must declare them divine. Plato. I suppose so. Socrates. To do otherwise would be sacrilege. Plato. Yes. Socrates. Then your law compels men to declare to be true what they know to be false. Plato. Is it not so in all religions, if the people are capable in any wise of distinguishing truth from error? Every religion is nihilistic, admitting the creator's work imperfect, and lapsing into fatalism, involving moral failure. Socrates. In your Laws, Plato, you say that no one ever intentionally did any unholy act, or uttered any unlawful word, retaining a belief in the existence of the gods.. Plato. That is true. Socrates. Let me ask you, Plato, has there ever lived in this world, from first to last, one who has never spoken an unlawful word or committed an unholy act? Plato. I said not intentionally, if he retained a belief in the existence of the gods. Socrates. May not the wicked believe in the existence of the gods and yet hate them ? Plato. That is probable. Socrates. Else what avail reviling and cursing, if spent on nothingness:—that is on beings whose existence is denied ? Plato. The idea is absurd, of course. Socrates. That is that one can intentionally speak against the gods who does not believe in their existence ? Plato. Yes. PLATO REVISED. 691 Socrates. But you say that no one can intentionally speak against the gods and yet believe in their existence ? Plato. I have so stated. Socrates. Now, in regard to the unholy acts, is it not the same; may not the wicked, believing in the gods, still defy and fight against them ? Plato. Yes. Socrates. Then it would seem that men may intentionally commit unholy acts and speak unlawful words, retaining a belief in the existence of the gods. Plato. It must be so. Socrates. Did you not affirm at Athens, O Plato, that God could not be the author of all without being the author of evil ? Plato. Any child may see that. Socrates. And that he was not the author of evil ? Plato. Yes. Socrates. And therefore that he was not the author of all ? Plato. Certainly. Socrates. And yet you make God the sole and only creator, but not the author of evil. Plato. I have said in my Republic that God is the author of evil only with a view to good. Socrates. Then you admit that God made, sanctions, and employs evil ? Plato. Only with a view to good. Socrates. May not man do what God does ? Plato. Certainly, if he can. Socrates. Is it not right for man to do as God does if he can ? Plato. It is so commanded him. Socrates. Then man may do evil with a view to do good ? Plato. He may. Socrates. Man being the judge ? Plato. Yes. Socrates. Then you endow man with the right at 692 PLATO REVISED. his discretion to indulge in murder, robbery, cruelty, injustice, and every crime. Plato. That cannot be. Socrates. To repeat what I have just said; God is the author of all things ? Plato. It has been so believed. Socrates. And yet not of all but only of the good ? Plato. Only of the good. Socrates. He is not the author of evil ? Plato. It were sacrilege so to say. Socrates. He is the author of all good, and of good only? Plato. Yes. Socrates. In the beginning were only the great artificer and chaos ? Plato. Nothing else. Socrates. And out of chaos God created all ? Plato. Yes. Socrates. But he did not create evil ? Plato. He did not. Socrates. Who then is the author of evil ? Plato. The inferior gods. Socrates. Who made the inferior gods ? Plato. Thus spoke the great artificer, as it is written in the Timaeus, the creation being finished: Gods and sons of gods, who are my works, and of whom I am the artificer and father, my creations are indissoluble if so I w7ill; all that is bound may be dissolved, but only an evil being would wish to dissolve that which is harmonious and happy. Socrates. But if God makes the gods who make evil, is not that making evil ? And if God makes evil how can he be only the author of good ? Plato. Evil came and God permits it that in the resisting thereof men may become stronger. Socrates. Either God created all or he did not; if not, then is he not the sole creator, and the monotheistic idea*must be discarded; if being sole creator, and omnipotent, and he permits evil to come PLATO REVISED. 693 and to exist, then clearly he is the author and sustainer of evil. Again, if evil is necessary for the growth of good, then evil is not evil but good. PJuedo. Every religion revolves on its own axis, moves in its own orbit, and ends where it begins. Socrates. If good is one with knowledge and God, why not evil as well, since evil is as much the essence of things as good ? Crito. Still your interminable discussion, O Socrates, on good and evil, and you have not yet even defined your conception of the meaning of the terms. Socrates. Everybody knows that good and evil are sometimes absolute though often relative terms; that which in one time, place, and degree is good may in another be evil. Plato. Just as there are good men, yet not worthy of eternal happiness, so there are bad men not worthy of eternal damnation. Socrates. Good, its origin and essence, man seems able to explain to his apparent satisfaction better than evil. You say that good is God. Very well. Account for God and you account for good. Crito. In other words, to make the interpretation more modern, evil is that which is opposed to the harmony and happiness of the universe, as convulsions of nature, suffering, injustice. Evil originates all religions, evil, and fear, for if there were no evil there would be nothing to fear, and no incentive to worship. Phsedo. Think you, Crito, that men would not worship God through love alone ? Crito. No. Unless lashed to it by fear, men would not worship ; fear is the foundation of celestial love, fear and favor. Give us the good and stay the evil is the burden of all prayer. Upon this dualism rest all religions. Phxdo. True ; in the explanation which the defects of creation at the hand of a beneficent creator, absolute in power, will demand, 'the dogma of dualism was 694 PLATO REVISED. resorted to by the early aryan religion, which had two supreme gods, Ormuzd and Ahriman, one good and the other evil, while, later, less logical religions threw the evil upon a subordinate spirit in rebellion against. omnipotence. Crito. Then there is the dualistic idea of evolution, which refers the physical to the inorganic world and the mental to man, and the monistic, which makes mind only a manifestation of matter. Phsedo. A perfect creation must follow as the work of a perfect creator, and a perfect creation admits of neither retrogression nor progress. Nor will the hypothesis hold that fallen man was originally perfectly created; for unless the seeds of sin and rebellion had been implanted by the creator, it were not possible for the perfect man to fall. Crito. Unless they first change his character and make him a different being from what they claim he is, man should not say that God is love, any more than that God is hate ; or that whatever he does is right; whatever he wills or permits is wise, just, and beneficent; for this makes ignorance, cruelty, wrong, injustice, and immorality right, being God's will and suffered by him to exist. Of the three innocent children of a devoted mother, two of them are burned to death by fever, but a merciful providence spares her one, the same merciful providence that burned the other two. Phsedo. In nothing is civilization so backward as in its religions. Men endowed with reason and intelligence should be ashamed of their crude and illogical conceptions of the deity. This deity his votaries make the creator of all realities and ideas, of all ethics and moralities, on whose fiat alone rest right and wrong, good and evil, righteousness and iniquity, who is above all reason and common sense, above all equities and moralities, author of all good and all evil, responsible for all happiness and unhap- piness, for all misery and crime, and all cruelties and PLATO REVISED. 695 injustice in which the universe abounds. Of man these same votaries make an imperfectly created being, condemned by his maker as a failure, a thing altogether vile and abominable, a fallen being, alien to all good, but who, through the mediation of another, is forgiven for what he was in nowise to blame, and ordered to a perfect course such as was never yet achieved by any god or man. As compared with their state of advancement no nation of antiquity can boast a theology so barbarous and absurd. Crito. How, then, reconcile any theory of the origin of evil with the doctrine of a sole and absolute creator, omnipotent, omniscient, just and! holy and good ? Phxdo. They never have been and never can be reconciled. Argue around the circle as many times as you will, and you reach always the same conclusion—that if evil exists, its origin is in the sole creator, who, if he is not the author of evil, is not the author of all things; and, if the author of evil, is not all-perfect, all-wise, and good, as claimed. Crito. Some have held that without the dual- istic principle in ethics there could be no real individuality or strength of character; that, as in nature, we see working in harmony and power opposing forces, as attraction and repulsion, heat and cold, positive and negative electricity, so in humanity, moral stamina and growth require the interaction of the opposing influences of good and evil. Ethical polarity is essential to moral and intellectual well-being. Without evil there could be no good, without misery no happiness. Apollodorus. To that I should answer that it depends upon one's conception of the nature and power of the creator. An all-wise and all-powerful creator can do anything, else he is not all-wise and all-powerful. Is not God good ? Is he not happy ? Was it necessary, in order for him to attain his holy estate, to undergo this dualistic influence ? And if he exists 696 PLATO REVISED. having in his nature all the attributes of good and none of the attributes of evil, being almighty, could he not have endowed this image of himself, which he made and called man, with his own perfect qualities in every respect? God is perfect. Could he not have made man perfect, without limitation, without the necessity of internal conflict with opposing forces, all implanted by the sole creator, who gives the victory to whom he will ? Socrates. You say, Plato, that God, the great artificer, is a good and perfect being, and created only what is good and perfect ? Plato. Yes. Socrates. Let us examine some of his work—the first man he made, for example. Call him Adam, if you do not object to the Hebrew doctrine ; if you do, the Olympian deities will answer, of whom we shall speak presently. Plato. We will accept Adam and God, whoever they were, as terms signifying the first man and the creator of the universe. Socrates. Very well. Was Adam created a savage or a civilized man ? Plato. He was certainly not civilized. Socrates. At all events, he was pure and holy and perfect, being fresh from the hand of a pure and holy and perfect creator. Plato. It could not be otherwise. Socrates. But he fell from his high and happy estate ? Plato. Yes. Socrates. How came be to so fall ? Plato. Either through the agency of inferior deities or through his own indiscretion, the fall in either case resulting from the seeds of sin implanted in his nature. Socrates. This Adam was created perfect, it^ is alleged; but, on entering the experiment of exist- PLATO REVISED. 697 ence, his course proved imperfect. Could a perfectly created machine, when set in motion, run imperfectly? Plato. Clearly not. Socrates. Can a true religion promulgate false ideas of nature ? Plato. It cannot. Socrates. Again, the perfect type of an absolute final cause, created in the image of and for the glory of its maker, should be, one would think, the best of its kind—a Thales of Miletus, a Buddha, or a Christ —instead of which we have an exceedingly weak specimen, a vertebrate mammal, with organs and brain enlightened only by instinct or intuition, irrational, puerile, deceitful, cowardly, and altogether contemptible. Given a condition of perfect holiness and happiness, how could he desire more ? Yet he did. Was it childish curiosity, or a thirst for that knowledge with which his maker failed to endow him, that prompted him to transgress ? Was this the best divine power could do? I say it is a disgrace to civilization to hold such crude, unjust, illogical, and absurd conceptions of its deity. Plato. Can moral strength and that knowledge which comes from human experience be created ? Righteousness is a result; human wisdom springs from human activities. Socrates. True, my Plato; but if we once limit the power of God, in whatsoever manner or degree, and he ceases to. be almighty or omnipotent, he ceases, indeed, to be God. Now, although you limit the action of God to the creation of good only, and not evil, you do not limit his power; or, if you so do. or desire, you fail to maintain your ground. To proceed with our story, this first-made innocent and happy man was placed in a garden, and surrounded with temptations which his maker knew beforehand he could not and would not resist, the strength never having been given him to do so. Driven thence, naked and helpless, without food or shelter, without 698 PLATO REVISED. tool or weapon, he and his descendants were doomed forever to struggle with adverse environment, and all through no fault of theirs, they having been created for this and no other purpose, and never having been endowed with power to do otherwise. These are the tenets held and promulgated by men who call themselves sane. Apollodorus. Man must master or be mastered by the forces around him. Socrates. Returning to your book, Plato, in your Laws you impose heavy penalties for what you call the crime of sacrilege. Plato. Yes. Socrates. Why is it a crime to speak against the gods ? Plato. Because they are holy, wise, and good. Socrates. And yet you say that man is free to do as he pleases, so long as he does not injure others. Plato. Yes. Socrates. Can men hurt or injure the gods ? Plato. That is impossible. Socrates. Then it injures only themselves to blaspheme ? Plato. Certainly. Socrates. And that they have a right to do ? Plato. Yes. Socrates. Then is it just to punish a man for doing what he has a right to do ? Plato. Have you nothing else to say, Socrates ? Socrates. Yes; about your philosophy as to lying. My dear Plato, why do you permit rulers in your republic to lie, and not give the people the same privilege ? Plato. Do not men give the gods they make more license in regard to sinning than they take for themselves ? Socrates. You say in your Laws that the poets and mythologers are not the most truthful interpre- PLATO REVISED. 699 ters of the gods, who indeed can do no evil, but the legislator is the better judge. Plato. That is true. Socrates. You grant the ruler the right to lie, which right of necessity must extend to his deputy or coadjutor, in which category we may place the legislator. Plato. You state correctly. Socrates. This gives the legislator the legal right to lie. Plato. It does. Socrates. But if the legislator has the legal right to lie, and the poets and mythologers lie without the legal right, how shall we know when any of them rightfully or truthfully interpret the gods? Plato. When they say what is best for men to believe, that is the truth, or better than the truth. Socrates. Is a lie ever better than the truth ? Plato. Yes. For example : the world below must not be represented as an unhappy place, else soldiers will be afraid to die, and so become cowardly. Socrates. Therefore, in order to have them- bravely killed you would doom their souls to hell with a lie ? Plato. A lie is excusable only as a medicine to men; then the use of such medicines will have to be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them. If any persons are to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad, they will be the rulers of the state; they may be allowed to lie for the public good. Socrates. Or if not allowed, they will lie without permission. Plato. There is the true lie and the false lie, the former told for good purposes and the latter for bad purposes. Socrates. Yet both a lie, nevertheless. Plato. There is the lie in action and the lie in words, the latter being in certain cases useful and not hurtful. 7Q0 PLATO REVISED. Socrates. Hear, ye gods! Plato. In the tales of mythology, because we do we make and so of you not know the truth about ancient tradition, the falsehood as much like truth as may be use. Socrates. O heavens! Plato. Hast had enough, Socrates? Socrates. By Jupiter! yes; enough of lying your explanation thereof. Plato. Proceed, then, to something else if have aught more to say. Socrates. First, confess, my dear Plato, that scores of pages in your immortal writings were spun from your prolific brain, without the slightest foundation in truth or reason. Plato. Of such are all teachers and teachings. Let his imagination be chaste, and his speech acceptable, and the dealer in dogmas need give himself no trouble as to their truth. Socrates., What advantage is there if other or more than the truth is taught? Plato. None whatever; yet such, I say, has ever been and is the practice of all teachers, who are ever pretending to know what never has been divulged by any god or science. I taught some truth and much error, but no more of the latter than is taught to-day. Socrates. But why teach error at all? Plato. By Jupiter! Socrates, will you ask of men what the gods cannot give ? Socrates. Confined to what may be known, either gods or men can tell the truth. Plato. Yet what oceans of pure pretence they still persist in pouring out, knowing that no sensible person can possibly believe half they say—extollipg charity, humility, poverty, sincerity, justice, holiness, commanding that men shall love each other, return good for evil, cease from war, but never expecting to see these things done, themselves with the rest invariably practising the contrary. Such morality is beau- PLATO REVISED. tiful to teach, but of what avail is it if no one ever puts it into practice? Socrates. Phsedo, was there ever a religious teacher whose precepts were fully or even approximately carried out ? Phsedo. No, my master. Socrates. Are strong religionists generally persons of the highest learning and intelligence in the community ? Phsedo. No. Socrates. Do they laugh at the ignorance and superstition of others no worse than themselves? Phsedo. Most heartily. Socrates. Do they love or hate their enemies? Phsedo. They hate them. Socrates. Do they rejoice in their misfortunes ? Phsedo. They do. Socrates. Do they ever feel joy instead of sorrow over the misfortunes of a friend ? Plisedo. Very frequently they feel joy. Socrates. Are they ever envious or jealous of their friends ? Phsedo. They are. Socrates. Do they love or hate their brethren or associates in religion? Phsedo. It is about the same as with others. Socrates. That is to say, in them you find nothing more of the essence and application of their belief than in others? Phsedo. In place of piety we have profession; in place of reason, ritualism. Socrates. What were the morals of those whose teachings we deem divine, on whose superstitious assertions we rest all our hopes of heaven? Phsedo. They believed in slavery, practised polygamy, robbed their enemies, killed captives taken in war, and indulged in all the immoralities and cruel savagisms of the most ancient theologies. Socrates. Does any great or small religious sect 702 PLATO REVISED. pay any attention to the fundamental principles of their faith, such as unselfishness, honesty, justice, returning good for evil, and refusing violent resistance to violence? Phsedo. None that I ever heard of. Socrates. Now for the application. The stoics regarded passion as error which the wise would avoid; to bodily pain or pleasure the mind must be indifferent. To be a stoic required the possession of these qualities; as they never were possessed there were never stoics. Crito. Many refined intellects have been crushed by an enforced reticence which stifled independent thinking, sacrificed moral courage, and prevented the attainment of that full mental stature which lies at the foundation of our noblest aspirations. Phsedo. If the so-called truths of religion cannot be overthrown, why fear discussion, why such reticence on the part of its teachers whenever the subject is broached ? The trouble is, the teachers themselves know nothing of the truth of the doctrines which they profess, cannot with good sense explain them, and cannot in any wise defend them. Crito. They explain well where none question, but when proof is demanded they decline to answer. Phsedo. Doubts and difficulties, they say, beset the paths of faith. Crito. Why should there be doubts and difficulties ? Why should the great creator employ subterfuge and phantasm for the promulgation of plain honest truths, which would seem to demand plain honest explanation ? Of what benefit to religion are riddles and the cloudy obscurations of truth ? Why do men, wise and intelligent in all things else, insist on saddling such diabolisms on the deity they adore ? Phsedo. Would not a beneficent being meet every uplook of a devoted child with an answering smile ? Crito. The logic of religion is found in those self- PLATO REVISED. 703 -deceptions and illusions which are among the most precious of man's inheritances. Phsedo. In his moral government men make the almighty display, to say the least, not the most admirable traits of humanity. Crito. Theology seldom appeals to the good in us, but denounces human nature, makes us degenerate by inheritance, and hurls upon us the threatened vengeance of a creator, by whom and through whom we are what we are. Phsedo. They go further, and make their most beneficent creator implant ravening instincts in all his creatures, such as forever urge them on to destroy each other. They make every work of a perfect being in some way defective. They construct the crowning work of a high and holy being on a basis of moral and physical ruin. Crito. Nine-tenths of all blood distilled in the veins of man and beast has been poured forth as an oblation to this influence which they say created it. Phsedo. Every crime within the possibility of man to conceive of, and attended by all the atrocities and injustices the world of humanity has had at command, has been committed by believers for the love of their deity. Crito. All the iniquities the gods deny to men, hate, revenge, robbery and murder, their worshippers permit them to indulge in to their heart's content. Phsedo. In what actual estimation can men hold a deity whom they seek by groveling, fawning, flattery, cajolery and bribery, to sway from a predetermined purpose, which if wrong proves the god a bad one, and if right it would make him bad to deviate from ? Crito. Why should a superlatively glorious being desire further glorification by imperfect creatures of his own construction, which were indeed so vile as to be condemned and cast away by the maker ? Phsedo. Over and over again his followers acknowl- 704 PL*TO REVISED. edge his errors, lam^c his failure, and cause him to wipe out his work in fire or blood. Crito. To lead a perfect life, to follow a perfect moral code, implies perfection in man, with all knowledge, self-command, and goodness, which these men make the lawgiver himself the first to declare as wholly absent from both the nature and possibilities of man. Phsedo. In all religions revenge is right for the creator, but not always for the creature. Indra, who is pleased by praise, and Vishnu, one of the forms of the sun, are sought, not for their spiritual but for their material aid. There is no ethical or moral idea about their worship. Evil abounds, and the gods are praised because they destroy sinners, in which category are placed those who do not praise and sacrifice to the gods. Crito. It is singular that so many intelligent persons should hold some one particular collection of absurd fancies and superstitions true, and all other collections false. Phsedo. Strange indeed are the ways of the world, when viewed as the work of perfect wisdom, love, and power, this slowly unfolding and most defective earth, with its rattlesnakes and tigers and tigerish humanity, its progressions by births and deaths, its religions of loves and hates, of ravenous selfishness, ruthless carnage, and ever-improved death-dealing contrivances. Evenus. The first man was made upright, but he fell under the temptations of evil. Crito. Why did God allow the evil to tempt this man ? Evenus. To try him. Crito. Why did he wish to try him ? Evenus. To make him a responsible creature. Crito. Could not God have made him a responsible creature in the first place ? Evenus., That was no part of his purpose. PLATO REVISED. 705 Crito. . How know you his purpose ? Evenus, From his acts. Crito. Are his acts good or bad ? Evenus. The holy one cannot tolerate evil. Crito. Am I not responsible for a wrong I can prevent, and will not ? Evenus. Undoubtedly. Crito. Your religion needs a little patching here, my friend. Your creator knowingly makes a creature not strong enough to withstand the temptation previously prepared for his eternal entrapment. Tell me, my good Evenus, how it is, when we see the universe, material and moral, held together by opposing forces, attraction and repulsion, good and evil, or whatsoever they may be called, that one deity can be absolute over all, without the several parts of his nature being divided against themselves, and antagonistic one to the other ? Evenus. We cannot understand all of God's ways, or fathom all of his mysteries. Crito. That, my friend, is a mere evasion of the difficulty. You make a deity, and endow him with attributes, the most of which you explain clearly enough to your own satisfaction; but where your plan is defective, incongruous, contradictory, absurd, or utterly impossible, instead of frankly admitting its imperfection and revising your religion so as to bring it within the pale of common sense, you avoid the issue by hiding God behind an impenetrable veil of mystery. God is either the author of all or only of part; he is the master of evil or else not omnipotent; to say that you cannot understand why, hating evil and being able instantly to extinguish it, he permits it, is to place yourself and your deity in false' positions and render both ridiculous. It is true that some things about your deity you think you understand, while regarding others you think otherwise. The fact is, you know nothing about God, and in common sense and common honesty you should Essays and Miscellany 45 706 PLATO REVISED. frankly admit as much, instead of weaving fantastic theories which leave him in a maze of absurdities, when in truth you are obliged after all to admit that you know nothing about it. Phsedo. Shall you ever make a deity, Socrates ? Not until I can improve upon any now On what would you base a rational God ? On nature. But there are two elements in nature— Socrates. existing. Phsedo. Socrates. Phsedo. good and evil. Socrates. Then I would have two gods, or one god with two sides or two natures, open and antagonistic ; such as we see everywhere in the universe. I would not ascribe all good qualities to his attributes, and all bad qualities to his actions. Throughout the universal realm of dim intelligence it is most convenient for learned ignorance to have a God with whom all things are possible, and whose ways are past finding out. With the principles of good and evil abroad, it is necessary in every well-ordered religion either to have two supreme deities of about equally balanced powers that are eternally antagonistic, though neither can ever wholly overthrow the other, or else to make the one supreme deity father of the evil and author of all wickedness. For clearly, if there be but one, and he the author of all, he must of necessity be the originator and preserver of evil as of good. Further than this, being omnipotent and permitting evil, is to be directly responsible for it; so that on any ground it is impossible that God should not be held absolutely responsible for all the sin and misery as well as the righteousness and happiness of all. The truth is, the worshippers of God put forth all their efforts to invest his nature with the most monstrous incongruities. Plisedo. Of the senseless and absurd infatuations man has indulged in during his long journey from protoplasm to his present state of not too high intellectuality, his religions have been the most nonsensical. PLATO REVISED. What with the savagisms of the supernatural, persecutions for opinion's sake, bloody wars, and hateful revenges, and all under pretence of piety, self-sacrifice, justice, and the special enjoyment of the favor of the king of heaven, we have made up a catalogue of self- delusions that is almost incredible. Crito. And still the infatuation continues. Apollodorus. The maxims of all gods must be better than their practice; else man who made them would be their inferior, which has ne\ter yet been the case. If a man were not better than his creed he would be driven from society. Crito. Is there more of good or of evil in the world ? Evenus. I .should say they wfere about equally balanced. Socrates. These two principles have ever been at war ; is there any gain of one upon the other ? Evenus. It cannot be so demonstrated. Socrates. This is not a perfect world ? Evenus. Anyone can see that it is not. Socrates. Is it possible for a perfect being to be the author of an imperfect work ? Evenus. No, I think not. Socrates. And yet God is perfect ? Evenus. Unquestionably. Socrates. And his work imperfect. Evenus. We see evidences about us of imperfection. Socrates. It is an inadmissible proposition that a perfect being should execute or sustain an imperfect work. It is no more possible for perfection to breed imperfection than for perfection to be engendered under any other than faultless conditions. If, while just and holy, God is supreme, there is no place wherein it is possible for iniquity and injustice to exist; if while he hates evil God is supreme, evil cannot exist. If famine and pestilence are abroad, if robbery, slavery, murder, and death abound, they are the wish, will, and work of the almighty; if the evil 708 PLATO REVISED. lives, it lives alone by the sustaining power of the almighty, by virtue of the almighty's will, and for the purpose of doing what it does, which is to sow mischief, and tempt and destroy other of God's creatures. Thus he who is called perfect justice makes birds, and beasts, and fishes, the strong to prey upon the weak, and among men the cunning to circumvent the simple, and devils to torture and devour all over whom they may by the grace of God gain dominion. Evenus. We cannot fathom all the mysteries of the almighty. Socrates. If you can fathom any of them why cannot you fathom them all; is not one mystery as mysterious as another ? Evenus, Some things God has explained; others he has not revealed. Socrates. Has he revealed to you anything ? Evenus. Yes. Socrates. Has he revealed to you his loving kindness ? Evenus. Yes. Socrates. It is a mark of loving kindness to make a world full of misery, life itself being sustained by sufferings and death ? Evenus. We cannot understand. Socrates. Then why pretend that you understand; why make statements and propagate beliefs which so contradict each other that they cannot be true ? God, you say, is omniscient, knowing the end from the beginning. Evenus: Yes. Socrates. And you say he is wise ? Evenus. Yes. Socrates. What would you say of a wise and good man who knowingly and intentionally brought to pass innumerable dire disasters and atrocities, calmly doing the things he most of all abhorred, fostering what he most hated, and punishing, so far as he was PLATO REVISED. 709 able, evil agents which he had made to do the evil, and could not help so doing ? Evenus. Such could not be. Socrates. Are modern religionists generally men of sound minds? Evenus. They are far above the average intelligence of men throughout the world. Socrates. Then I am sorry for the world, and have again to thank the hemlock. For these whose religion appears to have been made up of parts of older beliefs, and partaking of the incongruities and contradictions of them all, set up for themselves a deity claiming all perfections in power, knowledge, benevolence, holiness, and justice, yet the author of evil, or if not, then not the author of all nor supreme creator—in any event permitting evil, and thereby making himself a party to it; with pretended omnipotence, pretending to hate unto death an adversary whom he permits to live, and tempting and tormenting his children whom purposely, out of his infinite loving kindness and tender mercy, he created too weak to withstand the temptation, God knowing all the time that the vast majority of his people would fall and be punished in endless agony. Evenus. An omniscient God knows the end from the beginning—knows all that will come to pass before the world is made. Socrates. Even so; whatever happens must have happened. And yet the creature is made responsible for what the creator compels him to do, and punishes him for doing. Crito. In attempting to make knowm his will, the creator either intended man should understand or he did not; if the former, then the creator should either have spoken plainer, or else have rendered the perceptive faculties of man more acute; if the latter, men cannot be held responsible for not comprehending what their maker did not wish or expect them to comprehend Nor do I see how in any event the 710 PLATO REVISED. fault can be the creature's, to whom has never been given sufficient evidence on which to base a reasonable opinion; for surely if the creator did not wish to have his people mystified on this most momentous subject he would have enlightened them, and if he did not wish them to use their reasoning faculties, he never would have formulated them. He who made the mind could so reveal himself to the mind as to leave no doubt; he who formulated reason could so address reason as to satisfy reason. Apollodorus. Ah, I see I As Lucian in his Sale of the Philosophers says of the boy who, in crossing a river, is seized by a crocodile, the captor promises to give him up to his father if the father will rightly guess what the crocodile is going to do with him. Now if the father guesses that the crocodile means to restore the boy, the guess is wrong, for the beast means- to eat him. If the father guesses the crocoi dile is going to eat him, clearly the guess would le wTrong should the crocodile give him up. And again, Plowden, the priest, could not be punished for attending mass performed by a layman, because mass so performed, without the offices of priests, was no mass; and therefore Plowden did not attend mass, and could not be punished for doing what he did not do. And so on. Socrates. I find written in your Republic, Plato, that we must not listen to Homer, or to any other poet who intimates or is guilty of the folly of saying that God is the dispenser of good and evil; and that of th e evils the cause is to be sought elsewhere, and not in him. And you say, if any one asserts that the violation of oaths and treaties, of which Pandarus was the real author, was brought about by Athene and Zeus, or that strife among the gods was instigated by Themis and Zeus, he shall not have your approval; neither will you allow our young men to hear the words of iEschylus that God plants guilt among the PLATO REVISED. 711 men he desires to destroy. And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe, which is the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur, or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war, or any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God he must devise some such explanation of them as we are seeking; he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished ; but that those who are punished are miserable, and God is the author of their misery—the poet is not to be permitted so to say, though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished and are benefited by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to anyone, that is to be strenuously denied, and not allowed to be sung or said in any well-ordered commonwealth by old or young. Plato. We must shield the good name of God. Socrates. Why must we shield his good name ? he is wiser and better and stronger than man, cannot he take care of his own reputation ? Plato. He works not in that way. Troubled you yourself regarding your reputation, Socrates, while in Athens ? Neither troubles God himself over many other things which throw the minds of men into confusion. Socrates. You are like all the rest, Plato, you can discourse with some degree of common sense upon any system of theology except your own. Plato. If, Socrates, amid the many opinions about the gods and the generation of the universe, we are not able to give notions which are in every way exact and consistent with one another, do not be surprised. Enough if we adduce probabilities as likely as any others, for we must remember that we are only mortal men, and ought to accept the tale which is probable and not inquire further. 712 PLATO REVISED. Socrates. That were the answer of a common priest, but not of Plato. Plato. In religion Plato is no better than a priest. Socrates. When you admit the necessity of explaining the motives of the gods, and of defending their seemingly impious and iniquitous ways; and when you declare further, as is written in the Laws, that gods and temples are not easily established, and to establish them rightly is the work of a mighty intellect, were you not even then of opinion that gods and theogonies are made by men ? Plato. God and his ways must be set right before ignorant men, who otherwise go astray in their conceptions of the nature and attributes of the deity. Socrates. Cannot God, if he chooses, reveal himself to the ignorant as well as to the wise ? You say that Homer and the poets are not to be believed, and the ignorant are not to be trusted. Truly you bring the power of God within narrow limits,, likewise the possibilities of men. Plato. Well, then, let the gods take care of themselves, and let ignorance and superstition breed if they bring happiness. Socrates. Ye gods! is this Plato, whilom called the divine, the reputed lover of truth, holding in abhorrence whatsoever obscured the light of life and reason ? To me the hemlock is nectar beside goblets of delicious deceit. Plato. I do not say that I love lies, or for myself prefer the, pleasures of superstition to. unpalatable truth; nor do I say that I would rather drink hemlock than good wine, or have a fancy for teaching toads the glory of the stars. Leave swine to their wallow, and let only those who choose come out upon the plain of universal actuality, even though the horizon lacks mirage, and no celestial city shines beyond the sky. Socrates. But, my Plato, how are men to know truth from error if they are not told ? PLATO REVISED, 713 Plato. Who is to tell them, O Socrates? How much of truth know you ? How much know I ? And what advantage over ours had earlier and darker ages ? In matters whereof none can know7 aught, it pleases some to pretend to a knowledge for which there is no warrant. Ancient lies, long wrapped in popular formulas, become things sacred, which to question is sacrilege. Then, as civilization advances, and a little light breaks in upon the mind, to fit the ever- lessening remnant of these absurdities to the indisputable truths of science becomes a fine art, to which many thousands of wTorthy men devote their lives, regarding it as highly meritorious to fill in with new fancies the gaps caused by the demolition of progress. Socrates. Dost thou, then, the divine teacher, discourage meditation, and the analysis thereof? Plato. In so far as it tends to fasten upon the minds of men the foibles and fables of antiquity as holy and everlasting truths, I do. Most reforms are killed by the reformers. Indeed, my master, will not the earth revolve, the sun shine, and waters flow without so much agony and bloody sweat on the part of those who measure their knowledge by the ignorance of others, and who find so much to improve in the creator's work, which originally was pronounced very good ? It is by no means an established proposition that mankind has been benefited by these strained efforts of priests, reformers, salvation saints, and all that army of evil-exterminators who harness infernal agencies to the chariot of the Lord, and who have been so diligently at work to batter down the walls of Satan's stronghold ever since the idea got abroad that there were such beings and places in this fair universe. With what matchless confidence the creature expounds the mind and heart of the creator to the less favored of his race. Truly, it is among the ignorant, the thoughtless, the unreasoning that religions most do flourish; indeed, never yet was a new religion established among the more intelligent, 714 PLATO REVISED. educated, and refined of a community. Turn into a field the young asses, and set the old asses braying at them; is the breed improved thereby ? By any amount of prayer and exhortation can the trees be made to bear better and larger fruit! Is man, then, so much worse than animals and plants? Has human clay in the hands of the almighty become so stiffened as to require the assistance of men in the further fashioning ? Socrates. So it would seem, Plato. Plato. On the whole, is it not presumptuous on the part of one portion of humanity to regard themselves in spiritual matters as the teachers and regulators of the other portion ? What knowledge of the unknowable had the earlier comers to this planet that the later comers have not ? What more knows the man in the pulpit on Sunday of the abstract theology which he discusses than the man who carries bricks on Saturday ? He talks better, but how much more does he know ? What can the one learn from his books of that which is hidden in utter darkness that the other cannot learn from his bricks? "Can we explain what we see and are conscious of by referring it to what we do not see and are not conscious of?" asks one. What is religious study but an attempt at reasoning from false premises, or no premises, a manipulation of uncertainties and absurdities ? Socrates. Religion is man's necessity, though so often the subterfuge of a hypocrite. Plato. Natural or true religion, yes; but not the creeds interwoven of demons and deities of worse natures than the men who make them; creeds formulated in half-savage societies, and drawn into a thread to mark the only safe path across the narrow isthmus of our lives. Socrates. For all that, the moral element will have its ideality, howsoever the progressional may be able to work without it. Plato. Grant it be so; but give not to its absurd PLATO REVISED. 715 inventions almighty and immaculate powers, which, if so be any such ever existed, and desired the regeneration of the world, they would long since have accomplished it. Neither intellectual nor religious culture has the moralizing effect usually attributed to it. And if religionists would have the respect of the intelligent, they must do something besides hold in mute abhorrence those who differ from them in opinion, and insist upon the truth of dogmas which nature and reason declare false, until there are given to us other and better means than reason and nature for determining truth. Socrates. It would seem in your opinion, then, that there are no honest teachers of religion ? Plato. Yes, many, ignorantly honest, for the intelligently honest 'must needs immediately stop the present kind of teaching. There is a class of able men who, fearing starvation, struggle with their spiritual as with their material difficulties, coercing conscience, explaining away unfulfilled prophecies and palpable contradictions, and striving in every way to twist the statements of holy books to fit the facts of science, or vice versa. There are in this world some expounders of religion who are lofty minded and holy men—whatsoever this latter term may signify—whose lives are an oblation. There are some religious people who are honest; but men of the world have learned not to trust to the religion that is in a person for the payment of a debt. So with our religious teachers. The moral sense of many of them is warped, being chained to tradition, and made to walk between high walls of dogmas. Many of them are openly dishonest, it being a small matter in their opinion for a servant of the almighty to appropriate to his own use the fruits of the almighty's handiwork wherever he may find them. Men preach too much and practise too little, my master. 716 PLATO REVISED. Socrates. I fear that you and your philosophy are somewhat changed, my Plato. Plato. I hold it wisdom to change ideas and opinions as evidence changes. "Have an opinion and hold to it," is a maxim which has filled the world with fanatics. Lacking the brains to formulate correct opinions yourself, take another's and hold to them, even though they come from ancient ignoramuses whose superstition time hallows. Evidence matters not, nor yet a knowable or provable proposition. No, my dear master. He must be more than God or less than man who never has occasion to change his opinions. When the Ionic gods of Homer and the Doric gods of Hesiod could not stand the test of philosophic enquiry, pious men became infuriated. Euripides was charged with heresy, and -^schylus threatened with stoning to death for blasphemy. Only fools and fanatics never change. Socrates. How is it written in your book ? Plato. My book ! Cast not in my teeth my book. By Jupiter! I will revise my book. Every book should be revised once in two thousand years. Socrates. But will you not revise your religion ? Plato. No. Religions revise themselves, forced thereto by that inexplicable unfolding of the intellect called civilization. Religions make books, and books perpetuate religions; but long after the religion has departed the book remains, which, if not changed to fit new conditions becomes obsolete, inculcating ignorance and superstition. Socrates. How ? If a book teaches ignorance and superstition at the last, did it not so at the first ? Plato. Yes. But savages and the simple-minded seem to require a solution of superstition in their intellectual nutriment which the more advanced minds do not demand. Books tend to preserve the forms of religion long after the essence is gone, to enforce the power of religion long after its falsehoods are exposed, to keep alive lip service conforming to the PLATO REVISED. 717 barbarisms of antiquity long after^ civilization has forbidden indulgence in sacred savagisms. Socrates. Indeed, my Plato, I have slept. For I, thy former teacher, find myself appealing to thee for instruction. Thus it is, ever and forever, the new teaches the old; the old reiterates, the new unfolds. In learning and intellect the ancients were once gods; now they are babes; for besides the searching logic of modern science their aphorisms and doctrines are but gilded superstition, as many of those of the present day will be regarded three hundred years hence. Yet I do believe that in form and ideality the ancients are still the world's teachers, however in the knowledge of matter, and the art of its subservience to the requirements of man, they may have been outstripped by more material minds during these centuries of practical progress. Plato. Men make their gods by slow degrees, without knowing it, endowing them with so-called superior attributes, and soon coming to think that the gods made them, that they are beings to be petted and prayed to, coaxed, cajoled, bribed, and bepraised without limit or reason, and not to be disturbed in their sage and eternal cogitations by prying philosophers. Men are nowhere so sensitive as about their religion, especially when called upon to prove it. What did you expect to gain, Socrates, by obtruding your good sense upon those blockheads of Athens? Socrates. I was not in search of gain ; that, Plato, you know well enough. And truly the hemlock harmed me not; I needed sleep. But how knew Melitus what I did not believe ? How know I what I believe ? Knowing not I denied not; knowing naught I affirmed naught, j Plato, can one believe what one cannot apprehend ? Plato. By the gods I no. Belief comes from evidence, from a knowledge of facts. Where the facts are not made evident there can be no belief. What men call faith, or belief in the unseen and unknown, 718 PLATO REVISED. is but the blindness of bigotry; the greater the ignorance and stupidity, the greater such faith. Dogs- bark because other dogs bark. Socrates. As well so as to follow Anaxagoras when he cries, "Nothing can be known, nothing can be learned, nothing can be certain; sense is limited, intellect is weak, life is short." Or still worse, to hold with Gorgias of Leontini the doctrines of utter nihilism, that nothing exists, or if existing cannot be known, or if known the knowledge cannot be imparted. There is the testimony of inner consciousness, which you say may be above that of reason. More people trust to their feelings than to their reason. They know a thing to be so because all their inner sense tells them it is so. Plato. Not necessarily. Either God and heaven exist or they do not, and the fact is not affected by any one's belief. Therefore the inner consciousness which affirms the non-existence of spiritual intelligences goes as far to prove the fact as the inner consciousness which is certain of their existence. Crito. Some say that because all men believe in a supreme deity—which, indeed, is not true—therefore there must be one. Plato. If believing a thing makes it true, then is the earth flat, and in the center of the universe, with all the heavenly bodies revolving round it, and hell in its bowels; for all men once so believed. There are ghosts and witches, spirits in the air, miracles every day ; if what men believe makes a thing true, then are the religions of savagism true. Mohammedanism and Buddhism and Confucianism are true, for more men believe in these religions than in any others. If there is anything in this argument, then the majority must rule, and everybody knows that the masses of mankind are dolts, stupidly ignorant and superstitious. Were a child, in the ordinary affairs of life, to act as do men in their religions, and PLATO REVISED. 719 upon no better evidence, he would be beaten with rods. Crito. But men have had an origin, and they would know it; not being able to know it, they prefer to give reins to the imagination and create a theory out of nothing than to offer no explanation. ^ Phsedo. Whoever theorizes upon origin j must either assume the eternity of matter in a chaotic state or else a maker; if the former, then a designer of spheres and organisms is wanting; if the latter, a creator of the creator must be found. This not being possible, from the beginning men have gone -on deceiving themselves with no starting point and no ground to stand on, putting forth the most absurd arguments, building magnificent castles on no foundation whatever. Apollodorus. Every religion and every philosophy answers as well as asks the question, What and whence is man ? Every barbarian is expected to have ready his creed, every savage his solution of creation and the origin and destiny of man, every faith its great intelligence and its lessser intelligences by which all things were made. Arguments upon the various theories and speculations which have been advanced have derived their force more from the learning and skill of the advocates than from any force of reason in the positions taken ; and so far as the most enlightened, unbiased judgment can determine, one hypothesis is but little nearer the truth than another. Our own religious belief, the only true faith, man's sole salvation in time past and in time to come, we learn' to cherish as a truth fixed and unchangeable as the eternal hills; and yet in comparison to the thousands of ages since the advent of man upon the earth, all creeds and faiths are but of yesterday, and are, like the eternal hills, daily and visibly undergoing change. Crito. That man makes his religion and is even now making it, we may plainly see. Nations, and to PLATO REVISED. some extent individuals, have each their religion. Look at the millions of penates in the homes of Asia, every family having its joss and every hamlet a joss- house. Were there one only omnipotent and omniscient creator, the author of all men, lover of truth; hater of ignorance, crime and human debasement; hater of the wars and horrible deeds committed for and in the name of religion; were there one only wise and benevolent father of all, clearly there.would be but one religion. A good, kind, loving creator could by no possibility permit for one moment the stupendous evils, the woes and wickedness attendant on an ignorance of our origin and originator. Phsedo. True; whether a self-created creator or eternal matter evolving into life and intelligence be author of all, the problem is equally puzzling. With all the meditations and discussions, the quarrellings and social convulsions, the slavery of soul and body, and slaughters of innocent millions attendant on the effort to ascertain and enforce opinions concerning man's origin and destiny, we have this reflection for our consolation that not the slightest advance has been made from the creation of the world until now. Many learned men think they know the truth, and, as they believe, preach it; but it is clear to an impartial observer that they know absolutely nothing, can agree upon nothing, and are in no way making any progress. Crito. Is it better to know the truth or not to know it ? Socrates. Truth is better than falsehood. It is wiser to know and meet an unwelcome truth than to harbor and place hopes upon a lie. Crito. Is not the Santa Claus an innocent fable for children ? Socrates. The pleasing lies of religion may be harmless if presented as lies; but if presented as truths they pervert the mind, weaving round it <* web of superstition which a lifetime.is often too short to clear away. PLATO REVISED. 721 Crito. If the world is ever to hug its falsehoods and follies, how is there ever to be progress ? Socrates. There is no intellectual progress in religion, except in casting it off. When nature is fully known there will be no more supernatural; w^ien men become as gods there will be no more religion. Phsedo. Socrates, may'I ask, what is the general idea of the supernatural ? Socrates. That which is above or outside of the laws of nature. Phsedo. Man made the gods and the gods made nature, giving fixed and unutterable laws thereto, which to the best of our knowledge have never once been broken or suspended. - Now who made the supernatural; or was it something left over after omnipotence had made nature, that he might have it to play with, to do with just as he pleased ? Socrates. No such quality is known; on the contrary, increase of knowledge only dispels superstitions, never establishing one of them, although a few centuries ago the world was full of them, and there are some remaining yet. Phsedo. Is there then no supernatural ? Socrates. None whatever so far as discerned. What we know we ca}l natural; what we know not we call supernatural; but when the supernatural in its cause and effect is explained, it becomes natural. The sun, and stars, and sky, the interior earth, thunder, lightning, storm, and pestilence, all lately supernatural, are now natural; and so the rest will be as science continues to dispel illusions. The telescope is yet to be invented which shall bring ghosts and spirits to the eye of common-sense and reason; the chemicals have yet to be mixed for an actual miracle, and the first answer to prayer remains as yet unproved. , Phsedo. Will not any one of the numberless divinities whose attributes and deeds are recorded in the Essays and Miscellany 46 n 722 PLATO REVISED. sacred books ever establish a kingdom of the supernatural ? Socrates. When such an appearance presents itself to my senses and reason, these not failing me, I shall apprehend it. Until something supernatural is once brought home to my mind so that it shall appear to it as outside or beyond the control of nature, I shall feel myself obliged to refer all unexplained phenomena to the category of things not yet known, and any pretended explanation thereof to the other category of fraud and superstition. Phsedo. You, O Socrates, who prize virtue before doctrine, and with whom knowledge is akin to happiness, tell me, I pray you, how distinguish wisdom and religion ? Socrates. Wisdom is the knowledge of nature ; religion the recognition of and obedience to the forces of nature. Plisedo. And where there are many religions? Socrates. Creeds are many; religions are one. To think correctly and act honestly is the sum of all religions. Righteousness and love are the basis of all moralities. To live a life of justice and temperance is to rise superior to all creeds, or render useless prayers for personal favors with every kind of stored selfishness. Phsedo. What is prayer ? Socrates. Prayer is an effort on the part of the creature to influence his creator, an effort on the part of the changeable to turn from his purpose the unchangeable, an effort on the part of the ignorant and sinful to bring the author of all wisdom and righteousness to conform to the creature's conceptions of duty and morality. Plato. Nay, more; if the world and all its ways are not as they should be, if all that is is not right, if might is not right, if evil is not good, and injustice the purest equity, then an appeal to the author of all to revolutionize affairs and improve upon himself is PLATO REVISED. 723 reducing omnipotence, omniscience, and all-holiness to most contemptible proportions. Crito. Give us your definition of religion, Plato. Plato. Religion is the attempted circumvention of the unknowable. How does it originate ? Through fear. What is its aim ? The highest, holiest, and purest selfishness. Socrates, if man makes his gods, of what is Crito. Plato. Crito. Plato. Crito. he afraid? Socrates. He does not know that he makes them ; he thinks that they made him. Crito. It is safe to say that sanctified selfishness is the root of all religion. Phsedo. What is the highest morality ? Socrates. An enlightened selfishness. That man is moral who follows his true interests. Phsedo. You agree with Crito that selfishness is the root of all religion ? Socrates. Yes. Plato. How then do morality and religion differ in this respect ? Socrates. Morality is enlightened selfishness, religion unenlightened selfishness. Phsedo. Are all the highest and holiest affections of man based on selfishness ? Socrates. If there is any idea, sentiment, passion, feeling, hope, or aspiration in heaven or earth, in the human or the divine breast, which traced back to its source and followed on to its consummation does not begin and end in selfishness, I have yet to discover it. Phsedo. What is man's highest good ? Socrates. To know the knowable, and bow before the unknowable without pretending to fathom it. Phsedo. What is holiness ? Socrates. Conducting ourselves in accord with our surroundings; and this also is justice, goodness, and truth. 724 PLATO REVISED. are Phedo. Pray tell me, O Socrates! What progress, civilization, evolution ? Socrates. They belong to the unexplained mysteries. Phsedo. The several religionists claim each that it is the child of their faith; that outside of their system there is no increase of knowledge. Socrates. That cannot be; for it is well known that the whole strength of ev.ery religion is employed to crush independent thought and hamper progress. Science opens the door of nature and spreads before the understanding of men the beauties and mysteries of the universe, while faith closes the eyes that the heart may receive unreal assurance and the mind vain imaginings. Phsedo. Is progress the offspring of good or evil? Socrates. Of both. Good and evil are to intellectual progress what attraction and repulsion are to the equipoise of planets and the evolution of material things. If in human nature there was but one principle, progress never could be generated. Plato. From friction comes heat, and from heat mentality. From mutual helpfulness and antagonisms come ethical as well as natural evolution. Phsedo. Were all religions one, would religion die ? Socrates. There is hut one religion. Dogmas die, and the world can well spare them; but religion, or the recognition of the true and beautiful in nature, can never die so long as intelligence lasts, and the objects of its fear, love, hate, and admiration cease to exist. Phsedo. But surely refined religion is an aid to progress. Socrates. So it is usually maintained ; but history teaches the contrary. As a rule, people low in the scale of intelligence are the most religious, and when their religion becomes well refined there is but little left of it. In due time they ascertain that they must either renounce progress or renounce a religion which PLATO REVISED. 725 hampers progress. But progress is omnipotent, universal, and eternal, and will not be restrained. Progress is God. Your manufactured creeds, if you do not renounce them, will in due time renounce you. Phsedo. The world still lies sunk in error, all based upon supposed self-interest. Socrates. It is the peculiarity of persons strong in the faith, that, believing their religion to be the only true one, and under the exclusive protection of the almighty, it will in time overturn all its enemies, and fill the whole earth. Such is not the testimony of history. Religions come and go ; like all things else are born and die. Were it otherwise, why is it that the only true faith, whatever that is, has not long ere this achieved universality ? Why is it that it has not always been one and universal ? Time enough surely has elapsed, and there has been no lack of opportunity; but in every instance when a refined people, with the most refined religion, have reached a certain point, they begin to fall away from it, and their gods vanish into thin air. Crito. So, then, if there be only one true theory of the supernatural, as every religionist claims, the thousand others being false, as all agree, palpable reality, its essence and influence, is as plain in one as in another, and from their effect on man, and the regulation of terrestrial affairs, the existence of one is as susceptible of proof as that of another. Phsedo. That is clear. The religion of others to us is a huge joke. Our own is quite a different matter. For example, when we read how Prometheus made man out of mud, after the deluge of Deucalion, Minerva helping him, Jupiter standing by issuing the orders, and the wind blowing into the~ thing the breath of life, the serpent Python being made of the same mud, which was very plentiful about that time, we wonder how people so learned and intelligent as the Greeks could have believed such stuff. Crito. The Egyptians were considerate enough to 726 PLATO REVISED. create a deity for their dogs, which, like the cats, were sacred in that section, thus saving the very ancient and honorable society for the prevention of cruelty to animals much trouble along the Nile. Anubis, he was called ; and no doubt the dogs of Egypt took much comfort in him, howling to him nightly for plenty to eat here, and after this life a high place in his heaven; fighting for him, chasing away his enemies*, and thanking their masters always for giving them so great a hope of eternal comfort. Socrates. Of necessity man must make his own gods, and upon his own model. He has no other way to get them, and no other standard to go by. Never having seen a god, never having heard or handled one, never having seen any. one who has seen, or heard, or handled a deity, and himself and his attributes being his highest conception of any personality or entity, finite or infinite, organic or inorganic, his gods must be like himself, only an exaggeration of himself. This is why there are so many mean gods; it is because there are so many mean men. If they make their gods better than themselves in some respects, they are sure to make them worse in other respects. Mark the record, choosing any holy book you will; when the people are puerile, their god is puerile ; when the people are cruel or base, their god is the same. It is the most difficult, thing in the world, after beginning a god, the intention being to make a very good one, the best one possible for man to make, to finish it without spoiling it; that is, to finish it and have every part perfect in every respect. It must be omniscient and omnipotent, and yet must not know or bo ablo to do certain things which the all-wise and all-kind ought to know and do. The world of wickedness, and sorrow, and crime must be accounted for in some way, for it exists; God's authorship therein must in the same breath be affirmed and denied, for although the author of all things, it will not do to acknowledge PLATO REVISED. 727 the creator the author of evil. And so on, until of a truth the creator is by the creature fearfully and wonderfully made. Phsedo. In any event the men of Athens had little to boast of in their gods. They know better now, if they know anything; and if still existing, I venture to say, they have no better place than this. Crito. I suppose it is safe to call the Olympian deities savages; that is to say, they were not civilized gods, although the men who made them were at the time accounted the most civilized of any upon the earth. Taken all together, Jupiter, Juno, and the rest were a pretty bad lot. They could not read or write; in arts and industries they were woefully deficient, being too ignorant or too lazy to make for themselves clothes that would fairly cover their nakedness, though Arachne was so proud of her talents in that direction that she challenged Minerva to compete with her. They were liars, murderers, and everything that was vile, breaking with impunity all the laws of heaven and earth; they were heavenly vagabonds, having no visible means of support, celestial tramps, whom the great thunderer had often to order to move along. They fed well and drank well; what else they did, following the bent of their passions, it is not lawful or respectable even to contemplate. Phsedo. And how abominably jealous Juno was toward other women, fully as bad as earthly women toward each other—tormenting lo with a gadfly that made her wild as she rushed round the earth to get away from it! But then Jupiter was such a naughty fellow, and given to all sorts of tricks. Think of his causing Echo to talk incessantly to Juno so as to keep her attention diverted while he sported with the nymphs ? Crito. And what thieves they were, those gods! Not kind Prometheus, who, in a hollow tube stole fire from heaven because the father of the gods, out of 728 PLATO REVISED. revenge, withheld it from mortals. Why, indeed, should mortals make such a father for their gods? Not Prometheus, then, but that cunning rascal, Hermes; and he who stole nectar and ambrosia from the table, Tantalus, and gave them to his fellows a kind of sneakthief, he. Phsedo. Atlanta, the swift-footed, might doom to death him whom she outstripped, while he who caught her might take his pay in what best pleased him. Did Atlanta love murder more than she hated love ? Crito. Apollo wished some wickedness with Cassandra, and presented her the gift of prophecy as the price of her favor; but when she refused, the god in spite decreed that no one should believe her. Frequently half a dozen gods would desire one woman, and fall to fighting over her; indeed, it seemed to be the sum of existence with the Olympian deities to eat, drink, sleep, plot mischief, and quarrel. What work Athena made of it to change Medusa's hair into serpents, and in such a way that whoever beheld it afterward was transformed to stone ! Phsedo. Nor had the people any hesitation in asking their gods, knowing the way they passed their time in heaven, to assist them in their evil efforts the same as in their good desires, worshippers of the same being, on coming together to fight and kill each other, both asking for victory, which is impossible even for omnipotence to grant. Socrates. I would ask you, Plato, as you have kept awake somewhat while I have slept, how much dependence it is wise for men to place upon the several so-called holy books, which profess to emanate from the gods,.and tell the origin and end of things? All of them cannot be true, as they contradict each other, as well as themselves, from first to last. Each claims alone to be what it pretends, all the others being lies and the emanations of evil. As in the case of religions, there are ten or more of these boeks held in PLATO REVISED. 729 the aggregate over the heads of the greater part of men inhabiting the civilized world, it follows from their own showing that more than nine-tenths of all who have ever lived upon the earth were doomed to destruction. In all of these books, with much truth and sound morality, is mingled the supernatural. One is as easy of belief as another, none of them from their own showing being of the slightest credence, because they require men to 'believe, on the mere assertion of tradition, of empty air sounds, and the statements of ignorant and deluded men, what they know to be impossible, and what bears upon the face the impress of untruth. Plato. Heaven help us, Socrates, how you talk! First let us ask how these books are made. Every nation far enough advanced has its sacred book, & crude combination of legal and religious ethics, half mythology, half morality, all done ages ago, when men were more ignorant and superstitious than now; and all of these half-savage traditions are ever to be held holy above all truth, spiritual worship charming the intellect of man long after reason tells him it is a lie. All of these books claim to have a divine origin —to be inspired. What that may be, when this same divinity professes to be the origin of all things, and by its will and power to vitalize and inspire all things, the wicked as well as the righteous, I will not at this moment discuss; suffice it to say that under this same inspiration, I exist, act, think; by the breath of this same divinity I am now speaking to you, O Socrates. If by inspiration and divine origin we are to understand that these books, or any one of them, is written by the hand of omniscience, by an all-wise and truth- telling God, then upon the face of them they are every one false, for they are full of self-contradictions and errors regarding the physical world, besides inculcating within certain limits immorality, injustice, treachery, and cruelty. In other words, like all early 730 PLATO REVISED. unrecorded traditions, they are made up of mingled fact and fiction. Evenus. To some comes belief by intuition. Crito. To some comes non-belief by intuition. Socrates. Let me ask you, Evenus, what is inspiration ? Evenus. In this connection, the breath of the almighty, overspreading the mind, and working in the hearts of men. Socrates. Is not all the world, and are not all men so made and so upheld ? Evenus. I suppose so. Socrates. Then every human heart and mind, every blade of grass and flower, every slimy reptile and noxious insect, every thief and murderer—all are alike inspired, all being alike made and upheld by God, in his infinite wisdom and loving kindness, for the alleged benefit of man. Evenus. The term is not so used. Socrates. Then, I ask again, what is inspiration ? Evenus. Endowing man with a knowledge of God. Socrates. Were it not better all men were so endowed, that they might know their maker and serve him better ? Evenus. It was not so ordained. Socrates. I fail to find any evidence that what you call inspiration in man is anything more than ordinary intelligence, or that any one person was ever endowed with a divine afflatus in a greater degree than any other person. Phsedo. Pray, then, interpret to us inspiration, O Socrates, who art thyself inspired. Socrates. As the cooling earth sent forth evergreen trees, and the blooming of vegetation began, man with nature became inspired; and when over the beautiful landscape the grass appeared, and the flowers became fairer, and birds sang, and all the world was a poem, the poet appeared, poem and poet alike inspired. PLATO REVISED. 731 Phsedo. In the early religions was a prophetic and an apocalyptic literature, which forever after were strained to fit various times, personages, and events. Meaningless sayings and unfulfilled predictions were at the same time so twisted as to give to the words some significance other than their true or usual one. If by any means, in the hands of skilful interpreters, one in fifty of the old-time wild asseverations came true, it was enough to convince the unthinking of the validity of them all. Socrates. Men work away like ants in a dung-hill to determine the truths of their religion; but they determine nothing, apparently make no headwray, and certainly will never be able to achieve the slightest result until new light breaks in from some quarter. Nevertheless, so eager are they to reach conclusions that they jump at them, having no proof or reason. As to origin, we know the origin of nothing, neither of man, the almighty, nor of a single atom. We know nothing of what is, of what was, of what will be. Men talk about the fundamental truths of religion, the existence and attributes of the creator, the immortality of the soul, the future state, and so forth, teaching them to their children, opening schools and employing books and professors for the purpose, when they know and can know absolutely nothing. It is more than time wrasted, this teaching as truth what at best is but speculation. Plato. Man is born under the dominion of some unknown and unknowable power or powers ; and in his efforts to fathom and explain the nature of this force he is led into all sorts of theologies and theories. In the absence of knowledge he invents, reiterating his fancies, weaving them into fables, until in due time they become fastened upon the minds of nations in the form of religions. The mighty powers of nature, the governing influences which originate thought and action, ruling despotically the minute affairs of every-day life as well as those great princi- 732 PLATO REVISED. pies which determine his destiny, he seeks to propitiate with prayers and offerings. He would bribe omnipotence to befriend him ; and that his dark and narrow mind may better compass the difficulties which beset him, he resolves these various forces into deities, one or several. Even though unconscious of the existence of that subtle power which subordinates to its laws every movement of a muscle, every pulsation of the heart, every wave of thought, he acts under it; or awakening to the fact he finds the immediate cause governed by some other cause lying back of it, and that by another still more remote; Sa that in the end he is forced to confess himself ruled by those very influences over which he once fancied himself to hold absolute control. Socrates. It is plain that the forces of nature intimidate man, bringing him to his knees, and throwing him into numberless absurd physical, and mental contortions, but the forces underlying human associ- tion are not so easily followed, or so greatly feared. Plato. We see in the ordinary walks of life actuating principles which govern individuals in their respective occupations. One pursues wealth, another honor, another pleasure, and another religion. Wealth, honor, pleasure, or religion then becomes the grand master, the governor, or ruler of the individual. For the accomplishment of this purpose a thousand means are necessary, each one of which becomes a subordinate ruler. Sometimes all are pursued coordinately, and then the rulers are proportionately increased. Those who deny that the ordinary interests of life hold dominion over them are none the less slaves; for to possess none of the nobler aspirations of life is to abandon one's self to vice, the most cruel and arbitrary of masters. These governing impulses, therefore, some stronger and some weaker, as the case may be, are multiplied indefinitely, and increased in proportion to the activity of the brain, the healthfulness of the body, and the longings of the heart; so that PLATO REVISED. 733 each particle of which the essence of human existence is composed is a law unto itself, acting upon the mind of the individual so as to produce fixed and determined results. We see then that it is the will of man at the outset immediately to place his freedom in the hands of a keeper; nay, it is his imperative necessity so to do, for if he refuses to be the slave of vice he becomes the servant of virtue. If in the exercise of his free will he fiVhts against and overcomes avarice and ambition, instantaneously charity and patriotism become his rulers, and the will may not, and does not act freely, but only in accordance with the dictates of the master passion. Phsedo. Superstition is based on the evils which surround us. Crito. And so the Veda hymns praises to wind, clouds, and fire. Plisedo. Pray enlighten me, O Socrates! Is it wisdom for man to use his reason in matters of religion, or should he rely on tradition, on feeling, on faith, on the teachings of priests, and the general opinions of mankind ? Socrates. By my soul, good Phsedo, I almost wonder you can ask so silly a question; and yet I do not wonder when I consider the foolishness and stupidity of mankind, and how they toil to mystify each other, subvert the truth, and ape the gods in making something out of nothing. You ask, is it wisdom for man to use his reason as against sentiment and tradition ? Phsedo. Yes. Socrates. Is it better to be a man or a brute ? Plisedo. Being a man, I say it is better to be a man; were I a brute, perhaps I might prefer remaining a brute. Socrates. Very well. Being a man, you prefer to remain a man. Now what are the leading characteristics distinguishing men from brutes ? 734 PLATO REVISED. Phsedo. Intellect, the faculties of speech, sequences of thought, and reason. Socrates. By what are beasts chiefly governed ? Phsedo. By instinct and feeling. Socrates. Is the quality of instinct nearer akin to the intellect and the reasoning faculties of men, or to sentiment, tradition, and physical environment? Phsedo. To the latter; man cannot be guided by feeling and tradition unless he chooses to lay aside his reason, and descend to the level of the brute. Socrates. True. Reason being the highest faculty of man, is it not insane ever to lay it aside, particularly in dealing with questions so momentous as eternal happiness and misery ? Phsedo. It certainly would seem so. Socrates. If man ever needs his faculty of reason, which lifts him out of the brute category, and places him beside the gods, it is when called upon to interpret and understand the teachings of the gods. By Jupiter! \ hold it an insult to the gods for men to employ their reason in all things except in their intercourse with them, when they deem it necessary to play the part of a brute. For in all matters except religion he who will not consul this reason and be guided by common sense is justly condemned as a fool, an idiot, and left to suffer.the penalties of his stupidity without sympathy. But religion's highest merit, bringing the highest reward, is that blind acquiescence in the fictitious and fantastic ideas and assertions of half-savage or half-witted dreamers of remotest ages, called at the present day faith, belief. Not only has man the right to use his reason, but it is his bounden duty to do so—to appeal to it always, and abide by its decision. Without reason there can be no moral sense, no conscience, no religion. All animals have instincts and weapons by means of which they secure food and protect life. Man's reason is his life's protector, his soul's salvation, and if he does not make use of his reason and abide by its mandates PLATO REVISED. he is justly, and without sympathy doomed to perdition, any conception of free-will and necessity to the contrary notwithstanding. Apollodorus. Perillus invented a new kind of punishment, a brazen bull, with a door through which victims to be roasted were thrust. This was freewill. Phalaris, tyrant of Agrigentum, was greatly pleased by the machine, and ordered its merits tested on the person of the inventor. This was necessity. Evenus. That knowledge of God for which all men strive is beyond the sphere of reason to attain. Socrates. No knowledge of any kind was ever attained outside the sphere of reason. It is alone by the faculties of sense and reason that we can apprehend anything, natural or supernatural; without their use we can recognize neither the voice of God nor the voice of nature; we can entertain neither belief nor disbelief in original sin or immortality. The same faculties whose use are forbidden in things . . . • ® spiritual we must employ even in our belief, if we believe, Evenus. But reason may be restricted, the senses limited; there may be more in heaven and earth than man's perceptive faculties can encompass. Socrates. How so? Evenus. For instance; the horse that draws me to the temple of music has eyes and ears, and reason to some extent, but standing every night at the door it has little conception of the performance within, nor can it have. It lacks the necessary perceptive faculties. So man may lack some sense possessed by other beings whom he cannot see or know, and whose perceptive faculties as much surpass his own as do the latter those of brutes. Socrates. Possibly; and yet if reason and my senses are my guides, I can in no wise be held responsible for what exists beyond the realm of their vision, any more than the horse can be held responsible for not appreciating music, 736 PLATO REVISED. Plato. We may as well discard, once for all, the sentiment that there are things in heaven and earth not meant for us now to know; that we have been endowed with a discrimination which is to be used up to a certain point and then dropped, a decoction of tradition and blind faith to be employed as a substitute. Our intelligence, if not always a guide, is no guide. As the hitherto hidden opens to our perceptions, reason takes possession; meanwhile we will not account it wisdom to insist on a belief in the unknowable. Crito. Amid so many conflicting ideas, opinions, doctrines, and beliefs, how are we to tell right and wrong, good and bad, morality and immorality ? Socrates. Religionists refer you each to his holy book, and thence to conscience. Crito. But none of these satisfy common sense and reason, while conscience we know is purely a manufactured article. Plato. How manufactured ? Knowledge, virtue, and happiness are the life of the soul, immortal and most precious, and so to be guarded and illuminated by an internal supernatural voice, which is the guide of the good. Crito. Conscience is called a divine guide; if so, how many different divinities must the several races present as sources of the multitudinous consciences existing throughout the world. One god certainly never could have made them all. Phsedo. Conscience is no inherent or fundamental guide, but a basis of moral possibilities. Crito. The most abominable acts have been committed by men of weightiest conscience. Socrates. Good Evenus, I beg you, tell us what is conscience? Evenus. Conscience is the voice of God in man. Crito. Then why have not all men like consciences, as. God surely would not speak one conscience to one and another to another. PLATO REVISED. 737 Phsedo. I do not understand; I thought that aU the world agreed on the fundamental principles of right and morality, the variations being local and unimportant, while conscience must be part of man's nature, since it is found everywhere. Socrates. True, yet not true. The germ of conscience is implanted, but in the development its character and quality depend upon time and place, the fruit being according to the atmosphere in which it unfolds. Thugism taught that murder was no crime; therefore it offended not conscience to kill. The conscience of the Persian woman is troubled if her face is exposed, while the European is shamed if her breast is seen upon the street. Physical perfection was the moral ideal of the early Greeks, and not female chastity, so highly prized elsewhere. The soldier who proudly murders ten men in battle blushes to kill one in a private brawl. As a nation, or corporation, men will steal with impunity who would not rob in dividually. The mumblings of priest or magistrate in the form of a marriage ceremony make sacred subsequent acts which were otherwise abominable. Blood revenge, slavery, polygamy are good to-day and bad to-morrow, even under theologic teachings. And so with brute conscience. Teach a dog to chase the sheep, and he is proud of it; whip him for so doing and he hangs his tail when caught at it. Between the conscience of the man and the dog, apart from their relative intelligence and education, there is little to choose. Each is as it was made. Great minds throw off all teachings and restrictions; great men have little conscience. Crito. But surely we may know good from evil ? Socrates. Yes. But how shall we know it ? Not by any book, revelation, or promulgation. Only shallow brains confound right with religion, and say that faith is essential to conscience, and conscience to morality. Religion is a respect paid to unknowable forces; morality is the prevailing sentiment, while Essays and Miscellany 47 738 PLATO REVISED. conscience is loyalty to that sentiment. Wrong is what hurts me; right is what hurts me not. Crito. This, then, is the morality of nature. Socrates. Precisely. I know of no other teacher than nature. I know of no thing, idea, force, intelligence, or entity outside of nature. All gods are nature, and all men and beasts; mortal or immortal, essences, spirits, intelligences, or seas or solid stones, all are nature ; these, and all heat and cold, forces chemical and electrical, and hunger and sorrow and hope, these are my teachers; also love and hate, and birds, and fishes, and all that is and is not. Crito. So have we not been taught, even by yourself, my master. Socrates. We have been taught erroneously, and must unteach ourselves. Lies, licentiousness, hypocrisy, cheatings, and overreachings we have been taught in the name of religion, morality, conscience, civilization, under whose respective banners the world has been a great "human slaughter-house, a field of moral pestilence since the beginning. And the author of this state of things we are soberly asked to call perfect, just, wise, merciful, and good. Phsedo. Knowledge of good and evil by no means brings right action. We do wrong knowingly and suffer for it, only again to do wrong and again suffer. We love only that which is bad ; virtue is too tame for the times. Socrates. If I tell my child that Santa Claus will not bring him a present if he is a bad boy, and on Christmas day he gets the present, he may then think me a good father; but later, when his mind begins to act for itself, he cannot have a very high opinion of my judgment or veracity. If I tell my child that God will punish him if he commits that wicked act, and he commits the act, not once or twice, but twenty times, and finds that God does not punish him, he must, if he reasons on the matter, consider me, his father, either stupid or deceitful. It will not PLATO REVISED. 739 do; he will not always be satisfied with the answer : " Ah, wait! the end is not yet; God is long-suffering; he does not punish in a spirit of revenge; he does not always mete out justice in this world;" but rather, when he reaches manhood, he will turn to me and ask, " How do you know ? How came you to know so much about God, his character, and attributes, his acts and intentions ? Did you ever see him ? Have you any satisfactory knowledge of him, such knowledge or evidence as would be received in any court of justice in regard to any of the affairs of life? Besides, he does exercise revenge. \ Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' Why is it his—why will he keep the whole of it, and give man none ? 'I am a jealous God.' Of what is he jealous, if he is supreme ?" He might add that all theories and examples of theological punishments are retaliative and revengeful— obey me and I will bless you; disobey me and I will curse you; serve me and you shall have heaven ; serve me not and hell shall Have you. Again, if he does not mete out justice here, he is, in this respect, worse than the men who made him. An omnipotent and beneficent being could not, first of all, make so imperfect a mechanism as this world and its inhabitants; and, secondly, could not permit an act of injustice in any of his creatures; or if he did, for the benefit of their free-will and discipline, as his ministers would say, he could not rest for a moment until the wrong was made right. He could not permit an innocent person to atone for the sins of the guilty. Suppose one of our judges should do that? Does God reward me for praying to him? No. For ten thousand prayers I never receive the slightest acknowledgment; from ten thousand million prayers we know of not one answer of any kind being granted. We have no knowledge of almighty power ever having, in a single instance deviated from the usual course, such as we call the fixed laws of nature, because observation has taught us that they 740 PLATO REVISED. do not change. Omnipotence can do much, but it cannot do all that the votaries of religion demand of it; it cannot answer two opposing prayers at the same time and place, as where twenty persons prav, some for rain, and others for no rain ; one for victory for the armies of the slave-holders, and one for victory for the armies of the abolitionists—omnipotence cannot achieve a contradiction ; and this is what religionists are constantly making God do, calling him kind, and yet showing him to be merciless, more so than any man he ever made; calling him just, and yet showing him to be unjust; and finally asserting that if he could have it so the devil would be extinguished altogether, which acknowledges that he is not omnipotent, else he would extinguish him. These are only a few examples out of hundreds that might be brought forward. No; I would tell my boy, do right because right-doing brings its own reward. This is why it is right, because it brings its own reward. Wrong-doing brings its own punishment ; this is why we may know it is wrong, because it brings pain and not pleasure. Any act bringing unqualified pleasure to all and pain upon none, cannot be wrong, no matter what any person or book may say. Do right for the love of it and because it makes you better, happier, nobler. Avoid wrong-doing, not from fear of a thunderbolt hurled by an offended deity from behind the clouds, for no such visitation will come upon you; but avoid doing wrong because it is degrading and will bring upon you pain. Put not your hand in the fire, for it will be burned ; drink not that fiery intoxicant, for it dries up your life's blood ; smoke not, to the destruction of your nerves ; gamble not, to the dissipation of your fortune; steal not, thereby giving others the right to steal from you; kill not, if you do not want to be killed ; and so on. A morality thus based upon the simple truths of nature will last a man through life, and give him the most steadfast assurance in time of death; it will PLATO REVISED. 741 never be deceptive; it will never prove untrue, and the person basing his conduct upon it will stand always the same. He will not have to eradicate any false teachings and construct a new basis of morality for himself, or go without any ; his principles will be founded upon a rock. And he who thus stands has nothing in the wide universe to fear, while he who is governed all his life by superstition, by the fancied arbitrary mandates of a fancied deity, must needs crawl in craven cowardice all through this world and into the next. Crito. But if morality is neither religion nor civilization, it certainly must be in accord with both. Socrates. Not necessarily. There are plenty of immoral religions and immoral civilizations, though such religions and civilizations would not call their morality immoral. Morality, like religion, is largely a conventional article, being but the ideal of the community, whatever that may happen to be. The Greek mother would never call her patriotic son immoral, though he drank wine by the gallon and kept half a dozen mistresses. The popular preacher is not immoral if he tells no lies except in the pulpit. The monopolist may steal his millions, deal wholesale in bribery and corruption, and not be called immoral, provided he does it within limits of the law, or is not caught at it. Plato. The moral sentiment, right or wrong, is the central force of every society. Intrinsic right is less powerful under such conditions than conventional right or public moral sense. This sense, after all, though it may be the prison-wall of reason, is the only hope of progress. It gives aggregated humanity personality, and before the soul of man it lays an empire. Moral philosophy treats only of perfect rectitude and right conduct, ignoring evil, as physiology treats of the functions of organs and knows nothing of disease. Socrates. Ethics is the science of human duty. By 742 PLATO REVISED. L the term human duty moral obligation is implied. No one arrives at the age of maturity, reaches the period of youth, or is even born into the world without having accumulated a load of indebtedness, to discharge which a life-time is too short. The infant owes for its existence, for the preparation and pangs of its birth. The youth owes for nourishment and care during childhood. The young citizen owes for protection and culture, and the old man for such existing conditions as enabled him to attain comfortable and honorable old age. In the annals of the race good has ever manifested a strength superior to that of evil; hence our sympathy and allegiance must be on the side of good. At all events we must side with the good as long as good preponderates. If before the end evil rises superior to good, then all moral men must worship evil, which thereby becomes the ideal good, and can no longer be called immorality. Apollodorus. The suppression of malignant feeling is itself a reward, says Prahlada. Plisedo. Pray tell me, Evenus, is the soul immortal ? Evenus. Of course it is immortal. Phsedo. How do you know7 ? Evenus. Men of all ages and nations have held to belief in the immortality of the soul; nothing in nature dies, therefore the soul cannot die; my inner consciousness tells me that I am not like the brute which perishes. Phsedo. The secret mysteries of Dionysius held that the soul is imperishable; were the rest of the mysteries true ? Have not the early nations held to thousands of untrue beliefs ? Evenus. Certainly. Phsedo. Then why attempt to prove anything true by such evidence ? Evenus. It is a standard argument. Phsedo. Nothing in nature dies, you say; but there are infinite changes, as great as would be the PLATO REVISED. 743 instant transformation of life, soul, intellect, into gas and vapor, or consigning them to the original reservoir, or source of all intelligence. Evenus. Then the soul is not immortal. Phsedo. I did not say so. Evenus. Matter is indestructible; is mind less worthy of preservation than matter ? What becomes of man's learning, of his skill, when the body dies 1 Neither force nor matter are created or lost. Nothing that comes within the scope of our knowledge is either created or lost. Is the cultured intellect a creation, or an accumulation of experiences, and are they all annihilated by death ? Phsedo. It would seem, if there is any immortality left, if there is somewhere, throughout the realms of space, for us a glorified heaven, to the enjoys ment of which a keener edge is given by the existence of a dreadful hell for our hapless neighbor, some angels would be sent to tell us of it. God, if he chose, could at once end all sin and misery; he could obliterate unbelief, take from the world its injustice and from death its sting, showing man what he is and what his future will be. If there be a God, and a future state, why does he not do this | Surely the world needs God's presence as greatly as it ever did; and if men had here the same evidence upon which to base opinion that is required of them in the ordinary walks of life, millions of beings might be saved who now are lost. Men have written much, and achieved much fame in writing on the immortality of the gods. Of course the gods were all immortal then, but where are they now ? The Japanese still have their bamboo, symbol of immortality, which they plant beside the tombs of the illustrious dead, but what have the Greeks? Crito. What is the soul ? Plisedo. The spiritual part of man. Crito. In what sense spiritual? Is intellect spiritual ? 744 PLATO REVISED. Phsedo. It is certainly not material Crito. Have brutes souls? How do soul characteristics differ in men and brutes ? Phsedo. Only in degree, so far as we can perceive. We cannot say that brutes have not souls, nor any after-life ; we do not know. Crito. If the soul has existence apart from the body, it may have had being before the making of the body ; but we trouble ourselves less about what we were than what we will be. Phsedo. If the soul be not immortal, how many good men are doomed to disappointment! Crito. Not so; for if the soul wake not in eternity, how shall it ever know it? Phsedo. Even though it be not true, they say, it is better to believe it if it brings comfort. Crito. But it does not always bring comfort. Can it be comfort to the mother at the grave of an erring son to feel that he must be forever in torment while she enjoys heaven ? The doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments necessitates the eternal separation of husband and wife, parents and children. Socrates. In your Republic, Plato, you defend the doctrine of immortality of the soul; do you still hold to that opinion? Plato. Thus far I find myself immortal. Socrates. How about the gods and their immortality ? Plato. I have met no gods as yet. Socrates. You have often been quoted as a pagan of profound wisdom who believed in the" immortality of the soul. Plato. No one can be religious who does not so hold. Socrates. You have taught also that there is mind in the stars, in which teaching you were perhaps nearer the truth than you supposed. Plato. There are in all things mind and soul, and these ever were and always will be. PLATO REVISED. 745 Socrates. You believed also in sorcery, witchcraft, transmigration of the soul, and a thousand absurdities about God and creation. Plato. There is a future ; we know not what it is ; whatever it is it were wTell to be prepared for it. Evenus. If there is no immortality there is no God, no justice, no truth, no good. That the soul is immortal we know by an instinct deeply rooted in all humanity. Crito. Do men like brutes depend upon instinct for guidance ? Evenus. Well, intuition, if you like the word better. Crito. Millions of intuitions have come to naught. Evenus. If God lives the soul lives alway. Crito. I agree with you. Evenus. In the religion of the ancient Egyptians are grand conceptions concerning the immortality of the soul. Crito. Do you believe in the immortality of the Egyptian soul ? Evenus. I do. Crito. Do you believe in the Egyptian heaven ? Evenus. I cannot. Crito. Then, if the Egyptian soul is immortal, what will it do without the Egyptian heaven ? Socrates. A life beyond the grave may be relied upon only in so far as it is demonstrable by the senses; yet there maybe immortality for man for all that. Crito. Now tell me, Apollodorus, can you discourse on miracles ? Apollodorus. Yes ; and I will begin my discourse by saying that there are no miracles. Qnto. What is a miracle ? Apollodorus. A performance outside the pale of nature. Crito.^ How can you prove that there never have been miracles ? 746 PLATO REVISED. Apollodorus^ I am not so called upon; it iff for those who believe in them to prove their existence, as is the case in regard to the whole range of supernatural phenomena. Crito. And as to prayer? Apollodorus. Prayer is the begging of omnipotence to do the impossible—a harmless diversion, so long as those who pray expect no results, or are satisfied with the reflex effect. Crito. Do not those who pray usually expect an answer ? Apollodorus. They think they do, and often feel that they have it; but were a prompt and palpable response to come to one of their petitions, no one would be more surprised than the petitioner. Crito. Why do the gods wish to be importuned by their votaries ? Apollodorus. They do not. Why should men make their gods in some respects so much worse than themselves ? A kind and benevolent human father does not enjoy seeing his children all their lives grovelling in the dust before him ; beseeching him to remember their wants and relieve their miseries; importuning him for favors which it costs him nothing to grant, and which he withholds seemingly to tantalize them, and c ause them to beg the more and louder. The attitude is not a noble one for either man or god to pose in. How, then, shall we say of those who make their god in theory a high and holy one—creator, preserver, dominator, an omnipotent and unchangeable being, absolutely just, full of compassion and tender mercy—and yet in their interpretation of him, by their words and acts, they make him out now a contemptible thing, and now a demon! Crito. May not good gods permit prayer ? Apollodorus. Yes; it pacifies some persons and teaches obedience. But look back and see what use men and gods make of prayer, and then say if it be decent, Formerly men prayed an enemy to death, PLATO REVISED 747 prayed devils out of the dying, prayed the departed soul into heaven, prayed fish to ascend the stream, the corn to grow, the sun to shine ; robbers and murderers prayed for fat victims, while the fat victims prayed to be delivered from robbers and murderers. And the same incongruities and absurdities continue, though in a modified form. Nations pray for victory over their enemies; though brother fight against brother, both beseech the same God for strength to kill the other. There are places where rain is prayed for; also deliverence from earthquake famine and pestilence, success at the polls, blessings on infamous persons and principles. God is constantly reminded that there are the poor, the sick, the blind, the infirm, whom he is sadly neglecting ; there are the dying who want a reserved seat in heaven, something better than is given to their neighbors In a word, if the character of God is as represented by his votaries, their petitions are a disgrace to their intelligence and an insult to him. Crito. But surely the creator can break his own laws if he chooses ? Apollodorus. We have no evidence that ever a single law of nature was suspended or diverted from its ordinary course. Crito. Do not all the national and sacred books of all nations and ages testify to the existence of miracles ? Apollodorus. Yes, and if you call that proof, you prove too much ; for every one of them condemns all the others as false. Now, where there are a thousand and one religions, every one railing against the pretended miracles of the other as preposterous, surely the chance for one of them to be true is small. Besides, how reconcile the doctrine of special providences and answer to prayer with the immutability and unchangeableness of the creator? Crito. Well, how about the millions of petitioners 748 PLATO REVISED. who know from internal evidence that their prayers are answered ? Apollodorus. 1 would rather see one external evidence, than hear of a million of the other description. The heart-broken mother, begging the life of her fever-stricken child, is greatly comforted though the child dies. The false religionist enjoys as much internal evidence as the true religionist. In a word the internal evidence is the same, whether the prayer is answered or not, and so, as evidence, goes for nothing. The doctrine of special providences and prayer imply imperfection in the creation and regulation of the universe. If all were rightly made and rightly ruled, any deviation from existing or predetermined courses would be wrong. Therefore, to pray a just and holy God to do what otherwise he would not do, is to ask him to do wrong, which, if he d^es not, prayer is of no avail. Crito. Then prayer springs from fear and desire, and its reflex influence is the chief one. Apollodorus. Say rather the only one. Imagine a being sitting in heavenly state, regarding the world of worms which he has made. One worm asks for grace, mercy, and peace; another for food and raiment; a third asks pardon for its measure of sinr only that it may be as quickly filled again. Imagint this being healing those whom he had made sic! binding up the hearts he had broken, and in a thousand other ways righting the wrongs that he had done. Sorry contemplation, indeed, for a maker of mortals who could have done better but would not! Crito. How then would you account for the presence of miracles in all the ancient writings? Apollodorus. Most religions were made long ago, when the world was young, ignorant, imaginative, ready to believe anything, and therefore exceedingly superstitious. In oriental countries particularly, signs and wonders were everywhere. Any person who from any cause became conspicuous was sooner or PLATO REVISED* 749 later endowed with supernatural powers, and though he micrht never have pretended to perform a miracle, he was sure to be accredited with many. ^ Plato. What shall we say, Socrates; is life worth the living ? Socrates. Under some circumstances, and by certain persons, it may be, but in the main it is not. The world's religion, philosophy, and poetry are as a rule pessimistic. Plato. You speak truly. Human existence is too often a vast despair, whether viewed as an evolution, or from a theological point of view. Under the first supposition we are one with the elements, coming from them and returning to them after a life of buffeting. Under the second, the race is no sooner made than it falls from a state of angelic purity, becomes totally depraved, and is driven forth by a hated master to endless torment, a few favorites excepted. Socrates. Infinitely higher than that of the religionist is the realistic conception of man's nature and destiny. The gods of man's creation fade before ever increasing intelligence and morality. The consciousness of divine self gains strength, until to the infinite development to which we were created we look for the only living and true God. Apollodorus. Perhaps we take life too seriously, which after all may be a huge joke, man the sportive play of the elements, and mind a force of matter tinctured with intelligence. Plato. When nature can supply a better man it is time for each one to die, and give place to him; when man becomes perfect he may rightly and reasonably live on forever. Crito. By the mute attraction and repulsion in inorganic forces worlds out of chaos grew ; as by articulate love and hate beasts have become men, and men gods. Socrates. Emerging from the darkness of brute instinct to the illumination of thought; rising out of 750 PLATO REVISED. inferior life-forms, and advancing from consciousness to self-consciousness under the inspiration of ever- brightening sky and sea, of landscape, birds, and flowers, all through life's ages man has been left to work out his destiny in darkness and in lio«ht under the unfolding duality of mind and matter, beauty that catches the eye being ever before utility, ornament before dress, poetry before prose, and brilliant theologies before hard and practical science. Apollodorus. Happy the Arabs, who refuse to know anything of what happened before Mohammed came ! What an infinitude of trouble men might save themselves by refusing to know anything of what shall happen after death! Socrates. While at Athens, Plato, you had much thought of legislation and the affairs of state. In your Republic your main distinction as to forms was wThether the government vested in the hands of one or many—that is to say monarchy or oligarchy on the one hand and democracy or republicanism on the other. Plato. That is true. Socrates. Of all the governments mankind has had, which do you regard as the best form? Plato. There is no one form greatly better than another; there is not, and never has been, any government at all approaching perfection. Socrates. How? Are not the more liberal ways which mark the emergence of intellect from the clouds of savagism better than the wearing of the former fetters ? Is not monarchy better than despotism, and democracy better than monarchy ? Plato. It has not been so proved. Socrates. Is liberty nothing? The limitations of authority, the restriction of the so-called divine right, constitutional safeguards in place of the absolute and individual will—are these nothing ? Plato They are much, all fitting in their way; and so I suppose are demagogy and mobocracy, else they had never been. fc^-t-i- PLATO REVISED. 751 Socrates. Tell me, I pray you, Plato, what you mean. Plato. This; you may as well ask which of all the styles of garments naked humanity has ever employed are the best. The fashion of government, like the cut of coats, depends upon the idiosyncrasy of the wearers. That government or garment is best which best meets present needs. The government is made to fit the condition, and not the condition to fit the government. I have said before, that governments vary as the characters of men vary ; states are made not of oak and rock, but of the human natures w7hich are in them, The states are as the men ; they do but grow out of human characters. Socrates. Before we can have any good government we must have those for rulers who can master the passions that master men. But even the gods themselves have not been able to do this, not a single deity in all the theogonies and theologies of the world being able to control himself in this regard as he attempts to control the men who made him. Plato. Socrates, you speak the truth. Socrates. You treat of justice in your Laws as the interest of the stronger. Plato. Yes. The governing power makes the laws ; God makes the governing power ; justice must uphold God and the laws, right or wrong. Socrates. Are not God and the laws just; do they not render to every man his due ? Plato. Answer that question for yourself, 0 Socrates. Socrates. In your opinion, Plato, it is folly to imagine that war will ever cease, that it is a natural condition between states. Plato. I see no indication of a change from what always has been the case in this regard. Socrates. And the affairs of a state should be so ordered as to conquer all other states in war ? Plato. All men are the enemies of all other men, both in public and private. 752 PLATO REVISED. Socrates. And the life of man should be ordered with a view to continue internal and external strife ? Plato. It is the only way. Socrates. Is war a good or an evil ? Plato. A necessary evil. Socrates. There is no such thing as necessary evil; if the evil is necessary its practise is a good. War is either a good or an evil. Plato. One might say on the side of right and liberty, if the winning side, it is a lamentable good ; on the other side it is assuredly an evil. Socrates. Is victory oftener on the side of right or wrong ? Plato. Of wrong. Socrates. Why ? Plato. Because numbers carrying preponderance of strength breed arrogance, and render the majority indifferent to the rights of the minority. Socrates. Well, Plato, take it as a whole, is it a good or an evil that men should have no more sane or humane ultimate appeal in the adjustment of differences than the bloody arbitrament of battle, after the manner of brute beasts ? Plato. An evil, decidedly. Socrates. And yet you would have the affairs of the state always so ordered as best to perpetuate this evil ? Plato. It must be so. Socrates. Were it not better to have the laws and customs such that reason rather than brute force should regulate? Plato. If possible, yes. But no wise legislator orders peace for the sake of war, and not war for the sake of peace. Socrates. Yet, as war is brutal, not reasonable, and the winner more apt to be wrong than right, were it not better to adopt measures to abolish war than try to maintain the ground that the world cannot do without it ? Plato. Certainly. INDEX. Abbott, works of, 93. Academia Nacional, Mex., founding of, 538. Academy of Natural Sciences, Cal., descript. of, 619. Acosta, works of, 24, 661. Africans, assimilation, etc., of, 256. "Agnese, map of, 667. Alaman, L., works of, 550-1. Alarcon, E. S. de, works of, 524, 535-6. Alarcon y Mendoza, works of, 528-9; biog., 529-30. Alcaraz, works of, 572. Aid an a, R., mention of, 583. Alegre, works of, 508. Alexander the Great, career of, 82. Allison, works of, 93. Alpuche, works of, 572. Alva, F. de, works of, 500. Alvarado, Gov., writings of, 603. Alvarado, P., 'Relacion,'461. Alvarez, L, writings of, 552. Ambition, remarks on, 175-6. 'American Law Review,' quotation from, 301-2. Americans, characteristics, etc., of, 189-204. Ancona, works of, 552-3, 560. Anderson, Dr W. C, mention of, 624. Andre, ' Overcome,' 634. Angelo, M., story of, 142. 'Annals of San Francisco,' 615, 640. 'Anonymous Conqueror,' writings of the, 15-16. Antonio, N., works of, 512. Apianus, works of, 662. Arevalo, S. de, mention of, 470, 480. Arrangoiz, works of, 552, 590. Arronez, M., works of, 566, 590. Athens, dicasts of, 283. Austria, I., plays of, 583. Authors, as critics, 126-8, 141-3; characteristics, etc., of, 129-30, 176-7; perplexities, 136; appreciation of, 141. Autocracy, decline of, 83. Avarice, prevalence of, 183. Avery, W. S., writings, etc., of, 598, 600, 608. Aztecs, records, etc., of, 489^-99. B Baker, Senator E. D., eloquence of, 626. Balbuena, Bishop, works of, 520-1, 535. Bandini, writings of, 603. Baqueiro, ' Ensayo,' 590. Barbacero, translation by, 572. Barcena, M., works of, 558. Barcena, R., works of, 571-2. Barcia, works of, 512. Barry and Patten,' Men and Memoirs,' 613. Barstow, G., mention of, 626. Bartlett, W. C, writings, etc., of, 598-600. Bates, Mrs, 'Four Years on the Pacific Coast,' 610. Baturoni, Z., plays of, 583. Baz, I Vida de Juare,' 556. Beaumont, 'Cronica de Michoacan,* 506. k'%t Beckwith, Rev., mention of, 625. Benton, J. A., 'The California Pilgrim,' 605. Benzoni, G., works of, 24, 463-4, 661. Beristain, works of, 534. Bibliography, Cent. Amer., 478-80; Mex., 511-13, 530-6, 589-90; Cal., 658-70. Bidwell, Gen., writings of, 603. Biography, Cent. Amer., 471; Mex., 509-10. Blackstone, quotation from, 285. Blake, W. P., survey, etc., of, 1853, 619. (755) 756 INDEX. Bocanegra, works of, 565, 579. Borneman, M., writings of, 634. Boscana, Friar, ' Chinigchinich,' 596. Boswell, J., works, etc., of, 130. Botello, writings of, 603. Bourbourg, B. de, works of, 458, 460. Bowman, J. F., writings of, 645. Brannan, S., the 'California Star,! 596-7. Brook3, A., mention of, 144. Brooks, H. S., 'California Mountaineer,' 600. Brooks, N., writings of, 598, 633. Browne, J. R., writings of, 619, 641. Buchard, Father, mention of, 625. , Buckle, H. T., works of, 89. Buddhism, 398-9. Buffum, E. G., writings, etc., of, 605. Bulwer, quotation from, 144. Burlingame treaty, mention of, 262. Burnett, Gov., writings of, 612, 622. Burton, Mrs, ' Don Quixote,' 638. Busch, H., 'Harry Plowerfield,'633. Bustamante, C. M., works of, 546, 549-50, 590, 667. Calderon, F., works of, 566. Calderon y Beltran, F., dramas of, 5S0-1; biog., §80. California, progress of, 51-2; future of, 53; gold digging in, 1848, 54-5; migration to, 184-5; race elements in, 185-200; religion in, 190; future races of, 201-4; climate, 202; character of population, 1849, 205-34; new comers to, 206-12; temptations in, 209; religion, 209-10, 219-20; class distinctions, 210-11; absence of restraint, 211-12; gold hunting in, 214-17; labor, 222-4; traffic, etc., 224-5; association, 226-7; women of, 232-3; dislike to foreigners in, 237-8, 244-5, 271; the Chinese question, 239-78; Europeans in, 241-4; Irishmen, 243-6; labor needed in, 277-9; trial by jury, 295-302; Chinese in, 309-1.18; literature, etc., 591-668; oratory, 625-7. Camargo, writings of, Iv. Camden, Lord, motto of, 283. Campbell, T., indifference of to fame, 180. Camprodon, 'Flor de un Dia,' 582. Caflas, J. de, odes, etc., of, 475-6. Carleton, C, see Wright, W. Carlyle,T., quotations from, 136, 173. Carpio, M., works of, 573-5* biog 576. Ca£kE- S» <Patrons of Husbandry/ 620. ** Carrillo, works of, 590. Carrington, S. C, the 'Record-Union.' 599. Carson, ' Early Recollections,' 605. Castellanos, E. P. de. poems of 473- 4, 576. *^ ' Castillo, F. del, works of, 560. Castro, F. de, *La Octava MaravOk,' 521. ^ Castro, J. A. de, «E1 Triumfo del Silencio,* 521. Castro, M., writings of, 602. Cavo, works of, 509. Central America, literaturei eta, of. 455-80, 540. Charts, see Maps. Chinatown, descript. of, 318-418. Chinese, objections to, 240, 245-52, 265-6; labor of, 240-1; wages, 241; discrimination against, 252-3; usefulness of, 253-4; complaints against, 254-5; the Burlingame treaty, 262; denunciation of, 267; persecution, 271-3; as factory operatives, 273-5; first arrival of, 309; new comers, 309-10; children, 310; dress, 311-13; queues, 313; barbers, 314; characteristics, 314- 17, 353-5; dislike of, 317-18; buildings, 318-19; stores, 319-21; gambling-dens, 322, 377-80; streets, 322-3; overcrowding, 323-4; squalor among, 325-9; homes, 327-8; food, 329-30; restaurants, 330-5; opium-dens, 335-7; sign boards, 337-9; business system, 339-43; laborers, 343-5; gardeners, 345; operatives, 345-8; laundries, 348-9; rag-pickers, 351; fisheries, 349-50; servants, 350-1; artists, 352; prostitutes, 355-7; festivals, 357-66; new year, 358-65; the drama, 366- 77; companies, 380-2; highbinders, 382; oaths administ. to, 382-3; diseases, 383-5; medicines, 386-8; physicians, 388-90; hospitals, 390; funeral rites, etc., 391-6; religion, 397-401; temples, 401-13; worship, 411-13; omens, 413-14; spiritual- ism, 414-15; fortune-tellers, 415- 17; exorcism, 417-18. Chorley, story of, 143. Christianity, discussions on, 669-753. ' Chronicas de la Provincial,' 504-5. Church, literat. in Mex., 481-2; ill Cal., 616-17, 622-4; influence of on literat., 648. INDEX. 757 Cicero, quotation from, 292. Cisneros, J. A., plays, etc., of, 581. Civilization, remarks on, 8-10, 87-8. Clark, J. F., writings of, 634. Clavigero, works of, 24, 508, 663. Clemens, S. L., works of, 640-1. Clifford, J., writings of, 600, 632-3. Climate of Cal., 202. Clyde, C, writings of, 645.. Collins, J. A., mention of, 626. Colton, W., writings of, 596, 659. Commerce in Cal., 224-5. Compass, the effect of discov., 83. Conde y Oquendo, works of, 534. Confucianism, 397-8. Contrera, P., 'Castigo de Dios,' 582. Coolbrith, I., writings of, 600, 645. Cooperation, remarks on, 431, 451-4. Corporations, principles, etc., of, 432-3; abuses by, 433-43; restrictions on, 435, 446. Cortes, H., writings, etc.,. of, 16-17, 461-2, 502, 661. Cortina, G. de la, works of, 558, 590. Cosa, chart of, 667. Cousin, M., quotations from, 94, 100. Covarrubias, D., works of, 558, 560. Cox, I., 'Annals of Trinity County,' 618. Cox, Rev., mention of, 625. Cremony, Col, writings of, 600, 611- 12, 633. Criticism, sphere of, 113-14; journalistic, 114; talent in, 115; superabundance of, 115-16; insincere, 116-17; classes of, 117-20; pretension in, 121-2; hypocrisy in, 124-5; motives for, 125-6; among authors* 126-8; unfairness in, 128-33; irrelevant, 129-31; legitimate, 134-5; standards of, 138; dramatic, 138-9; qualifications for, 139-40; plagiarism, 143-4; style, 144-7. Cromberger, J., works printed by, etc., 481-2, 531. Cruz, J. A. I. de la, biog., etc., of, 524-5, 535; works of, 525-8, 535. Cubas, G.,- works of, 558, 590. Cuellar, J. de, works of, 561, 582, 590. Cuevas, G., writings of, 553. Cummins, A. H., writings of, 620. D Daggett, 'Baxter Bar,' 633. * Dan De Quelle,' see Wright, W. Dark Age, remarks on the, 47. Davidson, G., 'Marine Mammals,' 620. Day, Mrs F. H., the 'Hesperian,' 600. De Bray, collection of, 664. De Foe, D., works of, 144. Delano A., writings of, 605, 637, 641. Democracy, progress, etc., of, 83. De Quincey, criticisms of, 118. Derby, G. H., writings of, 641-2. Despotism, benefits, etc., of, 287-8, 427. Detter, T., 'Nellie Brown,' 635. Diaz, B., works of, 14-15, 463, 502, 661, 663. Diaz, J., 'Itinerario de Grijalva,' 14. Disraeli, B., quotation from, 135. Dooner, P. W., 'Last Days of the Republic,' 634. Dorr, H. C, writings of, 645. Drama, criticism on the, 138-9; Chinese, 366-7; literat. of the, in Mex., 526-.30; 577-84; in Cal., 637-9. Draper, I. J. W., works of, 89; Dress, Chinese, 311-13. Duran, works of, 24. Duran, Father, ' Historia de las lndias,' 507. Dwindle, Judge, 'Colonial History of California,'" 618. E Edgerton, H., mention of, 626. Edwards, W. H., writings, etc., of, 620. Eels, Rev., mention of, 625. Effort, remarks on, 168-9. Eguiara y Eguren, works of, 512-13. Elliott, G., quotation from, 134. Emerson, R. W., quotation from, 105. Enciso, 'Suma de GeografiaV 661. England, trial by jury in, 282-5. Englishmen, characteristics, etc., oi 185-6. Enthusiasm, remarks on, 174—5. Escalante, F. M., works of, 572, 583. Esclava, F. G., works of, 522-3, 527. Escudero, C, comedies, etc., of, 582* Estee, M. M., mention of, 621. Evans, writings, etc., of, 609. Europeans, assumption of, 241-2, 257; polit. influence, 243-4. Ewer, F. C, writings, etc., of, 599, 623. Executions, mode, etc., of, 288-9. 75S INDEX. Fair, L. D., trial of, 301-2. Fame, remarks on, 179-81. Farnham, Mrs, writings of, 606. Felton, J. B., eloquence of, 626. Ferguson, W. S., mention of, 626. Festivals, Chinese, 357-66. Fiction, demand for, 93-4; Mex. writers of, 559-61; Cal. writers, 627-42. Field, M. H., writings of, 645. Field, S. J., writings of, 613. Field, Mrs, writings of, 645. Figueroa, Gov., 'Manifesto,'595. Fine, O., map of, 667. Fisher, W. M., writings of, 610, Fitch, G. K., writings of, 598. Fitch, T., eloquence of, 626. Flores, M. M., works of, 567. Fontanelle, quotation from, 91. French, characteristics, etc., of, 196- 8. Friar, Presbyter, writings of, 522. Froude, A., theory of, 89; quotation from, 94-5. Fuentes y Guzman, works of, 466, 479. G Gage, T.,. 'New Survey,' 663. Gallardo, A. L., works of, 567, 582. Gallo, ' Hombres Ilustres,' 556. Gaily, works of, 633. Galvan, I. R., works of, 565-6, 578- 9, 583; biog., 579. Gambling, Chinese, 322, 377-80; evils of, 420-1. Gamboa, F. J., biog. of, "514-15; works, 515, 534. Gaona, J. de, works of, 524. Garcia, 'Origin,'664. George H., 'Progress and Poverty,' 598, 620-1. Germans, characteristics, etc., of, 198. Gibbon, quotation from, 146. Gibbs, G., writings of, 620. Gibney, Father, mention of, 625. Gibson, Rev., writings of, 6HM1. GJbert, writings of, 598. Gillies, quotations from, 142-3. Gimenez, 'Eusayos" Magneticos,'546. Glascock, M. W., works of, 633-4. Gleeson, W., 'History of the Catholic Church in California,' 616-17. Gomara, works of, 21-2, 462-3, 661. Gonzales, G. G., ' Teatro,' 664. Goodman, J. T., writings of, 645. Goodman, L., writings of, 645. Gordon, G., eloquence of, 626. Gorham, writings of, 598. Gorostiza, M. E. de, plays of, 577-8; biog., 577-8. Granico, R., see Steele. Gray, Rev., mention of, 625. Gray, T., criticisms of, 127. Gray, W., 'A Picture of Pioneer Times,'609. Grayson, writings of, 620. Grey, Father, mention of, 625. Grey, 'Pioneer Times,' 633. Gryneus, map of, 667. Guard, Rev., mention of, 626. Guatemala, literature of, 464-71. Guilds, founding, etc, of, 430; hist. of, 430-1. Gunpowder, effect of dis cow, 83. Gutierrez, M., 'Una para Todos,' 583. Gwin, Senator, writings of, 603. H Hakluyt, works of, 662. Hall, F., works of, 618. Hallam, criticisms of, 142. Halleck, H. W.f works of, 621. Hamerton, quotations from, 131-2, 172, 177. Hart, J. A., the 'Argonaut,' 599. Hart, B., writings of, 600, 631-2, 637, 642-6; biog., 631-2. Hazlitt/ W., criticisms of, 117-18, 127-8. Helps, Sir A., quotation from, 179. Hemphill, Rev., mention of, 626.' Herrera, works of, 22-3, 464, 663. Herrera y Rueda, L. A. de O., 'Poema Sacra,' 522. Hetherington, trial, etc, of, 297-9. Higginson, quotation from, 141. History, relation of poetry to, 76; of mythology, 76-7; of philosophy, 78-9; of war and politics, 79-80; of monarchy, 81-4; of govt* 84-5; general field: of, 85-6; civilization, 87-9; writers of, 89-90; hist. method, 92-3; appreciation of, 93; facts and ideas in, 94-5; exaggeration in, 95-6; the religious element in, 96-100; traditions, 97-8; bias, 100-1; qualifications for writing, 103-8; social phenomena, 109-12; Cent. Amer. writers, 460-9; Mex. writers, 502-8; Cal. writers, 601-3, 612-18. Hittell, J. S., writings of, 598, 604, 617-18, 622, 386. INDEX. 759 Hittell, T., works of, 606, 621. Holder, G., quotation from, 102. Howard, V., mention of, 626. Howe, C. E. B., 'Joaquin Murieta,' 637-8. Hudson, on railroad abuses, 442-4. Hudson's Bay Co., treatment of Indians by, 67-8. Hulsins, collection of, 664-5. Humanity, study of, 88-9. Humboldt, A. von, works of, 665-6. Hume, works of, 102. Hurtado, A., plays of, 583. Hutchings, J. M., 'California Magazine,' 599. Icazbalceta, collection of, 537. Iglesias, Minister, ' Revistas,' 552. ljams, Rev., mention of, 625. Indians, treatment, etc., of, 65-74. Instituto Nacional, founding, etc., of, 1833, 538. Irish, in Cal., 196; polit. influence of, 243-i; compared with Chinamen, 245-6, 257-8. Irish, J. P., the 'Alta,' 599. Irving, W., on Columbus' voy., 91-2. Italians, characteristics, etc., of, 199. Ixtlilxochitl, works of, If, 496. Japan, visitors from, 1860, 318. Jerrold, D., story of, 102. Jewell, Rev., sermons of, 625. Jews, in Cal., 199-200. Jiminez, works of, 473. Johnson, Dr, criticisms of, 126; quotation from, 134. Jones, E., the 'California Star,' 597. Journals, criticisms in, 114-43; of Cent. Amer., 470-1; names, etc., of, 480, 484, 532-3, 540-1,545, 596- 601, 659. Jovius, P., writings of, 102. Juarros, works of, 466-8. Judges, trial by, 304-8; election, etc., of, 306-7; qualifications, 307-8. Juries, origin of trial by, 281; unnecessary, 282, 304; in England, 282-3; arguments for and against, 286-307; functions of, 28$; disqualifications, 289-91; errors, 293-302; incapacity of, 30&-6; system of, oppressive, 306. Kalloch, Rev., mention of, 626. Keeler, R., writings of, 632. Kellog, Professor, writings of, 620. Kemble, writings of, 598. Kendall, W. A., writings of, 645. Kewen, Colonel, eloquence of, 626. Kimball, C. P., directory of, 1850, 604, 659. King, C, writings of, 600, 608, 619. King, T. S., sermons, etc., of, 624,626. Kingsborough, Lord, works, etc., of, 6, 495-6. Kingship, hist, treatment of, 81-4. Kip, Bishop, works of, 623. Kirchoff, ' Reisebildes,' 610. Kustel, reports, etc., of, 619. La Bruyere, quotation from, 146. La Harpe,. quotation from, 96. Labor, curse of, 148-53; enforced, 148-9; pleasant, 148-50; rest from, 153; necessity for, 153-6; subdivision of, 155; benefits of, 156-8, 164; kinds of, 159-60; estimation of, 160-1; excessive, 161; performance of, 162-3; in Cal., 222-4; remarks on, 273-9. Lacunza, J., works of, 565. Land, monopoly of, 448-50; distribution of, 448-50; taxation of, 449-50. Landa, Bishop, works of, 25, 460. Lardivar, R., 'Rusticatio Mexicana,' 474. Language, remarks on, 653-5. Larrainzar, works of, 554, 590. Larranaga, J. R., transl. of VirgiLby, 531, 536. Las Casas, B. de, works of, 20, 460, 462-3, 661. Lawyers, unscrupulousness of, 303; Lawson, E., writings of, 645. Lecky, W. E. H., quotation from, 90. Legends, mediaeval, 109. Leon, F. R. de, works of, 519, 534-5, 571. Leon y Pinelo, A, de, works of, 512. Le Conte, John, writings of, 619. Le Conte, Joseph, writings of, 619. Libraries, in Mex., 537-8; in Cal., 659-60. Linen, J., writings of, 645. Literature, as a vocation, 171-4; periodical, 173-4; enthusiasm in, 174; recompense of, 177-8; liter, fame, 179-81. 760 INDEX. . Literature in California, influences affecting, 591-2, 647-58; early, 593-6; period., 596-601; hist, and descript., 601-18; manuscript, 601-3, 612-13, 668-70; church, 616-17, 622-4; scientific, etc., 619- 21; oratory, 625-7; fiction, 627-37, 639-42; dramatic, 637-9; poetry, 642-6; bibliog., 658-68. Literature in Central America, conditions of, 455-7; Maya, 458-9; hist, and descript., 460-9; period., 470- 1; biog., etc., 471; scientific, 472- 3; poetry, 473-8; bibliog., 478- 80. Literature in Mexico, colonial, 481- 536; early eccles., 481-501; period., 484-5, 540-3; Nahua, 489-99; poetry, 498-9, 515-26, 561-77, 584- 7; hist., 502-8, 548-55, 661-4; biog., 509-10, 555-6; didactic, 510- 11; bibliog., 511-13, 530-6, 589-90; dramatic, 526-30, 577-84; miscell., 530-6; modern, 537-90; liter, societies, 538; effect of revolution on, 539; satire, 544-6; scientific, 558; fiction, 559-61; progress of, 587-9; influences affecting, 647-56; voyages, 661-2. Lizardi, F. de, works of, 545. Lloyd, ' The Lights and Shades in San Francisco, 609-10. Lobo, M., works of, 470-1. Logrono, 'Manual de Adultos,' 482. Loomis, Rev., writings of, 610-11. Lyell, Sir C, works of, 109. | M Macaulay, T. B., bias of, 102, 127. Macdonald, Rev., mention of, 626. Mackenzie, R., works of, 6. Madalena, Father I. de la, 'Escala Espiritual,' 481-2. Magazines, see Journals. Mandeville, Sir J., theory of, 89. Maneiro, J. L., works of, 510. Manufactures, Chinese competition in, 345-8. Maps, Zeno's, 667; Cosa's, 667; Ptolemy's, 667; Fine's, 667; Gry- neus', 667; Agnese's, 667; Merca- tor's, 667. Mariposa, jury trial in, 1850, 296. Martinez, J., writings of, 553. Martyr, P., works of, 21, 661. Mateos, J., works of, 559-60, 582. Mathews, W., quotations from, 91, 125-6, 140, 177. Mayas, civilization among the, 11-13} literat. of, 458-61. McClellan, R. G., works of, 604, 618- 19. McDougall, J. A., mention of, 626. McGlashan, 'History of the Donner Party,' 612. McGowan, ' narrative,' 607. McKinley, 'Brigham Young,' 638. Medina, B., writings of, 506-7. Mendieta, works, etc., of, 23-4, 505. Merimee, review of, 133. Mestizo, condition of the, 73. Mexico, literature of, 14-26, 457, 481-590; oratory in, 513-15, 546-7. Mexico City, descript. of, 27. Mier y Guerra, Doctor, writings of, 548-9. Mill, J. S., quotation from, 92; story of, 179. Mill, J., article of, 173-4. Miller, C. H., writings, etc, of, 600, 643-4; biog., 643-4. Miners, characteristics, etc., of, 205- 29. Mitford, works of, 92-3. Monardes, Dr, ' Historia Medicinal,' 661. Money, use, etc., of, 56-63; love of, 182-3; treatment of, 419. Monopoly, evils of, 419-46; phases of, 423; of wealth, 424-6; legitimate, 428; growth of, 428-32. Montesquieu, quotation from, 146. Mora, Doctor, works of, 549, 590. Morales, J. B., works of, 545. Moreno, fables, etc. of, 583. Morgan, L. H., article of, 1-15, 38. Morse, J. F., writings of, 615. Morse, J. T., jr, quotation from, 201-2. Morure, works of, 469. Motolinia, Father, works of, 503. Muir, J., works, etc., of, 619. Mulford, P., works of, 633, 641. Munguia, works of, 590. Munoz, 'Historia,'663. Mythology, relation of to hist., 76-7. N Nahuas, civilization among the, 11, 27-38; arts of the, 27-31, 36-7; govt, 31-2; administ. of justice, 32-3; land tenure, 33-4; taxation, '34-5; commerce, 35; marriage, etc., 35-6; education, 36; calendar, 37- 8; literat., etc, 489-99. Napoleon I., career of, 82-3. Nature, laws, etc, of, 152-5. INDEX. 761 Navarette, M., works of, 562-3. Nesbit, writings of, 598. Neumann, Mrs, 'Poetry of the Pa- oific,' 645. Neville, C. M., 'Behind the Arras,' 634-5. Newman, Mrs, writings of, 645. Newspapers, see Journals. Nezahualcoytl, King, poems of, 498-9. Nisbet, J., biog., 659. Noble, Rev., mention of, 625. Nordhoff, C, quotation from, 426. Norman, L., 'A Youths History of California,' 616. Novels, see Fiction. O Ochoa, works of, 546, 580. Ochoa y Acuftas, A. M., works of, 567-8. O'Meara, ' Broderick and Gwin,' 613. Oratory, in Cent. Amer., 472; in Mex., 513-15, 546-7; in Cal. 625- 7. Ordonez, works of, 473. Orozco y Berra, works, etc., of, 553- 4, 558, 560-1, 583; biog., 590. Ortega, F., 'La Venida,'571; dramas of, 579-80. Ortiz, L. G., works of, 567. Ortiz, T., writings of, 553. Oiio, writings of, 602. Oviedo, work3 of, 20-1, 460, 462-3, 661. Pablos, J, mention of, 481. Pacheco and Cardenas, collection of, 666. Pacific states, migration,' etc., to the, 48-9; progress of, 51-2; future of, 52-3. Padilla, D., writings of, 507. Padilla, M., works of, 506. Page, writings of, 695. Palacio, R., works of, 559, 582, 661. Palafox, Bishop, mention of, 590. Palon, F., works of, 594. Parsons, G. F., mention of, 599. Pascal, quotation from, 140. Patmore, criticism of, 142. Paul, J., quotation from, 96, 130. Pelaez, works of, 468. Peoa y Contreras, ' Romances His- toricoa,' 571. Peralta. ' Noticias Historicas,'507-8. Perez, P. J., writings of, 573, 590. Pesado, J. J., works of, 569-70. Phelps, Professor, * Contemporary Biography,' 614. Phillips, Congressman, story of, 434. Phillips, reports, etc., of, 619. Philosphy, relation of to hist., 78-9. Pico, Gov. P., writings of, 602. Piedrahita, ' Historia General,' 663. Pierpont, Rev., mention of, 625. Pimental, ' Historia Critica,' 543. Pineda y Polanco, works of, 472. Pixley, F., writings of, 598. Plagiarism, remarks on, 143-4. Piatt, Rev., mention of, 625. Poetry, relation of to hist. 76; Cent. Amer., 473-8; Mex., 498-9, 515- 26, 561-77, 584-7; Cal., 642-6. Poets, as critics, 126-8, 141-2. Politics, hist, treatment of, 79-80. Pollock, E., writings of, 645. 'Popul Vuh,' descript. of, 458-9. Porter, N., quotation from, 93, 103-4. Powell, I. I., writings of, 604. Powell, J. J., reports, etc., of, 619. Powell, 'Wonders,'608. Powers, S., writings of, 611-12, 633. Prendergast, Father, mention of, 625. Prescott, works of, 25. Preston, L., works of, 635-6. Prieto, G., M'orks of, 572, 590. Prieto, I., dramas, etc., of, 583. Printing, effect of discov., 83. Ptolemy, maps, etc., of, 661-2, 667. Purchas, ' Pilgrimes,' 665. Q Quiches, literat. of the, 458-9. Quillam, H. 'Idcalina,' 645. Quintana, \ Meditaciones,' 590. Quintero, C, works of, 534. R Railroad companies, object of charters to, 435; abuses by, 435-43; good control of, 443-5; reforms suggested, 443-5; r. r. commissions, 444-5. Ramirez, I., writings of, 568. Ramusio, 'Navigatione at Viaggi,' 661-2. ^ Randolph, E., writings, etc., cf, 614, 626. ' Reglamento Provincial,' 595. Reid, H., writings of, 618. 762 INDEX. Religion, connection of with history, 96-100; of the Chinese, 397-401; discussion on, 671-765. Remesal, works of, 464-5. Restaurants, Chinese, 330-5. Rey, E., plays of, 583. Rhodes, W. H-, writings of, 634. Richter, J. P., quotations from, 90, 135, 425. Ridge, J. R., writings of, 645. Ripalda, 'Catecismo,'595. Rivera, M., works of, 555, 590. Robinson, A., 'Life in California,' 596, 659. Rodriguez y Cos, < Anahuac,' 569 Rogers, criticisms of, 128. Roman, A., the 'Overland Monthly ' 600. Romero, J. M., * Catecismo,' 595. Roo, Q., works of, 565. Rosa, L. de la, works of, 572. Rosas y Moreno, J., works of, 546. Rousseau, quotation from, 196. Ruiz, T., verses of, 569. Ruiz y Lara, eclogue of, 475. Ruz, J., mention of, 590. Ryan, R. F., writings of, 614. Sahagun, Father, 'Historia General,' 19-20. Sainte Beuve, quotation from, 1,140; criticisms of, 117-18, 129, 140. Salazar, M. P., works of, 565. San Francisco, character of population, 229-33; woman in, 232-3* jury trials in, 295-302; Chinatown^ 318-418. San Jose, Chinese colony at, 351-2. Santacilla, ' Genio del Mai,'546; Sarinana, works of, 572, 580. Sarria, President, sermons of, 596. Sartorio, writings, etc., of, 546-7, 573. Savagism, remarks on, 8-10. Saxon, I., 'Five Years within the Golden Gate,' 610. Scammon, writings of, 600, 620. Science, dogma in, 99; Cent. Ameri writers on, 472-3; Mex. writers, 558; Cal. writers, 619-21. Scott, Sir W., 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,'142-3. Scott, W. A., works, etc., of, 623-4. Segura* J., sonnets, etc., of, 572. Segura, V., verses of, 572. Semple, R., the 'Californian,' 596. Seon y Contreas, J., plays of, 581. Seybough, writings of, 598. Shakespeare, works of, 144. Shuck, 0., works of, 614. Shirley, Mrs, writings of, 605-6. Sierra, J., writings of, 573. Siguenza, works of, 511, 521. Silva, A., works, etc, of, 572, 583. Simon ton, E. A., writings of, 645. Slavery, evils of, 247-8, 260. Smith, G., theory of, 89; quotation from, 100. Smith, K. D., writings of, 636. * Sociedad de Geograna,' 666. Solis, A. de, works of, 22, 487, 663 Soria, F. de, comedies of, 583. Sosa, F., works of, 555-6. Soule, F., writings of, 598, 645. Spain, Ind. policy of, 66. Spaniards, characteristics, etc, of, 198-9. Spanish America, treatment of Indians in, 73. Spanish Americans in Cal., 187-8. Speculation, remarks on, 167; evils, etc., of, 420-22. Speer, Rev., writings of, 610-11. Spencer, H., quotations from, 137, 285, Spiritualism, Chinese, 414-15. Squier, works of, 460. Steam-engines, effect of invention, 431-2. Stebbins, Rev., mention of, 625. Steele,- writings of, 634. Stewart, 'Last of the Filibusters,' 606. Stillman, 'Seeking the Golden Fleece,' 611. Stoddard, C. W., writings of, 600, 645. Stoddard, R. H., quotation from, 179. Stone, A. L., 'Memorial Discourses,' 625. Stratton, R. B., writings of, 606. Stratton, Rev, mention of, 625. Stretch, IL H., writings of, 620. Style, remarks on, 144-7. Success, remarks on, 165-71. Sumner, C. A., mention of, 626. Sutter, Capt., writings of, 603. Swett, J., writings of, 620. Swift, J. F., works of, 633, 641. Tagle, S. de, works of, 564-5. Talfourd, Judge, 'Ion,'143. Tanco, B., worka of, 511. INDEX. 763 Taxation of land, 449-50. Taylor, A., writings of, 614. Taylor, Rev. W., works of, 607, 625. Tellez, 'Ratos Perdidos,' 569. Tello, ' Cronica de Jalisco,' 506. Temples, Chinese, 401-13. Terry, Judge, trial of, 297. 'Teufelsdrockh,'quotation from, 163, 174. Thackeray, W. M., quotation from, 135. Theatres, Chinese, 367-73. Thirlwall,. works of, 92-3. Thomas, J. B., mention of, 625. Throckmorton, Sir N., speech of, 1554, 292. Timon, ' Noticias,' 663. Tinkham, works of, 618. Toland, Dr, lectures, etc., of, 620. Toland, M. B. M., works of, 645. Tornel, G., mention of, 583. Torquemada, works of, 23, 486, 505- 6, 663. Torvella, ' El Mulato,' 582. Tovar, J. de, works of, 500-1. Tovar, P. works of, 572. Traveller, A. C, 'Teachings of the Ages,' 622-3. Tradition, in history, 97-8. Trebarra, 'MisteriOs de Chan,' 560. Troncoso, J. N., mention of, 545^ Truman, writings of, 608, 633. Turrill, 'California Notes,' 608. Tuthill, F., 'History of California,' 615-16; death of, 616. Twain, M., see Clemens, S. L. U United States, civilization in, 51-3; treatment of Indians, 67-74; hist, of the, 85-6; early condition of, 235-6; foreigners invited to, 236-7; immigration to. 239-40, 258-60; the Chinese question, 239-78; Africans in, 256; danger of overcrowding, 260-1; influence of foreigners in, 268-9. Valencia, J., 'Teressiada,' 523. Valle, J., writings of, 567. Vallejo, Gen., writings of, 595, 603. Van de Mark, Rev., mention of, 626. Vazquez, Works of, 465-6, 471, 480. Vela, E., works of, 528. Ver Mehr, 'Checkered Life,' 613- 14. Verne, E., 'Fidelite,' 635. Vetancurt, works of, 24, 506. Veytia, works of 496, 508. Victor, Mrs F. F., writings of, 600, 604, 613, 635-6, 645. Villagra, G. de, 'Historia,' 520, 663. Villalobos, J., plays of, 583. Villasenor, P., 'Encarnacion Rosas,' 579. | Virginians, characteristics, etc., of 191-6. Voyages, collections of, 661-2, 665-6. W Wadsworth, Rev., sermons, etc., of, 625. Wakeman, Capt., ' Log of an Ancient Mariner,' 611. War, hist, treatment of, 79. Water, distribution of, 450-1. Wealth, pursuit of, 421-2, 446-7. evils of excessive, 422-6; allurements of, 425. Webb, 'Our Friend from Victoria,' 638. Wentworth, Mary, see Neumann, Mrs. Whipple, quotation from, 422. Whitney, A., ' Almond-eyed,' 634. Widney, Judge, 'The Plan of Creation,'623. Wierzbicki, F. P., 'California as It is,' 604. Willey, Rev., 'Thirty Years in Cali- , fornia,' 613. Williams, Rev., 'A Pioneer Pastorate and Times,' 613; sermons of, 625. Williams, T. T., Writings of, 599. Woods, Rev., 'Recollections of Pioneer Work,'613. Wordsworth, criticisms, etc., of, 119, 141. Worth, J. J., 'A Dissertation,' 604. Wright, W., writings of, 610, 636, 641. Wright, Mrs W., writings of, 642. Ybarra, J. de P., mention of, 470. Young, J. P., writings of, 598-9. Yucatan, literat. of. 573. 764 Z INDEX. Zalvadea, translations of, 595. Zamacois, works of, 546, 255. Zamora, J. G., plays of, 583. Zarco, satires of, 569. Zavala, L. de, works of, 549, 590. Zayas y Enriquez, plays of, 583. Zeno, map of, 667. Z'erecero, A., works of, 549, 590. Zumarraga, Bishop J., biog., iconoclasm of, 494-5. Zurita, A. de, report of, 17.
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Indians of North America
Indians of North America--Bibliography
Indians of Central America
Mexico--History
Central America--History
British Columbia--History
Pacific States
The works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XXXVIII, Essays and miscellany
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