It would have been much more
just and wise to have concluded the other way; that as most of
the States' had preserved with jealousy this sacred palladium of
liberty, those who had wandered should be brought back to it:
and to have established general right rather than general wrong.
just and wise to have concluded the other way; that as most of
the States' had preserved with jealousy this sacred palladium of
liberty, those who had wandered should be brought back to it:
and to have established general right rather than general wrong.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v14 - Ibn to Juv
)
+ This is an interlineation made at a later period — apparently after the
question as to the signing of the Declaration was raised. Jefferson has also
written the following on a slip and pasted it on the sheet:-
“Some erroneous statements of the proceedings on the declaration of inde-
pendence having got before the public in latter times, Mr. Samuel A. Wells
asked explanations of me, which are given in my letter to him of May 12, 19.
before and now again referred to. I took notes in my place while these
things were going on, and at their close wrote them out in form and with cor-
rectness, and from 1 to 7 of the two preceding sheets are the originals then
written; as the two following are of the earlier debates on the Confederation,
which I took in like manner. ”
## p. 8245 (#445) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
8245
ON FICTION
From a letter to Robert Skipwith, August 3d, 1771
I
SAT down with the design of executing your request to form
a catalogue of books to the amount of about £50 sterl. , but
could by no means satisfy myself with any partial choice I
could make. Thinking therefore it might be agreeable to you,
I have framed such a general collection as I think you would
wish and might in time find convenient to procure. Out of this
you will choose for yourself to the amount you mentioned for
the present year, and may hereafter proceed in completing the
whole. A view of the second column in this catalogue would, I
suppose, extort a smile from the face of gravity. Peace to its
wisdom! Let me not awaken it. A little attention, however, to
the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments
of fiction are useful as well as pleasant. That they are pleasant
when well written, every person feels who reads. But wherein
is its utility ? asks the reverend sage, big with the notion that
nothing can be useful but the learned lumber of Greek and
Roman reading with which his head is stored.
I answer, everything is useful which contributes to fix in
the principles and practice of virtue. When any original act of
charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our
sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty,
and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and
grateful acts also. On the contrary, when we see or read of any
atrocious deed, we are disgusted with its deformity and conceive
an abhorrence of vice. Now every emotion of this kind is an
exercise of our virtuous dispositions; and dispositions of the mind,
like limbs of the body, acquire strength in exercise. But exer-
cise produces habit; and in the instance of which we speak,
the exercise, being of the moral feelings, produces a habit of
thinking and acting virtuously. We never reflect whether the
story we read be truth or fiction. I appeal to every reader of
feeling and sentiment, whether the fictitious murder of Duncan
by Macbeth in Shakespeare does not excite in him as great a
horror of villainy as the real one of Henry IV. by Ravaillac, as
related by Davila ? And whether the fidelity of Nelson and gen-
erosity of Blandford in Marmontel do not dilate his breast and
elevate his sentiments as much as any similar incident which real
## p. 8246 (#446) ###########################################
8246
THOMAS JEFFERSON
history can furnish? We are therefore wisely framed to be as
warmly interested for a fictitious as for a real personage. The
field of imagination is thus laid open to our use, and lessons
may be formed to illustrate and carry home to the heart every
moral rule of life. Thus a lively and lasting sense of filial duty
is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter
by reading King Lear' than by all the dry volumes of ethics
and divinity that ever were written. This is my idea of well-
written romance, or tragedy, comedy, and epic poetry.
THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY
From Notes on Virginia,' 1782
It
T is difficult to determine on the standard by which the man-
ners of a nation may be tried, whether catholic or particular.
It is more difficult for a native to bring to that standard the
manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There
must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our
people produced by the existence of slavery among us.
The
whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exer-
cise of the most boisterous passions, - the most unremitting des-
potism on the one part and degrading submissions on the other.
Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an
imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in
him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what
he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in
his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance
of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one
that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The
parent storms; the child looks on, catches the lineaments of
wrath, puts on the same airs, in the circle of smaller slaves gives
a lcose to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and
daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with
odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain
his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And
with what execrations should the statesman be loaded who, per-
mitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of
the other, transforms those into despots and these into enemies,
destroys the morals of the one part and the amor patria of the
other! For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must
## p. 8247 (#447) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
82 47
be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live
and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of
his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeav-
ors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own
miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from
him. With the morals of the people, their industry is destroyed.
For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can
make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the propri.
.
etors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to
labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when
we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds
of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God ? that
they are not to be violated but with his wrath ? Indeed I trem-
ble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his
justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature,
and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune,
an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may
become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty
has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.
But it is impossible to be temperate, and to pursue this subject
through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history
natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force
their way into every one's mind. I think a change already per-
ceptible, since the origin of the present revolution.
The spirit
of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust,
his condition mollifying; the way, I hope, preparing under the
auspices of heaven for a total emancipation, and that this is dis-
posed in the order of events to be with the consent of the mas-
ters, rather than by their extirpation.
LETTER TO MR. HOPKINSON
M'
Paris, December 23d, 1786.
Dear Sir:
Y LAST letter to you was dated August 14th. Yours of May
27th and June 28th were not then received, but have
been since. I take the liberty of putting under your cover
another letter to Mrs. Champis, as also an inquiry after a Dr.
Griffiths. A letter to M. Le Vieillard, from the person he had con-
sulted about the essence L'Orient, will convey to you the result of
## p. 8248 (#448) ###########################################
8248
THOMAS JEFFERSON
my researches into that article. Your spring-block for assisting a
vessel in sailing cannot be tried here; because the Seine being not
more than about forty toises wide, and running swiftly, there is no
such thing on it as a vessel with sails. I thank you for the volume
of the Philadelphia transactions, which came safely to hand, and
is in my opinion a very valuable volume, and contains many
precious papers. The paccan-nut is, as you conjecture, the Illi-
nois nut.
The former is the vulgar name south of the Potomac,
as also with the Indians and Spaniards, and enters also into the
botanical name, which is Juglano Paccan. I have many volumes
of the Encyclopédie for yourself and Dr. Franklin; but as a
winter passage is bad for books, and before the spring the pack-
ets will begin to sail from Havre to New York, I shall detain
them till then. You must not presume too strongly that your
comb-footed bird is known to M. De Buffon. He did not know
our panther. I gave him the stripped skin of one I bought in
.
Philadelphia, and it presents him a new species, which will appear
in his next volumes. I have convinced him that our deer is not
a Chevreuil; and would you believe that many letters to differ-
ent acquaintances in Virginia, where this animal is so common,
have never enabled me to present him with a large pair of their
horns, a blue and red skin stuffed, to show him their colors, at
different seasons. He has never seen the horns of what we call
the elk. This would decide whether it be an elk or a deer.
I am very much pleased with your project on the harmonica,
and the prospect of your succeeding in the application of keys to
it. It will be the greatest present which has been made to the
musical world this century, not excepting the piano-forte. If its
tone approaches that given by the finger as nearly only as the
harpsichord does that of the harp, it will be very valuable. I
have lately examined a foot-bass newly invented here by the
celebrated Krumfoltz. It is precisely a piano-forte, about ten
feet long, eighteen inches broad, and nine inches deep. It is of
one octave only, from fa to fa. The part where the keys are, pro-
jects at the side in order to lengthen the levers of the keys. It
is placed on the floor, and the harpsichord or other piano-forte is
set over it, the foot acting in concert on that, while the fingers
play on this. There are three unison chords to every note, of
strong brass wire, and the lowest have wire wrapped on them as
the lowest in the piano-forte. The chords give a fine, clear, deep
tone, almost like the pipe of an organ. Have they connected
## p. 8249 (#449) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
8249
you with our mint? My friend Monroe promised me he would
take care for you in that, or perhaps the establishment of that at
New York may have been incompatible with your residence in
Philadelphia. A person here has invented a method of coining
the French écu of six livres, so as to strike both faces and the
edge at one stroke, and makes a coin as beautiful as a medal.
No country has ever yet produced such a coin. They are made
cheaper too. As yet, he has only made a few to show the per-
fection of his manner. I am endeavoring to procure one to send
to Congress as a model for their coinage. They will consider
whether, on establishing a new mint, it will be worth while to
buy his machines if he will furnish them. A dislocation of my
right wrist, which happened to me about a month after the date
of my last letter to you, has disabled me from writing three
months. I do it now in pain, and only in cases of necessity or
of strong inclination, having as yet no other use of my hand. I
put under your cover a letter from my daughter to her friend.
She joins me in respects to your good mother, to Mrs. Hopkin-
son and yourself, to whom I proffer assurances of the esteem
with which I am, dear Sir, your sincere friend and servant.
LETTER TO DR. STYLES
I
PARIS, July 17th, 1785.
Sir:
HAVE long deferred doing myself the honor of writing to you,
wishing for an opportunity to accompany my letter with a
copy of the Bibliothèque Physico-ceconomique'; a book pub-
lished here lately in four small volumes, and which gives an ac-
count of all the improvements in the arts which have been made
for some years past. I flatter myself you will find in it many
things agreeable and useful. I accompany it with the volumes
of the Connoissance des Tems for the years 1781, 1784, 1785, 1786,
1787. But why, you will ask, do I send you old almanacs, which
are proverbially useless ? Because in these publications have
appeared, from time to time, some of the most precious things
in astronomy. I have searched out those particular volumes
which might be valuable to you on this account. That of 1781
contains De la Caille's catalogue of fixed stars reduced to the
commencement of that year, and a table of the aberrations and
## p. 8250 (#450) ###########################################
8250
THOMAS JEFFERSON
nutations of the principal stars. 1784 contains the same cata-
logue with the nebuleuses of Messier. 1785 contains the famous
catalogue of Flamsteed, with the positions of the stars reduced to
the beginning of the year 1784, and which supersedes the use of
that immense book. 1786 gives you Euler's lunar tables cor-
rected; and 1787, the tables for the planet Herschel. The two
last needed not an apology, as not being within the description
of old almanacs, It is fixed on grounds which scarcely admit a
doubt that the planet Herschel was seen by Mayer in the year
1756, and was considered by him as one of the zodiacal stars,
and as such, arranged in his catalogue, being the 964th which
he describes. This 964th of Mayer has been since missing, and
the calculations for the planet Herschel show that it should have
been, at the time of Mayer's observation, where he places his
964th star. The volume of 1787 gives you Mayer's catalogue of
the zodiacal stars. The researches of the natural philosophers of
Europe seem mostly in the field of chemistry, and here prin-
cipally on the subjects of air and fire. The analysis of these
two subjects presents to us very new ideas. When speaking of
the Bibliothèque Physico-ceconomique,' I should have observed
that since its publication, a man in this city has invented a
method of moving a vessel on the water by a machine worked
within the vessel. I went to see it. He did not know himself
the principle of his own invention. It is a screw with a very
broad thin worm, or rather it is a thin plate with its edge ap-
plied spirally round an axis. This being turned, operates on the
air as a screw does, and may be literally said to screw the vessel
along; the thinness of the medium, and its want of resistance,
occasion a loss of much of the force. The screw, I think, would
be more effectual if placed below the surface of the water. I
very much suspect that a countryman of ours, Mr. Bushnel of
Connecticut, is entitled to the merit of a prior discovery of this
use of the screw. I remember to have heard of his submarine
navigation during the war; and from what Colonel Humphreys
now tells me, I conjecture that the screw was the power he used.
He joined to this a machine for exploding under water at a
given moment. If it were not too great a liberty for a stranger
to take, I would ask from him a narration of his actual experi-
ments, with or without a communication of his principle, as he
should choose. If he thought proper to communicate it, I would
I
engage never to disclose it, unless I could find an opportunity
## p. 8251 (#451) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
8251
of doing it for his benefit. I thank you for your information as
to the great bones found on the Hudson River. I suspect that
they must have been of the same animal with those found on the
Ohio; and if so, they could not have belonged to any human
figure, because they are accompanied with tusks of the size, form,
and substance of those of the elephant. I have seen a part of
I
the ivory, which was very good. The animal itself must have
been much larger than an elephant. Mrs. Adams gives me an
account of a flower found in Connecticut, which vegetates when
suspended in the air. She brought one to Europe. What can be
this Aower? It would be a curious present to this continent.
The accommodation likely to take place between the Dutch
and the Emperor, leaves us without that unfortunate resource for
news which wars give us. The Emperor has certainly had in
view the Bavarian exchange of which you have heard; but so
formidable an opposition presented itself, that he has thought
proper to disavow it. The Turks show a disposition to go to war
with him; but if this country can prevail on them to remain in
peace, they will do so.
It has been thought that the two Im-
perial courts have a plan of expelling the Turks from Europe.
It is really a pity so charming a country should remain in the
hands of a people whose religion forbids the admission of science
and the arts among them. We should wish success to the object
of the two empires, if they meant to leave the country in pos-
session of the Greek inhabitants. We might then expect, once
more, to see the language of Homer and Demosthenes a living
language. For I am persuaded the modern Greek would easily
.
get back to its classical models. But this is not intended. They
only propose to put the Greeks under other masters; to substi-
tute one set of barbarians for another.
Colonel Humphreys having satisfied you that all attempts
would be fruitless here to obtain money or other advantages for
your college, I need add nothing on that head. It is a method
of supporting colleges of which they have no idea, though they
practice it for the support of their lazy monkish institutions.
I have the honor to be, with the highest respect and esteem,
Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.
## p. 8252 (#452) ###########################################
8252
THOMAS JEFFERSON
LETTER TO JAMES MADISON
Y
M
PARIS, December 20th, 1787.
Dear Sir:
LAST to you was of October the 8th, by the Count de
Moustier. Yours of July the 18th, September the 6th, and
October the 24th were successively received yesterday, the
day before, and three or four days before that. I have only had
time to read the letters; the printed papers communicated with
them, however interesting, being obliged to lie over till I finish
my dispatches for the packet, which dispatches must go from
hence the day after to-morrow. I have much to thank you for;
first and most for the cyphered paragraph respecting myself.
These little informations are very material towards forming my
own decisions. I would be glad even to know when any indi-
vidual member thinks I have gone wrong in any instance. If I
know myself, it would not excite ill blood in me; while it would
assist to guide my conduct, perhaps to justify it, and to keep me
to my duty, alert. I must thank you, too, for the information in
Thomas Burke's case; though you will have found by a subse-
quent letter that I have asked of you a further investigation of
that matter. It is to gratify the lady who is at the head of the
convent wherein my daughters are, and who, by her attachment
and attention to them, lays me under great obligations. I shall
hope, therefore, still to receive from you the result of all the
further inquiries my second letter had asked. The parcel of rice
which you informed me had miscarried, accompanied my letter
to the Delegates of South Carolina. Mr. Bourgoin was to be the
bearer of both; and both were delivered into the hands of his
relation here, who introduced him to me, and who, at a subse-
quent moment, undertook to convey them to Mr. Bourgoin. This
person was an engraver, particularly recommended to Dr. Frank-
lin and Mr. Hopkinson. Perhaps he may have mislaid the little
parcel of rice among his baggage. I am much pleased that the
sale of western lands is so successful. I hope they will absorb
all the certificates of our domestic debt speedily, in the first
place; and that then, offered for cash, they will do the same by
our foreign ones.
The seasons admitting only of operations in the cabinet,
and these being in a great measure secret, I have little to fill a
## p. 8253 (#453) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
8253
letter. I will therefore make up the deficiency by adding a few
words on the constitution proposed by our convention.
I like much the general idea of framing a government which
should go on of itself, peaceably, without needing continual recur-
rence to the State legislatures. I like the organization of the
government into legislative, judiciary, and executive. I like the
power given the legislature to levy taxes; and for that reason
solely, I approve of the greater House being chosen by the
people directly. For though I think a House so chosen will be
very far inferior to the present Congress, will be very illy quali-
fied to legislate for the Union, for foreign nations, &c. , yet this
evil does not weigh against the good, of preserving inviolate the
fundamental principle that the people are not to be taxed but
by representatives chosen immediately by themselves.
tivated by the compromise of the opposite claims of the great
and little States, of the latter to equal, and the former to pro-
portional influence. I am much pleased, too, with the substitution
of voting by person, instead of that of voting by States; and I
like the negative given to the Executive, conjointly with a third
of either House; though I should have liked it better, had the
judiciary been associated for that purpose, or vested separately
with a similar power. There are other good things of less mo-
ment.
I will now tell you what I do not like. First, the omis-
sion of a bill of rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of
sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection
against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and
unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury
in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by
the laws of nations. To say, as Mr. Wilson does, that a bill of
rights was not necessary, because all is reserved in the case of
the general government which is not given, while in the particu-
lar ones all is given which is not reserved, might do for the
audience to which it was addressed: but it is surely a gratis dic-
tum, the reverse of which might just as well be said; and it is
opposed by strong inferences from the body of the instrument, as
well as from the omission of the clause of our present Confedera-
tion which has made the reservation in express terms.
It was
hard to conclude, because there has been a want of uniformity
among the States as to the cases of trial by jury, because some
have been so incautious as to dispense with this mode of trial in
## p. 8254 (#454) ###########################################
8254
THOMAS JEFFERSON
certain cases, therefore the more prudent States shall be reduced
to the same level of calamity.
It would have been much more
just and wise to have concluded the other way; that as most of
the States' had preserved with jealousy this sacred palladium of
liberty, those who had wandered should be brought back to it:
and to have established general right rather than general wrong.
For I consider all the ill as established which may be established.
I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take
away; and Congress will have a right to take away trials by jury
in all civil cases. Let me add, that a bill of rights is what the
people are entitled to against every government on earth, general
or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest
on inference.
The second feature I dislike, and strongly dislike, is the aban-
donment in every instance of the principle of rotation in office,
and most particularly in the case of the President. Reason and
experience tell us that the first magistrate will always be re-
elected if he may be re-elected. He is then an officer for life.
This once observed, it becomes of so much consequence to cer-
tain nations to have a friend or a foe at the head of our affairs,
that they will interfere with money and with arms. A Galloman
or an Angloman will be supported by the nation he befriends.
If once elected, and at a second or third election outvoted by
one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold pos-
session of the reins of government, be supported by the States
voting for him, - especially if they be the central ones, lying
in a compact body themselves and separating their opponents;
and they will be aided by one nation in Europe while the
majority are aided by another. The election of a President of
America, some years hence, will be much more interesting to
certain nations of Europe than ever the election of a king of
Poland was. Reflect on all the instances in history, ancient and
modern, of elective monarchies, and say if they do not give
foundation for my fears; the Roman emperors, the popes while
they were of any importance, the German emperors till they
became hereditary in practice, the kings of Poland, the deys of
the Ottoman dependencies. It may be said that if elections
are to be attended with these disorders, the less frequently they
are repeated the better. But experience says, that to free them
from disorder they must be rendered less interesting by a neces-
sity of change. No foreign power, no domestic party, will waste
## p. 8255 (#455) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
8255
their blood and money to elect a person who must go out at
the end of a short period. The power of removing every fourth
year by the vote of the people is a power which they will not
exercise; and if they are disposed to exercise it, they would not
be permitted. The king of Poland is removable every day by
the Diet. But they never remove him. Nor would Russia, the
Emperor, etc. , permit them to do it. Smaller objections are,
the appeals on matters of fact as well as laws; and the binding
all persons, legislative, executive, and judiciary, by oath, to main-
tain that Constitution. I do not pretend to decide what would
be the best method of procuring the establishment of the mani-
fold good things in this Constitution, and of getting rid of the
bad. Whether by adopting it, in hopes of future amendment; or
after it shall have been duly weighed and canvassed by the peo-
ple, after seeing the parts they generally dislike, and those they
generally approve, to say to them, “We see now what you
wish. You are willing to give to your federal government such-
and-such powers; but you wish at the same time to have such-
and-such fundamental rights secured to you, and certain sources
of convulsion taken away.
Be it so. Send together deputies
again. Let them establish your fundamental rights by a sacro-
sanct declaration, and let them pass the parts of the Constitution
you have approved. These will give powers to your federal gov-
ernment sufficient for your happiness. ”
This is what might be said, and would probably produce a
speedy, more perfect, and more permanent form of government.
At all events, I hope you will not be discouraged from making
other trials, if the present one should fail. We are never per-
mitted to despair of the commonwealth. I have thus told you
freely what I like, and what I dislike, merely as a matter of curi-
osity; for I know it is not in my power to offer matter of infor-
mation to your judgment, which has been formed after hearing
and weighing everything which the wisdom of man could offer
on these subjects. I own, I am not a friend to a very energetic
government. It is always oppressive. It places the governors
indeed more at their ease, at the expense of the people. The late
rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it
should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen States
in the course of eleven years is but one for each State in a cen-
tury and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor
will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent
## p. 8256 (#456) ###########################################
8256
THOMAS JEFFERSON
And say
insurrections. In England, where the hand of power is heavier
than with us, there are seldom half a dozen years without an in-
surrection. In France, where it is still heavier, but less despotic
as Montesquieu supposes than in some other countries, and where
there are always two or three hundred thousand men ready to
crush insurrections, there have been three in the course of the
three years I have been here, in every one of which greater num-
bers were engaged than in Massachusetts, and a great deal more
blood was spilt. In Turkey, where the sole nod of the despot is
death, insurrections are the events of every day. Compare again
the ferocious depredations of their insurgents with the order, the
moderation, and the almost self-extinguishment of ours.
finally whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the
government, or information to the people. This last is the most
certain and the most legitimate engine of government. Educate
and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see
that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they
will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of edu-
cation to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance
for the preservation of our liberty. After all, it is my principle
that the will of the majority should prevail. If they approve the
proposed Constitution in all its parts, I shall concur in it cheer-
fully, in hopes they will amend it whenever they shall find it
works wrong
This reliance cannot deceive us as long as
remain virtuous; and I think we shall be so as long as agricult-
ure is our principal object, which will be the case while there
remain vacant lands in any part of America. When we get piled
upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become
corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do
there. I have tired you by this time with disquisitions which you
have already heard repeated by others a thousand and a thou-
sand times; and therefore shall only add assurances of the esteem
and attachment with which I have the honor to be, dear sir,
your affectionate friend and servant.
P. S. -The instability of our laws is really an immense evil.
I think it would be well to provide in our constitutions, that
there shall always be a twelvemonth between the engrossing a
bill and passing it; that it should then be offered to its passage
without changing a word; and that if circumstances should be
thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two-thirds of
both Houses, instead of a bare majority.
we
-
## p. 8257 (#457) ###########################################
8257
DOUGLAS JERROLD
(1803-1857)
HERE is a winning quality in Douglas Jerrold, whether as man
or writer. Popularly known as a brilliant wit, and often
regarded as a cynical one, he was a manly and big-hearted
moralist, a hater of sham, a lover of lovely things,- one who did
good while he gave pleasure.
He was born in London January 30, 1803;, his father, Samuel Jer-
rold, being actor and theatre lessee of the not too successful kind.
Douglas William (the son's full name) had no regular education: he
learned to read and write from a member of a theatrical company,
and being of a studious turn, got by his
own exertions such knowledge of Latin,
French, and Italian as should enable him
to make the acquaintance of their dramatic
literature. He acted occasionally as a boy
and young man, but never cared for a play-
er's life. For the two years between 1813
and 1815 he served as midshipman in the
navy: the episode was not ill suited to his
careless, generous nature. He returned to
London in 1816 and apprenticed himself to
a printer. The family was poor, and Doug-
las eked out his actor-father's income by
doing journalistic work and articles for peri- DOUGLAS JERROLD
odicals. Soon he began dramatic composi-
tion with the play (More Frightened than Hurt,' which was produced
in London in 1820; and although looked at askance by managers at
first, was eventually translated into French, and twice retranslated into
English and played under other names. His earliest genuine hit, how-
ever, was the lively comedy-farce (Black-Eyed Susan: or, All in the
Downs) (1829), which was brought out at the Surrey Theatre, and was
acted four hundred times that year. From this encouragement Jer-
rold made forty plays during twenty-odd years, many of the dramas
scoring successes. Other well-known pieces are (The Rent Day,'
Nell Gwynne,' (Time Works Wonders,' and 'The Bubbles of the
Day. ' In 1836 he managed the Strand Theatre, which proved a bad
venture.
XIV-517
(
>
## p. 8258 (#458) ###########################################
8258
DOUGLAS JERROLD
All this dramatic activity, even, does not represent Jerrold's best
work; nor did it call out his most typical and welcome powers. He
continued to do other literary work, and his journalistic career was
strenuous. He contributed to leading papers like the Athenæum and
Blackwood's, and edited various periodicals, such as the Illuminated
Magazine, the Shilling Magazine, and the Heads of the People,- in
most cases with a disastrous financial result. He made a success,
however, of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, for which he wrote in each
number three columns of leaders and did literary reviews, receiving
£1,000 salary.
When Punch was founded in 1841, Jerrold's happiest vein sought
an outlet. He at once became a contributor, and continued to be
one for the rest of his life, some sixteen years. His articles, signed
Q. , were one of the features of that famous purveyor of representative
British fun, pictorial and literary.
The series of Punch papers per-
haps most familiar to the general public appeared as a book in 1846,
under the title (Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. ) "Punch's Letters to
his Son' and Cakes and Ale) are also widely known. Jerrold him-
self cared most for his writings in which his serious views and deeper
purpose came out: the Chronicles of Clovernook,' his pet book, is
an example. Indeed, the fact that he was an advanced thinker, a
broad-minded humanitarian preacher, is illustrated in such a moral
allegory as that here selected. Jerrold's reputation as a wit has
naturally enough deflected attention from this aspect of his work,
which well deserves appreciation. A collective edition of his works
in eight volumes appeared in 1851-4; and in 1888 his son, William
Blanchard Jerrold, edited in book form the Wit and Wisdom of
Douglas Jerrold. '
Jerrold was short and stocky in person, with clear-cut features,
blue eyes, and in his later years picturesque gray hair. He was of
a social nature; fond of music, a good singer himself; impulsive,
fiery, hasty often in letting loose the arrows of his wit, – but sim-
ple, almost boyish in manner, and a warm-hearted man whose interest
in the right was intense. Always impractical, he left his affairs in
a complicated condition. In short, his was a character whose faults
are palpable but which is withal very lovable.
## p. 8259 (#459) ###########################################
DOUGLAS JERROLD
8259
THE TRAGEDY OF THE TILL
THE HERMIT'S STORY
(
* I
-
T is a strange tale, but it hath the recommendation of brev-
ity. Some folks may see nothing in it but the tricksiness
of an extravagant spirit; and some perchance may pluck a
heart of meaning out of it. However, be it as it may, you shall
hear it, sir.
“There was a man called Isaac Pugwash, a dweller in a mis-
erable slough of London, a squalid denizen of one of the foul
nooks of that city of Plutus. He kept a shop; which, though
small as a cabin, was visited as granary and storehouse by half
the neighborhood. All the creature comforts of the poor - from
—
bread to that questionable superfluity, small beer — were sold by
Isaac. Strange it was that with such a trade Pugwash grew not
rich. He had many bad debts, and of all shopkeepers was most
unfortunate in false coin. Certain it is, he had neither eye nor
ear for bad money. Counterfeit semblances of majesty beguiled
him out of bread and butter, and cheese, and red herring, just
as readily as legitimate royalty struck at the mint. Malice might
impute something of this to the political principles of Pugwash;
who, as he had avowed himself again and again, was no lover of
a monarchy. Nevertheless, I cannot think Pugwash had so little
regard for the countenance of majesty as to welcome it as readily
when silvered copper as when sterling silver. No: a wild, foolish
enthusiast was Pugwash; but in the household matter of good
and bad money he had very wholesome prejudices. He had a
reasonable wish to grow rich, yet was entirely ignorant of the
byways and short cuts to wealth. He would have sauntered
through life with his hands in his pockets and a daisy in his
mouth; and dying with just enough in his house to pay the
undertaker, would have thought himself a fortunate fellow,-
he was, in the words of Mrs. Pugwash, such a careless, foolish,
dreaming creature. He was cheated every hour by a customer
of some kind; and yet to deny credit to anybody — he would as
soon have denied the wife of his bosom. His customers knew
the weakness, and failed not to exercise it. To be sure, now
and then, fresh from conjugal counsel, he would refuse to add
a single herring to a debtor's score: no, he would not be sent
to the workhouse by anybody. A quarter of an hour after, the
denied herring, with an added small loaf, was given to the little
## p. 8260 (#460) ###########################################
8260
DOUGLAS JERROLD
girl sent to the shop by the rejected mother: he couldn't bear
to see poor children wanting anything. '
"Pugwash had another unprofitable weakness. He was fond of
what he called Nature, though in his dim close shop he could
give her but a stilling welcome. Nevertheless he had the earliest
primroses on his counter,-'they threw,' he said, such a nice
light about the place. A sly, knavish customer presented Isaac
with a pot of polyanthuses; and won by the flowery gift, Pug-
wash gave the donor ruinous credit. The man with wall-flowers
regularly stopped at Isaac's shop, and for only sixpence Pugwash
would tell his wife he had made the place a Paradise. If we
can't go to Nature, Sally, isn't it a pleasant thing to be able to
bring Nature to us? Whereupon Mrs. Pugwash would declare
that a man with at least three children to provide for had no
need to talk of Nature. Nevertheless, the flower-man made his
weekly call. Though at many a house the penny could not every
week be spared to buy a hint, a look of Nature for the darkened
dwellers, Isaac, despite of Mrs. Pugwash, always purchased. It
is a common thing, an old familiar cry,” said the Hermit, “to
see the poor man's florist, to hear his loud-voiced invitation
to take his nosegays, his penny roots; and yet is it a call, a con-
juration of the heart of man overlabored and desponding — walled
in by the gloom of a town — divorced from the fields and their
sweet healthful influences — almost shut out from the sky that
reeks in vapor over him; it is a call that tells him there are
things of the earth besides food and covering to live for; and that
God in his great bounty hath made them for all men. Is it not
so ? ) asked the Hermit.
“Most certainly,” we answered: “it would be the very sinful-
ness of avarice to think otherwise. ”
"Why, sir," said the Hermit benevolently smiling, thus con-
sidered, the loud-lunged city bawler of roots and Aowers becomes
a high benevolence, a peripatetic priest of Nature. Adown dark
lanes and miry alleys he takes sweet remembrances-touching
records of the loveliness of earth, that with their bright looks
and balmy odors cheer and uplift the dumpish heart of man;
that make his soul stir within him; and acknowledge the beau-
tiful. The penny, the ill-spared penny--for it would buy a
wheaten roll — the poor housewife pays for a root of primrose, is
her offering to the hopeful loveliness of Nature; is her testimony
of the soul struggling with the blighting, crushing circumstance
»
((
(
## p. 8261 (#461) ###########################################
DOUGLAS JERROLD
8261
of sordid earth, and sometimes yearning towards earth's sweetest
aspects. Amidst the violence, the coarseness, and the suffering
that may surround and defile the wretched, there must be mo-
ments when the heart escapes, craving for the innocent and
lovely; when the soul makes for itself even of a flower a com-
fort and a refuge. ”
The Hermit paused a moment, and then in blither voice re-
sumed. “But I have strayed a little from the history of our
small tradesman Pugwash. Well, sir, Isaac for some three or four
years kept on his old way, his wife still prophesying in loud and
louder voice the inevitable workhouse. He would so think and
talk of Nature when he should mind his shop; he would so often
snatch a holiday to lose it in the fields, when he should take
stock and balance his books. What was worse, he every week
lost more and more by bad money. With no more sense than a
buzzard, as Mrs. Pugwash said, for a good shilling, he was the
victim of those laborious folks who make their money, with a
fine independence of the State, out of their own materials. It
seemed the common compact of a host of coiners to put off their
base-born offspring upon Isaac Pugwash; who, it must be con-
fessed, bore the loss and the indignity like a Christian martyr.
At last, however, the spirit of the man was stung. A guinea-as
Pugwash believed, of statute gold — was found to be of little less
value than a brass button. Mrs. Pugwash clamored and screamed
as though a besieging foe was in her house; and Pugwash him-
self felt that further patience would be pusillanimity. Where-
upon, sir, what think you Isaac did? Why, he suffered himself to
be driven by the voice and vehemence of his wife to a conjurer,
who in a neighboring attic was a sidereal go-between to the
neighborhood - a vender of intelligence from the stars to all
who sought and duly fee'd him. This magician would declare to
Pugwash the whereabouts of the felon coiner, and — the thought
was anodyne to the hurt mind of Isaac's wife — the knave would
be law-throttled.
“With sad indignant spirit did Isaac Pugwash seek Father
Lotus; for so, sir, was the conjurer called. He was none of your
common wizards. Oh no! he left it to the mere quack-salvers
and mountebanks of his craft to take upon them a haggard so-
lemnity of look, and to drop monosyllables heavy as bullets upon
the ear of the questioner. The mighty and magnificent hocus-
pocus of twelvepenny magicians was scorned by Lotus. There
## p. 8262 (#462) ###########################################
8262
DOUGLAS JERROLD
a
was nothing in his look or manner that showed him the worse
for keeping company with spirits; on the contrary, perhaps the
privileges he enjoyed of them served to make him only the more
blithe and jocund. He might have passed for a gentleman at
once easy and cunning in the law; his sole knowledge, that
of labyrinthine sentences made expressly to wind poor common-
sense on parchment. He had an eye like a snake, a constant
smile upon his lip, a cheek colored like an apple, and an activity
of movement wide away from the solemnity of the conjurer. He
was a small, eel-figured man of about sixty, dressed in glossy
black, with silver buckles and flowing periwig. It was impossible
not to have a better opinion of sprites and demons, seeing that
so nice, so polished a gentleman was their especial pet. And
then, his attic had no mystic circle, no curtain of black, no
death's-head, no mummy of apocryphal dragon,- the vulgar
catchpennies of fortune-telling trader. There was not even
pack of cards to elevate the soul of man into the regions of the
mystic world. No, the room was plainly yet comfortably set out.
Father Lotus reposed in an easy-chair, nursing a snow-white cat
upon his knee; now tenderly patting the creature with one hand,
and now turning over a little Hebrew volume with the other.
If a man wished to have dealings with sorry demons, could he
desire a nicer little gentleman than Father Lotus to make the
acquaintance for him? In few words Isaac Pugwash told his
story to the smiling magician. He had, amongst much other bad
.
money, taken a counterfeit guinea: could Father Lotus discover
the evil-doer ?
« Yes, yes, yes,' said Lotus, smiling, of course - to be sure;
but that will do but little: in your present state But let me
look at your tongue. ' Pugwash obediently thrust the organ
forth. Yes, yes, as I thought. 'Twill do you no good to hang
the rogue; none at all. What we must do is this, — we must
cure you of the disease. '
«Disease! ) cried Pugwash. Bating the loss of my money, I
was never better in all my days. '
« Ha! my poor man,' said Lotus, it is the benevolence of
nature, that she often goes on quietly breaking us up, ourselves
knowing no more of the mischief than a girl's doll when the girl
rips up its seams. Your malady is of the perceptive organs.
Leave you alone and you'll sink to the condition of a baboon. '
«God bless me! ' cried Pugwash.
(
(
## p. 8263 (#463) ###########################################
DOUGLAS JERROLD
8263
(
«CA jackass with sense to choose a thistle from a toadstool
will be a reasoning creature to you! for consider, my poor soul,'
said Lotus in a compassionate voice,- in this world of tribula-
tion we inhabit, consider what a benighted nincompoop is man,
if he cannot elect a good shilling from a bad one. '
« I have not a sharp eye for money,' said Pugwash modestly.
It's a gift, sir; I'm assured it's a gift. '
«A sharp eye! an eye of horn,' said Lotus. (Never mind,
I can remedy all that; I can restore you to the world and to
yourself. The greatest physicians, the wisest philosophers, have
in the profundity of their wisdom made money the test of wit.
A man is believed mad; he is a very rich man, and his heir has
very good reason to believe him lunatic: whereupon the heir, the
madman's careful friend, calls about the sufferer a company of
wizards to sit in judgment on the suspected brain, and report a
verdict thereupon. Well, ninety-nine times out of the hundred,
what is the first question put as test of reason? Why, a question
of money. The physician, laying certain pieces of current coin
in his palm, asks of the patient their several value. If he answer
truly, why truly there is hope; but if he stammer or falter at the
coin, the verdict runs, and wisely runs, mad— incapably mad. '
« I'm not so bad as that,' said Pugwash, a little alarmed.
« Don't say how you are — it's presumption in any man,'
(
-
cried Lotus. Nevertheless, be as you may, I'll cure you if you'll
give attention to my remedy. '
«I'll give my whole soul to it,' exclaimed Pugwash.
+ This is an interlineation made at a later period — apparently after the
question as to the signing of the Declaration was raised. Jefferson has also
written the following on a slip and pasted it on the sheet:-
“Some erroneous statements of the proceedings on the declaration of inde-
pendence having got before the public in latter times, Mr. Samuel A. Wells
asked explanations of me, which are given in my letter to him of May 12, 19.
before and now again referred to. I took notes in my place while these
things were going on, and at their close wrote them out in form and with cor-
rectness, and from 1 to 7 of the two preceding sheets are the originals then
written; as the two following are of the earlier debates on the Confederation,
which I took in like manner. ”
## p. 8245 (#445) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
8245
ON FICTION
From a letter to Robert Skipwith, August 3d, 1771
I
SAT down with the design of executing your request to form
a catalogue of books to the amount of about £50 sterl. , but
could by no means satisfy myself with any partial choice I
could make. Thinking therefore it might be agreeable to you,
I have framed such a general collection as I think you would
wish and might in time find convenient to procure. Out of this
you will choose for yourself to the amount you mentioned for
the present year, and may hereafter proceed in completing the
whole. A view of the second column in this catalogue would, I
suppose, extort a smile from the face of gravity. Peace to its
wisdom! Let me not awaken it. A little attention, however, to
the nature of the human mind evinces that the entertainments
of fiction are useful as well as pleasant. That they are pleasant
when well written, every person feels who reads. But wherein
is its utility ? asks the reverend sage, big with the notion that
nothing can be useful but the learned lumber of Greek and
Roman reading with which his head is stored.
I answer, everything is useful which contributes to fix in
the principles and practice of virtue. When any original act of
charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our
sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty,
and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and
grateful acts also. On the contrary, when we see or read of any
atrocious deed, we are disgusted with its deformity and conceive
an abhorrence of vice. Now every emotion of this kind is an
exercise of our virtuous dispositions; and dispositions of the mind,
like limbs of the body, acquire strength in exercise. But exer-
cise produces habit; and in the instance of which we speak,
the exercise, being of the moral feelings, produces a habit of
thinking and acting virtuously. We never reflect whether the
story we read be truth or fiction. I appeal to every reader of
feeling and sentiment, whether the fictitious murder of Duncan
by Macbeth in Shakespeare does not excite in him as great a
horror of villainy as the real one of Henry IV. by Ravaillac, as
related by Davila ? And whether the fidelity of Nelson and gen-
erosity of Blandford in Marmontel do not dilate his breast and
elevate his sentiments as much as any similar incident which real
## p. 8246 (#446) ###########################################
8246
THOMAS JEFFERSON
history can furnish? We are therefore wisely framed to be as
warmly interested for a fictitious as for a real personage. The
field of imagination is thus laid open to our use, and lessons
may be formed to illustrate and carry home to the heart every
moral rule of life. Thus a lively and lasting sense of filial duty
is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter
by reading King Lear' than by all the dry volumes of ethics
and divinity that ever were written. This is my idea of well-
written romance, or tragedy, comedy, and epic poetry.
THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF SLAVERY
From Notes on Virginia,' 1782
It
T is difficult to determine on the standard by which the man-
ners of a nation may be tried, whether catholic or particular.
It is more difficult for a native to bring to that standard the
manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There
must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our
people produced by the existence of slavery among us.
The
whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exer-
cise of the most boisterous passions, - the most unremitting des-
potism on the one part and degrading submissions on the other.
Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an
imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in
him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what
he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in
his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance
of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one
that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The
parent storms; the child looks on, catches the lineaments of
wrath, puts on the same airs, in the circle of smaller slaves gives
a lcose to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and
daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with
odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain
his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And
with what execrations should the statesman be loaded who, per-
mitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of
the other, transforms those into despots and these into enemies,
destroys the morals of the one part and the amor patria of the
other! For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must
## p. 8247 (#447) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
82 47
be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live
and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of
his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeav-
ors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own
miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from
him. With the morals of the people, their industry is destroyed.
For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can
make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the propri.
.
etors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to
labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when
we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds
of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God ? that
they are not to be violated but with his wrath ? Indeed I trem-
ble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his
justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature,
and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune,
an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may
become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty
has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.
But it is impossible to be temperate, and to pursue this subject
through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history
natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force
their way into every one's mind. I think a change already per-
ceptible, since the origin of the present revolution.
The spirit
of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust,
his condition mollifying; the way, I hope, preparing under the
auspices of heaven for a total emancipation, and that this is dis-
posed in the order of events to be with the consent of the mas-
ters, rather than by their extirpation.
LETTER TO MR. HOPKINSON
M'
Paris, December 23d, 1786.
Dear Sir:
Y LAST letter to you was dated August 14th. Yours of May
27th and June 28th were not then received, but have
been since. I take the liberty of putting under your cover
another letter to Mrs. Champis, as also an inquiry after a Dr.
Griffiths. A letter to M. Le Vieillard, from the person he had con-
sulted about the essence L'Orient, will convey to you the result of
## p. 8248 (#448) ###########################################
8248
THOMAS JEFFERSON
my researches into that article. Your spring-block for assisting a
vessel in sailing cannot be tried here; because the Seine being not
more than about forty toises wide, and running swiftly, there is no
such thing on it as a vessel with sails. I thank you for the volume
of the Philadelphia transactions, which came safely to hand, and
is in my opinion a very valuable volume, and contains many
precious papers. The paccan-nut is, as you conjecture, the Illi-
nois nut.
The former is the vulgar name south of the Potomac,
as also with the Indians and Spaniards, and enters also into the
botanical name, which is Juglano Paccan. I have many volumes
of the Encyclopédie for yourself and Dr. Franklin; but as a
winter passage is bad for books, and before the spring the pack-
ets will begin to sail from Havre to New York, I shall detain
them till then. You must not presume too strongly that your
comb-footed bird is known to M. De Buffon. He did not know
our panther. I gave him the stripped skin of one I bought in
.
Philadelphia, and it presents him a new species, which will appear
in his next volumes. I have convinced him that our deer is not
a Chevreuil; and would you believe that many letters to differ-
ent acquaintances in Virginia, where this animal is so common,
have never enabled me to present him with a large pair of their
horns, a blue and red skin stuffed, to show him their colors, at
different seasons. He has never seen the horns of what we call
the elk. This would decide whether it be an elk or a deer.
I am very much pleased with your project on the harmonica,
and the prospect of your succeeding in the application of keys to
it. It will be the greatest present which has been made to the
musical world this century, not excepting the piano-forte. If its
tone approaches that given by the finger as nearly only as the
harpsichord does that of the harp, it will be very valuable. I
have lately examined a foot-bass newly invented here by the
celebrated Krumfoltz. It is precisely a piano-forte, about ten
feet long, eighteen inches broad, and nine inches deep. It is of
one octave only, from fa to fa. The part where the keys are, pro-
jects at the side in order to lengthen the levers of the keys. It
is placed on the floor, and the harpsichord or other piano-forte is
set over it, the foot acting in concert on that, while the fingers
play on this. There are three unison chords to every note, of
strong brass wire, and the lowest have wire wrapped on them as
the lowest in the piano-forte. The chords give a fine, clear, deep
tone, almost like the pipe of an organ. Have they connected
## p. 8249 (#449) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
8249
you with our mint? My friend Monroe promised me he would
take care for you in that, or perhaps the establishment of that at
New York may have been incompatible with your residence in
Philadelphia. A person here has invented a method of coining
the French écu of six livres, so as to strike both faces and the
edge at one stroke, and makes a coin as beautiful as a medal.
No country has ever yet produced such a coin. They are made
cheaper too. As yet, he has only made a few to show the per-
fection of his manner. I am endeavoring to procure one to send
to Congress as a model for their coinage. They will consider
whether, on establishing a new mint, it will be worth while to
buy his machines if he will furnish them. A dislocation of my
right wrist, which happened to me about a month after the date
of my last letter to you, has disabled me from writing three
months. I do it now in pain, and only in cases of necessity or
of strong inclination, having as yet no other use of my hand. I
put under your cover a letter from my daughter to her friend.
She joins me in respects to your good mother, to Mrs. Hopkin-
son and yourself, to whom I proffer assurances of the esteem
with which I am, dear Sir, your sincere friend and servant.
LETTER TO DR. STYLES
I
PARIS, July 17th, 1785.
Sir:
HAVE long deferred doing myself the honor of writing to you,
wishing for an opportunity to accompany my letter with a
copy of the Bibliothèque Physico-ceconomique'; a book pub-
lished here lately in four small volumes, and which gives an ac-
count of all the improvements in the arts which have been made
for some years past. I flatter myself you will find in it many
things agreeable and useful. I accompany it with the volumes
of the Connoissance des Tems for the years 1781, 1784, 1785, 1786,
1787. But why, you will ask, do I send you old almanacs, which
are proverbially useless ? Because in these publications have
appeared, from time to time, some of the most precious things
in astronomy. I have searched out those particular volumes
which might be valuable to you on this account. That of 1781
contains De la Caille's catalogue of fixed stars reduced to the
commencement of that year, and a table of the aberrations and
## p. 8250 (#450) ###########################################
8250
THOMAS JEFFERSON
nutations of the principal stars. 1784 contains the same cata-
logue with the nebuleuses of Messier. 1785 contains the famous
catalogue of Flamsteed, with the positions of the stars reduced to
the beginning of the year 1784, and which supersedes the use of
that immense book. 1786 gives you Euler's lunar tables cor-
rected; and 1787, the tables for the planet Herschel. The two
last needed not an apology, as not being within the description
of old almanacs, It is fixed on grounds which scarcely admit a
doubt that the planet Herschel was seen by Mayer in the year
1756, and was considered by him as one of the zodiacal stars,
and as such, arranged in his catalogue, being the 964th which
he describes. This 964th of Mayer has been since missing, and
the calculations for the planet Herschel show that it should have
been, at the time of Mayer's observation, where he places his
964th star. The volume of 1787 gives you Mayer's catalogue of
the zodiacal stars. The researches of the natural philosophers of
Europe seem mostly in the field of chemistry, and here prin-
cipally on the subjects of air and fire. The analysis of these
two subjects presents to us very new ideas. When speaking of
the Bibliothèque Physico-ceconomique,' I should have observed
that since its publication, a man in this city has invented a
method of moving a vessel on the water by a machine worked
within the vessel. I went to see it. He did not know himself
the principle of his own invention. It is a screw with a very
broad thin worm, or rather it is a thin plate with its edge ap-
plied spirally round an axis. This being turned, operates on the
air as a screw does, and may be literally said to screw the vessel
along; the thinness of the medium, and its want of resistance,
occasion a loss of much of the force. The screw, I think, would
be more effectual if placed below the surface of the water. I
very much suspect that a countryman of ours, Mr. Bushnel of
Connecticut, is entitled to the merit of a prior discovery of this
use of the screw. I remember to have heard of his submarine
navigation during the war; and from what Colonel Humphreys
now tells me, I conjecture that the screw was the power he used.
He joined to this a machine for exploding under water at a
given moment. If it were not too great a liberty for a stranger
to take, I would ask from him a narration of his actual experi-
ments, with or without a communication of his principle, as he
should choose. If he thought proper to communicate it, I would
I
engage never to disclose it, unless I could find an opportunity
## p. 8251 (#451) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
8251
of doing it for his benefit. I thank you for your information as
to the great bones found on the Hudson River. I suspect that
they must have been of the same animal with those found on the
Ohio; and if so, they could not have belonged to any human
figure, because they are accompanied with tusks of the size, form,
and substance of those of the elephant. I have seen a part of
I
the ivory, which was very good. The animal itself must have
been much larger than an elephant. Mrs. Adams gives me an
account of a flower found in Connecticut, which vegetates when
suspended in the air. She brought one to Europe. What can be
this Aower? It would be a curious present to this continent.
The accommodation likely to take place between the Dutch
and the Emperor, leaves us without that unfortunate resource for
news which wars give us. The Emperor has certainly had in
view the Bavarian exchange of which you have heard; but so
formidable an opposition presented itself, that he has thought
proper to disavow it. The Turks show a disposition to go to war
with him; but if this country can prevail on them to remain in
peace, they will do so.
It has been thought that the two Im-
perial courts have a plan of expelling the Turks from Europe.
It is really a pity so charming a country should remain in the
hands of a people whose religion forbids the admission of science
and the arts among them. We should wish success to the object
of the two empires, if they meant to leave the country in pos-
session of the Greek inhabitants. We might then expect, once
more, to see the language of Homer and Demosthenes a living
language. For I am persuaded the modern Greek would easily
.
get back to its classical models. But this is not intended. They
only propose to put the Greeks under other masters; to substi-
tute one set of barbarians for another.
Colonel Humphreys having satisfied you that all attempts
would be fruitless here to obtain money or other advantages for
your college, I need add nothing on that head. It is a method
of supporting colleges of which they have no idea, though they
practice it for the support of their lazy monkish institutions.
I have the honor to be, with the highest respect and esteem,
Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.
## p. 8252 (#452) ###########################################
8252
THOMAS JEFFERSON
LETTER TO JAMES MADISON
Y
M
PARIS, December 20th, 1787.
Dear Sir:
LAST to you was of October the 8th, by the Count de
Moustier. Yours of July the 18th, September the 6th, and
October the 24th were successively received yesterday, the
day before, and three or four days before that. I have only had
time to read the letters; the printed papers communicated with
them, however interesting, being obliged to lie over till I finish
my dispatches for the packet, which dispatches must go from
hence the day after to-morrow. I have much to thank you for;
first and most for the cyphered paragraph respecting myself.
These little informations are very material towards forming my
own decisions. I would be glad even to know when any indi-
vidual member thinks I have gone wrong in any instance. If I
know myself, it would not excite ill blood in me; while it would
assist to guide my conduct, perhaps to justify it, and to keep me
to my duty, alert. I must thank you, too, for the information in
Thomas Burke's case; though you will have found by a subse-
quent letter that I have asked of you a further investigation of
that matter. It is to gratify the lady who is at the head of the
convent wherein my daughters are, and who, by her attachment
and attention to them, lays me under great obligations. I shall
hope, therefore, still to receive from you the result of all the
further inquiries my second letter had asked. The parcel of rice
which you informed me had miscarried, accompanied my letter
to the Delegates of South Carolina. Mr. Bourgoin was to be the
bearer of both; and both were delivered into the hands of his
relation here, who introduced him to me, and who, at a subse-
quent moment, undertook to convey them to Mr. Bourgoin. This
person was an engraver, particularly recommended to Dr. Frank-
lin and Mr. Hopkinson. Perhaps he may have mislaid the little
parcel of rice among his baggage. I am much pleased that the
sale of western lands is so successful. I hope they will absorb
all the certificates of our domestic debt speedily, in the first
place; and that then, offered for cash, they will do the same by
our foreign ones.
The seasons admitting only of operations in the cabinet,
and these being in a great measure secret, I have little to fill a
## p. 8253 (#453) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
8253
letter. I will therefore make up the deficiency by adding a few
words on the constitution proposed by our convention.
I like much the general idea of framing a government which
should go on of itself, peaceably, without needing continual recur-
rence to the State legislatures. I like the organization of the
government into legislative, judiciary, and executive. I like the
power given the legislature to levy taxes; and for that reason
solely, I approve of the greater House being chosen by the
people directly. For though I think a House so chosen will be
very far inferior to the present Congress, will be very illy quali-
fied to legislate for the Union, for foreign nations, &c. , yet this
evil does not weigh against the good, of preserving inviolate the
fundamental principle that the people are not to be taxed but
by representatives chosen immediately by themselves.
tivated by the compromise of the opposite claims of the great
and little States, of the latter to equal, and the former to pro-
portional influence. I am much pleased, too, with the substitution
of voting by person, instead of that of voting by States; and I
like the negative given to the Executive, conjointly with a third
of either House; though I should have liked it better, had the
judiciary been associated for that purpose, or vested separately
with a similar power. There are other good things of less mo-
ment.
I will now tell you what I do not like. First, the omis-
sion of a bill of rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of
sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection
against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and
unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury
in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by
the laws of nations. To say, as Mr. Wilson does, that a bill of
rights was not necessary, because all is reserved in the case of
the general government which is not given, while in the particu-
lar ones all is given which is not reserved, might do for the
audience to which it was addressed: but it is surely a gratis dic-
tum, the reverse of which might just as well be said; and it is
opposed by strong inferences from the body of the instrument, as
well as from the omission of the clause of our present Confedera-
tion which has made the reservation in express terms.
It was
hard to conclude, because there has been a want of uniformity
among the States as to the cases of trial by jury, because some
have been so incautious as to dispense with this mode of trial in
## p. 8254 (#454) ###########################################
8254
THOMAS JEFFERSON
certain cases, therefore the more prudent States shall be reduced
to the same level of calamity.
It would have been much more
just and wise to have concluded the other way; that as most of
the States' had preserved with jealousy this sacred palladium of
liberty, those who had wandered should be brought back to it:
and to have established general right rather than general wrong.
For I consider all the ill as established which may be established.
I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take
away; and Congress will have a right to take away trials by jury
in all civil cases. Let me add, that a bill of rights is what the
people are entitled to against every government on earth, general
or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest
on inference.
The second feature I dislike, and strongly dislike, is the aban-
donment in every instance of the principle of rotation in office,
and most particularly in the case of the President. Reason and
experience tell us that the first magistrate will always be re-
elected if he may be re-elected. He is then an officer for life.
This once observed, it becomes of so much consequence to cer-
tain nations to have a friend or a foe at the head of our affairs,
that they will interfere with money and with arms. A Galloman
or an Angloman will be supported by the nation he befriends.
If once elected, and at a second or third election outvoted by
one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold pos-
session of the reins of government, be supported by the States
voting for him, - especially if they be the central ones, lying
in a compact body themselves and separating their opponents;
and they will be aided by one nation in Europe while the
majority are aided by another. The election of a President of
America, some years hence, will be much more interesting to
certain nations of Europe than ever the election of a king of
Poland was. Reflect on all the instances in history, ancient and
modern, of elective monarchies, and say if they do not give
foundation for my fears; the Roman emperors, the popes while
they were of any importance, the German emperors till they
became hereditary in practice, the kings of Poland, the deys of
the Ottoman dependencies. It may be said that if elections
are to be attended with these disorders, the less frequently they
are repeated the better. But experience says, that to free them
from disorder they must be rendered less interesting by a neces-
sity of change. No foreign power, no domestic party, will waste
## p. 8255 (#455) ###########################################
THOMAS JEFFERSON
8255
their blood and money to elect a person who must go out at
the end of a short period. The power of removing every fourth
year by the vote of the people is a power which they will not
exercise; and if they are disposed to exercise it, they would not
be permitted. The king of Poland is removable every day by
the Diet. But they never remove him. Nor would Russia, the
Emperor, etc. , permit them to do it. Smaller objections are,
the appeals on matters of fact as well as laws; and the binding
all persons, legislative, executive, and judiciary, by oath, to main-
tain that Constitution. I do not pretend to decide what would
be the best method of procuring the establishment of the mani-
fold good things in this Constitution, and of getting rid of the
bad. Whether by adopting it, in hopes of future amendment; or
after it shall have been duly weighed and canvassed by the peo-
ple, after seeing the parts they generally dislike, and those they
generally approve, to say to them, “We see now what you
wish. You are willing to give to your federal government such-
and-such powers; but you wish at the same time to have such-
and-such fundamental rights secured to you, and certain sources
of convulsion taken away.
Be it so. Send together deputies
again. Let them establish your fundamental rights by a sacro-
sanct declaration, and let them pass the parts of the Constitution
you have approved. These will give powers to your federal gov-
ernment sufficient for your happiness. ”
This is what might be said, and would probably produce a
speedy, more perfect, and more permanent form of government.
At all events, I hope you will not be discouraged from making
other trials, if the present one should fail. We are never per-
mitted to despair of the commonwealth. I have thus told you
freely what I like, and what I dislike, merely as a matter of curi-
osity; for I know it is not in my power to offer matter of infor-
mation to your judgment, which has been formed after hearing
and weighing everything which the wisdom of man could offer
on these subjects. I own, I am not a friend to a very energetic
government. It is always oppressive. It places the governors
indeed more at their ease, at the expense of the people. The late
rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it
should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen States
in the course of eleven years is but one for each State in a cen-
tury and a half. No country should be so long without one. Nor
will any degree of power in the hands of government prevent
## p. 8256 (#456) ###########################################
8256
THOMAS JEFFERSON
And say
insurrections. In England, where the hand of power is heavier
than with us, there are seldom half a dozen years without an in-
surrection. In France, where it is still heavier, but less despotic
as Montesquieu supposes than in some other countries, and where
there are always two or three hundred thousand men ready to
crush insurrections, there have been three in the course of the
three years I have been here, in every one of which greater num-
bers were engaged than in Massachusetts, and a great deal more
blood was spilt. In Turkey, where the sole nod of the despot is
death, insurrections are the events of every day. Compare again
the ferocious depredations of their insurgents with the order, the
moderation, and the almost self-extinguishment of ours.
finally whether peace is best preserved by giving energy to the
government, or information to the people. This last is the most
certain and the most legitimate engine of government. Educate
and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see
that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they
will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of edu-
cation to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance
for the preservation of our liberty. After all, it is my principle
that the will of the majority should prevail. If they approve the
proposed Constitution in all its parts, I shall concur in it cheer-
fully, in hopes they will amend it whenever they shall find it
works wrong
This reliance cannot deceive us as long as
remain virtuous; and I think we shall be so as long as agricult-
ure is our principal object, which will be the case while there
remain vacant lands in any part of America. When we get piled
upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become
corrupt as in Europe, and go to eating one another as they do
there. I have tired you by this time with disquisitions which you
have already heard repeated by others a thousand and a thou-
sand times; and therefore shall only add assurances of the esteem
and attachment with which I have the honor to be, dear sir,
your affectionate friend and servant.
P. S. -The instability of our laws is really an immense evil.
I think it would be well to provide in our constitutions, that
there shall always be a twelvemonth between the engrossing a
bill and passing it; that it should then be offered to its passage
without changing a word; and that if circumstances should be
thought to require a speedier passage, it should take two-thirds of
both Houses, instead of a bare majority.
we
-
## p. 8257 (#457) ###########################################
8257
DOUGLAS JERROLD
(1803-1857)
HERE is a winning quality in Douglas Jerrold, whether as man
or writer. Popularly known as a brilliant wit, and often
regarded as a cynical one, he was a manly and big-hearted
moralist, a hater of sham, a lover of lovely things,- one who did
good while he gave pleasure.
He was born in London January 30, 1803;, his father, Samuel Jer-
rold, being actor and theatre lessee of the not too successful kind.
Douglas William (the son's full name) had no regular education: he
learned to read and write from a member of a theatrical company,
and being of a studious turn, got by his
own exertions such knowledge of Latin,
French, and Italian as should enable him
to make the acquaintance of their dramatic
literature. He acted occasionally as a boy
and young man, but never cared for a play-
er's life. For the two years between 1813
and 1815 he served as midshipman in the
navy: the episode was not ill suited to his
careless, generous nature. He returned to
London in 1816 and apprenticed himself to
a printer. The family was poor, and Doug-
las eked out his actor-father's income by
doing journalistic work and articles for peri- DOUGLAS JERROLD
odicals. Soon he began dramatic composi-
tion with the play (More Frightened than Hurt,' which was produced
in London in 1820; and although looked at askance by managers at
first, was eventually translated into French, and twice retranslated into
English and played under other names. His earliest genuine hit, how-
ever, was the lively comedy-farce (Black-Eyed Susan: or, All in the
Downs) (1829), which was brought out at the Surrey Theatre, and was
acted four hundred times that year. From this encouragement Jer-
rold made forty plays during twenty-odd years, many of the dramas
scoring successes. Other well-known pieces are (The Rent Day,'
Nell Gwynne,' (Time Works Wonders,' and 'The Bubbles of the
Day. ' In 1836 he managed the Strand Theatre, which proved a bad
venture.
XIV-517
(
>
## p. 8258 (#458) ###########################################
8258
DOUGLAS JERROLD
All this dramatic activity, even, does not represent Jerrold's best
work; nor did it call out his most typical and welcome powers. He
continued to do other literary work, and his journalistic career was
strenuous. He contributed to leading papers like the Athenæum and
Blackwood's, and edited various periodicals, such as the Illuminated
Magazine, the Shilling Magazine, and the Heads of the People,- in
most cases with a disastrous financial result. He made a success,
however, of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, for which he wrote in each
number three columns of leaders and did literary reviews, receiving
£1,000 salary.
When Punch was founded in 1841, Jerrold's happiest vein sought
an outlet. He at once became a contributor, and continued to be
one for the rest of his life, some sixteen years. His articles, signed
Q. , were one of the features of that famous purveyor of representative
British fun, pictorial and literary.
The series of Punch papers per-
haps most familiar to the general public appeared as a book in 1846,
under the title (Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. ) "Punch's Letters to
his Son' and Cakes and Ale) are also widely known. Jerrold him-
self cared most for his writings in which his serious views and deeper
purpose came out: the Chronicles of Clovernook,' his pet book, is
an example. Indeed, the fact that he was an advanced thinker, a
broad-minded humanitarian preacher, is illustrated in such a moral
allegory as that here selected. Jerrold's reputation as a wit has
naturally enough deflected attention from this aspect of his work,
which well deserves appreciation. A collective edition of his works
in eight volumes appeared in 1851-4; and in 1888 his son, William
Blanchard Jerrold, edited in book form the Wit and Wisdom of
Douglas Jerrold. '
Jerrold was short and stocky in person, with clear-cut features,
blue eyes, and in his later years picturesque gray hair. He was of
a social nature; fond of music, a good singer himself; impulsive,
fiery, hasty often in letting loose the arrows of his wit, – but sim-
ple, almost boyish in manner, and a warm-hearted man whose interest
in the right was intense. Always impractical, he left his affairs in
a complicated condition. In short, his was a character whose faults
are palpable but which is withal very lovable.
## p. 8259 (#459) ###########################################
DOUGLAS JERROLD
8259
THE TRAGEDY OF THE TILL
THE HERMIT'S STORY
(
* I
-
T is a strange tale, but it hath the recommendation of brev-
ity. Some folks may see nothing in it but the tricksiness
of an extravagant spirit; and some perchance may pluck a
heart of meaning out of it. However, be it as it may, you shall
hear it, sir.
“There was a man called Isaac Pugwash, a dweller in a mis-
erable slough of London, a squalid denizen of one of the foul
nooks of that city of Plutus. He kept a shop; which, though
small as a cabin, was visited as granary and storehouse by half
the neighborhood. All the creature comforts of the poor - from
—
bread to that questionable superfluity, small beer — were sold by
Isaac. Strange it was that with such a trade Pugwash grew not
rich. He had many bad debts, and of all shopkeepers was most
unfortunate in false coin. Certain it is, he had neither eye nor
ear for bad money. Counterfeit semblances of majesty beguiled
him out of bread and butter, and cheese, and red herring, just
as readily as legitimate royalty struck at the mint. Malice might
impute something of this to the political principles of Pugwash;
who, as he had avowed himself again and again, was no lover of
a monarchy. Nevertheless, I cannot think Pugwash had so little
regard for the countenance of majesty as to welcome it as readily
when silvered copper as when sterling silver. No: a wild, foolish
enthusiast was Pugwash; but in the household matter of good
and bad money he had very wholesome prejudices. He had a
reasonable wish to grow rich, yet was entirely ignorant of the
byways and short cuts to wealth. He would have sauntered
through life with his hands in his pockets and a daisy in his
mouth; and dying with just enough in his house to pay the
undertaker, would have thought himself a fortunate fellow,-
he was, in the words of Mrs. Pugwash, such a careless, foolish,
dreaming creature. He was cheated every hour by a customer
of some kind; and yet to deny credit to anybody — he would as
soon have denied the wife of his bosom. His customers knew
the weakness, and failed not to exercise it. To be sure, now
and then, fresh from conjugal counsel, he would refuse to add
a single herring to a debtor's score: no, he would not be sent
to the workhouse by anybody. A quarter of an hour after, the
denied herring, with an added small loaf, was given to the little
## p. 8260 (#460) ###########################################
8260
DOUGLAS JERROLD
girl sent to the shop by the rejected mother: he couldn't bear
to see poor children wanting anything. '
"Pugwash had another unprofitable weakness. He was fond of
what he called Nature, though in his dim close shop he could
give her but a stilling welcome. Nevertheless he had the earliest
primroses on his counter,-'they threw,' he said, such a nice
light about the place. A sly, knavish customer presented Isaac
with a pot of polyanthuses; and won by the flowery gift, Pug-
wash gave the donor ruinous credit. The man with wall-flowers
regularly stopped at Isaac's shop, and for only sixpence Pugwash
would tell his wife he had made the place a Paradise. If we
can't go to Nature, Sally, isn't it a pleasant thing to be able to
bring Nature to us? Whereupon Mrs. Pugwash would declare
that a man with at least three children to provide for had no
need to talk of Nature. Nevertheless, the flower-man made his
weekly call. Though at many a house the penny could not every
week be spared to buy a hint, a look of Nature for the darkened
dwellers, Isaac, despite of Mrs. Pugwash, always purchased. It
is a common thing, an old familiar cry,” said the Hermit, “to
see the poor man's florist, to hear his loud-voiced invitation
to take his nosegays, his penny roots; and yet is it a call, a con-
juration of the heart of man overlabored and desponding — walled
in by the gloom of a town — divorced from the fields and their
sweet healthful influences — almost shut out from the sky that
reeks in vapor over him; it is a call that tells him there are
things of the earth besides food and covering to live for; and that
God in his great bounty hath made them for all men. Is it not
so ? ) asked the Hermit.
“Most certainly,” we answered: “it would be the very sinful-
ness of avarice to think otherwise. ”
"Why, sir," said the Hermit benevolently smiling, thus con-
sidered, the loud-lunged city bawler of roots and Aowers becomes
a high benevolence, a peripatetic priest of Nature. Adown dark
lanes and miry alleys he takes sweet remembrances-touching
records of the loveliness of earth, that with their bright looks
and balmy odors cheer and uplift the dumpish heart of man;
that make his soul stir within him; and acknowledge the beau-
tiful. The penny, the ill-spared penny--for it would buy a
wheaten roll — the poor housewife pays for a root of primrose, is
her offering to the hopeful loveliness of Nature; is her testimony
of the soul struggling with the blighting, crushing circumstance
»
((
(
## p. 8261 (#461) ###########################################
DOUGLAS JERROLD
8261
of sordid earth, and sometimes yearning towards earth's sweetest
aspects. Amidst the violence, the coarseness, and the suffering
that may surround and defile the wretched, there must be mo-
ments when the heart escapes, craving for the innocent and
lovely; when the soul makes for itself even of a flower a com-
fort and a refuge. ”
The Hermit paused a moment, and then in blither voice re-
sumed. “But I have strayed a little from the history of our
small tradesman Pugwash. Well, sir, Isaac for some three or four
years kept on his old way, his wife still prophesying in loud and
louder voice the inevitable workhouse. He would so think and
talk of Nature when he should mind his shop; he would so often
snatch a holiday to lose it in the fields, when he should take
stock and balance his books. What was worse, he every week
lost more and more by bad money. With no more sense than a
buzzard, as Mrs. Pugwash said, for a good shilling, he was the
victim of those laborious folks who make their money, with a
fine independence of the State, out of their own materials. It
seemed the common compact of a host of coiners to put off their
base-born offspring upon Isaac Pugwash; who, it must be con-
fessed, bore the loss and the indignity like a Christian martyr.
At last, however, the spirit of the man was stung. A guinea-as
Pugwash believed, of statute gold — was found to be of little less
value than a brass button. Mrs. Pugwash clamored and screamed
as though a besieging foe was in her house; and Pugwash him-
self felt that further patience would be pusillanimity. Where-
upon, sir, what think you Isaac did? Why, he suffered himself to
be driven by the voice and vehemence of his wife to a conjurer,
who in a neighboring attic was a sidereal go-between to the
neighborhood - a vender of intelligence from the stars to all
who sought and duly fee'd him. This magician would declare to
Pugwash the whereabouts of the felon coiner, and — the thought
was anodyne to the hurt mind of Isaac's wife — the knave would
be law-throttled.
“With sad indignant spirit did Isaac Pugwash seek Father
Lotus; for so, sir, was the conjurer called. He was none of your
common wizards. Oh no! he left it to the mere quack-salvers
and mountebanks of his craft to take upon them a haggard so-
lemnity of look, and to drop monosyllables heavy as bullets upon
the ear of the questioner. The mighty and magnificent hocus-
pocus of twelvepenny magicians was scorned by Lotus. There
## p. 8262 (#462) ###########################################
8262
DOUGLAS JERROLD
a
was nothing in his look or manner that showed him the worse
for keeping company with spirits; on the contrary, perhaps the
privileges he enjoyed of them served to make him only the more
blithe and jocund. He might have passed for a gentleman at
once easy and cunning in the law; his sole knowledge, that
of labyrinthine sentences made expressly to wind poor common-
sense on parchment. He had an eye like a snake, a constant
smile upon his lip, a cheek colored like an apple, and an activity
of movement wide away from the solemnity of the conjurer. He
was a small, eel-figured man of about sixty, dressed in glossy
black, with silver buckles and flowing periwig. It was impossible
not to have a better opinion of sprites and demons, seeing that
so nice, so polished a gentleman was their especial pet. And
then, his attic had no mystic circle, no curtain of black, no
death's-head, no mummy of apocryphal dragon,- the vulgar
catchpennies of fortune-telling trader. There was not even
pack of cards to elevate the soul of man into the regions of the
mystic world. No, the room was plainly yet comfortably set out.
Father Lotus reposed in an easy-chair, nursing a snow-white cat
upon his knee; now tenderly patting the creature with one hand,
and now turning over a little Hebrew volume with the other.
If a man wished to have dealings with sorry demons, could he
desire a nicer little gentleman than Father Lotus to make the
acquaintance for him? In few words Isaac Pugwash told his
story to the smiling magician. He had, amongst much other bad
.
money, taken a counterfeit guinea: could Father Lotus discover
the evil-doer ?
« Yes, yes, yes,' said Lotus, smiling, of course - to be sure;
but that will do but little: in your present state But let me
look at your tongue. ' Pugwash obediently thrust the organ
forth. Yes, yes, as I thought. 'Twill do you no good to hang
the rogue; none at all. What we must do is this, — we must
cure you of the disease. '
«Disease! ) cried Pugwash. Bating the loss of my money, I
was never better in all my days. '
« Ha! my poor man,' said Lotus, it is the benevolence of
nature, that she often goes on quietly breaking us up, ourselves
knowing no more of the mischief than a girl's doll when the girl
rips up its seams. Your malady is of the perceptive organs.
Leave you alone and you'll sink to the condition of a baboon. '
«God bless me! ' cried Pugwash.
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DOUGLAS JERROLD
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«CA jackass with sense to choose a thistle from a toadstool
will be a reasoning creature to you! for consider, my poor soul,'
said Lotus in a compassionate voice,- in this world of tribula-
tion we inhabit, consider what a benighted nincompoop is man,
if he cannot elect a good shilling from a bad one. '
« I have not a sharp eye for money,' said Pugwash modestly.
It's a gift, sir; I'm assured it's a gift. '
«A sharp eye! an eye of horn,' said Lotus. (Never mind,
I can remedy all that; I can restore you to the world and to
yourself. The greatest physicians, the wisest philosophers, have
in the profundity of their wisdom made money the test of wit.
A man is believed mad; he is a very rich man, and his heir has
very good reason to believe him lunatic: whereupon the heir, the
madman's careful friend, calls about the sufferer a company of
wizards to sit in judgment on the suspected brain, and report a
verdict thereupon. Well, ninety-nine times out of the hundred,
what is the first question put as test of reason? Why, a question
of money. The physician, laying certain pieces of current coin
in his palm, asks of the patient their several value. If he answer
truly, why truly there is hope; but if he stammer or falter at the
coin, the verdict runs, and wisely runs, mad— incapably mad. '
« I'm not so bad as that,' said Pugwash, a little alarmed.
« Don't say how you are — it's presumption in any man,'
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cried Lotus. Nevertheless, be as you may, I'll cure you if you'll
give attention to my remedy. '
«I'll give my whole soul to it,' exclaimed Pugwash.
