" It may be
conjectured
that it
## p.
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Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 - Lev to Mai
Then all was silent, till there smote my ear
A movement in the stream that checked my breath:
Was it the slow plash of a wading deer?
But something said, "This water is of Death!
The Sisters wash a shroud,-ill thing to hear! ”
I, looking then, beheld the ancient Three
Known to the Greek's and to the Northman's creed,
## p. 9263 (#279) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9263
That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree,
Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede,
One song: "Time was, Time is, and Time shall be. "
No wrinkled crones were they, as I had deemed,
But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow,
To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed;
Something too high for joy, too deep for sorrow,
Thrilled in their tones, and from their faces gleamed.
"Still men and nations reap as they have strawn,”
So sang they, working at their task the while;
"The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere dawn:
-
For Austria? Italy? the Sea-Queen's isle?
O'er what quenched grandeur must our shroud be drawn?
"Or is it for a younger, fairer corse,
That gathered States like children round his knees,
That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse,
Feller of forests, linker of the seas,
Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor's?
"What make we, murmur'st thou? and what are we?
When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud,
The time-old web of the implacable Three:
Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud?
Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it,-why not he? "
"Is there no hope? " I moaned, "so strong, so fair!
Our Fowler whose proud bird would brook erewhile
No rival's swoop in all our western air!
Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file
For him, life's morn yet golden in his hair?
"Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying dames!
I see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who scanned
The stars, Earth's elders, still must noblest aims
Be traced upon oblivious ocean sands?
Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of names? "
"When grass blades stiffen with red battle dew,
Ye deem we choose the victor and the slain:
Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true
To the heart's longing, the high faith of brain?
Yet there the victory lies, if ye but knew.
"Three roots bear up Dominion: Knowledge, Will,—
These twain are strong, but stronger yet the third,—
## p. 9264 (#280) ###########################################
9264
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Obedience,-'tis the great tap-root that still,
Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred,
Though Heaven-loosed tempests spend their utmost skill.
"Is the doom sealed for Hesper? 'Tis not we
Denounce it, but the Law before all time:
The brave makes danger opportunity;
The waverer, paltering with the chance sublime,
Dwarfs it to peril: which shall Hesper be?
"Hath he let vultures climb his eagle's seat
To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their maw?
Hath he the Many's plaudits found more sweet
Than Wisdom? held Opinion's wind for Law?
Then let him hearken for the doomster's feet!
"Rough are the steps, slow-hewn in flintiest rock,
States climb to power by; slippery those with gold
Down which they stumble to eternal mock:
No chafferer's hand shall long the sceptre hold,
Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block.
"We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and woe,
Mystic because too cheaply understood;
Dark sayings are not ours; men hear and know,
See Evil weak, see strength alone in Good,
Yet hope to stem God's fire with walls of tow.
"Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is,
That offers choice of glory or of gloom;
The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his.
But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tomb
Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss. "
"But not for him," I cried,-"not yet for him
Whose large horizon, westering, star by star
Wins from the void to where on Ocean's rim
The sunset shuts the world with golden bar,—
Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim!
"His shall be larger manhood, saved for those
That walk unblenching through the trial fires;
Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes,
And he no base-born son of craven sires,
Whose eye need blench confronted with his foes.
"Tears may be ours, but proud, for those who win
Death's royal purple in the foeman's lines;
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JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9265
Peace, too, brings tears; and 'mid the battle din,
The wiser ear some text of God divines,—
For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin.
"God, give us peace! not such as lulls to sleep,
But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit!
And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep,
Her ports all up, her battle lanterns lit,
And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap! "
So cried I with clenched hands and passionate pain,
Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side;
Again the loon laughed mocking, and again
The echoes bayed far down the night and died,
While waking I recalled my wandering brain.
B
XVI-580
MEMORIÆ POSITUM
I
ENEATH the trees,
My lifelong friends in this dear spot,
Sad now for eyes that see them not,
I hear the autumnal breeze
Wake the dry leaves to sigh for gladness gone,
Whispering vague omens of oblivion;
Hear, restless as the seas,
Time's grim feet rustling through the withered grace
Of many a spreading realm and strong-stemmed race,
Even as my own through these.
Why make we moan
For loss that doth enrich us yet
With upward yearnings of regret?
Bleaker than unmossed stone
Our lives were but for this immortal gain
Of unstilled longing and inspiring pain!
As thrills of long-hushed tone
Live in the viol, so our souls grow fine
With keen vibrations from the touch divine
Of noble natures gone.
'Twere indiscreet
To vex the shy and sacred grief
With harsh obtrusions of relief;
Yet Verse, with noiseless feet,
## p. 9266 (#282) ###########################################
9266
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Go whisper: "This death hath far choicer ends
Than slowly to impearl in hearts of friends;
These obsequies 'tis meet
Not to seclude in closets of the heart,
But, church-like, with wide doorways, to impart
Even to the heedless street. "
II
Brave, good, and true,
I see him stand before me now,
And read again on that young brow,
Where every hope was new,
How sweet were life! Yet, by the mouth firm-set,
And look made up for Duty's utmost debt,
I could divine he knew
That death within the sulphurous hostile lines,
In the mere wreck of nobly pitched designs,
Plucks heart's-ease, and not rue.
Happy their end
Who vanish down life's evening stream
Placid as swans that drift in dream
Round the next river-bend!
Happy long life, with honor at the close,
Friends' painless tears, the softened thought of foes!
And yet, like him, to spend
All at a gush, keeping our first faith sure
From mid-life's doubt and eld's contentment poor,--
What more could Fortune send?
Right in the van,
On the red rampart's slippery swell,
With heart that beat a charge, he fell
Foeward, as fits a man;
But the high soul burns on to light men's feet
Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet;
His life her crescent's span
Orbs full with share in their undarkening days
Who ever climbed the battailous steeps of praise
Since valor's praise began.
III
His life's expense
Hath won him coeternal youth
With the immaculate prime of Truth;
While we, who make pretense
## p. 9267 (#283) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9267
At living on, and wake and eat and sleep,
And life's stale trick by repetition keep,—
Our fickle permanence
(A poor leaf-shadow on a brook, whose play
Of busy idlesse ceases with our day)
Is the mere cheat of sense.
We bide our chance,
Unhappy, and make terms with Fate
A little more to let us wait;
He leads for aye the advance,
Hope's forlorn-hopes that plant the desperate good
For nobler earths and days of manlier mood;
Our wall of circumstance
Cleared at a bound, he flashes o'er the fight,
A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the right
And steel each wavering glance.
I write of one,
While with dim eyes I think of three;
Who weeps not others fair and brave as he?
Ah, when the fight is won,
Dear Land, whom triflers now make bold to scorn
(Thee! from whose forehead earth awaits her morn),
How nobler shall the sun
Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe thy air,
That thou bred'st children who for thee could dare
And die as thine have done!
[The foregoing poems are copyrighted, and are reprinted by permission of
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers. ]
UNCLE ZEB
From A Moosehead Journal': Literary Essays. Copyright 1864, 1871, 1876,
1890, by James Russell Lowell. Reprinted by permission of Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. , publishers.
A
STRING of five loons was flying back and forth in long, irreg-
ular zigzags, uttering at intervals their wild, tremulous cry,
which always seems far away, like the last faint pulse of
echo dying among the hills, and which is one of those few sounds
that instead of disturbing solitude, only deepen and confirm it.
On our inland ponds they are usually seen in pairs, and I asked
if it were common to meet five together. My question was an-
swered by a queer-looking old man, chiefly remarkable for a pair
## p. 9268 (#284) ###########################################
9268
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
of enormous cowhide boots, over which large blue trousers of
frocking strove in vain to crowd themselves.
"Wahl, 'tain't ushil," said he, "and it's called a sign o' rain
comin', that is. "
"Do you think it will rain ? »
With the caution of a veteran auspex, he evaded a direct re-
ply. "Wahl, they du say it's a sign o' rain comin'," said he.
I discovered afterward that my interlocutor was Uncle Zeb.
Formerly, every New England town had its representative uncle.
He was not a pawnbroker, but some elderly man, who, for want
of more defined family ties, had gradually assumed this avuncular
relation to the community; inhabiting the borderland between
respectability and the almshouse, with no regular calling, but
ready for odd jobs at haying, wood-sawing, whitewashing, asso-
ciated with the demise of pigs and the ailments of cattle, and
possessing as much patriotism as might be implied in a devoted
attachment to "New England"—with a good deal of sugar and
very little water in it. Uncle Zeb was a good specimen of this
palæozoic class; extinct among us for the most part, or surviving,
like the Dodo, in the Botany Bays of society. He was ready to
contribute (somewhat muddily) to all general conversation; but
his chief topics were his boots and the 'Roostick war. Upon the
lowlands and levels of ordinary palaver he would make rapid and
unlooked-for incursions; but provision failing, he would retreat
to these two fastnesses, whence it was impossible to dislodge him,
and to which he knew innumerable passes and short cuts quite
beyond the conjecture of common woodcraft. His mind opened
naturally to these two subjects, like a book to some favorite
passage. As the ear accustoms itself to any sound recurring
regularly, such as the ticking of a clock, and without a conscious.
effort of attention takes no impression from it whatever, so does
the mind find a natural safeguard against this pendulum species
of discourse, and performs its duties in the parliament by an
unconscious reflex action, like the beating of the heart or the
movement of the lungs. If talk seemed to be flagging, our
Uncle would put the heel of one boot upon the toe of the other,
to bring it within point-blank range, and say, "Wahl, I stump
the Devil himself to make that 'ere boot hurt my foot,” — leav-
ing us in doubt whether it were the virtue of the foot or its
case which set at naught the wiles of the adversary; or looking
up suddenly, he would exclaim, "Wahl, we eat some beans to the
## p. 9269 (#285) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9269
'Roostic war, I tell you! " When his poor old clay was wet with
gin, his thoughts and words acquired a rank flavor from it, as
from too strong a fertilizer. At such times too his fancy com-
monly reverted to a prehistoric period of his life, when he singly
had settled all the surrounding country, subdued the Injuns and
other wild animals, and named all the towns.
We talked of the winter camps and the life there. "The best
thing is," said our Uncle, "to hear a log squeal thru the snow.
Git a good, col', frosty mornin', in Febuary say, an' take an'
hitch the critters onto a log that'll scale seven thousan', an' it'll
squeal as pooty as an'thin' you ever hearn, I tell you. "
A pause.
«< Lessee, seen Cal Hutchins lately? "
-
"No. "
"Seems to me's though I hedn't seen Cal sence the 'Roostick
war. Wahl," etc. , etc.
Another pause.
"To look at them boots you'd think they was too large; but
kind o'git your foot into 'em, and they're as easy 's a glove. "
(I observed that he never seemed really to get his foot in,—
there was always a qualifying kind o'. ) "Wahl, my foot can play
in 'em like a young hedgehog. "
"There's nothin' so sweet an' hulsome as your real spring
water," said Uncle Zeb, "git it pure. But it's dreffle hard to git it
that ain't got sunthin' the matter of it. Snow-water 'll burn a
man's inside out,-I larned that to the 'Roostick war, -and the
snow lays terrible long on some o' thes'ere hills. Me an' Eb
Stiles was up old Ktahdn oncet jest about this time o' year, an' we
come acrost a kind o' holler like, as full o' snow as your stockin'
's full o' your foot. I see it fust, an' took an' rammed a settin'-
pole-wahl, it was all o' twenty foot-into 't, an' couldn't fin' no
bottom. I dunno as there's snow-water enough in this to do no
hurt. I don't somehow seem to think that real spring-water's so
plenty as it used to be. " And Uncle Zeb, with perhaps a little.
over-refinement of scrupulosity, applied his lips to the Ethiop
ones of a bottle of raw gin, with a kiss that drew out its very
soul, a basia that Secundus might have sung. He must have
been a wonderful judge of water; for he analyzed this and de-
tected its latent snow simply by his eye, and without the clumsy
process of tasting. I could not help thinking that he had made
the desert his dwelling-place chiefly in order to enjoy the minis-
trations of this one fair spirit unmolested.
--
—
## p. 9270 (#286) ###########################################
9270
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
We pushed on.
Little islands loomed trembling between sky
and water, like hanging gardens. Gradually the filmy trees de-
fined themselves, the aerial enchantment lost its potency, and we
came up with common prose islands that had so late been magi-
cal and poetic. The old story of the attained and unattained.
About noon we reached the head of the lake, and took possession
of a deserted wongen, in which to cook and eat our dinner. No
Jew, I am sure, can have a more thorough dislike of salt pork
than I have in a normal state; yet I had already eaten it raw
with hard bread, for lunch, and relished it keenly. We soon had
our tea-kettle over the fire, and before long the cover was chat-
tering with the escaping steam, which had thus vainly begged
of all men to be saddled and bridled, till James Watt one day
happened to overhear it.
One of our guides shot three Canada
grouse; and these were turned slowly between the fire and a
bit of salt pork, which dropped fatness upon them as it fried.
Although my fingers were certainly not made before knives and
forks, yet they served as a convenient substitute for those more
ancient inventions. We sat round, Turk fashion, and ate thank-
fully, while a party of aborigines of the Mosquito tribe, who had
camped in the wongen before we arrived, dined upon us. I do
not know what the British Protectorate of the Mosquitoes amounts
to; but as I squatted there at the mercy of these bloodthirsty
savages, I no longer wondered that the classic Everett had been
stung into a willingness for war on the question.
"This 'ere 'd be about a complete place for a camp, ef there
was on'y a spring o' sweet water handy. Frizzled pork goes wal,
don't it? Yes, an' sets wal, too," said Uncle Zeb, and he again
tilted his bottle, which rose nearer and nearer to an angle of
forty-five at every gurgle. He then broached a curious dietetic
theory: "The reason we take salt pork along is cos it packs
handy: you git the greatest amount o' board in the smallest
compass, let alone that it's more nourishin' than an'thin' else.
It kind o' don't disgest so quick, but stays by ye, a-nourishin' ye
all the while. A feller can live wal on frizzled pork an' good
spring water, git it good. To the 'Roostick war we didn't ask
for nothin' better,-on'y beans. " (Tilt, tilt, gurgle, gurgle. )
Then, with an apparent feeling of inconsistency, "But then, come
to git used to a particular kind o' spring water, an' it makes a
feller hard to suit. Most all sorts o' water taste kind o' insipid
away from home. Now, I've gut a spring to my place that's as
sweet-wahl, it's as sweet as maple sap. A feller acts about
―
――
## p. 9271 (#287) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9271
water jest as he doos about a pair o' boots. It's all on it in gittin'
wonted. Now, them boots," etc. , etc. (Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle,
smack! )
All this while he was packing away the remains of the pork
and hard bread in two large firkins. This accomplished, we re-
embarked, our Uncle on his way to the birch essaying a kind of
song in four or five parts, of which the words were hilarious and
the tune profoundly melancholy; and which was finished, and the
rest of his voice apparently jerked out of him in one sharp fal-
setto note, by his tripping over the root of a tree. We paddled
a short distance up a brook which came into the lake smoothly
through a little meadow not far off. We soon reached the North-
west Carry, and our guide, pointing through the woods, said:
"That's the Cannydy road. You can travel that clearn to Kebeck,
a hunderd an' twenty mile," a privilege of which I respectfully
declined to avail myself. The offer, however, remains open to
the public. The Carry is called two miles; but this is the
estimate of somebody who had nothing to lug. I had a head-
ache and all my baggage, which, with a traveler's instinct, I had
brought with me. (P. S. -I did not even take the keys out of
my pocket, and both my bags were wet through before I came
back. ) My estimate of the distance is eighteen thousand six
hundred and seventy-four miles and three quarters, the fraction
being the part left to be traveled after one of my companions
most kindly insisted on relieving me of my heaviest bag. I
know very well that the ancient Roman soldiers used to carry
sixty pounds' weight, and all that; but I am not, and never
shall be, an ancient Roman soldier,-no, not even in the miracu-
lous Thundering Legion. Uncle Zeb slung the two provender
firkins across his shoulder, and trudged along, grumbling that
"he never see sech a contrairy pair as them. "
He had begun
upon a second bottle of his "particular kind o' spring water";
and at every rest, the gurgle of this peripatetic fountain might
be heard, followed by a smack, a fragment of mosaic song, or a
confused clatter with the cowhide boots, being an arbitrary sym-
bol intended to represent the festive dance. Christian's pack
gave him not half so much trouble as the firkins gave Uncle
Zeb. It grew harder and harder to sling them, and with every
fresh gulp of the Batavian elixir they got heavier. Or rather,
the truth was that his hat grew heavier, in which he was carry-
ing on an extensive manufacture of bricks without straw. At
―
―――――――――――――――
## p. 9272 (#288) ###########################################
9272
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
last affairs reached a crisis; and a particularly favorable pitch
offering, with a puddle at the foot of it, even the boots afforded
no sufficient ballast, and away went our Uncle, the satellite fir-
kins accompanying faithfully his headlong flight. Did ever exiled
monarch or disgraced minister find the cause of his fall in him-
self? Is there not always a strawberry at the bottom of our cup
of life, on which we can lay all the blame of our deviations
from the straight path? Till now Uncle Zeb had contrived to
give a gloss of volition to smaller stumblings and gyrations, by
exaggerating them into an appearance of playful burlesque. But
the present case was beyond any such subterfuges. He held a
bed of justice where he sat, and then arose slowly, with a stern
determination of vengeance stiffening every muscle of his face.
But what would he select as the culprit? "It's that cussed fir-
kin," he mumbled to himself. "I never knowed a firkin cair on
so, no, not in the 'Roostehicick war. There, go long, will ye?
and don't come back till you've larned how to walk with a gen-
elman! " And seizing the unhappy scapegoat by the bail, he
hurled it into the forest. It is a curious circumstance, that it
was not the firkin containing the bottle which was thus con-
demned to exile.
FROM THE ADDRESS ON ‹DEMOCRACY›
'Literary and Political Addresses: Copyright 1886, 1888, 1890, by James Rus-
sell Lowell. Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , pub-
lishers.
I
SHOULD not think of coming before you to defend or to criti-
cize any form of government. All have their virtues, all
their defects, and all have illustrated one period or another
in the history of the race with signal services to humanity
and culture. There is not one that could stand a cynical cross-
examination by an experienced criminal lawyer, except that of
a perfectly wise and perfectly good despot, such as the world has
never seen except in that white-haired king of Browning's, who
"-lived long ago
In the morning of the world,
When earth was nearer heaven than now. "
The English race, if they did not invent government by discus-
sion, have at least carried it nearest to perfection in practice. It
1
·
A
## p. 9273 (#289) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9273
seems a very safe and reasonable contrivance for occupying the
attention of the country, and is certainly a better way of settling
questions than by push of pike. Yet if one should ask it why it
should not rather be called government by gabble, it would have
to fumble in its pocket a good while before it found the change
for a convincing reply. As matters stand, too, it is beginning to
be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit at Westminster
and Washington, or in the editors' rooms of the leading journals;
so thoroughly is everything debated before the authorized and
responsible debaters get on their legs. And what shall we say
of government by a majority of voices? To a person who in the
last century would have called himself an Impartial Observer, a
numerical preponderance seems, on the whole, as clumsy a way
of arriving at truth as could well be devised; but experience has
apparently shown it to be a convenient arrangement for deter-
mining what may be expedient or advisable or practicable at any
given moment. Truth, after all, wears a different face to every-
body, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.
She is said to lie at the bottom of a well; for the very reason,
perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own
image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has
seen the goddess, but that she is far better looking than he had
imagined.
The arguments against universal suffrage are equally unan-
swerable. "What," we exclaim, "shall Tom, Dick, and Harry
have as much weight in the scale as I? " Of course, nothing
could be more absurd. And yet universal suffrage has not been
the instrument of greater unwisdom than contrivances of a more
select description. Assemblies could be mentioned composed en-
tirely of Masters of Arts and Doctors in Divinity which have
sometimes shown traces of human passion or prejudice in their
votes. Have the Serene Highnesses and Enlightened Classes car-
ried on the business of Mankind so well, then, that there is no
use in trying a less costly method? The democratic theory is
that those Constitutions are likely to prove steadiest which have
the broadest base, that the right to vote makes a safety-valve of
every voter, and that the best way of teaching a man how to
vote is to give him the chance of practice. For the question is
no longer the academic one, "Is it wise to give every man the
ballot? " but rather the practical one, "Is it prudent to deprive
whole classes of it any longer?
" It may be conjectured that it
## p. 9274 (#290) ###########################################
9274
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
is cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them
down, and that the ballot in their hands is less dangerous to
society than a sense of wrong in their heads. At any rate, this
is the dilemma to which the drift of opinion has been for some
time sweeping us; and in politics, a dilemma is a more unman-
ageable thing to hold by the horns than a wolf by the ears. It
is said that the right of suffrage is not valued when it is indis-
criminately bestowed; and there may be some truth in this, for I
have observed that what men prize most is a privilege, even if it
be that of chief mourner at a funeral. But is there not danger
that it will be valued at more than its worth if denied, and that
some illegitimate way will be sought to make up for the want of
it? Men who have a voice in public affairs are at once affiliated
with one or other of the great parties between which society is
divided; merge their individual hopes and opinions in its safer,
because more generalized, hopes and opinions, are disciplined by
its tactics, and acquire to a certain degree the orderly qualities
of an army. They no longer belong to a class, but to a body
corporate. Of one thing, at least, we may be certain: that under
whatever method of helping things to go wrong man's wit can
contrive, those who have the divine right to govern will be found
to govern in the end, and that the highest privilege to which
the majority of mankind can aspire is that of being governed
by those wiser than they. Universal suffrage has in the United
States sometimes been made the instrument of inconsiderate
changes, under the notion of reform; and this from a misconcep
tion of the true meaning of popular government. One of these
has been the substitution in many of the States of popular elec-
tion for official selection in the choice of judges. The same sys-
tem applied to military officers was the source of much evil during
our civil war, and I believe had to be abandoned. But it has
been also true that on all great questions of national policy, a
reserve of prudence and discretion has been brought out at the
critical moment to turn the scale in favor of a wiser decision.
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known
to fail in the long run. It is perhaps true that by effacing the
principle of passive obedience, democracy ill understood has slack-
ened the spring of that ductility to discipline which is essential
to "the unity and married calm of States. " But I feel assured
that experience and necessity will cure this evil, as they have
shown their power to cure others.
And under what frame of
## p. 9275 (#291) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9275
policy have evils ever been remedied till they became intolerable,
and shook men out of their indolent indifference through their
fears?
We are told that the inevitable result of democracy is to sap
the foundations of personal independence, to weaken the principle
of authority, to lessen the respect due to eminence, whether in
station, virtue, or genius. If these things were so, society could
not hold together. Perhaps the best forcing-house of robust indi-
viduality would be where public opinion is inclined to be most
overbearing, as he must be of heroic temper who should walk
along Piccadilly at the height of the season in a soft hat. As for
authority, it is one of the symptoms of the time that the reli-
gious reverence for it is declining everywhere; but this is due.
partly to the fact that statecraft is no longer looked upon as a
mystery but as a business, and partly to the decay of supersti-
tion,- by which I mean the habit of respecting what we are told
to respect rather than what is respectable in itself. There is
more rough-and-tumble in the American democracy than is alto-
gether agreeable to people of sensitive nerves and refined habits;
and the people take their political duties lightly and laughingly,
as is perhaps neither unnatural nor unbecoming in a young giant.
Democracies can no more jump away from their own shadows
than the rest of us can. They no doubt sometimes make mis-
takes, and pay honor to men who do not deserve it.
But they
do this because they believe them worthy of it; and though it
be true that the idol is the measure of the worshiper, yet the
worship has in it the germ of a nobler religion. But is it de-
mocracies alone that fall into these errors? I, who have seen
it proposed to erect a statue to Hudson the railway king, and
have heard Louis Napoleon hailed as the savior of society by
men who certainly had no democratic associations or leanings,
am not ready to think so. But democracies have likewise their
finer instincts. I have also seen the wisest statesman and most
pregnant speaker of our generation, a man of humble birth and
ungainly manners, of little culture beyond what his own genius.
supplied, become more absolute in power than any monarch of
modern times,- through the reverence of his countrymen for his
honesty, his wisdom, his sincerity, his faith in God and man, and
the nobly humane simplicity of his character. And I remem-
ber another whom popular respect enveloped as with a halo,-
the least vulgar of men, the most austerely genial, and the most
## p. 9276 (#292) ###########################################
9276
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
ļ
!
independent of opinion. Wherever he went he never met a stran-
ger, but everywhere neighbors and friends proud of him as their
ornament and decoration. Institutions which could bear and breed
such men as Lincoln and Emerson had surely some energy for
good. No, amid all the fruitless turmoil and miscarriage of the
world, if there be one thing steadfast and of favorable omen, one
thing to make optimism distrust its own obscure distrust, it is the
rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beauti-
ful than themselves. The touchstone of political and social institu-
tions is their ability to supply them with worthy objects of this
sentiment, which is the very tap-root of civilization and progress.
There would seem to be no readier way of feeding it with the
elements of growth and vigor than such an organization of society
as will enable men to respect themselves, and so to justify them.
in respecting others.
FROM ESSAY ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS'
'Literary Essays': copyright 1870, 1871, 1890, by James Russell Lowell. Re-
printed by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers
HE fine old Tory aversion of former times was not hard to
THE bear. There was something even refreshing in it, as in a
northeaster to a hardy temperament. When a British par-
son, traveling in Newfoundland while the slash of our separa-
tion was still raw, after prophesying a glorious future for an
island that continued to dry its fish under the ægis of Saint
George, glances disdainfully over his spectacles in parting at the
U. S. A. , and forebodes for them a "speedy relapse into bar-
barism," now that they have madly cut themselves off from the
humanizing influences of Britain, I smile with barbarian self-
conceit. But this kind of thing became by degrees an unpleasant
anachronism. For meanwhile the young giant was growing, was
beginning indeed to feel tight in his clothes, was obliged to let
in a gore here and there in Texas, in California, in New Mexico,
in Alaska, and had the scissors and needle and thread ready for
Canada when the time came. His shadow loomed like a Brocken-
spectre over against Europe; the shadow of what they were com-
ing to, that was the unpleasant part of it. Even in such misty
image as they had of him, it was painfully evident that his
clothes were not of any cut hitherto fashionable, nor conceivable
## p. 9277 (#293) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9277
by a Bond Street tailor;—and this in an age, too, when every-
thing depends upon clothes, when if we do not keep up appear-
ances, the seeming-solid frame of this universe, nay, your very
God, would slump into himself, like a mockery king of snow,
being nothing after all but a prevailing mode, a make-believe
of believing. From this moment the young giant assumed the
respectable aspect of a phenomenon; to be got rid of if possible,
but at any rate as legitimate a subject of human study as the
glacial period or the Silurian what-d'ye-call-ems. If the man of
the primeval drift-heaps be so absorbingly interesting, why not
the man of the drift that is just beginning, of the drift into
whose irresistible current we are just being sucked whether we
will or no? If I were in their place, I confess I should not be
frightened. Man has survived so much, and contrived to be
comfortable on this planet after surviving so much! I am some-
thing of a Protestant in matters of government also, and am
willing to get rid of vestments and ceremonies and to come
down to bare benches, if only faith in God take the place of a
general agreement to profess confidence in ritual and sham.
Every mortal man of us holds stock in the only public debt that
is absolutely sure of payment-and that is the debt of the Maker
of this universe to the universe he has made. I have no notion
of selling out my shares in a panic.
It was something to have advanced even to the dignity of
a phenomenon, and yet I do not know that the relation of the
individual American to the individual European was bettered by
it; and that, after all, must adjust itself comfortably before there
can be a right understanding between the two. We had been a
desert, we became a museum. People came hither for scientific
and not social ends. The very cockney could not complete his
education without taking a vacant stare at us in passing. But
the sociologists (I think they call themselves so) were the hardest
to bear. There was no escape. I have even known a professor
of this fearful science to come disguised in petticoats. We were
cross-examined as a chemist cross-examines a new substance.
Human? Yes, all the elements are present, though abnormally
combined. Civilized? Hm! that needs a stricter assay. No
entomologist could take a more friendly interest in a strange
bug. After a few such experiences, I for one have felt as if I
were merely one of those horrid things preserved in spirits (and
very bad spirits, too) in a cabinet. I was not the fellow-being
## p. 9278 (#294) ###########################################
9278
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
of these explorers: I was a curiosity; I was a specimen. Hath
not an American organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions,
even as a European hath? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh? I will not keep on with Shy-
lock to his next question but one.
Till after our Civil War it never seemed to enter the head
of any foreigner, especially of any Englishman, that an American
had what could be called a country, except as a place to eat,
sleep, and trade in. Then it seemed to strike them suddenly.
"By Jove, you know, fellahs don't fight like that for a shop-till! "
No, I rather think not. To Americans, America is something
more than a promise and an expectation. It has a past and tra-
ditions of its own. A descent from men who sacrificed every-
thing and came hither, not to better their fortunes, but to plant
their idea in virgin soil, should be a good pedigree. There was
never colony save this that went forth, not to seek gold, but
God. Is it not as well to have sprung from such as these, as
from some burly beggar who came over with Wilhelmus Con-
questor, unless indeed a line grow better as it runs farther away
from stalwart ancestors? And for our history, it is dry enough,
no doubt, in the books; but for all that, is of a kind that tells in
the blood. I have admitted that Carlyle's sneer had a show of
truth in it. But what does he himself, like a true Scot, admire
in the Hohenzollerns? First of all, that they were canny, a
thrifty, forehanded race. Next, that they made a good fight from
generation to generation with the chaos around them. That is
precisely the battle which the English race on this continent
has been pushing doughtily forward for two centuries and a half.
Doughtily and silently, for you cannot hear in Europe that
crash, the death-song of the perfect tree," that has been going
on here from sturdy father to sturdy son, and making this conti-
nent habitable for the weaker Old World breed that has swarmed
to it during the last half-century. If ever men did a good stroke.
of work on this planet, it was the forefathers of those whom you
are wondering whether it would not be prudent to acknowledge
as far-off cousins. Alas, man of genius, to whom we owe so
much, could you see nothing more than the burning of a foul
chimney in that clash of Michael and Satan which flamed up
under your very eyes?
«<
## p. 9279 (#295) ###########################################
9279
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
(1834-)
IR JOHN LUBBOCK is best known as a popularizer of science.
He was born in London April 20th, 1834, and was for a
time a student at Eton; but entered his father's bank at the
early age of fourteen, and therefore had opportunity for very limited
schooling. During all his busy life he has been much interested in
botany, zoology, and allied branches of natural history; and he has
done much to develop public interest in these branches of science,
by publishing the results of personal investi-
gation, and by throwing into popular form
the results of the work of others. He has
also taken an active interest in
a wide
range of public affairs, has been a member
of Parliament and of various educational
boards, and has been president of the Royal
Society and of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science, and a mem-
ber of many other learned bodies.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
Among his many volumes are 'Prehis-
toric Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Re-
mains and the Manners and Customs of
Modern Savages'; 'The Origin of Civiliza-
tion and the Primitive Condition of Man';
'The Origin and Metamorphosis of Insects';
'Ants, Bees, and Wasps'; 'On the Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence
of Animals, with Special Reference to Insects'; 'On British Wild-
Flowers Considered in Relation to Insects'; 'Flowers, Fruits, and
Leaves'; 'The Pleasures of Life'; 'The Beauties of Nature'; and
'The Use of Life. '
In the more strictly literary field he has been rather a guide to
the work of others than an independent creator. In commenting
upon The Pleasures of Life' a recent writer says: "This is a work-
aday world; and blessed be the man with the time and happy taste
to gather and put before us the choice bits which reveal us to our-
selves. " That man is certainly Sir John Lubbock. His reading has
been extensive, and he has a "flair" which leads him directly to the
appropriate quotation. In the field of natural science he has suc-
ceeded in meeting exactly the requirements of the multitude.
## p. 9280 (#296) ###########################################
9280
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
THE HABITS OF ANTS
THE
From The Beauties of Nature. Copyrighted 1892, by Macmillan & Co.
HE communities of ants are sometimes very large, numbering
even up to 500,000 individuals; and it is a lesson to us, that
no one has ever yet seen a quarrel between any two ants
belonging to the same community. On the other hand, it must
be admitted that they are in hostility not only with most other
insects, including ants of different species, but even with those
of the same species if belonging to different communities. I have
over and over again introduced ants from one of my nests into
another nest of the same species; and they were invariably at-
tacked, seized by a leg or an antenna, and dragged out.
It is evident, therefore, that the ants of each community all
recognize one another, which is very remarkable. But more than
this, I several times divided a nest into two halves, and found
that even after a separation of a year and nine months they
recognized one another, and were perfectly friendly; while they
at once attacked ants from a different nest, although of the same
species.
It has been suggested that the ants of each nest have some
sign or password by which they recognize one another. To test
this I made some insensible. First I tried chloroform; but this
was fatal to them, and . . . I did not consider the test satisfac-
tory. I decided therefore to intoxicate them. This was less easy
than I had expected. None of my ants would voluntarily degrade
themselves by getting drunk. However, I got over the difficulty
by putting them into whisky for a few moments. I took fifty
specimens,-twenty-five from one nest and twenty-five from an-
other,― made them dead drunk, marked each with a spot of
paint, and put them on a table close to where other ants from
one of the nests were feeding. The table was surrounded as
usual with a moat of water to prevent them from straying. The
ants which were feeding soon noticed those which I had made
drunk. They seemed quite astonished to find their comrades in
such a disgraceful condition, and as much at a loss to know what
to do with their drunkards as we are. After a while, however,
to cut my story short, they carried them all away; the strangers
they took to the edge of the moat and dropped into the water,
while they bore their friends home into the nest, where by de-
grees they slept off the effects of the spirit. Thus it is evident
## p. 9281 (#297) ###########################################
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
9281
that they know their friends even when incapable of giving any
sign or password.
This little experiment also shows that they help comrades in
distress. If a wolf or a rook be ill or injured, we are told that it
is driven away or even killed by its comrades. Not so with ants.
For instance, in one of my nests an unfortunate ant, in emer-
ging from the chrysalis skin, injured her legs so much that she
lay on her back quite helpless. For three months, however, she
was carefully fed and tended by the other ants. In another case
an ant in the same manner had injured her antennæ. I watched
her also carefully to see what would happen. For some days she
did not leave the nest. At last one day she ventured outside,
and after a while met a stranger ant of the same species, but
belonging to another nest, by whom she was at once attacked.
I tried to separate them; but whether by her enemy, or perhaps
by my well-meant but clumsy kindness, she was evidently much
hurt, and lay helplessly on her side. Several other ants passed
her without taking any notice; but soon one came up, examined
her carefully with her antennæ, and carried her off tenderly to
the nest. No one, I think, who saw it could have denied to that
ant one attribute of humanity, the quality of kindness.
The existence of such communities as those of ants or bees
implies, no doubt, some power of communication; but the amount
is still a matter of doubt. It is well known that if one bee or
ant discovers a store of food, others soon find their way to it.
This, however, does not prove much. It makes all the difference
whether they are brought or sent. If they merely accompany on
her return a companion who has brought a store of food, it does
not imply much. To test this, therefore, I made several experi-
ments. For instance, one cold day my ants were almost all in
their nests. One only was out hunting, and about six feet from
home. I took a dead bluebottle fly, pinned it on to a piece of
cork, and put it down just in front of her. She at once tried to
carry off the fly, but to her surprise found it immovable. She
tugged and tugged, first one way and then another, for about
twenty minutes, and then went straight off to the nest. During
that time not a single ant had come out; in fact, she was the
only ant of that nest out at the time. She went straight in; but
in a few seconds-less than half a minute - came out again with
no less than twelve friends, who trooped off with her, and event-
ually tore up the dead fly, carrying it off in triumph.
XVI-581
## p. 9282 (#298) ###########################################
9282
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
Now the first ant took nothing home with her; she must
therefore somehow have made her friends understand that she
had found some food, and wanted them to come and help her to
secure it. In all such cases, however, so far as my experience
goes, the ants brought their friends; and some of my experi-
ments indicated that they are unable to send them.
Certain species of ants, again, make slaves of others, as Huber
first observed. If a colony of the slave-making ants is changing
the nest, a matter which is left to the discretion of the slaves,—
the latter carry their mistresses to their new home. Again, if I
uncovered one of my nests of the fuscous ant (Formica fusca),
they all began running about in search of some place of refuge.
If now I covered over one small part of the nest, after a while
some ant discovered it. In such a case, however, the brave lit-
tle insect never remained there; she came out in search of her
friends, and the first one she met she took up in her jaws, threw
over her shoulder (their way of carrying friends), and took into
the covered part; then both came out again, found two more
friends and brought them in, the same manoeuvre being repeated
until the whole community was in a place of safety. This, I
think, says much for their public spirit; but seems to prove that
-in F. fusca at least-the powers of communication are but
limited.
One kind of slave-making ant has become so completely de-
pendent on their slaves, that even if provided with food they will
die of hunger, unless there is a slave to put it into their mouth.
I found, however, that they would thrive very well if supplied
with a slave for an hour or so once a week to clean and feed
them.
But in many cases the community does not consist of ants
only. They have domestic animals; and indeed it is not going
too far to say that they have domesticated more animals than we
have. Of these the most important are aphides. Some species
keep aphides on trees and bushes, others collect root-feeding
aphides into their nests. They serve as cows to the ants, which
feed on the honey-dew secreted by the aphides. Not only, more-
over, do the ants protect the aphides themselves, but collect their
eggs in autumn and tend them carefully through the winter,
ready for the next spring. Many other insects are also domesti-
cated by ants; and some of them, from living constantly under-
ground, have completely lost their eyes and become quite blind.
## p. 9283 (#299) ###########################################
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
9283
But I must not let myself be carried away by this fascinating
subject, which I have treated more at length in another work. I
will only say that though their intelligence is no doubt limited,
still I do not think that any one who has studied the life history
of ants can draw any fundamental line of separation between
instinct and reason.
When we see a community of ants working together in per-
fect harmony, it is impossible not to ask ourselves how far they
are mere exquisite automatons, how far they are conscious beings.
When we watch an ant-hill tenanted by thousands of industrious
inhabitants, excavating chambers, forming tunnels, making roads,
guarding their home, gathering food, feeding the young, tending
their domestic animals,- each one fulfilling its duties industriously,
and without confusion,-it is difficult altogether to deny to them
the gift of reason; and all our recent observations tend to con-
firm the opinion that their mental powers differ from those of
men not so much in kind as in degree.
SAVAGES COMPARED WITH CHILDREN
From Pre-Historic Times >
SAVO
AVAGES may be likened to children; and the comparison is not
only correct, but also highly instructive. Many naturalists
consider that the early condition of the individual indicates
that of the race,—that the best test of the affinities of a species
are the stages through which it passes. So also it is in the case
of man: the life of each individual is an epitome of the history of
the race, and the gradual development of the child illustrates that
of the species. Hence the importance of the similarity between
savages and children. Savages, like children, have no steadiness.
of purpose.
Speaking of the Dogrib Indians, we found, says
Richardson, "by experience, that however high the reward they
expected to receive on reaching their destination, they could not
be depended on to carry letters. A slight difficulty, the prospect
of a banquet on venison, or a sudden impulse to visit some
friend, were sufficient to turn them aside for an indefinite length
of time. " Even among the comparatively civilized South Sea
Islanders this childishness was very apparent. "Their tears in-
deed, like those of children, were always ready to express any
passion that was strongly excited, and like those of children they
## p. 9284 (#300) ###########################################
9284
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK
also appear to be forgotten as soon as shed. " D'Urville also
mentions that Tai-wanga, a New Zealand chief, cried like a child
because the sailors spoilt his favorite cloak by powdering it with
flour. "It is not," says Cook, "indeed strange that the sorrows
of these artless people should be transient, any more than that
their passions should be suddenly and strongly expressed; what
they feel they have never been taught either to disguise or sup-
press; and having no habits of thinking which perpetually recall
the past and anticipate the future, they are affected by all the
changes of the passing hour, and reflect the color of the time,
however frequently it may vary. "
We know the difficulty which children find in pronouncing
certain sounds: rand, for instance, they constantly confound.
This is the case also among the Sandwich-Islanders and in the
Ladrones, according to Freycinet; in Vanikoro; among the Dam-
maras; and in the Tonga Islands. Mr.
