Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860

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Though we rebelled against the Doctor's conclusions, we could not but
see the prudence of the course he advised, and so we sat down to
watch our poor little friend, gnawed with bitter anxiety, and feeling
a sad consciousness that the disease itself under which he suffered
was beyond our skilfullest surgery, and one that inevitably
threatened the saddest consequences. A man has grand powers of
recovery, so long as his _spirit_ is free; but let him once be
persuaded that his soul is chained down forever in adamantine
fetters, and, though, like Prometheus, he may endure with silence,
patience, even divinely, he is nevertheless utterly incapable of any
positive effort towards recuperation. His faith becomes, by a subtile
law of our being, his fact; the mountain is gifted with actual
motion, and rewards the temerity of his zeal by falling upon him and
crushing him forever. Such a person moves on, perchance, like a deep,
noble river, in calm and silence, but still moves on, inevitably
destined to lose himself in the common ocean. And this was the
promise of Clarian's case. Whatever was his hidden woe, however
trivial its rational results, or baseless its causes, it had beyond
remedy seized upon his soul, and we knew, that, unless it could be
done away with at the source, the end was certain: first the fury,
then the apathy of madness. He was no longer tortured with a visible
haunting presence, such as had borne him down on that fatal night,
but we saw plainly that he had taken the spectre into his own breast,
and nursed it, as a bosom serpent, upon his rapidly exhausting
energies.

Happily for us,--ere Clarian was quite beyond recovery, while Mac
still tore his hair in rage at his own impotence, while the Doctor
still pursued his researches with the sedateness of a philosopher,
and I was using what power I had to alleviate my little friend's
misery,--that subtile and mysterious agency, which, in our blindness
and need, we term Chance, interposed its offices, rolled away the
cloud from the mystery, and, like a good angel, rescued Clarian, even
as he was tottering upon the very brink of the dismal precipice to
whose borders he had innocently strayed.

I shall never forget that pleasant June day. It was the first time
that Clarian had been out since his illness; and I was his single
companion, as he strayed slowly along through the college grounds,
leaning tremulously upon my arm, dragging his feet languidly over the
pebbled walks, and drinking in the warm, fresh, quivering air with a
manner that, although apathetic, still spoke of some power of
enjoyment. It was during the hour for the forenoon recitation, and
the elm-shaded campus was entirely free of students. As Clarian
walked along, his eyes bent down, I heard him murmuring that
delicious verse of George Herbert's,--

"Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky!
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die!"

"'For thou must die,'--so sad! And yet the thought itself of death is
not that which saddens us so, do you think, Ned?" he went on, I
hearing his words without heeding them,--for I was looking just then
towards the outer gate next the President's house, through which I
saw Dr. Thorne coming rapidly, accompanied by a stout, middle-aged
man, having the dress and appearance of a well-to-do farmer,--"Not
the thought, simply, 'Thou must die,'" repeated Clarian, in his
plaintive murmur, "but the feeling that all this decay and death is
of ourselves, and could be averted by ourselves, had we only
self-control, could we only keep ourselves pure, and so be ever near God
and _of_ Him. _There's_ cause for a deeper melancholy, poignanter
tears than ever Jacques shed."

Dr. Thorne and his companion were now quite near, coming towards us
on the same path, when I saw the stranger slap his thigh
energetically and catch Thorne by the arm, while he exclaimed in
tones of boisterous surprise,--

"Why, there's the very little chap, as I'm alive!"

I had half a glimpse of the Doctor's seizing his companion and
clapping one hand over his mouth, as if to prevent him from saying
more,--but it was too late. At the sound of the man's voice I felt
Clarian bound electrically. He looked up,--over his face began to
come again that terrible anguish of the night of the picture, but the
muscles seemed too weak to bring it all back,--he grew limp against
me,--his arms hung inert at his side,--a word that sounded like
"Spare me!" gurgled in his throat,--a feeble shudder shook him, and,
ere I could interpose my arm, he sank in a heap at my feet, white,
and cold, and lifeless. Before I had raised him, Thorne and the man
sprang to my aid, and the latter, bending over with eager haste, took
the thin white hands in his own, half caressing them, half fearing to
grasp them, speaking to him the while in tones of frightened
entreaty, that, on any other occasion, would have been ludicrous
enough.

"Come, now, my little man," said he,--"come, don't be afeard, _don't_
be afeard of me! Dan Buckhurst won't harm ye, not for the world, poor
child! Come, stand up! 'Twas all a joke. Come, come!--My God! Doctor,
he a'n't dead, is he?" cried he to Thorne, in horror.

"If he is, you have killed him, you damned old fool, you!" responded
Thorne, impetuously, thrusting the man aside with an angry gesture,
and bending down to examine the lad's inert form. "Thank God, Ned,"
said he at last, "it is only a swoon this time, and we'll soon have
him all right. We must get him to bed, though. Here, Buckhurst, you
are the strongest; stop whimpering there, you old jackanapes, and
bring him along."

Buckhurst quickly obeyed, lifting Clarian up in his arms as gently
and tenderly as if he had been an infant, and following Thorne, who
led the way to our rooms. There the lad was placed upon the bed with
which he had become only too familiar, and the Doctor, by means of
his restoratives, soon had the satisfaction of recalling breath and
motion. As soon as the boy's sighs gave evidence of returning
vitality, Thorne thrust us all from the room, including Mac, who had
now come in from class, saying to Buckhurst,--

"Now, Sir, tell them all about it,--and wait here; I shall want you
presently." With which words he closed the door upon us, and returned
to his patient.

Mr. Buckhurst refused the chair tendered him by Mac, and paced up and
down the room in a state of immense perturbation.

"Well, I never!" said he, "well, I never! It taken me all aback,
Sir," added he, turning to me. "Did you ever see anything like it?
Why, he's jest like a gal! Dang it, Sir! my Molly a'n't half as
nervous as he is. I hope he'll get well,--I raelly do, now. I
wouldn't hev had it happen for I dunno what, now, indeed!" And he
resumed his walk, repeating to himself, "Well, I never! Who'd 'a'
judged 'twas a child like that?"

"May I beg to know what you refer to, Mr. Buckhurst?" asked Mac, with
considerable impatience in his tones.

"Eh,--what? He's mighty delicate, a'n't he?" said the man, with his
thumb indicating the next room.

"Very delicate indeed, Sir,--perhaps you can explain the cause of his
present attack," said I, angrily; for I had begun to think, from
Buckhurst's manner, that he had been guilty of some practical joke
upon Clarian. I saw the fire of a similar suspicion blazing in Mac's
eyes; and I fear, had our conclusions been verified, the worthy Mr.
Buckhurst would have fared very badly at our hands, spite the laws of
hospitality.

"What! did he never tell you? Of course not, though, being sick ever
sence, and thinking me dead, too. Well, I'll tell you: but mind, you
mustn't banter the child about it, for he can't stand it,--though
it's only a joke. Might have been serious, to be sure, but, as things
turns out, a pretty good joke, to my notion,--though I'm rael sorry
_he's_ been so bad about it."

Mac rose, removed his coat, and marched deliberately up to our guest.
"See here, Sir," said he in his deepest bass voice, which his dark
frown made still more ominous, "do you mean us to infer that you have
been making that child Clarian the victim of any of your infernal
_jokes_, as you style them?"

Buckhurst stared a moment, and then, seeming to comprehend the drift
of Mac's words, burst into a hearty laugh.

"No, Sir!" he shouted, "the shoe's on the other foot, thank the Lord!
The boy himself played the joke, or trick, whatever it was. Dr.
Thorne tells me he was kind of crazy, from drinking laudanum, or some
sech pisonous matter. Howsever that was, I'm sure he didn't do it in
airnest,--thought so from the very first,--and now I've had a good
look at his face, I'd swear to it"

"What did he do?" asked Mac, hurriedly.

Buckhurst laughed in that hearty way of his. Said he,--

"I'll wager you a stack of hay agin them books yander you couldn't
guess in a week now. What d'ye think it was? Ho! ho! Why, why, the
little rascal shoved me into the canawl!"

"Shoved you into the canal!" echoed I, while Mac, looking first at
him, then at me, finally burst into a peal of laughter, shouting the
while,--

"Bravo! There's your 'experience' philosophy, Ned Blount! Catch me
teaching milksops again! Go on, Buckhurst, tell us all about it."

"Yes," said Mr. Buckhurst, apparently quite pleased to see that we
laughed with him. "It don't look like it was in the nature of things,
somehow, does it? Fact, though, he did indeed. Shoved me right in, so
quick I didn't know what the Devil was the matter, until I soused
kersplash! and see him taking out over the drawbridge like mad."

"When was that, Mr. Buckhurst?"

"Jest inside of a month ago, Sir, one night."

"_Sapperment_, Ned! that was the time of the 'herb Pantagruelion'!--
Well, what were you doing on the canal at that hour?" asked Mac,
slyly.

"No, you needn't, now,--I see you wink at him,--honor bright. I'd
been up to town, to take a mess o' clams at Giberson's, with maybe a
sprinklin' of his apple-jack,--nothing else,--and I was on my way
home,--to Skillman's tavern at the _depot_, you know,--and I'd jest
stopped a piece, and was a-standing there, looking at the moon in the
water, when he tipped me over. I tell you, I was mad when I crawled
out wet as a rat; and if I'd ketched him then, you may depend upon
it, I'd 'a' given his jacket a precious warming. As I said, he run
off, but jest as I turned towards the tavern, I see him a-coming
back, kinder wild-like; so I slipped behind a lumber-pile, hoping he
might come over the bridge, so I could lay my fingers on him. The
moon was about its highest, so I could see his face, plain as day,--
white,--skim-milk warn't a circumstance to it,--and his eyes wide
open as they could stretch. I tell you, he was wild! He looked up and
down a bit, mumbled somethin' I couldn't make out, and then what do
you think that boy did? Why, he jumped in, clothes and all, bold as a
lion,--plainly to save me from drowning, and me all the time a-spyin'
at him from behind a lumber-pile! He was sarching for me, I knowed,
for he swum up and down jest about there for the space maybe of a
quarter of an hour. And when he give it up at last, and come out, he
kinder sunk down on the tow-path, and I heard him say plain enough,
though he only whispered it,--jest like a woman actor I see down to
York oncet, playin' in Guy something or other,--she was a sort of an
old gypsy devil,--says he, 'I am a murderer, then!' Thinks I, 'Sonny,
all but the murderer!' And as he stood up again, he 'peared to suffer
so, his face was so white, and his knees so shaky, that I says to
myself, 'Dan, you've carried the joke far enough.' So I sings out to
him, and comes out from behind the lumber-stack, but, Lord bless ye!
he jest peeped round over his shoulder oncet, gave a kind of chokin'
scream like, and put out up the road as if the Devil was after him. I
knowed it warn't no use to follow him, so I got on a dry shirt and
went to bed. The next day I went home, and I'd mighty near forgot all
about it, only today I came to see Dr. Thorne for somethin' to do my
cold good, and he wantin' to know how I ketched it brought the whole
matter back again."

"You're an old brick, Buckhurst!" cried Mac, giving the jovial farmer
a thundering slap on the back, and a hearty grasp of his hand; "and
you shall drink the boy's health with Ned and me this day, or I'll
know the reason why. Ned Blount, a'n't it glorious? Said I not, you
ill-omened bird, said I not, _'Il y a toujours un Dieu pour les
enfans et pour les ivrognes'_?--So you came down with Thorne to ease
the poor little fellow's mind, did you, Buckhurst? That's right, and
you shall see the picture, by Jove! And you'll say, when you see it,
that such a picture were cheap at the cost of duckings for a dozen
Buckhursts. Now tell me truly, what do you think made him push you
in?

"Of course, it was the pison, Sir,--a baby like that wouldn't harm a
flea. I thought maybe, until I see Dr. Thorne, that he done it out of
mischieviousness, as boys will do, you know,--jest as they steal a
feller's apples, and knock his turkeys of'n the roost,--but yander's
not one of them kind; so he must 'a' been crazy, and I'm rael sorry
he's been so bad put to about it,--I am, indeed."

Here the inner door was opened, and Thorne joined us, with a moisture
about his eyes that he used afterwards to deny most vehemently.

"Buckhurst, he wants to see you; go in there," said he,--adding, in a
lower tone, "Now, mind you, the child's delicate as spun glass; so be
careful."

"Come in, Mr. Buckhurst," called Clarian.

The worthy farmer looked to right and left, as if he would much
rather have made his escape, but, impelled by a shove from the
Doctor, he ran his fingers through his coarse hair, and, with a very
red and "I-wish-I-was-out-of-this" face, went in, closing the door
behind him.

"Phew!" said Thorne, seating himself somewhat testily, after having
filled and lighted a pipe,--"Phew! So that's over, and I a'n't sorry;
it's as bad as reading the 'Diary of a Physician.' The boy will be
all right now, and the lesson won't hurt him, though it has been a
rough one. But no more metaphysics for him, Ned Blount! And, boys,
let this be a warning to you. He's too brittle a toy to be handled in
your rough fashion."

"You needn't tell us that, Thorne," said Mac, drawing a long breath.
"Catch me kicking over children's baby-houses again, or telling 'em
ghost-stories in the dark!"

"He vows never again to touch brush, crayon, or pencil; and if he is
the devotee you describe him to be, Ned, I would not advise you to
oppose him in his determination. You must keep him here till
vacation, and next term he can exchange his room. Macbeth's company
will never be very agreeable to him, I should judge; and it will not
do to let him destroy the picture."

Thorne puffed away vigorously for a minute or two.

"That boy ought to turn preacher, Mac. He touched me nearer just now
than I have been touched for an age.

"'His voice was a sweet tremble in mine ear,
Made tunable with every saddest grief,
Till those sad eyes, so spiritual and clear,'

almost persuaded me to follow the example of divine Achilles and
'refresh my soul with tears.' He has that tear-bringing privilege of
genius, to a certainty."

And so it seemed, indeed; for presently the worthy Mr. Buckhurst made
his reappearance in quite a sad state, mopping his red face and
swollen eyes most vigorously with a figured cotton handkerchief, and
proclaiming, with as much intelligibility as the cold in his head and
the peculiar circumstances of the case would admit of, that he'd "be
dagg'd ef he hadd't raver be chucked idto _two_ cadawls dad 'ave dat
iddocedt baby beggid his pardod about de codfouded duckid! Wat de
hell did _he_ care about gittid wet, he'd like to kdow?
Dodsedse!--'twad all dud id fud, adyhow!"

----"And now _you_, my dear, dear friends," said Clarian, turning his
sad, full eyes upon us, and calling us to his side, and to his arms.

But I shall draw a veil over that interview.

That night, after we had talked long and lovingly together, and were
now sitting, each absorbed in his own thoughts, and emulating the
quiet that reigned around college, Clarian softly joined us, and
placed an open book in Mac's hands.

"Will you, dear Mac?" murmured he.

Then Mac, all full of solemn emotion, read through the grand periods
of the Church Litany, and when he had finished, Clarian, with a
thrilling "Let us pray," offered up such a thanksgiving as I had
never heard, praying to the kind Father who had so mercifully
extricated him, that our paths might still be enlightened, and our
walks made humble and righteous.

"Clarian," said Mac, after a pause, when we were again on our feet,--
he laid his hands on the boy's shoulders, as he spoke, and looked
into his eyes,--"Clarian, would it have happened, if you had not
taken that foul drug?"

Clarian shuddered, and covered up his face in his hands.

"Do not ask me, dear Mac! do not ask me! Oh, be sure, my aims, I
thought, were noble, and myself I thought so pure!--but--I cannot
say, Mac, I cannot say.

"'We are so weak, we know our motives least In their confused
beginning.'"

"At least, Clarian," said Mac, after a while, his deep voice
wonderfully refined with strong emotion, "at least, the picture was
not painted in vain. Even as it is in the play, Banquo died that his
issue might reign after him; and this lesson of ours will bear fruit
far mightier than the trifling pains of its parturition. Ay, Clarian,
your picture has not been vainly painted.--And now, Ned," said he,
rising, "we must put our baby to bed; for he is to wake early
to-morrow, and know himself a man!"

SPRING.

Doves on the sunny eaves are cooing,
The chip-bird trills from the apple-tree,
Blossoms are bursting and leaves renewing,
And the crocus darts up the spring to see.

Spring has come with a smile of blessing,
Kissing the earth with her soft warm breath,
Till it blushes in flowers at her gentle caressing,
And wakes from the winter's dream of death.

Spring has come! The rills, as they glisten,
Sing to the pebbles and greening grass;
Under the sward the violets listen,
And dream of the sky as they hear her pass.

Coyest of roses feel her coming,
Swelling their buds with a promise to her,--
And the wild bee hears her, around them humming,
And booms about with a joyous stir.

Oaks, that the bark of a century covers,
Feel ye the spell, as ye groan and sigh?
Say,--does her spirit that round you hovers
Whisper of youth and love gone by?

Windows are open,--the pensive maiden
Leans o'er the sill with a wistful sigh,
Her heart with tender longings o'erladen,
And a happy sadness, she knows not why.

For we and the trees are brothers in nature;--
We feel in our veins the season's thrill
In hopes that reach to a higher stature,
In blind dim longings beyond our will.

Whence dost thou come, O joyous spirit?
From realms beyond this human ken,
To paint with beauty the earth we inherit,
And soften to love the hearts of men?

Dear angel! that blowest with breath of gladness
The trump to waken the year in its grave,
Shall we not hear, after death's deep sadness,
A voice as tender to gladden and save?

Dost thou not sing a constant promise
That joy shall follow that other voice,--
That nothing of good shall be taken from us,
But all who hear it shall rise, to rejoice?

RUFUS CHOATE.

Mr. Choate's mind was so complex, peculiar, and original,--so foreign
in temperament and spirit to the more representative traits of New
England character,--so large, philosophic, and sagacious in vision
and survey of great questions, and so dramatic and vehement in their
exposition and enforcement,--so judicial and conservative in always
maintaining in his arguments the balance and relation of
interdependent principles, and so often in details marring the most
exquisite poetry with the wildest extravagancies of style,--so free
from mere vulgar tricks of effect, and so full of imaginative
tricksiness and surprises,--so mischievous, subtle, mysterious,
elusive, Protean,--that it is no wonder he has been more admired and
more misunderstood than any eminent American of his time. It was
because of these unaccustomed qualities of mind that matter-of-fact
lawyers and judges came slowly but surely to Mr. Webster's
conclusion, that he was "the most accomplished of American lawyers,"
whether arguing to courts or juries. In the same way, critically
correct but unimaginative scholars, who "can pardon anything but a
false quantity,"--who "see the hair on the rope, but not the rope,"
and detect minute errors, but not poetic apprehension,--admitted at
last the fulness and variety of his scholastic attainments. And
perhaps the finest tribute to the power and subtlety of his influence
was, that, to the last, juries, who began cases by steeling
themselves against it, and who ended by giving him their verdicts,
maintained that they were not at all influenced by him,--so profound,
so complete, and so unconscious had been the spell this man of genius
had woven around them.

When it is remembered that a great lawyer in the United States is
called upon (as he is not in England) to practise in all our courts,
civil and criminal, law, equity, and admiralty, and, in addition to
all the complicated questions between parties, involving life,
liberty, and property, arising therein, that he is to know and
discuss our whole scheme of government, from questions under its
patent laws up to questions of jurisdiction and constitutional
law,--it will be seen what a field there is for the exhibition of the
highest talents, and how few lawyers in the country can become
eminent in all these various and important departments of mental
labor. In their whole extent Mr. Choate was not only thoroughly
informed as a student and profound as a reasoner, but his genius
produced such a fusion of imagination and understanding as to give
creativeness to argumentation and philosophy to treatment of facts.

We propose to try to give some idea of those mental characteristics
and peculiarities in which he differed from other lawyers, and to
indicate some salient points of his genius and nature which went to
make up so original and interesting an individuality. Immense labor
and talent will no more produce genius or its results, than mere
natural genius, without their aid and instrumentality, can reach and
maintain the highest rank in any of the great departments of life or
thought. With true genius, imagination is, to be sure, paramount to
great and balanced faculties; but genius is always demonstrating its
superiority to talent as well by its greater rapidity and certainty
in seizing, arranging, and holding facts, and by the extent of its
acquisitions, as by its superior philosophic and artistic grasp and
vision.

Though Mr. Choate was so much more than a mere lawyer, it was in
court that he displayed the full force and variety of his powers.
_Hic currus et arma_. We shall, however, speak more especially of his
jury-trials, because in them more of his whole nature was brought
into play, and because of them and of his management of them there is
and can be no full record. The arguments and triumphs of the great
advocate are almost as evanescent and traditionary as the
conversation of great talkers like Coleridge. In what we have to say
we cannot be expected to call up the arguments and cases themselves,
and we must necessarily be confined to a somewhat general statement
of certain mental qualities and characteristics which were of the
secret of his power. We shall be rewarded, if we succeed in giving in
mere outline some explanation of the fact, that so much of interest
and something of mystery attach themselves throughout the country to
his name and genius.

A jury-trial is in itself dramatic; but mere eloquence is but a small
part of what is demanded of a great advocate. Luther Martin and
Jeremiah Mason were the most eminent American examples of the very
many great jury-lawyers who were almost destitute of all that makes
up popular eloquence. A jury-lawyer is of course greater with it, but
he can do entirely without it. Almost all great trials appeal to the
intellects rather than to the passions of jurors. What an advocate
needs first is thorough knowledge of law, and that adaptiveness and
readiness of faculty which are never surprised into forgetfulness or
confusion, so that he can instantly see, meet, reason upon, and apply
his legal learning to the unexpected as well as the expected points
of law and evidence as they arise in a case. Secondly, he must have
thorough knowledge of human nature: he must not only profoundly
discuss motives in their relations to the laws of the human mind, and
practically reconcile motives with conduct as they relate to the
parties and witnesses in his cases, but he must prepare, present,
develop, guide, and finally argue his case, within the rules of law,
with strict reference to its effect upon the differing minds of
twelve men. It would be difficult to name any other field of public
mental effort which demands and gives scope for such variety of
faculty and accomplishment.

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