Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

Mr. Zebedee Marvyn was quietly sitting in the front summer parlor,
listening to the story of two of his brother church-members, between
whom some difficulty had arisen in the settling of accounts: Jim
Bigelow, a small, dry, dapper little individual, known as general jobber
and factotum, and Abram Griswold, a stolid, wealthy, well-to-do farmer.
And the fragments of conversation we catch are not uninteresting, as
showing Mr. Zebedee's habits of thought and mode of treating those who
came to him for advice.

"I could 'ave got along better, if he'd 'a' paid me regular every
night," said the squeaky voice of little Jim;--"but he was allers
puttin' me off till it come even change, he said."

"Well, 'ta'n't always handy," replied the other; "one doesn't like to
break into a five-pound note for nothing; and I like to let it run till
it comes even change."

"But, brother," said Mr. Zebedee, turning over the great Bible that lay
on the mahogany stand in the corner, "we must go to the law and to the
testimony,"--and, turning over the leaves, he read from Deuteronomy,
xxiv.:--

"Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether
he be of thy brethren or of thy strangers that are in thy land within
thy gates. At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the
sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest
he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee."

"You see what the Bible has to say on the matter," he said.

"Well, now, Deacon, I rather think you've got me in a tight place," said
Mr. Griswold, rising; and turning confusedly round, he saw the placid
figure of the Doctor, who had entered the room unobserved in the midst
of the conversation, and was staring with that look of calm, dreamy
abstraction which often led people to suppose that he heard and saw
nothing of what was going forward.

All rose reverently; and while Mr. Zebedee was shaking hands with the
Doctor, and welcoming him to his house, the other two silently withdrew,
making respectful obeisance.

Mrs. Marvyn had drawn Mary's hand gently under her arm and taken her to
her own sleeping-room, as it was her general habit to do, that she might
show her the last book she had been reading, and pour into her ear the
thoughts that had been kindled up by it.

Mrs. Scudder, after carefully brushing every speck of dust from the
Doctor's coat and seeing him seated in an armchair by the open window,
took out a long stocking of blue-mixed yarn which she was knitting for
his winter wear, and, pinning her knitting-sheath on her side, was soon
trotting her needles contentedly in front of him.

The ill-success of the Doctor's morning attempt at enforcing his
theology in practice rather depressed his spirits. There was a noble
innocence of nature in him which looked at hypocrisy with a puzzled and
incredulous astonishment. How a man _could_ do so and be so was to him
a problem at which his thoughts vainly labored. Not that he was in the
least discouraged or hesitating in regard to his own course. When he
had made up his mind to perform a duty, the question of success no more
entered his thoughts than those of the granite boulder to which we have
before compared him. When the time came for him to roll, he did roll
with the whole force of his being;--where he was to land was not his
concern.

Mildly and placidly he sat with his hands resting on his knees, while
Mr. Zebedee and Mrs. Scudder compared notes respecting the relative
prospects of corn, flax, and buckwheat, and thence passed to the doings
of Congress and the last proclamation of General Washington, pausing
once in a while, if, peradventure, the Doctor might take up the
conversation. Still he sat dreamily eyeing the flies as they fizzed down
the panes of the half-open window.

"I think," said Mr. Zebedee, "the prospects of the Federal party were
never brighter."

The Doctor was a stanch Federalist, and generally warmed to this
allurement; but it did not serve this time.

Suddenly drawing himself up, a light came into his blue eyes, and he
said to Mr. Marvyn,--

"I'm thinking, Deacon, if it is wrong to keep back the wages of a
servant till after the going down of the sun, what those are to do who
keep them back all their lives."

There was a way the Doctor had of hearing and seeing when he looked
as if his soul were afar off, and bringing suddenly into present
conversation some fragment of the past on which he had been leisurely
hammering in the quiet chambers of his brain, which was sometimes quite
startling.

This allusion to a passage of Scripture which Mr. Marvyn was reading
when he came in, and which nobody supposed he had attended to, startled
Mrs. Scudder, who thought, mentally, "Now for it!" and laid down her
knitting-work, and eyed her cousin anxiously. Mrs. Marvyn and Mary, who
had glided in and joined the circle, looked interested; and a slight
flush rose and overspread the thin cheeks of Mr. Marvyn, and his
blue eyes deepened a moment with a thoughtful shadow, as he looked
inquiringly at the Doctor, who proceeded:--

"My mind labors with this subject of the enslaving of the Africans, Mr.
Marvyn. We have just been declaring to the world that all men are born
with an inalienable right to liberty. We have fought for it, and the
Lord of Hosts has been with us; and can we stand before Him with our
foot upon our brother's neck?"

A generous, upright nature is always more sensitive to blame than
another,--sensitive in proportion to the amount of its reverence
for good,--and Mr. Marvyn's face flushed, his eye kindled, and his
compressed respiration showed how deeply the subject moved him. Mrs.
Marvyn's eyes turned on him an anxious look of inquiry. He answered,
however, calmly:--

"Doctor, I have thought of the subject, myself. Mrs. Marvyn has lately
been reading a pamphlet of Mr. Thomas Clarkson's on the slave-trade,
and she was saying to me only last night, that she did not see but the
argument extended equally to holding slaves. One thing, I confess,
stumbles me:--Was there not an express permission given to Israel to buy
and hold slaves of old?"

"Doubtless," said the Doctor; "but many permissions were given to them
which were local and temporary; for if we hold them to apply to the
human race, the Turks might quote the Bible for making slaves of us,
if they could,--and the Algerines have the Scripture all on their
side,--and our own blacks, at some future time, if they can get the
power, might justify themselves in making slaves of us."

"I assure you, Sir," said Mr. Marvyn, "if I speak, it is not to excuse
myself. But I am quite sure my servants do not desire liberty, and would
not take it, if it were offered."

"Call them in and try it," said the Doctor. "If they refuse, it is their
own matter."

There was a gentle movement in the group at the directness of this
personal application; but Mr. Marvyn replied, calmly,--

"Cato is up at the eight-acre lot, but you may call in Candace. My dear,
call Candace, and let the Doctor put the question to her."

Candace was at this moment sitting before the ample fireplace in the
kitchen, with two iron kettles before her, nestled each in its bed of
hickory coals, which gleamed out from their white ashes like sleepy, red
eyes, opening and shutting. In one was coffee, which she was burning,
stirring vigorously with a pudding-stick,--and in the other, puffy
dough-nuts, in shapes of rings, hearts, and marvellous twists, which
Candace had such a special proclivity for making, that Mrs. Marvyn's
table and closets never knew an intermission of their presence.

"Candace, the Doctor wishes to see you," said Mrs. Marvyn.

"Bress his heart!" said Candace, looking up, perplexed. "Wants to see
me, does he? Can't nobody hab me till dis yer coffee's done; a minnit's
a minnit in coffee;--but I'll be in dereckly," she added, in a
patronizing tone. "Missis, you jes' go 'long in, an' I'll be dar
dereckly."

A few moments after, Candace joined the group in the sitting-room,
having hastily tied a clean, white apron over her blue linsey
working-dress, and donned the brilliant Madras which James had lately
given her, and which she had a barbaric fashion of arranging so as to
give to her head the air of a gigantic butterfly. She sunk a dutiful
curtsy, and stood twirling her thumbs, while the Doctor surveyed her
gravely.

"Candace," said he, "do you think it right that the black race should be
slaves to the white?"

The face and air of Candace presented a curious picture at this moment;
a sort of rude sense of delicacy embarrassed her, and she turned a
deprecating look, first on Mrs. Marvyn and then on her master.

"Don't mind us, Candace," said Mrs. Marvyn; "tell the Doctor the exact
truth."

Candace stood still a moment, and the spectators saw a deeper shadow
roll over her sable face, like a cloud over a dark pool of water, and
her immense person heaved with her labored breathing.

"Ef I must speak, I must," she said. "No,--I neber did tink 'twas right.
When Gineral Washington was here, I hearn 'em read de Declaration ob
Independence and Bill o' Rights; an' I tole Cato den, says I, 'Ef dat
ar' true, you an' I are as free as anybody.' It stands to reason. Why,
look at me,--I a'n't a critter. I's neider huffs nor horns. I's a
reasonable bein',--a woman,--as much a woman as anybody," she said,
holding up her head with an air as majestic as a palm-tree;--"an'
Cato,--he's a man, born free an' equal, ef dar's any truth in what you
read,--dat's all."

"But, Candace, you've always been contented and happy with us, have you
not?" said Mr. Marvyn.

"Yes, Mass'r,--I ha'n't got nuffin to complain ob in dat matter. I
couldn't hab no better friends 'n you an' Missis."

"Would you like your liberty, if you could get it, though?" said Mr.
Marvyn, "Answer me honestly."

"Why, to be sure I should! Who wouldn't? Mind ye," she said, earnestly
raising her black, heavy hand, "'ta'n't dat I want to go off, or want to
shirk work; but I want to _feel free_. Dem dat isn't free has nuffin to
gib to nobody;--dey can't show what dey would do."

"Well, Candace, from this day you are free," said Mr. Marvyn, solemnly.

Candace covered her face with both her fat hands, and shook and
trembled, and, finally, throwing her apron over her head, made a
desperate rush for the door, and threw herself down in the kitchen in a
perfect tropical torrent of tears and sobs.

"You see," said the Doctor, "what freedom is to every human creature.
The blessing of the Lord will be on this deed, Mr. Marvyn. 'The steps of
a just man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way.'"

At this moment, Candace reappeared at the door, her butterfly turban
somewhat deranged with the violence of her prostration, giving a
whimsical air to her portly person.

"I want ye all to know," she said, with a clearing-up snuff, "dat it's
my will an' pleasure to go right on doin' my work jes' de same; an',
Missis, please, I'll allers put three eggs in de crullers, now; an' I
won't turn de wash-basin down in de sink, but hang it jam-up on de
nail; an' I won't pick up chips in a milkpan, ef I'm in ever so big a
hurry;--I'll do eberyting jes' as ye tells me. Now you try me an' see ef
I won't!"

Candace here alluded to some of the little private wilfulnesses which
she had always obstinately cherished as reserved rights, in pursuing
domestic matters with her mistress.

"I intend," said Mr. Marvyn, "to make the same offer to your husband,
when he returns from work to-night."

"Laus, Mass'r,--why, Cato he'll do jes' as I do,--dere a'n't no kind o'
need o' askin' him. 'Course he will."

A smile passed round the circle, because between Candace and her husband
there existed one of those whimsical contrasts which one sometimes sees
in married life. Cato was a small-built, thin, softly-spoken negro,
addicted to a gentle chronic cough; and, though a faithful and skilful
servant, seemed, in relation to his better half, much like a hill of
potatoes under a spreading apple-tree. Candace held to him with a
vehement and patronizing fondness, so devoid of conjugal reverence as to
excite the comments of her friends.

"You must remember, Candace," said a good deacon to her one day, when
she was ordering him about at a catechizing, "you ought to give honor to
your husband; the wife is the weaker vessel."

"_I_ de weaker vessel?" said Candace, looking down from the tower of her
ample corpulence on the small, quiet man whom she had been fledging with
the ample folds of a worsted comforter, out of which his little head
and shining bead-eyes looked, much like a blackbird in a nest,--"_I_ de
weaker vessel? Umph!"

A whole-woman's-rights' convention could not have expressed more in a
day than was given in that single look and word. Candace considered
a husband as a thing to be taken care of,--a rather inconsequent and
somewhat troublesome species of pet, to be humored, nursed, fed,
clothed, and guided in the way that he was to go,--an animal that was
always losing off buttons, catching colds, wearing his best coat every
day, and getting on his Sunday hat in a surreptitious manner for
week-day occasions; but she often condescended to express it as her
opinion that he was a blessing, and that she didn't know what she should
do, if it wasn't for Cato. In fact, he seemed to supply her that which
we are told is the great want in woman's situation,--an object in
life. She sometimes was heard expressing herself very energetically in
disapprobation of the conduct of one of her sable friends, named Jinny
Stiles, who, after being presented with her own freedom, worked several
years to buy that of her husband, but became afterwards so disgusted
with her acquisition that she declared she would "neber buy anoder
nigger."

"Now Jinny don't know what she's talkin' about," she would say. "S'pose
he does cough and keep her awake nights, and take a little too much
sometimes, a'n't he better'n no husband at all? A body wouldn't seem to
hab nuffin to lib for, ef dey hadn't an ole man to look arter. Men
is nate'lly foolish about some tings,--but dey's good deal better'n
nuffin."

And Candace, after this condescending remark, would lift off with one
hand a brass kettle in which poor Cato might have been drowned, and fly
across the kitchen with it as if it were a feather.

[To be continued.]

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_The Works of Francis Bacon_, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Alban, and
Lord High Chancellor of England. Collected and edited by James Spedding,
M.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge; Robert Leslie Ellis, M.A.,
late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; and Douglas Denon Heath,
Barrister-at-Law, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Vols.
I.-VI. London: Longman & Co. 1858.

"For my name and memory," said Bacon in his will, "I leave it to men's
charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and to the next ages."
Scarcely was he dead when the first portion of this legacy received some
part of its fulfilment in the touching and often quoted words of Ben
Jonson:--"My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his
place or honors; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that
was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work,
one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that had been
in many ages. In his adversity, I ever prayed that God would give him
strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in
a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to
virtue, but rather help to make it manifest." But it may fairly be
doubted whether "the next ages" have done fitly by his memory, spite of
the honor that has been indiscriminately lavished upon his name as a
philosopher, and the mass of praise, for the most part ignorant, beneath
which his works have been buried. The world of readers has been content
to take Bacon's greatness upon trust, or to form such imperfect idea of
it as was to be got from acquaintance with his "Essays," the only one
of his works which has ever attained popularity. Even more thorough
students have, for the most part, satisfied themselves with a general
view of Bacon's philosophy, dwelling on disconnected passages of ample
thought or aphoristic wisdom, and rarely attempting to gain an insight
into the real character of his system. Indeed, "the system of Lord
Bacon" became a sort of cabalistic phrase. It meant anything and
everything. It was like the English Constitution, venerable in authority
and prescription, interpreted in contradictory methods, and never
precisely defined. Few men undertook to study it with a zeal like that
of Homer and his friend Lord Webb Seymour, when, in days of enthusiasm,
they read and re-read the "De Augmentis" and the "Novum Organum," and
Homer planned to do what Dr. Whewell seems to suppose he has done, bring
Bacon up to the present time, by writing a work upon the basis of his,
which should furnish a complete review of modern knowledge. Still, it
has been part of an English birthright to hold Bacon as the restorer of
the sciences, the inventor or at least the re-inventor of the inductive
method, and the father of all discovery since his time. These notions
have been held firmly, while more special ones concerning his system and
himself have been, for the most part, vague or unformed.

In great part, this fact is the result of the condition in which Lord
Bacon left his works, the manner of their composition, and their
intrinsic defects. He did not publish them in any systematic order,
but printed one after another, as it was written, or as extraneous
circumstances might induce. Nor did he leave his system complete in any
one treatise. His mind discursive, his imagination easily fired, he
seized subject after subject and discussed each in a separate treatise,
all with more or less reference to a general plan, but not embodied in
any consecutive and harmonious development. The growth of his ideas, the
changes of his views, as his life advanced, are manifest in the want of
connection, as well as in the connection, of these various fragments.
Dr. Rawley, his chaplain, says,--and it is a marvellous illustration of
Bacon's diligence and desire for perfection,--"I myself have seen, at
the least, twelve copies of the 'Instauration,' revised year by year,
one after another, and every year altered and amended in the frame
thereof."

Such, then, being the state of Bacon's works at his death, much was left
to the judgment of his editors, and, unfortunately, the labor of editing
his books has, up to the present time, fallen into hands wanting in
competence and discretion. It has consequently been a task of special
difficulty to get from the ill-arranged mass of Bacon's writings a
satisfactory view of the essential elements of his philosophy and a just
knowledge of his final opinions.

But the reproach of non-fulfilment of the trust committed to them will
rest upon "the next ages" no longer; for the edition which is now in
course of publication amply redeems the faults of those that have
preceded it, and is such a one as Bacon himself might have approved. In
the second book of the "Advancement of Learning," in recounting "the
works or acts of merit toward learning," he includes among them "new
editions of authors, with more correct impressions, more faithful
translations, more profitable glosses, more diligent annotations, and
the like." In each of these respects the edition before us deserves the
highest praise. The editors have engaged in their task as in a labor of
love. It is the result of many years of study, and it exhibits the fruit
of unwearied care, great learning, and excellent judgment. So far as
it has advanced, it does the highest honor to English scholarship, and
takes its place as one of the most remarkable editions in existence of
any author whose works stand in need of editorial care. The plan upon
which it is arranged is as follows. Bacon's works are divided into three
broad classes:--first, the Philosophical; secondly, the Professional;
thirdly, the Literary and Occasional. Each of these classes was
undertaken by a separate editor. Mr. Robert Leslie Ellis engaged upon
the Philosophical Works, and had advanced far in his task when he was
suddenly compelled to relinquish it some years since by illness which
completely disabled him for labor. What he had already accomplished is
so well done as to excite sincere regret that he was unable to carry his
work forward. But this regret is diminished by the ability with which
Mr. James Spedding, who had taken charge of the Literary and Occasional
Works, has supplied Mr. Ellis's place in the completion of the editing
of the Philosophical. The burden of the edition has fallen upon his
shoulders, and the chief credit for its excellence is due to him. Up to
the present time, the publication of the Philosophical Works is complete
in five volumes, and the first volume of the Literary Works has just
appeared. The separate treatises contained in the completed portion are
distributed into three parts,--"whereby," says Mr. Spedding, "all those
writings which were either published or intended for publication by
Bacon himself as parts of the Great Instauration are (for the first
time, I believe) exhibited separately, and distinguished as well from
the independent and collateral pieces which did not form part of the
main scheme, as from those which, though originally designed for it,
were afterwards superseded and abandoned." Each piece is accompanied
with a preface, both critical and historical, and with notes. It is
in these prefaces that a great part of the value of the new edition
consists; for they are in themselves treatises of elucidation and
illustration of Bacon's opinions, and of investigation concerning the
changes they underwent from time to time. They are written with great
clearness and ability, and, taken together, present such a view of
Bacon's philosophy as is to be found nowhere else, and amply answers the
requirements of students, however exacting.

Far too much credit has been attributed to Bacon, in popular estimation,
as the author of a system upon which the modern progress of science is
based.[A] Whatever his system may have been, it is certain that it has
had little direct influence upon the advance of knowledge. But, perhaps,
too little credit has been given to Bacon as a man whose breadth and
power of thought and amplitude of soul enabled a spirit that has at once
stimulated its progress and elevated its disciples. That Bacon believed
himself to have invented a system wholly new admits of no doubt; but it
is doubtful whether he ever definitely arranged this system in his own
mind. And it is a curious and interesting fact, and one illustrative, at
least, of the imperfection of Bacon's exposition of his own method, that
Mr. Ellis and Mr. Spedding, the two most conscientious investigators of
Bacon's thought, should have arrived at different conclusions in regard
to the distinctive peculiarities of the Baconian philosophy. Mr.
Spedding, in his very interesting preface to the "Parasceve," suggests,
since his own and Mr. Ellis's conclusions, though different, do not
appear irreconcilable, "whether there be not room for a third solution,
more complete than either, as including both." Both he and Mr. Ellis
set out from the position, that "the philosophy which Bacon meant to
announce was in some way essentially different, not only from any that
had been before, but from any that has been since,"--a position very
much opposed to the popular opinion. "The triumph of his [Bacon's]
principles of scientific investigation," said, not long since, a writer
in the "Quarterly Review," whose words may be taken as representative of
the common ideas on the matter, "has made it unnecessary to revert to
the reasoning by which they were established."[B] But the truth seems
to be, that the merits of Bacon belong, as Mr. Ellis well says, "to the
spirit rather than to the positive precepts of his philosophy." Nor does
it appear that Bacon himself, although he indulged the highest hopes and
felt the securest confidence in the results of his perfected system,
supposed that he had given to it that perfection which was required. In
the "De Augmentis Scientiarum," published in 1623, two years and a half
before his death, he says: "I am preparing and laboring with all my
might to make the mind of man, by help of art, a match for the nature
of things, (_ut mens per artem fiat rebus par_,) to discover an art of
Indication and Direction, whereby all other arts, with their axioms
and works, may be detected and brought to light. For I have, with good
reason, set this down as wanting." (Lib. v. c. 2.) Bacon regarded his
method, not only as one wholly new, but also of universal application,
and leading to absolute certainty. Doubt was to be excluded from its
results. By its means, all the knowledge of which men were capable was
to be attained surely and in a comparatively brief space of time. Such a
conviction, extravagant as it may seem, is expressed in many passages.
In the Preface to his "Parasceve," published in 1620, in the same volume
with the "Novum Organum," he says, that he is about to describe a
Natural and Experimental History, which, if it be once provided, (and
he assumes, that, "etiam vivis nobis," it may be provided,) "paucorum
annorum opus futuram esse inquitionem naturae et scientiarum omnium."
Again, in the Protemium of the "Novum Organum": "There was but one
course left, to commence a total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and
all human knowledge, raised upon the proper foundations." And in the
Dedication to the same work, he says, with characteristic confidence,
"Equidem Organum praebui,"--"I have provided the Instrument."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21