Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI.

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This combination of higher with lower features in the earlier organic
forms is very striking, and becomes still more significant when we find
that many of the later types recall the more ancient ones. I have called
these more comprehensive groups of former times, combining characters of
different classes, synthetic or prophetic types; and we might as fitly
give the name of retrospective types to many of the later groups, for
they recall the past, as the former anticipate the future. And it is not
only among the Fishes and the Reptiles that we find these combinations.
The most numerous of the ancient Radiates are the Acalephlan Corals,
combining, in the Hydroid form, the Polyp-like mode of life, habits, and
general appearance with the structure of Acalephs. The Crinoids, with
the closed cups in some, and the open, star-like crowns in others, unite
features of the present Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins, and, by their stem
attaching them to the ground, include also a Polyp-like character; while
the Trilobites, with their uniform rings and their prominent anterior
shield, unite characters of Worms and Crustacea.

These early types seem to sketch in broad, general characters the
Creative purpose, and to include in the first average expression of the
plan all its structural possibilities. The Crinoid forms include the
thought of the modern Star-Fishes and Sea-Urchins; the simple chambered
shells of the Silurian anticipate the more complicated structure of the
later ones; the Trilobites give the most comprehensive expression of the
Articulate type; while the early Fishes not only prophesy the Reptiles
which are to come, but also hint at Birds and even at Mammalia by their
embryonic development and their mode of reproduction.

Looked at from this point of view, the animal world is an intellectual
Creation, complete in all its parts, and coherent throughout; and when
we find, that, although these ancient types have become obsolete and
been replaced by modern ones, yet there are always a few old-fashioned
individuals, left behind, as it were, to give the key to the history
of their race, as the Gar-Pike, for instance, to explain the ancient
Fishes, the Millepore to explain the old Acalephian Corals, the Nautilus
to be the modern exponent of the Ammonites and Orthoceratites of past
times, we cannot avoid the impression that this Creative work has been
intended also to be educational for Man, and to teach him his own
relation to the organic world. The embryology of the modern types
confirms this idea, for here we find an epitome of their geological
history. The embryo of the present Star-Fishes recalls the Crinoids;
the embryo of the Crab recalls the Trilobites; the embryo of the
Vertebrates, including even that of the higher Mammalia, recalls the
ancient Fishes. Does not this fact, that the individual animal in its
growth recalls the history of its type, prove that the Creative Thought
in its immediate present action embraces all that has gone before, as
its first organic expression included all that was to come? The study of
Nature in its highest meaning shows us the present doubly rich with all
the past, and the past linked and interwoven with the present, not lying
divorced and dead behind it.

I have spoken of the Silurian beach as if there were but one, not only
because I wished to limit my sketch, and to attempt at least to give
it the vividness of a special locality, but also because a single such
shore will give us as good an idea of the characteristic fauna of the
time as if we drew our material from a wider range. There are, however,
a great number of parallel ridges belonging to the Silurian and Devonian
periods, running from east to west, not only through the State of New
York, but far beyond, through the States of Michigan and Wisconsin into
Minnesota; one may follow nine or ten such successive shores in unbroken
lines, from the neighborhood of Lake Champlain to the Far West. They
have all the irregularities of modern sea-shores, running up to form
little bays here, and jutting out in promontories there; and upon each
one are found animals of the same kind, but differing in species from
those of the preceding.

Although the early geological periods are more legible in North America,
because they are exposed over such extensive tracts of land, yet they
have been studied in many other parts of the globe. In Norway, in
Germany, in France, in Russia, in Siberia, in Kamtchatka, in parts of
South America, in short, wherever the civilization of the white race has
extended, Silurian deposits have been observed, and everywhere they
bear the same testimony to a profuse and varied creation. The earth was
teeming then with life as now, and in whatever corner of its surface the
geologist finds the old strata, they hold a dead fauna as numerous as
that which lives and moves above it. Nor do we find that there was any
gradual increase or decrease of any organic forms at the beginning and
close of the successive periods. On the contrary, the opening scenes of
every chapter in the world's history have been crowded with life, and
its last leaves as full and varied as its first.

I think the impression that the faunae of the early geological periods
were more scanty than those of later times arises partly from the fact
that the present creation is made a standard of comparison for all
preceding creations. Of course, the collections of living types in any
museum must be more numerous than those of fossil forms, for the simple
reason that almost the whole of the present surface of the earth, with
the animals and plants inhabiting it, is known to us, whereas the
deposits of the Silurian and Devonian periods are exposed to view only
over comparatively limited tracts and in disconnected regions. But let
us compare a given extent of Silurian or Devonian sea-shore with an
equal extent of sea-shore belonging to our own time, and we shall
soon be convinced that the one is as populous as the other. On the
New-England coast there are about one hundred and fifty different kinds
of fishes, in the Gulf of Mexico two hundred and fifty, in the Red Sea
about the same. We may allow in present times an average of two hundred
or two hundred and fifty different kinds of fishes to an extent of ocean
covering about four hundred miles. Now I have made a special study of
the Devonian rocks of Northern Europe, in the Baltic and along the shore
of the German Ocean. I have found in those deposits alone one hundred
and ten kinds of fossil fishes. To judge of the total number of species
belonging to those early ages by the number known to exist now is about
as reasonable as to infer that because Aristotle, familiar only with the
waters of Greece, recorded less than three hundred kinds of fishes in
his limited fishing-ground, therefore these were all the fishes then
living. The fishing-ground of the geologist in the Silurian and Devonian
periods is even more circumscribed than his, and belongs, besides, not
to a living, but to a dead world, far more difficult to decipher.

But the sciences of Geology and Palaeontology are making such rapid
progress, now that they go hand in hand, that our familiarity with past
creations is daily increasing. We know already that extinct animals
exist all over the world: heaped together under the snows of
Siberia,--lying thick beneath the Indian soil,--found wherever English
settlers till the ground or work the mines of Australia,--figured in the
old Encyclopaedias of China, where the Chinese philosophers have drawn
them with the accuracy of their nation,--built into the most beautiful
temples of classic lands, for even the stones of the Parthenon are full
of the fragments of these old fossils, and if any chance had directed
the attention of Aristotle towards them, the science of Palaeontology
would not have waited for its founder till Cuvier was born,--in short,
in every corner of the earth where the investigations of civilized men
have penetrated, from the Arctic to Patagonia and the Cape of Good Hope,
these relics tell us of successive populations lying far behind our own,
and belonging to distinct periods of the world's history.

* * * * *

In my next article I shall give some account of the marshes and forests
of the Carboniferous age, with their characteristic vegetation and
inhabitants.

CORALIE.

Pale water-flowers,
That quiver in the quick turn of the brook,
And thou, dim nook,--
Dimmer in twilight,--call again to me
Visions of life and glory that were ours,
When first she led me here, young Coralie!

No longer blest,
Yet standing here in silence, may not we
Fancy or feign
That little flowers do fall about thy rest
In silver mist and tender-dropping rain,
And that thy world is peace, loved Coralie?

Our friendships flee,
And, darkening all things with her mighty shade,
Comes Misery.
No longer look the faces that we see,
With the old eyes; and Woe itself shall fade,
Nor even this be left us, Coralie!

Feelings and fears
That once were ours have perished in the mould,
And grief is cold:
Hearts may be dead to grief; and if our tears
Are failing or forgetful, there will be
Mourners about thy bed, lost Coralie!

The brook-flowers shine,
And a faint song the falling water has,--
But not for thee!
The dull night weepeth, and the sorrowing pine
Drops his dead hair upon thy young grave-grass,
My Coralie! my Coralie!

* * * * *

I took from its glass a flower,
To lay on her grave with dull accusing tears;
But the heart of the flower fell out as I handled the rose,
And my heart is shattered, and soon will wither away.

I watch the changing shadows,
And the patch of windy sunshine upon the hill,
And the long blue woods; and a grief no tongue can tell
Breaks at my eyes in drops of bitter rain.

I hear her baby-wagon,
And the little wheels go over my heart;
Oh, when will the light of the darkened house return?
Oh, when will she come who made the hills so fair?

I sit by the parlor-window,
When twilight deepens, and winds get cold without;
But the blessed feet no more come up the walk,
And my little girl and I cry softly together.

* * * * *

SOJOURNER TRUTH, THE LIBYAN SIBYL.

Many years ago, the few readers of radical Abolitionist papers must
often have seen the singular name of Sojourner Truth, announced as a
frequent speaker at Anti-Slavery meetings, and as travelling on a
sort of self-appointed agency through the country. I had myself often
remarked the name, but never met the individual. On one occasion, when
our house was filled with company, several eminent clergymen being our
guests, notice was brought up to me that Sojourner Truth was below, and
requested an interview. Knowing nothing of her but her singular name, I
went down, prepared to make the interview short, as the pressure of many
other engagements demanded.

When I went into the room, a tall, spare form arose to meet me. She was
evidently a full-blooded African, and though now aged and worn with many
hardships, still gave the impression of a physical development which
in early youth must have been as fine a specimen of the torrid zone as
Cumberworth's celebrated statuette of the Negro Woman at the Fountain.
Indeed, she so strongly reminded me of that figure, that, when I recall
the events of her life, as she narrated them to me, I imagine her as a
living, breathing impersonation of that work of art.

I do not recollect ever to have been conversant with any one who had
more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal presence
than this woman. In the modern Spiritualistic phraseology, she would
be described as having a strong sphere. Her tall form, as she rose up
before me, is still vivid to my mind. She was dressed in some stout,
grayish stuff, neat and clean, though dusty from travel. On her head
she wore a bright Madras handkerchief, arranged as a turban, after the
manner of her race. She seemed perfectly self-possessed and at her
ease,--in fact, there was almost an unconscious superiority, not unmixed
with a solemn twinkle of humor, in the odd, composed manner in which she
looked down on me. Her whole air had at times a gloomy sort of drollery
which impressed one strangely.

"So, this is _you_," she said.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well, honey, de Lord bless ye! I jes' thought I'd like to come an' have
a look at ye. You's heerd o' me, I reckon?" she added.

"Yes, I think I have. You go about lecturing, do you not?"

"Yes, honey, that's what I do. The Lord has made me a sign unto this
nation, an' I go round a-testifyin', an' showin' on 'em their sins agin
my people."

So saying, she took a seat, and, stooping over and crossing her arms on
her knees, she looked down on the floor, and appeared to fall into a
sort of reverie.

Her great gloomy eyes and her dark face seemed to work with some
undercurrent of feeling; she sighed deeply, and occasionally broke
out,--

"O Lord! O Lord! Oh, the tears, an' the groans, an' the moans! O Lord!"

I should have said that she was accompanied by a little grandson of ten
years,--the fattest, jolliest woolly-headed little specimen of Africa
that one can imagine. He was grinning and showing his glistening white
teeth in a state of perpetual merriment, and at this moment broke out
into an audible giggle, which disturbed the reverie into which his
relative was falling.

She looked at him with an indulgent sadness, and then at me.

"Laws, Ma'am, _he_ don't know nothin' about it,--_he_ don't. Why, I've
seen them poor critters, beat an' 'bused an' hunted, brought in all
torn,--ears hangin' all in rags, where the dogs been a-bitin' of 'em!"

This set off our little African Puck into another giggle, in which he
seemed perfectly convulsed.

She surveyed him soberly, without the slightest irritation.

"Well, you may bless the Lord you _can_ laugh; but I tell you, 't wa'n't
no laughin' matter."

By this time I thought her manner so original that it might be worth
while to call down my friends; and she seemed perfectly well pleased
with the idea. An audience was what she wanted,--it mattered not whether
high or low, learned or ignorant. She had things to say, and was ready
to say them at all times, and to any one.

I called down Dr. Beecher, Professor Allen, and two or three other
clergymen, who, together with my husband and family, made a roomful. No
princess could have received a drawing-room with more composed dignity
than Sojourner her audience. She stood among them, calm and erect, as
one of her own native palm-trees waving alone in the desert. I presented
one after another to her, and at last said,--

"Sojourner, this is Dr. Beecher. He is a very celebrated preacher."

"_Is_ he?" she said, offering her hand in a condescending manner, and
looking down on his white head. "Ye dear lamb, I'm glad to see ye! De
Lord bless ye! I loves preachers. I'm a kind o' preacher myself."

"You are?" said Dr. Beecher. "Do you preach from the Bible?"

"No, honey, can't preach from de Bible,--can't read a letter."

"Why, Sojourner, what do you preach from, then?"

Her answer was given with a solemn power of voice, peculiar to herself,
that hushed every one in the room.

"When I preaches, I has jest one text to preach from, an' I always
preaches from this one. _My_ text is, 'WHEN I FOUND JESUS.'"

"Well, you couldn't have a better one," said one of the ministers.

She paid no attention to him, but stood and seemed swelling with her own
thoughts, and then began this narration:--

"Well, now, I'll jest have to go back, an' tell ye all about it. Ye see,
we was all brought over from Africa, father an' mother an' I, an' a lot
more of us; an' we was sold up an' down, an' hither an' yon; an' I can
'member, when I was a little thing, not bigger than this 'ere," pointing
to her grandson, "how my ole mammy would sit out o' doors in the
evenin', an' look up at the stars an' groan. She'd groan an' groan, an'
says I to her,--

"'Mammy, what makes you groan so?'

"An' she'd say,--

"'Matter enough, chile! I'm groanin' to think o' my poor children: they
don't know where I be, an' I don't know where they be; they looks up at
the stars, an' I looks up at the stars, but I can't tell where they be.

"'Now,' she said, 'chile, when you're grown up, you may be sold away
from your mother an' all your ole friends, an' have great troubles come
on ye; an' when you has these troubles come on ye, ye jes' go to God,
an' He'll help ye.'

"An' says I to her,--

"'Who is God, anyhow, mammy?'

"An' says she,--

"'Why, chile, you jes' look up _dar_! It's Him that made all _dem_!'

"Well, I didn't mind much 'bout God in them days. I grew up pretty
lively an' strong, an' could row a boat, or ride a horse, or work round,
an' do 'most anything.

"At last I got sold away to a real hard massa an' missis. Oh, I tell
you, they _was_ hard! 'Peared like I couldn't please 'em, nohow. An'
then I thought o' what my old mammy told me about God; an' I thought I'd
got into trouble, sure enough, an' I wanted to find God, an' I heerd
some one tell a story about a man that met God on a threshin'-floor, an'
I thought, 'Well an' good, I'll have a threshin'-floor, too.' So I went
down in the lot, an' I threshed down a place real hard, an' I used to go
down there every day, an' pray an' cry with all my might, a-prayin' to
the Lord to make my massa an' missis better, but it didn't seem to do no
good; an' so says I, one day,--

"'O God, I been a-askin' ye, an' askin' ye, an' askin' ye, for all this
long time, to make my massa an' missis better, an' you don't do it, an'
what _can_ be the reason? Why, maybe you _can't._ Well, I shouldn't
wonder ef you couldn't. Well, now, I tell you, I'll make a bargain with
you. Ef you'll help me to git away from my massa an' missis, I'll agree
to be good; but ef you don't help me, I really don't think I can be.
Now,' says I, 'I want to git away; but the trouble's jest here: ef I try
to git away in the night, I can't see; an' ef I try to git away in the
daytime, they'll see me, an' be after me.'

"Then the Lord said to me, 'Git up two or three hours afore daylight,
an' start off.'

"An' says I, 'Thank 'ee, Lord! that's a good thought.'

"So up I got, about three o'clock in the mornin', an' I started an'
travelled pretty fast, till, when the sun rose, I was clear away from
our place an' our folks, an' out o' sight. An' then I begun to think I
didn't know nothin' where to go. So I kneeled down, and says I,--

"'Well, Lord, you've started me out, an' now please to show me where to
go.'

"Then the Lord made a house appear to me, an' He said to me that I was
to walk on till I saw that house, an' then go in an' ask the people to
take me. An' I travelled all day, an' didn't come to the house till late
at night; but when I saw it, sure enough, I went in, an' I told the
folks that the Lord sent me; an' they was Quakers, an' real kind they
was to me. They jes' took me in, an' did for me as kind as ef I'd been
one of 'em; an' after they'd giv me supper, they took me into a room
where there was a great, tall, white bed; an' they told me to sleep
there. Well, honey, I was kind o' skeered when they left me alone with
that great white bed; 'cause I never had been in a bed in my life. It
never came into my mind they could mean me to sleep in it. An' so I jes'
camped down under it, on the floor, an' then I slep' pretty well. In the
mornin', when they came in, they asked me of I hadn't been asleep; an' I
said, 'Yes, I never slep' better.' An' they said, 'Why, you haven't been
in the bed!' An' says I, 'Laws, you didn't think o' sech a thing as my
sleepin' in dat 'ar' _bed_, did you? I never heerd o' sech a thing in my
life.'

"Well, ye see, honey, I stayed an' lived with 'em. An' now jes' look
here: instead o' keepin' my promise an' bein' good, as I told the Lord I
would, jest as soon as everything got a-goin' easy, _I forgot all about
God_.

"Pretty well don't need no help; an' I gin up prayin.' I lived there two
or three years, an' then the slaves in New York were all set free, an'
ole massa came to our house to make a visit, an' he asked me ef I didn't
want to go back an' see the folks on the ole place. An' I told him I
did. So he said, ef I'd jes' git into the wagon with him, he'd carry me
over. Well, jest as I was goin' out to git into the wagon, _I met God_!
an' says I, 'O God, I didn't know as you was so great!' An' I turned
right round an' come into the house, an' set down in my room; for 't was
God all around me. I could feel it burnin', burnin', burnin' all around
me, an' goin' through me; an' I saw I was so wicked, it seemed as ef it
would burn me up. An' I said, 'O somebody, somebody, stand between God
an' me! for it burns me!' Then, honey, when I said so, I felt as it were
somethin' like an _amberill_ [umbrella] that came between me an' the
light, an' I felt it was _somebody_,--somebody that stood between me an'
God; an' it felt cool, like a shade; an' says I, 'Who's this that stands
between me an' God? Is it old Cato?' He was a pious old preacher; but
then I seemed to see Cato in the light, an' he was all polluted an'
vile, like me; an' I said, 'Is it old Sally?' an' then I saw her, an'
she seemed jes' so. An' then says I, '_Who_ is this?' An' then, honey,
for a while it was like the sun shinin' in a pail o' water, when it
moves up an' down; for I begun to feel 't was somebody that loved me;
an' I tried to know him. An' I said, 'I know you! I know you! I know
you!'--an' then I said, 'I don't know you! I don't know you! I don't
know you!' An' when I said, 'I know you, I know you,' the light came;
an' when I said, 'I don't know you, I don't know you,' it went, jes'
like the sun in a pail o' water. An' finally somethin' spoke out in me
an' said, '_This is Jesus _!' An' I spoke out with all my might, an'
says I, '_This is Jesus_! Glory be to God!' An' then the whole world
grew bright, an' the trees they waved an' waved in glory, an' every
little bit o' stone on the ground shone like glass; an' I shouted an'
said, 'Praise, praise, praise to the Lord!' An' I begun to feel sech
a love in my soul as I never felt before,--love to all creatures. An'
then, all of a sudden, it stopped, an' I said, 'Dar's de white folks,
that have abused you an' beat you an' abused your people,--think o'
them!' But then there came another rush of love through my soul, an' I
cried out loud,--'Lord, Lord, I can love _even de white folks_!'

"Honey, I jes' walked round an' round in a dream. Jesus loved me! I
knowed it,--I felt it. Jesus was my Jesus. Jesus would love me always. I
didn't dare tell nobody; 't was a great secret. Everything had been got
away from me that I ever had; an' I thought that ef I let white folks
know about this, maybe they'd get _Him_ away,--so I said, 'I'll keep
this close. I won't let any one know.'"

"But, Sojourner, had you never been told about Jesus Christ?"

"No, honey. I hadn't heerd no preachin',--been to no meetin'. Nobody
hadn't told me. I'd kind o' heerd of Jesus, but thought he was like
Gineral Lafayette, or some o' them. But one night there was a Methodist
meetin' somewhere in our parts, an' I went; an' they got up an' begun
for to tell der 'speriences; an' de fust one begun to speak. I started,
'cause he told about Jesus. 'Why,' says I to myself, 'dat man's found
him, too!' An' another got up an' spoke, an' I said, 'He's found him,
too!' An' finally I said, 'Why, they all know him!' I was so happy! An'
then they sung this hymn": (Here Sojourner sang, in a strange, cracked
voice, but evidently with all her soul and might, mispronouncing the
English, but seeming to derive as much elevation and comfort from bad
English as from good):--

"There is a holy city,
A world of light above.
Above the stairs and regions,[A]
Built by the God of love.

"An everlasting temple,
And saints arrayed in white
There serve their great Redeemer
And dwell with him in light.

"The meanest child of glory
Outshines the radiant sun;
But who can speak the splendor
Of Jesus on his throne?

"Is this the man of sorrows
Who stood at Pilate's bar,
Condemned by haughty Herod
And by his men of war?

"He seems a mighty conqueror,
Who spoiled the powers below,
And ransomed many captives
From everlasting woe.

"The hosts of saints around him
Proclaim his work of grace,
The patriarchs and prophets,
And all the godly race,

"Who speak of fiery trials
And tortures on their way;
They came from tribulation
To everlasting day.

"And what shall be my journey,
How long I'll stay below,
Or what shall be my trials,
Are not for me to know.

"In every day of trouble
I'll raise my thoughts on high,
I'll think of that bright temple
And crowns above the sky."

[Footnote A: Starry regions.]

I put in this whole hymn, because Sojourner, carried away with her own
feeling, sang it from beginning to end with a triumphant energy that
held the whole circle around her intently listening. She sang with
the strong barbaric accent of the native African, and with those
indescribable upward turns and those deep gutturals which give such a
wild, peculiar power to the negro singing,--but above all, with such an
overwhelming energy of personal appropriation that the hymn seemed to be
fused in the furnace of her feelings and come out recrystallized as a
production of her own.

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