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No. 4., by Various

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Title: McClure's Magazine, March, 1896,  Vol. VI., No. 4.

Author: Various

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Language: English

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  [Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added
  by the transcriber.]




  McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

  MARCH, 1896.

  VOL. VI. NO. 4.




  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ILLUSTRATIONS.
  ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Ida M. Tarbell.
    Lincoln Is Admitted to the Bar.
    Lincoln in the Tenth Assembly of Illinois.
    The Removal of the Capital to Springfield.
    Lincoln's First Reported Speech.
    Abraham Lincoln's First Protest Against Slavery.
    Social Life in Vandalia in 1836 and 1837.
    Lincoln Moves to Springfield.
    Lincoln's Position in Springfield.
  THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF. By Rudyard Kipling.
  A CENTURY OF PAINTING. By Will H. Low.
  CY AND I. By Eugene Field.
  A YOUNG HERO. By John Hay.
  CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
  LOST YOUTH. By R.L. Stevenson.
  THE DIVIDED HOUSE. By Julia D. Whiting.
  SCIENTIFIC KITE-FLYING. By Cleveland Moffett.
    How to Make a Scientific Kite.
    How to Send Up a Kite.
    Runaway Tandems.
    The Lifting Power of Kites.
    The Meteorological Use of Kites.
    The Highest Flight Ever Made by a Kite.
    Drawing Down Electricity by a Kite-string.
    The Use of Kites in Photography.
    Possible Use of Kites in War.
  A DRAMATIC POINT. By Robert Barr.
  EDITORIAL NOTES.
    "Justice, Where Art Thou?"
    "A Disgrace to Civilization."
    The Real Lincoln.
    Lincoln in 1860--J. Henry Brown's Journal.


  ILLUSTRATIONS

  LINCOLN IN 1860.
  LINCOLN IN 1860.
  EBENEZER PECK.
  MEMBERS OF THE SANGAMON SOCIETY DELEGATION IN THE TENTH ILLINOIS
      ASSEMBLY.
  ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY.
  LINCOLN IN 1863 OR 1864.
  FRONTISPIECE OF "ALTON TRIALS," A SMALL VOLUME PUBLISHED IN 1838.
  STUART AND LINCOLN'S PROFESSIONAL CARD.
  OFFICE CHAIR FROM STUART AND LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE.
  STUART AND LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE.
  A STAGE-COACH ADVERTISEMENT, 1834.
  MARY L. OWENS.
  LINCOLN AND HIS SON THOMAS, FAMILIARLY KNOWN AS "TAD."
  PAGE FROM STUART AND LINCOLN'S FEE BOOK.
  OLD SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.
  WILLIAM BUTLER.
  INVITATION TO A SPRINGFIELD COTILLION PARTY.
  MAP OF ILLINOIS.
  THE WAVE "WENT OUT IN THREE SURGES, MAKING A CLEAN SWEEP OF A BOAT."
  THE "DIMBULA" TAKING CARGO FOR HER FIRST VOYAGE.
  "AN UNUSUALLY SEVERE PITCH ... HAD LIFTED THE BIG THROBBING SCREW
      NEARLY TO THE SURFACE."
  THE GARROTED MAN. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA.
  DEATH ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA.
  GOYA. FROM A PORTRAIT ETCHED BY HIMSELF.
  ST. JUSTINA AND ST. RUFINA. FROM A PAINTING BY GOYA.
  THE BLIND FIDDLER. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR DAVID WILKIE.
  CHOOSING THE WEDDING GOWN. FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAM MULREADY.
  CONTRARY WINDS. FROM A PAINTING BY THOMAS WEBSTER.
  SANCHO PANZA IN THE APARTMENT OF THE DUCHESS.
  THE RAFT OF THE "MEDUSA." FROM A PAINTING BY GÉRICAULT.
  INGRES. FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED BY HIMSELF.
  DELACROIX. FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED BY HIMSELF IN 1837.
  A PORTRAIT OF INGRES, DRAWN IN ROME IN 1816.
  APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER. FROM A PAINTING BY INGRES.
  THE SEIZURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE CRUSADERS.
  DANTE AND VIRGIL CROSSING THE LAKE WHICH SURROUNDS THE INFERNAL
      CITY OF DITÉ.
  HENRY H. MILLER, A MEMBER OF THE ORGINAL COMPANY OF ELLSWORTH
      ZOUAVES.
  ELLSWORTH IN THE SPRING OF 1861.
  ELLSWORTH IN 1860.
  FRANK E. BROWNELL, WHO KILLED THE ASSASSIN OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH.
  THE DEATH OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH.
  THE MARSHALL HOUSE, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA.
  COLONEL ELLSWORTH AND A GROUP OF MILITIA OFFICERS.
  "THE OLD BRICK ACADEMY," PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACUSETTS.
  ABBOT ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS.
  "THE STONE BUILDING," PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS.
  THE HOUSE IN ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS, CONTAINING THE SCHOOL CALLED
      "THE NUNNERY."
  HENRY MILLS ALDEN, EDITOR OF "HARPER'S MAGAZINE."
  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN.
  "THE DOCTOR DON'T SEEM TO THINK I SHALL TUCKER IT OUT MUCH LONGER."
  THE DIVIDED HOUSE.
  "AS ARMIDA SAT ON THE BENCH UNDER THE OLD RUSSET APPLE-TREE, ..."
  EVENING IN THE DIVIDED KITCHEN.
  "LOOKING BEFORE THEM THEY COULD SEE BOTH HUSBAND AND WIFE MOTIONLESS
      IN THE ROAD."
  HARGRAVE LIFTED SIXTEEN FEET FROM THE GROUND BY A TANDEM OF HIS
      BOX-KITES.
  FRANKFORT STREET. PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW FROM A KITE.
  FRANKFORT STREET. PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW FROM A KITE. (ANOTHER VIEW.)
  THE EDDY TAILLESS KITE.
  THE HARGRAVE BOX-KITE.
  NEW YORK, EAST RIVER, BROOKLYN, AND NEW YORK BAY, FROM A KITE.
  PHOTOGRAPHING FROM A KITE-LINE.
  CITY HALL PARK AND BROADWAY FROM A KITE.
  MURRAY AND WARREN STREETS, NEW YORK CITY, FROM A KITE.
  KITE-DRAWN BUOY.
  DIRIGIBLE KITE-DRAWN BUOY.
  THE KITE-BUOY IN SERVICE.
  "MY GOD!--YOU WERE RIGHT--AFTER ALL."




[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1860.--HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.

From an ambrotype taken in Springfield, Illinois, on August 13, 1860,
and now owned by Mr. William H. Lambert of Philadelphia, through
whose courtesy we are allowed to reproduce it here. This ambrotype was
bought by Mr. Lambert from Mr. W.P. Brown of Philadelphia. Mr. Brown
writes of the portrait: "This picture, along with another one of the
same kind, was presented by President Lincoln to my father, J. Henry
Brown, deceased (miniature artist), after he had finished painting
Lincoln's picture on ivory, at Springfield, Illinois. The commission
was given my father by Judge Read (John M. Read of the Supreme Court
of Pennsylvania), immediately after Lincoln's nomination for the
Presidency. One of the ambrotypes I sold to the Historical Society
of Boston, Massachusetts, and it is now in their possession." The
miniature referred to is now owned by Mr. Robert T. Lincoln. It
was engraved by Samuel Sartain, and circulated widely before the
inauguration. After Mr. Lincoln grew a beard, Sartain put a beard on
his plate, and the engraving continued to sell extensively. While Mr.
Brown was in Springfield painting the miniature he kept a journal,
which Mr. Lambert also owns and which he has generously put at our
disposal. It will be found on page 400.]




McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.


VOL. VI. MARCH, 1896. No. 4.




ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY IDA M. TARBELL.

LINCOLN'S ELECTION TO THE TENTH ASSEMBLY.--ADMISSION TO THE
BAR.--REMOVAL TO SPRINGFIELD.


The first twenty-six years of Abraham Lincoln's life have been traced
in the preceding chapters. We have seen him struggling to escape
from the lot of a common farm laborer, to which he seemed to be born;
becoming a flatboatman, a grocery clerk, a store-keeper, a postmaster,
and finally a surveyor. We have traced his efforts to rise above
the intellectual apathy and the indifference to culture which
characterized the people among whom he was reared, by studying with
eagerness every subject on which he could find books,--biography,
state history, mathematics, grammar, surveying, and finally law. We
have followed his growth in ambition and in popularity from the day
when, on a keg in an Indiana grocery, he debated the contents of the
Louisville "Journal" with a company of admiring elders, to the
time when, purely because he was liked, he was elected to the State
Assembly of Illinois by the people of Sangamon County. His joys and
sorrows have been reviewed from his childhood in Kentucky to the day
of the death of the woman he loved and had hoped to make his wife.
These twenty-six years form the first period of Lincoln's life. It was
a period of makeshifts and experiments, ending in a tragic sorrow;
but at its close he had definite aims, and preparation and experience
enough to convince him that he dared follow them. Law and politics
were the fields he had chosen, and in the first year of the second
period of his life, 1836, he entered them definitely.

The Ninth General Assembly of Illinois, in which Lincoln had done his
preparatory work as a legislator, was dissolved, and in June, 1836,
he announced himself as a candidate for the Tenth Assembly. A few days
later the "Sangamon Journal" published his simple platform:

    NEW SALEM, _June 13, 1836_.
    TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'JOURNAL':

    "In your paper of last Saturday I see a communication over the
    signature of 'Many Voters,' in which the candidates who are
    announced in the 'Journal' are called upon to 'show their
    hands.' Agreed. Here's mine:

    I go for all sharing the privileges of the government
    who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for
    admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or
    bear arms (by no means excluding females).

    If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my
    constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support
    me.

    While acting as their representative, I shall be governed
    by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of
    knowing what their will is; and upon all others, I shall
    do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their
    interests. Whether elected or not, I go for distributing the
    proceeds of the sales of public lands to the several States,
    to enable our State, in common with others, to dig canals and
    construct railroads without borrowing money and paying the
    interest on it.

    "If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote for
    Hugh L. White for President.

    "Very respectfully,
    "A. LINCOLN."

The campaign which Lincoln began with this letter was in every way
more exciting for him than those of 1832 and 1834. Since the last
election a census had been taken in Illinois which showed so large
an increase in the population that the legislative districts had been
reapportioned and the General Assembly increased by fifty members. In
this reapportionment Sangamon County's delegation had been enlarged
to seven representatives and two senators. This gave large new
opportunity to political ambition, and doubled the enthusiasm of
political meetings.

But the increase of the representation was not all that made the
campaign exciting. Party lines had never before been so clearly drawn,
nor personal abuse quite so intense. One of Lincoln's first acts was
to answer a personal attack. He did it in a letter marked by candor,
good-humor, and shrewdness.

    "NEW SALEM, _June 21, 1836_.
    "DEAR COLONEL:

    "I am told that during my absence last week you passed through
    the place and stated publicly that you were in possession of
    a fact or facts which, if known to the public, would entirely
    destroy the prospects of N.W. Edwards and myself at the
    ensuing election; but that through favor to us you would
    forbear to divulge them. No one has needed favors more than I,
    and generally few have been less unwilling to accept them; but
    in this case favor to me would be injustice to the public, and
    therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. That I
    once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon County is
    sufficiently evident; and if I have done anything, either by
    design or misadventure, which if known would subject me to a
    forfeiture of that confidence, he that knows of that thing and
    conceals it is a traitor to his country's interest.

    "I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture of what
    fact or facts, real or supposed, you spoke; but my opinion of
    your veracity will not permit me for a moment to doubt that
    you at least believed what you said. I am flattered with the
    personal regard you manifested for me; but I do hope that
    on mature reflection you will view the public interest as a
    paramount consideration and therefore let the worst come.

    "I assure you that the candid statement of facts on your part,
    however low it may sink me, shall never break the ties of
    personal friendship between us.

    "I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty to publish
    both if you choose.

    "Very respectfully,
    "A. LINCOLN."

    "COLONEL ROBERT ALLEN."

Usually during the campaign Lincoln was obliged to meet personal
attacks, not by letter, but on the platform. Joshua Speed, who later
became the most intimate friend that Lincoln probably ever had, tells
of one occasion when he was obliged to meet such an attack on the
very spur of the moment. A great mass-meeting was in progress at
Springfield, and Lincoln had made a speech which had produced a deep
impression. "I was then fresh from Kentucky," says Mr. Speed, "and had
heard many of her great orators. It seemed to me then, as it seems to
me now, that I never heard a more effective speaker. He carried the
crowd with him, and swayed them as he pleased. So deep an impression
did he make that George Forquer, a man of much celebrity as a
sarcastic speaker and with a great reputation throughout the State
as an orator, rose and asked the people to hear _him_. He began his
speech by saying that this young man would have to be taken down, and
he was sorry that the task devolved upon him. He made what was called
one of his 'slasher-gaff' speeches, dealing much in ridicule
and sarcasm. Lincoln stood near him, with his arms folded, never
interrupting him. When Forquer was done, Lincoln walked to the stand,
and replied so fully and completely that his friends bore him from the
court-house on their shoulders.

"So deep an impression did this first speech make upon me that I
remember its conclusion now, after a lapse of thirty-eight years. Said
he:

"'The gentleman commenced his speech by saying that this young man
would have to be taken down, and he was sorry the task devolved upon
him. I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and trade of a
politician; but live long or die young, I would rather die now than,
like the gentleman, change my politics and simultaneous with the
change receive an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and
then have to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty
conscience from an offended God.'

"To understand the point of this it must be explained that Forquer
had been a Whig, but had changed his politics, and had been appointed
Register of the Land Office; and over his house was the only
lightning-rod in the town or country. Lincoln had seen the
lightning-rod for the first time on the day before."

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1860.--HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.

From a carbon enlargement, made by Sherman and McHugh of New York
City, of an ambrotype owned by Mr. A. Montgomery of Columbus, Ohio,
to whose generosity we owe the right of reproduction. This portrait
of Lincoln was made in June, 1860, by Butler, a Springfield (Illinois)
photographer. On July 4th of that year, Mr. Lincoln delivered an
address at Atlanta, Illinois, where he was the guest of Mr. Vester
Strong. Before leaving town he handed Mr. Strong the ambrotype which
we copy here. Mr. Strong valued the picture highly, but as he had no
children to whom to leave it, and as he wished it to be in the care of
one who would appreciate its value, he gave it a few years ago to Mr.
Montgomery.]

This speech has never been forgotten in Springfield, and on my visits
there I have repeatedly had the site of the house on which this
particular lightning-rod was placed pointed out, and one or another of
the many versions which the story has been given, related to me.

It was the practice at that date in Illinois for two rival candidates
to travel over the district together. The custom led to much
good-natured raillery between them; and in such contests Lincoln was
rarely, if ever, worsted. He could even turn the generosity of his
rival to account by his whimsical treatment, as the following shows:
He had driven out from Springfield in company with a political
opponent to engage in joint debate. The carriage, it seems, belonged
to his opponent. In addressing the gathering of farmers that met them,
Lincoln was lavish in praise of the generosity of his friend. "I am
too poor to own a carriage," he said, "but my friend has generously
invited me to ride with him. I want you to vote for me if you will;
but if not, then vote for my opponent, for he is a fine man." His
extravagant and persistent praise of his opponent appealed to the
sense of humor in his farmer audience, to whom Lincoln's inability to
own a carriage was by no means a disqualification.[1]

The election came off in August, and resulted in the choice of a
delegation from Sangamon County famous in the annals of Illinois. The
nine successful candidates were Abraham Lincoln, John Dawson, Daniel
Stone, Ninian W. Edwards, William F. Elkins, R.L. Wilson, Andrew
McCormick, Job Fletcher, and Arthur Herndon. Each one of these men
was over six feet in height, their combined stature being, it is said,
fifty-five feet. The "Long Nine" was the name Sangamon County gave
them.

[Illustration: EBENEZER PECK.

Ebenezer Peck, who was chiefly instrumental in introducing the
convention system into Illinois politics, was born in Portland, Maine,
May 22, 1805. He lived for some time in Peacham, Vermont, where he
was educated. While yet a boy, removed with his parents to Canada. He
studied law at Montreal, and practised there; became King's Counsel
for Canada East, and was finally elected to the provincial parliament
on the Reform ticket. In the summer of 1835 he removed to Chicago, and
there, as a lawyer and a politician, he at once made his mark. He was
a delegate to the first Democratic State convention in Illinois,
held at Vandalia, December 7, 1835, and was the chief advocate of the
general adoption of the convention system--a system which was at first
opposed and ridiculed by the Whigs, but which very soon they were
forced to adopt. In 1837 Mr. Peck was made one of the Internal
Improvement Commissioners. In 1838 he was elected to the State Senate,
and in 1840 to the House. He was clerk of the Supreme Court from
1841 to 1848, and reporter of that court from 1849 to 1863. His
anti-slavery sentiments led him to abandon the Democratic party in
1853, and in 1856 he helped establish the Republican party in the
State. He was again elected to the legislature in 1858. In 1863
President Lincoln appointed him a judge of the Court of Claims, and
he held this position until 1875. He died May 25, 1881.--_J. McCan
Davis._]


LINCOLN IS ADMITTED TO THE BAR.

As soon as the election was over Lincoln occupied himself in settling
another matter, of much greater moment, in his own judgment. He went
to Springfield to seek admission to the bar. The "roll of attorneys
and counsellors at law," on file in the office of the clerk of the
Supreme Court at Springfield, Illinois, shows that his license was
dated September 9, 1836, and that the date of the enrollment of his
name upon the official list was March 1, 1837. The first case in which
he was concerned, as far as we know, was that of Hawthorn against
Woolridge. He made his first appearance in court in October, 1836.

Although he had given much time during this year to politics and the
law, he had by no means abandoned surveying. Indeed he never had
more calls. Surveying was particularly brisk at the moment, and he
frequently was obliged to be away for three and four weeks at a time,
laying out towns or locating roads. "When he got a job," says the Hon.
J.M. Ruggles, a friend and political supporter of Mr. Lincoln, "there
was a picnic and jolly time in the neighborhood. Men and boys would
gather around, ready to carry chain, drive stakes, and blaze trees,
but mainly to hear Lincoln's odd stories and jokes. The fun was
interspersed with foot races and wrestling matches. To this day the
old settlers around Bath repeat the incidents of Lincoln's sojourns in
their neighborhood while surveying that town."

[Illustration: NINIAN W. EDWARDS., JOB FLETCHER, SR.,
WILLIAM F. ELKINS., ROBERT L. WILSON., JOHN DAWSON.

MEMBERS OF THE SANGAMON COUNTY DELEGATION IN THE TENTH ILLINOIS
ASSEMBLY--THE DELEGATION KNOWN AS THE "LONG NINE."

NINIAN W. EDWARDS was born in Kentucky in 1809, a son of Ninian
Edwards, who in the same year was appointed Governor of the new
Territory of Illinois. Mr. Edwards was appointed Attorney-General
of Illinois in 1834; in 1836 was elected to the legislature; was
reëlected in 1838; served in the State Senate from 1844 to 1848,
and again in the House from 1848 to 1852. He was a member of the
constitutional convention of 1847. He died at Springfield, September
2, 1889.

JOB FLETCHER, SR., was born in Virginia in 1793; removed to Sangamon
County, Illinois, in 1819. In 1826 he was elected to the Illinois
House of Representatives, and in 1834 to the State Senate, where he
served six years. He died in Sangamon County in 1872.

WILLIAM F. ELKINS was born in Kentucky in 1792. He went to Sangamon
County, Illinois, in 1825. In 1828, 1836, and 1838 he was elected to
the legislature. In 1831 he raised a company for the Black Hawk War,
and was its captain. In 1861 President Lincoln appointed him Register
of the United States Land Office at Springfield, an office which he
held until 1872, when he resigned. He died at Decatur, Illinois, 1880.

ROBERT LANG WILSON was born in Pennsylvania in 1805. In 1831 he went
to Kentucky; in 1833 removed to Sangamon County, Illinois; in 1836 was
elected to the Illinois House. He removed to Sterling, Illinois, in
1840, and died there in 1880. For some years he was paymaster in the
United States Army.

JOHN DAWSON was born in Virginia in 1791; he removed to Sangamon
County, Illinois, in 1827. He was elected to the lower house of the
legislature in 1830, 1834, 1836, 1838, and 1846. He was a member of
the constitutional convention of 1847. He died November 12, 1850.

The other members of the "Long Nine" were Abraham Lincoln, Daniel
Stone, Andrew McCormick, and Arthur Herndon.]


LINCOLN IN THE TENTH ASSEMBLY OF ILLINOIS

In December Lincoln put away his surveying instruments to go to
Vandalia for the opening session of the Tenth Assembly. Larger by
fifty members than its predecessor, this body was as much superior
in intellect as in numbers. It included among its members a future
President of the United States, a future candidate for the same high
office, six future United States Senators, eight future members of the
National House of Representatives, a future Secretary of the Interior,
and three future Judges of the State Supreme Court. Here sat side by
side Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas; Edward Dickinson Baker,
who represented at different times the States of Illinois and Oregon
in the national councils; O.H. Browning, a prospective senator and
future cabinet officer, and William L.D. Ewing, who had just served
in the senate; John Logan, father of the late General John A.
Logan; Robert M. Cullom, father of Senator Shelby M. Cullom; John
A. McClernand, afterward member of Congress for many years, and
a distinguished general in the late Civil War; and many others of
national repute.[2]

[Illustration: ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY.

From a silhouette loaned by Mr. Owen Lovejoy of Princeton, Illinois.
Elijah Lovejoy was born in Maine in 1802. When twenty-five years old
he emigrated to St. Louis, where he at first did journalistic work on
a Whig newspaper. In 1833 he entered the ministry, and was soon after
made editor of a religious newspaper, the "St. Louis Observer." Mr.
Lovejoy began, in 1835, to turn his paper against slavery, but the
opposition he found in Missouri was so strong that in the summer of
1836 he decided to move his paper to Alton, Illinois. Before he could
get his plant out of St. Louis a mob destroyed the greater part. The
remainder he succeeded in getting to Alton, but a mob met it there and
threw it into the river. The citizens of Alton, ashamed of this act,
gave Mr. Lovejoy money to buy a new press. At first the tone of
the paper was moderate, but gradually it grew more emphatic in its
utterances against slavery. The pro-slavery element of the town
protested, indignation meetings were held, and in August, 1837, his
press was thrown into the river. Another was immediately bought,
which, in September, followed its predecessor to the bottom of the
Mississippi. When it was known in Alton that Mr. Lovejoy had ordered
a fourth press, and had resolved to fight the opposition to the end,
a public meeting was called, at which many speeches were made on both
sides, and he was urged to leave Alton. This he refused to do, and
his fourth press was landed on November 6, 1837. The next night a mob
attacked the warehouse where it was placed, and in the riot one of the
assailants, Lyman Bishop, and Elijah Lovejoy himself were killed.]

The members came to Vandalia full of hope and exultation. In their
judgment it needed only a few months of legislation to put their State
by the side of New York; and from the opening of the session they were
overflowing with excitement and schemes. In the general ebullition of
spirits which characterized the Assembly, Lincoln had little share.
Only a week after the opening of the session he wrote to a friend,
Mary Owens, at New Salem, that he had been ill, though he believed
himself to be about well then; and he added: "But that, with other
things I cannot account for, have conspired, and have gotten my
spirits so low that I feel I would rather be any place in the world
than here. I really cannot endure the thought of staying here ten
weeks."

Though depressed, he was far from being inactive. The Sangamon
delegation, in fact, had their hands full, and to no one of the nine
had more been entrusted than to Lincoln. In common with almost every
delegation, they had been instructed by their constituents to adopt a
scheme of internal improvements complete enough to give every budding
town in Illinois easy communication with the world. This for the State
in general; for Sangamon County in particular, they had been directed
to secure the capital. The change in the State's centre of population
made it advisable to move the seat of government northward from
Vandalia, and Springfield was anxious to secure it. To Lincoln was
entrusted the work of putting through the bill to remove the capital.
In the same letter quoted from above he tells Miss Owens, "Our
chance to take the seat of government to Springfield is better than
I expected." Regarding the internal improvements scheme he feels less
confident: "Some of the legislature are for it, and some against;
which has the majority, I cannot tell."

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1863 OR 1864.

From a photograph by Brady, and kindly loaned by Mr. Noah Brooks for
this reproduction.]

[Illustration: Frontispiece of "Alton Trials," a small volume
published in 1838, containing full notes taken at the time of the
trial of the persons engaged in what is called the "Alton riot."
Twelve persons were indicted "for the crime of riot committed on
the night of the 7th of November, 1837, while engaged in defending
a Printing Press from an attack made on it at that time by an Armed
Mob;" eleven others were indicted "for a riot committed in Alton on
the night of the 7th of November, 1837, in unlawfully and forcibly
entering the warehouse of Godfrey Gilman and Company, and breaking up
and destroying a printing press." In both cases the juries returned a
verdict of "not guilty." (See note on Elijah Lovejoy.)]

It was not long, however, before all uncertainty about internal
improvements was over. The people were determined to have them,
and the Assembly responded to their demands by passing an act
which provided, at State expense, for railroads, canals, or river
improvements in almost every county in Illinois. To compensate those
counties to which they could not give anything else, they voted them
a sum of money for roads and bridges. No finer bit of imaginative
work was ever done, in fact, by a legislative body, than the map of
internal improvements made by the Tenth Assembly of Illinois.

There was no time to estimate exactly the cost of these fine plans.
Nor did they feel any need of estimates; that was a mere matter of
detail. They would vote a fund, and when that was exhausted they
would vote more; and so they appropriated sum after sum: one hundred
thousand dollars to improve the Rock River; one million eight hundred
thousand dollars to build a road from Quincy to Danville; four million
dollars to complete the Illinois and Michigan Canal; two hundred and
fifty thousand for the Western Mail Route--in all, some twelve
million dollars. To carry out the elaborate scheme, they provided a
commission, one of the first duties of which was to sell the bonds of
the State to raise the money for the enterprise. The majority of the
Assembly seem not to have entertained for a moment an idea that there
would be any difficulty in selling at a premium the bonds of Illinois.
"On the contrary," as General Linder says in his "Reminiscences," "the
enthusiastic friends of the measure maintained that, instead of there
being any difficulty in obtaining a loan of the fifteen or twenty
millions authorized to be borrowed, our bonds would go like hot cakes,
and be sought for by the Rothschilds, and Baring Brothers, and others
of that stamp; and that the premiums which we would obtain upon them
would range from fifty to one hundred per cent., and that the premium
itself would be sufficient to construct most of the important works,
leaving the principal sum to go into our treasury, and leave the
people free from taxation for years to come."

[Illustration: STUART AND LINCOLN'S PROFESSIONAL CARD.

The professional card of Stuart and Lincoln shows that the
copartnership began April 12, 1837. The card appeared in the next
issue of the "Sangamo Journal," and was continued until Lincoln became
the partner of Judge Logan, in 1841.]


THE REMOVAL OF THE CAPITAL TO SPRINGFIELD.

Although Lincoln favored and aided in every way the plan for internal
improvements, his real work was in securing the removal of the capital
to Springfield. The task was by no means an easy one to direct; for
outside of the "Long Nine" there was, of course, nobody particularly
interested in Springfield, and there were delegations from a dozen
other counties hot to secure the capital for their own constituencies.
It took patient and clever manipulation to put the bill through.
Certain votes Lincoln, no doubt, gained for his cause by force of
his personal qualities. Thus Jesse K. Dubois says that he and his
colleagues voted for the bill because they liked Lincoln, and
wanted to oblige him. But probably the majority were won by skilful
log-rolling. Not that Lincoln ever sanctioned "trading" to the
sacrifice of his own convictions. General T.H. Henderson, of Illinois,
says in some interesting reminiscences of Lincoln, prepared for this
Life and hitherto unpublished: "Before I had ever seen Abraham Lincoln
I heard my father, who served with him in the legislature of 1838-39
and of 1840-41, relate an incident in Mr. Lincoln's life which
illustrates his character for integrity and his firmness in
maintaining what he regarded as right in his public acts, in a marked
manner.

"I do not remember whether this incident occurred during the session
of the legislature in 1836-37 or 1838-39. But I think it was in
that of 1836-37, when it was said that there was a great deal of
log-rolling going on among the members. But, however that may be,
according to the story related by my father, an effort was made to
unite the friends of capital removal with the friends of some measure
which Mr. Lincoln, for some reason, did not approve. What that measure
was to which he objected, I am not now able to recall. But those who
desired the removal of the capital to Springfield were very anxious to
effect the proposed combination, and a meeting was held to see if it
could be accomplished. The meeting continued in session nearly all
night, when it adjourned without accomplishing anything, Mr. Lincoln
refusing to yield his objections and to support the obnoxious measure."

[Illustration: OFFICE CHAIR FROM STUART AND LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE.

The chair is now in the Oldroyd Collection in Washington, D.C.]

"Another meeting was called, and at this second meeting a number
of citizens, not members of the legislature, from the central and
northern parts of the State, among them my father, were present
by invitation. The meeting was long protracted, and earnest in its
deliberations. Every argument that could be thought of was used to
induce Mr. Lincoln to yield his objections and unite with his friends,
and thus secure the removal of the capital to his own city; but
without effect. Finally, after midnight, when everybody seemed
exhausted with the discussion, and when the candles were burning low
in the room, Mr. Lincoln rose amid the silence and solemnity which
prevailed, and, my father said, made one of the most eloquent and
powerful speeches to which he had ever listened. And he concluded his
remarks by saying, 'You may burn my body to ashes, and scatter them
to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the regions of
darkness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will never get
me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing
so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right.' And the meeting
adjourned."

[Illustration: STUART AND LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE.

From a photograph loaned by Jesse W. Weik. The law office of Stuart
and Lincoln was in the second story of the building occupied at the
time the photograph was made by "Tom Dupleaux's Furniture Store."
Hoffman's Row, as this group of buildings was called, was used as a
court-house at that date, 1837. The court-room was in the lower story
of the two central buildings.]

If Lincoln did not support measures which he considered doubtful, he
did, now and then, "tack a provision" on a bill to please a friend, as
the following letter, hitherto unpublished, shows:[3]

    "SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, _August 5, 1837_.

    "DEAR SIR:

    "Mr. Edwards tells me you wish to know whether the act to
    which your town incorporation provision was attached passed
    into a law. It did. You can organize under the general
    incorporation law as soon as you choose.

    "I also tacked a provision on to a fellow's bill, to authorize
    the relocation of the road from Salem down to your town, but
    I am not certain whether or not the bill passed. Neither do I
    suppose I can ascertain before the law will be published--if
    it is a law. Bowling Green, Bennett Abell, and yourself are
    appointed to make the change.

    "No news. No excitement, except a little about the election of
    Monday next. I suppose, of course, our friend Dr. Henry stands
    no chance in your 'diggings.'

    "Your friend and honorable servant,

    "A. LINCOLN."

    "JOHN BENNETT, ESQ.

As was to be expected, the Democrats charged that the Whigs of
Sangamon had won their victory by "bargain and corruption." These
charges became so serious that, in an extra session called in the
summer of 1837, a few months after the bill passed, Lincoln had a
bitter fight over them with General L.D. Ewing, who wanted to keep
Vandalia as the capital. "The arrogance of Springfield," said General
Ewing, "its presumption in claiming the seat of government, is not
to be endured; the law has been passed by chicanery and trickery; the
Springfield delegation has sold out to the internal improvement men,
and has promised its support to every measure that would gain a vote
to the law removing the seat of government."

Lincoln answered in a speech of such severity and keenness that
the House believed he was "digging his own grave;" for Ewing was a
high-spirited man who would not hesitate to answer by a challenge. It
was, in fact, only the interference of their friends which prevented
a duel at this time between Ewing and Lincoln. This speech, to many of
Lincoln's colleagues, was a revelation of his ability and character.
"This was the first time," said General Linder, "that I began to
conceive a very high opinion of the talents and personal courage of
Abraham Lincoln."

[Illustration: A STAGE-COACH ADVERTISEMENT, 1834.

This advertisement appeared in the "Sangamo Journal" in April, 1834,
and held a place in the paper through the next three years. As
the "Four Horse Coach" ran through Sangamon town and New Salem, it
doubtless had Lincoln as a passenger now and then, but not often,
probably, for the fare from New Salem to Springfield was one dollar
and twenty-five cents, and walking, or riding upon a borrowed horse,
must generally have been preferred by Lincoln to so costly a mode of
travelling.]

A few months later the "Long Nine" were again attacked, Lincoln
specially being abused. The assailant this time was a prominent
Democrat, Mr. J.B. Thomas. When he had ended, Lincoln replied in
a speech which was long known in local political circles as the
"skinning of Thomas."


LINCOLN'S FIRST REPORTED SPEECH.

No one doubted after this that Lincoln could defend himself. He became
doubly respected as an opponent, for his reputation for good-humored
raillery had been established in his campaigns. In a speech made in
January he gave another evidence of his skill in the use of ridicule.
A resolution had been offered by Mr. Linder to institute an inquiry
into the management of the affairs of the State bank. Lincoln's
remarks on the resolution form his first reported speech. This speech
has been unnoticed by his biographers hitherto; and it appears in none
of the editions of his speeches and letters. It was discovered in the
"Sangamo Journal" for January 28, 1837, by Mr. J. McCan Davis, in the
course of a search through the files instituted by this Magazine.

[Illustration: MARY L. OWENS.

Born in Kentucky in 1808. Lincoln first met Miss Owens in 1833 at
New Salem, where she made a short visit. In 1836 she came back to New
Salem, and a warm friendship sprang up between them. The question
of marriage was discussed in a disinterested way. Miss Owens left
Illinois in 1838, and in 1841 she married a Mr. Jesse Vineyard. The
letters written to her by Mr. Lincoln she herself gave to Mr. Herndon
for publication.]

Lincoln began these remarks by good-humored but nettling chaffing of
his opponent.

    "Mr. Chairman," he said: "Lest I should fall into the too
    common error of being mistaken in regard to which side I
    design to be upon, I shall make it my first care to remove
    all doubt on that point, by declaring that I am opposed to the
    resolution under consideration, _in toto_. Before I proceed to
    the body of the subject, I will further remark, that it is not
    without a considerable degree of apprehension that I venture
    to cross the track of the gentleman from Coles [Mr. Linder].
    Indeed, I do not believe I could muster a sufficiency of
    courage to come in contact with that gentleman, were it
    not for the fact that he, some days since, most graciously
    condescended to assure us that he would never be found wasting
    ammunition on _small game_. On the same fortunate occasion he
    further gave us to understand that he regarded _himself_
    as being decidedly the _superior_ of our common friend from
    Randolph [Mr. Shields]; and feeling, as I really do, that I,
    to say the most of myself, am nothing more than the peer of
    our friend from Randolph, I shall regard the gentleman from
    Coles as decidedly my superior also; and consequently, in
    the course of what I shall have to say, whenever I shall have
    occasion to allude to that gentleman I shall endeavor to adopt
    that kind of court language which I understand to be due to
    decided superiority. In one faculty, at least, there can be no
    dispute of the gentleman's superiority over me, and most other
    men; and that is, the faculty of entangling a subject so that
    neither himself, or any other man, can find head or tail to
    it."

[Illustration: LINCOLN AND HIS SON THOMAS, FAMILIARLY KNOWN AS "TAD."

From a photograph made by Brady early in Mr. Lincoln's first term.]

[Illustration: PAGE FROM STUART AND LINCOLN'S FEE BOOK.

From the original, owned by Jesse W. Weik, by permission.]

Taking up the resolution on the bank, he declared its meaning:

    "Some gentlemen have their stock in their hands, while others,
    who have more money than they know what to do with, want it;
    and this, and this alone, is the question, to settle which
    we are called on to squander thousands of the people's money.
    What interest, let me ask, have the people in the settlement
    of this question? What difference is it to them whether the
    stock is owned by Judge Smith or Sam Wiggins? If any gentleman
    be entitled to stock in the bank, which he is kept out of
    possession of by others, let him assert his right in the
    Supreme Court, and let him or his antagonist, whichever may be
    found in the wrong, pay the costs of suit. It is an old maxim,
    and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay
    the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen
    whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance,
    I am decidedly opposed to the people's money being used to pay
    the fiddler. No one can doubt that the examination proposed
    by this resolution must cost the State some ten or twelve
    thousand dollars; and all this to settle a question in
    which the people have no interest, and about which they care
    nothing. These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in
    concert to fleece the people; and now that they have got into
    a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate
    the people's money to settle the quarrel."

The resolution had declared that the bank practised various methods
which were "to the great injury of the people." Lincoln took the
occasion to announce his ideas of the people and the politicians.

    "If the bank really be a grievance, why is it that no one of
    the real people is found to ask redress of it? The truth is,
    no such oppression exists. If it did, our people would groan
    with memorials and petitions, and we would not be permitted
    to rest day or night till we had put it down. The people know
    their rights, and they are never slow to assert and
    maintain them when they are invaded. Let them call for an
    investigation, and I shall ever stand ready to respond to the
    call. But they have made no such call. I make the assertion
    boldly, and without fear of contradiction, that no man who
    does not hold an office, or does not aspire to one, has ever
    found any fault of the bank. It has doubled the prices of the
    products of their farms, and filled their pockets with a sound
    circulating medium; and they are all well pleased with its
    operations. No, sir, it is the politician who is the first to
    sound the alarm (which, by the way, is a false one). It is he
    who, by these unholy means, is endeavoring to blow up a storm
    that he may ride upon and direct. It is he, and he alone,
    that here proposes to spend thousands of the people's
    public treasure, for no other advantage to them than to make
    valueless in their pockets the reward of their industry. Mr.
    Chairman, this work is exclusively the work, of politicians--a
    set of men who have interests aside from the interests of
    the people, and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as
    a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men. I say
    this with the greater freedom, because, being a politician
    myself, none can regard it as personal."

[Illustration: OLD SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.

During the special session of the legislature convened in the fall of
1839 (the first one held at Springfield), the House of Representatives
occupied this church, the State House being unfinished. At the short
special session which opened November 23, 1840, the House first went
into the Methodist church, but on the second day Representative John
Logan (father of General John A. Logan) offered a resolution "that the
Senate be respectfully requested to exchange places of convening with
this House for a short time on account of the impossibility of the
House discharging its business in so small a place as the Methodist
church." This was adopted, and the House moved over to the Second
Presbyterian church. At this special session the Whigs were interested
in preventing a _sine die_ adjournment (because they desired to
protect the State bank, which had been authorized in 1838 to suspend
specie payment until after the adjournment of the next session of the
General Assembly), and to this end they sought to break the quorum.
All the Whigs walked out, except Lincoln and Joseph Gillespie, who
were left behind to demand a roll-call when deemed expedient. A
few were brought in by the sergeant-at-arms. Lincoln and Gillespie,
perceiving that there would be a quorum if they remained, started to
leave; and finding the doors locked, Lincoln raised a window, and
both men jumped out--an incident, as Mr. Herndon says, which Lincoln
"always seemed willing to forget." It was in this church, too, that
Lincoln delivered an address before the Washingtonian Temperance
Society, on Washington's birthday, in 1842. The church was erected in
1839, and stood until torn down, some thirty years later, to make room
for a new edifice.--_J. McCan Davis._]

The speech was published in full in the "Sangamo Journal" and the
editor commented:

    "Mr. Lincoln's remarks on Mr. Linder's bank resolution in
    the paper are quite to the point. Our friend carries the true
    Kentucky rifle, and when he fires he seldom fails of sending
    the shot home."


ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FIRST PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY.

One other act of his in this session cannot be ignored. It is a
sinister note in the hopeful chorus of the Tenth Assembly. For months
there had come from the Southern States violent protests against the
growth of abolition agitation in the North. Garrison's paper, the
"infernal Liberator," as it was called in the pro-slavery part of
the country, had been gradually extending its circulation and its
influence; and it already had imitators even on the banks of the
Mississippi. The American Anti-slavery Society was now over three
years old. A deep, unconquerable conviction of the iniquity of slavery
was spreading through the North. The South felt it and protested, and
the statesmen of the North joined them in their protest. Slavery
could not be crushed, said the conservatives. It was sanctioned by the
Constitution. The South must be supported in its claims, and agitation
stopped. But the agitation went on, and riots, violence, and hatred
pursued the agitators. In Illinois, in this very year, 1837, we have
a printing-office raided and an anti-slavery editor, Elijah Lovejoy,
killed by the citizens of Alton, who were determined that it should
not be said among them that slavery was an iniquity.

To silence the storm, mass-meetings of citizens, the United States
Congress, the State legislatures, took up the question and voted,
again and again, resolutions assuring the South that the Abolitionists
were not supported; that the country recognized their right to their
"peculiar institution," and that in no case should they be interfered
with. At Springfield, this same year (1837) the citizens convened and
passed a resolution declaring that "the efforts of Abolitionists
in this community are neither necessary nor useful." When the
riot occurred in Alton, the Springfield papers uttered no word of
condemnation, giving the affair only a laconic mention.

The Illinois Assembly joined in the general disapproval, and on March
3d passed the following resolutions:

    "Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Illinois:

    "That we highly disapprove of the formation of Abolition
    societies, and of the doctrines promulgated by them.

    "That the right of property in slaves is sacred to the
    slave-holding States by the Federal Constitution, and that
    they cannot be deprived of that right without their consent.

    "That the General Government cannot abolish slavery in the
    District of Columbia against the consent of the citizens of
    said District, without a manifest breach of good faith.

    "That the Governor be requested to transmit to the States of
    Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, New York, and Connecticut a
    copy of the foregoing report and resolutions."

Lincoln refused to vote for these resolutions. In his judgment no
expression on the slavery question should go unaccompanied by the
statement that it was an evil, and he had the boldness to protest
immediately against the action of the House. He found only one man in
the Assembly willing to join him in his action. These two names are
joined to the document they presented:

    "Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having
    passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present
    session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of
    the same.

    "They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on
    both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of
    abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its
    evils.

    "They believe that the Congress of the United States has no
    power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution
    of slavery in the different States.

    "They believe that the Congress of the United States has power
    under the Constitution to abolish slavery in the District of
    Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised unless
    at the request of the people of the District.

    "The difference between these opinions and those contained
    in the above resolutions, is their reason for entering this
    protest.

    "DAN STONE,

    "A. LINCOLN,

    "Representatives from the County of Sangamon."

[Illustration: WILLIAM BUTLER.

From a photograph owned by his grandson, Hon. William J. Butler,
Springfield, Illinois. William Butler was a native of Kentucky, being
born in Adair County, that State, December 15, 1797. In the war of
1812, he carried important despatches from the Governor of Kentucky
to General Harrison in the field, travelling on horseback. He went to
Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1828. In 1836 he was appointed clerk of
the Circuit Court by Judge Logan, whom he had known in Kentucky. In
1859 he was appointed by Governor Bissell State treasurer of Illinois,
to fill a vacancy, and in 1860 was elected to that office. He
was married to Elizabeth Rickard, December 18, 1863. He died in
Springfield, January 11, 1876. Soon after becoming a resident of
Springfield, Lincoln went to William Butler's house to board. There
he was like a member of the family. He lived with Mr. Butler until
his marriage in 1842. The two men were ever the warmest personal and
political friends.]


SOCIAL LIFE IN VANDALIA IN 1836 AND 1837.

The Tenth Assembly was important to Lincoln not only in its
legislation; it greatly increased his circle of acquaintances. The
character of the work of the session called to Vandalia numbers of
persons of influence from almost every county in the State. They were
invariably there to secure something for their town or county, and
naturally made a point of getting acquainted. Game suppers seem to
have been the means usually employed by visitors for bringing people
together. The lobbyists were not the only ones in Vandalia who gave
suppers, however. Not a bill was passed nor an election decided that
a banquet did not follow. Mr. John Bryant, the brother of William
Cullen, was in Vandalia that winter in the interest of his county, and
he attended one of these banquets, given by the successful candidate
for the United States Senate. Lincoln was present, of course, and so
were all the prominent politicians of the State.

"After the company had gotten pretty noisy and mellow from their
imbibitions of Yellow Seal and 'corn juice,'" says Mr. Bryant, "Mr.
Douglas and General Shields, to the consternation of the host and
intense merriment of the guests, climbed up on the table, at one end,
encircled each other's waists, and to the tune of a rollicking song,
pirouetted down the whole length of the table, shouting, singing,
and kicking dishes, glasses, and everything right and left, helter
skelter. For this night of entertainment to his constituents, the
successful candidate was presented with a bill, in the morning, for
supper, wines, liquors, and damages, which amounted to six hundred
dollars."

But boisterous suppers were not by any means the important feature of
Lincoln's social life that winter in Vandalia. There was another
and quieter side in which he showed his rare companionableness and
endeared himself to many people. In the midst of the log-rolling
and jubilations of the session he would often slip away to some
acquaintance's room and spend hours in talk and stories. Mr. John
Bryant tells of his coming frequently to his room at the hotel, and
sitting "with his knees up to his chin, telling his inimitable stories
and his triumphs in the House in circumventing the Democrats."

Major Newton Walker, of Lewiston, was in Vandalia at the time;
and still talks with pleasure not only of the Assembly's energetic
legislation, but of the way Lincoln endeared himself to him and to
his colleague. "We both loved him," says Major Walker, "but I little
thought then that he would become the greatest man that this country
ever produced, or perhaps ever will. Many a night I have sat up
listening to Lincoln's wonderful stories. That was a long time
ago--nearly sixty years. I shall be ninety-two years old in a few
days. I was six years older than Lincoln."

[Illustration: INVITATION TO A SPRINGFIELD COTILLION PARTY OF WHICH
LINCOLN WAS ONE OF THE MANAGERS.

The invitation is in the collection of Mr. C.F. Gunther of Chicago,
through whose courtesy it is here reproduced.]

"I used to play the fiddle a great deal, and have played for Lincoln a
number of times. He used to come over to where I was boarding and ask
me to play the fiddle for him; and I would take it with me when I went
over to visit him, and when he grew weary of telling stories he would
ask me to give him a tune, which I never refused to do."


LINCOLN MOVES TO SPRINGFIELD.

As soon as the Assembly closed, Lincoln returned to New Salem; but it
was not to stay. He had determined to go to Springfield. Major John
Stuart, the friend who had advised him to study law and who had lent
him books and with whom he had been associated closely in politics,
had offered to take him as a partner. It was a good opening, for
Stuart was one of the leading lawyers and politicians of the State,
and his influence would place Lincoln at once in command of more or
less business. From every point of view the change seems to have been
wise; yet Lincoln made it with foreboding.

To practise law he must abandon his business as surveyor, which was
bringing him a fair income; he must for a time, at least, go without
any certain income. If he failed, what then? The uncertainty weighed
on him heavily, the more so because he was burdened by the debts left
from his store and because he was constantly called upon to aid his
father's family. Thomas Lincoln had remained in Coles County, but he
had not, in these six years in which his son had risen so rapidly,
been able to get anything more than a poor livelihood from his farm.
The sense of responsibility Lincoln had towards his father's family
made it the more difficult for him to undertake a new profession. His
decision was made, however, and as soon as the session of the Tenth
Assembly was over he started for Springfield. His first appearance
there is as pathetic as amusing.

"He had ridden into town," says Joshua Speed, "on a borrowed horse,
with no earthly property save a pair of saddle-bags containing a few
clothes. I was a merchant at Springfield, and kept a large country
store, embracing dry-goods, groceries, hardware, books, medicines,
bed-clothes, mattresses--in fact, everything that the country needed.
Lincoln came into the store with his saddle-bags on his arm. He
said he wanted to buy the furniture for a single bed. The mattress,
blankets, sheets, coverlid, and pillow, according to the figures made
by me, would cost seventeen dollars. He said that perhaps was cheap
enough; but small as the price was, he was unable to pay it. But if I
would credit him till Christmas, and his experiment as a lawyer was a
success, he would pay then; saying in the saddest tone, 'If I fail in
this I do not know that I can ever pay you.' As I looked up at him I
thought then, and I think now, that I never saw a sadder face.

"I said to him: 'You seem to be so much pained at contracting so small
a debt, I think I can suggest a plan by which you can avoid the debt,
and at the same time attain your end. I have a large room with a
double bed upstairs, which you are very welcome to share with me.'

"'Where is your room?' said he.

"'Upstairs,' said I, pointing to a pair of winding stairs which led
from the store to my room.

"He took his saddle-bags on his arm, went upstairs, set them on the
floor, and came down with the most changed expression of countenance.
Beaming with pleasure, he exclaimed:

"'Well, Speed, I am moved.'"

Another friend, William Butler, with whom Lincoln had become intimate
at Vandalia, took him to board; life at Springfield thus began under
as favorable auspices as he could hope for.

After Chicago, Springfield was at that day the most promising city in
Illinois. It had some fifteen hundred inhabitants, and the removal of
the capital was certain to bring many more. Already, in fact, the town
felt the effect. Houses and blocks were started; lawyers, politicians,
tradesmen, laborers, were pouring in. Hitherto most of the dwellings
had been of log or frame; now, however, there was an increase in brick
buildings.

The effect was apparent too, in society. "We used to eat all
together," said an old man who in the early thirties came to
Springfield as a hostler; "but about this time some one came along and
told the people they oughtn't to do so, and then the hired folks ate
in the kitchen." This differentiation was apparent to Lincoln and
a little discouraging. He was thinking vaguely, at the time of this
removal to Springfield, that perhaps he best marry a Miss Mary Owens,
with whom he had become intimately acquainted in 1836 in New Salem;
but Springfield society, and the impossibility of his supporting a
wife in it, discouraged him.

    "I am often thinking of what we said about your coming to live
    at Springfield," he wrote her in May.

    "I am afraid you would not be satisfied. There is a great deal
    of flourishing about in carriages here, which it would be your
    doom to see without sharing it. You would have to be poor,
    without the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you
    could bear that patiently? Whatever woman may cast her lot
    with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do
    all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is
    nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to
    fail in the effort. I know I should be much happier with you
    than the way I am, provided I saw no signs of discontent in
    you. What you have said to me may have been in the way of
    jest, or I may have misunderstood it. If so, then let it be
    forgotten; if otherwise, I much wish you would think seriously
    before you decide. What I have said I will most positively
    abide by, provided you wish it. My opinion is that you had
    better not do it. You have not been accustomed to hardship,
    and it may be more severe than you now imagine. I know you
    are capable of thinking correctly on any subject, and if you
    deliberate maturely upon this before you decide, then I am
    willing to abide your decision."

[Illustration: (MAP OF ILLINOIS ILLUSTRATING "_An Act to establish and
maintain a General System of Internal Improvements, in force 27th Feb.
1837_")

When the Illinois legislature adopted the above plan of internal
improvement in 1837, there was in the whole United States only about
eleven hundred miles of railroad. The above scheme provided for
thirteen hundred and fifty. The basis of the outlines used by
the committee in developing the plan was contained in a series of
resolutions offered in the beginning of the session by Stephen A.
Douglas. In the house the vote on the bill stood sixty-one in favor to
twenty-five against.]

This decidedly dispassionate view of their relation seems not to
have brought any decision from Miss Owens; for three months later
Mr. Lincoln wrote her an equally judicial letter, telling her that
he could not think of her "with entire indifference," that he in all
cases wanted to do right and "most particularly so in all cases with
women," and summing up his position as follows:

    "What I do wish is that our further acquaintance shall depend
    upon yourself. If such further acquaintance would contribute
    nothing to your happiness, I am sure it would not to mine. If
    you feel yourself in any degree bound to me, I am now willing
    to release you, provided you wish it; while, on the other
    hand, I am willing and even anxious to bind you faster, if I
    can be convinced that it will in any considerable degree add
    to your happiness. This, indeed, is the whole question with
    me. Nothing would make me more miserable than to believe you
    miserable--nothing more happy than to know you were so."

Miss Owens had enough discernment to recognize the disinterestedness
of this love-making, and she refused Mr. Lincoln's offer. She found
him "deficient in those little links which make up the chain of a
woman's happiness," she said. The affair seems to have been a rather
vigorous flirtation on her part, which had interested and perhaps
flattered Mr. Lincoln. In the sincerity of his nature he feared he had
awakened a genuine attachment, and his notions of honor compelled
him to find out. When finally refused, he wrote a description of the
affair to a friend, in which he ridiculed himself unmercifully:

    "I was mortified, it seemed to me, in a hundred different
    ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that I
    had so long been too stupid to discover her intentions, and at
    the same time never doubting that I understood them perfectly;
    and also that she, whom I had taught myself to believe nobody
    else would have, had actually rejected me with all my fancied
    greatness. And, to cap the whole, I then for the first time
    began to suspect that I was really a little in love with her.
    But let it all go! I'll try and outlive it. Others have been
    made fools of by the girls, but this can never with truth be
    said of me. I most emphatically, in this instance, made a fool
    of myself. I have now come to the conclusion never again
    to think of marrying; and for this reason--I can never be
    satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough to have
    me."


LINCOLN'S POSITION IN SPRINGFIELD.

It was not long before Lincoln became a favorite figure in
Springfield. The skill, the courage, and the good-will he had shown in
his management of the bill for the removal of the capital gave him at
once, of course, special prominence. The entire "Long Nine," indeed,
were regarded by the county as its benefactors, and throughout the
summer there were barbecues and fireworks, dinners and speeches
in their honor. "The service rendered Old Sangamon by the present
delegation" was a continually recurring toast at every gathering.
At one "sumptuous dinner" the internal improvement scheme in all its
phases was toasted again and again by the banqueters, "'The Long Nine'
of Old Sangamon--well done, good and faithful servants," drew forth
long applause. Among those who offered volunteer toasts at this dinner
were "A. Lincoln, Esq.," and "S.A. Douglas, Esq."

At a dinner at Athens, given to the delegation, eight formal toasts
and twenty-five volunteers are quoted in the report of the affair in
the "Sangamo Journal." Among them were the following:

    A. Lincoln. He has fulfilled the expectations of his friends
    and disappointed the hopes of his enemies.

    A. Lincoln. One of nature's noblemen.

    By A. Lincoln. Sangamon County will ever be true to her best
    interests, and never more so than in reciprocating the good
    feelings of the citizens of Athens and neighborhood.

Lincoln had not been long in Springfield before he soon was able to
support himself, a result due, no doubt, very largely to his personal
qualities and to his reputation as a shrewd politician. Not that he
made money. The fee-book of Lincoln and Stuart shows that the returns
were modest enough, and that sometimes they even "traded out" their
account. Nevertheless it was a satisfaction to earn a livelihood so
soon. Of his peculiar methods as a lawyer at this date we know very
little. Most of his cases are utterly uninteresting. The very first
year he was in Springfield, however, he had one case which created
a great sensation, and which, so far as we know, has been overlooked
entirely by his biographers. It is an admirable example of the
way Lincoln could combine business and politics as well as of his
merciless persistency in pursuing a man whom he believed unjust.

It seems that among the offices to be filled at the August election of
1837 was that of probate justice of the peace. One of the candidates
was General James Adams, a man who had come on from the East in the
early twenties, and who had at first claimed to be a lawyer. He had
been an aspirant for various offices, among them that of governor
of the State, but with little success. A few days before the August
election of 1837 an anonymous hand-bill was scattered about the
streets. It was an attack on General Adams, charging him with having
acquired the title to a ten-acre lot of ground near the town by the
deliberate forgery of the name of Joseph Anderson, of Fulton County,
Illinois, to an assignment of a judgment. Anderson had died, and the
widow, upon going to Springfield to dispose of the land, was surprised
to find that it was claimed by General Adams, and she employed Stuart
and Lincoln to look into the matter. The hand-bill, which went into
all of the details at great length, concluded as follows: "I have
only made these statements because I am known by many to be one of
the individuals against whom the charge of forging the assignment and
slipping it into the general's papers has been made; and because our
silence might be construed into a confession of the truth. I shall not
subscribe my name; but hereby authorize the editor of the 'Journal' to
give it up to any one who may call for it.".

After the election, at which General Adams had been elected, the
hand-bill was reproduced in the "Sangamo Journal," with a card signed
by the editor, in which he said: "To save any further remarks on
this subject, I now state that A. Lincoln, Esq., is the author of
the hand-bill in question." The same issue of the paper contained a
lengthy communication from General Adams, denying the charge of fraud.

The controversy was continued for several weeks. General Adams used,
mostly, the columns of the "Springfield Republican," filling six
columns of a single issue. He charged that the assault upon him was
the result of a conspiracy between "a knot of lawyers, doctors, and
others," who wished to ruin his reputation. Lincoln's answers to Adams
are most emphatic. In one case, quoting several of his assertions,
he pronounced them "all as false as hell, as all this community must
know." Adams's replies were always voluminous. "Such is the turn which
things have lately taken," wrote Lincoln, "that when General Adams
writes a book I am expected to write a commentary on it." Replying to
Adams's denunciation of the lawyers, he said: "He attempted to impose
himself upon the community as a lawyer, and he actually carried the
attempt so far as to induce a man who was under the charge of murder
to entrust the defence of his life to his hands, and finally took his
money and got him hanged. Is this the man that is to raise a breeze
in his favor by abusing lawyers? ... If he is not a lawyer, he _is_
a liar; for he proclaimed himself a lawyer, and got a man hanged by
depending on him." Lincoln concluded: "Farewell, General. I will see
you again at court, if not before--when and where we will settle the
question whether you or the widow shall have the land." The widow did
get the land, but this was not the worst thing that happened to Adams.
The climax was reached when the "Sangamo Journal" published a long
editorial (written by Lincoln, no doubt) on the controversy, and
followed it with a copy of an indictment found against Adams in Oswego
County, New York, in 1818. The offence charged in this indictment was
the forgery of a deed by Adams--"a person of evil name and fame and of
a wicked disposition."

Lincoln's victory in this controversy undoubtedly did much to impress
the community, not necessarily that he was a good lawyer, but rather
that he was a clever strategist and a fearless enemy. It was not, in
fact, as a lawyer that he was prominent in the first years after he
came to Springfield. Reëlected to the Assembly in 1838, and again in
1840, his real impress on the community was made as a politician.
The qualities which he had already shown in public life were only
strengthened as he gained experience and self-confidence. He was the
terror of the pretentious and insincere, and had a way of exposing
their shams by clever tricks which, to voters, were unanswerable
arguments. A case in point happened in 1840. It was considered
necessary, at that day, by a candidate to prove to the farmers that
he was poor and, like themselves, horny-handed. Those politicians who
wore good clothes and dined sumptuously were careful to conceal their
regard for the elegancies of life from their constituents. One of
the Democrats who in this campaign took particular pains to decry the
Whigs for their wealth and aristocratic principles was Colonel Dick
Taylor, generally known in Illinois as "ruffled-shirt Taylor." He was
a vain and handsome man, who habitually arrayed himself as gorgeously
as the fashion allowed. One day when he and Lincoln had met in debate
at a countryside gathering, Colonel Dick became particularly bitter
in his condemnation of Whig elegance. Lincoln listened for a time, and
then, slipping near the speaker, suddenly caught his coat, which
was buttoned up close, and tore it open. A mass of ruffled shirt,
a gorgeous velvet vest, and a great gold chain from which dangled
numerous rings and seals, were uncovered to the crowd. Lincoln needed
to make no further reply that day to the charge of being a "rag
baron."

Lincoln loved fair play as he hated shams; and throughout these early
years in Springfield are examples of his boldness in insisting that
friend and enemy have the chance due them. A most dramatic case of
this kind occurred at a political meeting held one evening in the
Springfield court-room, which at that date was temporarily in a hall
under Stuart and Lincoln's law office. Directly over the platform was
a trap-door. Lincoln frequently would lie by this opening during a
meeting, listening to the speeches. One evening one of his friends,
E.D. Baker, in speaking angered the crowd, and an attempt was made
to "pull him down." Before the assailants could reach the platform,
however, a pair of long legs dangled from the trap-door, and in an
instant Lincoln dropped down beside Baker, crying out, "Hold on,
gentlemen, this is a land of free speech." His appearance was so
unexpected, and his attitude so determined, that the crowd soon was
quiet, and Baker went on with his speech.

In all the intellectual life of the town he took a place. With a few
of the leading young men he formed a young men's lyceum. One of his
speeches before this body has been preserved in full. Its subject is
"The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions."[4] The speech has
not, however, any of the peculiarly original style which usually
characterized his efforts.

He came immediately to be a favorite figure in all sorts of local
affairs. What he said and did on these occasions is still recollected
by those interested in them. "When the seat of government was removed
from Vandalia to Springfield in 1836," says the Rev. Peter Wallace
of Chicago "I obtained the contract of taking down the court-house to
make a place for the State House. Lincoln, with others, was present
to receive the job. 'Peter,' he said to me, 'if you succeed as well
in building houses as you have in tearing this one down, you will make
your mark as a builder.'" Mr. Wallace tells, too, of hearing Lincoln
say in a speech, at the funeral of one of their friends: "I read in a
book whose author never errs, 'Woe unto you when all men shall speak
well of you.' Our friend will escape that woe, for he would be the
exception had he no enemies."

The most pleasing feature of his early life in the town was the way in
which he attached all classes of people to him. He naturally, from his
political importance and from his relation to Mr. Stuart, was admitted
to the most exclusive circle of society. But Lincoln was not received
there from tolerance of his position only. The few members left of
that interesting circle of Springfield in the thirties are emphatic in
their statements that he was recognized as a valuable social factor.
If indifferent to forms and little accustomed to conventional usages,
he had a native dignity and self-respect which stamped him at once as
a superior man. He had a good will, an easy adaptability to people,
which made him take a hand in everything that went on. His name
appears in every list of banqueters and merry-makers reported in the
Springfield papers. He even served as committee-man for cotillion
parties. "We liked Lincoln, though he was not gay," said one charming
and cultivated old lady to me in Springfield. "He rarely danced, he
was never very attentive to ladies, but he was always a welcome guest
everywhere, and the centre of a circle of animated talkers. Indeed, I
think the only thing we girls had against Lincoln was that he always
attracted all the men around him."

Lincoln's kindly interest and perfectly democratic feeling attached to
him many people whom he never met save on the streets. Indeed his life
in the streets of Springfield is a most touching and delightful study.
He concerned himself in the progress of every building which was put
up, of every new street which was opened; he passed nobody without
recognition; he seemed always to have time to stop and talk. He
became, in fact, part of Springfield street life, just as he had of
the town's politics and society. By 1840 there was no man in the town
better known, better liked, more sought for; though there were more
than one whose future was considered brighter.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Footnote 1: Reminiscences of Mr. Weir, a former resident of Sangamon
County, related by E.B. Howell of Butte, Montana.]

[Footnote 2: Summary condensed from Moses's "History of Illinois."]

[Footnote 3: The original of this letter is owned by E.R. Oeltjen of
Petersburg, Illinois.]

[Footnote 4: Lincoln's address on "The Perpetuation of Our Political
Institutions" is dated January 27, 1837, in most biographies, but
it was published in the "Sangamo Journal" of February 3, 1838. The
address is preceded by the following resolution:

    "YOUNG MEN'S LYCEUM,
    SPRINGFIELD, _January 27, 1837[8]_.

    "_Resolved_, That the thanks of this Lyceum be presented to A.
    Lincoln, Esq., for the lecture delivered by him this evening,
    and that he be solicited to furnish a copy for publication.

    "JAS. H. MATHENY, _Secretary_"

The confusion as to the date of the delivery of this address evidently
arises from the fact that the resolution here quoted bears the date of
"1837"--a mere slip of the pen, of course. In January, 1837, Lincoln
was in the legislature at Vandalia. He had not yet become a resident
of Springfield. According to Mr. Herndon, who was a member of the
Young Men's Lyceum, that society was not formed until the fall of
1837.]




[Illustration: THE WAVE "WENT OUT IN THREE SURGES, MAKING A CLEAN
SWEEP OF A BOAT."]




THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF.

BY RUDYARD KIPLING,

Author of "The Jungle Book," "Plain Tales from the Hills," etc.


It was her first voyage, and though she was only a little cargo
steamer of two thousand five hundred tons, she was the very best of
her kind, the outcome of forty years of experiments and improvements
in framework and machinery; and her designers and owners thought just
as much of her as though she had been the "Lucania." Any one can make
a floating hotel that will pay her expenses, if he only puts enough
money into the saloon, and charges for private baths, suites of rooms,
and such like; but in these days of competition and low freights every
square inch of a cargo boat must be built for cheapness, great hold
capacity, and a certain steady speed. This boat was perhaps
two hundred and forty feet long and thirty-two feet wide, with
arrangements that enabled her to carry cattle on her main and sheep on
her upper deck if she wanted to; but her great glory was the amount of
cargo that she could store away in her holds. Her owners--they were
a very well-known Scotch family--came round with her from the North,
where she had been launched and christened and fitted, to Liverpool,
where she was to take cargo for New York; and the owner's daughter,
Miss Frazier, went to and fro on the clean decks, admiring the new
paint and the brass-work and the patent winches, and particularly the
strong, straight bow, over which she had cracked a bottle of very
good champagne when she christened the steamer the "Dimbula." It was
a beautiful September afternoon, and the boat in all her newness (she
was painted lead color, with a red funnel) looked very fine indeed.
Her house flag was flying, and her whistle from time to time
acknowledged the salutes of friendly boats, who saw that she was new
to the sea and wished to make her welcome.

"And now," said Miss Frazier, delightedly, to the captain, "she's
a real ship, isn't she? It seems only the other day father gave the
order for her, and now--and now--isn't she a beauty?" The girl was
proud of the firm, and talked as though she were the controlling
partner.

"Oh, she's no so bad," the skipper replied, cautiously. "But I'm
sayin' that it takes more than the christenin' to mak' a ship. In the
nature o' things, Miss Frazier, if ye follow me, she's just irons and
rivets and plates put into the form of a ship. She has to find herself
yet."

"But I thought father said she was exceptionally well found."

"So she is," said the skipper, with a laugh. "But it's this way wi'
ships, Miss Frazier. She's all here, but the parts of her have not
learned to work together yet. They've had no chance."

"But the engines are working beautifully. I can hear them."

"Yes, indeed. But there is more than engines to a ship. Every inch of
her, ye'll understand, has to be livened up, and made to work wi' its
neighbor--sweetenin' her, we call it, technically."

"And how will you do it?" the girl asked.

"We can no more than drive and steer her and so forth; but if we have
rough weather this trip--it's likely--she'll learn the rest by heart!
For a ship, ye'll obsairve, Miss Frazier, is in no sense a reegid
body, closed at both ends. She's a highly complex structure o' various
an' conflictin' strains, wi' tissues that must give an' tak' accordin'
to her personal modulus of eelasteecity." Mr. Buchanan, the chief
engineer, in his blue coat with gilt buttons, was coming toward them.
"I'm sayin' to Miss Frazier, here, that our little 'Dimbula' has to be
sweetened yet, and nothin' but a gale will do it. How's all wi' your
engines, Buck?"

"Well enough--true by plumb an' rule, of course; but there's no
spontaneeity yet." He turned to the girl. "Take my word, Miss
Frazier, and maybe ye'll comprehend later, even after a pretty girl's
christened a ship it does not follow that there's such a thing as a
ship under the men that work her."

"I was sayin' the very same, Mr. Buchanan," the skipper interrupted.

"That's more metaphysical than I can follow," said Miss Frazier,
laughing.

"Why so? Ye're good Scotch, an'--I knew your mother's father; he was
fra' Dumfries--ye've a vested right in metapheesics, Miss Frazier,
just as ye have in the 'Dimbula,'" the engineer said.

"Eh, well, we must go down to the deep watters, an' earn Miss Frazier
her deevidends. Will you not come to my cabin for tea?" said the
skipper. "We'll be in dock the night, and when you're goin' back to
Glasgie ye can think of us loadin' her down an' drivin' her forth--all
for your sake."

In the next four days they stowed nearly four thousand tons dead
weight into the "Dimbula," and took her out from Liverpool. As soon as
she met the lift of the open water she naturally began to talk. If
you put your ear to the side of the cabin the next time you are in a
steamer, you will hear hundreds of little voices in every direction,
thrilling and buzzing, and whispering and popping, and gurgling and
sobbing and squeaking exactly like a telephone in a thunder storm.
Wooden ships shriek and growl and grunt, but iron vessels throb and
quiver through all their hundreds of ribs and thousands of rivets. The
"Dimbula" was very strongly built, and every piece of her had a letter
or a number or both to describe it, and every piece had been hammered
or forged or rolled or punched by man and had lived in the roar and
rattle of the shipyard for months. Therefore, every piece had its own
separate voice in exact proportion to the amount of trouble spent upon
it. Cast iron, as a rule, says very little; but mild steel plates and
wrought iron, and ribs and beams that have been bent and welded and
riveted a good deal, talk continuously. Their conversation, of course,
is not half as wise as human talk, because they are all, though they
do not know it, bound down one to the other in black darkness, where
they cannot tell what is happening near them, nor what is going to
happen next.

A very short while after she had cleared the Irish coast a sullen,
gray-headed old wave of the Atlantic climbed leisurely over her
straight bows, and sat down on the steam capstan, used for hauling
up the anchor. Now, the capstan and the engine that drove it had been
newly painted red and green; besides which, nobody cares for being
ducked.

"Don't you do that again," the capstan sputtered through the teeth of
his cogs. "Hi! Where's the fellow gone?"

The wave had slouched overside with a plop and a chuckle; but "Plenty
more where he came from," said a brother wave, and went through and
over the capstan, who was bolted firmly to an iron plate on the iron
deck beams below.

[Illustration: THE "DIMBULA" TAKING CARGO FOR HER FIRST VOYAGE.]

"Can't you keep still up there," said the deck beams. "What's the
matter with you? One minute you weigh twice as much as you ought to,
and the next you don't."

"It isn't my fault," said the capstan. "There's a green brute from
outside that comes and hits me on the head."

"Tell that to the shipwrights. You've been in position up there for
months, and you've never wriggled like this before. If you aren't
careful you'll strain _us_."

"Talking of strain," said a low, rasping, unpleasant voice, "are any
of you fellows--you deck beams, we mean--aware that those exceedingly
ugly knees of yours happen to be riveted into our structure--_ours_?"

"Who might you be?" the deck beams inquired.

"Oh, nobody in particular," was the answer. "We're only the port and
starboard upper-deck stringers; and, if you persist in heaving and
hiking like this, we shall be reluctantly compelled to take steps."

Now, the stringers of the ship are long iron girders, so to speak,
that run lengthways from stern to bow. They keep the iron frames (what
are called ribs in a wooden ship) in place, and also help to hold
the ends of the deck beams which go from side to side of the ship.
Stringers always consider themselves most important, because they are
so long. In the "Dimbula" there were four stringers on each side--one
far down by the bottom of the hold, called the bilge stringer; one a
little higher up, called the side stringer; one on the floor of the
lower deck; and the upper-deck stringers that have been heard from
already.

"You will take steps, will you?" This was a long, echoing rumble.
It came from the frames; scores and scores of them, each one about
eighteen inches distant from the next, and each riveted to the
stringers in four places. "We think you will have a certain amount of
trouble in _that_;" and thousands and thousands of the little rivets
that held everything together whispered: "You will! You will! Stop
quivering and be quiet. Hold on, brethren! Hold on! Hot punches!
What's that?"

Rivets have no teeth, so they can't chatter with fright; but they did
their best as a fluttering jar swept along the ship from stern to bow,
and she shook like a rat in a terrier's mouth.

An unusually severe pitch, for the sea was rising, had lifted the big
throbbing screw nearly to the surface, and it was spinning round in a
kind of soda water--half sea and half air--going much faster than was
right, because there was no deep water for it to work in. As it sank
again, the engines--and they were triple-expansion, three cylinders in
a row--snorted through all their three pistons: "Was that a joke, you
fellow outside? It's an uncommonly poor one. How are we to do _our_
work if you fly off the handle that way?"

"I didn't fly off the handle," said the screw, twirling huskily at
the end of the screw shaft. "If I had, _you'd_ have been scrap iron
by this time. The sea dropped away from under me, and I had nothing to
catch on to. That's all."

"That's all, d'you call it?" said the thrust-block, whose business it
is to take the push of the screw; for if a screw had nothing to hold
it back it would crawl right into the engine room. (It is the holding
back of the screwing action that gives the drive to a ship.) "I know
I do my work deep down and out of sight, but I warn you I expect
justice. All _I_ ask is justice. Why can't you push steadily and
evenly, instead of whizzing like a whirligig and making me hot under
all my collars?" The thrust-block had six collars, each faced with
brass, and he did not want to get them heated.

All the bearings that supported the fifty feet of screw shaft as it
ran to the stern whispered: "Justice--give us justice."

"I can only give you what I get," the screw answered. "Look out! It's
coming again!"

He rose with a roar as the "Dimbula" plunged; and
"whack--whack--whack--whack" went the engines furiously, for they had
little to check them.

"I'm the noblest outcome of human ingenuity--Mr. Buchanan says so,"
squealed the high-pressure cylinder. "This is simply ridiculous." The
piston went up savagely and choked, for half the steam behind it
was mixed with dirty water. "Help! Oiler! Fitter! Stoker! Help! I'm
choking," it gasped. "Never in the history of maritime invention has
such a calamity overtaken one so young and strong. And if I go, who's
to drive the ship?"

"Hush! oh, hush!" whispered the steam, who, of course, had been to sea
many times before. He used to spend his leisure ashore, in a cloud, or
a gutter, or a flower-pot, or a thunder storm, or anywhere else where
water was needed. "That's only a little priming, as they call it.
It'll happen all night, on and off. I don't say it's nice, but it's
the best we can do under the circumstances."

"What difference can circumstances make? I'm here to do my work--on
clean, dry steam. Blow circumstances!" the cylinder roared.

"The circumstances will attend to the blowing. I've worked on the
North Atlantic run a good many times--it's going to be rough before
morning."

"It isn't distressingly calm now," said the extra strong frames, they
were called web frames, in the engine room. "There's an upward thrust
that we don't understand, and there's a twist that is very bad for our
brackets and diamond plates, and there's a sort of northwestward pull
that follows the twist, which seriously annoys us. We mention this
because _we_ happened to cost a great deal of money, and we feel
sure that the owner would not approve of our being treated in this
frivolous way."

"I'm afraid the matter's out of the owner's hands for the present,"
said the steam, slipping into the condenser. "You're left to your own
devices till the weather betters."

"I wouldn't mind the weather," said a flat bass voice deep below;
"it's this confounded cargo that's breaking my heart. I'm the garboard
strake, and I'm twice as thick as most of the others, and I ought to
know something."

The garboard strake is the very bottom-most plate in the bottom of
a ship, and the "Dimbula's" garboard strake (she was a flat-bottomed
boat) was nearly three-quarters of an inch mild steel.

"The sea pushes me up in a way I should never have expected," the
strake went on, "and the cargo pushes me down, and between the two I
don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"When in doubt, hold on," rumbled the steam, making head in the
boilers.

"Yes, but there's only dark and cold and hurry down here, and how do
I know whether the other plates are doing their duty? Those bulwark
plates up above, I've heard, aren't more than five-sixteenths of an
inch thick--scandalous, I call it."

"I agree with you," said a huge web frame by the main cargo hatch. He
was deeper and thicker than all the others, and curved half-way across
the ship's side in the shape of half an arch, to support the deck
where deck beams would have been in the way of cargo coming up and
down. "I work entirely unsupported, and I observe that I am the
sole strength of this vessel, so far as my vision extends. The
responsibility, I assure you, is enormous. I believe the money value
of the cargo is over one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Think of
that!"

"And every pound of it dependent on my personal exertions." Here spoke
a sea-valve that communicated directly with the water outside and was
seated not very far from the garboard strake. "I rejoice to think that
I am a Prince-Hyde valve, with best Para rubber facings. Five patents
cover me--I mention this without pride--five separate and several
patents, each one finer than the other. At present I am screwed
fast. Should I open, you would immediately be swamped. This is
incontrovertible!"

Patent things always use the longest words they can. It is a trick
they pick up from their inventors.

"That's news," said a big centrifugal bilge pump. "I had an idea that
you were employed to clean decks and things with. At least, I've used
you for that more than once. I forget the precise number in thousands
of gallons which I am guaranteed to pump in an hour; but I assure you,
my complaining friends, that there is not the least danger. _I_ alone
am capable of clearing any water that may find its way here. By my
biggest delivery, we pitched then!"

The sea was getting up in workmanlike style. It was a dead westerly
gale, blown from under a ragged opening of green sky, narrowed on all
sides by fat gray clouds; and the wind bit like pincers, as it fretted
the spray into lace-work on the heads of the waves.

"I tell you what it is," the foremast telephoned down its wire stays.
"I'm up here, and I can take a dispassionate view of things. There's
an organized conspiracy against us. I'm sure of it, because every
single one of these waves is heading directly for our bows. The whole
sea is concerned in it--and so's the wind. It's awful!"

"What's awful?" said a wave, drowning the capstan for the hundredth
time.

"This organized conspiracy on your part," the capstan gurgled, taking
his cue from the mast.

"Organized bubbles and spindrift! There has been a depression in the
Gulf of Mexico. Excuse me!" He leaped overside; but his friends took
up the tale one after another.

"Which has advanced--" _That_ wave threw green over the funnel.

"As far as Cape Hatteras--" _He_ drenched the bridge.

"And is now going out to sea--to sea--to sea!" _He_ went out in three
surges, making a clean sweep of a boat, which turned bottom up and
sank in the darkening troughs alongside.

"That's all there is to it," seethed the broken water, roaring
through the scuppers. "There's no animus in our proceedings. We're a
meteorological corollary."

"Is it going to get any worse?" said the bow anchor, chained down to
the deck, where he could only breathe once in five minutes.

"Not knowing, can't say. Wind may blow a bit by midnight. Thanks
awfully. Good-by."

The wave that spoke so politely had travelled some distance aft, and
got itself all mixed up on the deck amidships, which was a well deck
sunk between high bulwarks. One of the bulwark plates, which was hung
on hinges to open outward, had swung out, and passed the bulk of the
water back to the sea again with a wop.

"Evidently that's what I'm made for," said the plate, shutting up
again with a sputter of pride. "Oh, no, you don't, my friend!"

The top of a wave was trying to get in from outside, but the plate did
not open in that direction, and the defeated water spurted back.

"Not bad for five-sixteenths of an inch," said the bulwark plate. "My
work, I see, is laid down for the night;" and it began opening and
shutting, as it was designed to do, with the motion of the ship.

"We are not what you might call idle," groaned all the frames
together, as the "Dimbula" climbed a big wave, lay on her side at the
top, and shot into the next hollow, twisting as she descended. A huge
swell pushed up exactly under her middle, and her bow and stern hung
free, with nothing to support them, and then one joking wave caught
her up at the bow, and another at the stern, while the rest of the
water fell away from under her, just to see how she would like it, and
she was held up at the two ends, and the weight of the cargo and the
machinery fell on the groaning iron keels and bilge stringers.

"Ease off! Ease off there!" roared the garboard strake. "I want an
eighth of an inch play. D'you hear me, you young rivets!"

"Ease off! ease off!" cried the bilge stringers. "Don't hold us so
tight to the frames!"

"Ease off!" grunted the deck beams, as the "Dimbula" rolled fearfully.
"You've cramped our knees into the stringers and we can't move. Ease
off, you flat-headed little nuisances."

[Illustration: "AN UNUSUALLY SEVERE PITCH ... HAD LIFTED THE BIG
THROBBING SCREW NEARLY TO THE SURFACE."]

Then two converging seas hit the bows, one on each side, and fell away
in torrents of streaming thunder.

"Ease off!" shouted the forward collision bulkhead. "I want to crumple
up, but I'm stiffened in every direction. Ease off, you dirty little
forge filings. Let me breathe!"

All the hundreds of plates that are riveted on to the frames, and make
the outside skin of every steamer, echoed the call, for each plate
wanted to shift and creep a little, and each plate, according to its
position, complained against the rivets.

"We can't help it! _We_ can't help it!" they murmured. "We're put here
to hold you, and we're going to do it. You never pull us twice in the
same direction. If you'd say what you were going to do next, we'd try
to meet your views."

"As far as I could feel," said the upper-deck planking, and that was
four inches thick, "every single iron near me was pushing or pulling
in opposite directions. Now, what's the sense of that? My friends, let
us all pull together."

"Pull any way you please." roared the funnel, "so long as you don't
try your experiments on _me_. I need fourteen wire ropes, all pulling
in opposite directions, to hold me steady. Isn't that so?"

"We believe you, my boy!" whistled the funnel stays through their
clenched teeth, as they twanged in the wind from the top of the funnel
to the deck.

"Nonsense! We must all pull together," the decks repeated. "Pull
lengthways."

"Very good," said the stringers; "then stop pushing sideways when you
get wet. Be content to run gracefully fore and aft, and curve in at
the ends as we do."

"No, no curves at the end. A very slight workmanlike curve from side
to side, with a good grip at each knee, and little pieces welded on,"
said the deck beams.

"Fiddle!" said the iron pillars of the deep, dark hold. "Who ever
heard of curves? Stand up straight; be a perfectly round column, and
carry tons of good solid weight. Like that! There!" A big sea smashed
on to the deck above, and the pillars stiffened themselves to the
load.

"Straight up and down is not bad," said the frames who run that way
in the sides of the ship, "but you must also expand yourself sideways.
Expansion is the law of life, children. Open out! Open out!"

"Come back!" said the deck beam, savagely, as the upward heave of
the sea made the frames try to open. "Come back to your bearings, you
slack-jawed irons!"

"Rigidity! Rigidity! Rigidity!" thumped the engines. "Absolute,
unvarying rigidity--rigidity!"

"You see!" whined the rivets in chorus. "No two of you will ever pull
alike, and--and you blame it all on us. We only know how to go through
a plate and bite down on both sides so that it can't and mustn't and
sha'n't move."

"I've got one-sixteenth of an inch play at any rate," said the
garboard strake triumphantly; and so he had, and all the bottom of the
ship felt a good deal easier for it.

"Then we're no good," sobbed the bottom rivets. "We were ordered--we
were _ordered_--never to give, and we've given, and the sea will come
in, and we'll all go to the bottom together! First we're blamed for
everything unpleasant, and now we haven't the consolation of having
done our work."

"Don't say I told you," whispered the steam consolingly; "but, between
you and me and the cloud I last came from, it was bound to happen
sooner or later. You _had_ to give a fraction, and you've given
without knowing it. Now hold on, as before."

"What's the use?" a few hundred rivets chattered. "We've given--we've
given; and the sooner we confess that we can't keep the ship together
and go off our little heads, the easier it will be. No rivet forged
could stand this strain."

"No one rivet was ever meant to. Share it among you," the steam
answered.

"The others can have my share. I'm going to pull out," said a rivet in
one of the forward plates.

"If you go, others will follow," hissed the steam. "There's nothing so
contagious in a boat as rivets going. Why, I knew a little chap like
you--he was an eighth of an inch fatter, though--on a steamer--to be
sure, she was only twelve tons, now I come to think of it--in exactly
the same place as you are. _He_ pulled out in a bit of a bobble of a
sea, not half as bad as this, and he started all his friends on the
same butt-strap, and the plate opened like a furnace door, and I had
to climb into the nearest fog bank while the boat went down."

"Now that's peculiarly disgraceful," said the rivet. "Fatter than me,
was he, and in a steamer not half our tonnage? Reedy little peg! I
blush for the family, sir." He settled himself more firmly than ever
in his place, and the steam chuckled.

"You see," he went on quite gravely, "a rivet, and especially a rivet
in _your_ position, is really the _one_ indispensable part of the
ship." The steam did not say that he had whispered the very same thing
to every single piece of iron aboard. There is no sense in telling too
much.

And all that while the little "Dimbula" pitched and chopped and swung
and slewed, and lay down as though she were going to die, and got up
as though she had been stung, and threw her nose round and round in
circles half a dozen times as she dipped, for the gale was at its
worst. It was inky black, in spite of the tearing white froth on the
waves, and, to top everything, the rain began to fall in sheets, so
that you could not see your hand before your face. This did not make
much difference to the iron-work below, but it troubled the foremast a
good deal.

"Now it's all finished," he said, dismally. "The conspiracy is too
strong for us. There is nothing left but to--"

"Hurraar! Brrrraaah! Brrrrrrp!" roared the steam through the foghorn,
till the decks quivered. "Don't be frightened below. It's only me,
just throwing out a few words in case any one happens to be rolling
round to-night,"

"You don't mean to say there's any one except _us_ on the sea in such
weather?" said the funnel, in a husky snuffle.

"Scores of 'em," said the steam, clearing its throat. "Rrrrrraaa!
Brraaaaa! Prrrrp! It's a trifle windy up here; and, great boilers, how
it rains!"

"We're drowning," said the scuppers. They had been doing nothing else
all night, but this steady thresh of rain above them seemed to be the
end of the world.

"That's all right. We'll be easier in an hour or two. First the
wind and then the rain; soon you may make sail again! Grrraaaaah!
Drrrraaaa! Drrrrrp! I have a notion that the sea is going down
already. If it does you'll learn something about rolling. We've only
pitched till now. By the way, aren't you chaps in the hold a little
easier than you were?"

There was just as much groaning and straining as ever, but it was not
so loud or squeaky in tone; and when the ship quivered she did not
jar stiffly, like a poker hit on the floor, but gave a supple little
waggle, like a perfectly balanced golf club.

"We have made a most amazing discovery," said the stringers, one after
another; "a discovery that entirely changes the situation. We have
found, for the first time in the history of shipbuilding, that the
inward pull of the deck beams and the outward thrust of the frames
locks us, as it were, more closely in our places, and enables us to
endure a strain which is entirely without parallel in the records of
marine architecture."

The steam turned a laugh quickly into a roar up the foghorn. "What
massive intellects you great stringers have!" he said, softly, when he
had finished.

"We, also," began the deck beams, "are discoverers and geniuses. We
are of opinion that the support of the hold-pillars materially helps
_us_. We find that we lock upon them when we are subjected to a heavy
and singular weight of sea above."

Here the "Dimbula" shot down a hollow, lying almost on her side, and
righting at the bottom with a wrench and a spasm.

"In these cases--are you aware of this, steam?--the plating at the
bows, and particularly at the stern,--we would also mention the floors
beneath us,--helps _us_ to resist any tendency to spring." It was the
frames who were speaking in the solemn and awed voice which people use
when they have just come across something entirely new for the very
first time.

"I'm only a poor, puffy little flutterer," said the steam, "but I have
to stand a good deal of pressure in my business. It's all tremendously
interesting. Tell us some more. You fellows are _so_ strong."

"You'll see," said the bow plates proudly. "Ready behind there! Here's
the father and mother of waves coming! Sit tight, rivets all!" The
great sluicing comber thundered by, but through all the scuffle and
confusion the steam could hear the low, quick cries of the iron-work
as the various strains took them--cries like these: "Easy now, easy!
_Now_ push for all your strength! Hold out! Give a fraction! Hold up!
Pull in! Shove crossways! Mind the strain at the ends! Grip now! Bite
tight! Let the water get away from under, and there she goes."

The wave raced off into the darkness shouting, "Not bad that, if it's
your first run!" and the drenched and ducked ship throbbed to the beat
of the engines inside her. All three cylinders were wet and white with
the salt spray that had come down through the engine-room hatch; there
was white salt on the canvas-bound steam pipes, and even the bright
work below was speckled and soiled; but the cylinders had learned to
make the most of steam that was half water, and were pounding along
cheerfully.

"How's the noblest outcome of human ingenuity hitting it?" said the
steam, as he whirled through the engine room.

"Nothing for nothing in the world of woe," the cylinders answered,
as if they had been working for centuries, "and precious little for
seventy-five pounds head. We've made two knots this last hour and a
quarter! Rather humiliating for eight hundred horse-power, isn't it?"

"Well, it's better than drifting astern, at any rate. You seem rather
less--how shall I put it?--stiff in the back than you were."

"If you'd been hammered as we've been this night, you wouldn't be
stiff--ffreff--ff--either. Theoreti--retti--retti--cally, of course,
rigidity is _the_ thing. Purr--purr--practically, there has to be a
little give and take. _We_ found that out by working on our sides for
five minutes at a stretch--chch--chh. How's the weather?"

"Sea's going down fast," said the steam.

"Good business," said the high-pressure cylinder. "Whack her up along,
boys. They've given us five pounds more steam;" and he began humming
the first bars of "Said the young Obadiah to the old Obadiah," which,
as you must have noticed, is a pet tune among engines not made for
high speed. Racing liners with twin screws sing "The Turkish Patrol"
and the overture to the "Bronze Horse" and "Madame Angot," till
something goes wrong, and then they give Gounod's "Funeral March of a
Marionette" with variations.

"You'll learn a song of your own some fine day," said the steam, as he
flew up the foghorn for one last bellow.

Next day the sky cleared and the sea dropped a little, and the
"Dimbula" began to roll from side to side till every inch of iron in
her was sick and giddy. But, luckily, they did not all feel ill at the
same time; otherwise she would have opened out like a wet paper box.
The steam whistled warnings as he went about his business, for it is
in this short, quick roll and tumble that follows a heavy sea that
most of the accidents happen; because then everything thinks that the
worst is over and goes off guard. So he orated and chattered till the
beams and frames and floors and stringers and things had learned how
to lock down and lock up on one another, and endure this new kind of
strain.

They had ample time, for they were sixteen days at sea, and it was
foul weather till within a hundred miles of New York. The "Dimbula"
picked up her pilot, and came in covered with salt and red rust. Her
funnel was dirty gray from top to bottom; two boats had been carried
away; three copper ventilators looked like hats after a fight with the
police; the bridge had a dimple in the middle of it; the house that
covered the steam steering-gear was split as with hatchets; there
was a bill for small repairs in the engine room almost as long as the
screw-shaft; the forward cargo hatch fell into bucket staves when
they raised the iron crossbars; and the steam capstan had been badly
wrenched on its bed. Altogether, as the skipper said, it was "a pretty
general average."

"But she's soupled," he said to Mr. Buchanan. "For all her dead
weight, she rode like a yacht. Ye mind that last blow off the Banks? I
was proud of her."

"It's vara good," said the chief engineer, looking along the
dishevelled decks. "Now, a man judging superficially would say we were
a wreck, but we know otherwise--by experience."

Naturally, everything in the "Dimbula" stiffened with pride, and
the foremast and the forward collision bulkhead, who are pushing
creatures, begged the steam to warn the port of New York of their
arrival. "Tell those big boats all about us," they said. "They seem to
take us quite as a matter of course."

It was a glorious, clear, dead calm morning, and in single file, with
less than half a mile between each, their bands playing, and
their tugboats shouting and waving handkerchiefs beneath, were the
"Majestic," the "Paris," the "Touraine," the "Servia," the "Kaiser
Wilhelm II." and the "Werkendam," all statelily going out to sea. As
the "Dimbula" shifted her helm to give the great boats clear way, the
steam (who knows far too much to mind making an exhibition of himself
now and then) shouted:

"Oyez! oyez! oyez! Princes, Dukes, and Barons of the High Seas! Know
ye by these presents we are the 'Dimbula,' fifteen days nine hours out
from Liverpool, having crossed the Atlantic with four thousand ton of
cargo for the first time in our career. We have not foundered! We are
here! Eer! eer! We are not disabled. But we have had a time wholly
unparalleled in the annals of shipbuilding. Our decks were swept. We
pitched, we rolled! We thought we were going to die! Hi! hi! But we
didn't! We wish to give notice that we have come to New York all the
way across the Atlantic, through the worst weather in the world; and
we are the 'Dimbula.' We are--arr--ha--ha--ha-r-r!"

The beautiful line of boats swept by as steadily as the procession of
the seasons. The "Dimbula" heard the "Majestic" say "Humph!" and the
"Paris" grunted "How!" and the "Touraine" said "Oui!" with a little
coquettish flicker of steam; and the "Servia" said "Haw!" and the
"Kaiser" and the "Werkendam" said "Hoch!" Dutch fashion--and that was
absolutely all.

"I did my best," said the steam, gravely, "but I don't think they were
much impressed with us, somehow. Do you?"

"It's simply disgusting," said the bow-plates. "They might have
seen what we've been through. There isn't a ship on the sea that has
suffered as we have--is there now?"

"Well, I wouldn't go so far as that," said the steam, "because I've
worked on some of those boats, and put them through weather quite as
bad as we've had in six days; and some of them are a little over ten
thousand tons, I believe. Now, I've seen the 'Majestic,' for instance,
ducked from her bows to her funnel, and I've helped the 'Arizona,' I
think she was, to back off an iceberg she met with one dark night; and
I had to run out of the 'Paris's' engine room one day because there
was thirty foot of water in it. Of course, I don't deny--" The steam
shut off suddenly as a tugboat, loaded with a political club and a
brass band that had been to see a senator off to Europe, crossed the
bows, going to Hoboken. There was a long silence, that reached without
a break from the cut-water to the propeller blades of the "Dimbula."

Then one big voice said slowly and thickly, as though the owner had
just waked up: "It's my conviction that I have made a fool of myself."

The steam knew what had happened at once; for when a ship finds
herself, all the talking of the separate pieces ceases and melts into
one deep voice, which is the soul of the ship.

"Who are you?" he said, with a laugh.

"I am the 'Dimbula,' of course. I've never been anything else except
that--and a fool."

The tugboat, which was doing its very best to be run down, got away
just in time, and its band was playing clashily and brassily a popular
but impolite air:

  In the days of old Rameses--are you on?
  In the days of old Rameses--are you on?
  In the days of old Rameses,
  That story had paresis--
  Are you on--are you on--are you on?

"Well, I'm glad you've found yourself," said the steam. "To tell the
truth, I was a little tired of talking to all those ribs of stringers.
Here's quarantine. After that we'll go to our wharf and clean up a
little, and next month we'll do it all over again."




A CENTURY OF PAINTING.

NOTES DESCRIPTIVE AND CRITICAL.--GOYA AND HIS CAREER.--FOUR ENGLISH
PAINTERS OF FAMILIAR LIFE.--GÉRICAULT, INGRES, AND DELACROIX.

BY WILL H. LOW.


Looking backward to the first quarter of this century, it is hardly
too sweeping an assertion to say that, with a single exception, there
was little that was important in the way of painting outside of France
and England. There were local reputations in all the other countries,
practitioners of the art who joined to a respectable proficiency in
painting an adhesion to the traditions which had been handed down to
them. These men, in their time and place, were notable; and in
the museums of their respective countries their works remain of
chronological interest to students of painting. But to the larger
public which these papers address, they are of little importance,
having exercised but slight influence on contemporaneous art.

The exception already noted was in Spain, and there only in the case
of a single painter. Francisco Goya y Lucientes, "Pintor Español," as
he delighted to call himself, would be, indeed has been, a fascinating
subject for picturesque biography. Charles Yriarte, the well-known
French art critic, has given the world a most interesting and complete
story of Goya's life, which, though it is only separated from our own
day by a span of seventy years, chronicles the exploits of one who
in the history of art must hark back to Benvenuto Cellini in the
sixteenth century to find his parallel.

Goya was born March 31, 1746, at Fuente de Todos, in the province of
Aragon. The son of a small farmer, he was placed when very young
in the local Academy of Fine Arts at Saragossa, where he received
instruction from Bayen and Luzan, painters little known outside of
Spain. The swashbuckler instincts which were to govern him through
life manifested themselves here, where in a street brawl he laid low
three of his adversaries. He found it prudent to evade both justice
and the vengeance which followed swift and sure in those days in
Spain, by flying to Madrid. Soon after his arrival in the capital,
however, in continuation of his old mode of life, he was picked up for
dead in one of the low quarters of the town. Surviving the poignard,
but again threatened with arrest, he joined a _quadrilla_ of
bull-fighters, in whose company he went from town to town, giving
exhibitions of his prowess in the national sport.

[Illustration: THE GARROTED MAN. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA.

There is a tradition that this etching was made from nature, the
model--some malefactor executed by the strangling method employed in
Spain--being studied by Goya from his chamber window.]

With all this, painting must have been somewhat of an interlude;
but Goya had early shown signs of great talent, and before he left
Saragossa, his master, Josepha Bayen, had confidence enough in
his future to entrust the happiness of his daughter to his care by
permitting his marriage to her. Goya's biographer notes that through
all the various adventures of his career he had the utmost care for
the material comfort of this lady. Her character must impress us
to-day as charitable to excess; for, shortly after the bull-fighting
episode, Goya found himself in Rome, where his next exploit was the
abduction, from a convent, of a noble Roman girl. With the police once
more on his track, he sought refuge at the Spanish Embassy, whence
he was despatched home in disguise, probably to the relief of his
country's representative in Rome. Before this adventure, which was
only one of many which the charitable wife had to pardon, he had
attracted the attention of David, who was then in Italy, and who,
as his art differed in every way from that of Goya, must have been
strongly impressed by his work to give it his approval.

[Illustration: DEATH ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA.

One of the plates from the "Disasters of War" where the grotesque and
huge figure of Death appears to the combatants.]

On arriving home Goya was given employment in designing a series of
tapestries for the royal palace; and from 1780, when he was made a
member of the Spanish Royal Academy, ensues the period of his
greatest artistic activity. Carrying into his art the same excess
of temperament which marked his life, his execution was rapid and
decisive. Rebellious to the ordinary means employed by painters, he
used various mediums, some of which have ill withstood the ravages of
time; and, disdaining brushes, he often employed sponges or bits of
rag in their place. In the case of one of his pictures, a revolt of
the Madrilenians against the French, it is said that he employed a
spoon.

In 1799 Goya was made painter to the king, Charles III., whose
successor, the fourth of his name, continued his favor. The time,
which was that of the notorious "Prince of Peace," Godoy, was
favorable for a character like that of Goya, whose eccentricities were
looked upon with an indulgent eye by a court which must have felt
that its function was hardly that of moral censor. At least Goya, the
intimate of Maria Louisa and the court circle, by no means abandoned
his friends the bull-fighters and tavern-keepers. Fresh from an
altar-piece for a cathedral, or a royal portrait, his ready brush
found employment in rapidly painting a street scene, or even a sign
for a wine-shop. A whitewashed wall for canvas and mud from the gutter
for pigment, were the means employed to embody a patriotic theme at
the entrance of the French soldiers into Madrid--a popular masterpiece
executed to the plaudits of the crowd.

All this would seem to denote a charlatan; yet withal, Goya has fairly
won his place amid the great painters of the world. Perhaps no better
example could be found of the essential difference between the outward
and visible actions of a man and the inward and spiritual grace of an
artist than in this instance; and the Latin standpoint, always more
intellectually liberal than our own Anglo-Saxon appreciation of the
same problem furnishes the reason why Goya was left free to pursue his
artistic career instead of languishing in prison. His illogical brush
filled the cathedrals of Saragossa, Seville, Toledo, and Valencia
with masterly frescoes, while with the etching needle he produced
many plates. Some of these, like the "Caprices," a series of eighty
etchings, are filled with imagination alternately tragical and
grotesque; while another series, representing bull-fights, throughout
its thirty-three plates depicts the incidents of the game with intense
realism. The "Disasters of War," another series of eighty, were
inspired by the French invasion; and never, perhaps, were the
cruelties of war more strenuously realized in art than in these.
Probably these etchings, executed, like all his works, by methods
peculiar to himself, constitute his best title to remembrance. But
his painting, replete though it be with the defects of his qualities,
stands as a precursor of the great coloristic school of which
Delacroix was the head and front. This is notably to be felt in his
portraits, and in some of the rapidly executed single figures of
which the Louvre has a specimen and the Metropolitan Museum, New York,
another--the latter, "A Jewess of Tangiers."

[Illustration: GOYA. FROM A PORTRAIT ETCHED BY HIMSELF.

This portrait is the frontispiece to a series of etchings by Goya.]

Before leaving Goya for men whose works are their only history,
a characteristic incident, which caused his flight from Spain to
Bordeaux in France, must be told. In 1814 Wellington was in Madrid
and sat for his portrait to Goya. After the first sitting, the soldier
presumed to criticise the work; whereat Goya, seizing a cutlass,
attacked him, causing the future hero of Waterloo to flee for his life
from the maniacal fury of the painter. It is said that, later, peace
was made between the two men, and that the portrait was achieved;
but for the moment Goya found safety in France, together with his
long-suffering wife, who had incidentally borne him twenty children.
At the green old age of eighty-two Goya died at Bordeaux, April 16,
1828.

[Illustration: ST. JUSTINA AND ST. RUFINA. FROM A PAINTING BY GOYA IN
THE CATHEDRAL AT SEVILLE.

These are the patron saints of Seville. The legend has it that they
were the daughters of a potter and followed their father's trade,
giving away in charity, however, all that they earned more than was
sufficient to supply their simple wants. At the time of a festival
to Venus, they were requested to supply the vessels to be used in her
worship, and on their refusing, they were dragged before the prefect,
who condemned them to death, July 19, A.D. 304. They are generally
represented with earthen vessels and the palms of martyrdom; in this
case, the broken statue of Venus lies in the foreground. The Giralda
tower, the chief ornament of Seville, and the prototype of the Madison
Square tower in New York City, is their especial care, and it is
believed that its preservation from lightning is due to them.]

No greater contrast could be devised than the four works which follow,
either in the character of the art or in the uneventful respectability
of the painters' lives. They are all typical of a class of pictures
which has been popular in England, from the time of Hogarth to the
present day. The earliest of them is the "Blind Fiddler" of Sir David
Wilkie, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807. The dates at
which the others, by Mulready, Webster, and Leslie, were painted would
preclude their appearance here, if strict chronological sequence were
imposed, as they were painted about 1840. It is instructive,
however, to group them together, to show that these artists and their
followers, who were legion, thought at least as much of subject as of
method. Not that the latter quality is lacking. On the contrary, it
is only too evident; but it is a method of convention. No one would
imagine for a moment, in looking at any one of these pictures, that
he was admitted an unseen spectator to some scene of intimate family
life. It is this quality which the great Dutchmen in all their scenes
of familiar life preserved; and when we look at a Pieter de Hooge,
for instance, there is no suspicion that the homely scene has been
arranged for our delectation. In its transplantation from Holland,
however, English art lost just this quality.

David Wilkie, born in Scotland, at Cults in Fifeshire, November 18,
1785, came to London in 1805 to enter the Royal Academy schools, after
some preliminary training at Edinburgh. His first picture, in the
exhibition of 1806, "The Village Politicians," attracted attention,
and was followed the next year by "The Blind Fiddler." The work of
a youth of twenty-two, it is remarkable for its close observation
of character and the skilful use made of what may be termed the
theatrical faculty of grouping the personages so that their action
tells the story. This is not a merit, and there is little doubt that
the scene would be greater as art were it more consistently human.
Character is well and pictorially rendered; but by its insistence in
every figure, we feel that it is but a moment since the curtain
was withdrawn and the _tableau vivant_ shown. This and the pictures
following it met with the most unbounded popular approval, were
reproduced by engraving, and exercised an influence increased by the
honors and fortune which were showered on the painter.

In 1825 Wilkie made an extended continental tour, and three years
later, after his return to England, changed his class of subjects for
historical and portrait painting, bringing to these later themes the
same ability and the same lack of _naïveté_ which characterized his
former work. A Royal Academician since 1811, he was appointed first
painter in ordinary to the king, on the death of Lawrence, in 1830. He
was knighted in 1836, and died at sea on June 1, 1841, while returning
from Egypt.

[Illustration: THE BLIND FIDDLER. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR DAVID WILKIE.

"An itinerant musician is entertaining a cottager and his family with a
tune on the fiddle; the father gayly snaps his fingers at an infant on
the knees of the mother, behind whom a mischievous boy, with the poker
and bellows in his hands, is mimicking the action of the musician.
With this exception, all, even the dog standing by the chair of its
mistress, appear to be intent upon the music of the blind fiddler."
This quotation, from the catalogue of the National Gallery where the
original picture is placed, accurately describes it.]

[Illustration: CHOOSING THE WEDDING GOWN. FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAM
MULREADY IN THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, LONDON.

To the title of this picture, the painter himself added, as expository
of his theme and the source of his inspiration, the following passage
from Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield": "I had scarcely taken orders
a year, before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my
wife, as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but
for such qualities as would wear well." The picture thus affords
a good instance of the dependence on literature of the painters of
Mulready's school. Its title alone would suffice, so well and simply
is the story told; but, apparently, with the British public, and in
the painter's mind, it gained an added grace by diverting the visual
impression of the observer to the realm of literature. The picture is
here reproduced from a copyrighted photograph by Frederick Hollyer,
Kensington.]

William Mulready was of Irish birth, having come into the world at
Ennis, in the County Clare, April 1, 1786. In 1809, after a period
in the schools of the Royal Academy, he exhibited there a picture
entitled "Fair Time," which gave him almost instant success; and until
his death, July 7, 1863, though producing fewer pictures than Wilkie,
he worked on very much the same class of subjects. His color is less
agreeable than that of the Scot, and his execution very much more
labored. His life was uneventful, occupied exclusively with his work,
which he loved; so much so that two days before his death, an old
man of seventy-seven, he sat drawing in the evening life class at the
Royal Academy. He had been a member of the Academy since 1816. The
picture here reproduced is (even without the quotation from the "Vicar
of Wakefield" which accompanies it in the catalogue of the South
Kensington Museum) a simple story simply told. It is free from the
mannerisms which mar much of Mulready's work, especially in the
portrayal of children, and in the original is more agreeable in color
than are many of his pictures.

[Illustration: CONTRARY WINDS. FROM A PAINTING BY THOMAS WEBSTER. The
happily chosen title explains sufficiently this pleasant scene. The
picture, painted in 1843, is now in the South Kensington Museum.]

Thomas Webster, born March 20, 1800, in London, and dying at Cranbrook
in Kent, September, 1886, was another painter whose work had enjoyed
the full meed of popularity, from 1825 to the time of his retirement
from the Royal Academy in 1877. Pictures like the one here reproduced
(from the original in the South Kensington Museum, painted in 1843,
and entitled "Contrary Winds"), pictures depicting homely rustic
life, were his specialty. His work had gained him the title of Royal
Academician in 1846.

Through all this time, and in the work of many painters unnoticed
here, the qualities are evident of an honest endeavor to paint the
simple life of the country. With a higher standard of taste, and
better preliminary instruction, painting would have gained; and the
defect with which British art has been so often reproached, of being
too literary, might have been lessened. Charles Robert Leslie,
whose works are almost uniformly inspired by literature, was born at
Clerkenwell in England, of American parents, October 19, 1794. He was
taken to Philadelphia when five years of age, but returned to England
in 1811, to study at the Royal Academy. Washington Allston and
Benjamin West, both Americans--the latter at the time President of the
Royal Academy--aided Leslie by advice.

After a preliminary stage as a portrait painter, Leslie exhi