Think of it for three dollars a year I buy a season-ticket to this great Globe Theatre, for which God would write the dramas (only that we like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of Apollyon better), whose scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death. "Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tearing off the wrapper of my newspaper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often vacant sheet becomes invested for me with a strange kind of awe. Look! deaths and marriages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of promotions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires, accidents, of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty :- I hold in my hand the ends of myriad invisible electric conductors, along which tremble the joys, sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as many men and women everywhere. So that upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate me from mankind as a spectator of their puppet-pranks, another supervenes, in which I feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am yet of some import to my fellows. For, through my newspaper here, do not families take pains to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them? Are not here two who would have me know of their marriage? And, strangest of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But to none of us does the Present continue miraculous (even if for a moment discerned as such). We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet (Acts x. 11, 12), in which a vision was let down to me from Heaven, shall be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a beggar's broken victuals." H. W.]

No. VII.

A LETTER

FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, INCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR. BIGLOW TO 8. H. GAY, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTISLAVERY STANDARD.

[CURIOSITY may be said to be the quality which pre-eminently distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As we trace the scale of animated nature downward, we find this faculty (as it may truly be called) of the mind diminished in the savage, and wellnigh extinct in the brute. The first object which civilized mia proposes to himself I take to be the finding out whatsoever he can concerning his neighbors. Neal humanum a me alienum

-as

Men in general may be divided into the inquisitive and the communicative. To the first class belong Peeping Toms, eaves-droppers, navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphysicians, travellers, Empedocleses, spies, the various societies for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses, Yankees, discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to the mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up and down the world, or sitting in studies and laboratories. The second class I should again subdivide into four. In the first subdivision I would rank those who have an itch to tell us about themselves, as keepers of diaries, insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, Horace Walpoles, autobiographers, poets. The second includes those who are anxious to impart information concerning other people, historians, barbers, and such. To the third belong those who labor to give us intelligence about nothing at all, as novelists, political orators, the large majority of authors, preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth come those who are communicative from motives of public benevolence, as finders of mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of us two-legged fowls without feathers embraces all these subdivisions in himself to a greater or less degree, for none of us so much as lays an egg, or incubates a chalk one, but straightway the whole barnyard shall know it by our cackle or our cluck. Omnibus hoc vitium est. are different grades in all these classes. One will turn his telescope toward a hack-yard, another toward Uranus; one will tell you that he dined with Smith, another that he supped with Plato. In one particular, all men may be considered as belonging to the first grand division, inasmuch as they all seem equally desirous of discovering the mote in their neighbor's eye.

There

I

To one or another of these species every hu man being may safely be referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted some inquiries into the digestive apparatus of whales, and that Noah sealed up a letter in an empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be wanting in case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human. conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who continually peep and pry at the keyhole of that mysterious door through which, sooner or later, we all make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts fidgeting and fretting on the other side of it, because they have no means of conveying back to this world the scraps of news they have picked up in that. For there is an answer ready somewhere to every question, the great law of give and take runs through all nature, and if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I read in every face I meet a standing advertisement of information wanted in regard to A. B., or that the friends of C. D. can hear something to his disadvantage by application to such a one.

It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and answering that epistolary correspondence was first invented. Letters for by

I take, ez nigh ez I can show it,
Is pooty gen'ally all round.
I don't appruve o' givin' pledges;
You'd ough' to leave a feller free,
An' not go knockin' out the wedges
To ketch his fingers in the tree;
Pledges air awfle breachy cattle
Thet preudunt farmers don't turn
out,

Ez long 'z the people git their rattle,
Wut is there fer 'm to grout about?

Ez to the slaves, there's no confusion
In my idees consarnin' them,
I think they air an Institution,
A sort of
ahem :
yes, jest so,
Do I own any? Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge;
All is, I never drink no sperit,

Nor I haint never signed no pledge.

Ez to my princerples, I glory

In hevin' nothin' o' the sort;

I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory,

I'm jest a candidate, in short; Thet's fair an' square an' parpendicler, But, ef the Public cares a fig To hev me an' thin' in particler, Wy, I'm a kind o' peri-Wig.

P. S.

Ez we 're a sort o' privateerin',

O' course, you know, it's sheer an' sheer,

An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin'
I'll mention in your privit ear;
Ef you git me inside the White House,
Your head with ile I'll kin' o' 'nint
By gittin' you inside the Light-house

Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint.

An' ez the North hez took to brustlin' At bein' scrouged frum off the roost, I'll tell ye wut 'll save all tusslin'

An' give our side a harnsome boost, Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question I'm RIGHT, although to speak I'm lawth;

This gives you a safe pint to rest on,
An leaves me frontin' South by
North.

[And now of epistles candidatial, which are of two kinds, namely, letters of acceptance, and letters definitive of position. Our republic, on the eve of an election, may safely enough

be called a republic of letters. Epistolary composition becomes then an epidemic, which seizes one candidate after another, not seldom cutting short the thread of political life. It has come to such a pass, that a party dreads less the attacks of its opponents than a letter from its candidate. Litera scripta manet, and it will go hard if something bad cannot be made of it. General Harrison, it is well understood, was surrounded, during his candidacy, with the cordon sanitaire of a vigilance committee. Νο prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously deprived of writing materials. The soot was scraped carefully from the chimney-places; outposts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure death for any goose (who came clad in feathers) to approach within a certain limited distance of North Bend; and all domestic fowls about the premises were reduced to the condition of Plato's original man. By these precautions the General was saved. Parva componere magnis, I remember, that, when party-spirit once ran high among my people, upon occasion of the choice of a new deacon, I, having my preferences, yet not caring too openly to express them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring about that result which I deemed most desirable. My stratagem was no other than the throwing a copy of the Complete Letter-Writer in the way of the candidate whom I wished to defeat. He caught the infection, and addressed a short note to his constituents, in which the opposite party detected so many and so grave improprieties (he had modelled it upon the letter of a young lady accepting a proposal of marriage), that he not only lost his election, but, falling under a suspicion of Sabellianism and I know not what (the widow Endive assured me that he was a Paralipomenon, to her certain knowledge), was forced to leave the town. Thus it is that the letter killeth.

The object which candidates propose to themselves in writing is to convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfall into which they successively plunge headlong. For it is precisely in such cryptographies that mankind are prone to seek for and find a wonderful amount and variety of significance. Omne ignotum pro mirifico. How do we admire at the antique world striving to crack those oracular nuts from Delphi, Hammon, and elsewhere, in only one of which can I so much as surmise that any kernel had ever lodged; that, namely, wherein Apollo confessed that he was mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to have written six thousand books on the single subject of grammar, a topic rendered only more tenebrific by the labors of his successors, and which seems still to possess an attraction for authors in proportion as they can make nothing of it. A singular loadstone for theologians, also, course of my studies, I have noted two hunis the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the dred and three several interpretations, each lethiferal to all the rest. Non nostrum est tan

tas componere lites, yet I have myself ventured upon a two hundred and fourth, which I embodied in a discourse preached on occasion of the demise of the late usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, and which quieted, in a large measure, the minds of my people. It is true that my views on this important point were ardently controverted by Mr. Shearjashub Holden, the

then preceptor of our academy, and in other particulars a very deserving and sensible young man, though possessing a somewhat limited knowledge of the Greek tongue. But his heresy struck down no deep root, and, he having been lately removed by the hand of Providence, I had the satisfaction of reaffirming my cherished sentiments in a sermon preached upon the Lord's day immediately succeeding his funeral. This might seem like taking an unfair advantage, did I not add that he had made provision in his last will (being celibate) for the publication of a posthumous tractate in support of his own dangerous opinions. I know of nothing in our modern times which approaches so nearly to the ancient oracle as the letter of a Presidential candidate. Now, among the Greeks, the eating of beans was strictly forbidden to all such as had it in mind to consult those expert amphibologists, and this same prohibition on the part of Pythagoras to his disciples is understood to imply an abstinence from politics, beans having been used as ballots. That other explication, quod videlicet sensus eo cibo obtundi existimaret, though supported pugnis et calcibus by many of the learned, and not wanting the countenance of Cicero, is confuted by the larger experience of New England. On the whole, I think it safer to apply here the rule of interpretation which now generally obtains in regard to antique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial expressions, and knotty points generally, which is, to find a common-sense meaning, and then select whatever can be imagined the most opposite thereto. In this way we arrive at the conclusion, that the Greeks objected to the questioning of candidates. And very properly, if, as I conceive, the chief point be not to discover what a person in that position is, or what he will do, but whether he can be elected. Vos exemplaria Græca nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.

But, since an imitation of the Greeks in this particular (the asking of questions being one chief privilege of freemen) is hardly to be hoped for, and our candidates will answer, whether they are questioned or not, I would recommend that these ante-electionary dialogues should be carried on by symbols, as were the diplomatic correspondences of the Scythians and Macrobii, or confined to the language of signs, like the famous interview of Panurge and Goatsnose. A candidate might then convey a suitable reply to all committees of inquiry by closing one eye, or by presenting them with a phial of Egyptian darkness to be speculated upon by their respective constituencies.

style so compressed that superfluous words may not be detected in it. A severe critic might curtail that famous brevity of Caesar's by two thirds, drawing his pen through the supererogatory veni and vidi. Perhaps, after all, the surest footing of hope is to be found in the rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and less of qualification in candidates. Already have statesmanship, experience, and the possession (nay, the profession, even) of principles been rejected as superfluous, and may not the patriot reasonably hope that the ability to write will follow? At present, there may be death in pot-hooks as well as pots, the loop of a letter may suffice for a bow-string, and all the dreadful heresies of Antislavery may lurk in a flourish. -H. W.]

[IN the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, a miles emeritus, to the bosom of his family. Quantum mutatus! The good Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to the keeping of this child of his certain faculties of a constructive kind. He had put in him a share of that vital force, the nicest economy of every minute atom of which is necessary to the perfect development of Humanity. He had given him a brain and heart, and so had equipped his soul with the two strong wings of knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to hang its nest under the eaves of heaven. And this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the keeping of his vicar, the State. How stands the account of that stewardship? The State, or Society (call her by what name you will), had taken no manner of tho ht of him till she saw him swept out into the street, the pitiful leavings of last night's debauch, with cigarends, lemon-parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole loathsome next-morning of the bar-room, an own child of the Almighty God! I remember him as he was brought to be christened, a ruddy, rugged babe; and now there he wallows, reeking. seething, the dead corpse, not of a man, but of a soul. -a putrefying lump, horrible for the life that is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, that good Samaritan, and parts the hair upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those parched, cracked lips; the morning opens upon him her eyes full of pitying sunshine, the sky yearns down to him, -and there he lies fermenting. O sleep! let me not profane thy holy name by calling that stertorous unconsciousness a slumber! By and by comes along the State, God's vicar. Does she say, 'My poor, forlorn foster-child! Behold here a force which I will make dig and plant and build for me"? Not so, but, "Here is a recruit ready

lying unprofitably idle. So she claps an ugly gray suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, and sends him off, with Gubernatorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as a destroyer.

I made one of the crowd at the last Mechan

ies Fair, and, with the rest, stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of fire, its boiler-heart that sent the hot blood

pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of steel. And while I was admiring the adaptation of means to end, the harmonious involu

tions of contrivance, and the never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the imperious engine's lackey and drudge.

whose sole office was to let fall, at intervals, a

drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul said within me, See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you marvel at

is but as the rude first effort of a child, a force which not merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can send an impulse all through the infinite future, a contrivance, not for turning out pins, or stitching buttonholes, but for making Hamlets and Lears. And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a pin; while the other, with its

fire of God in it, shall be buffeted hither and thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand miles to be the target for a Mexican cannonball. Unthrifty Mother State! My heart burned within me for pity and indignation, and I renewed this covenant with my own soul, In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasphemiis contra Christum, non ita. -H. W.]

-

- meanin' by

I SPOSE you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me, Exacly ware I be myself, thet the holl o' me. Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they worn't bad ones neither,

(The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin' on me hither,)

Now one on 'em 's I dunno ware;

they thought I wuz adyin', An' sawed it off because they said 't wuz kin' o' mortifyin' ;

I'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther,

Wy one shoud take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner 'n t' other,

Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be;

It took on so they took it off, an' thet's enough fer me : There's one good thing, though, to be

said about my wooden new one, The liquor can't git into it ez 't used to

in the true one;

one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin' it,

see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin' it;

Off'cers I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickins,

Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickins;

So,

ez the eye 's put fairly out, I'll larn to go without it,

An' not allow myself to be no gret put out about it.

Now, le' me see, thet is n't all; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalam,

To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em :

Ware 's my left hand? O, darn it, yes, I recollect wut's come on 't;

I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet's gut jest a thumb on 't;

It aint so hendy ez it wuz to cal'late a

sum on 't.

I've hed some ribs broke,-six (I bl'ieve),

- I haint kep' no account on 'em ; ' Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle the amount on 'em. An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' o' brings to mind

One thet I could n't never break,

the

one I lef' behind; Ef you should see her, jest clear out the spout o' your invention

An' pour the longest sweetnin' in about an annooal pension,

An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be Consoled) I aint so 'xpensive now to keep ez wut I used to be;

There's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' then the leg thet 's wooden Can be took off an' sot away wenever ther's a puddin'.

I spose you think I'm comin' back ez opperlunt ez thunder,

With shiploads o' gold images an' varus sorts o' plunder;

Wal, 'fore I vullinteered, I thought this country wuz a sort o'

Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land flowin' with rum an' water,

Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation,