The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864

The above refers exclusively to the siege of a field work. The principles for besieging a walled fort or a fortified town are the same, but the operations are much more complicated.]

LITERARY NOTICES

Popular Edition. Results of Emancipation. By Augustin Cochin, Ex-Maire and Municipal Councillor of Paris. Work crowned by the Institute of France (Académie Française). Translated by Mary L. Booth, Translator of Count de Gasparin's work on America, etc. Fourth thousand. Boston: Walker, Wise & Co., 245 Washington street. 1864.

A remarkable book, indicative of a new era in the discussion of social, religious, political, and economical questions. Prejudice, misstatement, and fanaticism are apparently so opposed to the clear, candid mind of the author, that he has needed no effort to avoid them, and in their stead give us simple truth, broad views of men and things, and the highest conceptions of duty and charity, together with the nicest consideration of the rights and material interests, even the local prejudices and misconceptions, of our fellow mortals. He shows clearly that a moral wrong can never long tend to material advantage, and that the laws of society cannot be made ultimately to triumph over the laws of nature; neither, in general, can a wrong be righted without some suffering by way of expiation.

Although filled with statistical details, the work cannot fail to be intensely interesting to the general reader. Lofty, hopeful, rational, and yet progressive in its tone, it is calculated to do great good, not only through the useful information and instructive generalizations it makes known, but also as a model of right feeling, and consequent good breeding, in its peculiar sphere.

The chapters upon the sugar question are wonderfully lucid and convincing. Their bearing upon mooted points of political economy recommend them to the study of all interested in that intricate subject. The distressing relations necessarily existing between slavery and religious instruction are also plainly set forth, and the general conclusion of the book (that 'emancipation' is not only possible, but most expedient, and that, with certain care upon the part of the Government and of slave owners, an immediate and simultaneous liberation is likely to breed fewer disturbances and less evil than gradual disenthralment) seems to be rapidly gaining ground in the convictions of our own countrymen. The conscience, and prophetic dreams of priests, women, and poets, have long given assurance of such results, but the world, of course, required definite experience and practical essays before instituting any extensive course of action in that direction.

'A council held in the city of London in 1102, under the presidency of St. Anselm, interdicted trade in slaves. This was eight hundred years before the same object was debated in the same city before Parliament. In 1780, Thomas Clarkson proposed to abolish the slave trade. In 1787, Wilberforce renewed the proposition. Seven times presented from 1793 to 1799, the bill seven times failed. Successively laid over, it triumphed at length in 1806 and 1807. All the Christian nations followed this memorable example. At the Congress of Vienna, all the Powers pledged themselves to unite their efforts to obtain the entire and final abolition of a traffic so odious and so loudly reproved by the laws of religion and nature. The slave trade was abolished in 1808 by the American United States; in 1811, by Denmark, Portugal, and Chili; in 1813, by Sweden; in 1814 and 1815, by Holland; in 1815, by France; in 1822, by Spain. In this same year, 1822, Wilberforce attacked slavery after the slave trade, and won over public opinion by appeals and repeated meetings, while his friend Mr. Buxton proposed emancipation in Parliament. The Emancipation Bill was presented in 1833. On the 1st of August, 1834, slavery ceased to sully the soil of the English colonies. In 1846, Sweden, in 1847, Denmark, Uruguay, Wallachia, and Tunis, obeyed the same impulse, which France followed in 1848, Portugal in 1856, and which Holland promised to imitate in 1860. An earnest movement agitated Brazil.'

In Poland, the serfdom of the peasants was never sanctioned by law, but existed in later times by reason of exception and abuse. Stanislas Leszczynski, King of Poland, in 1720 raised his voice in favor of the peasant population; the same principles were in 1768 defended, sword in hand, by the Confederation of Bar, discussed in the diets of 1776, 1780, 1788, and finally adopted by the famous Constituent Assembly of 1791. Thadeus Kosciuszko (May 7th, 1794), then Dictator of Poland, issued a document giving entire personal liberty to all serfs; and on the 22d of January, 1863, the members of the 'National Polish Government' decreed that the peasants were not only free, but were entitled to a certain portion of land, of which they should be the sole proprietors. In 1861, Russia emancipated all serfs within her borders. In the United States, the stern 'logic of events' seems to be rapidly bringing about similar results, although indeed 'slavery' and 'serfdom' should never be mentioned together, being so essentially different; the one the possession of the man, the other merely the ownership of his labor or of a portion of its results.

We cannot better conclude than by giving the following extract from the Introduction of M. Cochin, who, by the way, is a man of good family and ample fortune, an eminent publicist, and a Catholic of the school of Lacordaire, Montalembert, Monseigneur d'Orleans, and the Prince de Broglie:

'It was once exclaimed, Perish the colonies, rather than a principle! The principle has not perished, the colonies have not perished.

'It is not correct that interests should yield to principles; between legitimate interests and true principles, harmony is infallible; this is truth. Those who look only to interests are sooner or later deceived in their calculations; those who, exclusively occupied with principles, are generous without being practical, cease to be generous, for they lead the cause which they serve to certain destruction. It is the will of God that realities should mingle with ideas, and that material obstacles should compel the purchase of progress by toil.'

The publishers tell us that, a large demand for this work having arisen, they have issued this 'popular edition,' wherein the figures in the original are given as nearly as possible in the American currencies, measures, etc.

Stumbling Blocks. By Gail Hamilton, Author of 'Country Living and Country Thinking,' 'Gala Days,' etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

Gail Hamilton's religious position gives her vast advantages. She is thoroughly orthodox, Calvinistic, and Congregational, and being neither Unitarian nor Catholic, will not be regarded as one of the 'Suspect' by the great community of the so-called evangelical Christians. But she is a bold, independent thinker, and spurns the trammels of bigotry and prescription. No party spirit blinds her clear vision, no sectarian prejudice vitiates her statements of the creeds of others, or induces her to veil the faults and follies of those worshipping in the same church with herself. Ministers are by no means immaculate saints in her eyes. Seating herself in the pews, she preaches better sermons to them than they are in the habit of giving to their people; taking possession of their pulpits, she shows them what might and ought to be done from that throne of power. Petty vanities, subjective experiences recorded in morbid journals, religious frames of mind frequently dwelt upon until the tortured self-watcher is driven into insanity, fall under her scathing rebuke.

This volume deals chiefly with the shortcomings of the orthodox religious world. Its faults of temper, its repulsive manners, its custom of making home unlovely, its distaste of innocent amusement, its habits of censure, its self-sufficiency and pharisaical character, are touched with a caustic but healing power. Only the hand of a friend could have done this thing. No point of doctrine is questioned, no principle of faith invaded, no charity wounded. She probes in love—her object is cure. This book is fresh and vigorous, worth thousands of lifeless sermons and unprofitable religious journals. No prejudice or falsehood is spared, though it may have taken refuge in the very sanctuary. Her every shaft is well directed, every arrow powerfully sent, every shot strikes the bull's eye in its centre. Her words are hailstones rattling fell and fast, but melt into and soften the heart on which they fall. Delusions disappear, cant and want of courtesy become odious, shams grow shameful, while all lovely things bloom lovelier in the light of truth emanating from this large brain, and poured through this living heart. We bask in its sunshine, growing strong and happy as we read. Christian fervor and charity, love for Redeemer and redeemed, for saint and sinner, cheer us through all these well-deserved denunciations. Her style is clear and rapid, her matter of daily and urgent import, her characterizations of classes and types of men worthy of La Bruyère himself, her satire melts into humor, her humor into pathos. She has been attacked by some of the religious papers, and has herein taken a true Christian and magnanimous revenge. O Gail! the clergy should open wide their hearts to take you in, their gifted child, the iconoclast within the temple, the faithful disciple of Christ, the lover of purity and truth!

We quote the following brave words from this remarkable book:

'We sometimes see religious newspapers charging each other with acts which should exclude the perpetrators from the fraternity of honest men; for, through the medium of religious newspapers, one church, or one fraction of a church, or one ecclesiastical body, or one member of it, accuses another of an act, or a course of action, which, in sober truth, amounts to nothing more or less than obvious, persistent deception, dishonesty and trickery.... Can such be correct transcripts of facts? Is it true that a church, or any body corporate, whose very existence as such is professedly to cultivate and disseminate the principles of sound morality and true religion, does fall so far short of the faith delivered to the saints—does so far forget its origin, and pervert its aims, as to violate common law and common honesty, and persist in its violation, deliberately, against repeated remonstrances, by sheer force? Yet we see no convulsion in the community. Nothing intimates that a great grief is fallen upon Israel. Everybody eats, drinks, and sleeps as usual. The pulpits still stand, and the law and the gospel are appealed to from that vantage ground. The sacramental cup is still raised to devout lips. The gray heads of the culprits still go in and out among the people with no diminishing of honor—no odium is attached to their persons; no stigmas to their names. What a state of things does this argue! A whole church plunges into darkness, and the

'Majestic heaven

Shines not the less for that one vanished star.'

'Can we wonder that the world will not let itself be converted? To what should it be converted, if it were willing? Would it be an advance for a community that sends its thieves to prison when it catches them to merge itself in a community that is content to print a few columns of exposé on the subject? If the stream where you wish to drink is muddy, you will scarcely find clear waters by descending. You want to go up, not down; up on the high lands where threads of crystal cleave the gray old rocks, and gather purity from earth's deep bosom and the sky's clear blue.

'If it is not so, if the acts only appear dishonest because we are looking at one side, why do we not say so, or why do we say anything about it? Every man is to be held innocent till he is proved guilty. If there is any standpoint from which we can view our opponent's position and find it not dishonest, we ought to mention it. We have no right to look at him from a standpoint, and hold him up to view as a criminal, and ignore another, from which he may be seen as simply mistaken, or deceived, or blameless. Still less have we a right to take innocent facts and construct upon them a guilty hypothesis to suit our foregone conclusion. A right to do it? It is sin. It is more than murder. It may rob a man of what is more precious to him than his life. It attempts to take away from a man what, taken, would leave him stripped of his manhood, and a man's manhood is worth more to him and his friends than his bone and muscle.'

Ah, Gail, thy keen aim has indeed struck the pupil of the bull's eye! If false statements of varying dogmas were held 'as criminal as they undoubtedly are,' if they were never viewed from 'foregone conclusions,' sects would perish in the death of misconceptions, and warring Christians would rush into each other's arms with the joy-cry, 'Brothers!' Through the misstatements of centuries, the good Protestant minister regards the Catholic priest, ready as he may be to die for the faith of his fathers, as a wilful liar, a conscious deceiver, selling the souls of his flock for a Judas bribe; while the equally good priest, in his turn, looks upon the conscientious minister as a despiser of authority, an enemy of the Church of Christ, refusing to hear what he believes to be its undoubted teachings, a blind man, leading the blind into the pit of perdition. The men may be both right from the standpoint of their 'foregone conclusions,' both wrong from the standpoint of fact. And so it goes on, through all the lesser sectarian divisions. Everywhere misstatement, misconception, and smouldering hatred. The first step to reconciliation among the antagonistic members of Christ's torn body, would be to put into instantaneous practice the wise, sound, and just maxims of Gail Hamilton. Let us begin it, lovers of truth and justice!

The Maine Woods. By Henry D. Thoreau, Author of 'A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,' 'Walden,' 'Excursions,' etc. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. For sale by D. Appleton & Co., New York.

The first of the papers contained in this book was published in 'The Union Magazine;' the second, 'Chesuncook,' came out in the 'Atlantic Monthly,' in 1858; the last is now for the first time printed. The contents of the volume are as follows: Ktaadn, Chesuncook, The Allegash and East Branch; in the Appendix we have Trees, Flowers, and Shrubs, List of Plants, List of Birds, Quadrupeds, Outfit for an Excursion, and a List of Indian Words. Henry D. Thoreau was an enthusiastic lover of nature, but no blind adorer of her loveliness. He knew her in all her moods, was familiar with all her caprices. He was a man of strong brain, and of accurate knowledge in such fields as it pleased him to study. The woods have never before had such an accurate biographer, such a true painter. He saw them with the eye of the poet as well as that of the naturalist. Scholarship and imagination roam with him in the primeval forests. After the most accurate and detailed description of a moose which had been killed by his Indian guide, this anti-sentimentalist, but true forest lover says: 'Here, just at the head of the murmuring rapids, Joe now proceeded to skin the moose with a pocket knife, while I looked on; and a tragical business it was—to see that still warm and palpitating body pierced with a knife, to see the warm milk stream from the rent udder, and the ghastly naked red carcass appearing from within its seemly robe, which was made to hide it.' There is no joy of the hunter here! The words are as 'tragical' and tender as were those of the melancholy Jaques. That 'warm milk and rent udder' seems to make the stately creature half human. He proceeds:

'But on more accounts than one, I had had enough of moose hunting. I had not come to the woods for this purpose, nor had I foreseen it, though I had been willing to learn how the Indian manœuvred; but one moose killed was as good, if not as bad, as a dozen. The afternoon's tragedy and my share in it, as it affected the innocence, destroyed the pleasure of my adventure. This hunting of the moose merely for the satisfaction of killing him—not even for the sake of his hide—without making any extraordinary exertion or running any risk yourself, is too much like going out by night to some woodside pasture and shooting your neighbor's horses. These are God's own horses, poor timid creatures, that will run fast enough as soon as they smell you, though they are nine feet high (often eleven, with the antlers).... You strip off its hide, because that is the common trophy, and moreover you have heard it may be sold for mocassons—cut a steak from its body, and leave the huge carcass 'to smell to heaven' for you. It is no better, at least, than to assist at a slaughter house. This afternoon's experience suggested to me how base or coarse are the motives which commonly carry men into the wilderness. The explorers and lumberers generally are hirelings, paid so much a day for their labor, and as such they have no more love for wild nature than wood sawyers have for forests. Other white men and Indians who come here are for the most part hunters, whose object is to slay as many moose and other wild animals as possible. But pray, could not one spend some weeks or years in the solitude of this vast wilderness with other employments than these—employments perfectly sweet, innocent, and ennobling? For one that comes with a pencil to sketch or sing, a thousand come with an axe or rifle. What a coarse and imperfect use Indians and hunters make of nature! No wonder that their race is so soon exterminated. I already, and for weeks afterward, felt my nature the coarser for this part of my woodland experience, and was reminded that our life should be lived as tenderly and daintily as one would pluck a flower.'

Again:

'As I sat before the fire on my fir-twig seat, without walls above or around me, I remembered how far on every hand that wilderness stretched, before you came to cleared or cultivated fields, and wondered if any bear or moose was watching the light of my fire; for nature looked sternly upon me on account of the murder of the moose.

'Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its ever-green arms to the light—to see its perfect success; but most are content to behold it in the shape of many broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true success. But the pine is no more lumber than man is, and to be made into boards and houses is no more its true and highest use, than the truest use of a man is to be cut down and made into manure. There is a higher law affecting our relation to pines as well as to men. A pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a dead human carcass is a man. Can he who has discovered only some of the values of whalebone and whale oil be said to have discovered the true use of the whale? Can he who slays the elephant for his ivory be said to have 'seen the elephant'? These are petty and accidental uses; just as if a stronger race were to kill us in order to make buttons and flageolets of our bones; for everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use. Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

'Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best? Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have changed into a pine at last? No! no! it is the poet; he it is who makes the truest use of the pine—who does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane—who knows whether its heart is false without cutting into it—who has not bought the stumpage of the town on which its stands. All the pines shudder and heave a sigh when that man steps on the forest floor. No, it is the poet, who loves them as his own shadow in the air, and lets them stand. I have been into the lumber yard, the carpenter's shop, the tannery, the lamp-black factory, and the turpentine clearing; but when at length I saw the tops of the pines waving and reflecting the light at a distance over all the rest of the forest, I realized that the former were not the highest use of the pine. It is not their bones or hide or tallow that I love most. It is the living spirit of the tree, not its spirit of turpentine, with which I sympathize, and which heals my cuts. It is as immortal as I am, and, perchance, may go to as high a heaven, there to tower above me still.'

Reader, was not this man a nature lover, a nature limner, worthy to take his place among our Giffords, Whittredges, McEntees, Bierstadts, and Beards? Truly original, natural, and American, who among our descriptive writers can surpass H. D. Thoreau?

Primary Lessons For Deaf Mutes. By J. A. Jacobs, A. M., Principal of the Kentucky Institution for the Education of Deaf Mutes. New York: John F. Trow, Printer & Publisher, 50 Greene street, between Broome & Grand. 1864.

An excellent little work, intended to impart some of the rudimentary branches of learning to that interesting class of our fellow beings who can neither speak nor hear. Every effort made for their instruction should be cordially welcomed, for sad indeed is their position, and very difficult the discovery of means to reach and develop their often very bright intelligence. These lessons can be used by parents, guardians, or elder brothers and sisters, before the deaf-mute child is old enough to send to a regular institution. They are divided into two parts, bound in separate little volumes, and filled with cuts illustrating the text—or rather, the text, as is proper in such a work, illustrates the cuts, which occupy the larger portion of the book. Teachers cannot but find these aids of incalculable value.

The Relations of The Industry of Canada With The Mother Country And The United States. Being a Speech by Isaac Buchanan, Esq., M. P., as delivered at the late Demonstration to the Parliamentary Opposition at Toronto; together with a series of Articles in defence of the National Sentiments contained therein, which originally appeared in the columns of the Hamilton Spectator, from the pen of Mr. Buchanan; to which is added a Speech delivered by him at the Dinner given to the Pioneers of Upper Canada, at London, Canada West, 10th December, 1863. Now first published in complete and collected form, with copious Notes and Annotations, besides an extended Introductory Explanation, and an Appendix containing various valuable Documents. Edited by Henry J. Morgan, Corresponding Member of the New York Historical Society, and Author of 'Sketches of Celebrated Canadians.' Montreal: Printed by John Lovell, St. Nicholas. 1864.

We recommend this book to such of our readers as may be interested in political economy, not as sound in theory, but as containing a vast array of facts and giving considerable information with regard to the internal affairs of our neighbor Canada. The Reciprocity Treaty comes in for its share of consideration. Mr. Buchanan is a Protectionist, and uses the arguments of his party with considerable ability. The question of annexation is also incidentally touched upon. We do not know that we can give our readers a better idea of the contents and policy of this book than by placing the dedication before them.

'To the leaders of the forthcoming Party of Order, I dedicate these pages, because I feel that the province is at the winning or the losing, and that we shall hereafter have to hail you as the honored instruments of our Political and Industrial salvation.

'In Mr. Buchanan's Letter to the Editor of the Globe, assuring him publicly that Mr. Buchanan and all his friends, as in the Past, so in the Future, would be found opponents to the death of Annexation, and not its friends, as that journal basely insinuated, he states that he is of no party, though reluctantly compelled to be in opposition to the present ministry in consequence of their acts, Executive as well as Legislative; but that he is of a class far more numerous than the 'thick and thin' adherents of either of the present soi-disant parties. Those alluded to by Mr. Buchanan will form a new party—the Party of Order, which will probably be called the 'Constitutional Party'—its platform being broad enough to hold all who value and respect the time-honored Constitution, whether they be original Reformers or Conservatives in name. The new Party of Order will comprise these elements:

'First. Conservative Liberals, or old Reformers, who have been taught by experience, and are willing now to adopt the word 'Conservative,' at least in its adjective sense.

'Secondly. Liberal Conservatives, or old Tories, or their descendants, who have also been taught by experience, and are willing to adopt the word 'Liberal,' at least in its adjective sense.

'Thirdly. Conservatives, and Conservative Liberals, who have unwittingly been mingled up with the incendiary party, composed of 'Clear Grits' and 'Rouges.'

'And that in your discussions on the great question of the Reciprocity Law, now about to agitate both Canada and the United States, these pages may be of some service, is the fond hope of your obedient servant,

    'The Editor.'

Family Pride. By the Author of 'Pique.' Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers, 306 Chestnut street.

Family Pride is a novel of still greater interest than 'Pique.' The plot is well conceived, the characters skilfully developed, and the attention is fascinated even to the end. The moral is unexceptionable, the style fresh and pure. We must however enter an earnest protest against the manifest injustice of the closing sentence, where the talented author has gone out of his way to find a blot for his book, the only stain upon his fair pages. It reads thus: 'After a variety of vicissitudes, she had embraced the Romish faith: that religion which relieves from all personal responsibility in spiritual matters; and which teaches that earthly penance and ascetic observances will open the gates of heaven to the vilest of criminals.' We have studied Westminster, Episcopal, and Catholic catechisms, the teachings in all three of which are that faith in Christ and sorrow for and renunciation of sin alone can open the gates of heaven. We regard it as the duty of a conscientious reviewer to point out an erroneous statement wherever it occurs, whether in regard to the faith of Protestants, Catholics, Hebrews, Mohammedans, Fire Worshippers, or any other classes of men whatsoever. Misstatement has caused an immense deal of bloodshed and bitterness among Christians. The walls of Zion must be built of the stones of truth.

The Tanner Boy, and how he became Lieutenant-General. By Major Penniman. 'The boy is father to the man.' Fifth thousand. Boston: Roberts Brothers, publishers, 143 Washington street. 1864.

A lively account of the boyhood and subsequent career of one likely to be famous in American history. The nation's eyes are at this moment turned hopefully upon the result of Gen. Grant's campaign in Virginia, and all will be glad to learn that his previous life offers so fair and pleasant a record. One observation, however, we feel called upon to make to the entertaining Major: the youth of America should be taught to love, to live for, and, if need be, to die for their country; but they should also be taught to shun narrow exclusiveness and boastful vanity. A government of a whole people should in this respect set a noble example to all other nations.

The 'Tanner Boy' has already reached its 'fifth thousand,' and will no doubt be eagerly read by all the patriotic boys and girls in the land.

Wax Flowers. J. E. Tilton & Co., Boston. 1864.

This little book contains somewhat over a hundred pages, and is gotten up in the attractive style for which the publications of this firm have become noted. A prefatory chapter sets forth the object of the work, and the claims of the art. The first part treats of Wax Fruit, giving the methods of making moulds and casting therefrom, of preparing the wax, of coloring the fruit and giving it the proper outward texture. The second part describes all the articles and materials required for making even the most elaborate of Wax Flowers; gives the way of preparing the wax, including its formation into sheets of any required thickness, with all the minutiæ relating to coloring, &c. The text is clearly and simply written, and by the aid of ample illustrations everything is made plain to the learner.

It is wonderful how exquisitely flowers may be imitated—making one wish a device for the secreting of the appropriate perfumes.

The wax once gathered by bees through many a bower,
Glows again in the form of a beautiful flower.