The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 25, November, 1859

These dicta of Mr. Chief Justice Taney made Dred Scott neither more nor less a slave, neither more nor less a citizen, than he had been without their utterance. But they aided the purpose of subjugating Kansas, of opening all American territory to slavery, of Africanizing the continent by reopening the slave-trade, of breaking down barriers which State legislation has interposed against the introduction of slaves, and of putting the propagandists of slavery in full possession of every power.

We gladly record our sense of the skill, learning, and intrepidity with which Mr. Sumner fulfilled his task of presenting, defining, and defending, within the brief limits of a single oration, the cause of Liberty,—Liberty,—American, European, universal.

* * * * *

Out of the Depths. The Story of a Woman's Life. London: Macmillan & Co. 8vo. pp. 381.

The author of this book is like an awkward angler, who fails to take a trout himself, and spoils the water for the more skilful man who may follow him. Its object is the illustration of that subject which has been called "the greatest of our social evils," and which, in its present aspect, is certainly one of the saddest that the statesman or the moralist is called upon to contemplate, and yet one the duration of which seems to be inevitably coexistent with every form of civilized society yet known to the world. The author has sought his end by means of a fictitious autobiography. This was of course. No unusual faculty in the selection of methods was necessary to the choice; for only in the autobiographical form could the inner life of a courtesan be so revealed as to present a truthful and living picture of her soul's experience. A fine novel of this kind would be a great book, and one productive of much good; not, indeed, directly to the wretched class that would furnish studies for it, but to society at large, and so indirectly to the class in question, by providing a subject of this kind which could be studied and talked about. Dumas fils' "Dame aux Camelias" is a great melodramatic story; but it is so exceptional in its incidents and episodical in its character, that its heroine is quite worthless as a specimen for examination and analysis; and it is, beside, so very French as to be almost valueless in this regard, for that reason alone. What it would be well to have written is the story of an abandoned woman, told simply and without any reserve, except that of decency, and purely from a woman's point of view. But, except by a woman, and at the cost of the experience to be recounted, this is manifestly possible only to genius. The author of "Out of the Depths" has not attained the desideratum; but has yet approached so near it, that we fear the right man, or, possibly, woman, may be deterred from the attempt to do better. If so, there is a good subject—good for the making of a grand psychological, physiological, and dramatic study—lost.

The subject of this professed autobiography, Mary Smith, is the daughter of a gardener on a large English estate. Her family is much noticed and favored by the ladies of the mansion, and she, who is handsome and intellectual, soon acquires tastes and an education above her position; and as she is vain and selfish and of a voluptuous temperament, the consequence seems inevitable. Her first fault, however, is committed with her betrothed husband, a young gentleman, destined for the Church, by whose sudden death, at a time when his life was more than ever essential to her happiness, she is left an outcast, a creature to be spurned from the door of those upon whose tender care Nature and themselves had given her unextinguishable claims. She finds shelter and kind treatment with two girls who belong, though not ostensibly, to the class into which she is about to fall, and soon she appears as the mistress of a foolish young nobleman, for whom she has not the least affection. At last he wearies of and parts with her, and she finds a second companion and protector in an eminent barrister, who takes pleasure in cultivating her literary tastes. Her unfaithfulness to him results in a separation, and she passes into the hands of a third keeper, who abandons her on occasion of his approaching marriage. Infuriated at his desertion, she intrudes upon him at a social party at his private chambers, and behaves so outrageously that she is handed over to the police, and her name appears in public as that of an infamous and disorderly woman. From this point she rapidly descends to the lowest rank of her unfortunate class. On her way, a strong hand is put out to save her. It is that of a gigantic young clergyman, who allows her to think that she has decoyed him to her room, but who really goes there to endeavor to turn her from her course of life. She scorns his exhortations, and attempts to browbeat him; but she finds him ready for a row upon the spot. He offers to fight her crowd of bullies singlehanded, and when she locks the door upon him, twists the lock off, hasp and all, with a turn of his wrist. Although they part,—he none the worse, she none the better, for the interview,—it is not without fruits; for he leaves her his address, and when, after being reduced to the lowest depths of degradation and brought to the last endurable pinch of suffering, she determines, at the death-bed of a repentant companion, to reform at any cost, and does set her face upward, and is beaten back and trodden under foot by the righteously uncharitable of her own sex, she thinks of her big clergyman, seeks him out, and by his instrumentality is taken into the country, and made the mistress of a school in his parish. Here the friends of her youth find her, forgive her, and cherish her; and she receives a proposal of marriage from an estimable and wealthy farmer, who persists in his suit, even after she has told him of her former life, and after the small-pox, caught on a ministration of mercy, has harrowed all the beauty from her face. But rapid consumption supervenes, and relieves the author from the embarrassing position into which he had brought himself.

This is all the story that Mary Smith has to tell; and it will be seen, that, so far as the incidents are concerned, it is commonplace enough. It is not distinguished by one novel incident, or one fresh character, except, perhaps, the muscular divine. Even in the grouping and narration of its old incidents it exhibits no dramatic power, and little skill of characterization in the portraiture of its personages. And not only does a matter-of-fact air pervade the narrative, but the tale is told with such reticence of fact as well as of feeling, that it reveals but little of the real life of a London courtesan, and leaves the reader almost as ignorant as he was when he took up the book of what it is that makes the horror of such existence; all of which might have been imparted without any violation of the decorum proper to such a book, and which, therefore, should not have been withheld. The book, too, is much too goody-goody. There is too much preaching throughout it, and in certain parts a suddenness in the kneeling down to pray that is quite startling. This stupid sort of goodness helps much to defeat the purpose of the work. Even the strong minister, although his is not the old-fashioned way, seems to have more beef on his bones than brains in his head, or he would not answer to a desperate exclamation of Mary Smith,—"Don't say that. God only knows what is best for us all; even you, and all like you, may begin to live for the good of society, without being its bane." This is very true,—as true as Justice Shallow's original observation, that "we must all die." But the idea of attempting to impress a degraded woman of the town by telling her that she, and all like her, might be brought to live for the good of society!

But in spite of these faults, the book has one great merit, which is not too common; it seems to be the truthful story of a real life. This impression is partly the result of a peculiarity of style which is very difficult to express otherwise than by saying that the use of language seems to indicate that the writer is of the condition of life in which Mary Smith professes to have been born, and has acquired a knowledge of language and literature in the manner in which she relates that she acquired hers. There is no vulgarity, but a certain air of constrained propriety, and an absence of any elegance, or grace, or indications of a slow and unconsciously acquired acquaintance with the phraseology of cultivated society. If this be really assumed, the author has exhibited a delicate refinement in the art of writing not surpassed in any work of imagination known to us. Another ground for the seeming actuality of the story, to those who have any knowledge of the class to which its heroine belongs, is the cause to which she attributes her fall. This was not seduction; for she confesses, what hardly one in a thousand of her sisters in shame will fail to confess, if they speak the truth, that she was not seduced;—and neither was it poverty; for her father was well-to-do, and she the petted attendant, almost the friend, of a young lady of wealth and station;—but it was her vanity and her unrestrained passion. She is represented, in the first place, as regarding a good match, a rich husband, as the great object of life; and to such a woman chastity is not a sentiment, but a dictate of prudence; just as to a man whose great purpose is the getting of money, honesty is but the best policy. After she has met the man who brings her fate with him, (it might as well have been any other of his class,) she writes,—"The one great pleasing and wretched hope of my mind was that I should see him again; for it is so pleasant to believe that any man in a higher station should take an interest in me." And again she speaks of "exultation at the prospect which opened before me of being raised out of the station in life from which I sprang by birth"; and again, of her "desire of being a lady." This vanity it is, this desire to dress and live like the women above them, and have intercourse with the men above them, which leads the greater number of our fallen women to their ruin, or, rather, sends them to it with their eyes open; and for the rest, when Mary Smith, living in her own fine house, the petted mistress of the wealthy Mr. Plowden, was unfaithful to him, it was not for love of fine clothes or fine society. It is not long since our whole country was shocked by the dire results of a similar abandonment to vanity and wantonness, about which the usual amount of commonplace and cant was uttered. It is time that the very truth was told about this matter, in sad earnestness and singleness of purpose. We hoped to find the whole truth in "Out of the Depths"; but, finding only a part of it, we can greet it only with a partial welcome.

Reply to the "Statement of the Trustees" of the Dudley Observatory. By BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD, JR. Albany: Printed by Charles Van Benthuysen. 1859. 8vo. pp. 366.

The question between Dr. Gould and the Trustees of the Albany Observatory was not one of merely private or passing interest. It concerned not only all men of science, but all men of honor. It concerned all who like pluck, and who, in a quarrel, instinctively take sides with one against many. It was of interest to men of science, because the question was between show and reality, between newspaper notoriety and the quiet advancement of real and enduring knowledge. It concerned men of honor, because it was of some consequence to know whether public sentiment in America would justify, nay, tolerate even, the printing of confidential letters, and not only the printing, but the garbling of them to suit the ends of personal spite. It concerned lovers of fair-play, because it was to be settled whether it is right to accuse a man of peculation whom you wish to convict of disagreeable manners.

Dr. Gould's pamphlet is a thorough vindication of himself. It is so not only as to graver charges, but incidentally, by its perfect quietness of tone, it answers the accusation of bad temper. The hitting is none the less severe that it is done with scientific precision, and the astronomer shows his ability to make his antagonists "see stars" in a less comfortable way than through a telescope. There is a grim humor, too, as well as dignity, in the Cool way in which Dr. Gould recapitulates all the charges made against him,—especially where he condenses them in the Index. Better pamphlet-fighting has not been seen since Bentley. The hardship of the matter is, that people are commonly more ready to believe slander than to trouble themselves with reading a refutation of it. It gave us particular satisfaction to see that the American Association for the Advancement of Science had shown its sense of the merits of the quarrel by electing Dr. Gould vice-president of their body.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS

Black Diamonds, gathered in the Darkey Homes of the South. By Edward A. Pollard, of Virginia. New York. Pudney and Russell. 12mo. pp. 122. 50 cts.

Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders; or the Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged Physician. By William A. Alcott, M.D. Boston. John P. Jewett & Co. 12mo. pp. 384. $1.00.

Modern Philology; its Discoveries, History, and Influence, Tabular Views, and an Index. By Benjamin W. Dwight. New York. A.S. Barnes & Burr. 8vo. pp. 354. $1.75.

The Mississippi Bubble; a Memoir of John Law. By Adolphe Thiers, Author of "The Consulate and Empire." To which are added Authentic Accounts of the Darien Expedition and the South Sea Scheme. Translated and edited by Frank S. Fiske. New York. W.A. Townsend & Co. 12mo. pp. 338. $1.00.

The Use and Abuse of Tobacco. By John Lizar. From the Eighth Edinburgh Edition. Philadelphia. Lindsay & Blakiston. 16mo. pp. 136. 50 cts.

Alcohol; its Place and Power. By James Miller. From the Nineteenth Glasgow Edition. Philadelphia. Lindsay & Blakiston. 16mo. pp. 178. 50 cts.

Life of Colonel David Crockett, written by Himself. Philadelphia. G. G. Evans. 12mo. pp. 405. $1.00.

The Diseases of Cattle. By George H. Dadd. Boston. John P. Jewett & Co. 12mo. pp. 395. $1.25.

My Third Book. A Collection of Tales. By Louise Chandler Moulton. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 434. $1.00.

Henry St. John, Gentleman, of "Flower of Hundreds," in the County of Prince George, Virginia. A Tale of 1774-75. By John Esten Cooke, Author of the "Virginia Comedians," etc. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 503. $1.00.

Rab and his Friends. By John Brown, M.D. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 18mo. pp. 81. 15 cts.

Letters on Modern Agriculture. By Baron von Liebig. Edited by John Blyth, M.D., Professor of Chemistry, Queen's College, Oxford. New York. John Wiley. 12mo. pp. 233. 76 cts.

Thirty Years in the Arctic Regions; or the Adventures of Sir John Franklin. New York. H. Dayton & Co. 12mo. pp. 473. $1.25.

A Dictionary of Love; containing a Definition of all the Terms used in the History of the Tender Passion. By Theocritus, Junior. New York. Dick & Fitzgerald. 12mo. pp. 275. $1.00.

Miss Slimmens's Window, and other Papers. By Mrs. Murk Peabody. With Humorous Illustrations. New York. Derby & Jackson. 12mo. pp. 312. $1.00.

The Life, Travels, and Books of Alexander von Humboldt. With an Introduction by Bayard Taylor. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 12mo. pp. 482. $1.25.

The Book of the First American Chess Congress; containing the Proceedings of that Celebrated Assemblage, held in New York in the Year 1857; with the Papers read in its Sessions, the Games played in the Grand Tournament, and the Stratagems entered in the Problem Tournay; together with Sketches of the History of Chess in the Old and New World. By Daniel Willard Fiske, M. A. New York. Rudd & Carleton. 12mo. pp. 363. $1.50.

The Rectory of Moreland; or, My Duty. Boston. J. E. Tilton & Co. 12mo. pp. 339. $1.00.

British Novelists and their Styles; being a Critical Sketch of the History of British Prose Fiction. By David Masson, M. A., Professor of English Literature, University College, London. Author of "The Life and Times of John Milton." Boston. Gould & Lincoln. 12mo. pp. 312. 75 cts.

Fiji and the Fijians. By Thomas Williams and James Calvert, late Missionaries in Fiji. Edited by George Stringer Rowe. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 540. $2.50.

Presidential Candidates; containing Sketches, Biographical, Personal, and Political, of Prominent Candidates for the Presidency in 1860. By D. W. Bartlett. New York. A. B. Burdick. 12mo. pp. 360. $1.00.

Out of the Depths; the Story of a Woman's Life. New York. W. A, Townsend & Co. 12mo. pp. 370. $1.00.

A Commentary, Explanatory, Doctrinal, and Practical, on the Epistle to the Ephesdans. By R. E. Pattison, D. D., late President of Waterville College. Boston. Gould & Lincoln. 12mo. pp. 244. 85 cts.

Rhymes of Twenty Years. By Henry Morford. New York. II. Dexter & Co. 12mo. pp. 214. $1.00.

A Manual of Naval Tactics; together with a Brief Critical Analysis of the Principal Modern Naval Battles. By James H. Ward, Commander U. S. N. With an Appendix, being an Extract from Sir Howard Douglas's "Naval Warfare with Steam." New York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 312. $2.50.

Essays, Lectures, etc., upon Select Topics in Revealed Theology. By Nathaniel W. Taylor, D. D., late Dwight Professor of Didactic Theology in Yale College. New York. Clark, Austin, & Smith. 8vo. pp. 425. $1.50.

The Character and Portraits of Washington. By H. T. Tuckerman. Illustrated with all the Prominent Portraits, Proofs on India Paper, and a Fine Plate of the Washington Monument, by Crawford, at Richmond, Va., from a Photograph of a Drawing, by Ehninger. New York. G. P. Putnam. 4to. $6.00.

The Works of William Shakespeare. Edited by Richard Grunt White. Vols. VI., VII., VIII. Histories. Boston. Little, Brown, & Co. 12mo. pp. 564, 468, 453. per vol. $1.50.

The Good News of God. Sermons by Charles Kingsley, Hector of Eversley. New York. Burt, Hutchinson, & Abbey. 12mo. pp. 370. $1.00.

Beulah, By Augusta J. Evens. New York. Derby & Jackson 12mo. pp. 510. $1.25.

History of the Life and Times of James Madison. By William C. Rives. Volume I. Boston. Little, Brown, & Co. 8vo. pp. 660. $2.25.

Life of Hannibal. By Thomas Arnold, D. D. New York. Sheldon & Co. 18mo. pp. 320. 50 cts.

Life of Thomas à Becket. By Henry Hart Milman, D. D., Dean of St. Paul's. New York. Sheldon & Co. 18mo. pp. 246. 50 cts.

The Logic of Political Economy; and other Papers. By Thomas De Quincey. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. 387. 75 cts.

Paul the Preacher; or a Popular and Practical Exposition of his Discourses and Speeches, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. By John Eadie, D. D., LL. D. New York. R. Carter & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 453. $1.25.

The Teacher's Assistant, or Hints and Methods in School Discipline and Instruction; being a Series of Familiar Letters to one entering upon the Teacher's Work. By Charles Northend, A. M. Boston. Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 12mo. pp. 583. $1.00.

Parties and their Principles; a Manual of Political Intelligence, exhibiting the Origin, Growth, and Character of the National Parties. With an Appendix, containing Valuable and General Statistical Information. By Arthur Holmes. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 394. $1.00.

Four Years Aboard the Whale-Ship. Embracing Cruises in the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Antarctic Oceans, in the Years 1855-59. By William B. Whitecar, Jr. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 413. $1.00.