As we reflect, we anxiously look around us for some tradition--some time-stained chronicle--some age-worn record--even the faintest and most unsatisfactory legend, upon which to repose our credulity, and relieve the inquiring solicitude of the mind. But our research is hopeless. The present race of Aborigines can tell nothing of these tumuli. To them as to us they are vailed in mystery. Ages since--long ere the white-face came--while this fair land was yet the home of his fathers--the simple Indian stood before the venerable earth-heap, and gazed, and wondered, and turned away.
CATHERINE A. WARFIELD
Mrs. Catherine Ann Warfield, poet and novelist, was born at Natchez, Mississippi, June 6, 1816, the daughter of Nathaniel H. Ware. She was educated at Philadelphia with her sister, Eleanor P. Ware Lee (1820-1849), with whom she afterwards collaborated in her first two volumes. Catherine Ware was married at Cincinnati, in 1833, to Robert Elisha Warfield, of Lexington, Kentucky, and Kentucky was her home henceforth. _The Wife of Leon, and Other Poems, by Two Sisters of the West_ (New York, 1844), and _The Indian Chamber, and Other Poems_ (New York, 1846) were the works of the sisters. In 1857 Mrs. Warfield removed from Lexington to Pewee Valley, Kentucky, near Louisville, and some three years later her masterpiece appeared, entitled _The Household of Bouverie_ (New York, 1860, two vols.). This work brought her into wide notice. During the Civil War Mrs. Warfield wrote some of the most spirited lyrics which that mighty conflict called forth.
After the war she turned again to prose fiction, producing the following books: _The Romance of the Green Seal_ (1867); _Miriam Monfort_ (1873); _A Double Wedding_ (1875); _Hester Howard's Temptation_ (1875); _Lady Ernestine_ (1876); _Miriam's Memoirs_ (1876); _Sea and Shore_ (1876); _Ferne Fleming_ (1877); and her last novel, _The Cardinal's Daughter_ (1877). Mrs. Warfield died at Pewee Valley, Kentucky, May 21, 1877, at the time of her greatest popularity. Of her books _The Household of Bouverie_ is the only one that is generally known to-day, and is, perhaps, the only one that is at all readable and interesting. Mrs. Warfield was an early edition of "The Duchess" and Mary Jane Holmes, though she did write fine war lyrics and one good story, which is just a bit better than either of the other two women did.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Women of the South Distinguished in Literature_, by Mary Forrest (New York, 1861); _Library of Southern Literature_ (Atlanta, 1910, v. xii).
CAMILLA BOUVERIE'S DIARY
[From _The Household of Bouverie_ (New York, 1860, v. ii)]
Another queer scene with little Paul, whose quaint ways divert and mystify me all the time. During Mr. Bouverie's absence of a week, I have nothing else to amuse me nor to write about. He has called me familiarly "Camilla" until now; but fearing that Mr. Bouverie might not like the appellation, or rather that it might make me appear too childish in his sight, I said to him recently:
"Paul, you are a little fellow, and I am your guardian's wife. Don't you think it would sound better if you were to add a handle to my name, as common folks say? Call me 'Cousin Camilla' or 'Aunt Camilla,'
whichever you prefer; which shall it be, Quintil?"
"Neither," he replied, manfully, "for you are neither of those things to me, and I do not like to tell stories; but I will call you 'madam,'
if you choose, as you are a 'madam;'" and something like a sneer wreathed his childish lips.
"A foolish little madam, you think, Paul!" I rejoined, half in pique, half in playfulness.
"Why that is the very name for you," he said, brightening with the thought. "'Little Madam!' I will call you so; but I will not put in the foolish," he added, gravely, "for, perhaps, you will change after a while and grow wiser."
He spoke very seriously, sorrowfully almost, and I was quite provoked for a moment to be set down in this fashion, by such a mere babe and suckling. I was glad of the opportunity presented to me of snubbing him by noticing a streak of molasses on his cheek.
"Go wash your face, Paul," I said, "it is dirty!"
He walked gravely to the glass and surveyed the stain. "Looking glasses are useful things, after all," he said; "they tell the truth--see 'Little Madam,' how you are mistaken! my face is not dirty, only soiled; food is not dirt--if it were, we should all starve."
He turned and smiled at me in his peculiar way, half mocking, half affectionate.
"Yet, as you bid me," he added, "I will wash it off; but isn't it a pity to waste what would keep a bee alive a whole day!"
Is this brat a humorist?
He has brought out of his funny little trunk the oddest present for me! It is a Medusa's head admirably carved in alabaster, and was broken from the side of a vase by accident, and given to him by a lady, at whose house he made a visit with Mr. Bouverie.
He considers it a priceless treasure. There is a vague horror to me in the face that is almost insupportable. The snaky hair, the sightless, glaring eyes, are so mysteriously dreadful. He says it will answer for a paper weight. No, Paul, I will lay it away out of sight forever.
A PLEDGE TO LEE
(Written for a Kentucky Company)
[From _Southern Poems of the War_, edited by Emily V. Mason (Baltimore, 1867)]
We pledge thee, Lee!
In water or wine, In blood or in brine, What matter the sign?
Whether brilliantly glowing, Or darkly overflowing, So the cup is divine That we fill to thee!
Vanquished--victorious, Gloomy or glorious, Fainting and bleeding, Advancing, receding, Lingering or leading, Captive or free; With swords raised on high, With hearts nerved to die, Or to grasp victory; Hand to hand--knee to knee, With a wild three times three We pledge thee, Lee!
We pledge thee, chief: In the name of our nation, Her wide devastation, Her sore desolation, Her grandeur and grief!
Where'er thou warrest When our need is the sorest, Or in Fortress or forest, Bidest thy time; Thou--Heaven elected, Thou--Angel-protected, Thou--Brother selected, What e'er thy fate be, Our trust is in thee, And our faith is sublime.
With swords raised on high, With hearts nerved to die, Or to grasp victory; Hand to hand--knee to knee, With a wild three times three, We pledge thee, Lee!
J. ROSS BROWNE
John Ross Browne, humorist and traveler, was born in Ireland, in 1817, but when an infant his father came to America and settled at Louisville, Kentucky. Browne was educated in the Louisville schools, and studied medicine for a time under several well-known physicians.
When eighteen years old he went to New Orleans; and this journey kindled his passion for travel that ended only with his death. Browne took the whole world for his home. He first went almost around the globe on a whaling vessel, and on his return to this country, he published his first book, called _Etchings of a Whaling Cruise_ (New York, 1846). Browne was private secretary for Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the Treasury, for a time, but, in 1849, he went to California as a government commissioner; and in 1851 he went to Europe as a newspaper correspondent. A tour of Palestine is described in Browne's most famous book, _Yusef, or the Journey of the Frangi_ (New York, 1853). He shortly afterwards returned to the United States and became an inspector of customs on the Pacific coast; but the year of 1861 found him again in Europe, residing at Frankfort-on-the-Main.
Browne's next work was _Crusoe's Island_ (New York, 1864). His family's residence in Germany resulted in the author publishing _An American Family in Germany_ (New York, 1866), one of his most delightful volumes. Browne's travels in northern Europe are described in _The Land of Thor_ (New York, 1867). He now returned to America and made his home in California. He investigated the mineral resources of the country west of the Rocky Mountains, and his report was issued as _Resources of the Pacific Slope_ (1869). _Adventures in the Apache Country_ (1869), was his last book. Browne was appointed United States Minister to China on March 11, 1868, but he was recalled sixteen months later. He died at Oakland, California, December 9, 1875. Most of his volumes are very cleverly illustrated with his own comical sketches of characters and scenes. That J. Ross Browne was a man of very considerable ability in several directions admits of no argument.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1887, v. i); _National Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1900, v. viii).
LAPDOGS IN GERMANY
[From _An American Family in Germany_ (New York, 1866)]
One of the most remarkable sights is the dog-fancier--a strapping six-foot dandy, leading after him, with silken strings, a whole brood of nasty little poodles. This fellow is a type of the class; you meet them everywhere at every Continental city. There are thousands of them in Frankfort, men strangely infatuated on the subject of little dogs.
Now pardon me if I devote some serious reflections to this extraordinary and unreasonable propensity, which, I fear, is rapidly taking root in the hearts of the American people, especially the female portion of our population. In men it is often excusable; they may be driven to it by unrequited affection. I never see a fine-looking fellow leading a gang of little poodle-dogs after him, that I don't imagine he has had some dreadful experience in the line of true love; but with the opposite sex the case is quite different. "If women have one weakness more marked than another," says Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in a very eloquent passage of the "Minister's Wooing," "it is toward veneration. They are born worshippers--makers of silver shrines for some divinity or other, which, of course, they always think fell straight down from heaven." And, in illustration of this very just remark, she refers to instances where celebrated preachers and divines have stood like the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king set up, "and all womankind, coquettes and flirts not excepted, have been ready to fall down and worship, even before the sound of cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, and so forth," where the most gifted and accomplished of the sex "have turned away from the flattery of admirers, to prostrate themselves at the feet of a genuine hero, who never moved them except by heroic deeds and the rhetoric of a noble life"--a most striking and beautiful trait in woman's character to which all homage should be rendered. She clingeth unto man, even as the ivy clingeth unto the oak. But does anybody pretend to tell me that man is always the lucky recipient of this devotion? Alas, no! Not always for him is it that women are burdened with this load of "fealty, faith, and reverence more than they know what to do with;" not always for him is it that "They stand like a hedge of sweet peas, throwing out fluttering tendrils everywhere for something high and strong to climb by." Alas!
man is but a cipher among the objects of woman's heroic devotion. I have a lady in my eye who from early youth has bestowed the tenderest affections of her heart upon poll-parrots; another, who for years has wept over the woes of a little chicken; who would abandon her midnight slumber to minister to the afflictions of a lame turkey, and insensible to the appeals of her lover, only relax in her severity when moved by the plaintive mewing of a cat; another, who, in the bosom of her family, and tenderly adored by her husband, has long since yielded to the fascinating allurement of a sewing-machine, and wrapped around its cogwheels, cotton spools, and hammering needles the poetry of a romantic attachment; and, lastly, the particular case in point, at which I marvel most of all, three most bewitching young ladies, of acknowledged beauty, who are hopelessly and irrevocably gone in love with--what do you think?
Not a man, erect and noble, with the brow of Jove and eye of Mars; not even a horse, the paragon of beautiful and intelligent animals, or a lion, the king of the forest; but a miserable, dirty, nasty, little lapdog; a snappish, foul-eyed inodorous, sneaking little brute, which even the very cats hold in contempt! And yet they love it; at least they say so, and I have no reason to dispute their word. Have I not heard them, morning, noon, and night, protest their devotion to the dear little Fidel--the precious, beautiful little Fidel--the adorable love of a little Fidel! Oh, it is enough to make the angels weep to see the grace and fondness with which this horrid little wretch is caught up in those tender white arms, and hugged to those virgin bosoms and kissed by those pouting and honeyed lips! Faugh! It drives me mad. What is the use of wasting so much sweetness when there are thousands of good, honest fellows actually pining away from unrequited affection? brave sons of toil, ready at a moment's notice to be caressed by these sweet-pea vines, who are throwing out their fluttering tendrils for something high and strong to cling to. I leave it to any honest miner, if it is not provoking to the last degree to see the noblest capacity of woman's nature thus cruelly and wastefully perverted--the choicest affections devoted to a miserable, disgusting, and unsympathizing little monster--the very honey of their lips lavished on that foul and mucous nose, which, if it knows anything, must know some thing not fit to be mentioned to polite ears. Heaven! how often have I longed to have a good fair kick at one of these pampered little brutes. Only think of the care taken of them, while widows and orphans are shivering in the cold and perishing of hunger. The choicest pieces of meat cut up for them, potatoes and gravy mixed, delicate morsels of bread; the savory mess put before them by delicate hands, and swallowed into their delicate stomachs, and too often rejected by those delicate organs, to the detriment of the carpet. And then, when this delectable subject of woman's adoration is rubbed, and scrubbed, and pitied, and physicked, and thoroughly combed out from head to foot, with every love-lock of his glossy hair filtered of its fleas, how tenderly he is laid upon the bed or clasped in the embraces of beauty! Shade of Cupid! what a happy thing it is to be a lapdog! Well might the immortal Bard of Avon prefer to be a dog that bayed the moon rather than an indifferent poet. For my part, I'd sooner be wrapped in the arms of beauty than be King of the Cannibal Islands. That strange infatuation of feminine instinct which lends to the head-dress, at an approaching bridal, a degree of importance to which the expected groom can never aspire; which sees the destinies of the whole matrimonial career centred in the fringe of a nightgown; which seeks advice and consolation in the pattern of a reception-dress; which would shrink from the fearful sacrifice of liberty but for the magic power of new bonnets, new gloves, and embroidered handkerchiefs--that we can all understand; these are woman's coy devices to tantalize mankind; these are the probationary tortures inflicted upon him through mere wantonness and love of mischief. But when the richest treasures of her affection, the most divine essence of her being, the Promethean spark warm from her virgin heart, for which worlds are lost and won--when these are cast away upon a nauseous little lapdog, ye gods! what can poor mortals do but abandon their humanity! It is shocking to think of such competition, but how can we help it if young ladies give themselves up to dog worship? I sincerely trust this Continental fashion may never take root in California. Should it do so, farewell all hope for the honest sons of toil; it will then be the greatest of good fortunes to be born a lapdog!
ROB MORRIS
Robert Morris, who is generally bracketed with Albert Pike as the most distinguished writer and craftsman American Masonry has produced, was born near Boston, Massachusetts, August 31, 1818. He was made a Mason in Mississippi, in 1846, and this was the beginning of a Masonic career almost without parallel in the history of the fraternity.
Morris, of course, received all of the higher degrees in Masonry, but the most momentous thing he did as a craftsman was to establish the Order of the Eastern Star in 1850--the year he became a Kentuckian. In September, 1854, while living in southern Kentucky, Morris wrote his most celebrated poem, entitled _The Level and the Square_, which was first published in his magazine, _The American Freemason_, of Louisville, Kentucky. Rudyard Kipling lifted a line from it for his equally famous poem, _The Mother Lodge_. Although Morris revised his lines many times, the original version is far and away the finest. In 1858 he was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Kentucky; and two years later he removed his residence to La Grange, Kentucky, the little town with which his fame is intertwined. Morris wrote several well-known religious songs, _Sweet Galilee_, being the best of them.
He was the author of many books upon Masonry, his _Lights and Shadows of Freemasonry_ (Louisville, 1852), being the first work in Masonic belles-lettres. This was followed by his _History of the Morgan Affair_ (New York, 1852); _Life in the Triangle_ (1853); _The Two Saints John_ (1854); _Code of Masonic Law_ (Louisville, 1855), the pioneer work on Masonic jurisprudence; _Masonic Book of American Adoptive Rights_ (1855); _History of Freemasonry in Kentucky_ (Frankfort, 1859), his most important historical work; _Synopsis of Masonic Laws_ (1859); _Tales of Masonic Life_ (1860); _Masonic Odes and Poems_ (New York, 1864); _Biography of Eli Bruce_ (1867); _Dictionary of Freemasonry_ (1872); _Manual of the Queen of the South_ (1876); _Knights Templar's Trumpet_ (1880); _Freemasonry in the Holy Land_ (New York, 1882), an excellent work; _The Poetry of Freemasonry_ (New York, 1884), upon the publication of which, the author was invited to New York City and crowned "The Poet Laureate of Freemasonry," December 17, 1884; and, _Magnum Opus_ (1886). Morris was one of the foremost numismatics of his day and generation in America, his works on this science being _The Twelve Caesars_, and _Numismatic Pilot_. He was also the author of several works designed especially for the officers of a Masonic lodge; and he edited in thirty volumes _The Universal Masonic Library_, besides editing from time to time four Masonic magazines. Rob Morris, to give him the name by which he is best known, died at La Grange, Kentucky, July 31, 1888.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); _Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1888, v. iv).
THE LEVEL AND THE SQUARE
[From _The American Freemason_ (Louisville, Kentucky, September 15, 1854)]