Part 18

A wild rose was set in the heart of the bouquet at last, a spear of riband-grass added to give it grace and point, and nothing was wanting but a string.

Reticules were searched, pockets turned inside out, and never a bit of riband to be found. The beauty was in despair.

"Stay!" said St. John, springing to his feet. "Last! Last!"

The dog came coursing in from the wood, and crouched to his master's hand.

"Will a string of wampum do?" he asked, feeling under the long hair on the dog's neck, and untying a fine and variegated thread of many-colored beads, worked exquisitely.

The dog growled, and Nunu sprang into the middle of the circle with the fling of an adder, and seizing the wampum as he handed it to her rival, called the dog and fastened it once more around his neck.

The ladies rose in alarm; the belle turned pale and clung to St. John's arm; the dog, with his hair bristling on his back, stood close to her feet in an attitude of defiance, and the superb Indian, the peculiar genius of her beauty developed by her indignation, her nostrils expanded and her eyes almost showering fire in their flashes, stood before them, like a young Pythoness, ready to strike them dead with a regard.

St. John recovered from his astonishment after a moment, and leaving the arm of Miss Temple, advanced a step and called to his dog.

The Cherokee patted the animal on the back, and spoke to him in her own language; and, as St. John still advanced, Nunu drew herself to her fullest height, placed herself before the dog, who slunk growling from his master, and said to him as she folded her arms, "the wampum is mine!"

St. John colored to the temples with shame.

"Last!" he cried, stamping with his foot, and endeavoring to frighten him from his shelter.

The dog howled and crept away, half crouching with fear toward the precipice; and St. John shooting suddenly past Nunu, seized him on the brink, and held him down by the throat.

The next instant a scream of horror from Mrs. Ilfrington, followed by a terrific echo from every female present, started the rude Kentuckian to his feet.

Clear over the abyss, hanging with one hand by an aspen sapling, the point of her tiny foot just poising on a projecting ledge of rock, swung the desperate Cherokee, sustaining herself with perfect ease, but with all the determination of her iron race collected in calm concentration on her lips.

"Restore the wampum to his neck!" she cried, with a voice that thrilled the very marrow with its subdued fierceness, "or my blood rest on your soul!"

St. John flung it toward the dog, and clasped his hands in silent horror.

The Cherokee bore down the sapling till its slender stem cracked with the tension, and rising lightly with the rebound, alit like a feather upon the rock. The subdued Kentuckian sprang to her side; but, with scorn on her lip and the flush of exertion already vanished from her cheek, she called to the dog, and with rapid strides took her way alone down the mountain.

* * * * *

Five years had elapsed. I had put to sea from the sheltered river of boyhood; had encountered the storms of a first entrance into life; had trimmed my boat, shortened sail, and with a sharp eye to windward, was laying fairly on my course. Among others from whom I had parted company, was Paul St. John, who had shaken hands with me at the university-gate, leaving me, after four years' intimacy, as much in doubt as to his real character and history as the first day we met. I had never heard him speak of either father or mother; nor had he, to my knowledge, received a letter from the day of his matriculation. He passed his vacation at the university. He had studied well, yet refused one of the highest college-honors offered him with his degree. He had shown many good qualities, yet some unaccountable faults; and, all in all, was an enigma to myself and the class. I knew him clever, accomplished, and conscious of superiority, and my knowledge went no farther.

It was five years from this time, I say, and in the bitter struggles of first manhood, I had almost forgotten there was such a being in the world. Late in the month of October, in 1829, I was on my way westward, giving myself a vacation from the law. I embarked on a clear and delicious day in the small steamer which plies up and down the Cayuga Lake, looking forward to a calm feast of scenery, and caring little who were to be my fellow passengers. As we got out of the little harbor of Cayuga, I walked astern for the first time, and saw the not very unusual sight of a group of Indians standing motionless by the wheel. They were chiefs returning from a diplomatic visit to Washington.

I sat down by the companion-ladder, and opened soul and eye to the glorious scenery we were gliding through. The first severe frost had come, and the miraculous change had passed upon the leaves, which is known only in America. The blood-red sugar-maple, with a leaf brighter and more delicate than a Circassian's lip, stood here and there in the forest like the sultan's standard in a host, the solitary and far-seen aristocrat of the wilderness; the birch, with its spirit-like and amber leaves, ghosts of the departed summer, turned out along the edges of the woods like a lining of the palest gold; the broad sycamore and the fan-like catalpa, flaunted their saffron foliage in the sun, spotted with gold like the wings of a lady-bird; the kingly oak, with its summit shaken bare, still hid its majestic trunk in a drapery of sumptuous dies like a stricken monarch, gathering his robes of state about him to die royally in his purple; the tall poplar, with its minaret of silver leaves, stood blanched like a coward in the dying forest, burdening every breeze with its complainings; the hickory, paled through its enduring green; the bright berries of the mountain-ash flushed with a sanguine glory in the unobstructed sun; the gaudy tulip-tree, the sybarite of vegetation, stripped of its golden cups, still drank the intoxicating light of noonday in leaves than which the lip of Indian shell was never more delicately teinted; the still deeper-died vines of the lavish wilderness, perishing with the nobler things whose summer they had shared, outshone them in their decline, as woman in her death is heavenlier than the being on whom in life she leaned; and alone and unsympathizing in this universal decay, outlaws from nature, stood the fir and the hemlock, their frowning and sombre heads, darker and less lovely than ever in contrast with the death-struck glory of their companions.

The dull colors of English autumnal foliage, give you no conception of this marvellous phenomenon. The change here, too, is gradual. In America it is the work of a night--of a single frost! Ah, to have seen the sun set on hills, bright in the still green and lingering summer, and to wake in the morning to a spectacle like this! It is as if a myriad of rainbows were laced through the tree-tops--as if the sunsets of a summer--gold, purple and crimson--had been fused in the alembic of the west, and poured back in a new deluge of light and color over the wilderness. It is as if every leaf in those countless trees had been painted to outflush the tulip--as if, by some electric miracle, the dies of the earth's heart had struck upward, and her crystals and ore, her sapphires, hyacinths and rubies, had let forth their imprisoned dies to mount through the roots of the forest, and like the angels that in olden time entered the bodies of the dying, reanimate the perishing leaves, and revel an hour in their bravery.

I was sitting by the companion-ladder, thinking to what on earth these masses of foliage could be resembled, when a dog sprang upon my knees, and, the moment after, a hand was laid on my shoulder.

"St. John? Impossible!"

"Bodily!" answered my quondam classmate.

I looked at him with astonishment. The _soigne_ man of fashion I had once known, was enveloped in a kind of hunter's frock, loose and large, and girded to his waist by a belt; his hat was exchanged for a cap of rich otter-skin; his pantaloons spread with a slovenly carelessness over his feet, and altogether there was that in his air which told me at a glance that he had renounced the world. Last had recovered his leanness, and after wagging out his joy, he couched between my feet, and lay looking into my face as if he was brooding over the more idle days in which we had been acquainted.

"And where are _you_ bound?" I asked, having answered the same question for myself.

"Westward with the chiefs!"

"For how long?"

"The remainder of my life."

I could not forbear an exclamation of surprise.

"You would wonder less," said he, with an impatient gesture, "if you knew more of me. And by the way," he added, with a smile, "I think I never told you the first half of the story--my life up to the time I met you."

"It was not for the want of a catechist," I answered, setting myself in an attitude of attention.

"No! and I was often tempted to gratify your curiosity; but from the little intercourse I had with the world I had adopted some precocious principles, and one was, that a man's influence over others was vulgarism, and diminished by a knowledge of his history."

I smiled, and as the boat sped on her way over the calm waters of the Cayuga, St. John went on leisurely with a story which is scarce remarkable enough to merit a repetition. He believed himself the natural son of a western hunter, but only knew that he had passed his early youth on the borders of civilization, between whites and Indians, and that he had been more particularly indebted for protection to the father of Nunu. Mingled ambition and curiosity had led him eastward while still a lad, and a year or two of the most vagabond life in the different cities, had taught him the caution and bitterness for which he was so remarkable. A fortunate experiment in lotteries supplied him with the means of education, and with singular application in a youth of such wandering habits, he had applied himself to study under a private master, fitted himself for the university in half the usual time, and cultivated in addition the literary taste which I have remarked upon.

"This," he said, smiling at my look of astonishment, "brings me up to the time when we met. I came to college at the age of eighteen, with a few hundred dollars in my pocket, some pregnant experience of the rough side of the world, great confidence in myself and distrust of others, and, I believe, a kind of instinct of good manners, which made me ambitious of shining in society. You were a witness of my _debut_. Miss Temple was the first highly educated woman I had ever known, and you saw the effect on me!"

"And since we parted?"

"Oh, since we parted, my life has been vulgar enough. I have ransacked civilized life to the bottom, and found it a heap of unredeemed falsehoods. I do not say it from common disappointment, for I may say I succeeded in every thing I undertook."

"Except Miss Temple," I said, interrupting, at the hazard of wounding him.

"No. She was a coquette, and I pursued her till I had my turn. You see me in my new character now. But a month ago, I was the Apollo of Saratoga, playing my own game with Miss Temple. I left her for a woman worth ten thousand of her--but here she is."

As Nunu came up the companionway from the cabin, I thought I had never seen a breathing creature so exquisitely lovely. With the exception of a pair of brilliant moccasins on her feet, she was dressed in the usual manner, but with the most absolute simplicity. She had changed in those five years from the child to the woman, and, with a round and well-developed figure, additional height, and manners at once gracious and dignified, she walked and looked the chieftan's daughter. St. John took her hand, and gazed on her with moisture in his eyes.

"That I could ever put a creature like this," he said, "into comparison with the dolls of civilization!"

We parted at Buffalo--St. John with his wife and the chiefs to pursue their way westward by Lake Erie, and I to go moralizing on my way to Niagara.

GRECIAN AND ROMAN ELOQUENCE.

By Ashur Ware.

In the flourishing periods of the Grecian and Roman commonwealths, the forms of their governments, the state of society, and the passions and manners of the times, were more favorable to the developement of great talents, than have existed in any other age, or among any other people. In Athens and Rome, every citizen was a public man. The great powers of government were exercised by the people themselves in their primary assemblies. The practice of delegating the higher attributes of sovereignty to a small number of persons periodically elected is one of the greatest improvements, which the lights of modern experience have introduced into the constitutions of free governments. The advantages which are gained by this system in favor of internal tranquillity, the steadiness and permanency of political institutions and the security of private rights, can scarcely be estimated too highly, or purchased at too great a price. But nearly in the same proportion as this improvement contributes to the general tranquillity and the personal security of the citizen, does it narrow the field for the operation of great talents. The individual power of each man is hardly felt in the harmonious working of the great machine of government, and its character soon comes to depend much more on the system than on the genius of those by whom it is conducted. Precedents, fixed opinions, long established policy and constitutional maxims, throw an invisible net work over those, who are at the head of affairs, which a giant's strength cannot break through. An ordinary share of talent, enlightened by experience, is found to be about as useful in the regular movement of the system, as the highest gifts of genius.

But it was otherwise in the republics of Athens and Rome. There the power of the system was nothing, and the genius of the individual every thing. In the agitations of these popular commonwealths, the great actors on the stage were driven to a life of unremitted exertion. The revolutions of popular favor were sudden and appalling, and always liable to be carried to great extremes. A decisive moment lost might be fatal to the hopes of a whole life. Their powers were, therefore, constantly wound up to the utmost intensity of action. Second rate men, who are abundantly able to go through with the regular and quiet routine of official duty in our modern bureaus, would be quickly blown down by the storms which shook the tribunes of those turbulent democracies. The very imperfections in their political systems contributed to develope the genius of their statesmen, and necessarily called into action every faculty of the mind.

In all free and popular governments, eloquence is one of the principal instruments of power, and the fairest field is presented for its operations where the general powers of government are put in motion by the immediate agency of the mass of the people. In all the nations of modern Europe, where the semblance of deliberative assemblies is preserved, these are composed of a small and select number of persons; and in these small bodies, when a reasonable space is allowed for the coercive power of party training, for the operation of the subtle and diffusive poison of executive influence, and in some cases, for the gross and palpable application of direct corruption, the province of eloquence will be found to be greatly narrowed. Her most persuasive accents fall on ears that are spellbound by a mightier power, and on the most important questions, the votes are often counted, before deliberation commences. But this complicated machinery cannot be brought to bear with the same effect on the whole body of the citizens. If their movements are more irregular, and liable to greater excesses, they have their origin in the purer and more noble impulses of the heart. The natural love of equity, the instinctive principles of disinterestedness and generosity, originally implanted in the heart of man by the author of our being, cannot easily be extinguished in a whole people. After the tools of faction, and the minions of power, have exhausted the arts of corruption, these holier elements of our nature will kindle into spontaneous enthusiasm, when lofty and generous sentiments are brought home to the bosom in the accents of a manly and pathetic eloquence. The great and unsophisticated springs of human action are always touched with most effect in large assemblies. In these the prevailing tone of feeling, when highly exalted, spreads through the whole by a secret sympathy, with the rapidity of the electric fluid.

It was before such an audience that eloquence uttered her voice in ancient times. The orators of Greece and Rome brought their genius to bear directly on the popular mind. The public assemblies which were then held were for actual deliberation. It was not a mockery of consultation on matters upon which all opinions were definitely made up. They came together to be instructed, and were open to the seductive arts of their orators even to a fault. The objects of deliberation also were of the greatest moment, the fortunes of a province or a kingdom, the safety of the republic, the honor, or perhaps the life of the orator himself or his nearest friends. Every motive which hope or fear or pride or party could suggest, to animate the passions, was brought to act on the speaker's mind, and all depended on a doubtful decision, which was to be made on the spot, and before the separation of the assembly. These contests were not of rare occurrence. They were coming up continually. They were upon the most magnificent theatre in the world, and before judges who united a most refined and discriminating taste with an extraordinary degree of susceptibility to all the charms of a passionate and harmonious eloquence. The orators, therefore, were kept in constant training. Their faculties had no time to cool.

They had no intervals for luxurious repose. The dignities to which they had risen were watched by powerful and jealous rivals, always ready to wrest from them their honors, and they could be retained only by the same efforts by which they were won.

In these ancient republics eloquence was substantial and effective power and led to the highest dignities, which the most aspiring genius could hope to attain. It was cultivated with an assiduity bearing a just proportion to the honors with which it was crowned. The education of the orator commenced in his cradle, and did not terminate until he had reached the full maturity of manhood; or, to speak more correctly, it comprised the whole business of his life. All his studies were made subservient to the art of speaking, and the course of instruction descended into the most minute details which could improve him in his

## action or elocution. It was this entire devotion to a favorite and

honored art, which raised it to a height of perfection, which it has never since been able to reach, and which produced those prodigies in the oratorical art, which have been the admiration and the despair of succeeding ages.

In the most brilliant period of antiquity there were two styles of eloquence cultivated by the different orators. One, calm, subtle and elegant, addressed almost exclusively to the understanding. In the time of Cicero this was called the Attic style, and those who belonged to this school assumed no little credit on the supposed purity of their Attic taste. The other affected a style of greater warmth and brilliancy, and intermingled with the scrupulous dialectics of the former, frequent appeals to the passions, and adorned their discourses with all the beauties which could captivate the imagination. What was then denominated the Attic style, forms the prevailing characteristic of modern oratory. It is cool and didactic. It relies almost wholly on the powers of a cultivated logic and seldom attempts to reach the understanding through the medium of the heart. It requires little reflection to determine which of these styles would bear away the palm before a popular audience. The former leaves one half the faculties of the hearer dormant, while the latter addresses itself to all the powers of man, the moral as well as the intellectual, instructs the reason while it agitates the passions, and gives at the same time one powerful and impetuous movement to the whole man. But if any one doubts upon this matter let him go to the pages of Demosthenes and especially to that most perfect of all his orations, in which he was contending with his great rival for the glory of a whole life in the presence of all that was most illustrious in Greece,--his oration for the crown. He will find from the beginning to the end, a clear and exact logic. But it is logic raised into enthusiasm by the dignity and elevation of sentiment by which it is surrounded. He will not find a metaphor or an observation introduced merely for the purposes of ornament. It is a continued stream of clear, rapid and convincing argument. But it is argument enveloped in a torrent of earnestness and exaggeration, environed with a blaze of anger and disdain and passion--it is argument clothed in thunder, which could no more be listened to with a composed and tranquil mind than the flashes of lightning could be viewed with an unblinking eye. Strip Demosthenes of these accompaniments, of these accessories, if you please to call them so, and you will leave enough perhaps to satisfy our modern Attics, but this residue will be no more like the living Demosthenes who "fulmined over Greece," than the unformed block of marble is like the Belvidere Apollo, or a naked skeleton like a living man.