University of Virginia Library

AFTER-WORDS.

Why Prefaces are Skipped.

Often, the “prefaces” and “forewords” are well enough written, but not so often read as they might be, if more interesting. The reason that they do not immediately engage the attention of the reader is, perhaps, that interest in the subject of the book has not yet been sufficiently aroused in his mind.

When the doing of a thing has been resolved upon, there are two ways of accomplishing it: to explain and then do it, or to do and then explain it. The latter seems to me generally the better of the two: and is adopted in this case.

A few remarks explanatory of preceding lines, may not be unacceptable to the reader.

In the course of a number of weeks' travel each year up and down the country, in the intervals of other work, lecturing, reading, “orating,” etc., I have several times been “drifted in” on trains; and have in such cases seen some very instructive and diverting phases of human nature. The environment of railroad-life has a character of its own, full of interest: for The World Away from Home is in many respects different from what it is within the precincts of its local bounds. Especially is this the case under abnormal conditions, as of a train being “stalled” for a few hours, or, as sometimes occurs, for days at a time.

On page 10 occurs the line

“That bell was calling the world to prayer.”

Those who in one of the short intervals between trips at some small village, have heard during the sudden stillness a church-bell in the town calling people to prayer, will understand these lines. It rouses such a new train of thought—so entirely different from what they have probably just been entertaining! and has made more than one traveler wish he had time to alight and attend the simple and perhaps elevating service.

On this particular occasion the function is not to be understood as having been a Sunday evening one: but presumably, one of the week-day evening prayer-meetings.

Line 4 on page 13 is explained by the fact, known to some, perhaps unknown to more, that certain railroad-companies bestow golden stripes on the coat-sleeve of conductors, one for every five years of continuous service. Some of these faithful employes are justly proud of the display.

On page 14 commences a trio of poems involving that great vehicular feature of travel—the automobile. This machine certainly marks a new era in the world's life and progress, and one that must produce a vast difference in the condition of things—both for weal and for woe. It will make even war a vastly different affair: for the heavy cannon and the machine-guns will now be hurried from place to place, not by the aid of horses, but by steam, gasoline, or electricity.

The Biblical prophecy that the swift chariots shall “rage in the streets”, is now literally fulfilled, without the help of railroad-trains. Mother Shipton's statement that “Carriages without horses shall go, and accidents fill the

world with woe,” is now most literally and vividly confirmed by the “horseless wagon.”

In the three automobile-poems here introduced, both phases of the subject—the pleasant and the unpleasant— are brought to the fore. There are those who know how to make of this most useful machine a blessing, and, naturally, those who can turn it into a curse—both to themselves and others.

On page 24, three phases of harvesting are depicted. That connected with the sickle, maybe within the memory of some; and the crooked little saw-toothed blade, no doubt used yet, in some isolated cases. The second phase was the superannuated but often-used “cradle”—a scythe with several long tapering fingers to catch the grainstalks as they fell. The implement was named, no doubt, from the rocking, cradle-like motion of harvesters, as they went swinging and crashing through the standing grain—often several of them together, or, rather, in slightly diverging Indian file.

The third and latest method of harvesting grain with machiner, is too familiar to the present generation, to need description here.

On page 33 some college reminiscences are fused into a story—founded, not only “upon fact”, but upon any amount of facts. Those who have had the joyful and joyless experiences of a college course, would not trade its memories for a good large fortune.

Dear, delightful old college days!—in which some of the most godly of students did some of the most ungodly of things. I know more than one exemplary and irreproachable clergyman, who, when a theological student, would go a long way to despoil a melon-patch or lighten the clustering burdens of a grape-vineyard, or transport something incongruous to places inconsistent with conventional ideas of order. These “stunts”, as they might

be called now, were done with a great big boyish innocence that really wished to harm nobody, but enjoyed the ludicrous discomposure of those who were thus “hazed”, with a keenness not to be resisted.

Hazing, like every thing else, can be overdone, and fool-done: and it is refreshing to see the hazer hazed.

Page 41 will bring to many railroad-travellers the pleasure of lying in the lower berth of a sleeping-car, and with the window-curtain raised, sinking gradually to sleep amid the glories of a moonlit landscape, or a star-flecked sky with all its diversified grandeurs.

Whoever has not studied at least the spectacular parts of astronomy, has thus far missed one of the most accessible and fascinating of pleasures. Those grand orbs— older than history, and yet ever new—have in them a joy for their students and followers, that never grows less. Especially are the constellation of Orion, and the regions round about it, full of the most picturesque as well as historical interest.

The sea-captain mentioned on page 48, who seems to have been taking a land-cruise, is of a not unusual type: full of helpfulness in any unexpected situation. He can be wonderfully fierce and inexorable when such is the need, and as tender as a woman when the humane part of his nature is roused. Perhaps some of my readers can remember, as can I, an old captain who could swear like a whole crew of pirates in a storm, and could lead devotional exercises on Sunday in the cabin with wonderful sweetness and propriety.

The disinclination of some church people to admitting humble and ill-dressed people to their seasons of worship, is alluded-to on page 84. Of course they do not know that they are sometimes thus given an opportunity

of “entertaining angels unaware”: but such is often the case. No doubt some of the members of that same aristocratic congregation lived to listen with eagerness to the little prima donna, and to covet her acquaintance.

On page 98, is a reference to Professor Watson, once astronomer of the Michigan State University at Ann Arbor. Having discovered twentytwo asteroids, or “minor planets”, he was anxious to have their movements traced, from year to year, and recorded in the annals of astronomy. For this purpose, he left at his death a sum of money in keeping of the National Academy of Sciences, to bear the expenses of the work.

On page 99, is a mention of mound-builders a race of whom there is not so much as a scrap of history, but whose existence is as sure as ours. Their mounds were often in the shape of the octagon, the square, the circle, and other exact mathematical figures; such as the Indian never could have made. Their work has been traced from the regions of our Northern lakes, all the way through what is now United States, into Mexico and Central America.

All about the city of Chicago have been discovered the traces of mounds in abundance: showing that a great city existed there long before the first settlement of the present one—or any city that now exists on this continent.

All the way down the Mississippi River, and in the lower valley of the Missouri, were scores and hundreds of cities and villages erected by the mound-builders.

Not only Chicago, but St. Louis, is evidently built upon the site of a mound-city. Mounds were found there and in the immediate vicinity, and numbered by the hundred. Between St. Louis and Alton was the great mound of Cahokia, as it was called—stated by moundologists to be the monarch of everything they have found in the whole

country. It has now been swept away by modern improvements; but when it was first discovered, “it rose up,” says a competent authority, “in the form of a parallelogram with sides at the base, respectively 500 and 700 feet in length, to the height of 90 feet. On the southwest there was a terrace 160 feet by 300 feet, which was reached by a graded way, and the summit was truncated, affording a platform 200 by 450 feet. From this rose a small conical mound about ten feet high, which, upon examination, yielded human bones, funeral-vases, and various implements of stone.”

No doubt that here was one of the greatest mound-builders' temples on this continent: maybe it was the largest. Perhaps pilgrims came from all over the country, as Mohammedans go to Mecca.

There was for some years a great mound in the very streets of St. Louis, which it was necessary to remove, in the interests of modern traffic. Many relics were found in it.

The most impressive fact about these mounds is, that while utensils, ornaments, pipes, water-jugs, statuettes, vases, drinking-cups, kettles, pottery, spear- and arrow-heads, chisels, axes, daggers, etc., etc., have been discovered in plenty, there has not been found a single record or inscription that has the least claim to authenticity. When appealed-to for their history, the mounds are not only deaf, but dumb.

It will be understood and believed that our Professor of Moundology had a hard time of it to arouse interest.

On page 119 will be found the theory that peace is not stagnation, but the equable and comfortable balancing of forces that bear against each other. The idea of this poem was suggested to the author at Portsmouth, N. H., when ambassadors from Russia and Japan were conducting a treaty of peace. The line

is in allusion to the fact that at about the time the treaty was concluded, a perceptible shock of earthquake ran up and down the Maine and New Hampshire coasts.

The simple and poverty-stricken boyhood days of many of our American statesmen, as contrasted with the splendor of their subsequent careers, must always form a most interesting study. Several of our national presidents have been born in log cabins: but the histories of none of them are more impressive than that of Abraham Lincoln. The story of his sailing down the Mississippi River, on a rude flatboat, carrying produce to New Orleans, will always be a most interesting one. If a “straw vote” could have been taken as to who in that whole stretch of miles was most likely to some time be the chief magistrate of the nation, young Lincoln would of course not have been even upon the list. Probably some of the brilliant young men on board the steamer passing him, might have received a number of votes: but Lincoln—not one! (See page 129.)

The sudden appearance of a “blizzard” in this country— even in one of the Spring months—and its as-sudden disappearance, are not unusual occurrences. The greatest snow-storm that America experienced for two decades, came toward the middle of a March, did all sorts of harm during the few hours it lasted—and disappeared, leaving the brightest of Spring weather to follow it. The metamorphose of our particular snowbanks into water may be rather sudden, but is not impossible or even improbable. Thunder-storms in winter frequently occur, and add evidence to the fact that not only man, but everything in nature, is “fearfully and wonderfully made”—and often as suddenly unmade. (See page 133.)

On page 133 a reference is made to the wonderful splendors that surround us when Snow is King. The

literature of this white, cold covering that nature throws upon the earth is extensive, and would fill volumes.

Snowflakes are not all alike: there have been hundreds —almost thousands of different shapes and forms depicted. They come in prisms, in tiny pyramids, in fern-leaves, in rosettes, stars, stars within stars, and filagree open-work.

The mathematical part of the “proposition” is well worthy to arouse a thrill of wonder. “Snow nature” says a competent authority, “is bound by a law of sixes. The sides of every prism and pyramid meet at one angle— that of sixty degrees, or its multiples; every vein upon those little fern-leaves joins its stem at that one angle, or its products. The stars are all six-rayed or rarely twelve; the centres all hexagonal.

“Climb Chimborazo, go to the Pole, or even make your mimic snow-storm for yourself inside a chemist's bottle —never will you find a finished snow-star or ice-star with five rays or with seven, or with that law of the angles broken. The rays themselves are broken, but never that creative law. Bruised, shattered, huddled together, the snowflakes reach us: but through all bruise and shatter, that law of sixes lies plain upon them. By that they are born and live and die.”

It will be noticed that the sea-captain's song on page 135, was delivered in somewhat more correct language, than was his story, told on a preceding page. This peculiarity is quite noticeable in other cases: when they learn the words and recite or sing them, they are much more likely to have them correct.

Dialect is often out-dialected. Writers seem to think that if any one speaks at all ungrammatically, or with words clipped of final consonants, he must do so in every case. But this is not true: part of one's speech may be in dialect, and the other part perfectly proper.