The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864

He opened them sitting by the same fire, munching his hard tack as he read. Murphy, watching him, saw his lips quiver and work over one bearing half a dozen postmarks—a letter from his mother, conveyed across the lines by some sleight-of-hand of influence or pay, and mailed and remailed from place to place, till weeks had grown into months since it was written. Noncommittal as it had need to be—filled with home items to the last page—there his heart stood still, to bound again furiously back, and his breath came sharp and hot. He rose blinded and staggering. Jim Murphy, seeing how white and rigid his face had grown, came toward him, putting out his hand with a dumb impulse of sympathy, not understanding how the shock of a great hope, springing full grown into existence, sometimes puts on the semblance of as great a loss.

Private Moore's application for a furlough being duly made, that night was duly granted.

'Just in time—the last one for your regiment!' said the good-natured official, registering the necessary items.

In another hour he was whirling away, and in early evening two days later he stepped out into the clear moonlight and crisp air of a Northern city.

A New England sleighing season was at its height. The streets were crowded with swift-flying graceful vehicles, the air ringing with bell music and chimes of voices. Out through the brilliant confusion he went to the quiet square where the great trees laid a dark tracery of shadow upon the snow beneath. No thought of the accidents of absence or company, or any of the chances of everyday life, had occurred to him before. A carriage stood at the door. He almost stamped with impatience till the door opened and he was admitted. The change to the warm, luxurious gloom of the parlors quieted him a little, but he paced up and down with long strides while he waited. The strong stillness that he had resolutely maintained was broken down now with a feverish restlessness.

She came at length—it seemed to him forever first—with the rustle and shimmer of trailing lengths of silk down the long room. A fleecy mist covered neck and arms, and some miracle of a carriage wrapping lay white and soft about her face. She did not recognize him in the obscurity; his message of 'a friend' had not betrayed him. But his voice, with its new, proud hopefulness, its under vein triumphant and eager, struck her into a blinding, giddy whirl, in which voice and words were lost. It passed in a moment, and he was saying, 'And I am free now—honorably free—and have come where my heart has been, ever since that month on the seaside. Most gracious and sovereign lady,'—he broke into sudden, almost mirthful speech, dropping on one knee with a semblance of humility proved no mockery by the diamond light in the brown eyes and the reverent throb that came straight from his voice.

She bent over him as he knelt, and drew her cool, soft hands across his forehead and down his face, and her even, silvery syllables cut like death:

'Mr. Moore, last night I promised to marry your friend, Captain Morris.'

For the space of a minute stillness like the grave filled the room, and then all the intense strain of heart and nerve gave way, as the bitter tide of disappointment broke in and rolled over his future; and without word or sound he dropped forward at her feet.

She knelt down beside him with a low, bitter cry. It reached his dulled sense; he rose feebly.

'Forgive me; I have not been myself of late, I think; and this—this was so sudden,' and he walked away with dull, nerveless tread.

On the table, near her, lay her handkerchief. It breathed of heliotrope. Her words came back to him: 'Only in coffins, about still, dead faces.' He stopped in his walk and looked down on her. Forever he should remember all that ghostly sheen of silvery white about a rigid face with unutterably sad fixed mouth and drooping lids. He thrust the fleecy handful into his breast.

'I may keep this?' and took permission from her silence.

'Good-by;' the words came through ashy lips, a half sob. She knelt as impassive as marble, as cold and white. He waited a moment for the word or look that did not come, turned away, the hall door fell heavily shut, and he was gone.

Fifteen minutes after, Miss Berkeley was whirling to the house where she was to officiate as bridesmaid, and where she was haughtier, and colder, and ten times more attractive than ever.

Private Moore, waiting for the midnight return train, found life a grim prospect.

Three weeks after, a summons came from the captain's tent. George had just returned from his own furlough, and this was their first meeting. Even while their hands clasped, his new, happy secret told itself.

'Congratulate me, Clement Moore! You remember Lois Berkeley? She has promised to be Lois Berkeley Morris one day!' and, with happy lover's egotism, did not notice the gray shade about his hearer's lips.

Various items of news followed.

'A truce boat goes over to-morrow,' remembering the fact suddenly; 'there will be opportunity to send a few letters; so, if you wish to write to that lady 'beyond the lines'—

The voice that replied was thin and harsh:

'Miss Rose declined alliance with a 'Yankee hireling,' and was married last October.'

Honest George wrung his friend's hand anew, and heaped mental anathemas on his own stupidity for not seeing how haggard and worn the dark face had grown—anathemas which were just enough, perhaps, only he hardly saw the reason in quite the right light. But he spared all allusions to his own prospects thereafter, and finding that Moore rather avoided than sought him, measured and forgave the supposed cause by his own heart.

At length came a time when a new life and impulse roused into action even that slowly moved great body, the officers of the Potomac Army, and that much-abused and sorely tried insignificant item, the army itself. On every camp ground reigned the confusion of a flitting. All the roads were filled with regiments hurrying southward, faces growing more and more hazard with fatigue and privation, weak and slender forms falling from the ranks, cowards and traitors skulking to the rear, till at length on the banks of the river stood an army, hungry, footsore, marchworn, but plucky, and ready for any service that might be required of them, even if that service were but to 'march up the hill and then march down again'—what was left of them.

An atom in the moving mass of blue, Clement Moore shared the pontoon crossing, was silent through the storms of cheers that greeted each regiment as they splashed over and up the bank, and, drawn up in line of battle at last, surveyed the field without a pulsation of emotion. Other men about him chafed at the restraint; he stood motionless, with eyes a thousand miles away. And when the advance sounded, and the line started with a cheer, no sound passed his lips. A half-unconscious prayer went up that he might fall there, and have it over with this life battle, that had gone so sorely against him. He moved as in a dream. The whirl and roar of battle swept around and by him; he charged with the fiercest, saw the blue lines reel and break only to close up and charge again, took his life in his hand a dozen times, and stood at length with the few who held that first line of rifle pits, gazing in each other's faces in the momentary lull, and wondering at their own existence. Then came a shock, shivers of red-hot pain ran through every nerve, and then—blissful, cool unconsciousness. Captain George, galloping by, with the red glare of battle on his face, saw the fall, and halted. A half dozen ready hands swung the body to his saddle. For a little the tide of battle eddied away, and in the comparative quiet, George tore down the hill to a spring bubbling out under the cedars.

The darkness that wrapped the wounded man dissolved gradually. The thunder and crash of guns, the mad cheers, the confusion of the bands withdrew farther and farther, and drifted away from his failing senses. He was back in his Southern home; the arm under his head was his mother's; and he murmured some boyish request. Jasmine and clematis oppressed him with their oversweetness; overhead the shining leaves of the magnolia swung with slow grace. So long since he had seen a magnolia, not since that evening—a life time ago, it seemed; the sight and fragrance fell on him as her cool touch did that last time. The heart throbs choked him then; he was choking again. 'Water, mother—a drink!' and something wet his lips and trickled down his throat, not cool and sweet as the rippling water he longed for, and he turned away with sickly fretfulness; but a new strength thrilled through his limbs. He opened his eyes; a face, battle-stained, but tear-wet like a woman's, bent over him.

'O Clement, dear old fellow, do you know me?'

He smiled faintly, with stiffening lips. 'Yes, I know. I've prayed for it, George. I couldn't live to see her your wife. Good-by, dear boy. Tell mother—' He wandered again. 'Kiss me, mother—now Lois, my Marguerite. Into thy hands, O Lord—' A momentary struggle for breath, and then Morris laid back the grand head, and knelt, looking down on the beautiful face, over which the patient strength of perfect calm had settled forever.

'So that was it, after all,' he said, bitterly. 'Fool not to see; and he was worth a generation of such as I.'

He turned away, tightened his saddle girths, cast a look on the pandemonium before him, looked back with one foot already in the stirrup.

'I sha'n't see him again in this hell, even if I come out of it myself.' And going back, with gentle fingers he removed the few trinkets on the body. In an inner pocket of the blouse he found a small packet. He opened it on the spot. A lady's handkerchief, silky fine, white as ever. No need of the delicate tracery in the corners to tell him whose. The perfume that haunted it still called back too vividly that evening when he had wondered at and loved her more for the strange, perfect calm that chilled a little his outburst of happiness. He folded it back carefully, touched his lips as a woman might have done to the cold forehead, and mounted, plunging up the hill to the fight that had recommenced over the trench. Later in the day, the ball that fate moulded for Captain George found him. He gave one low, pitiful cry as it crashed through his bridle arm, and then a merciful darkness closed about him.

Two months after, white and thin, with one empty sleeve fastened across his chest, he stood where another had stood waiting for the same woman. Through the window drifted in the early spring fragrance; a handful of early spring flowers lay on the table. A soft rustle and slow step through the hall, and he rose as Lois came in. She glanced at the empty sleeve with grave, wide eyes, and sat down near him. He would not have known the face before him, it had so altered; the hair pushed back from hollow, blue-veined temples, the sharpened, angular outlines, and an old, suffering look about the mouth and sunken eyes.

Few words were spoken—nothing beyond the most commonplace greetings. Then she said:

'I should have come to you, but I have been ill myself; near death, I believe,' she added, wearily.

She gave the explanation with no throb of feeling. She would have apologized for a careless dress with more spirit once.

He rose and laid a packet before her.

'A lady's handkerchief—yours, I think. I was with him when he died, though his body was not found afterward. I was hurt myself, you know, and could not attend to it,' he said, deprecatingly.

She did not touch it, looking from it up to him with eyes filled with just such a grieved, questioning look as might come into the eyes of some animal dying in torture. He could not endure it. He put out his white, wasted left hand.

'My poor child!' She shivered, caught her breath with a sob, and, burying her face in the pillows of a couch, gave way to her first tears in an agony of weeping. And he sat apart, not daring to touch her, nor to speak—wishing, with unavailing bitterness, that it had been he who was left lying stark and still beneath the cedars.

The storm passed. She lay quiet now, all but the sobs that shook her whole slight frame. He said, at last, very gently:

'If I had known—you should have told me. He was my best friend.' His voice trembled a little. 'I know how I must seem to you. His murderer, perhaps; surely the murderer of your happiness.' A deeper quaver in the sorrowful tones. 'It is too late now, I know; but if it would help you ever so little to be released from your promise—'

There was no reply.

'You are free. I am going now.' He bent over her for a breath, making a heart picture of the tired face, the closed eyes, and grieved mouth. Only to take her up for a moment, with power to comfort her—he would have given his life for that—and turned away with a great, yearning pain snatching at his breath. In the hall he paused a moment, trying to think. A light step, a frail hand on his arm, a wistful face lifted to his.

'Forgive me; I have been very unkind. You are so good and noble. I will be your wife, if you will be any happier.'

He looked down at her pityingly. 'You are very tired. Shall you say that when you are rested again? Remember, you are free.'

'If not yours, then never any one's.'

His arm fell about her, his lips touched her forehead quietly; he led her back to her couch, and arranged her pillow, smiling a little at his one awkward hand.

'I shall not see you again before I go back, unless you send for me.'

She put out her hand and touched the bowed face quickly and lightly; and with that touch thrilling in his veins he went away.

Through Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and the Charleston siege, Captain George, no longer captain, now twice promoted for cool bravery, has borne a charmed life—a grave, calm man, remembering always a still face, 'pathetic with dying.'

Out from the future is turned toward him another face, no less pathetic in its unrest of living. The soldiers in the Capital hospitals, dragging through the weary weeks of convalescence, know that face well. For hours of every day she goes about busied with such voluntary service as she is permitted to do. She sees tired faces brighten at her coming—is welcomed by rough and gentle voices. Always patient, ready, thoughtful, she is 'spending' herself—waiting for the end.

THE SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE: ITS CHARACTER AND RELATION TO OTHER LANGUAGES

ARTICLE TWO.

CORRESPONDING FIRST DISCRIMINATIONS IN THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE

The purpose of these papers, as announced and partially carried forward in the preceding one, is to explain the nature of the New Scientific Universal Language, a component part of the new Science of Universology, and to exhibit its relation to the Lingual Structures hitherto extant. For this purpose we entered upon the necessary preliminary consideration of the fundamental question of the Origin of Speech. We found that the latest developments of Comparative Philology upon this subject, as embodied in Prof. Müller's recent work, 'Lectures on the Science of Language,' brought us no farther along to the goal of our investigation than Compound Roots—one-, two-, three-, four-, five—(or more) letter Roots—some four or five hundred of which are the insoluble residuum which the Philologists furnish as the Ultimate Elements of Language. It was pointed out that these Roots are not, however, the Ultimate Elements of Language, any more than Compound Substances are the Prime Constituents of Matter; and that, as Chemistry, as a Science, could begin its career, only after a knowledge of the veritable Ultimate Elements of the Physical Constitution of the Globe was obtained, so a True Science of Language must be based upon an understanding of the value and meaning of the True Prime or Ultimate Elements of Speech—the Vowels and Consonants.

It is with the exposition of the nature of these Fundamental Constituents of Language, and of their Correspondential Relationship or Analogy with the Fundamental Constituents of Thought, the Ultimate Rational Conceptions of the Mind, that the New Universal Language begins its developments. Through its agency we may hope to find, therefore, a satisfactory solution to the problem of the Origin of Speech, which Comparative Philology abandons at the critical point, and so to be able to pass to the consideration of the more specific objects of our present inquiry.

Universology establishes the fact that there is Analogy or Repetition of Plan throughout the various Departments of the Universe. It demonstrates, in other words, that the same Principles which generate, and the same Laws which regulate, the Phenomena of the Universe as a whole, fulfil the same functions in connection with the Phenomena of every one of its parts. The Mathematical, Psychological, or any other specific Domain is, therefore, an expression or embodiment of the same System of Principles and Laws, with reference to both Generals and Details, which is otherwise exhibited in Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, and elsewhere universally; just as the same Architectural Plan may be variously employed in constructions of different size, material, color, modes of ornamentation, etc.; and may be modified to suit the requirements of each individual construction. To every Elementary Form of Thought there is, consequently, a corresponding and related Law of Number, of Form, of Color, of Chemical Constitution, and of Oral Sound or Speech. Every Basic Idea, to state it otherwise, pertaining to the Universe at large or to any of its Divisions, has its counterpart or double in every other Division. Or, to express it yet another way: the manifold, diverse, and unlike Appearances or Phenomena which the Universe presents to our understanding, are not radically and essentially different; but are the same Typal Ideas or Thoughts of God or of Nature, arrayed in various garbs, and, hence, assuming varying presentations. The Numerical Unit, the Geometrical Point, the Written Dot, the Globule, the Chemical Atom, the Physical Molecule, the Physiological Granule, the Yod or Iota, the least Element of Sound, are, for example, Identical Types, differently modified or clothed upon in accordance with the medium through which they are to be phenomenally presented. It is with this Echo or Repetitory Relationship, existing between all the Domains of the Universe, but more particularly as exhibited between the two Domains of Ideas and Language, that we are at present concerned.

It is sufficiently obvious that Analogy should be sought for first, in the Generals of any department under examination, and, subsequently, through them, in the Particulars. In respect to the two Domains now under special consideration, this relation is between the Fundamental Elements of Thought, including those called by the Philosophers the Categories of the Understanding, and the Fundamental Elements of Language. In pointing out the Correspondence subsisting between the Elements of these two Domains, I shall use, partly by way of condensation, and partly by copious extracts, the Elaborate Expositions contained in the yet unpublished text books of Universology. And, as what follows relating to this subject will consist, almost wholly, of this material, I do not deem it essential to encumber the page with numerous and unnecessary quotation marks. It is advisable to caution the Reader, however, that as my present purpose is explanation and illustration only, and not formal demonstration, what is about to be given will be mostly in the nature of mere statement, unaccompanied by any other evidence of its truthfulness than may be found in the self-supporting reasonableness of the statements themselves.

It was the basic and axiomatic proposition of Hegel's Philosophy, that the first discrimination of Thought and Being in any sphere is into two factors, a Something and a Nothing;—that which constitutes the main or predominant element of the Conception or Creation, and that which we endeavor to exclude from contemplation or activity, but which, nevertheless, by virtue of the impossibility of perfect or absolute abstraction, inevitably becomes a minor or subordinate element in the Idea or the Act which may be engaging the attention. Something and Nothing are also averred to be equal factors in the Constitution of Thoughts or Things, because both are alike indispensable to the cognition of either; because, in other words, it is only by the presence of the Nothing as a background or contrasting element, that the Something has an independent or cognizable existence. If there were no blank space, for instance, there could be no Moon, relatively, or so far as our ability to perceive it is concerned. For the Moon is, in this illustration, a Something which is visible to us, and of which we have a knowledge, only by reason of the fact that it is surrounded by and contrasted with that which is not Moon, and which, in reference to the particular aspect under consideration is, therefore, a Nothing; though it in turn may be a Something or main object of attention in some other view or conception, where some other factor shall be the Nothing.

That this Relationship of Antithesis and Rank existed, as between the Constituents of some Thoughts or Things, was known from the earliest times, and gave rise to the terms Positive and Negative, expressive of it. But Hegel was the first—of modern Philosophers, at least—to point out its necessarily Universal and fundamental character, and to assume it as the starting-point in the development of all Philosophy and Science.

So far as concerns the investigation of the Universe from the Philosophical point of view (which is the less precise and definite aspect), Hegel is right in affirming that the first discrimination of all Thought and Being is that between Something and Nothing. But he is wrong in regarding the starting-point or first differentiation of Science, as being identical with that of Philosophy. Science considers, primarily and predominantly, the more exact and rigorous relations of Phenomena; and the existence of an exact and definite point of departure in Thought and Being, more fundamental, from the Scientific or rigorously precise point of view, than that of Hegel, is the initiatory proposition of Universology.

A full explanation of the nature of this Starting-point is not, however, in place here. And as the discrimination into Something and Nothing serves all the purposes of our present inquiry, a single word respecting the character of the Universological Point of Departure in question is all that it is now necessary to say concerning it.

This Starting-point of Thought and Action has reference to the Ideas of Oneness (Primitive Unity) and Twoness (Plurality). These conceptions give rise to two Primordial Principles, which form the basis of the development of Universology, and which are fundamental in every Department of the Universe and in the Universe as a whole, namely: The Principle of Unism (from the Latin unus, one), the Spirit of the Number One, the Principle of Undifferentiated, Unanalyzed, Agglomerative Unity; and The Principle of Duism (from the Latin duo, two), the Spirit of the Number Two, the Principle of Differentiation, Analysis, Separation, Apartness, or Plurality, typically embodied in Two, the first division of the Primitive Unity, and especially representative of the Principle of Disunity, the essence of all division or plurality. One, in the Domain of Number, and Unism, in the Department of Primordial Principles, correspond, it must be added, with The Absolute (the Undifferentiated and Unconditioned), as one of the Aspects of Being; while Two, in the Domain of Number, and Duism, among Primordial Principles, are allied with The Relative (the Differentiated and Conditioned), of which latter Domain Something and Nothing are the two Prime Factors. The distinction between One and Two, or their analogous Aspects of Being, Absolute and Relative, is, therefore, prior to that between Something and Nothing, because Something and Nothing are two terms of The Relative (Two), which has first to be itself discriminated from The Absolute (One) before it can be sub-divided into these two factors.