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  WRITINGS OF JACOB ABBOTT
  by Jacob Abbott
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A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by Jacob Abbott,
compiled for study and devotional reading.

  Chapters: 50

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 1. Cyrus The Great
    2. 1.01     Chapter 1. HERODOTUS AND XENOPHON.
    3. 1.02     Chapter 2. THE BIRTH OF CYRUS.
    4. 1.03     Chapter 3. THE VISIT TO MEDIA.
    5. 1.04     Chapter 4. CROESUS.
    6. 1.05     Chapter 5. ACCESSION OF CYRUS TO THE THRONE.
    7. 1.06     Chapter 6. THE ORACLES.
    8. 1.07     Chapter 7. THE CONQUEST OF LYDIA.
    9. 1.08     Chapter 8. THE CONQUEST OF BABYLON.
   10. 1.09     Chapter 9. THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS.
   11. 1.10     Chapter 10.THE STORY OF PANTHEA.
   12. 1.11     Chapter 11. CONVERSATIONS.
   13. 1.12     Chapter 12. THE DEATH OF CYRUS.
   14. 2. Darius The Great
   15. 2.01     Chapter 1. CAMBYSES.
   16. 2.02     Chapter 2. THE END OF CAMBYSES.
   17. 2.03     Chapter 3. SMERDIS THE MAGIAN.
   18. 2.04     Chapter 4. THE ACCESSION OF DARIUS.
   19. 2.05     Chapter 5. THE PROVINCES.
   20. 2.06     Chapter 6. THE RECONNOITERING OF GREECE.
   21. 2.07     Chapter 7. THE REVOLT OF BABYLON.
   22. 2.08     Chapter 8. THE INVASION OF SCYTHIA.
   23. 2.09     Chapter 9.  THE RETREAT FROM SCYTHIA.
   24. 2.10     Chapter 10. THE STORY OF HISTIAEUS.
   25. 2.11     Chapter 11. THE INVASION OF GREECE AND THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.
   26. 2.12     Chapter 12. THE DEATH OF DARIUS.
   27. 3. Gentle Child Training
   28. 3.01     Three Modes of Management
   29. 3.02     What Are Gentle Measures
   30. 3.03     There Must Be Authority
   31. 3.04     Gentle Punishment of Disobedience
   32. 3.05     The Philosophy of Punishment
   33. 3.06     Rewarding Obedience
   34. 3.07     The Art of Training
   35. 3.08     Methods Exemplified
   36. 3.09     Della and the Dolls
   37. 3.10     Sympathy-The Child with the Parent
   38. 3.11     Sympathy-The Parent with the Child
   39. 3.12     Commendation and Encouragment
   40. 3.13     Page Faults of Immaturity
   41. 3.14     The Activity of Children
   42. 3.15     The Imagination in Children
   43. 3.16     Truth and Falsehood
   44. 3.17     Judgment and Reasoning
   45. 3.18     Wishes and Requests
   46. 3.19     Children's Questions
   47. 3.20     The Use of Money
   48. 3.21     Corporal Punishment
   49. 3.22     Gratitude In Children
   50. 3.23     Religious Training

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  CHAPTER 1: 1. CYRUS THE GREAT
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Cyrus The Great By Jacob Abbott

Preface.

Engravings.

Chapter 1. Herodotus And Xenophon.

Chapter 2. The Birth Of Cyrus.

Chapter 3. The Visit To Media.

Chapter 4. Croesus.

Chapter 5. Accession Of Cyrus To The Throne.

Chapter 6. The Oracles.

Chapter 7. The Conquest Of Lydia.

Chapter 8. The Conquest Of Babylon.

Chapter 9. The Restoration Of The Jews.

Chapter 10. The Story Of Panthea.

Chapter 11. Conversations.

Chapter 12. The Death Of Cyrus.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Makers of History: Cyrus the Great BY JACOB ABBOTT WITH ENGRAVINGS NEW YORK AND
LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1904 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight
hundred and fifty, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk’s Office of the District
Court of the Southern District of New York.

Copyright, 1878, by JACOB ABBOTT.

[Illustration: MAP OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.]

PREFACE.

One special object which the author of this series has had in view, in the plan
and method which he has followed in the preparation of the successive volumes,
has been to adapt them to the purposes of text-books in schools. The study of a
general compend of history, such as is frequently used as a text-book, is highly
useful, if it comes in at the right stage of education, when the mind is
sufficiently matured, and has acquired sufficient preliminary knowledge to
understand and appreciate so condensed a generalization as a summary of the
whole history of a nation contained in an ordinary volume must necessarily be.
Without this degree of maturity of mind, and this preparation, the study of such
a work will be, as it too frequently is, a mere mechanical committing to memory
of names, and dates, and phrases, which awaken no interest, communicate no
ideas, and impart no useful knowledge to the mind. A class of ordinary pupils,
who have not yet become much acquainted with history, would, accordingly, be
more benefited by having their attention concentrated, at first, on detached and
separate topics, such as those which form the subjects, respectively, of these
volumes. By studying thus fully the history of individual monarchs, or the
narratives of single events, they can go more fully into detail; they conceive
of the transactions described as realities; their reflecting and reasoning
powers are occupied on what they read; they take notice of the motives of
conduct, of the gradual development of character, the good or ill desert of
actions, and of the connection of causes and consequences, both in respect to
the influence of wisdom and virtue on the one hand, and, on the other, of folly
and crime. In a word, their minds and hearts are occupied instead of merely
their memories. They reason, they sympathize, they pity, they approve, and they
condemn. They enjoy the real and true pleasure which constitutes the charm of
historical study for minds that are mature; and they acquire a taste for truth
instead of fiction, which will tend to direct their reading into proper channels
in all future years. The use of these works, therefore, as text-books in
classes, has been kept continually in mind in the preparation of them. The
running index on the tops of the pages is intended to serve instead of
questions. These captions can be used in their present form as topics, in
respect to which, when announced in the class, the pupils are to repeat
substantially what is said on the page; or, on the other hand, questions in
form, if that mode is preferred, can be readily framed from them by the teacher.
In all the volumes, a very regular system of division is observed, which will
greatly facilitate the assignment of lessons.

ENGRAVINGS.

Page MAP OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE Frontispiece. THE EXPOSURE OF THE INFANT 48
CYRUS’S HUNTING 90 THE SECRET CORRESPONDENCE 132 THE SIEGE OF SARDIS 179 RAISING
JEREMIAH FROM THE DUNGEON 219 THE WAR-CHARIOT OF ABRADATES 242


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  CHAPTER 2: 1.01     CHAPTER 1. HERODOTUS AND XENOPHON.
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CHAPTER I. HERODOTUS AND XENOPHON.

B.C.550-401 The Persian monarchy. -- Singular principle of human nature. --
Grandeur of the Persian monarchy. -- Its origin. -- The republics of Greece. --
Written characters Greek and Persian. -- Preservation of the Greek language. --
Herodotus and Xenophon. -- Birth of Herodotus. -- Education of the Greeks. --
How public affairs were discussed. -- Literary entertainments. -- Herodotus’s
early love of knowledge. -- Intercourse of nations. -- Military expeditions. --
Plan of Herodotus’s tour. -- Herodotus visits Egypt. -- Libya and the Straits of
Gibraltar. -- Route of Herodotus in Asia. -- His return to Greece. -- Doubts as
to the extent of Herodotus’s tour. -- His history |adorned.| -- Herodotus’s
credibility questioned. -- Sources of bias. -- Samos. -- Patmos. -- The
Olympiads. -- Herodotus at Olympia. -- History received with applause. --
Herodotus at Athens. -- His literary fame. -- Birth of Xenophon. -- Cyrus the
Younger. -- Ambition of Cyrus. -- He attempts to assassinate his brother. --
Rebellion of Cyrus. -- The Greek auxiliaries. -- Artaxerxes assembles his army.
-- The battle. -- Cyrus slain. -- Murder of the Greek generals. -- Critical
situation of the Greeks. -- Xenophon’s proposal. -- Retreat of the Ten Thousand.
-- Xenophon’s retirement. -- Xenophon’s writings. -- Credibility of Herodotus
and Xenophon. -- Importance of the story. -- Object of this work.

Cyrus was the founder of the ancient Persian empire -- a monarchy, perhaps, the
most wealthy and magnificent which the world has ever seen. Of that strange and
incomprehensible principle of human nature, under the influence of which vast
masses of men, notwithstanding the universal instinct of aversion to control,
combine, under certain circumstances, by millions and millions, to maintain, for
many successive centuries, the representatives of some one great family in a
condition of exalted, and absolute, and utterly irresponsible ascendency over
themselves, while they toil for them, watch over them, submit to endless and
most humiliating privations in their behalf, and commit, if commanded to do so,
the most inexcusable and atrocious crimes to sustain the demigods they have thus
made in their lofty estate, we have, in the case of this Persian monarchy, one
of the most extraordinary exhibitions. The Persian monarchy appears, in fact,
even as we look back upon it from this remote distance both of space and of
time, as a very vast wave of human power and grandeur. It swelled up among the
populations of Asia, between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea, about five
hundred years before Christ, and rolled on in undiminished magnitude and glory
for many centuries. It bore upon its crest the royal line of Astyages and his
successors. Cyrus was, however, the first of the princes whom it held up
conspicuously to the admiration of the world and he rode so gracefully and
gallantly on the lofty crest that mankind have given him the credit of raising
and sustaining the magnificent billow on which he was borne. How far we are to
consider him as founding the monarchy, or the monarchy as raising and
illustrating him, will appear more fully in the course of this narrative.

Cotemporaneous with this Persian monarchy in the East, there flourished in the
West the small but very efficient and vigorous republics of Greece. The Greeks
had a written character for their language which could be easily and rapidly
executed, while the ordinary language of the Persians was scarcely written at
all. There was, it is true, in this latter nation, a certain learned character,
which was used by the priests for their mystic records, and also for certain
sacred books which constituted the only national archives. It was, however, only
slowly and with difficulty that this character could be penned, and, when
penned, it was unintelligible to the great mass of the population. For this
reason, among others, the Greeks wrote narratives of the great events which
occurred in their day, which narratives they so embellished and adorned by the
picturesque lights and shades in which their genius enabled them to present the
scenes and characters described as to make them universally admired, while the
surrounding nations produced nothing but formal governmental records, not worth
to the community at large the toil and labor necessary to decipher them and make
them intelligible. Thus the Greek writers became the historians, not only of
their own republics, but also of all the nations around them; and with such
admirable genius and power did they fulfill this function, that, while the
records of all other nations cotemporary with them have been almost entirely
neglected and forgotten, the language of the Greeks has been preserved among
mankind, with infinite labor and toil, by successive generations of scholars, in
every civilized nation, for two thousand years, solely in order that men may
continue to read these tales.

Two Greek historians have given us a narrative of the events connected with the
life of Cyrus -- Herodotus and Xenophon. These writers disagree very materially
in the statements which they make, and modern readers are divided in opinion on
the question which to believe. In order to present this question fairly to the
minds of our readers, we must commence this volume with some account of these
two authorities, whose guidance, conflicting as it is, furnishes all the light
which we have to follow.

Herodotus was a philosopher and scholar. Xenophon was a great general. The one
spent his life in solitary study, or in visiting various countries in the
pursuit of knowledge; the other distinguished himself in the command of armies,
and in distant military expeditions, which he conducted with great energy and
skill. They were both, by birth, men of wealth and high station, so that they
occupied, from the beginning, conspicuous positions in society; and as they were
both energetic and enterprising in character, they were led, each, to a very
romantic and adventurous career, the one in his travels, the other in his
campaigns, so that their personal history and their exploits attracted great
attention even while they lived.

Herodotus was born in the year 484 before Christ, which was about fifty years
after the death of the Cyrus whose history forms the subject of this volume. He
was born in the Grecian state of Caria, in Asia Minor, and in the city of
Halicarnassus. Caria, as may be seen from the map at the commencement of this
volume, was in the southwestern part of Asia Minor, near the shores of the
AEgean Sea. Herodotus became a student at a very early age. It was the custom in
Greece, at that time, to give to young men of his rank a good intellectual
education. In other nations, the training of the young men, in wealthy and
powerful families, was confined almost exclusively to the use of arms, to
horsemanship, to athletic feats, and other such accomplishments as would give
them a manly and graceful personal bearing, and enable them to excel in the
various friendly contests of the public games, as well as prepare them to
maintain their ground against their enemies in personal combats on the field of
battle. The Greeks, without neglecting these things, taught their young men also
to read and to write, explained to them the structure and the philosophy of
language, and trained them to the study of the poets, the orators, and the
historians which their country had produced. Thus a general taste for
intellectual pursuits and pleasures was diffused throughout the community.
Public affairs were discussed, before large audiences assembled for the purpose,
by orators who felt a great pride and pleasure in the exercise of the power
which they had acquired of persuading, convincing, or exciting the mighty masses
that listened to them; and at the great public celebrations which were customary
in those days, in addition to the wrestlings, the races, the games, and the
military spectacles, there were certain literary entertainments provided, which
constituted an essential part of the public pleasures. Tragedies were acted,
poems recited, odes and lyrics sung, and narratives of martial enterprises and
exploits, and geographical and historical descriptions of neighboring nations,
were read to vast throngs of listeners, who, having been accustomed from infancy
to witness such performances, and to hear them applauded, had learned to
appreciate and enjoy them. Of course, these literary exhibitions would make
impressions, more or less strong, on different minds, as the mental temperaments
and characters of individuals varied. They seem to have exerted a very powerful
influence on the mind of Herodotus in his early years. He was inspired, when
very young, with a great zeal and ardor for the attainment of knowledge; and as
he advanced toward maturity, he began to be ambitious of making new discoveries,
with a view of communicating to his countrymen, in these great public
assemblies, what he should thus acquire. Accordingly, as soon as he arrived at a
suitable age, he resolved to set out upon a tour into foreign countries, and to
bring back a report of what he should see and hear. The intercourse of nations
was, in those days, mainly carried on over the waters of the Mediterranean Sea;
and in times of peace, almost the only mode of communication was by the ships
and the caravans of the merchants who traded from country to country, both by
sea and on the land. In fact, the knowledge which one country possessed of the
geography and the manners and customs of another, was almost wholly confined to
the reports which these merchants circulated. When military expeditions invaded
a territory, the commanders, or the writers who accompanied them, often wrote
descriptions of the scenes which they witnessed in their campaigns, and
described briefly the countries through which they passed. These cases were,
however, comparatively rare; and yet, when they occurred, they furnished
accounts better authenticated, and more to be relied upon, and expressed,
moreover, in a more systematic and regular form, than the reports of the
merchants, though the information which was derived from both these sources
combined was very insufficient, and tended to excite more curiosity than it
gratified. Herodotus, therefore, conceived that, in thoroughly exploring the
countries on the shores of the Mediterranean and in the interior of Asia,
examining their geographical position, inquiring into their history, their
institutions, their manners, customs, and laws, and writing the results for the
entertainment and instruction of his countrymen, he had an ample field before
him for the exercise of all his powers.

He went first to Egypt. Egypt had been until that time, closely shut up from the
rest of mankind by the jealousy and watchfulness of the government. But now, on
account of some recent political changes, which will be hereafter more
particularly alluded to, the way was opened for travelers from other countries
to come in. Herodotus was the first to avail himself of this opportunity. He
spent some time in the country, and made himself minutely acquainted with its
history, its antiquities, its political and social condition at the time of his
visit, and with all the other points in respect to which he supposed that his
countrymen would wish to be informed. He took copious notes of all that he saw.
From Egypt he went westward into Libya, and thence he traveled slowly along the
whole southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea as far as to the Straits of
Gibraltar, noting, with great care, every thing which presented itself to his
own personal observation, and availing himself of every possible source of
information in respect to all other points of importance for the object which he
had in view. The Straits of Gibraltar were the ends of the earth toward the
westward in those ancient days, and our traveler accordingly, after reaching
them, returned again to the eastward. He visited Tyre, and the cities of
Phoenicia, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and thence went still
farther eastward to Assyria and Babylon. It was here that he obtained the
materials for what he has written in respect to the Medes and Persians, and to
the history of Cyrus. After spending some time in these countries, he went on by
land still further to the eastward, into the heart of Asia. The country of
Scythia was considered as at |the end of the earth| in this direction. Herodotus
penetrated for some distance into the almost trackless wilds of this remote
land, until he found that he had gone as far from the great center of light and
power on the shores of the AEgean Sea as he could expect the curiosity of his
countrymen to follow him. He passed thence round toward the north, and came down
through the countries north of the Danube into Greece, by way of the Epirus and
Macedon. To make such a journey as this was, in fact, in those days, almost to
explore the whole known world.

It ought, however, here to be stated, that many modern scholars, who have
examined, with great care, the accounts which Herodotus has given of what he saw
and heard in his wanderings, doubt very seriously whether his journeys were
really as extended as he pretends. As his object was to read what he was
intending to write at great public assemblies in Greece, he was, of course,
under every possible inducement to make his narrative as interesting as
possible, and not to detract at all from whatever there might be extraordinary
either in the extent of his wanderings or in the wonderfulness of the objects
and scenes which he saw, or in the romantic nature of the adventures which he
met with in his protracted tour. Cicero, in lauding him as a writer, says that
he was the first who evinced the power to adorn a historical narrative. Between
adorning and embellishing, the line is not to be very distinctly marked; and
Herodotus has often been accused of having drawn more from his fancy than from
any other source, in respect to a large portion of what he relates and
describes. Some do not believe that he ever even entered half the countries
which he professes to have thoroughly explored, while others find, in the
minuteness of his specifications, something like conclusive proof that he
related only what he actually saw. In a word, the question of his credibility
has been discussed by successive generations of scholars ever since his day, and
strong parties have been formed who have gone to extremes in the opinions they
have taken; so that, while some confer upon him the title of the father of
history, others say it would be more in accordance with his merits to call him
the father of lies. In controversies like this, and, in fact, in all
controversies, it is more agreeable to the mass of mankind to take sides
strongly with one party or the other, and either to believe or disbelieve one or
the other fully and cordially. There is a class of minds, however, more calm and
better balanced than the rest, who can deny themselves this pleasure, and who
see that often, in the most bitter and decided controversies, the truth lies
between. By this class of minds it has been generally supposed that the
narratives of Herodotus are substantially true, though in many cases highly
colored and embellished, or, as Cicero called it, adorned, as, in fact, they
inevitably must have been under the circumstances in which they were written.

We can not follow minutely the circumstances of the subsequent life of
Herodotus. He became involved in some political disturbances and difficulties in
his native state after his return, in consequence of which he retired, partly a
fugitive and partly an exile, to the island of Samos, which is at a little
distance from Caria, and not far from the shore. Here he lived for some time in
seclusion, occupied in writing out his history. He divided it into nine books,
to which, respectively, the names of the nine Muses were afterward given, to
designate them. The island of Samos, where this great literary work was
performed, is very near to Patmos, where, a few hundred years later, the
Evangelist John, in a similar retirement, and in the use of the same language
and character, wrote the Book of Revelation. When a few of the first books of
his history were completed, Herodotus went with the manuscript to Olympia, at
the great celebration of the 81st Olympiad. The Olympiads were periods recurring
at intervals of about four years. By means of them the Greeks reckoned their
time. The Olympiads were celebrated as they occurred, with games, shows,
spectacles, and parades, which were conducted on so magnificent a scale that
vast crowds were accustomed to assemble from every part of Greece to witness and
join in them. They were held at Olympia, a city on the western side of Greece.
Nothing now remains to mark the spot but some acres of confused and
unintelligible ruins. The personal fame of Herodotus and of his travels had
preceded him, and when he arrived at Olympia he found the curiosity and
eagerness of the people to listen to his narratives extreme. He read copious
extracts from his accounts, so far as he had written them, to the vast
assemblies which convened to hear him, and they were received with unbounded
applause; and inasmuch as these assemblies comprised nearly all the statesmen,
the generals, the philosophers, and the scholars of Greece, applause expressed
by them became at once universal renown. Herodotus was greatly gratified at the
interest which his countrymen took in his narratives, and he determined
thenceforth to devote his time assiduously to the continuation and completion of
his work.

It was twelve years, however, before his plan was finally accomplished. He then
repaired to Athens, at the time of a grand festive celebration which was held in
that city, and there he appeared in public again, and read extended portions of
the additional books that he had written. The admiration and applause which his
work now elicited was even greater than before. In deciding upon the passages to
be read, Herodotus selected such as would be most likely to excite the interest
of his Grecian hearers, and many of them were glowing accounts of Grecian
exploits in former wars which had been waged in the countries which he had
visited. To expect that, under such circumstances, Herodotus should have made
his history wholly impartial, would be to suppose the historian not human. The
Athenians were greatly pleased with the narratives which Herodotus thus read to
them of their own and of their ancestors’ exploits. They considered him a
national benefactor for having made such a record of their deeds, and, in
addition to the unbounded applause which they bestowed upon him, they made him a
public grant of a large sum of money. During the remainder of his life Herodotus
continued to enjoy the high degree of literary renown which his writings had
acquired for him -- a renown which has since been extended and increased, rather
than diminished, by the lapse of time. As for Xenophon, the other great
historian of Cyrus, it has already been said that he was a military commander,
and his life was accordingly spent in a very different manner from that of his
great competitor for historic fame. He was born at Athens, about thirty years
after the birth of Herodotus, so that he was but a child while Herodotus was in
the midst of his career. When he was about twenty-two years of age, he joined a
celebrated military expedition which was formed in Greece, for the purpose of
proceeding to Asia Minor to enter into the service of the governor of that
country. The name of this governor was Cyrus; and to distinguish him from Cyrus
the Great, whose history is to form the subject of this volume, and who lived
about one hundred and fifty years before him, he is commonly called Cyrus the
Younger. This expedition was headed by a Grecian general named Clearchus. The
soldiers and the subordinate officers of the expedition did not know for what
special service it was designed, as Cyrus had a treasonable and guilty object in
view, and he kept it accordingly concealed, even from the agents who were to aid
him in the execution of it. His plan was to make war upon and dethrone his
brother Artaxerxes, then king of Persia, and consequently his sovereign. Cyrus
was a very young man, but he was a man of a very energetic and accomplished
character, and of unbounded ambition. When his father died, it was arranged that
Artaxerxes, the older son, should succeed him. Cyrus was extremely unwilling to
submit to this supremacy of his brother. His mother was an artful and
unprincipled woman, and Cyrus, being the youngest of her children, was her
favorite. She encouraged him in his ambitious designs; and so desperate was
Cyrus himself in his determination to accomplish them, that it is said he
attempted to assassinate his brother on the day of his coronation. His attempt
was discovered, and it failed. His brother, however, instead of punishing him
for the treason, had the generosity to pardon him, and sent him to his
government in Asia Minor. Cyrus immediately turned all his thoughts to the plan
of raising an army and making war upon his brother, in order to gain forcible
possession of his throne. That he might have a plausible pretext for making the
necessary military preparations, he pretended to have a quarrel with one of his
neighbors, and wrote, hypocritically, many letters to the king, affecting
solicitude for his safety, and asking aid. The king was thus deceived, and made
no preparations to resist the force which Cyrus was assembling, not having the
remotest suspicion that its destiny was Babylon. The auxiliary army which came
from Greece to enter into Cyrus’s service under these circumstances, consisted
of about thirteen thousand men. He had, it was said, a hundred thousand men
besides; but so celebrated were the Greeks in those days for their courage,
their discipline, their powers of endurance, and their indomitable tenacity and
energy, that Cyrus very properly considered this corps as the flower of his
army. Xenophon was one of the younger Grecian generals. The army crossed the
Hellespont, and entered Asia Minor, and, passing across the country, reached at
last the famous pass of Cilicia, in the southwestern part of the country -- a
narrow defile between the mountains and the sea, which opens the only passage in
that quarter toward the Persian regions beyond. Here the suspicions which the
Greeks had been for some time inclined to feel, that they were going to make war
upon the Persian monarch himself, were confirmed, and they refused to proceed.
Their unwillingness, however, did not arise from any compunctions of conscience
about the guilt of treason, or the wickedness of helping an ungrateful and
unprincipled wretch, whose forfeited life had once been given to him by his
brother, in making war upon and destroying his benefactor. Soldiers have never,
in any age of the world, any thing to do with compunctions of conscience in
respect to the work which their commanders give them to perform. The Greeks were
perfectly willing to serve in this or in any other undertaking; but, since it
was rebellion and treason that was asked of them, they considered it as
specially hazardous, and so they concluded that they were entitled to extra pay.
Cyrus made no objection to this demand; an arrangement was made accordingly, and
the army went on.

Artaxerxes assembled suddenly the whole force of his empire on the plains of
Babylon -- an immense army, consisting, it is said, of over a million of men.
Such vast forces occupy, necessarily, a wide extent of country, even when drawn
up in battle array. So great, in fact, was the extent occupied in this case,
that the Greeks, who conquered all that part of the king’s forces which was
directly opposed to them, supposed, when night came, at the close of the day of
battle, that Cyrus had been every where victorious; and they were only
undeceived when, the next day, messengers came from the Persian camp to inform
them that Cyrus’s whole force, excepting themselves, was defeated and dispersed,
and that Cyrus himself was slain, and to summon them to surrender at once and
unconditionally to the conquerors. The Greeks refused to surrender. They formed
themselves immediately into a compact and solid body, fortified themselves as
well as they could in their position, and prepared for a desperate defense.
There were about ten thousand of them left, and the Persians seem to have
considered them too formidable to be attacked. The Persians entered into
negotiations with them, offering them certain terms on which they would be
allowed to return peaceably into Greece. These negotiations were protracted from
day to day for two or three weeks, the Persians treacherously using toward them
a friendly tone, and evincing a disposition to treat them in a liberal and
generous manner. This threw the Greeks off their guard, and finally the Persians
contrived to get Clearchus and the leading Greek generals into their power at a
feast, and then they seized and murdered them, or, as they would perhaps term
it, executed them as rebels and traitors. When this was reported in the Grecian
camp, the whole army was thrown at first into the utmost consternation. They
found themselves two thousand miles from home, in the heart of a hostile
country, with an enemy nearly a hundred times their own number close upon them,
while they themselves were without provisions, without horses, without money;
and there were deep rivers, and rugged mountains, and every other possible
physical obstacle to be surmounted, before they could reach their own frontiers.
If they surrendered to their enemies, a hopeless and most miserable slavery was
their inevitable doom.

Under these circumstances, Xenophon, according to his own story, called together
the surviving officers in the camp, urged them not to despair, and recommended
that immediate measures should be taken for commencing a march toward Greece. He
proposed that they should elect commanders to take the places of those who had
been killed, and that, under their new organization, they should immediately set
out on their return. These plans were adopted. He himself was chosen as the
commanding general, and under his guidance the whole force was conducted safely
through the countless difficulties and dangers which beset their way, though
they had to defend themselves, at every step of their progress, from an enemy so
vastly more numerous than they, and which was hanging on their flanks and on
their rear, and making the most incessant efforts to surround and capture them.
This retreat occupied two hundred and fifteen days. It has always been
considered as one of the greatest military achievements that has ever been
performed. It is called in history the Retreat of the Ten Thousand. Xenophon
acquired by it a double immortality. He led the army, and thus attained to a
military renown which will never fade; and he afterward wrote a narrative of the
exploit, which has given him an equally extended and permanent literary fame.

Some time after this, Xenophon returned again to Asia as a military commander,
and distinguished himself in other campaigns. He acquired a large fortune, too,
in these wars, and at length retired to a villa, which he built and adorned
magnificently, in the neighborhood of Olympia, where Herodotus had acquired so
extended a fame by reading his histories. It was probably, in some degree,
through the influence of the success which had attended the labors of Herodotus
in this field, that Xenophon was induced to enter it. He devoted the later years
of his life to writing various historical memoirs, the two most important of
which that have come down to modern times are, first, the narrative of his own
expedition, under Cyrus the Younger, and, secondly, a sort of romance or tale
founded on the history of Cyrus the Great. This last is called the Cyropaedia;
and it is from this work, and from the history written by Herodotus, that nearly
all our knowledge of the great Persian monarch is derived. The question how far
the stories which Herodotus and Xenophon have told us in relating the history of
the great Persian king are true, is of less importance than one would at first
imagine; for the case is one of those numerous instances in which the narrative
itself, which genius has written, has had far greater influence on mankind than
the events themselves exerted which the narrative professes to record. It is now
far more important for us to know what the story is which has for eighteen
hundred years been read and listened to by every generation of men, than what
the actual events were in which the tale thus told had its origin. This
consideration applies very extensively to history, and especially to ancient
history. The events themselves have long since ceased to be of any great
interest or importance to readers of the present day; but the accounts, whether
they are fictitious or real, partial or impartial, honestly true or embellished
and colored, since they have been so widely circulated in every age and in every
nation, and have impressed themselves so universally and so permanently in the
mind and memory of the whole human race, and have penetrated into and colored
the literature of every civilized people, it becomes now necessary that every
well-informed man should understand. In a word, the real Cyrus is now a far less
important personage to mankind than the Cyrus of Herodotus and Xenophon, and it
is, accordingly, their story which the author proposes to relate in this volume.
The reader will understand, therefore, that the end and aim of the work is not
to guarantee an exact and certain account of Cyrus as he actually lived and
acted, but only to give a true and faithful summary of the story which for the
last two thousand years has been in circulation respecting him among mankind.


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  CHAPTER 3: 1.02     CHAPTER 2. THE BIRTH OF CYRUS.
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CHAPTER II. THE BIRTH OF CYRUS.

B.C.599-588 The three Asiatic empires. -- Marriage of Cambyses. -- Story of
Mandane. -- Dream of Astyages. -- Astyages’ second dream. -- Its interpretation.
-- Birth of Cyrus. -- Astyages determines to destroy him. -- Harpagus. -- The
king’s command to him. -- Distress of Harpagus. -- His consultation with his
wife. -- The herdsman. -- He conveys the child to his hut. -- The herdsman’s
wife. -- Conversation in the hut. -- Entreaties of the herdsman’s wife to save
the child’s life. -- Spaco substitutes her dead child for Cyrus. -- The artifice
successful. -- The body buried. -- Remorse of Astyages. -- Boyhood of Cyrus. --
Cyrus a king among the boys. -- A quarrel. -- Cyrus summoned into the presence
of Astyages. -- Cyrus’s defense. -- Astonishment of Astyages. -- The discovery.
-- Mingled feelings of Astyages. -- Inhuman monsters. -- Astyages determines to
punish Harpagus. -- Interview between Artyages and Harpagus. -- Explanation of
Harpagus. -- Dissimulation of Astyages. -- He proposes an entertainment. --
Astyages invites Harpagus to a grand entertainment. -- Horrible revenge. --
Action of Harpagus. -- Astyages becomes uneasy. -- The magi again consulted. --
Advice of the magi. -- Astyages adopts it. -- Cyrus sets out for Persia. -- His
parents’ joy. -- Life at Cambyses’s court. -- Instruction of the young men. --
Cyrus a judge. -- His decision in that capacity. -- Cyrus punished. -- Manly
exercises. -- Hunting excursions. -- Personal appearance of Cyrus. --
Disposition and character of Cyrus. -- A universal favorite.

There are records coming down to us from the very earliest times of three
several kingdoms situated in the heart of Asia-Assyria, Media, and Persia, the
two latter of which, at the period when they first emerge indistinctly into
view, were more or less connected with and dependent upon the former. Astyages
was the King of Media; Cambyses was the name of the ruling prince or magistrate
of Persia. Cambyses married Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, and Cyrus was
their son. In recounting the circumstances of his birth, Herodotus relates, with
all seriousness, the following very extraordinary story:

While Mandane was a maiden, living at her father’s palace and home in Media,
Astyages awoke one morning terrified by a dream. He had dreamed of a great
inundation, which overwhelmed and destroyed his capital, and submerged a large
part of his kingdom. The great rivers of that country were liable to very
destructive floods, and there would have been nothing extraordinary or alarming
in the king’s imagination being haunted, during his sleep, by the image of such
a calamity, were it not that, in this case, the deluge of water which produced
such disastrous results seemed to be, in some mysterious way, connected with his
daughter, so that the dream appeared to portend some great calamity which was to
originate in her. He thought it perhaps indicated that after her marriage she
should have a son who would rebel against him and seize the supreme power, thus
overwhelming his kingdom as the inundation had done which he had seen in his
dream. To guard against this imagined danger, Astyages determined that his
daughter should not be married in Media, but that she should be provided with a
husband in some foreign land, so as to be taken away from Media altogether. He
finally selected Cambyses, the king of Persia, for her husband. Persia was at
that time a comparatively small and circumscribed dominion, and Cambyses, though
he seems to have been the supreme ruler of it, was very far beneath Astyages in
rank and power. The distance between the two countries was considerable, and the
institutions and customs of the people of Persia were simple and rude, little
likely to awaken or encourage in the minds of their princes any treasonable or
ambitious designs. Astyages thought, therefore, that in sending Mandane there to
be the wife of the king, he had taken effectual precautions to guard against the
danger portended by his dream.

Mandane was accordingly married, and conducted by her husband to her new home.
About a year afterward her father had another dream. He dreamed that a vine
proceeded from his daughter, and, growing rapidly and luxuriantly while he was
regarding it, extended itself over the whole land. Now the vine being a symbol
of beneficence and plenty, Astyages might have considered this vision as an omen
of good; still, as it was good which was to be derived in some way from his
daughter, it naturally awakened his fears anew that he was doomed to find a
rival and competitor for the possession of his kingdom in Mandane’s son and
heir. He called together his soothsayers, related his dream to them, and asked
for their interpretation. They decided that it meant that Mandane would have a
son who would one day become a king.

Astyages was now seriously alarmed, and he sent for Mandane to come home,
ostensibly because he wished her to pay a visit to her father and to her native
land, but really for the purpose of having her in his power, that he might
destroy her child so soon as one should be born.

Mandane came to Media, and was established by her father in a residence near his
palace, and such officers and domestics were put in charge of her household as
Astyages could rely upon to do whatever he should command. Things being thus
arranged, a few months passed away, and then Mandane’s child was born.

Immediately on hearing of the event, Astyages sent for a certain officer of his
court, an unscrupulous and hardened man, who possessed, as he supposed, enough
of depraved and reckless resolution for the commission of any crime, and
addressed him as follows:

|I have sent for you, Harpagus, to commit to your charge a business of very
great importance. I confide fully in your principles of obedience and fidelity,
and depend upon your doing, yourself, with your own hands, the work that I
require. If you fail to do it, or if you attempt to evade it by putting it off
upon others, you will suffer severely. I wish you to take Mandane’s child to
your own house and put him to death. You may accomplish the object in any mode
you please, and you may arrange the circumstances of the burial of the body, or
the disposal of it in any other way, as you think best; the essential thing is,
that you see to it, yourself, that the child is killed.|

Harpagus replied that whatever the king might command it was his duty to do, and
that, as his master had never hitherto had occasion to censure his conduct, he
should not find him wanting now. Harpagus then went to receive the infant. The
attendants of Mandane had been ordered to deliver it to him. Not at all
suspecting the object for which the child was thus taken away, but naturally
supposing, on the other hand, that it was for the purpose of some visit, they
arrayed their unconscious charge in the most highly-wrought and costly of the
robes which Mandane, his mother, had for many months been interested in
preparing for him, and then gave him up to the custody of Harpagus, expecting,
doubtless, that he would be very speedily returned to their care.

Although Harpagus had expressed a ready willingness to obey the cruel behest of
the king at the time of receiving it, he manifested, as soon as he received the
child, an extreme degree of anxiety and distress. He immediately sent for a
herdsman named Mitridates to come to him. In the mean time, he took the child
home to his house, and in a very excited and agitated manner related to his wife
what had passed. He laid the child down in the apartment, leaving it neglected
and alone, while he conversed with his wife in a harried and anxious manner in
respect to the dreadful situation in which he found himself placed. She asked
him what he intended to do. He replied that he certainly should not, himself,
destroy the child. |It is the son of Mandane,| said he. |She is the king’s
daughter. If the king should die, Mandane would succeed him, and then what
terrible danger would impend over me if she should know me to have been the
slayer of her son!| Harpagus said, moreover, that he did not dare absolutely to
disobey the orders of the king so far as to save the child’s life, and that he
had sent for a herdsman, whose pastures extended to wild and desolate forests
and mountains -- the gloomy haunts of wild beasts and birds of prey -- intending
to give the child to him, with orders to carry it into those solitudes and
abandon it there. His name was Mitridates.

While they were speaking this herdsman came in. He found Harpagus and his wife
talking thus together, with countenances expressive of anxiety and distress,
while the child, uneasy under the confinement and inconveniences of its splendid
dress, and terrified at the strangeness of the scene and the circumstances
around it, and perhaps, moreover, experiencing some dawning and embryo emotions
of resentment at being laid down in neglect, cried aloud and incessantly.
Harpagus gave the astonished herdsman his charge. He, afraid, as Harpagus had
been in the presence of Astyages, to evince any hesitation in respect to obeying
the orders of his superior, whatever they might be, took up the child and bore
it away.

He carried it to his hut. It so happened that his wife, whose name was Spaco,
had at that very time a new-born child, but it was dead. Her dead son had, in
fact, been born during the absence of Mitridates. He had been extremely
unwilling to leave his home at such a time, but the summons of Harpagus must, he
knew, be obeyed. His wife, too, not knowing what could have occasioned so sudden
and urgent a call, had to bear, all the day, a burden of anxiety and solicitude
in respect to her husband, in addition to her disappointment and grief at the
loss of her child. Her anxiety and grief were changed for a little time into
astonishment and curiosity at seeing the beautiful babe, so magnificently
dressed, which her husband brought to her, and at hearing his extraordinary
story.

He said that when he first entered the house of Harpagus and saw the child lying
there, and heard the directions which Harpagus gave him to carry it into the
mountains and leave it to die, he supposed that the babe belonged to some of the
domestics of the household, and that Harpagus wished to have it destroyed in
order to be relieved of a burden. The richness, however, of the infant’s dress,
and the deep anxiety and sorrow which was indicated by the countenances and by
the conversation of Harpagus and his wife, and which seemed altogether too
earnest to be excited by the concern which they would probably feel for any
servant’s offspring, appeared at the time, he said, inconsistent with that
supposition, and perplexed and bewildered him. He said, moreover, that in the
end, Harpagus had sent a man with him a part of the way when he left the house,
and that this man had given him a full explanation of the case. The child was
the son of Mandane, the daughter of the king, and he was to be destroyed by the
orders of Astyages himself, for fear that at some future period he might attempt
to usurp the throne.

They who know any thing of the feelings of a mother under the circumstances in
which Spaco was placed, can imagine with what emotions she received the little
sufferer, now nearly exhausted by abstinence, fatigue, and fear, from her
husband’s hands, and the heartfelt pleasure with which she drew him to her
bosom, to comfort and relieve him. In an hour she was, as it were, herself his
mother, and she began to plead hard with her husband for his life.

Mitridates said that the child could not possibly be saved. Harpagus had been
most earnest and positive in his orders, and he was coming himself to see that
they had been executed. He would demand, undoubtedly, to see the body of the
child, to assure himself that it was actually dead. Spaco, instead of being
convinced by her husband’s reasoning, only became more and more earnest in her
desires that the child might be saved. She rose from her couch and clasped her
husband’s knees, and begged him with the most earnest entreaties and with many
tears to grant her request. Her husband was, however, inexorable. He said that
if he were to yield, and attempt to save the child from its doom, Harpagus would
most certainly know that his orders had been disobeyed, and then their own lives
would be forfeited, and the child itself sacrificed after all, in the end. The
thought then occurred to Spaco that her own dead child might be substituted for
the living one, and be exposed in the mountains in its stead. She proposed this
plan, and, after much anxious doubt and hesitation, the herdsman consented to
adopt it. They took off the splendid robes which adorned the living child, and
put them on the corpse, each equally unconscious of the change. The little limbs
of the son of Mandane were then more simply clothed in the coarse and scanty
covering which belonged to the new character which he was now to assume, and
then the babe was restored to its place in Spaco’s bosom. Mitridates placed his
own dead child, completely disguised as it was by the royal robes it wore, in
the little basket or cradle in which the other had been brought, and,
accompanied by an attendant, whom he was to leave in the forest to keep watch
over the body, he went away to seek some wild and desolate solitude in which to
leave it exposed.

[Illustration: THE EXPOSURE OF THE INFANT.]

Three days passed away, during which the attendant whom the herdsman had left in
the forest watched near the body to prevent its being devoured by wild beasts or
birds of prey, and at the end of that time he brought it home. The herdsman then
went to Harpagus to inform him that the child was dead, and, in proof that it
was really so, he said that if Harpagus would come to his hut he could see the
body. Harpagus sent some messenger in whom he could confide to make the
observation. The herdsman exhibited the dead child to him, and he was satisfied.
He reported the result of his mission to Harpagus, and Harpagus then ordered the
body to be buried. The child of Mandane, whom we may call Cyrus, since that was
the name which he subsequently received, was brought up in the herdsman’s hut,
and passed every where for Spaco’s child.

Harpagus, after receiving the report of his messenger, then informed Astyages
that his orders had been executed, and that the child was dead. A trusty
messenger, he said, whom he had sent for the purpose, had seen the body.
Although the king had been so earnest to have the deed performed, he found that,
after all, the knowledge that his orders had been obeyed gave him very little
satisfaction. The fears, prompted by his selfishness and ambition, which had led
him to commit the crime, gave place, when it had been perpetrated, to remorse
for his unnatural cruelty. Mandane mourned incessantly the death of her innocent
babe, and loaded her father with reproaches for having destroyed it, which he
found it very hard to bear. In the end, he repented bitterly of what he had
done. The secret of the child’s preservation remained concealed for about ten
years. It was then discovered in the following manner:

Cyrus, like Alexander, Caesar, William the Conqueror, Napoleon, and other
commanding minds, who obtained a great ascendancy over masses of men in their
maturer years, evinced his dawning superiority at a very early period of his
boyhood. He took the lead of his playmates in their sports, and made them submit
to his regulations and decisions. Not only did the peasants’ boys in the little
hamlet where his reputed father lived thus yield the precedence to him, but
sometimes, when the sons of men of rank and station came out from the city to
join them in their plays, even then Cyrus was the acknowledged head. One day the
son of an officer of King Astyages’s court -- his father’s name was Artembaris
-- came out, with other boys from the city, to join these village boys in their
sports. They were playing king. Cyrus was the king. Herodotus says that the
other boys chose him as such. It was, however, probably such a sort of choice as
that by which kings and emperors are made among men, a yielding more or less
voluntary on the part of the subjects to the resolute and determined energy with
which the aspirant places himself upon the throne.

During the progress of the play, a quarrel arose between Cyrus and the son of
Artembaris. The latter would not obey, and Cyrus beat him. He went home and
complained bitterly to his father. The father went to Astyages to protest
against such an indignity offered to his son by a peasant boy, and demanded that
the little tyrant should be punished. Probably far the larger portion of
intelligent readers of history consider the whole story as a romance; but if we
look upon it as in any respect true, we must conclude that the Median monarchy
must have been, at that time, in a very rude and simple condition indeed, to
allow of the submission of such a question as this to the personal adjudication
of the reigning king.

However this may be, Herodotus states that Artembaris went to the palace of
Astyages, taking his son with him, to offer proofs of the violence of which the
herdsman’s son had been guilty, by showing the contusions and bruises that had
been produced by the blows. |Is this the treatment,| he asked, indignantly, of
the king, when he had completed his statement, |that my boy is to receive from
the son of one of your slaves?|

Astyages seemed to be convinced that Artembaris had just cause to complain, and
he sent for Mitridates and his son to come to him in the city. When they
arrived, Cyrus advanced into the presence of the king with that courageous and
manly bearing which romance writers are so fond of ascribing to boys of noble
birth, whatever may have been the circumstances of their early training.
Astyages was much struck with his appearance and air. He, however, sternly laid
to his charge the accusation which Artembaris had brought against him. Pointing
to Artembaris’s son, all bruised and swollen as he was, he asked, |Is that the
way that you, a mere herdsman’s boy, dare to treat the son of one of my nobles?|
The little prince looked up into his stern judge’s face with an undaunted
expression of countenance, which, considering the circumstances of the case, and
the smallness of the scale on which this embryo heroism was represented, was
partly ludicrous and partly sublime.

|My lord,| said he, |what I have done I am able to justify. I did punish this
boy, and I had a right to do so. I was king, and he was my subject, and he would
not obey me. If you think that for this I deserve punishment myself, here I am;
I am ready to suffer it.|

If Astyages had been struck with the appearance and manner of Cyrus at the
commencement of the interview, his admiration was awakened far more strongly
now, at hearing such words, uttered, too, in so exalted a tone, from such a
child. He remained a long time silent. At last he told Artembaris and his son
that they might retire. He would take the affair, he said, into his own hands,
and dispose of it in a just and proper manner. Astyages then took the herdsman
aside, and asked him, in an earnest tone, whose boy that was, and where he had
obtained him.

Mitridates was terrified. He replied, however, that the boy was his own son, and
that his mother was still living at home, in the hut where they all resided.
There seems to have been something, however, in his appearance and manner, while
making these assertions, which led Astyages not to believe what he said. He was
convinced that there was some unexplained mystery in respect to the origin of
the boy, which the herdsman was willfully withholding. He assumed a displeased
and threatening air, and ordered in his guards to take Mitridates into custody.
The terrified herdsman then said that he would explain all, and he accordingly
related honestly the whole story.

Astyages was greatly rejoiced to find that the child was alive. One would
suppose it to be almost inconsistent with this feeling that he should be angry
with Harpagus for not having destroyed it. It would seem, in fact, that Harpagus
was not amenable to serious censure, in any view of the subject, for he had
taken what he had a right to consider very effectual measures for carrying the
orders of the king into faithful execution. But Astyages seems to have been one
of those inhuman monsters which the possession and long-continued exercise of
despotic power have so often made, who take a calm, quiet, and deliberate
satisfaction in torturing to death any wretched victim whom they can have any
pretext for destroying, especially if they can invent some new means of torment
to give a fresh piquancy to their pleasure. These monsters do not act from
passion. Men are sometimes inclined to palliate great cruelties and crimes which
are perpetrated under the influence of sudden anger, or from the terrible
impulse of those impetuous and uncontrollable emotions of the human soul which,
when once excited, seem to make men insane; but the crimes of a tyrant are not
of this kind. They are the calm, deliberate, and sometimes carefully economized
gratifications of a nature essentially malign.

When, therefore, Astyages learned that Harpagus had failed of literally obeying
his command to destroy, with his own hand, the infant which had been given him,
although he was pleased with the consequences which had resulted from it, he
immediately perceived that there was another pleasure besides that he was to
derive from the transaction, namely, that of gratifying his own imperious and
ungovernable will by taking vengeance on him who had failed, even in so slight a
degree, of fulfilling its dictates. In a word, he was glad that the child was
saved, but he did not consider that that was any reason why he should not have
the pleasure of punishing the man who saved him.

Thus, far from being transported by any sudden and violent feeling of resentment
to an inconsiderate act of revenge, Astyages began, calmly and coolly, and with
a deliberate malignity more worthy of a demon than of a man, to consider how he
could best accomplish the purpose he had in view. When, at length, his plan was
formed, he sent for Harpagus to come to him. Harpagus came. The king began the
conversation by asking Harpagus what method he had employed for destroying the
child of Mandane, which he, the king, had delivered to him some years before.
Harpagus replied by stating the exact truth. He said that, as soon as he had
received the infant, he began immediately to consider by what means he could
effect its destruction without involving himself in the guilt of murder; that,
finally, he had determined upon employing the herdsman Mitridates to expose it
in the forest till it should perish of hunger and cold; and, in order to be sure
that the king’s behest was fully obeyed, he charged the herdsman, he said, to
keep strict watch near the child till it was dead, and then to bring home the
body. He had then sent a confidential messenger from his own household to see
the body and provide for its interment. He solemnly assured the king, in
conclusion, that this was the real truth, and that the child was actually
destroyed in the manner he had described. The king then, with an appearance of
great satisfaction and pleasure, informed Harpagus that the child had not been
destroyed after all, and he related to him the circumstances of its having been
exchanged for the dead child of Spaco, and brought up in the herdsman’s hut. He
informed him, too, of the singular manner in which the fact that the infant had
been preserved, and was still alive, had been discovered. He told Harpagus,
moreover, that he was greatly rejoiced at this discovery. |After he was dead, as
I supposed,| said he, |I bitterly repented of having given orders to destroy
him. I could not bear my daughter’s grief, or the reproaches which she
incessantly uttered against me. But the child is alive, and all is well; and I
am going to give a grand entertainment as a festival of rejoicing on the
occasion.|

Astyages then requested Harpagus to send his son, who was about thirteen years
of age, to the palace, to be a companion to Cyrus, and, inviting him very
specially to come to the entertainment, he dismissed him with many marks of
attention and honor. Harpagus went home, trembling at the thought of the
imminent danger which he had incurred, and of the narrow escape by which he had
been saved from it. He called his son, directed him to prepare himself to go to
the king, and dismissed him with many charges in respect to his behavior, both
toward the king and toward Cyrus. He related to his wife the conversation which
had taken place between himself and Astyages, and she rejoiced with him in the
apparently happy issue of an affair which might well have been expected to have
been their ruin. The sequel of the story is too horrible to be told, and yet too
essential to a right understanding of the influences and effects produced on
human nature by the possession and exercise of despotic and irresponsible power
to be omitted. Harpagus came to the festival. It was a grand entertainment.
Harpagus was placed in a conspicuous position at the table. A great variety of
dishes were brought in and set before the different guests, and were eaten
without question. Toward the close of the feast, Astyages asked Harpagus what he
thought of his fare. Harpagus, half terrified with some mysterious presentiment
of danger, expressed himself well pleased with it. Astyages then told him there
was plenty more of the same kind, and ordered the attendants to bring the basket
in. They came accordingly, and uncovered a basket before the wretched guest,
which contained, as he saw when he looked into it, the head, and hands, and feet
of his son. Astyages asked him to help himself to whatever part he liked! The
most astonishing part of the story is yet to be told. It relates to the action
of Harpagus in such an emergency. He looked as composed and placid as if nothing
unusual had occurred. The king asked him if he knew what he had been eating. He
said that he did; and that whatever was agreeable to the will of the king was
always pleasing to him!!

It is hard to say whether despotic power exerts its worst and most direful
influences on those who wield it, or on those who have it to bear; on its
masters, or on its slaves.

After the first feelings of pleasure which Astyages experienced in being
relieved from the sense of guilt which oppressed his mind so long as he supposed
that his orders for the murder of his infant grandchild had been obeyed, his
former uneasiness lest the child should in future years become his rival and
competitor for the possession of the Median throne, which had been the motive
originally instigating him to the commission of the crime, returned in some
measure again, and he began to consider whether it was not incumbent on him to
take some measures to guard against such a result. The end of his deliberations
was, that he concluded to send for the magi, or soothsayers, as he had done in
the case of his dream, and obtain their judgment on the affair in the new aspect
which it had now assumed. When the magi had heard the king’s narrative of the
circumstances under which the discovery of the child’s preservation had been
made, through complaints which had been preferred against him on account of the
manner in which he had exercised the prerogatives of a king among his playmates,
they decided at once that Astyages had no cause for any further apprehensions in
respect to the dreams which had disturbed him previous to his grandchild’s
birth. |He has been a king,| they said, |and the danger is over. It is true that
he has been a monarch only in play, but that is enough to satisfy and fulfill
the presages of the vision. Occurrences very slight and trifling in themselves
are often found to accomplish what seemed of very serious magnitude and moment,
as portended. Your grandchild has been a king, and he will never reign again.
You have, therefore, no further cause to fear, and may send him to his parents
in Persia with perfect safety.| The king determined to adopt this advice. He
ordered the soothsayers, however, not to remit their assiduity and vigilance,
and if any signs or omens should appear to indicate approaching danger, he
charged them to give him immediate warning. This they faithfully promised to do.
They felt, they said, a personal interest in doing it; for Cyrus being a Persian
prince, his accession to the Median throne would involve the subjection of the
Medes to the Persian dominion, a result which they wished in every account to
avoid. So, promising to watch vigilantly for every indication of danger, they
left the presence of the king. The king then sent for Cyrus.

It seems that Cyrus, though astonished at the great and mysterious changes which
had taken place in his condition, was still ignorant of his true history.
Astyages now told him that he was to go into Persia. |You will rejoin there,|
said he, |your true parents, who, you will find, are of very different rank in
life from the herdsman whom you have lived with thus far. You will make the
journey under the charge and escort of persons that I have appointed for the
purpose. They will explain to you, on the way, the mystery in which your
parentage and birth seems to you at present enveloped. You will find that I was
induced many years ago, by the influence of an untoward dream, to treat you
injuriously. But all has ended well, and you can now go in peace to your proper
home.| As soon as the preparations for the journey could be made, Cyrus set out,
under the care of the party appointed to conduct him, and went to Persia. His
parents were at first dumb with astonishment, and were then overwhelmed with
gladness and joy at seeing their much-loved and long-lost babe reappear, as if
from the dead, in the form of this tall and handsome boy, with health,
intelligence, and happiness beaming in his countenance. They overwhelmed him
with caresses, and the heart of Mandane, especially, was filled with pride and
pleasure. As soon as Cyrus became somewhat settled in his new home, his parents
began to make arrangements for giving him as complete an education as the means
and opportunities of those days afforded.

Xenophon, in his narrative of the early life of Cyrus, gives a minute, and, in
some respects, quite an extraordinary account of the mode of life led in
Cambyses’s court. The sons of all the nobles and officers of the court were
educated together, within the precincts of the royal palaces, or, rather, they
spent their time together there, occupied in various pursuits and avocations,
which were intended to train them for the duties of future life, though there
was very little of what would be considered, in modern times, as education. They
were not generally taught to read, nor could they, in fact, since there were no
books, have used that art if they had acquired it. The only intellectual
instruction which they seem to have received was what was called learning
justice. The boys had certain teachers, who explained to them, more or less
formally, the general principles of right and wrong, the injunctions and
prohibitions of the laws, and the obligations resulting from them, and the rules
by which controversies between man and man, arising in the various relations of
life, should be settled. The boys were also trained to apply these principles
and rules to the cases which occurred among themselves, each acting as judge in
turn, to discuss and decide the questions that arose from time to time, either
from real transactions as they occurred, or from hypothetical cases invented to
put their powers to the test. To stimulate the exercise of their powers, they
were rewarded when they decided right, and punished when they decided wrong.
Cyrus himself was punished on one occasion for a wrong decision, under the
following circumstances: A bigger boy took away the coat of a smaller boy than
himself, because it was larger than his own, and gave him his own smaller coat
instead. The smaller boy complained of the wrong, and the case was referred to
Cyrus for his adjudication. After hearing the case, Cyrus decided that each boy
should keep the coat that fitted him. The teacher condemned this as a very
unjust decision. |When you are called upon,| said he, |to consider a question of
what fits best, then you should determine as you have done in this case; but
when you are appointed to decide whose each coat is, and to adjudge it to the
proper owner, then you are to consider what constitutes right possession, and
whether he who takes a thing by force from one who is weaker than himself,
should have it, or whether he who made it or purchased it should be protected in
his property. You have decided against law, and in favor of violence and wrong.|
Cyrus’s sentence was thus condemned, and he was punished for not reasoning more
soundly. The boys at this Persian court were trained to many manly exercises.
They were taught to wrestle and to run. They were instructed in the use of such
arms as were employed in those times, and rendered dexterous in the use of them
by daily exercises. They were taught to put their skill in practice, too, in
hunting excursions, which they took, by turns, with the king, in the neighboring
forest and mountains. On these occasions, they were armed with a bow, and a
quiver of arrows, a shield, a small sword or dagger which was worn at the side
in a sort of scabbard, and two javelins. One of these was intended to be thrown,
the other to be retained in the hand, for use in close combat, in case the wild
beast, in his desperation, should advance to a personal re-encounter. These
hunting expeditions were considered extremely important as a part of the system
of youthful training. They were often long and fatiguing. The young men became
inured, by means of them, to toil, and privation, and exposure. They had to make
long marches, to encounter great dangers, to engage in desperate conflicts, and
to submit sometimes to the inconveniences of hunger and thirst, as well as
exposure to the extremes of heat and cold, and to the violence of storms. All
this was considered as precisely the right sort of discipline to make them good
soldiers in their future martial campaigns.

Cyrus was not, himself, at this time, old enough to take a very active part in
these severer services, as they belonged to a somewhat advanced stage of Persian
education, and he was yet not quite twelve years old. He was a very beautiful
boy, tall and graceful in form and his countenance was striking and expressive.
He was very frank and open in his disposition and character, speaking honestly,
and without fear, the sentiments of his heart, in any presence and on all
occasions. He was extremely kind hearted, and amiable, too, in his disposition,
averse to saying or doing any thing which could give pain to those around him.
In fact, the openness and cordiality of his address and manners, and the
unaffected ingenuousness and sincerity which characterized his disposition, made
him a universal favorite. His frankness, his childish simplicity, his vivacity,
his personal grace and beauty, and his generous and self-sacrificing spirit,
rendered him the object of general admiration throughout the court, and filled
Mandane’s heart with maternal gladness and pride.


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  CHAPTER 4: 1.03     CHAPTER 3. THE VISIT TO MEDIA.
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CHAPTER III. THE VISIT TO MEDIA.

B.C.587-584

Astyages sends for Cyrus. -- Cyrus goes to Media. -- Cyrus’s reception. -- His
astonishment. -- Sympathy with childhood. -- Pleasures of old age. -- Character
of Cyrus. -- First interview with his grandfather. -- Dress of the king. --
Cyrus’s considerate reply. -- Habits of Cyrus. -- Horsemanship among the
Persians. -- Cyrus learns to ride. -- His delights. -- Amusements with the boys.
-- The cup-bearer. -- The entertainment. -- Cyrus’s conversation. -- Cyrus and
the Sacian cup-bearer. -- Cyrus slights him. -- Accomplishments of the
cup-bearer. -- Cyrus mimics him. -- Cyrus declines to taste the wine. -- Duties
of a cup-bearer. -- Cyrus’s reason for not tasting the wine. -- His description
of a feast. -- Cyrus’s dislike of the cup-bearer. -- His reason for it. --
Amusement of the guests. -- Cyrus becomes a greater favorite than ever. --
Mandane proposes to return to Persia. -- Cyrus consents to remain. -- Fears of
Mandane. -- Departure of Mandane. -- Rapid progress of Cyrus. -- Hunting in the
park. -- Game becomes scarce. -- Development of Cyrus’s powers, both of body and
mind. -- Hunting wild beasts. -- Cyrus’s conversation with his attendants. --
Pursuit of a stag. -- Cyrus’s danger. -- Cyrus’s recklessness. -- He is reproved
by his companions. -- Cyrus kills a wild boar. -- He is again reproved. -- Cyrus
carries his game home. -- Distributes it among his companions. -- Another
hunting party. -- A plundering party. -- Cyrus departs for Media. -- Parting
presents. -- The presents returned. -- Cyrus sends them back again. -- Character
of Xenophon’s narrative. -- Its trustworthiness. -- Character of Cyrus as given
by Xenophon. -- Herodotus more trustworthy than Xenophon. When Cyrus was about
twelve years old, if the narrative which Xenophon gives of his history is true,
he was invited by his grandfather Astyages to make a visit to Media. As he was
about ten years of age, according to Herodotus, when he was restored to his
parents, he could have been residing only two years in Persia when he received
this invitation. During this period, Astyages had received, through Mandane and
others, very glowing descriptions of the intelligence and vivacity of the young
prince, and he naturally felt a desire to see him once more. In fact, Cyrus’s
personal attractiveness and beauty, joined to a certain frank and noble
generosity of spirit which he seems to have manifested in his earliest years,
made him a universal favorite at home, and the reports of these qualities, and
of the various sayings and doings on Cyrus’s part, by which his disposition and
character were revealed, awakened strongly in the mind of Astyages that kind of
interest which a grandfather is always very prone to feel in a handsome and
precocious grandchild. As Cyrus had been sent to Persia as soon as his true rank
had been discovered, he had had no opportunities of seeing the splendor of royal
life in Media, and the manners and habits of the Persians were very plain and
simple. Cyrus was accordingly very much impressed with the magnificence of the
scenes to which he was introduced when he arrived in Media, and with the
gayeties and luxuries, the pomp and display, and the spectacles and parades in
which the Median court abounded. Astyages himself took great pleasure in
witnessing and increasing his little grandson’s admiration for these wonders. It
is one of the most extraordinary and beautiful of the provisions which God has
made for securing the continuance of human happiness to the very end of life,
that we can renew, through sympathy with children, the pleasures which, for
ourselves alone, had long since, through repetition and satiety, lost their
charm. The rides, the walks, the flowers gathered by the road-side, the rambles
among pebbles on the beach, the songs, the games, and even the little
picture-book of childish tales which have utterly and entirely lost their power
to affect the mind even of middle life, directly and alone, regain their magic
influence, and call up vividly all the old emotions, even to the heart of
decrepit age, when it seeks these enjoyments in companionship and sympathy with
children or grandchildren beloved. By giving to us this capacity for renewing
our own sensitiveness to the impressions of pleasure through sympathy with
childhood, God has provided a true and effectual remedy for the satiety and
insensibility of age. Let any one who is in the decline of years, whose time
passes but heavily away, and who supposes that nothing can awaken interest in
his mind or give him pleasure, make the experiment of taking children to a ride
or to a concert, or to see a menagerie or a museum, and he will find that there
is a way by which he can again enjoy very highly the pleasures which he had
supposed were for him forever exhausted and gone. This was the result, at all
events, in the case of Astyages and Cyrus. The monarch took a new pleasure in
the luxuries and splendors which had long since lost their charm for him, in
observing their influence and effect upon the mind of his little grandson.
Cyrus, as we have already said, was very frank and open in his disposition, and
spoke with the utmost freedom of every thing that he saw. He was, of course, a
privileged person, and could always say what the feeling of the moment and his
own childish conceptions prompted, without danger. He had, however, according to
the account which Xenophon gives, a great deal of good sense, as well as of
sprightliness and brilliancy; so that, while his remarks, through their
originality and point, attracted every one’s attention, there was a native
politeness and sense of propriety which restrained him from saying any thing to
give pain. Even when he disapproved of and condemned what he saw in the
arrangements of his grandfather’s court or household, he did it in such a manner
-- so ingenuous, good-natured, and unassuming, that it amused all and offended
none. In fact, on the very first interview which Astyages had with Cyrus, an
instance of the boy’s readiness and tact occurred, which impressed his
grandfather very much in his favor. The Persians, as has been already remarked,
were accustomed to dress very plainly, while, on the other hand, at the Median
court the superior officers, and especially the king, were always very
splendidly adorned. Accordingly, when Cyrus was introduced into his
grandfather’s presence, he was quite dazzled with the display. The king wore a
purple robe, very richly adorned, with a belt and collars, which were
embroidered highly, and set with precious stones. He had bracelets, too, upon
his wrists, of the most costly character. He wore flowing locks of artificial
hair, and his face was painted, after the Median manner. Cyrus gazed upon this
gay spectacle for a few moments in silence, and then exclaimed, |Why, mother!
what a handsome man my grandfather is!|

Such an exclamation, of course, made great amusement both for the king himself
and for the others who were present; and at length Mandane, somewhat
indiscreetly, it must be confessed, asked Cyrus which of the two he thought the
handsomest, his father or his grandfather. Cyrus escaped from the danger of
deciding such a formidable question by saying that his father was the handsomest
man in Persia, but his grandfather was the handsomest of all the Medes he had
ever seen. Astyages was even more pleased by this proof of his grandson’s
adroitness and good sense than he had been with the compliment which the boy had
paid to him; and thenceforward Cyrus became an established favorite, and did and
said, in his grandfather’s presence, almost whatever he pleased. When the first
childish feelings of excitement and curiosity had subsided, Cyrus seemed to
attach very little value to the fine clothes and gay trappings with which his
grandfather was disposed to adorn him, and to all the other external marks of
parade and display, which were generally so much prized among the Medes. He was
much more inclined to continue in his former habits of plain dress and frugal
means than to imitate Median ostentation and luxury. There was one pleasure,
however, to be found in Media, which in Persia he had never enjoyed, that he
prized very highly. That was the pleasure of learning to ride on horseback. The
Persians, it seems, either because their country was a rough and mountainous
region, or for some other cause, were very little accustomed to ride. They had
very few horses, and there were no bodies of cavalry in their armies. The young
men, therefore, were not trained to the art of horsemanship. Even in their
hunting excursions they went always on foot, and were accustomed to make long
marches through the forests and among the mountains in this manner, loaded
heavily, too, all the time, with the burden of arms and provisions which they
were obliged to carry. It was, therefore, a new pleasure to Cyrus to mount a
horse. Horsemanship was a great art among the Medes. Their horses were beautiful
and fleet, and splendidly caparisoned. Astyages provided for Cyrus the best
animals which could be procured, and the boy was very proud and happy in
exercising himself in the new accomplishment which he thus had the opportunity
to acquire. To ride is always a great source of pleasure to boys; but in that
period of the world, when physical strength was so much more important and more
highly valued than at present, horsemanship was a vastly greater source of
gratification than it is now. Cyrus felt that he had, at a single leap,
quadrupled his power, and thus risen at once to a far higher rank in the scale
of being than he had occupied before; for, as soon as he had once learned to be
at home in the saddle, and to subject the spirit and the power of his horse to
his own will, the courage, the strength, and the speed of the animal became, in
fact, almost personal acquisitions of his own. He felt, accordingly, when he was
galloping over the plains, or pursuing deer in the park, or running over the
racecourse with his companions, as if it was some newly-acquired strength and
speed of his own that he was exercising, and which, by some magic power, was
attended by no toilsome exertion, and followed by no fatigue. The various
officers and servants in Astyages’s household, as well as Astyages himself, soon
began to feel a strong interest in the young prince. Each took a pleasure in
explaining to him what pertained to their several departments, and in teaching
him whatever he desired to learn. The attendant highest in rank in such a
household was the cup-bearer. He had the charge of the tables and the wine, and
all the general arrangements of the palace seem to have been under his
direction. The cup-bearer in Astyages’s court was a Sacian. He was, however,
less a friend to Cyrus than the rest. There was nothing within the range of his
official duties that he could teach the boy; and Cyrus did not like his wine.
Besides, when Astyages was engaged, it was the cup-bearer’s duty to guard him
from interruption, and at such times he often had occasion to restrain the young
prince from the liberty of entering his grandfather’s apartments as often as he
pleased. At one of the entertainments which Astyages gave in his palace, Cyrus
and Mandane were invited; and Astyages, in order to gratify the young prince as
highly as possible, set before him a great variety of dishes -- meats, and
sauces, and delicacies of every kind -- all served in costly vessels, and with
great parade and ceremony. He supposed that Cyrus would have been enraptured
with the luxury and splendor of the entertainment. He did not, however, seem
much pleased. Astyages asked him the reason, and whether the feast which he saw
before him was not a much finer one than he had been accustomed to see in
Persia. Cyrus said, in reply, that it seemed to him to be very troublesome to
have to eat a little of so many separate things. In Persia they managed, he
thought, a great deal better. |And how do you manage in Persia?| asked Astyages.
|Why, in Persia,| replied Cyrus, |we have plain bread and meat, and eat it when
we are hungry; so we get health and strength, and have very little trouble.|
Astyages laughed at this simplicity, and told Cyrus that he might, if he
preferred it, live on plain bread and meat while he remained in Media, and then
he would return to Persia in as good health as he came.

Cyrus was satisfied; he, however, asked his grandfather if he would give him all
those things which had been set before him, to dispose of as he thought proper;
and on his grandfather’s assenting, he began to call the various attendants up
to the table, and to distribute the costly dishes to them, in return, as he
said, for their various kindnesses to him. |This,| said he to one, |is for you,
because you take pains to teach me to ride; this,| to another, |for you, because
you gave me a javelin; this to you, because you serve my grandfather well and
faithfully; and this to you, because you honor my mother.| Thus he went on until
he had distributed all that he had received, though he omitted, as it seemed
designedly, to give any thing to the Sacian cup-bearer. This Sacian being an
officer of high rank, of tall and handsome figure, and beautifully dressed, was
the most conspicuous attendant at the feast, and could not, therefore, have been
accidentally passed by. Astyages accordingly asked Cyrus why he had not given
any thing to the Sacian -- the servant whom, as he said, he liked better than
all the others.

|And what is the reason,| asked Cyrus, in reply, |that this Sacian is such a
favorite with you?|

|Have you not observed,| replied Astyages, |how gracefully and elegantly he
pours out the wine for me, and then hands me the cup?| The Sacian was, in fact,
uncommonly accomplished in respect to the personal grace and dexterity for which
cup-bearers in those days were most highly valued, and which constitute, in
fact, so essential a part of the qualifications of a master of ceremonies at a
royal court in every age. Cyrus, however, instead of yielding to this argument,
said, in reply, that he could come into the room and pour out the wine as well
as the Sacian could do it, and he asked his grandfather to allow him to try.
Astyages consented. Cyrus then took the goblet of wine, and went out. In a
moment he came in again, stepping grandly, as he entered, in mimicry of the
Sacian, and with a countenance of assumed gravity and self-importance, which
imitated so well the air and manner of the cup-bearer as greatly to amuse the
whole company assembled. Cyrus advanced thus toward the king and presented him
with the cup, imitating, with the grace and dexterity natural to childhood, all
the ceremonies which he had seen the cup-bearer himself perform, except that of
tasting the wine. The king and Mandane laughed heartily. Cyrus then, throwing
off his assumed character, jumped up into his grandfather’s lap and kissed him,
and turning to the cup-bearer, he said, |Now, Sacian, you are ruined. I shall
get my grandfather to appoint me in your place. I can hand the wine as well as
you, and without tasting it myself at all.| |But why did you not taste it?|
asked Astyages; |you should have performed that part of the duty as well as the
rest.|

It was, in fact, a very essential part of the duty of a cup-bearer to taste the
wine that he offered before presenting it to the king. He did this, however, not
by putting the cup to his lips, but by pouring out a little of it into the palm
of his hand. This custom was adopted by these ancient despots to guard against
the danger of being poisoned; for such a danger would of course be very much
diminished by requiring the officer who had the custody of the wine, and without
whose knowledge no foreign substance could well be introduced into it, always to
drink a portion of it himself immediately before tendering it to the king. To
Astyages’s question why he had not tasted the wine, Cyrus replied that he was
afraid it was poisoned. |What led you to imagine that it was poisoned?| asked
his grandfather. |Because,| said Cyrus, |it was poisoned the other day, when you
made a feast for your friends, on your birth-day. I knew by the effects. It made
you all crazy. The things that you do not allow us boys to do, you did
yourselves, for you were very rude and noisy; you all bawled together, so that
nobody could hear or understand what any other person said. Presently you went
to singing in a very ridiculous manner, and when a singer ended his song, you
applauded him, and declared that he had sung admirably, though nobody had paid
attention. You went to telling stories, too, each one of his own accord, without
succeeding in making any body listen to him. Finally, you got up and began to
dance, but it was out of all rule and measure; you could not even stand erect
and steadily. Then, you all seemed to forget who and what you were. The guests
paid no regard to you as their king, but treated you in a very familiar and
disrespectful manner, and you treated them in the same way; so I thought that
the wine that produced these effects must have been poisoned.| Of course, Cyrus
did not seriously mean that he thought the wine had been actually poisoned. He
was old enough to understand its nature and effects. He undoubtedly intended his
reply as a playful satire upon the intemperate excesses of his grandfather’s
court.

|But have not you ever seen such things before?| asked Astyages. |Does not your
father ever drink wine until it makes him merry?|

|No,| replied Cyrus, |indeed he does not. He drinks only when he is thirsty, and
then only enough for his thirst, and so he is not harmed.| He then added, in a
contemptuous tone, |He has no Sacian cup-bearer, you may depend, about him.|
|What is the reason, my son,| here asked Mandane, |why you dislike this Sacian
so much?|

|Why, every time that I want to come and see my grandfather,| replied Cyrus,
|this teazing man always stops me, and will not let me come in. I wish,
grandfather, you would let me have the rule over him just for three days.| |Why,
what would you do to him?| asked Astyages.

|I would treat him as he treats me now,| replied Cyrus. |I would stand at the
door, as he does when I want to come in, and when he was coming for his dinner,
I would stop him and say, ’You can not come in now; he is busy with some men.’|
In saying this, Cyrus imitated, in a very ludicrous manner, the gravity and
dignity of the Sacian’s air and manner.

|Then,| he continued, |when he came to supper, I would say, ’He is bathing now;
you must come some other time;’ or else, ’He is going to sleep, and you will
disturb him.’ So I would torment him all the time, as he now torments me, in
keeping me out when I want to come and see you.|

Such conversation as this, half playful, half earnest, of course amused Astyages
and Mandane very much, as well as all the other listeners. There is a certain
charm in the simplicity and confiding frankness of childhood, when it is honest
and sincere, which in Cyrus’s case was heightened by his personal grace and
beauty. He became, in fact, more and more a favorite the longer he remained. At
length, the indulgence and the attentions which he received began to produce, in
some degree, their usual injurious effects. Cyrus became too talkative, and
sometimes he appeared a little vain. Still, there was so much true kindness of
heart, such consideration for the feelings of others, and so respectful a regard
for his grandfather, his mother, and his uncle,[A] that his faults were
overlooked, and he was the life and soul of the company in all the social
gatherings which took place in the palaces of the king.

[Footnote A: The uncle here referred to was Mandane’s brother. His name was
Oyaxares. He was at this time a royal prince, the heir apparent to the throne.
He figures very conspicuously in the subsequent portions of Xenophon’s history
as Astyages’s successor on the throne. Herodotus does not mention him at all,
but makes Cyrus himself the direct successor of Astyages.] At length the time
arrived for Mandane to return to Persia. Astyages proposed that she should leave
Cyrus in Media, to be educated there under his grandfather’s charge. Mandane
replied that she was willing to gratify her father in every thing, but she
thought it would be very hard to leave Cyrus behind, unless he was willing, of
his own accord, to stay. Astyages then proposed the subject to Cyrus himself.
|If you will stay,| said he, |the Sacian shall no longer have power to keep you
from coming in to see me; you shall come whenever you choose. Then, besides, you
shall have the use of all my horses, and of as many more as you please, and when
you go home at last you shall take as many as you wish with you. Then you may
have all the animals in the park to hunt. You can pursue them on horseback, and
shoot them with bows and arrows, or kill them with javelins, as men do with wild
beasts in the woods. I will provide boys of your own age to play with you, and
to ride and hunt with you, and will have all sorts of arms made of suitable size
for you to use; and if there is any thing else that you should want at any time,
you will only have to ask me for it, and I will immediately provide it.| The
pleasure of riding and of hunting in the park was very captivating to Cyrus’s
mind, and he consented to stay. He represented to his mother that it would be of
great advantage to him, on his final return to Persia, to be a skillful and
powerful horseman, as that would at once give him the superiority over all the
Persian youths, for they were very little accustomed to ride. His mother had
some fears lest, by too long a residence in the Median court, her son should
acquire the luxurious habits, and proud and haughty manners, which would be
constantly before him in his grandfather’s example; but Cyrus said that his
grandfather, being imperious himself, required all around him to be submissive,
and that Mandane need not fear but that he would return at last as dutiful and
docile as ever. It was decided, therefore, that Cyrus should stay, while his
mother, bidding her child and her father farewell, went back to Persia.

After his mother was gone, Cyrus endeared himself very strongly to all persons
at his grandfather’s court by the nobleness and generosity of character which he
evinced, more and more, as his mind was gradually developed. He applied himself
with great diligence to acquiring the various accomplishments and arts then most
highly prized, such as leaping, vaulting, racing, riding, throwing the javelin,
and drawing the bow. In the friendly contests which took place among the boys,
to test their comparative excellence in these exercises, Cyrus would challenge
those whom he knew to be superior to himself, and allow them to enjoy the
pleasure of victory, while he was satisfied, himself, with the superior stimulus
to exertion which he derived from coming thus into comparison with attainments
higher than his own. He pressed forward boldly and ardently, undertaking every
thing which promised to be, by any possibility, within his power; and, far from
being disconcerted and discouraged at his mistakes and failures, he always
joined merrily in the laugh which they occasioned, and renewed his attempts with
as much ardor and alacrity as before. Thus he made great and rapid progress, and
learned first to equal and then to surpass one after another of his companions,
and all without exciting any jealousy or envy.

It was a great amusement both to him and to the other boys, his playmates, to
hunt the animals in the park, especially the deer. The park was a somewhat
extensive domain, but the animals were soon very much diminished by the
slaughter which the boys made among them. Astyages endeavored to supply their
places by procuring more. At length, however, all the sources of supply that
were conveniently at hand were exhausted; and Cyrus, then finding that his
grandfather was put to no little trouble to obtain tame animals for his park,
proposed, one day, that he should be allowed to go out into the forests, to hunt
the wild beasts with the men. |There are animals enough there, grandfather,|
said Cyrus, |and I shall consider them all just as if you had procured them
expressly for me.| In fact, by this time Cyrus had grown up to be a tall and
handsome young man, with strength and vigor sufficient, under favorable
circumstances, to endure the fatigues and exposures of real hunting. As his
person had become developed, his mind and manners, too, had undergone a change.
The gayety, the thoughtfulness, the self-confidence, and talkative vivacity of
his childhood had disappeared, and he was fast becoming reserved, sedate,
deliberate, and cautious. He no longer entertained his grandfather’s company by
his mimicry, his repartees, and his childish wit. He was silent; he observed, he
listened, he shrank from publicity, and spoke, when he spoke at all, in subdued
and gentle tones. Instead of crowding forward eagerly into his grandfather’s
presence on all occasions, seasonable and unseasonable, as he had done before,
he now became, of his own accord, very much afraid of occasioning trouble or
interruption. He did not any longer need a Sacian to restrain him, but became,
as Xenophon expresses it, a Sacian to himself, taking great care not to go into
his grandfather’s apartments without previously ascertaining that the king was
disengaged; so that he and the Sacian now became very great friends. This being
the state of the case, Astyages consented that Cyrus should go out with his son
Cyaxares into the forests to hunt at the next opportunity. The party set out,
when the time arrived, on horseback, the hearts of Cyrus and his companions
bounding, when they mounted their steeds, with feelings of elation and pride.
There were certain attendants and guards appointed to keep near to Cyrus, and to
help him in the rough and rocky parts of the country, and to protect him from
the dangers to which, if left alone, he would doubtless have been exposed. Cyrus
talked with these attendants, as they rode along, of the mode of hunting, of the
difficulties of hunting, the characters and the habits of the various wild
beasts, and of the dangers to be shunned. His attendants told him that the
dangerous beasts were bears, lions, tigers, boars, and leopards; that such
animals as these often attacked and killed men, and that he must avoid them; but
that stags, wild goats, wild sheep, and wild asses were harmless, and that he
could hunt such animals as they as much as he pleased. They told him, moreover,
that steep, rocky, and broken ground was more dangerous to the huntsman than any
beasts, however ferocious; for riders, off their guard, driving impetuously over
such ways, were often thrown from their horses, or fell with them over
precipices or into chasms, and were killed.

[Illustration: CYRUS’S HUNTING.]

Cyrus listened very attentively to these instructions, with every disposition to
give heed to them; but when he came to the trial, he found that the ardor and
impetuosity of the chase drove all considerations of prudence wholly from his
mind. When the men got into the forest, those that were with Cyrus roused a
stag, and all set off eagerly in pursuit, Cyrus at the head. Away went the stag
over rough and dangerous ground. The rest of the party turned aside, or followed
cautiously, while Cyrus urged his horse forward in the wildest excitement,
thinking of nothing, and seeing nothing but the stag bounding before him. The
horse came to a chasm which he was obliged to leap. But the distance was too
great; he came down upon his knees, threw Cyrus violently forward almost over
his head, and then, with a bound and a scramble, recovered his feet and went on.
Cyrus clung tenaciously to the horse’s mane, and at length succeeded in getting
back to the saddle, though, for a moment his life was in the most imminent
danger. His attendants were extremely terrified, though he himself seemed to
experience no feeling but the pleasurable excitement of the chase; for, as soon
as the obstacle was cleared, he pressed on with new impetuosity after the stag,
overtook him, and killed him with his javelin. Then, alighting from his horse,
he stood by the side of his victim, to wait the coming up of the party, his
countenance beaming with an expression of triumph and delight. His attendants,
however, on their arrival, instead of applauding his exploit, or seeming to
share his pleasure, sharply reproved him for his recklessness and daring. He had
entirely disregarded their instructions, and they threatened to report him to
his grandfather. Cyrus looked perplexed and uneasy. The excitement and the
pleasure of victory and success were struggling in his mind against his dread of
his grandfather’s displeasure. Just at this instant he heard a new halloo.
Another party in the neighborhood had roused fresh game. All Cyrus’s returning
sense of duty was blown at once to the winds. He sprang to his horse with a
shout of wild enthusiasm, and rode off toward the scene of action. The game
which had been started, a furious wild boar, just then issued from a thicket
directly before him. Cyrus, instead of shunning the danger, as he ought to have
done, in obedience to the orders of those to whom his grandfather had intrusted
him, dashed on to meet the boar at full speed, and aimed so true a thrust with
his javelin against the beast as to transfix him in the forehead. The boar fell,
and lay upon the ground in dying struggles, while Cyrus’s heart was filled with
joy and triumph even greater than before. When Cyaxares came up, he reproved
Cyrus anew for running such risks. Cyrus received the reproaches meekly, and
then asked Cyaxares to give him the two animals that he had killed; he wanted to
carry them home to his grandfather.

|By no means,| said Cyaxares, |your grandfather would be very much displeased to
know what you had done. He would not only condemn you for acting thus, but he
would reprove us too, severely, for allowing you to do so.|

|Let him punish me,| said Cyrus, |if he wishes, after I have shown him the stag
and the boar, and you may punish me too, if you think best; but do let me show
them to him.|

Cyaxares consented, and Cyrus made arrangements to have the bodies of the beasts
and the bloody javelins carried home. Cyrus then presented the carcasses to his
grandfather, saying that it was some game which he had taken for him. The
javelins he did not exhibit directly, but he laid them down in a place where his
grandfather would see them. Astyages thanked him for his presents, but he said
he had no such need of presents of game as to wish his grandson to expose
himself to such imminent dangers to take it.

|Well, grandfather,| said Cyrus, |if you do not want the meat, give it to me,
and I will divide it among my friends.| Astyages agreed to this, and Cyrus
divided his booty among his companions, the boys, who had before hunted with him
in the park. They, of course, took their several portions home, each one
carrying with his share of the gift a glowing account of the valor and prowess
of the giver. It was not generosity which led Cyrus thus to give away the fruits
of his toil, but a desire to widen and extend his fame. When Cyrus was about
fifteen or sixteen years old, his uncle Cyaxares was married, and in celebrating
his nuptials, he formed a great hunting party, to go to the frontiers between
Media and Assyria to hunt there, where it was said that game of all kinds was
very plentiful, as it usually was, in fact, in those days, in the neighborhood
of disturbed and unsettled frontiers. The very causes which made such a region
as this a safe and frequented haunt for wild beasts, made it unsafe for men, and
Cyaxares did not consider it prudent to venture on his excursion without a
considerable force to attend him. His hunting party formed, therefore, quite a
little army. They set out from home with great pomp and ceremony, and proceeded
to the frontiers in regular organization and order, like a body of troops on a
march. There was a squadron of horsemen, who were to hunt the beasts in the open
parts of the forest, and a considerable detachment of light-armed footmen also,
who were to rouse the game, and drive them out of their lurking places in the
glens and thickets. Cyrus accompanied this expedition. When Cyaxares reached the
frontiers, he concluded, instead of contenting himself and his party with
hunting wild beasts, to make an incursion for plunder into the Assyrian
territory, that being, as Zenophon expresses it, a more noble enterprise than
the other. The nobleness, it seems, consisted in the greater imminence of the
danger, in having to contend with armed men instead of ferocious brutes, and in
the higher value of the prizes which they would obtain in case of success. The
idea of there being any injustice or wrong in this wanton and unprovoked
aggression upon the territories of a neighboring nation seems not to have
entered the mind either of the royal robber himself or of his historian.

Cyrus distinguished himself very conspicuously in this expedition, as he had
done in the hunting excursion before; and when, at length, this nuptial party
returned home, loaded with booty, the tidings of Cyrus’s exploits went to
Persia. Cambyses thought that if his son was beginning to take part, as a
soldier, in military campaigns, it was time for him to be recalled. He
accordingly sent for him, and Cyrus began to make preparations for his return.
The day of his departure was a day of great sadness and sorrow among all his
companions in Media, and, in fact, among all the members of his grandfather’s
household. They accompanied him for some distance on his way, and took leave of
him, at last, with much regret and many tears. Cyrus distributed among them, as
they left him, the various articles of value which he possessed, such as his
arms, and ornaments of various kinds, and costly articles of dress. He gave his
Median robe, at last, to a certain youth whom he said he loved the best of all.
The name of this special favorite was Araspes. As these his friends parted from
him, Cyrus took his leave of them, one by one, as they returned, with many
proofs of his affection for them, and with a very sad and heavy heart. The boys
and young men who had received these presents took them home, but they were so
valuable, that they or their parents, supposing that they were given under a
momentary impulse of feeling, and that they ought to be returned, sent them all
to Astyages. Astyages sent them to Persia, to be restored to Cyrus. Cyrus sent
them all back again to his grandfather, with a request that he would distribute
them again to those to whom Cyrus had originally given them, |which,| said he,
|grandfather, you must do, if you wish me ever to come to Media again with
pleasure and not with shame.|

Such is the story which Xenophon gives of Cyrus’s visit to Media, and in its
romantic and incredible details it is a specimen of the whole narrative which
this author has given of his hero’s life. It is not, at the present day,
supposed that these, and the many similar stories with which Xenophon’s books
are filled, are true history. It is not even thought that Xenophon really
intended to offer his narrative as history, but rather as an historical romance
-- a fiction founded on fact, written to amuse the warriors of his times, and to
serve as a vehicle for inculcating such principles of philosophy, of morals, and
of military science as seemed to him worthy of the attention of his countrymen.
The story has no air of reality about it from beginning to end, but only a sort
of poetical fitness of one part to another, much more like the contrived
coincidences of a romance writer than like the real events and transactions of
actual life. A very large portion of the work consists of long discourses on
military, moral, and often metaphysical philosophy, made by generals in council,
or commanders in conversation with each other when going into battle. The
occurrences and incidents out of which these conversations arise always take
place just as they are wanted and arrange themselves in a manner to produce the
highest dramatic effect; like the stag, the broken ground, and the wild boar in
Cyrus’s hunting, which came, one after another, to furnish the hero with
poetical occasions for displaying his juvenile bravery, and to produce the most
picturesque and poetical grouping of incidents and events. Xenophon too, like
other writers of romances, makes his hero a model of military virtue and
magnanimity, according to the ideas of the times. He displays superhuman
sagacity in circumventing his foes, he performs prodigies of valor, he forms the
most sentimental attachments, and receives with a romantic confidence the
adhesions of men who come over to his side from the enemy, and who, being
traitors to old friends, would seem to be only worthy of suspicion and distrust
in being received by new ones. Every thing, however, results well; all whom he
confides in prove worthy; all whom he distrusts prove base. All his friends are
generous and noble, and all his enemies treacherous and cruel. Every prediction
which he makes is verified, and all his enterprises succeed; or if, in any
respect, there occurs a partial failure, the incident is always of such a
character as to heighten the impression which is made by the final and
triumphant success.

Such being the character of Xenophon’s tale, or rather drama, we shall content
ourselves, after giving this specimen of it, with adding, in some subsequent
chapters, a few other scenes and incidents drawn from his narrative. In the mean
time, in relating the great leading events of Cyrus’s life, we shall take
Herodotus for our guide, by following his more sober, and, probably, more
trustworthy record.


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  CHAPTER 5: 1.04     CHAPTER 4. CROESUS.
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CHAPTER IV. CROESUS.

B.C.718-545 The wealth of Croesus. -- The Mermnadae. -- Origin of the Mermnadean
dynasty. -- Candaules and Gyges. -- Infamous proposal of Candaules. --
Remonstrance of Gyges. -- Nyssia’s suppressed indignation. -- She sends for
Gyges. -- Candaules is assassinated. -- Gyges succeeds. -- The Lydian power
extended. -- The wars of

Alyattes. -- Destruction of Minerva’s temple. -- Stratagem of Thrasybulus --
Success of the stratagem. -- A treaty of peace concluded. -- Story of Arion and
the dolphin. -- The alternative. -- Arion leaps into the sea. -- He is preserved
by a dolphin. -- Death of Alyattes. -- Succession of Croesus. -- Plans of
Croesus for subjugating the islands. -- The golden sands of the Pactolus. -- The
story of Midas. -- Wealth and renown of Croesus. -- Visit of Solon. -- Croesus
and Solon. -- What constitutes happiness. -- Cleobis and Bito. -- Croesus
displeased with Solon. -- Solon treated with neglect. -- The two sons of
Croesus. -- The king’s dream. -- Arrival of Adrastus. -- The wild boar. --
Precautions of Croesus. -- Remonstrance of Atys. -- Explanation of Croesus. --
Atys joins the expedition. -- He is killed by Adrastus. -- Anguish of Adrastus.
-- Burial of Atys. -- Adrastus kills himself. -- Grief of Croesus. The scene of
our narrative must now be changed, for a time, from Persia and Media, in the
East, to Asia Minor, in the West, where the great Croesus, originally King of
Lydia, was at this time gradually extending his empire along the shores of the
AEgean Sea. The name of Croesus is associated in the minds of men with the idea
of boundless wealth, the phrase |as rich as Croesus| having been a common
proverb in all the modern languages of Europe for many centuries. It was to this
Croesus, king of Lydia, whose story we are about to relate, that the proverb
alludes. The country of Lydia, over which this famous sovereign originally
ruled, was in the western part of Asia Minor, bordering on the AEgean Sea.
Croesus himself belonged to a dynasty, or race of kings, called the Mermnadae.
The founder of this line was Gyges, who displaced the dynasty which preceded him
and established his own by a revolution effected in a very remarkable manner.
The circumstances were as follows: The name of the last monarch of the old
dynasty -- the one, namely, whom Gyges displaced -- was Candaules. Gyges was a
household servant in Candaules’s family -- a sort of slave, in fact, and yet, as
such slaves often were in those rude days, a personal favorite and boon
companion of his master. Candaules was a dissolute and unprincipled tyrant. He
had, however, a very beautiful and modest wife, whose name was Nyssia. Candaules
was very proud of the beauty of his queen, and was always extolling it, though,
as the event proved, he could not have felt for her any true and honest
affection. In some of his revels with Gyges, when he was boasting of Nyssia’s
charms, he said that the beauty of her form and figure, when unrobed, was even
more exquisite than that of her features; and, finally, the monster, growing
more and more excited, and having rendered himself still more of a brute than he
was by nature by the influence of wine, declared that Gyges should see for
himself. He would conceal him, he said, in the queen’s bed-chamber, while she
was undressing for the night. Gyges remonstrated very earnestly against this
proposal. It would be doing the innocent queen, he said, a great wrong. He
assured the king, too, that he believed fully all that he said about Nyssia’s
beauty, without applying such a test, and he begged him not to insist upon a
proposal with which it would be criminal to comply. The king, however, did
insist upon it, and Gyges was compelled to yield. Whatever is offered as a favor
by a half-intoxicated despot to an humble inferior, it would be death to refuse.
Gyges allowed himself to be placed behind a half-opened door of the king’s
apartment, when the king retired to it for the night. There he was to remain
while the queen began to unrobe herself for retiring, with a strict injunction
to withdraw at a certain time which the king designated, and with the utmost
caution, so as to prevent being observed by the queen. Gyges did as he was
ordered. The beautiful queen laid aside her garments and made her toilet for the
night with all the quiet composure and confidence which a woman might be
expected to feel while in so sacred and inviolable a sanctuary, and in the
presence and under the guardianship of her husband. Just as she was about to
retire to rest, some movement alarmed her. It was Gyges going away. She saw him.
She instantly understood the case. She was overwhelmed with indignation and
shame. She, however, suppressed and concealed her emotions; she spoke to
Candaules in her usual tone of voice, and he, on his part, secretly rejoiced in
the adroit and successful manner in which his little contrivance had been
carried into execution. The next morning Nyssia sent, by some of her
confidential messengers, for Gyges to come to her. He came, with some
forebodings, perhaps, but without any direct reason for believing that what he
had done had been discovered. Nyssia, however, informed him that she knew all,
and that either he or her husband must die. Gyges earnestly remonstrated against
this decision, and supplicated forgiveness. He explained the circumstances under
which the act had been performed, which seemed, at least so far as he was
concerned, to palliate the deed. The queen was, however, fixed and decided. It
was wholly inconsistent with her ideas of womanly delicacy that there should be
two living men who had both been admitted to her bed-chamber. |The king,| she
said, |by what he has done, has forfeited his claims to me and resigned me to
you. If you will kill him, seize his kingdom, and make me your wife, all shall
be well; otherwise you must prepare to die.| From this hard alternative, Gyges
chose to assassinate the king, and to make the lovely object before him his own.
The excitement of indignation and resentment which glowed upon her cheek, and
with which her bosom was heaving, made her more beautiful than ever.

|How shall our purpose be accomplished?| asked Gyges. |The deed,| she replied,
|shall be perpetrated in the very place which was the scene of the dishonor done
to me. I will admit you into our bed-chamber in my turn, and you shall kill
Candaules in his bed.| When night came, Nyssia stationed Gyges again behind the
same door where the king had placed him. He had a dagger in his hand. He waited
there till Candaules was asleep. Then at a signal given him by the queen, he
entered, and stabbed the husband in his bed. He married Nyssia, and possessed
himself of the kingdom. After this, he and his successors reigned for many years
over the kingdom of Lydia, constituting the dynasty of the Mermnadae, from
which, in process of time, King Croesus descended. The successive sovereigns of
this dynasty gradually extended the Lydian power over the countries around them.
The name of Croesus’s father, who was the monarch that immediately preceded him,
was Alyattes. Alyattes waged war toward the southward, into the territories of
the city of Miletus. He made annual incursions into the country of the Milesians
for plunder, always taking care, however, while he seized all the movable
property that he could find, to leave the villages and towns, and all the
hamlets of the laborers without injury. The reason for this was, that he did not
wish to drive away the population, but to encourage them to remain and cultivate
their lands, so that there might be new flocks and herds, and new stores of
corn, and fruit, and wine, for him to plunder from in succeeding years. At last,
on one of these marauding excursions, some fires which were accidentally set in
a field spread into a neighboring town, and destroyed, among other buildings, a
temple consecrated to Minerva. After this, Alyattes found himself quite
unsuccessful in all his expeditions and campaigns. He sent to a famous oracle to
ask the reason.

|You can expect no more success,| replied the oracle, |until you rebuild the
temple that you have destroyed.| But how could he rebuild the temple? The site
was in the enemy’s country. His men could not build an edifice and defend
themselves, at the same time, from the attacks of their foes. He concluded to
demand a truce of the Milesians until the reconstruction should be completed,
and he sent embassadors to Miletus, accordingly, to make the proposal. The
proposition for a truce resulted in a permanent peace, by means of a very
singular stratagem which Thrasybulus, the king of Miletus, practiced upon
Alyattes. It seems that Alyattes supposed that Thrasybulus had been reduced to
great distress by the loss and destruction of provisions and stores in various
parts of the country, and that he would soon be forced to yield up his kingdom.
This was, in fact, the case; but Thrasybulus determined to disguise his real
condition, and to destroy, by an artifice, all the hopes which Alyattes had
formed from the supposed scarcity in the city. When the herald whom Alyattes
sent to Miletus was about to arrive, Thrasybulus collected all the corn, and
grain, and other provisions which he could command, and had them heaped up in a
public part of the city, where the herald was to be received, so as to present
indications of the most ample abundance of food. He collected a large body of
his soldiers, too, and gave them leave to feast themselves without restriction
on what he had thus gathered. Accordingly, when the herald came in to deliver
his message, he found the whole city given up to feasting and revelry, and he
saw stores of provisions at hand, which were in process of being distributed and
consumed with the most prodigal profusion. The herald reported this state of
things to Alyattes. Alyattes then gave up all hopes of reducing Miletus by
famine, and made a permanent peace, binding himself to its stipulations by a
very solemn treaty. To celebrate the event, too, he built two temples to Minerva
instead of one. A story is related by Herodotus of a remarkable escape made by
Arion at sea, which occurred during the reign of Alyattes, the father of
Croesus. We will give the story as Herodotus relates it, leaving the reader to
judge for himself whether such tales were probably true, or were only introduced
by Herodotus into his narrative to make his histories more entertaining to the
Grecian assemblies to whom he read them. Arion was a celebrated singer. He had
been making a tour in Sicily and in the southern part of Italy, where he had
acquired considerable wealth, and he was now returning to Corinth. He embarked
at Tarentum, which is a city in the southern part of Italy, in a Corinthian
vessel, and put to sea. When the sailors found that they had him in their power,
they determined to rob and murder him. They accordingly seized his gold and
silver, and then told him that he might either kill himself or jump overboard
into the sea. One or the other he must do. If he would kill himself on board the
vessel, they would give him decent burial when they reached the shore.

Arion seemed at first at a loss how to decide in so hard an alternative. At
length he told the sailors that he would throw himself into the sea, but he
asked permission to sing them one of his songs before he took the fatal plunge.
They consented. He accordingly went into the cabin, and spent some time in
dressing himself magnificently in the splendid and richly-ornamented robes in
which he had been accustomed to appear upon the stage. At length he reappeared,
and took his position on the side of the ship, with his harp in his hand. He
sang his song, accompanying himself upon the harp, and then, when he had
finished his performance, he leaped into the sea. The seamen divided their
plunder and pursued their voyage. Arion, however, instead of being drowned, was
taken up by a dolphin that had been charmed by his song, and was borne by him to
Taenarus, which is the promontory formed by the southern extremity of the
Peloponnesus. There Arion landed in safety. From Taenarus he proceeded to
Corinth, wearing the same dress in which he had plunged into the sea. On his
arrival, he complained to the king of the crime which the sailors had committed,
and narrated his wonderful escape. The king did not believe him, but put him in
prison to wait until the ship should arrive. When at last the vessel came, the
king summoned the sailors into his presence, and asked them if they knew any
thing of Arion. Arion himself had been previously placed in an adjoining room,
ready to be called in as soon as his presence was required. The mariners
answered to the question which the king put to them, that they had seen Arion in
Tarentum, and that they had left him there. Arion was then himself called in.
His sudden appearance, clothed as he was in the same dress in which the mariners
had seen him leap into the sea, so terrified the conscience-stricken criminals,
that they confessed their guilt, and were all punished by the king. A marble
statue, representing a man seated upon a dolphin, was erected at Taenarus to
commemorate this event, where it remained for centuries afterward, a monument of
the wonder which Arion had achieved. At length Alyattes died and Croesus
succeeded him. Croesus extended still further the power and fame of the Lydian
empire, and was for a time very successful in all his military schemes. By
looking upon the map, the reader will see that the AEgean Sea, along the coasts
of Asia Minor, is studded with islands. These islands were in those days very
fertile and beautiful, and were densely inhabited by a commercial and maritime
people, who possessed a multitude of ships, and were very powerful in all the
adjacent seas. Of course their land forces were very few, whether of horse or of
foot, as the habits and manners of such a sea-going people were all foreign to
modes of warfare required in land campaigns. On the sea, however, these
islanders were supreme.

Croesus formed a scheme for attacking these islands and bringing them under his
sway, and he began to make preparations for building and equipping a fleet for
this purpose, though, of course, his subjects were as unused to the sea as the
nautical islanders were to military operations on the land. While he was making
these preparations, a certain philosopher was visiting at his court: he was one
of the seven wise men of Greece, who had recently come from the Peloponnesus.
Croesus asked him if there was any news from that country. |I heard,| said the
philosopher, |that the inhabitants of the islands were preparing to invade your
dominions with a squadron of ten thousand horse.| Croesus, who supposed that the
philosopher was serious, appeared greatly pleased and elated at the prospect of
his sea-faring enemies attempting to meet him as a body of cavalry. |No doubt,|
said the philosopher, after a little pause, |you would be pleased to have those
sailors attempt to contend with you on horseback; but do you not suppose that
they will be equally pleased at the prospect of encountering Lydian landsmen on
the ocean?| Croesus perceived the absurdity of his plan, and abandoned the
attempt to execute it.

Croesus acquired the enormous wealth for which he was so celebrated from the
golden sands of the River Pactolus, which flowed through his kingdom. The river
brought the particles of gold, in grains, and globules, and flakes, from the
mountains above, and the servants and slaves of Croesus washed the sands, and
thus separated the heavier deposit of the metal. In respect to the origin of the
gold, however, the people who lived upon the banks of the river had a different
explanation from the simple one that the waters brought down the treasure from
the mountain ravines. They had a story that, ages before, a certain king, named
Midas, rendered some service to a god, who, in his turn, offered to grant him
any favor that he might ask. Midas asked that the power might be granted him to
turn whatever he touched into gold. The power was bestowed, and Midas, after
changing various objects around him into gold until he was satisfied, began to
find his new acquisition a source of great inconvenience and danger. His
clothes, his food, and even his drink, were changed to gold when he touched
them. He found that he was about to starve in the midst of a world of treasure,
and he implored the god to take back the fatal gift. The god directed him to go
and bathe in the Pactolus, and he should be restored to his former condition.
Midas did so, and was saved, but not without transforming a great portion of the
sands of the stream into gold during the process of his restoration.

Croesus thus attained quite speedily to a very high degree of wealth,
prosperity, and renown. His dominions were widely extended; his palaces were
full of treasures; his court was a scene of unexampled magnificence and
splendor. While in the enjoyment of all this grandeur, he was visited by Solon,
the celebrated Grecian law-giver, who was traveling in that part of the world to
observe the institutions and customs of different states. Croesus received Solon
with great distinction, and showed him all his treasures. At last he one day
said to him, |You have traveled, Solon, over many countries, and have studied,
with a great deal of attention and care, all that you have seen. I have heard
great commendations of your wisdom, and I should like very much to know who, of
all the persons you have ever known, has seemed to you most fortunate and
happy.| The king had no doubt that the answer would be that he himself was the
one.

|I think,| replied Solon, after a pause, |that Tellus, an Athenian citizen, was
the most fortunate and happy man I have ever known.| |Tellus, an Athenian!|
repeated Croesus, surprised. |What was there in his case which you consider so
remarkable?|

|He was a peaceful and quiet citizen of Athens,| said Solon. |He lived happily
with his family, under a most excellent government, enjoying for many years all
the pleasures of domestic life. He had several amiable and virtuous children,
who all grew up to maturity, and loved and honored their parents as long as they
lived. At length, when his life was drawing toward its natural termination, a
war broke out with a neighboring nation, and Tellus went with the army to defend
his country. He aided very essentially in the defeat of the enemy, but fell, at
last, on the field of battle. His countrymen greatly lamented his death. They
buried him publicly where he fell, with every circumstance of honor.|

Solon was proceeding to recount the domestic and social virtues of Tellus, and
the peaceful happiness which he enjoyed as the result of them, when Croesus
interrupted him to ask who, next to Tellus, he considered the most fortunate and
happy man.

Solon, after a little farther reflection, mentioned two brothers, Cleobis and
Bito, private persons among the Greeks, who were celebrated for their great
personal strength, and also for their devoted attachment to their mother. He
related to Croesus a story of a feat they performed on one occasion, when their
mother, at the celebration of some public festival, was going some miles to a
temple, in a car to be drawn by oxen. There happened to be some delay in
bringing the oxen, while the mother was waiting in the car. As the oxen did not
come, the young men took hold of the pole of the car themselves, and walked off
at their ease with the load, amid the acclamations of the spectators, while
their mother’s heart was filled with exultation and pride.

Croesus here interrupted the philosopher again, and expressed his surprise that
he should place private men, like those whom he had named, who possessed no
wealth, or prominence, or power, before a monarch like him, occupying a station
of such high authority and renown, and possessing such boundless treasures.

|Croesus,| replied Solon, |I see you now, indeed, at the height of human power
and grandeur. You reign supreme over many nations, and you are in the enjoyment
of unbounded affluence, and every species of luxury and splendor. I can not,
however, decide whether I am to consider you a fortunate and happy man, until I
know how all this is to end. If we consider seventy years as the allotted period
of life, you have a large portion of your existence yet to come, and we can not
with certainty pronounce any man happy till his life is ended.| This
conversation with Solon made a deep impression upon Croesus’s mind, as was
afterward proved in a remarkable manner; but the impression was not a pleasant
or a salutary one. The king, however, suppressed for the time the resentment
which the presentation of these unwelcome truths awakened within him, though he
treated Solon afterward with indifference and neglect, so that the philosopher
soon found it best to withdraw.

Croesus had two sons. One was deaf and dumb. The other was a young man of
uncommon promise, and, of course, as he only could succeed his father in the
government of the kingdom, he was naturally an object of the king’s particular
attention and care. His name was Atys. He was unmarried. He was, however, old
enough to have the command of a considerable body of troops, and he had often
distinguished himself in the Lydian campaigns. One night the king had a dream
about Atys which greatly alarmed him. He dreamed that his son was destined to
die of a wound received from the point of an iron spear. The king was made very
uneasy by this ominous dream. He determined at once to take every precaution in
his power to avert the threatened danger. He immediately detached Atys from his
command in the army, and made provision for his marriage. He then very carefully
collected all the darts, javelins, and every other iron-pointed weapon that he
could find about the palace, and caused them to be deposited carefully in a
secure place, where there could be no danger even of an accidental injury from
them.

About that time there appeared at the court of Croesus a stranger from Phrygia,
a neighboring state, who presented himself at the palace and asked for
protection. He was a prince of the royal family of Phrygia, and his name was
Adrastus. He had had the misfortune, by some unhappy accident, to kill his
brother; his father, in consequence of it, had banished him from his native
land, and he was now homeless, friendless, and destitute.

Croesus received him kindly. |Your family have always been my friends,| said he,
|and I am glad of the opportunity to make some return by extending my protection
to any member of it suffering misfortune. You shall reside in my palace, and all
your wants shall be supplied. Come in, and forget the calamity which has
befallen you, instead of distressing yourself with it as if it had been a
crime.|

Thus Croesus received the unfortunate Adrastus into his household. After the
prince had been domiciliated in his new home for some time, messengers came from
Mysia, a neighboring state, saying that a wild boar of enormous size and unusual
ferocity had come down from the mountains, and was lurking in the cultivated
country, in thickets and glens, from which, at night, he made great havoc among
the flocks and herds, and asking that Croesus would send his son, with a band of
hunters and a pack of dogs, to help them destroy the common enemy. Croesus
consented immediately to send the dogs and the men, but he said that he could
not send his son. |My son,| he added, |has been lately married, and his time and
attention are employed about other things.|

When, however, Atys himself heard of this reply, he remonstrated very earnestly
against it, and begged his father to allow him to go. |What will the world think
of me,| said he |if I shut myself up to these effeminate pursuits and
enjoyments, and shun those dangers and toils which other men consider it their
highest honor to share? What will my fellow-citizens think of me, and how shall
I appear in the eyes of my wife? She will despise me.|

Croesus then explained to his son the reason why he had been so careful to avoid
exposing him to danger. He related to him the dream which had alarmed him. |It
is on that account,| said he, |that I am so anxious about you. You are, in fact,
my only son, for your speechless brother can never be my heir.|

Atys said, in reply, that he was not surprised, under those circumstances, at
his father’s anxiety; but he maintained that this was a case to which his
caution could not properly apply.

|You dreamed,| he said, |that I should be killed by a weapon pointed with iron;
but a boar has no such weapon. If the dream had portended that I was to perish
by a tusk or a tooth, you might reasonably have restrained me from going to hunt
a wild beast; but iron-pointed instruments are the weapons of men, and we are
not going, in this expedition, to contend with men.| The king, partly convinced,
perhaps, by the arguments which Atys offered, and partly overborne by the
urgency of his request, finally consented to his request and allowed him to go.
He consigned him, however, to the special care of Adrastus, who was likewise to
accompany the expedition, charging Adrastus to keep constantly by his side, and
to watch over him with the utmost vigilance and fidelity. The band of huntsmen
was organized, the dogs prepared, and the train departed. Very soon afterward, a
messenger came back from the hunting ground, breathless, and with a countenance
of extreme concern and terror, bringing the dreadful tidings that Atys was dead.
Adrastus himself had killed him. In the ardor of the chase, while the huntsmen
had surrounded the boar, and were each intent on his own personal danger while
in close combat with such a monster, and all were hurling darts and javelins at
their ferocious foe, the spear of Adrastus missed its aim, and entered the body
of the unhappy prince. He bled to death on the spot.

Soon after the messenger had made known these terrible tidings, the hunting
train, transformed now into a funeral procession, appeared, bearing the dead
body of the king’s son, and followed by the wretched Adrastus himself, who was
wringing his hands, and crying out incessantly in accents and exclamations of
despair. He begged the king to kill him at once, over the body of his son, and
thus put an end to the unutterable agony that he endured. This second calamity
was more, he said, than he could bear. He had killed before his own brother, and
now he had murdered the son of his greatest benefactor and friend.

Croesus, though overwhelmed with anguish, was disarmed of all resentment at
witnessing Adrastus’s suffering. He endeavored to soothe and quiet the agitation
which the unhappy man endured, but it was in vain. Adrastus could not be calmed.
Croesus then ordered the body of his son to be buried with proper honors. The
funeral services were performed with great and solemn ceremonies, and when the
body was interred, the household of Croesus returned to the palace, which was
now, in spite of all its splendor, shrouded in gloom. That night -- at midnight
-- Adrastus, finding his mental anguish insupportable retired from his apartment
to the place where Atys had been buried, and killed himself over the grave.

* * * * *

Solon was wise in saying that he could not tell whether wealth and grandeur were
to be accounted as happiness till he saw how they would end. Croesus was plunged
into inconsolable grief, and into extreme dejection and misery for a period of
two years, in consequence of this calamity, and yet this calamity was only the
beginning of the end.


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  CHAPTER 6: 1.05     CHAPTER 5. ACCESSION OF CYRUS TO THE THRONE.
========================================================================

CHAPTER V. ACCESSION OF CYRUS TO THE THRONE.

B.C.560

Change in the character of Cyrus. -- His ambition. -- Capriciousness of
Astyages. -- Cyrus makes great progress in mental and personal accomplishments.
-- Harpagus’s plans for revenge. -- Suspicions of Astyages. -- Condition of
Persia. -- Discontent in Media. -- Proceedings of Harpagus. -- His deportment
toward Astyages. -- Co-operation in Media. -- Harpagus writes to Cyrus. --
Harpagus’s singular method of conveying his letter to Cyrus. -- Contents of
Harpagus’s letter. -- Excitement of Cyrus. -- Cyrus accedes to Harpagus’s plan.
-- How to raise an army. -- The day of toil. -- The day of festivity. -- Speech
of Cyrus. -- Ardor of the soldiers. -- Defection of Harpagus. -- The battle. --
Rage of Astyages. -- His vengeance on the magi. -- Defeat and capture of
Astyages. -- Interview with Harpagus. -- Cyrus King of Media and Persia. --
Confinement of Astyages. -- Acquiescence of the Medes. -- Death of Astyages. --
Suddenness of Cyrus’s elevation. -- Harpagus.

While Croesus had thus, on his side of the River Halys -- which was the stream
that marked the boundary between the Lydian empire on the west and the Persian
and Assyrian dominions on the east -- been employed in building up his grand
structure of outward magnificence and splendor, and in contending, within,
against an overwhelming tide of domestic misery and woe, great changes had taken
place in the situation and prospects of Cyrus. From being an artless and
generous-minded child, he had become a calculating, ambitious, and aspiring man,
and he was preparing to take his part in the great public contests and struggles
of the day, with the same eagerness for self-aggrandizement, and the same
unconcern for the welfare and happiness of others, which always characterizes
the spirit of ambition and love of power.

Although it is by no means certain that what Xenophon relates of his visit to
his grandfather Astyages is meant for a true narrative of facts, it is not at
all improbable that such a visit might have been made, and that occurrences,
somewhat similar, at least, to those which his narrative records, may have taken
place. It may seem strange to the reader that a man who should, at one time,
wish to put his grandchild to death, should, at another, be disposed to treat
him with such a profusion of kindness and attention. There is nothing, however,
really extraordinary in this. Nothing is more fluctuating than the caprice of a
despot. Man, accustomed from infancy to govern those around him by his own
impetuous will, never learns self-control. He gives himself up to the dominion
of the passing animal emotions of the hour. It may be jealousy, it may be
revenge, it may be parental fondness, it may be hate, it may be love -- whatever
the feeling is that the various incidents of life, as they occur, or the
influences, irritating or exhilarating, which are produced by food or wine,
awaken in his mind, he follows its impulse blindly and without reserve. He loads
a favorite with kindness and caresses at one hour, and directs his assassination
the next. He imagines that his infant grandchild is to become his rival, and he
deliberately orders him to be left in a gloomy forest alone, to die of cold and
hunger. When the imaginary danger has passed away, he seeks amusement in making
the same grandchild his plaything, and overwhelms him with favors bestowed
solely for the gratification of the giver, under the influence of an affection
almost as purely animal as that of a lioness for her young.

Favors of such a sort can awaken no permanent gratitude in any heart, and thus
it is quite possible that Cyrus might have evinced, during the simple and
guileless days of his childhood, a deep veneration and affection for his
grandfather, and yet, in subsequent years, when he had arrived at full maturity,
have learned to regard him simply in the light of a great political potentate,
as likely as any other potentate around him to become his rival or his enemy.
This was, at all events, the result. Cyrus, on his return to Persia, grew
rapidly in strength and stature, and soon became highly distinguished for his
personal grace, his winning manners, and for the various martial accomplishments
which he had acquired in Media, and in which he excelled almost all his
companions. He gained, as such princes always do, a vast ascendency over the
minds of all around him. As he advanced toward maturity, his mind passed from
its interest in games, and hunting, and athletic sports, to plans of war, of
conquest, and of extended dominion. In the mean time, Harpagus, though he had,
at the time when he endured the horrid punishment which Astyages inflicted upon
him, expressed no resentment, still he had secretly felt an extreme indignation
and anger, and he had now, for fifteen years, been nourishing covert schemes and
plans for revenge. He remained all this time in the court of Astyages, and was
apparently his friend. He was, however, in heart a most bitter and implacable
enemy. He was looking continually for a plan or prospect which should promise
some hope of affording him his long-desired revenge. His eyes were naturally
turned toward Cyrus. He kept up a communication with him so far as it was
possible, for Astyages watched very closely what passed between the two
countries, being always suspicious of plots against his government and crown.
Harpagus, however, contrived to evade this vigilance in some degree. He made
continual reports to Cyrus of the tyranny and misgovernment of Astyages, and of
the defenselessness of the realm of Media, and he endeavored to stimulate his
rising ambition to the desire of one day possessing for himself both the Median
and Persian throne. In fact, Persia was not then independent of Media. It was
more or less connected with the government of Astyages, so that Cambyses, the
chief ruler of Persia, Cyrus’s father, is called sometimes a king and sometimes
a satrap, which last title is equivalent to that of viceroy or governor general.
Whatever his true and proper title may have been, Persia was a Median
dependency, and Cyrus, therefore, in forming plans for gaining possession of the
Median throne, would consider himself as rather endeavoring to rise to the
supreme command in his own native country, than as projecting any scheme for
foreign conquest.

Harpagus, too, looked upon the subject in the same light. Accordingly, in
pushing forward his plots toward their execution, he operated in Media as well
as Persia, He ascertained, by diligent and sagacious, but by very covert
inquiries, who were discontented and ill at ease under the dominion of Astyages,
and by sympathizing with and encouraging them, he increased their discontent and
insubmission. Whenever Astyages, in the exercise of his tyranny inflicted an
injury upon a powerful subject, Harpagus espoused the cause of the injured man,
condemned, with him, the intolerable oppression of the king, and thus fixed and
perpetuated his enmity. At the same time, he took pains to collect and to
disseminate among the Medes all the information which he could obtain favorable
to Cyrus, in respect to his talents, his character, and his just and generous
spirit, so that, at length, the ascendency of Astyages, through the
instrumentality of these measures, was very extensively undermined, and the way
was rapidly becoming prepared for Cyrus’s accession to power.

During all this time, moreover, Harpagus was personally very deferential and
obsequious to Astyages, and professed an unbounded devotedness to his interests.
He maintained a high rank at court and in the army, and Astyages relied upon him
as one of the most obedient and submissive of his servants, without entertaining
any suspicion whatever of his true designs. At length a favorable occasion
arose, as Harpagus thought, for the execution of his plans. It was at a time
when Astyages had been guilty of some unusual acts of tyranny and oppression, by
which he had produced extensive dissatisfaction among his people. Harpagus
communicated, very cautiously, to the principal men around him, the designs that
he had long been forming for deposing Astyages and elevating Cyrus in his place.
He found them favorably inclined to the plan. The way being thus prepared, the
next thing was to contrive some secret way of communicating with Cyrus. As the
proposal which he was going to make was that Cyrus should come into Media with
as great a force as he could command, and head an insurrection against the
government of Astyages, it would, of course, be death to him to have it
discovered. He did not dare to trust the message to any living messenger, for
fear of betrayal; nor was it safe to send a letter by any ordinary mode of
transmission, lest the letter should be intercepted by some of Astyages’s spies,
and thus the whole plot be discovered. He finally adopted the following very
extraordinary plan:

[Illustration: THE SECRET CORRESPONDENCE.]

He wrote a letter to Cyrus, and then taking a hare, which some of his huntsmen
had caught for him, he opened the body and concealed the letter within. He then
sewed up the skin again in the most careful manner, so that no signs of the
incision should remain. He delivered this hare, together with some nets and
other hunting apparatus, to certain trustworthy servants, on whom he thought he
could rely, charging them to deliver the hare into Cyrus’s own hands, and to say
that it came from Harpagus, and that it was the request of Harpagus that Cyrus
should open it himself and alone. Harpagus concluded that this mode of making
the communication was safe; for, in case the persons to whom the hare was
intrusted were to be seen by any of the spies or other persons employed by
Astyages on the frontiers, they would consider them as hunters returning from
the chase with their game, and would never think of examining the body of a
hare, in the hands of such a party, in search after a clandestine
correspondence. The plan was perfectly successful. The men passed into Persia
without any suspicion. They delivered the hare to Cyrus, with their message. He
opened the hare, and found the letter. It was in substance as follows:

|It is plain, Cyrus, that you are a favorite of Heaven, and that you are
destined to a great and glorious career. You could not otherwise have escaped,
in so miraculous a manner, the snares set for you in your infancy. Astyages
meditated your death, and he took such measures to effect it as would seem to
have made your destruction sure. You were saved by the special interposition of
Heaven. Yon are aware by what extraordinary incidents you were preserved and
discovered, and what great and unusual prosperity has since attended you. You
know, too, what cruel punishments Astyages inflicted upon me, for my humanity in
saving you. The time has now come for retribution. From this time the authority
and the dominions of Astyages may be yours. Persuade the Persians to revolt. Put
yourself at the head of an army, and march into Media. I shall probably myself
be appointed to command the army sent out to oppose you. If so, we will join our
forces when we meet, and I will enter your service. I have conferred with the
leading nobles in Media, and they are all ready to espouse your cause. You may
rely upon finding every thing thus prepared for you here; come, therefore,
without any delay.|

Cyrus was thrown into a fever of excitement and agitation on reading this
letter. He determined to accede to Harpagus’s proposal. He revolved in his mind
for some time the measures by which he could raise the necessary force. Of
course he could not openly announce his plan and enlist an army to effect it,
for any avowed and public movement of that kind would be immediately made known
to Astyages, who, by being thus forewarned of his enemies’ designs, might take
effectual measures to circumvent them. He determined to resort to deceit, or, as
he called it, stratagem; nor did he probably have any distinct perception of the
wrongfulness of such a mode of proceeding. The demon of war upholds and
justifies falsehood and treachery, in all its forms, on the part of his
votaries. He always applauds a forgery, a false pretense, or a lie: he calls it
a stratagem.

Cyrus had a letter prepared, in the form of a commission from Astyages,
appointing him commander of a body of Persian forces to be raised for the
service of the king. Cyrus read the fabricated document in the public assembly
of the Persians, and called upon all the warriors to join him. When they were
organized, he ordered them to assemble on a certain day, at a place that he
named, each one provided with a woodman’s ax. When they were thus mustered, he
marched them into a forest, and set them at work to clear a piece of ground. The
army toiled all day, felling the trees, and piling them up to be burned. They
cleared in this way, as Herodotus states, a piece of ground eighteen or twenty
furlongs in extent. Cyrus kept them thus engaged in severe and incessant toil
all the day, giving them, too, only coarse food and little rest. At night he
dismissed them, commanding them to assemble again the second day. On the second
day, when they came together, they found a great banquet prepared for them, and
Cyrus directed them to devote the day to feasting and making merry. There was an
abundance of meats of all kinds, and rich wines in great profusion. The soldiers
gave themselves up for the whole day to merriment and revelry. The toils and the
hard fare of the day before had prepared them very effectually to enjoy the rest
and the luxuries of this festival. They spent the hours in feasting about their
camp-fires and reclining on the grass, where they amused themselves and one
another by relating tales, or joining in merry songs and dances. At last, in the
evening, Cyrus called them together, and asked them which day they had liked the
best. They replied that there was nothing at all to like in the one, and nothing
to be disliked in the other. They had had, on the first day, hard work and bad
fare, and on the second, uninterrupted ease and the most luxurious pleasures.

|It is indeed so,| said Cyrus, |and you have your destiny in your own hands to
make your lives pass like either of these days, just as you choose. If you will
follow me, you will enjoy ease, abundance, and luxury. If you refuse, you must
remain as you are, and toil on as you do now, and endure your present privations
and hardships to the end of your days.| He then explained to them his designs.
He told them that although Media was a great and powerful kingdom, still that
they were as good soldiers as the Medes, and with the arrangements and
preparations which he had made, they were sure of victory. The soldiers received
this proposal with great enthusiasm and joy. They declared themselves ready to
follow Cyrus wherever he should lead them, and the whole body immediately
commenced making preparations for the expedition. Astyages was, of course, soon
informed of these proceedings. He sent an order to Cyrus, summoning him
immediately into his presence. Cyrus sent back word, in reply, that Astyages
would probably see him sooner than he wished, and went on vigorously with his
preparations. When all was ready, the army marched, and, crossing the frontiers,
they entered into Media. In the mean time, Astyages had collected a large force,
and, as had been anticipated by the conspirators, he put it under the command of
Harpagus. Harpagus made known his design of going over to Cyrus as soon as he
should meet him, to as large a portion of the army as he thought it prudent to
admit to his confidence; the rest knew nothing of the plan; and thus the Median
army advanced to meet the invaders, a part of the troops with minds intent on
resolutely meeting and repelling their enemies, while the rest were secretly
preparing to go over at once to their side. When the battle was joined, the
honest part of the Median army fought valiantly at first, but soon,
thunderstruck and utterly confounded at seeing themselves abandoned and betrayed
by a large body of their comrades, they were easily overpowered by the
triumphant Persians. Some were taken prisoners; some fled back to Astyages; and
others, following the example of the deserters, went over to Cyrus’s camp and
swelled the numbers of his train. Cyrus, thus re-enforced by the accessions he
had received, and encouraged by the flight or dispersion of all who still wished
to oppose him, began to advance toward the capital.

Astyages, when he heard of the defection of Harpagus and of the discomfiture of
his army, was thrown into a perfect phrensy of rage and hate. The long-dreaded
prediction of his dream seemed now about to be fulfilled, and the magi, who had
taught him that when Cyrus had once been made king of the boys in sport, there
was no longer any danger of his aspiring to regal power, had proved themselves
false. They had either intentionally deceived him, or they were ignorant
themselves, and in that case they were worthless impostors. Although the danger
from Cyrus’s approach was imminent in the extreme, Astyages could not take any
measures for guarding against it until he had first gratified the despotic
cruelty of his nature by taking vengeance on these false pretenders. He directed
to have them all seized and brought before him, and then, having upbraided them
with bitter reproaches for their false predictions, he ordered them all to be
crucified.

He then adopted the most decisive measures for raising an army. He ordered every
man capable of bearing arms to come forward, and then, putting himself at the
head of the immense force which he had thus raised, he advanced to meet his
enemy. He supposed, no doubt, that he was sure of victory; but he under-rated
the power which the discipline, the resolution, the concentration, and the
terrible energy of Cyrus’s troops gave to their formidable array. He was
defeated. His army was totally cut to pieces, and he himself was taken prisoner.

Harpagus was present when he was taken, and he exulted in revengeful triumph
over the fallen tyrant’s ruin. Astyages was filled with rage and despair.
Harpagus asked him what he thought now of the supper in which he had compelled a
father to feed on the flesh of his child. Astyages, in reply, asked Harpagus
whether he thought that the success of Cyrus was owing to what he had done.
Harpagus replied that it was, and exultingly explained to Astyages the plots he
had formed, and the preparations which he had made for Cyrus’s invasion, so that
Astyages might see that his destruction had been effected by Harpagus alone, in
terrible retribution for the atrocious crime which he had committed so many
years before, and for which the vengeance of the sufferer had slumbered, during
the long interval, only to be more complete and overwhelming at last.

Astyages told Harpagus that he was a miserable wretch, the most foolish and most
wicked of mankind. He was the most foolish, for having plotted to put power into
another’s hands which it would have been just as easy for him to have secured
and retained in his own; and he was the most wicked, for having betrayed his
country, and delivered it over to a foreign power, merely to gratify his own
private revenge. The result of this battle was the complete overthrow of the
power and kingdom of Astyages, and the establishment of Cyrus on the throne of
the united kingdom of Media and Persia. Cyrus treated his grandfather with
kindness after his victory over him. He kept him confined, it is true, but it
was probably that indirect and qualified sort of confinement which is all that
is usually enforced in the case of princes and kings. In such cases, some
extensive and often sumptuous residence is assigned to the illustrious prisoner,
with grounds sufficiently extensive to afford every necessary range for
recreation and exercise, and with bodies of troops for keepers, which have much
more the form and appearance of military guards of honor attending on a prince,
than of jailers confining a prisoner. It was probably in such an imprisonment as
this that Astyages passed the remainder of his days. The people, having been
wearied with his despotic tyranny, rejoiced in his downfall, and acquiesced very
readily in the milder and more equitable government of Cyrus.

Astyages came to his death many years afterward, in a somewhat remarkable
manner. Cyrus sent for him to come into Persia, where he was himself then
residing. The officer who had Astyages in charge, conducted him, on the way,
into a desolate wilderness, where he perished of fatigue, exposure, and hunger.
It was supposed that this was done in obedience to secret orders from Cyrus, who
perhaps found the charge of such a prisoner a burden. The officer, however, was
cruelly punished for the act; but even this may have been only for appearances,
to divert the minds of men from all suspicion that Cyrus could himself have been
an accomplice in such a crime. The whole revolution which has been described in
this chapter, from its first inception to its final accomplishment, was effected
in a very short period of time, and Cyrus thus found himself very unexpectedly
and suddenly elevated to a throne.

Harpagus continued in his service, and became subsequently one of his most
celebrated generals.


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  CHAPTER 7: 1.06     CHAPTER 6. THE ORACLES.
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CHAPTER VI. THE ORACLES.

B.C.547

Plans of Croesus. -- The River Halys. -- Nature of the oracles. -- Situation of
Delphi. -- The gaseous vapor. -- The priestess. -- The sacred tripod. -- The
oracle of Dodona. -- The two black doves. -- The priestesses of Dodona. --
Manner of obtaining responses. -- The great brazen caldron. -- The Oasis of
Jupiter Ammon. -- Discovery of the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. -- Other oracles. --
Mode of consulting the oracle. -- Mystic ceremonies. -- Croesus puts the oracle
to the test. -- Manner of doing it. -- Return of the messengers. -- The replies.
-- Croesus decides in favor of Delphi. -- His costly gifts. -- The silver tank.
-- The golden lion. -- The bread-maker. -- Her history. -- The oracle
questioned. -- The response. -- Delight of Croesus. -- Supplementary inquiry. --
Croesus’s feeling of security. -- Nature of the oracles. -- Means by which the
credit of the oracles was sustained. -- Whether the priests were impostors. --
Answers of the oracles. -- Collusion between the priests and those who consulted
the oracle. -- Is there any revelation truly divine? As soon as Cyrus had become
established on his throne as King of the Medes and Persians, his influence and
power began to extend westward toward the confines of the empire of Croesus,
king of Lydia. Croesus was aroused from the dejection and stupor into which the
death of his son had plunged him, as related in a former chapter, by this
threatening danger. He began to consider very earnestly what he could do to
avert it. The River Halys, a great river of Asia Minor, which flows northward
into the Black Sea, was the eastern boundary of the Lydian empire. Croesus began
to entertain the design of raising an army and crossing the Halys, to invade the
empire of Cyrus, thinking that that would perhaps be safer policy than to wait
for Cyrus to cross the Halys, and bring the war upon him. Still, the enterprise
of invading Persia was a vast undertaking, and the responsibility great of being
the aggressor in the contest. After carefully considering the subject in all its
aspects, Croesus found himself still perplexed and undecided. The Greeks had a
method of looking into futurity, and of ascertaining, as they imagined, by
supernatural means, the course of future events, which was peculiar to that
people; at least no other nation seems ever to have practiced it in the precise
form which prevailed among them. It was by means of the oracles. There were four
or five localities in the Grecian countries which possessed, as the people
thought, the property of inspiring persons who visited them, or of giving to
some natural object certain supernatural powers by which future events could be
foretold. The three most important of these oracles were situated respectively
at Delphi, at Dodona, and at the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon.

Delphi was a small town built in a sort of valley, shaped like an amphitheater,
on the southern side of Mount Parnassus. Mount Parnassus is north of the
Peloponnesus, not very far from the shores of the Gulf of Corinth. Delphi was in
a picturesque and romantic situation, with the mountain behind it, and steep,
precipitous rocks descending to the level country before. These precipices
answered instead of walls to defend the temple and the town. In very early times
a cavern or fissure in the rocks was discovered at Delphi, from which there
issued a stream of gaseous vapor, which produced strange effects on those who
inhaled it. It was supposed to inspire them. People resorted to the place to
obtain the benefit of these inspirations, and of the knowledge which they
imagined they could obtain by means of them. Finally, a temple was built, and a
priestess resided constantly in it, to inhale the vapor and give the responses.
When she gave her answers to those who came to consult the oracle, she sat upon
a sort of three-legged stool, which was called the sacred tripod. These stools
were greatly celebrated as a very important part of the sacred apparatus of the
place. This oracle became at last so renowned, that the greatest potentates, and
even kings, came from great distances to consult it, and they made very rich and
costly presents at the shrine when they came. These presents, it was supposed,
tended to induce the god who presided over the oracle to give to those who made
them favorable and auspicious replies. The deity that dictated the predictions
of this oracle was Apollo.

There was another circumstance, besides the existence of the cave, which
signalized the locality where this oracle was situated. The people believed that
this spot was the exact center of the earth, which of course they considered as
one vast plain. There was an ancient story that Jupiter, in order to determine
the central point of creation, liberated two eagles at the same time, in
opposite quarters of the heavens, that they might fly toward one another, and so
mark the middle point by the place of their meeting. They met at Delphi.

Another of the most celebrated oracles was at Dodona. Dodona was northwest of
Delphi, in the Epirus, which was a country in the western part of what is now
Turkey in Europe, and on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. The origin of the
oracle at Dodona was, as the priestesses there told Herodotus, as follows: In
very ancient times, two black doves were set at liberty in Thebes, which was a
very venerable and sacred city of Egypt. One flew toward the north and the other
toward the west. The former crossed the Mediterranean, and then continued its
flight over the Peloponnesus, and over all the southern provinces of Greece,
until it reached Dodona. There it alighted on a beech-tree, and said, in a human
voice, that that spot was divinely appointed for the seat of a sacred oracle.
The other dove flew to the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon.

There were three priestesses at Dodona in the days of Herodotus. Their names
were Promenea, Timarete, and Nicandre. The answers of the oracle were, for a
time, obtained by the priestesses from some appearances which they observed in
the sacred beech on which the dove alighted, when the tree was agitated by the
wind. In later times, however, the responses were obtained in a still more
singular manner. Then was a brazen statue of a man, holding a whip in his hand.
The whip had three lashes, which were formed of brazen chains. At the end of
each chain was an astragalus, as it was called, which was a row of little knots
or knobs, such as were commonly appended to the lashes of whips used in those
days for scourging criminals.

These heavy lashes hung suspended in the hand of the statue over a great brazen
caldron, in such a manner that the wind would impel them, from time to time,
against its sides, causing the caldron to ring and resound like a gong. There
was, however, something in this resonance supernatural and divine; for, though
it was not loud, it was very long continued, when once the margin of the caldron
was touched, however gently, by the lashes. In fact, it was commonly said that
if touched in the morning, it would be night before the reverberations would
have died entirely away. Such a belief could be very easily sustained among the
common people; for a large, open-mouthed vessel like the Dodona caldron, with
thin sides formed of sonorous metal, might be kept in a state of continual
vibration by the wind alone.

They who wished to consult this oracle came with rich presents both for the
priestesses and for the shrine, and when they had made the offerings, and
performed the preliminary ceremonies required, they propounded their questions
to the priestesses, who obtained the replies by interpreting, according to
certain rules which they had formed, the sounds emitted by the mysterious gong.
The second black dove which took its flight from Thebes alighted, as we have
already said, in the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. This oasis was a small fertile spot
in the midst of the deserts of Africa, west of Egypt, about a hundred miles from
the Nile, and somewhat nearer than that to the Mediterranean Sea. It was first
discovered in the following manner: A certain king was marching across the
deserts, and his army, having exhausted their supplies of water, were on the
point of perishing with thirst, when a ram mysteriously appeared, and took a
position before them as their guide. They followed him, and at length came
suddenly upon a green and fertile valley, many miles in length. The ram
conducted them into this valley, and then suddenly vanished, and a copious
fountain of water sprung up in the place where he had stood. The king, in
gratitude for this divine interposition, consecrated the spot and built a temple
upon it, which was called the temple of Jupiter Ammon. The dove alighted here,
and ever afterward the oracles delivered by the priests of this temple were
considered as divinely inspired.

These three were the most important oracles. There were, however, many others of
subordinate consequence, each of which had its own peculiar ceremonies, all
senseless and absurd. At one there was a sort of oven-shaped cave in the rocks,
the spot being inclosed by an artificial wall. The cave was about six feet wide
and eight feet deep. The descent into it was by a ladder. Previously to
consulting this oracle certain ceremonies were necessary, which it required
several days to perform. The applicant was to offer sacrifices to many different
deities, and to purify himself in various ways. He was then conducted to a
stream in the neighborhood of the oracle, where he was to be anointed and
washed. Then he drank a certain magical water, called the water of
forgetfulness, which made him forget all previous sorrows and cares. Afterward
he drank of another enchanted cup, which contained the water of remembrance;
this was to make him remember all that should be communicated to him in the
cave. He then descended the ladder, and received within the cave the responses
of the oracle. At another of these oracles, which was situated in Attica, the
magic virtue was supposed to reside in a certain marble statue, carved in honor
of an ancient and celebrated prophet, and placed in a temple. Whoever wished to
consult this oracle must abstain from wine for three days, and from food of
every kind for twenty-four hours preceding the application. He was then to offer
a ram as a sacrifice; and afterward, taking the skin of the ram from the
carcass, he was to spread it out before the statue and lie down upon it to
sleep. The answers of the oracle came to him in his dreams. But to return to
Croesus. He wished to ascertain, by consulting some of these oracles, what the
result of his proposed invasion of the dominions of Cyrus would be, in case he
should undertake it; and in order to determine which of the various oracles were
most worthy of reliance, he conceived the plan of putting them all to a
preliminary test. He effected this object in the following manner:

He dispatched a number of messengers from Sardis, his capital, sending one to
each of the various oracles. He directed these messengers to make their several
journeys with all convenient dispatch; but, in order to provide for any cases of
accidental detention or delay, he allowed them all one hundred days to reach
their several places of destination. On the hundredth day from the time of their
leaving Sardis, they were all to make applications to the oracles, and inquire
what Croesus, king of Lydia, was doing at that time. Of course he did not tell
them what he should be doing; and as the oracles themselves could not possibly
know how he was employed by any human powers, their answers would seem to test
the validity of their claims to powers divine.

Croesus kept the reckoning of the days himself with great care, and at the hour
appointed on the hundredth day, he employed himself in boiling the flesh of a
turtle and of a lamb together in a brazen vessel. The vessel was covered with a
lid, which was also of brass. He then awaited the return of the messengers. They
came in due time, one after another, bringing the replies which they had
severally obtained. The replies were all unsatisfactory, except that of the
oracle at Delphi. This answer was in verse, as, in fact, the responses of that
oracle always were. The priestess who sat upon the tripod was accustomed to give
the replies in an incoherent and half-intelligible manner, as impostors are very
apt to do in uttering prophecies, and then the attendant priests and secretaries
wrote them out in verse. The verse which the messenger brought back from the
Delphic tripod was in Greek; but some idea of its style, and the import of it,
is conveyed by the following imitation:

|I number the sands, I measure the sea, What’s hidden to others is known to me.
The lamb and the turtle are simmering slow With brass above them and brass
below.| Of course, Croesus decided that the Delphic oracle was the one that he
must rely upon for guidance in respect to his projected campaign. And he now
began to prepare to consult it in a manner corresponding with the vast
importance of the subject, and with his own boundless wealth. He provided the
most extraordinary and sumptuous presents. Some of these treasures were to be
deposited in the temple, as sacred gifts, for permanent preservation there.
Others were to be offered as a burnt sacrifice in honor of the god. Among the
latter, besides an incredible number of living victims, he caused to be prepared
a great number of couches, magnificently decorated with silver and gold, and
goblets and other vessels of gold, and dresses of various kinds richly
embroidered, and numerous other articles, all intended to be used in the
ceremonies preliminary to his application to the oracle. When the time arrived,
a vast concourse of people assembled to witness the spectacle. The animals were
sacrificed, and the people feasted on the flesh; and when these ceremonies were
concluded, the couches, the goblets, the utensils of every kind, the dresses --
every thing, in short, which had been used on the occasion, were heaped up into
one great sacrificial pile, and set on fire. Every thing that was combustible
was consumed, while the gold was melted, and ran into plates of great size,
which were afterward taken out from the ashes. Thus it was the workmanship only
of these articles which was destroyed and lost by the fire. The gold, in which
the chief value consisted, was saved. It was gold from the Pactolus.

Besides these articles, there were others made, far more magnificent and costly,
for the temple itself. There was a silver cistern or tank, large enough to hold
three thousand gallons of wine. This tank was to be used by the inhabitants of
Delphi in their great festivals. There was also a smaller cistern, or immense
goblet, as it might, perhaps, more properly be called, which was made of gold.
There were also many other smaller presents, such as basins, vases, and statues,
all of silver and gold, and of the most costly workmanship. The gold, too, which
had been taken from the fire, was cast again, a part of it being formed into the
image of a lion, and the rest into large plates of metal for the lion to stand
upon. The image was then set up upon the plates, within the precincts of the
temple.

There was one piece of statuary which Croesus presented to the oracle at Delphi,
which was, in some respects, more extraordinary than any of the rest. It was
called the bread-maker. It was an image representing a woman, a servant in the
household of Croesus, whose business it was to bake the bread. The reason that
induced Croesus to honor this bread-maker with a statue of gold was, that on one
occasion during his childhood she had saved his life. The mother of Croesus died
when he was young, and his father married a second time. The second wife wished
to have some one of her children, instead of Croesus, succeed to her husband’s
throne. In order, therefore, to remove Croesus out of the way, she prepared some
poison and gave it to the bread-maker, instructing her to put it into the bread
which Croesus was to eat. The bread-maker received the poison and promised to
obey. But, instead of doing so, she revealed the intended murder to Croesus, and
gave the poison to the queen’s own children. In gratitude for this fidelity to
him, Croesus, when he came to the throne, caused this statue to be made, and now
he placed it at Delphi, where he supposed it would forever remain. The memory of
his faithful servant was indeed immortalized by the measure, though the statue
itself, as well as all these other treasures, in process of time disappeared. In
fact, statues of brass or of marble generally make far more durable monuments
than statues of gold; and no structure or object of art is likely to be very
permanent among mankind unless the workmanship is worth more than the material.

Croesus did not proceed himself to Delphi with these presents, but sent them by
the hands of trusty messengers, who were instructed to perform the ceremonies
required, to offer the gifts, and then to make inquiries of the oracle in the
following terms.

|Croesus the sovereign of Lydia and of various other kingdoms, in return for the
wisdom which has marked your former declarations, has sent you these gifts. He
now furthermore desires to know whether it is safe for him to proceed against
the Persians, and if so, whether it is best for him to seek the assistance of
any allies.| The answer was as follows:

|If Croesus crosses the Halys, and prosecutes a war with Persia, a mighty empire
will be overthrown. It will be best for him to form an alliance with the most
powerful states of Greece.|

Croesus was extremely pleased with this response. He immediately resolved on
undertaking the expedition against Cyrus; and to express his gratitude for so
favorable an answer to his questions, he sent to Delphi to inquire what was the
number of inhabitants in the city, and, when the answer was reported to him, he
sent a present of a sum of money to every one. The Delphians, in their turn,
conferred special privileges and honors upon the Lydians and upon Croesus in
respect to their oracle, giving them the precedence in all future consultations,
and conferring upon them other marks of distinction and honor. At the time when
Croesus sent his present to the inhabitants of Delphi, he took the opportunity
to address another inquiry to the oracle, which was, whether his power would
ever decline. The oracle replied in a couplet of Greek verse, similar in its
style to the one recorded on the previous occasion.

It was as follows:

|Whene’er a mule shall mount upon the Median throne, Then, and not till then,
shall great Croesus fear to lose his own.| This answer pleased the king quite as
much as the former one had done. The allusion to the contingency of a mule’s
reigning in Media he very naturally regarded as only a rhetorical and mystical
mode of expressing an utter impossibility. Croesus considered himself and the
continuance of his power as perfectly secure. He was fully confirmed in his
determination to organize his expedition without any delay, and to proceed
immediately to the proper measures for obtaining the Grecian alliance and aid
which the oracle had recommended. The plans which he formed, and the events
which resulted, will be described in subsequent chapters. In respect to these
Grecian oracles, it is proper here to state, that there has been much discussion
among scholars on the question how they were enabled to maintain, for so long a
period, so extended a credit among a people as intellectual and well informed as
the Greeks. It was doubtless by means of a variety of contrivances and
influences that this end was attained. There is a natural love of the marvelous
among the humbler classes in all countries, which leads them to be very ready to
believe in what is mystic and supernatural; and they accordingly exaggerate and
color such real incidents as occur under any strange or remarkable
circumstances, and invest any unusual phenomena which they witness with a
miraculous or supernatural interest. The cave at Delphi might really have
emitted gases which would produce quite striking effects upon those who inhaled
them; and how easy it would be for those who witnessed these effects to imagine
that some divine and miraculous powers must exist in the aerial current which
produced them. The priests and priestesses, who inhabited the temples in which
these oracles were contained, had, of course, a strong interest in keeping up
the belief of their reality in the minds of the community; so were, in fact, all
the inhabitants of the cities which sprung up around them. They derived their
support from the visitors who frequented these places, and they contrived
various ways for drawing contributions, both of money and gifts, from all who
came. In one case there was a sacred stream near an oracle, where persons, on
permission from the priests, were allowed to bathe. After the bathing, they were
expected to throw pieces of money into the stream. What afterward, in such
cases, became of the money, it is not difficult to imagine. Nor is it necessary
to suppose that all these priests and priestesses were impostors. Having been
trained up from infancy to believe that the inspirations were real, they would
continue to look upon them as such all their lives. Even at the present day we
shall all, if we closely scrutinize our mental habits, find ourselves continuing
to take for granted, in our maturer years, what we inconsiderately imbibed or
were erroneously taught in infancy, and that, often, in cases where the most
obvious dictates of reason, or even the plain testimony of our senses, might
show us that our notions are false. The priests and priestesses, therefore, who
imposed on the rest of mankind, may have been as honestly and as deep in the
delusion themselves as any of their dupes. The answers of the oracles were
generally vague and indefinite, and susceptible of almost any interpretation,
according to the result. Whenever the event corresponded with the prediction, or
could be made to correspond with it by the ingenuity of the commentators, the
story of the coincidence would, of course, be every where spread abroad,
becoming more striking and more exact at each repetition. Where there was a
failure, it would not be direct and absolute, on account of the vagueness and
indefiniteness of the response, and there would therefore be no interest felt in
hearing or in circulating the story. The cases, thus, which would tend to
establish the truth of the oracle, would be universally known and remembered,
while those of a contrary bearing would be speedily forgotten.

There is no doubt, however, that in many cases the responses were given in
collusion with the one who consulted the oracle, for the purpose of deceiving
others. For example, let us suppose that Croesus wished to establish strongly
the credibility of the Delphic oracle in the minds of his countrymen, in order
to encourage them to enlist in his armies, and to engage in the enterprise which
he was contemplating against Cyrus with resolution and confidence; it would have
been easy for him to have let the priestess at Delphi know what he was doing on
the day when he sent to inquire, and thus himself to have directed her answer.
Then, when his messengers returned, he would appeal to the answer as proof of
the reality of the inspiration which seemed to furnish it. Alexander the Great
certainly did, in this way, act in collusion with the priests at the temple of
Jupiter Ammon.

* * * * * The fact that there have been so many and such successful cases of
falsehood and imposture among mankind in respect to revelations from Heaven, is
no indication, as some superficially suppose, that no revelation is true, but
is, on the other hand, strong evidence to the contrary. The Author of human
existence has given no instincts in vain; and the universal tendency of mankind
to believe in the supernatural, to look into an unseen world, to seek, and to
imagine that they find, revelations from Heaven, and to expect a continuance of
existence after this earthly life is over, is the strongest possible natural
evidence that there is an unseen world; that man may have true communications
with it; that a personal deity reigns, who approves and disapproves of human
conduct, and that there is a future state of being. In this point of view, the
absurd oracles of Greece, and the universal credence which they obtained,
constitute strong evidence that there is somewhere to be found inspiration and
prophecy really divine.


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  CHAPTER 8: 1.07     CHAPTER 7. THE CONQUEST OF LYDIA.
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CHAPTER VII. THE CONQUEST OF LYDIA.

B.C.546

Reasons which induced Croesus to invade Media. -- The Lacedaemonians. --
Embassadors to Sparta. -- Preparations of Croesus. -- The counsel of Sardaris.
-- The army begins to march. -- Thales the Milesian. -- Mathematical skill of
Thales. -- His theorems. -- Ingenious plan of Thales for crossing the Halys. --
Advance of Cyrus. -- Preparations for battle. -- Great battle at Pteria. --
Undecisive result. -- Croesus returns to Sardis. -- Cyrus follows him. --
Confusion and alarm at Sardis. -- The Lydian cavalry. -- Nature of cavalry. --
Manner of receiving a cavalry charge. -- The camels. -- Cyrus opposes them to
the cavalry. -- The battle fought. -- Cyrus victorious. -- Situation of Sardis.
-- Its walls. -- An ancient legend. -- Cyrus besieges the city. -- The
reconnoissance. -- The walls scaled. -- Storming of the city. -- Croesus made
prisoner. -- The funeral pile. -- Anguish and despair of Croesus. -- The saying
of Solon. -- Croesus is saved. -- He becomes Cyrus’s friend. -- Croesus sends
his fetters to the oracle at Delphi. -- Explanations of the priests. -- Their
adroitness and dexterity.

There were, in fact, three inducements which combined their influence on the
mind of Croesus, in leading him to cross the Halys, and invade the dominions of
the Medes and Persians: first, he was ambitious to extend his own empire;
secondly, he feared that if he did not attack Cyrus, Cyrus would himself cross
the Halys and attack him; and, thirdly, he felt under some obligation to
consider himself the ally of Astyages, and thus bound to espouse his cause, and
to aid him in putting down, if possible, the usurpation of Cyrus, and in
recovering his throne. He felt under this obligation because Astyages was his
brother-in-law; for the latter had married, many years before, a daughter of
Alyattes, who was the father of Croesus. This, as Croesus thought, gave him a
just title to interfere between the dethroned king and the rebel who had
dethroned him. Under the influence of all these reasons combined, and encouraged
by the responses of the oracle, he determined on attempting the invasion. The
first measure which he adopted was to form an alliance with the most powerful of
the states of Greece, as he had been directed to do by the oracle. After much
inquiry and consideration, he concluded that the Lacedaemonian state was the
most powerful. Their chief city was Sparta, in the Peloponnesus. They were a
warlike, stern, and indomitable race of men, capable of bearing every possible
hardship, and of enduring every degree of fatigue and toil, and they desired
nothing but military glory for their reward. This was a species of wages which
it was very easy to pay; much more easy to furnish than coin, even for Croesus,
notwithstanding the abundant supplies of gold which he was accustomed to obtain
from the sands of the Pactolus.

Croesus sent embassadors to Sparta to inform the people of the plans which he
contemplated, and to ask their aid. He had been instructed, he said, by the
oracle at Delphi, to seek the alliance of the most powerful of the states of
Greece, and he accordingly made application to them. They were gratified with
the compliment implied in selecting them, and acceded readily to his proposal.
Besides, they were already on very friendly terms with Croesus; for, some years
before, they had sent to him to procure some gold for a statue which they had
occasion to erect, offering to give an equivalent for the value of it in such
productions as their country afforded. Croesus supplied them with the gold that
they needed, but generously refused to receive any return. In the mean time,
Croesus went on, energetically, at Sardis, making the preparations for his
campaign. One of his counselors, whose name was Sardaris, ventured, one day,
strongly to dissuade him from undertaking the expedition. |You have nothing to
gain by it,| said he, |if you succeed, and every thing to lose if you fail.
Consider what sort of people these Persians are whom you are going to combat.
They live in the most rude and simple manner, without luxuries, without
pleasures, without wealth. If you conquer their country, you will find nothing
in it worth bringing away. On the other hand, if they conquer you, they will
come like a vast band of plunderers into Lydia, where there is every thing to
tempt and reward them. I counsel you to leave them alone, and to remain on this
side the Halys, thankful if Cyrus will be contented to remain on the other.| But
Croesus was not in a mood of mind to be persuaded by such reasoning. When all
things were ready, the army commenced its march and moved eastward, through one
province of Asia Minor after another, until they reached the Halys. This river
is a considerable stream, which rises in the interior of the country, and flows
northward into the Euxine Sea. The army encamped on the banks of it, and some
plan was to be formed for crossing the stream. In accomplishing this object,
Croesus was aided by a very celebrated engineer who accompanied his army, named
Thales. Thales was a native of Miletus, and is generally called in history,
Thales the Milesian. He was a very able mathematician and calculator, and many
accounts remain of the discoveries and performances by which he acquired his
renown. For example, in the course of his travels, he at one time visited Egypt,
and while there, he contrived a very simple way of measuring the height of the
pyramids. He set up a pole on the plain in an upright position, and then
measured the pole and also its shadow. He also measured the length of the shadow
of the pyramid. He then calculated the height of the pyramid by this proportion:
as the length of shadow of the pole is to that of the pole itself, so is the
length of the shadow of the pyramid to its height.

Thales was an astronomer as well as a philosopher and engineer. He learned more
exactly the true length of the year than it had been known before; and he also
made some calculations of eclipses, at least so far as to predict the year in
which they would happen. One eclipse which he predicted happened to occur on the
day of a great battle between two contending armies. It was cloudy, so that the
combatants could not see the sun. This circumstance, however, which concealed
the eclipse itself, only made the darkness which was caused by it the more
intense. The armies were much terrified at this sudden cessation of the light of
day, and supposed it to be a warning from heaven that they should desist from
the combat.

Thales the Milesian was the author of several of the geometrical theorems and
demonstrations now included in the Elements of Euclid. The celebrated fifth
proposition of the first book, so famous among all the modern nations of Europe
as the great stumbling block in the way of beginners in the study of geometry,
was his. The discovery of the truth expressed in this proposition, and of the
complicated demonstration which establishes it, was certainly a much greater
mathematical performance than the measuring of the altitude of the pyramids by
their shadow. But to return to Croesus. Thales undertook the work of
transporting the army across the river. He examined the banks, and found, at
length, a spot where the land was low and level for some distance from the
stream. He caused the army to be brought up to the river at this point, and to
be encamped there, as near to the bank as possible, and in as compact a form. He
then employed a vast number of laborers to cut a new channel for the waters,
behind the army, leading out from the river above, and rejoining it again at a
little distance below. When this channel was finished, he turned the river into
its new course, and then the army passed without difficulty over the former bed
of the stream. The Halys being thus passed, Croesus moved on in the direction of
Media. But he soon found that he had not far to go to find his enemy. Cyrus had
heard of his plans through deserters and spies, and he had for some time been
advancing to meet him. One after the other of the nations through whose
dominions he had passed, he had subjected to his sway, or, at least, brought
under his influence by treaties and alliances, and had received from them all
re-enforcements to swell the numbers of his army. One nation only remained --
the Babylonians. They were on the side of Croesus. They were jealous of the
growing power of the Medes and Persians, and had made a league with Croesus,
promising to aid him in the war. The other nations of the East were in alliance
with Cyrus, and he was slowly moving on, at the head of an immense combined
force, toward the Halys, at the very time when Croesus was crossing the stream.
The scouts, therefore, that preceded the army of Croesus on its march, soon
began to fall back into the camp, with intelligence that there was a large armed
force coming on to meet them, the advancing columns filling all the roads, and
threatening to overwhelm them. The scouts from the army of Cyrus carried back
similar intelligence to him. The two armies accordingly halted and began to
prepare for battle. The place of their meeting was called Pteria. It was in the
province of Cappadocia, and toward the eastern part of Asia Minor. A great
battle was fought at Pteria. It was continued all day, and remained undecided
when the sun went down. The combatants separated when it became dark, and each
withdrew from the field. Each king found, it seems, that his antagonist was more
formidable than he had imagined, and on the morning after the battle they both
seemed inclined to remain in their respective encampments, without evincing any
disposition to renew the contest.

Croesus, in fact, seems to have considered that he was fortunate in having so
far repulsed the formidable invasion which Cyrus had been intending for him. He
considered Cyrus’s army as repulsed, since they had withdrawn from the field,
and showed no disposition to return to it. He had no doubt that Cyrus would now
go back to Media again, having found how well prepared Croesus had been to
receive him. For himself, he concluded that he ought to be satisfied with the
advantage which he had already gained, as the result of one campaign, and return
again to Sardis to recruit his army, the force of which had been considerably
impaired by the battle, and so postpone the grand invasion till the next season.
He accordingly set out on his return. He dispatched messengers, at the same
time, to Babylon, to Sparta, to Egypt, and to other countries with which he was
in alliance, informing these various nations of the great battle of Pteria and
its results, and asking them to send him, early in the following spring, all the
re-enforcements that they could command, to join him in the grand campaign which
he was going to make the next season.

He continued his march homeward without any interruption, sending off, from time
to time, as he was moving through his own dominions, such portions of his troops
as desired to return to their homes, enjoining upon them to come back to him in
the spring. By this temporary disbanding of a portion of his army, he saved the
expense of maintaining them through the winter.

Very soon after Croesus arrived at Sardis, the whole country in the neighborhood
of the capital was thrown into a state of universal alarm by the news that Cyrus
was close at hand. It seems that Cyrus had remained in the vicinity of Pteria
long enough to allow Croesus to return, and to give him time to dismiss his
troops and establish himself securely in the city. He then suddenly resumed his
march, and came on toward Sardis with the utmost possible dispatch. Croesus, in
fact, had no announcement of his approach until he heard of his arrival.

All was now confusion and alarm, both within and without the city. Croesus
hastily collected all the forces that he could command. He sent immediately to
the neighboring cities, summoning all the troops in them to hasten to the
capital. He enrolled all the inhabitants of the city that were capable of
bearing arms. By these means he collected, in a very short time, quite a
formidable force, which he drew up, in battle array, on a great plain not far
from the city, and there waited, with much anxiety and solicitude, for Cyrus to
come on. The Lydian army was superior to that of Cyrus in cavalry, and as the
place where the battle was to be fought was a plain, which was the kind of
ground most favorable for the operations of that species of force, Cyrus felt
some solicitude in respect to the impression which might be made by it on his
army. Nothing is more terrible than the onset of a squadron of horse when
charging an enemy upon the field of battle. They come in vast bodies, sometimes
consisting of many thousands, with the speed of the wind, the men flourishing
their sabers and rending the air with the most unearthly cries, those in advance
being driven irresistibly on by the weight and impetus of the masses behind. The
dreadful torrent bears down and overwhelms every thing that attempts to resist
its way. They trample one another and their enemies together promiscuously in
the dust; the foremost of the column press on with the utmost fury, afraid quite
as much of the headlong torrent of friends coming on behind them, as of the line
of fixed and motionless enemies who stand ready to receive them before. These
enemies, stationed to withstand the charge, arrange themselves in triple or
quadruple rows, with the shafts of their spears planted against the ground, and
the points directed forward and upward to receive the advancing horsemen. These
spears transfix and kill the foremost horses; but those that come on behind,
leaping and plunging over their fallen companions, soon break through the lines
and put their enemies to flight, in a scene of indescribable havoc and
confusion.

Croesus had large bodies of horse, while Cyrus had no efficient troops to oppose
them. He had a great number of camels in the rear of his army, which had been
employed as beasts of burden to transport the baggage and stores of the army on
their march. Cyrus concluded to make the experiment of opposing these camels to
the cavalry. It is frequently said by the ancient historians that the horse has
a natural antipathy to the camel, and can not bear either the smell or the sight
of one, though this is not found to be the case at the present day. However the
fact might have been in this respect, Cyrus determined to arrange the camels in
his front as he advanced into battle. He accordingly ordered the baggage to be
removed, and, releasing their ordinary drivers from the charge of them, he
assigned each one to the care of a soldier, who was to mount him, armed with a
spear. Even if the supposed antipathy of the horse for the camel did not take
effect, Cyrus thought that their large and heavy bodies, defended by the spears
of their riders, would afford the most effectual means of resistance against the
shock of the Lydian squadrons that he was now able to command. The battle
commenced, and the squadrons of horse came on. But, as soon as they came near
the camels, it happened that, either from the influence of the antipathy above
referred to, or from alarm at the novelty of the spectacle of such huge and
misshapen beasts, or else because of the substantial resistance which the camels
and the spears of their riders made to the shock of their charge, the horses
were soon thrown into confusion and put to flight. In fact, a general panic
seized them, and they became totally unmanageable. Some threw their riders;
others, seized with a sort of phrensy, became entirely independent of control.
They turned, and trampled the foot soldiers of their own army under foot, and
threw the whole body into disorder. The consequence was, that the army of
Croesus was wholly defeated; they fled in confusion, and crowded in vast throngs
through the gates into the city, and fortified themselves there.

Cyrus advanced to the city, invested it closely on all sides, and commenced a
siege. But the appearances were not very encouraging. The walls were lofty,
thick, and strong, and the numbers within the city were amply sufficient to
guard them. Nor was the prospect much more promising of being soon able to
reduce the city by famine. The wealth of Croesus had enabled him to lay up
almost inexhaustible stores of food and clothing, as well as treasures of silver
and gold. He hoped, therefore, to be able to hold out against the besiegers
until help should come from some of his allies. He had sent messengers to them,
asking them to come to his rescue without any delay, before he was shut up in
the city. The city of Sardis was built in a position naturally strong, and one
part of the wall passed over rocky precipices which were considered entirely
impassable. There was a sort of glen or rocky gorge in this quarter, outside of
the walls, down which dead bodies were thrown on one occasion subsequently, at a
time when the city was besieged, and beasts and birds of prey fed upon them
there undisturbed, so lonely was the place and so desolate. In fact, the walls
that crowned these precipices were considered absolutely inaccessible, and were
very slightly built and very feebly guarded. There was an ancient legend that, a
long time before, when a certain Males was king of Lydia, one of his wives had a
son in the form of a lion, whom they called Leon, and an oracle declared that if
this Leon were carried around the walls of the city, it would be rendered
impregnable, and should never be taken. They carried Leon, therefore, around, so
far as the regular walls extended. When they came to this precipice of rocks,
they returned, considering that this part of the city was impregnable without
any such ceremony. A spur or eminence from the mountain of Tmolus, which was
behind the city, projected into it at this point, and there was a strong citadel
built upon its summit.

[Illustration: THE SIEGE OF SARDIS.]

Cyrus continued the siege fourteen days, and then he determined that he must, in
some way or other, find the means of carrying it by assault, and to do this he
must find some place to scale the walls. He accordingly sent a party of horsemen
around to explore every part, offering them a large reward if they would find
any place where an entrance could be effected. The horsemen made the circuit,
and reported that their search had been in vain. At length a certain soldier,
named Hyraeades, after studying for some time the precipices on the side which
had been deemed inaccessible, saw a sentinel, who was stationed on the walls
above, leave his post and come climbing down the rocks for some distance to get
his helmet, which had accidentally dropped down. Hyraeades watched him both as
he descended and as he returned. He reflected on this discovery, communicated it
to others, and the practicability of scaling the rock and the walls at that
point was discussed. In the end, the attempt was made and was successful.
Hyraeades went up first, followed by a few daring spirits who were ambitious of
the glory of the exploit. They were not at first observed from above. The way
being thus shown, great numbers followed on, and so large a force succeeded in
thus gaining an entrance that the city was taken. In the dreadful confusion and
din of the storming of the city, Croesus himself had a very narrow escape from
death. He was saved by the miraculous speaking of his deaf and dumb son -- at
least such is the story. Cyrus had given positive orders to his soldiers, both
before the great battle on the plain and during the siege, that, though they
might slay whomever else they pleased, they must not harm Croesus, but must take
him alive. During the time of the storming of the town, when the streets were
filled with infuriated soldiers, those on the one side wild with the excitement
of triumph, and those on the other maddened with rage and despair, a party,
rushing along, overtook Croesus and his helpless son, whom the unhappy father,
it seems, was making a desperate effort to save. The Persian soldiers were about
to transfix Croesus with their spears, when the son, who had never spoken
before, called out, |It is Croesus; do not kill him.| The soldiers were arrested
by the words, and saved the monarch’s life. They made him prisoner, and bore him
away to Cyrus.

Croesus had sent, a long time before, to inquire of the Delphic oracle by what
means the power of speech could be restored to his son. The answer was, that
that was a boon which he had better not ask; for the day on which he should hear
his son speak for the first time, would be the darkest and most unhappy day of
his life.

Cyrus had not ordered his soldiers to spare the life of Croesus in battle from
any sentiment of humanity toward him, but because he wished to have his case
reserved for his own decision. When Croesus was brought to him a captive, he
ordered him to be put in chains, and carefully guarded. As soon as some degree
of order was restored in the city, a large funeral pile was erected, by his
directions, in a public square, and Croesus was brought to the spot. Fourteen
Lydian young men, the sons, probably, of the most prominent men in the state,
were with him. The pile was large enough for them all, and they were placed upon
it. They were all laid upon the wood. Croesus raised himself and looked around,
surveying with extreme consternation and horror the preparations which were
making for lighting the pile. His heart sank within him as he thought of the
dreadful fate that was before him. The spectators stood by in solemn silence,
awaiting the end. Croesus broke this awful pause by crying out, in a tone of
anguish and despair, |Oh Solon! Solon! Solon!| The officers who had charge of
the execution asked him what he meant. Cyrus, too, who was himself personally
superintending the scene, asked for an explanation. Croesus was, for a time, too
much agitated and distracted to reply. There were difficulties in respect to
language, too, which embarrassed the conversation, as the two kings could speak
to each other only through an interpreter. At length Croesus gave an account of
his interview with Solon, and of the sentiment which the philosopher had
expressed, that no one could decide whether a man was truly prosperous and happy
till it was determined how his life was to end. Cyrus was greatly interested in
this narrative; but, in the mean time, the interpreting of the conversation had
been slow, a considerable period had elapsed, and the officers had lighted the
fire. The pile had been made extremely combustible, and the fire was rapidly
making its way through the whole mass. Cyrus eagerly ordered it to be
extinguished. The efforts which the soldiers made for this purpose seemed, at
first, likely to be fruitless; but they were aided very soon by a sudden shower
of rain, which, coming down from the mountains, began, just at this time, to
fall; and thus the flames were extinguished, and Croesus and the captives saved.

Cyrus immediately, with a fickleness very common among great monarchs in the
treatment of both enemies and favorites, began to consider Croesus as his
friend. He ordered him to be unbound, brought him near his person, and treated
him with great consideration and honor.

Croesus remained after this for a long time with Cyrus, and accompanied him in
his subsequent campaigns. He was very much incensed at the oracle at Delphi for
having deceived him by its false responses and predictions, and thus led him
into the terrible snare into which he had fallen. He procured the fetters with
which he had been chained when placed upon the pile, and sent them to Delphi
with orders that they should be thrown down upon the threshold of the temple --
the visible symbol of his captivity and ruin -- as a reproach to the oracle for
having deluded him and caused his destruction. In doing this, the messengers
were to ask the oracle whether imposition like that which had been practiced on
Croesus was the kind of gratitude it evinced to one who had enriched it by such
a profusion of offerings and gifts. To this the priests of the oracle said in
reply, that the destruction of the Lydian dynasty had long been decreed by the
Fates, in retribution for the guilt of Gyges, the founder of the line. He had
murdered his master, and usurped the throne, without any title to it whatever.
The judgments of Heaven had been denounced upon Gyges for this crime, to fall on
himself or on some of his descendants. The Pythian Apollo at Delphi had done all
in his power to postpone the falling of the blow until after the death of
Croesus, on account of the munificent benefactions which he had made to the
oracle; but he had been unable to effect it: the decrees of Fate were
inexorable. All that the oracle could do was to postpone -- as it had done, it
said, for three years -- the execution of the sentence, and to give Croesus
warning of the evil that was impending. This had been done by announcing to him
that his crossing the Halys would cause the destruction of a mighty empire,
meaning that of Lydia, and also by informing him that when he should find a mule
upon the throne of Media he must expect to lose his own. Cyrus, who was
descended, on the father’s side, from the Persian stock, and on the mother’s
from that of Media, was the hybrid sovereign represented by the mule. When this
answer was reported to Croesus, it is said that he was satisfied with the
explanations, and admitted that the oracle was right, and that he himself had
been unreasonable and wrong. However this may be, it is certain that, among
mankind at large, since Croesus’s day, there has been a great disposition to
overlook whatever of criminality there may have been in the falsehood and
imposture of the oracle, through admiration of the adroitness and dexterity
which its ministers evinced in saving themselves from exposure.


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  CHAPTER 9: 1.08     CHAPTER 8. THE CONQUEST OF BABYLON.
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CHAPTER VIII. THE CONQUEST OF BABYLON.

B.C.544-538

Babylon. -- The River Euphrates. -- Canals. -- Curious boats. -- Their mode of
construction. -- Primitive navigation. -- Return of the boatmen. -- Extent of
Babylon. -- Parks, gardens, palaces, etc. -- The walls of Babylon. -- Marvelous
accounts. -- The ditches. -- Streets and gates. -- Palace of the king. -- Temple
of Belus. -- The bridge. -- Sculptures. -- The hanging gardens. -- Construction
of the gardens. -- The platform and terraces. -- Engine for raising water. --
Floral beauties. -- The works of Nitocris. -- Her canals and levees. -- The
bridge over the Euphrates. -- The tomb of the queen. -- Cyrus plans an attack
upon Babylon. -- Government of Lydia. -- Cyrus returns eastward. -- Revolt of
the Lydians. -- Detachment of Mazares. -- Flight of Pactyas. -- Pactyas at Cyme.
-- The people consult the oracle. -- Reply of the oracle. -- Aristodicus and the
birds’ nests. -- Capture of Pactyas. -- Situation of Belshazzar. -- Belshazzar’s
feeling of security. -- Approach of Cyrus. -- Cyrus draws off the water from the
river. -- The city captured. In his advance toward the dominions of Croesus in
Asia Minor, Cyrus had passed to the northward of the great and celebrated city
of Babylon. Babylon was on the Euphrates, toward the southern part of Asia. It
was the capital of a large and very fertile region, which extended on both sides
of the Euphrates toward the Persian Gulf. The limits of the country, however,
which was subject to Babylon, varied very much at different times, as they were
extended or contracted by revolutions and wars. The River Euphrates was the
great source of fertility for the whole region through which it flowed. The
country watered by this river was very densely populated, and the inhabitants
were industrious and peaceable, cultivating their land, and living quietly and
happily on its fruits. The surface was intersected with canals, which the people
had made for conveying the water of the river over the land for the purpose of
irrigating it. Some of these canals were navigable. There was one great trunk
which passed from the Euphrates to the Tigris, supplying many minor canals by
the way, that was navigable for vessels of considerable burden. The traffic of
the country was, however, mainly conducted by means of boats of moderate size,
the construction of which seemed to Herodotus very curious and remarkable. The
city was enormously large, and required immense supplies of food, which were
brought down in these boats from the agricultural country above. The boats were
made in the following manner: first a frame was built, of the shape of the
intended boat, broad and shallow, and with the stem and stern of the same form.
This frame was made of willows, like a basket, and, when finished, was covered
with a sheathing of skins. A layer of reeds was then spread over the bottom of
the boat to protect the frame, and to distribute evenly the pressure of the
cargo. The boat, thus finished, was laden with the produce of the country, and
was then floated down the river to Babylon. In this navigation the boatmen were
careful to protect the leather sheathing from injury by avoiding all contact
with rocks, or even with the gravel of the shores. They kept their craft in the
middle of the stream by means of two oars, or, rather, an oar and a paddle,
which were worked, the first at the bows, and the second at the stern. The
advance of the boat was in some measure accelerated by these boatmen, though
their main function was to steer their vessel by keeping it out of eddies and
away from projecting points of land, and directing its course to those parts of
the stream where the current was swiftest, and where it would consequently be
borne forward most rapidly to its destination.

These boats were generally of very considerable size, and they carried, in
addition to their cargo and crew, one or more beasts of burden -- generally
asses or mules. These animals were allowed the pleasure, if any pleasure it was
to them, of sailing thus idly down the stream, for the sake of having them at
hand at the end of the voyage, to carry back again, up the country, the skins,
which constituted the most valuable portion of the craft they sailed in. It was
found that these skins, if carefully preserved, could be easily transported up
the river, and would answer the purpose of a second voyage. Accordingly, when
the boats arrived at Babylon, the cargo was sold, the boats were broken up, the
skins were folded into packs, and in this form the mules carried them up the
river again, the boatmen driving the mules as they walked by their side.

Babylon was a city of immense extent and magnitude. In fact, the accounts given
of the space which it covered have often been considered incredible. These
accounts make the space which was included within the walls four or five times
as large as London. A great deal of this space was, however, occupied by parks
and gardens connected with the royal palaces, and by open squares. Then,
besides, the houses occupied by the common people in the ancient cities were of
fewer stories in height, and consequently more extended on the ground, than
those built in modern times. In fact, it is probable that, in many instances,
they were mere ranges of huts and hovels, as is the case, indeed, to a
considerable extent, in Oriental cities, at the present day, so that it is not
at all impossible that even so large an area as four or five times the size of
London may have been included within the fortifications of the city. In respect
to the walls of the city, very extraordinary and apparently contradictory
accounts are given by the various ancient authors who described them. Some make
them seventy-five and others two or three hundred feet high. There have been
many discussions in respect to the comparative credibility of these several
statements, and some ingenious attempts have been made to reconcile them. It is
not, however, at all surprising that there should be such a diversity in the
dimensions given, for the walling of an ancient city was seldom of the same
height in all places. The structure necessarily varied according to the nature
of the ground, being high wherever the ground without was such as to give the
enemy an advantage in an attack, and lower in other situations, where the
conformation of the surface was such as to afford, of itself, a partial
protection. It is not, perhaps, impossible that, at some particular points --
as, for example, across glens and ravines, or along steep declivities -- the
walls of Babylon may have been raised even to the very extraordinary height
which Herodotus ascribes to them. The walls were made of bricks, and the bricks
were formed of clay and earth, which was dug from a trench made outside of the
lines. This trench served the purpose of a ditch, to strengthen the
fortification when the wall was completed. The water from the river, and from
streams flowing toward the river, was admitted to these ditches on every side,
and kept them always full. The sides of these ditches were lined with bricks
too, which were made, like those of the walls, from the earth obtained from the
excavations. They used for all this masonry a cement made from a species of
bitumen, which was found in great quantities floating down one of the rivers
which flowed into the Euphrates, in the neighborhood of Babylon. The River
Euphrates itself flowed through the city. There was a breast-work or low wall
along the banks of it on either side, with openings at the terminations of the
streets leading to the water, and flights of steps to go down. These openings
were secured by gates of brass, which, when closed, would prevent an enemy from
gaining access to the city from the river. The great streets, which terminated
thus at the river on one side, extended to the walls of the city on the other,
and they were crossed by other streets at right angles to them. In the outer
walls of the city, at the extremities of all these streets, were massive gates
of brass, with hinges and frames of the same metal. There were a hundred of
these gates in all. They were guarded by watch-towers on the walls above. The
watch-towers were built on both the inner and outer faces of the wall, and the
wall itself was so broad that there was room between these watch-towers for a
chariot and four to drive and turn. The river, of course, divided the city into
two parts. The king’s palace was in the center of one of these divisions, within
a vast circular inclosure, which contained the palace buildings, together with
the spacious courts, and parks, and gardens pertaining to them. In the center of
the other division was a corresponding inclosure, which contained the great
temple of Belus. Here there was a very lofty tower, divided into eight separate
towers, one above another, with a winding staircase to ascend to the summit. In
the upper story was a sort of chapel, with a couch, and a table, and other
furniture for use in the sacred ceremonies, all of gold. Above this, on the
highest platform of all, was a grand observatory, where the Babylonian
astrologers made their celestial observations.

There was a bridge across the river, connecting one section of the city with the
other, and it is said that there was a subterranean passage under the river
also, which was used as a private communication between two public edifices --
palaces or citadels -- which were situated near the extremities of the bridge.
All these constructions were of the most grand and imposing character. In
addition to the architectural magnificence of the buildings, the gates and walls
were embellished with a great variety of sculptures: images of animals, of every
form and in every attitude; and men, single and in groups, models of great
sovereigns, and representations of hunting scenes, battle scenes, and great
events in the Babylonian history. The most remarkable, however, of all the
wonders of Babylon -- though perhaps not built till after Cyrus’s time -- were
what were called the hanging gardens. Although called the hanging gardens, they
were not suspended in any manner, as the name might denote, but were supported
upon arches and walls. The arches and walls sustained a succession of terraces,
rising one above another, with broad flights of steps for ascending to them, and
on these terraces the gardens were made. The upper terrace, or platform, was
several hundred feet from the ground; so high, that it was necessary to build
arches upon arches within, in order to attain the requisite elevation. The
lateral thrust of these arches was sustained by a wall twenty-five feet in
thickness, which surrounded the garden on all sides, and rose as high as the
lowermost tier of arches, upon which would, of course, be concentrated the
pressure and weight of all the pile. The whole structure thus formed a sort of
artificial hill, square in form, and rising, in a succession of terraces, to a
broad and level area upon the top. The extent of this grand square upon the
summit was four hundred feet upon each side. The surface which served as the
foundation for the gardens that adorned these successive terraces and the area
above was formed in the following manner: Over the masonry of the arches there
was laid a pavement of broad flat stones, sixteen feet long and four feet wide.
Over these there was placed a stratum of reeds, laid in bitumen, and above them
another flooring of bricks, cemented closely together, so as to be impervious to
water. To make the security complete in this respect, the upper surface of this
brick flooring was covered with sheets of lead, overlapping each other in such a
manner as to convey all the water which might percolate through the mold away to
the sides of the garden. The earth and mold were placed upon this surface, thus
prepared, and the stratum was so deep as to allow large trees to take root and
grow in it. There was an engine constructed in the middle of the upper terrace,
by which water could be drawn up from the river, and distributed over every part
of the vast pile. The gardens, thus completed, were filled to profusion with
every species of tree, and plant, and vine, which could produce fruit or flowers
to enrich or adorn such a scene. Every country in communication with Babylon was
made to contribute something to increase the endless variety of floral beauty
which was here literally enthroned. Gardeners of great experience and skill were
constantly employed in cultivating the parterres, pruning the fruit-trees and
the vines, preserving the walks, and introducing new varieties of vegetation. In
a word, the hanging gardens of Babylon became one of the wonders of the world.
The country in the neighborhood of Babylon, extending from the river on either
hand was in general level and low, and subject to inundations. One of the
sovereigns of the country, a queen named Nitocris, had formed the grand design
of constructing an immense lake, to take off the superfluous water in case of a
flood, and thus prevent an overflow. She also opened a great number of lateral
and winding channels for the river, wherever the natural disposition of the
surface afforded facilities for doing so, and the earth which was taken out in
the course of these excavations was employed in raising the banks by artificial
terraces, such as are made to confine the Mississippi at New Orleans, and are
there called levees.[B] The object of Nitocris in these measures was two-fold.
She wished, in the first place, to open all practicable channels for the flow of
the water, and then to confine the current within the channels thus made. She
also wished to make the navigation of the stream as intricate and complicated as
possible, so that, while the natives of the country might easily find their way,
in boats, to the capital, a foreign enemy, if he should make the attempt, might
be confused and lost. These were the rivers of Babylon on the banks of which the
captive Jews sat down and wept when they remembered Zion.

[Footnote B: From the French word levee, raised.] This queen Nitocris seems to
have been quite distinguished for her engineering and architectural plans. It
was she that built the bridge across the Euphrates, within the city; and as
there was a feeling of jealousy and ill will, as usual in such a case, between
the two divisions of the town which the river formed, she caused the bridge to
be constructed with a movable platform or draw, by means of which the
communication might be cut off at pleasure. This draw was generally up at night
and down by day.

Herodotus relates a curious anecdote of this queen, which, if true, evinces in
another way the peculiar originality of mind and the ingenuity which
characterized all her operations. She caused her tomb to be built, before her
death, over one of the principal gates of the city. Upon the facade of this
monument was a very conspicuous inscription to this effect: |If any one of the
sovereigns, my successors, shall be in extreme want of money, let him open my
tomb and take what he may think proper; but let him not resort to this resource
unless the urgency is extreme.| The tomb remained for some time after the
queen’s death quite undisturbed. In fact, the people of the city avoided this
gate altogether, on account of the dead body deposited above it, and the spot
became well-nigh deserted. At length, in process of time, a subsequent
sovereign, being in want of money, ventured to open the tomb. He found, however,
no money within. The gloomy vault contained nothing but the dead body of the
queen, and a label with this inscription: |If your avarice were not as
insatiable as it is base, you would not have intruded on the repose of the
dead.|

It was not surprising that Cyrus, having been so successful in his enterprises
thus far, should now begin to turn his thoughts toward this great Babylonian
empire, and to feel a desire to bring it under his sway. The first thing,
however, was to confirm and secure his Lydian conquests. He spent some time,
therefore, in organizing and arranging, at Sardis, the affairs of the new
government which he was to substitute for that of Croesus there. He designated
certain portions of his army to be left for garrisons in the conquered cities.
He appointed Persian officers, of course, to command these forces; but, as he
wished to conciliate the Lydians, he appointed many of the municipal and civil
officers of the country from among them. There would appear to be no danger in
doing this, as, by giving the command of the army to Persians, he retained all
the real power directly in his own hands.

One of these civil officers, the most important, in fact, of all, was the grand
treasurer. To him Cyrus committed the charge of the stores of gold and silver
which came into his possession at Sardis, and of the revenues which were
afterward to accrue. Cyrus appointed a Lydian named Pactyas to this trust,
hoping by such measures to conciliate the people of the country, and to make
them more ready to submit to his sway. Things being thus arranged, Cyrus, taking
Croesus with him, set out with the main army to return toward the East. As soon
as he had left Lydia, Pactyas excited the Lydians to revolt. The name of the
commander-in-chief of the military forces which Cyrus had left was Tabalus.
Pactyas abandoned the city and retired toward the coast where he contrived to
raise a large army, formed partly of Lydians and partly of bodies of foreign
troops, which he was enabled to hire by means of the treasures which Cyrus had
put under his charge. He then advanced to Sardis, took possession of the town,
and shut up Tabalus, with his Persian troops, in the citadel. When the tidings
of these events came to Cyrus, he was very much incensed, and determined to
destroy the city. Croesus, however, interceded very earnestly in its behalf. He
recommended that Cyrus, instead of burning Sardis, should send a sufficient
force to disarm the population, and that he should then enact such laws and make
such arrangements as should turn the minds of the people to habits of luxury and
pleasure. |By doing this,| said Croesus, |the people will, in a short time,
become so enervated and so effeminate that you will have nothing to fear from
them.|

Cyrus decided on adopting this plan. He dispatched a Median named Mazares, an
officer of his army, at the head of a strong force, with orders to go back to
Sardis, to deliver Tabalus from his danger, to seize and put to death all the
leaders in the Lydian rebellion excepting Pactyas. Pactyas was to be saved
alive, and sent a prisoner to Cyrus in Persia.

Pactyas did not wait for the arrival of Mazares. As soon as he heard of his
approach, he abandoned the ground, and fled northwardly to the city of Cyme, and
sought refuge there. When Mazares had reached Sardis and re-established the
government of Cyrus there, he sent messengers to Cyme, demanding the surrender
of the fugitive. The people of Cyme were uncertain whether they ought to comply.
They said that they must first consult an oracle. There was a very ancient and
celebrated oracle near Miletus. They sent messengers to this oracle, demanding
to know whether it were according to the will of the gods or not that the
fugitive should be surrendered. The answer brought back was, that they might
surrender him.

They were accordingly making arrangements for doing this, when one of the
citizens, a very prominent and influential man, named Aristodicus, expressed
himself not satisfied with the reply. He did not think it possible, he said,
that the oracle could really counsel them to deliver up a helpless fugitive to
his enemies. The messengers must have misunderstood or misreported the answer
which they had received. He finally persuaded his countrymen to send a second
embassy: he himself was placed at the head of it. On their arrival, Aristodicus
addressed the oracle as follows:

|To avoid a cruel death from the Persians, Pactyas, a Lydian, fled to us for
refuge. The Persians demanded that we should surrender him. Much as we are
afraid of their power, we are still more afraid to deliver up a helpless
suppliant for protection without clear and decided directions from you.| The
embassy received to this demand the same reply as before.

Still Aristodicus was not satisfied; and, as if by way of bringing home to the
oracle somewhat more forcibly a sense of the true character of such an action as
it seemed to recommend, he began to make a circuit in the grove which was around
the temple in which the oracle resided, and to rob and destroy the nests which
the birds had built there, allured, apparently, by the sacred repose and
quietude of the scene. This had the desired effect. A solemn voice was heard
from the interior of the temple, saying, in a warning tone, |Impious man! how
dost thou dare to molest those who have placed themselves under my protection?|
To this Aristodicus replied by asking the oracle how it was that it watched over
and guarded those who sought its own protection, while it directed the people of
Cyme to abandon and betray suppliants for theirs. To this the oracle answered,

|I direct them to do it, in order that such impious men may the sooner bring
down upon their heads the judgments of heaven for having dared to entertain even
the thought of delivering up a helpless fugitive.| When this answer was reported
to the people of Cyme, they did not dare to give Pactyas up, nor, on the other
hand, did they dare to incur the enmity of the Persians by retaining and
protecting him. They accordingly sent him secretly away. The emissaries of
Mazares, however, followed him. They kept constantly on his track, demanding him
successively of every city where the hapless fugitive sought refuge, until, at
length, partly by threats and partly by a reward, they induced a certain city to
surrender him. Mazares sent him, a prisoner, to Cyrus. Soon after this Mazares
himself died, and Harpagus was appointed governor of Lydia in his stead. In the
mean time, Cyrus went on with his conquests in the heart of Asia, and at length,
in the course of a few years, he had completed his arrangements and preparations
for the attack on Babylon. He advanced at the head of a large force to the
vicinity of the city. The King of Babylon, whose name was Belshazzar, withdrew
within the walls, shut the gates, and felt perfectly secure. A simple wall was
in those days a very effectual protection against any armed force whatever, if
it was only high enough not to be scaled, and thick enough to resist the blows
of a battering ram. The artillery of modern times would have speedily made a
fatal breach in such structures; but there was nothing but the simple force of
man, applied through brazen-headed beams of wood, in those days, and Belshazzar
knew well that his walls would bid all such modes of demolition a complete
defiance. He stationed his soldiers, therefore, on the walls, and his sentinels
in the watch towers, while he himself, and all the nobles of his court, feeling
perfectly secure in their impregnable condition, and being abundantly supplied
with all the means that the whole empire could furnish, both for sustenance and
enjoyment, gave themselves up, in their spacious palaces and gardens, to gayety,
festivity, and pleasure.

Cyrus advanced to the city. He stationed one large detachment of his troops at
the opening in the main walls where the river entered into the city, and another
one below, where it issued from it. These detachments were ordered to march into
the city by the bed of the river, as soon as they should observe the water
subsiding. He then employed a vast force of laborers to open new channels, and
to widen and deepen those which had existed before, for the purpose of drawing
off the waters from their usual bed. When these passages were thus prepared, the
water was let into them one night, at a time previously designated, and it soon
ceased to flow through the city. The detachments of soldiers marched in over the
bed of the stream, carrying with them vast numbers of ladders. With these they
easily scaled the low walls which lined the banks of the river, and Belshazzar
was thunderstruck with the announcement made to him in the midst of one of his
feasts that the Persians were in complete and full possession of the city.


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  CHAPTER 10: 1.09     CHAPTER 9. THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS.
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CHAPTER IX. THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS.

B.C.608 The Jewish captivity. -- Jeremiah and the book of Chronicles. --
Incursions of Nebuchadnezzar. -- Denunciations of Jeremiah. -- Predictions of
Jeremiah. -- Exasperation of the priests and people. -- Defense of Jeremiah. --
He is liberated. -- Symbolic method of teaching. -- The wooden yoke and the iron
yoke. -- The title deeds of Jeremiah’s estate. -- The deeds deposited. -- Baruch
writes Jeremiah’s prophecies. -- He reads them to the people. -- Baruch summoned
before the council. -- The roll sent to the king. -- The roll destroyed. --
Jeremiah attempts to leave the city. -- The king sends for Jeremiah. -- He is
imprisoned. -- Jeremiah cast into a dungeon. -- The king orders him to be taken
up. -- Jerusalem besieged by the Babylonians. -- Capture of the king. --
Captivity of the Jews. -- The prophet Daniel. -- Cyrus takes possession of
Babylon, and allows the Jews to return. -- Assembling of the Jews. -- The number
that returned. -- Arrival of the caravan at Jerusalem. -- Building the Temple.
-- Emotions of the old men. -- Rejoicings of the young men. The period of the
invasion of Babylonia by Cyrus, and the taking of the city, was during the time
while the Jews were in captivity there. Cyrus was their deliverer. It results
from this circumstance that the name of Cyrus is connected with sacred history
more than that of any other great conqueror of ancient times.

It was a common custom in the early ages of the world for powerful sovereigns to
take the people of a conquered country captive, and make them slaves. They
employed them, to some extent, as personal household servants, but more
generally as agricultural laborers, to till the lands. An account of the
captivity of the Jews in Babylon is given briefly in the closing chapters of the
second book of Chronicles, though many of the attendant circumstances are more
fully detailed in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet who lived in the
time of the captivity. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, made repeated
incursions into the land of Judea, sometimes carrying away the reigning monarch,
sometimes deposing him and appointing another sovereign in his stead, sometimes
assessing a tax or tribute upon the land, and sometimes plundering the city, and
carrying away all the gold and silver that he could find. Thus the kings and the
people were kept in a continual state of anxiety and terror for many years,
exposed incessantly to the inroads of this nation of robbers and plunderers,
that had, so unfortunately for them, found their way across their frontiers.
King Zedekiah was the last of this oppressed and unhappy line of Jewish kings.
The prophet Jeremiah was accustomed to denounce the sins of the Jewish nation,
by which these terrible calamities had been brought upon them, with great
courage, and with an eloquence solemn and sublime. He declared that the miseries
which the people suffered were the special judgments of Heaven, and he
proclaimed repeatedly and openly, and in the most public places of the city,
still heavier calamities which he said were impending. The people were troubled
and distressed at these prophetic warnings, and some of them were deeply
incensed against Jeremiah for uttering them. Finally, on one occasion, he took
his stand in one of the public courts of the Temple, and, addressing the
concourse of priests and people that were there, he declared that, unless the
nation repented of their sins and turned to God, the whole city should be
overwhelmed. Even the Temple itself, the sacred house of God, should be
destroyed, and the very site abandoned. The priests and the people who heard
this denunciation were greatly exasperated. They seized Jeremiah, and brought
him before a great judicial assembly for trial. The judges asked him why he
uttered such predictions, declaring that by doing so he acted like an enemy to
his country and a traitor, and that he deserved to die. The excitement was very
great against him, and the populace could hardly be restrained from open
violence. In the midst of this scene Jeremiah was calm and unmoved, and replied
to their accusations as follows:

|Every thing which I have said against this city and this house, I have said by
the direction of the Lord Jehovah. Instead of resenting it, and being angry with
me for delivering my message, it becomes you to look at your sins, and repent of
them, and forsake them. It may be that by so doing God will have mercy upon you,
and will avert the calamities which otherwise will most certainly come. As for
myself, here I am in your hands. Yon can deal with me just as you think best.
Yon can kill me if you will, but you may be assured that if you do so, you will
bring the guilt and the consequences of shedding innocent blood upon yourselves
and upon this city. I have said nothing and foretold nothing but by commandment
of the Lord.|[C] [Footnote C: Jeremiah, xxvi., 12-15.] The speech produced, as
might have been expected, a great division among the hearers. Some were more
angry than ever, and were eager to put the prophet to death. Others defended
him, and insisted that he should not die. The latter, for the time, prevailed.
Jeremiah was set at liberty, and continued his earnest expostulations with the
people on account of their sins, and his terrible annunciations of the impending
ruin of the city just as before.

These unwelcome truths being so painful for the people to hear, other prophets
soon began to appear to utter contrary predictions, for the sake, doubtless, of
the popularity which they should themselves acquire by their promises of
returning peace and prosperity. The name of one of these false prophets was
Hananiah. On one occasion, Jeremiah, in order to present and enforce what he had
to say more effectually on the minds of the people by means of a visible symbol,
made a small wooden yoke, by divine direction, and placed it upon his neck, as a
token of the bondage which his predictions were threatening. Hananiah took this
yoke from his neck and broke it, saying that, as he had thus broken Jeremiah’s
wooden yoke, so God would break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar from all nations
within two years; and then, even those of the Jews who had already been taken
captive to Babylon should return again in peace. Jeremiah replied that
Hananiah’s predictions were false, and that, though the wooden yoke was broken,
God would make for Nebuchadnezzar a yoke of iron, with which he should bend the
Jewish nation in a bondage more cruel than ever. Still, Jeremiah himself
predicted that after seventy years from the time when the last great captivity
should come, the Jews should all be restored again to their native land.

He expressed this certain restoration of the Jews, on one occasion, by a sort of
symbol, by means of which he made a much stronger impression on the minds of the
people than could have been done by simple words. There was a piece of land in
the country of Benjamin, one of the provinces of Judea, which belonged to the
family of Jeremiah, and it was held in such a way that, by paying a certain sum
of money, Jeremiah himself might possess it, the right of redemption being in
him. Jeremiah was in prison at this time. His uncle’s son came into the court of
the prison, and proposed to him to purchase the land. Jeremiah did so in the
most public and formal manner. The title deeds were drawn up and subscribed,
witnesses were summoned, the money weighed and paid over, the whole transaction
being regularly completed according to the forms and usages then common for the
conveyance of landed property. When all was finished, Jeremiah gave the papers
into the hands of his scribe, directing him to put them safely away and preserve
them with care, for after a certain period the country of Judea would again be
restored to the peaceable possession of the Jews, and such titles to land would
possess once more their full and original value. On one occasion, when
Jeremiah’s personal liberty was restricted so that he could not utter publicly,
himself, his prophetical warnings, he employed Baruch, his scribe, to write them
from his dictation, with a view of reading them to the people from some public
and frequented part of the city. The prophecy thus dictated was inscribed upon a
roll of parchment. Baruch waited, when he had completed the writing, until a
favorable opportunity occurred for reading it, which was on the occasion of a
great festival that was held at Jerusalem, and which brought the inhabitants of
the land together from all parts of Judea. On the day of the festival, Baruch
took the roll in his hand, and stationed himself at a very public place, at the
entrance of one of the great courts of the Temple; there, calling upon the
people to hear him, he began to read. A great concourse gathered around him, and
all listened to him with profound attention. One of the by-standers, however,
went down immediately into the city, to the king’s palace, and reported to the
king’s council, who were then assembled there, that a great concourse was
convened in one of the courts of the Temple, and that Baruch was there reading
to them a discourse or prophecy which had been written by Jeremiah. The members
of the council sent a summons to Baruch to come immediately to them, and to
bring his writing with him. When Baruch arrived, they directed him to read what
he had written. Baruch accordingly read it. They asked him when and how that
discourse was written. Baruch replied that he had written it, word by word, from
the dictation of Jeremiah. The officers informed him that they should be obliged
to report the circumstances to the king, and they counseled Baruch to go to
Jeremiah and recommend to him to conceal himself, lest the king, in his anger,
should do him some sudden and violent injury.[D] [Footnote D: See the account of
these transactions in the 36th chapter of Jeremiah.] The officers then, leaving
the roll in one of their own apartments, went to the king, and reported the
facts to him. He sent one of his attendants, named Jehudi, to bring the roll.
When it came, the king directed Jehudi to read it. Jehudi did so, standing by a
fire which had been made in the apartment, for it was bitter cold.

After Jehudi had read a few pages from the roll, finding that it contained a
repetition of the same denunciations and warnings by which the king had often
been displeased before, he took a knife and began to cut the parchment into
pieces, and to throw it on the fire. Some other persons who were standing by
interfered, and earnestly begged the king not to allow the roll to be burned.
But the king did not interfere. He permitted Jehudi to destroy the parchment
altogether, and then sent officers to take Jeremiah and Baruch, and bring them
to him but they were nowhere to be found. The prophet, on one occasion, was
reduced to extreme distress by the persecutions which his faithfulness, and the
incessant urgency of his warnings and expostulations had brought upon him. It
was at a time when the Chaldean armies had been driven away from Jerusalem for a
short period by the Egyptians, as one vulture drives away another from its prey.
Jeremiah determined to avail himself of the opportunity to go to the province of
Benjamin, to visit his friends and family there. He was intercepted, however, at
one of the gates, on his way, and accused of a design to make his escape from
the city, and go over to the Chaldeans. The prophet earnestly denied this
charge. They paid no regard to his declarations, but sent him back to Jerusalem,
to the officers of the king’s government, who confined him in a house which they
used as a prison.

After he had remained in this place of confinement for several days, the king
sent and took him from it, and brought him to the palace. The king inquired
whether he had any prophecy to utter from the Lord. Jeremiah replied that the
word of the Lord was, that the Chaldeans should certainly return again, and that
Zedekiah himself should fall into their hands, and be carried captive to
Babylon. While he thus persisted so strenuously in the declarations which he had
made so often before, he demanded of the king that he should not be sent back
again to the house of imprisonment from which he had been rescued. The king said
he would not send him back, and he accordingly directed, instead, that he should
be taken to the court of the public prison, where his confinement would be less
rigorous, and there he was to be supplied daily with food, so long, as the king
expressed it, as there should be any food remaining in the city. But Jeremiah’s
enemies were not at rest. They came again, after a time, to the king, and
represented to him that the prophet, by his gloomy and terrible predictions,
discouraged and depressed the hearts of the people, and weakened their hands;
that he ought, accordingly, to be regarded as a public enemy; and they begged
the king to proceed decidedly against him. The king replied that he would give
him into their hands, and they might do with him what they pleased.

There was a dungeon in the prison, the only access to which was from above.
Prisoners were let down into it with ropes, and left there to die of hunger. The
bottom of it was wet and miry, and the prophet, when let down into its gloomy
depths, sank into the deep mire. Here he would soon have died of hunger and
misery; but the king, feeling some misgivings in regard to what he had done,
lest it might really be a true prophet of God that he had thus delivered into
the hands of his enemies, inquired what the people had done with their prisoner;
and when he learned that he had been thus, as it were, buried alive, he
immediately sent officers with orders to take him out of the dungeon. The
officers went to the dungeon. They opened the mouth of it. They had brought
ropes with them, to be used for drawing the unhappy prisoner up, and cloths,
also, which he was to fold together and place under his arms, where the ropes
were to pass. These ropes and cloths they let down into the dungeon, and called
upon Jeremiah to place them properly around his body. Thus they drew him safely
up out of the dismal den.

These cruel persecutions of the faithful prophet were all unavailing either to
silence his voice or to avert the calamities which his warnings portended. At
the appointed time, the judgments which had been so long predicted came in all
their terrible reality. The Babylonians invaded the land in great force, and
encamped about the city. The siege continued for two years. At the end of that
time the famine became insupportable. Zedekiah, the king, determined to make a
sortie, with as strong a force as he could command, secretly, at night, in hopes
to escape with his own life, and intending to leave the city to its fate. He
succeeded in passing out through the city gates with his band of followers, and
in actually passing the Babylonian lines; but he had not gone far before his
escape was discovered. He was pursued and taken. The city was then stormed, and,
as usual in such cases, it was given up to plunder and destruction. Vast numbers
of the inhabitants were killed; many more were taken captive; the principal
buildings, both public and private, were burned; the walls were broken down, and
all the public treasures of the Jews, the gold and silver vessels of the Temple,
and a vast quantity of private plunder, were carried away to Babylon by the
conquerors. All this was seventy years before the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus.

[Illustration: RAISING JEREMIAH FROM THE DUNGEON.] Of course, during the time of
this captivity, a very considerable portion of the inhabitants of Judea remained
in their native land. The deportation of a whole people to a foreign land is
impossible. A vast number, however, of the inhabitants of the country were
carried away, and they remained, for two generations, in a miserable bondage.
Some of them were employed as agricultural laborers in the rural districts of
Babylon; others remained in the city, and were engaged in servile labors there.
The prophet Daniel lived in the palaces of the king. He was summoned, as the
reader will recollect, to Belshazzar’s feast, on the night when Cyrus forced his
way into the city, to interpret the mysterious writing on the wall, by which the
fall of the Babylonian monarchy was announced in so terrible a manner.

One year after Cyrus had conquered Babylon, he issued an edict authorizing the
Jews to return to Jerusalem, and to rebuild the city and the Temple. This event
had been long before predicted by the prophets, as the result which God had
determined upon for purposes of his own. We should not naturally have expected
that such a conqueror as Cyrus would feel any real and honest interest in
promoting the designs of God; but still, in the proclamation which he issued
authorizing the Jews to return, he acknowledged the supreme divinity of Jehovah,
and says that he was charged by him with the work of rebuilding his Temple, and
restoring his worship at its ancient seat on Mount Zion. It has, however, been
supposed by some scholars, who have examined attentively all the circumstances
connected with these transactions, that so far as Cyrus was influenced by
political considerations in ordering the return of the Jews, his design was to
re-establish that nation as a barrier between his dominions and those of the
Egyptians. The Egyptians and the Chaldeans had long been deadly enemies, and now
that Cyrus had become master of the Chaldean realms, he would, of course, in
assuming their territories and their power, be obliged to defend himself against
their foes.

Whatever may have been the motives of Cyrus, he decided to allow the Hebrew
captives to return, and he issued a proclamation to that effect. As seventy
years had elapsed since the captivity commenced, about two generations had
passed away, and there could have been very few then living who had ever seen
the land of their fathers. The Jews were, however, all eager to return. They
collected in a vast assembly, with all the treasures which they were allowed to
take, and the stores of provisions and baggage, and with horses, and mules, and
other beasts of burden to transport them. When assembled for the march, it was
found that the number, of which a very exact census was taken, was forty-nine
thousand six hundred and ninety-seven.

They had also with them seven or eight hundred horses, about two hundred and
fifty mules, and about five hundred camels. The chief part, however, of their
baggage and stores was borne by asses, of which there were nearly seven thousand
in the train. The march of this peaceful multitude of families -- men, women,
and children together -- burdened as they went, not with arms and ammunition for
conquest and destruction, but with tools and implements for honest industry, and
stores of provisions and utensils for the peaceful purposes of social life, as
it was, in its bearings and results, one of the grandest events of history, so
it must have presented, in its progress, one of the most extraordinary
spectacles that the world has ever seen. The grand caravan pursued its long and
toilsome march from Babylon to Jerusalem without molestation. All arrived
safely, and the people immediately commenced the work of repairing the walls of
the city and rebuilding the Temple. When, at length, the foundations of the
Temple were laid, a great celebration was held to commemorate the event. This
celebration exhibited a remarkable scene of mingled rejoicing and mourning. The
younger part of the population, who had never seen Jerusalem in its former
grandeur, felt only exhilaration and joy at their re-establishment in the city
of their fathers. The work of raising the edifice, whose foundations they had
laid, was to them simply a new enterprise, and they looked forward to the work
of carrying it on with pride and pleasure. The old men, however, who remembered
the former Temple, were filled with mournful recollections of days of prosperity
and peace in their childhood and of the magnificence of the former Temple, which
they could now never hope to see realized again. It was customary in those days,
to express sorrow and grief by exclamations and outcries, as gladness and joy
are expressed audibly now. Accordingly, on this occasion, the cries of grief and
of bitter regret at the thought of losses which could now never be retrieved,
were mingled with the shouts of rejoicing and triumph raised by the ardent and
young, who knew nothing of the past, but looked forward with hope and happiness
to the future. The Jews encountered various hinderances, and met with much
opposition in their attempts to reconstruct their ancient city, and to
re-establish the Mosaic ritual there. We must, however, now return to the
history of Cyrus, referring the reader for a narrative of the circumstances
connected with the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the very minute account given in
the sacred books of Ezra and Nehemiah.


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  CHAPTER 11: 1.10     CHAPTER 10.THE STORY OF PANTHEA.
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CHAPTER X. THE STORY OF PANTHEA.

Xenophon’s romantic tales. -- Panthea a Susian captive. -- Valuable spoil. --
Its division. -- Share of Cyrus. -- Panthea given to Cyrus. -- Araspes. --
Abradates. -- Account of Panthea’s capture. -- Her great loveliness. -- Attempts
at consolation. -- Panthea’s renewed grief. -- Cyrus declines to see Panthea. --
His reasons. -- Araspes’s self-confidence. -- Panthea’s patience and gentleness.
-- Araspes’s kindness to Panthea. -- His emotions master him. -- Araspes in
love. -- Progress of the army. -- Araspes confesses his love. -- Panthea
offended. -- Panthea appeals to Cyrus. -- Cyrus reproves Araspes. -- Cyrus’s
generosity. -- Araspes’s continued distress. -- Plan of Cyrus. -- Araspes
pretends to desert. -- Panthea proposes to send for her husband. -- Cyrus
consents. -- Joyful meeting of Panthea and her husband. -- The armed chariots.
-- Abradates’s eight-horse chariot. -- Panthea’s presents for her husband. --
Imposing spectacle. -- Panthea’s preparations. -- Panthea offers her presents.
-- Abradates’s pleasure. -- Abradates departs for the field. -- The farewell. --
The order of battle. -- Appearance of Abradates. -- The charge. -- Terrible
havoc made by the chariots. -- The great victory. -- The council of war. --
Abradates slain. -- Panthea’s grief. -- Cyrus’s kindness to Panthea. -- She is
inconsolable. -- Panthea kills herself on the dead body of her husband. In the
preceding chapters of this work, we have followed mainly the authority of
Herodotus, except, indeed, in the account of the visit of Cyrus to his
grandfather in his childhood, which is taken from Xenophon. We shall, in this
chapter, relate the story of Panthea, which is also one of Xenophon’s tales. We
give it as a specimen of the romantic narratives in which Xenophon’s history
abounds, and on account of the many illustrations of an ancient manners and
customs which it contains, leaving it for each reader to decide for himself what
weight he will attach to its claims to be regarded as veritable history. We
relate the story here in our own language, but as to the facts, we follow
faithfully the course of Xenophon’s narration.

Panthea was a Susian captive. She was taken, together with a great many other
captives and much plunder, after one of the great battles which Cyrus fought
with the Assyrians. Her husband was an Assyrian general, though he himself was
not captured at this time with his wife. The spoil which came into possession of
the army on the occasion of the battle in which Panthea was taken was of great
value. There were beautiful and costly suits of arms, rich tents made of
splendid materials and highly ornamented, large sums of money, vessels of silver
and gold, and slaves -- some prized for their beauty, and others for certain
accomplishments which were highly valued in those days. Cyrus appointed a sort
of commission to divide this spoil. He pursued always a very generous policy on
all these occasions, showing no desire to secure such treasures to himself, but
distributing them with profuse liberality among his officers and soldiers. The
commissioners whom he appointed in this case divided the spoil among the various
generals of the army, and among the different bodies of soldiery, with great
impartiality. Among the prizes assigned to Cyrus were two singing women of great
fame, and this Susian lady. Cyrus thanked the distributors for the share of
booty which they had thus assigned to him, but said that if any of his friends
wished for either of these captives, they could have them. An officer asked for
one of the singers. Cyrus gave her to him immediately, saying, |I consider
myself more obliged to you for asking her, than you are to me for giving her to
you.| As for the Susian lady, Cyrus had not yet seen her, but he called one of
his most intimate and confidential friends to him, and requested him to take her
under his charge. The name of this officer was Araspes. He was a Mede, and he
had been Cyrus’s particular friend and playmate when he was a boy, visiting his
grandfather in Media. The reader will perhaps recollect that he is mentioned
toward the close of our account of that visit, as the special favorite to whom
Cyrus presented his robe or mantle when he took leave of his friends in
returning to his native land.

Araspes, when he received this charge, asked Cyrus whether he had himself seen
the lady. Cyrus replied that he had not. Araspes then proceeded to give an
account of her. The name of her husband was Abradates, and he was the king of
Susa, as they termed him. The reason why he was not taken prisoner at the same
time with his wife was, that when the battle was fought and the Assyrian camp
captured, he was absent, having gone away on an embassage to another nation.
This circumstance shows that Abradates, though called a king, could hardly have
been a sovereign and independent prince, but rather a governor or viceroy --
those words expressing to our minds more truly the station of such a sort of
king as could be sent on an embassy.

Araspes went on to say that, at the time of their making the capture, he, with
some others, went into Panthea’s tent, where they found her and her attendant
ladies sitting on the ground, with veils over their faces, patiently awaiting
their doom. Notwithstanding the concealment produced by the attitudes and dress
of these ladies, there was something about the air and figure of Panthea which
showed at once that she was the queen. The leader of Araspes’s party asked them
all to rise. They did so, and then the superiority of Panthea was still more
apparent than before. There was an extraordinary grace and beauty in her
attitude and in all her motions. She stood in a dejected posture, and her
countenance was sad, though inexpressibly lovely. She endeavored to appear calm
and composed, though the tears had evidently been falling from her eyes. The
soldiers pitied her in her distress, and the leader of the party attempted to
console her, as Araspes said, by telling her that she had nothing to fear; that
they were aware that her husband was a most worthy and excellent man; and
although, by this capture, she was lost to him, she would have no cause to
regret the event, for she would be reserved for a new husband not at all
inferior to her former one either in person, in understanding, in rank, or in
power.

These well-meant attempts at consolation did not appear to have the good effect
desired. They only awakened Panthea’s grief and suffering anew. The tears began
to fall again faster than before. Her grief soon became more and more
uncontrollable. She sobbed and cried aloud, and began to wring her hands and
tear her mantle -- the customary Oriental expression of inconsolable sorrow and
despair. Araspes said that in these gesticulations her neck, and hands, and a
part of her face appeared, and that she was the most beautiful woman that he had
ever beheld. He wished Cyrus to see her.

Cyrus said, |No; he would not see her by any means.| Araspes asked him why. He
said that there would be danger that he should forget his duty to the army, and
lose his interest in the great military enterprise in which he was engaged, if
he should allow himself to become captivated by the charms of such a lady, as he
very probably would be if he were now to visit her. Araspes said in reply that
Cyrus might at least see her; as to becoming captivated with her, and devoting
himself to her to such a degree as to neglect his other duties, he could
certainly control himself in respect to that danger. Cyrus said that it was not
certain that he could so control himself; and then there followed a long
discussion between Cyrus and Araspes, in which Araspes maintained that every man
had the command of his own heart and affections, and that, with proper
determination and energy, he could direct the channels in which they should run,
and confine them within such limits and bounds as he pleased. Cyrus, on the
other hand, maintained that human passions were stronger than the human will;
that no one could rely on the strength of his resolutions to control the
impulses of the heart once strongly excited, and that a man’s only safety was in
controlling the circumstances which tended to excite them. This was specially
true, he said, in respect to the passion of love. The experience of mankind, he
said, had shown that no strength of moral principle, no firmness of purpose, no
fixedness of resolution, no degree of suffering, no fear of shame, was
sufficient to control, in the hearts of men, the impetuosity of the passion of
love, when it was once fairly awakened. In a word, Araspes advocated, on the
subject of love, a sort of new school philosophy, while that of Cyrus leaned
very seriously toward the old. In conclusion, Cyrus jocosely counseled Araspes
to beware lest he should prove that love was stronger than the will by becoming
himself enamored of the beautiful Susian queen. Araspes said that Cyrus need not
fear; there was no danger. He must be a miserable wretch indeed, he said, who
could not summon within him sufficient resolution and energy to control his own
passions and desires. As for himself, he was sure that he was safe. As usual
with those who are self-confident and boastful, Araspes failed when the time of
trial came. He took charge of the royal captive whom Cyrus committed to him with
a very firm resolution to be faithful to his trust. He pitied the unhappy
queen’s misfortunes, and admired the heroic patience and gentleness of spirit
with which she bore them. The beauty of her countenance, and her thousand
personal charms, which were all heightened by the expression of sadness and
sorrow which they bore, touched his heart. It gave him pleasure to grant her
every indulgence consistent with her condition of captivity, and to do every
thing in his power to promote her welfare. She was very grateful for these
favors, and the few brief words and looks of kindness with which she returned
them repaid him for his efforts to please her a thousand-fold. He saw her, too,
in her tent, in the presence of her maidens, at all times; and as she looked
upon him as only her custodian and guard, and as, too, her mind was wholly
occupied by the thoughts of her absent husband and her hopeless grief, her
actions were entirely free and unconstrained in his presence. This made her only
the more attractive; every attitude and movement seemed to possess, in Araspes’s
mind, an inexpressible charm. In a word, the result was what Cyrus had
predicted. Araspes became wholly absorbed in the interest which was awakened in
him by the charms of the beautiful captive. He made many resolutions, but they
were of no avail. While he was away from her, he felt strong in his
determination to yield to these feelings no more; but as soon as he came into
her presence, all these resolutions melted wholly away, and he yielded his heart
entirely to the control of emotions which, however vincible they might appear at
a distance, were found, when the time of trial came, to possess a certain
mysterious and magic power, which made it most delightful for the heart to yield
before them in the contest, and utterly impossible to stand firm and resist. In
a word, when seen at a distance, love appeared to him an enemy which he was
ready to brave, and was sure that he could overcome; but when near, it
transformed itself into the guise of a friend, and he accordingly threw down the
arms with which he had intended to combat it, and gave himself up to it in a
delirium of pleasure.

Things continued in this state for some time. The army advanced from post to
post, and from encampment to encampment, taking the captives in their train. New
cities were taken, new provinces overrun, and new plans for future conquests
were formed. At last a case occurred in which Cyrus wished to send some one as a
spy into a distant enemy’s country. The circumstances were such that it was
necessary that a person of considerable intelligence and rank should go, as
Cyrus wished the messenger whom he should send to make his way to the court of
the sovereign, and become personally acquainted with the leading men of the
state, and to examine the general resources of the kingdom. It was a very
different case from that of an ordinary spy, who was to go into a neighboring
camp merely to report the numbers and disposition of an organized army. Cyrus
was uncertain whom he should send on such an embassy. In the mean time, Araspes
had ventured to express to Panthea his love for her. She was offended. In the
first place, she was faithful to her husband, and did not wish to receive such
addresses from any person. Then, besides, she considered Araspes, having been
placed in charge of her by Cyrus, his master, only for the purpose of keeping
her safely, as guilty of a betrayal of his trust in having dared to cherish and
express sentiments of affection for her himself. She, however, forbore to
reproach him, or to complain of him to Cyrus. She simply repelled the advances
that he made, supposing that, if she did this with firmness and decision,
Araspes would feel rebuked and would say no more. It did not, however, produce
this effect. Araspes continued to importune her with declarations of love, and
at length she felt compelled to appeal to Cyrus.

Cyrus, instead of being incensed at what might have been considered a betrayal
of trust on the part of Araspes, only laughed at the failure and fall in which
all his favorite’s promises and boastings had ended. He sent a messenger to
Araspes to caution him in regard to his conduct, telling him that he ought to
respect the feelings of such a woman as Panthea had proved herself to be. The
messenger whom Cyrus sent was not content with delivering his message as Cyrus
had dictated it. He made it much more stern and severe. In fact, he reproached
the lover, in a very harsh and bitter manner, for indulging such a passion. He
told him that he had betrayed a sacred trust reposed in him, and acted in a
manner at once impious and unjust. Araspes was overwhelmed with remorse and
anguish, and with fear of the consequences which might ensue, as men are when
the time arrives for being called to account for transgressions which, while
they were committing them, gave them little concern. When Cyrus heard how much
Araspes had been distressed by the message of reproof which he had received, and
by his fears of punishment, he sent for him. Araspes came. Cyrus told him that
he had no occasion to be alarmed. |I do not wonder,| said he, |at the result
which has happened. We all know how difficult it is to resist the influence
which is exerted upon our minds by the charms of a beautiful woman, when we are
thrown into circumstances of familiar intercourse with her. Whatever of wrong
there has been ought to be considered as more my fault than yours. I was wrong
in placing you in such circumstances of temptation, by giving you so beautiful a
woman in charge.|

Araspes was very much struck with the generosity of Cyrus, in thus endeavoring
to soothe his anxiety and remorse, and taking upon himself the responsibility
and the blame. He thanked Cyrus very earnestly for his kindness; but he said
that, notwithstanding his sovereign’s willingness to forgive him, he felt still
oppressed with grief and concern, for the knowledge of his fault had been spread
abroad in the army; his enemies were rejoicing over him, and were predicting his
disgrace and ruin; and some persons had even advised him to make his escape, by
absconding before any worse calamity should befall him.

|If this is so,| said Cyrus, |it puts it in your power to render me a very
essential service.| Cyrus then explained to Araspes the necessity that he was
under of finding some confidential agent to go on a secret mission into the
enemy’s country, and the importance that the messenger should go under such
circumstances as not to be suspected of being Cyrus’s friend in disguise. |You
can pretend to abscond,| said he; |it will be immediately said that you fled for
fear of my displeasure. I will pretend to send in pursuit of you. The news of
your evasion will spread rapidly, and will be carried, doubtless, into the
enemy’s country; so that, when you arrive there, they will be prepared to
welcome you as a deserter from my cause, and a refugee.| This plan was agreed
upon, and Araspes prepared for his departure. Cyrus gave him his instructions,
and they concerted together the information -- fictitious, of course -- which he
was to communicate to the enemy in respect to Cyrus’s situation and designs.
When all was ready for his departure, Cyrus asked him how it was that he was so
willing to separate himself thus from the beautiful Panthea. He said in reply,
that when he was absent from Panthea, he was capable of easily forming any
determination, and of pursuing any line of conduct that his duty required, while
yet, in her presence, he found his love for her, and the impetuous feelings to
which it gave rise, wholly and absolutely uncontrollable. As soon as Araspes was
gone, Panthea, who supposed that he had really fled for fear of the indignation
of the king, in consequence of his unfaithfulness to his trust, sent to Cyrus a
message, expressing her regret at the unworthy conduct and the flight of
Araspes, and saying that she could, and gladly would, if he consented, repair
the loss which the desertion of Araspes occasioned by sending for her own
husband. He was, she said, dissatisfied with the government under which he
lived, having been cruelly and tyrannically treated by the prince. |If you will
allow me to send for him,| she added, |I am sure he will come and join your
army; and I assure you that you will find him a much more faithful and devoted
servant than Araspes has been.|

Cyrus consented to this proposal, and Panthea sent for Abradates. Abradates came
at the head of two thousand horse, which formed a very important addition to the
forces under Cyrus’s command. The meeting between Panthea and her husband was
joyful in the extreme. When Abradates learned from his wife how honorable and
kind had been the treatment which Cyrus had rendered to her, he was overwhelmed
with a sense of gratitude, and he declared that he would do the utmost in his
power to requite the obligations he was under.

Abradates entered at once, with great ardor and zeal, into plans for making the
force which he had brought as efficient as possible in the service of Cyrus. He
observed that Cyrus was interested, at that time, in attempting to build and
equip a corps of armed chariots, such as were often used in fields of battle in
those days. This was a very expensive sort of force, corresponding, in that
respect, with the artillery used in modern times. The carriages were heavy and
strong, and were drawn generally by two horses. They had short, scythe-like
blades of steel projecting from the axle-trees on each side, by which the ranks
of the enemy were mowed down when the carriages were driven among them. The
chariots were made to contain, besides the driver of the horses, one or more
warriors, each armed in the completest manner. These warriors stood on the floor
of the vehicle, and fought with javelins and spears. The great plains which
abound in the interior countries of Asia were very favorable for this species of
warfare.

[Illustration: THE WAR CHARIOT OF ABRADATES.]

Abradates immediately fitted up for Cyrus a hundred such chariots at his own
expense, and provided horses to draw them from his own troop. He made one
chariot much larger than the rest, for himself, as he intended to take command
of this corps of chariots in person. His own chariot was to be drawn by eight
horses. His wife Panthea was very much interested in these preparations. She
wished to do something herself toward the outfit. She accordingly furnished,
from her own private treasures, a helmet, a corslet, and arm-pieces of gold.
These articles formed a suit of armor sufficient to cover all that part of the
body which would be exposed in standing in the chariot. She also provided
breast-pieces and side-pieces of brass for the horses. The whole chariot, thus
equipped, with its eight horses in their gay trappings and resplendent armor,
and with Abradates standing within it, clothed in his panoply of gold,
presented, as it drove, in the sight of the whole army, around the plain of the
encampment, a most imposing spectacle. It was a worthy leader, as the spectators
thought, to head the formidable column of a hundred similar engines which were
to follow in its train. If we imagine the havoc which a hundred scythe-armed
carriages would produce when driven, with headlong fury, into dense masses of
men, on a vast open plain, we shall have some idea of one item of the horrors of
ancient war. The full splendor of Abradates’s equipments were not, however,
displayed at first, for Panthea kept what she had done a secret for a time,
intending to reserve her contribution for a parting present to her husband when
the period should arrive for going into battle. She had accordingly taken the
measure for her work by stealth, from the armor which Abradates was accustomed
to wear, and had caused the artificers to make the golden pieces with the utmost
secrecy. Besides the substantial defenses of gold which she provided, she added
various other articles for ornament and decoration. There was a purple robe, a
crest for the helmet, which was of a violet color, plumes, and likewise
bracelets for the wrists. Panthea kept all these things herself until the day
arrived when her husband was going into battle for the first time with his
train, and then, when he went into his tent to prepare himself to ascend his
chariot, she brought them to him.

Abradates was astonished when he saw them. He soon understood how they had been
provided, and he exclaimed, with a heart full of surprise and pleasure, |And so,
to provide me with this splendid armor and dress, you have been depriving
yourself of all your finest and most beautiful ornaments!|

|No,| said Panthea, |you are yourself my finest ornament, if you appear in other
people’s eyes as you do in mine, and I have not deprived myself of you.| The
appearance which Abradates made in other people’s eyes was certainly very
splendid on this occasion. There were many spectators present to see him mount
his chariot and drive away; but so great was their admiration of Panthea’s
affection and regard for her husband, and so much impressed were they with her
beauty, that the great chariot, the resplendent horses, and the grand warrior
with his armor of gold, which the magnificent equipage was intended to convey,
were, all together, scarcely able to draw away the eyes of the spectators from
her. She stood, for a while, by the side of the chariot, addressing her husband
in an under tone, reminding him of the obligations which they were under to
Cyrus for his generous and noble treatment of her, and urging him, now that he
was going to be put to the test, to redeem the promise which she had made in his
name, that Cyrus would find him faithful, brave, and true. The driver then
closed the door by which Abradates had mounted, so that Panthea was separated
from her husband, though she could still see him as he stood in his place. She
gazed upon him with a countenance full of affection and solicitude. She kissed
the margin of the chariot as it began to move away. She walked along after it as
it went, as if, after all, she could not bear the separation. Abradates turned,
and when he saw her coming on after the carriage, he said, waving his hand for a
parting salutation, |Farewell, Panthea; go back now to your tent, and do not be
anxious about me. Farewell.| Panthea turned -- her attendants came and took her
away -- the spectators all turned, too, to follow her with their eyes, and no
one paid any regard to the chariot or to Abradates until she was gone. On the
field of battle, before the engagement commenced, Cyrus, in passing along the
lines, paused, when he came to the chariots of Abradates, to examine the
arrangements which had been made for them, and to converse a moment with the
chief. He saw that the chariots were drawn up in a part of the field where there
was opposed to them a very formidable array of Egyptian soldiers. The Egyptians
in this war were allies of the enemy. Abradates, leaving his chariot in the
charge of his driver, descended and came to Cyrus, and remained in conversation
with him for a few moments, to receive his last orders. Cyrus directed him to
remain where he was, and not to attack the enemy until he received a certain
signal. At length the two chieftains separated; Abradates returned to his
chariot, and Cyrus moved on. Abradates then moved slowly along his lines, to
encourage and animate his men, and to give them the last directions in respect
to the charge which they were about to make on the enemy when the signal should
be given. All eyes were turned to the magnificent spectacle which his equipage
presented as it advanced toward them; the chariot, moving slowly along the line,
the tall and highly-decorated form of its commander rising in the center of it,
while the eight horses, animated by the sound of the trumpets, and by the
various excitements of the scene, stepped proudly, their brazen armor clanking
as they came.

When, at length, the signal was given, Abradates, calling on the other chariots
to follow, put his horses to their speed, and the whole line rushed impetuously
on to the attack of the Egyptians. War horses, properly trained to their work,
will fight with their hoofs with almost as much reckless determination as men
will with spears. They rush madly on to encounter whatever opposition there may
be before them, and strike down and leap over whatever comes in their way, as if
they fully understood the nature of the work that their riders or drivers were
wishing them to do. Cyrus, as he passed along from one part of the battle field
to another, saw the horses of Abradates’s line dashing thus impetuously into the
thickest ranks of the enemy. The men, on every side, were beaten down by the
horses’ hoofs, or over-turned by the wheels, or cut down by the scythes; and
they who here and there escaped these dangers, became the aim of the soldiers
who stood in the chariots, and were transfixed with their spears. The heavy
wheels rolled and jolted mercilessly over the bodies of the wounded and the
fallen, while the scythes caught hold of and cut through every thing that came
in their way -- whether the shafts of javelins and spears, or the limbs and
bodies of men -- and tore every thing to pieces in their terrible career. As
Cyrus rode rapidly by, he saw Abradates in the midst of this scene, driving on
in his chariot, and shouting to his men in a phrensy of excitement and triumph.
The battle in which these events occurred was one of the greatest and most
important which Cyrus fought. He gained the victory. His enemies were every
where routed and driven from the field. When the contest was at length decided,
the army desisted from the slaughter and encamped for the night. On the
following day, the generals assembled at the tent of Cyrus to discuss the
arrangements which were to be made in respect to the disposition of the captives
and of the spoil, and to the future movements of the army. Abradates was not
there. For a time, Cyrus, in the excitement and confusion of the scene did not
observe his absence. At length he inquired for him. A soldier present told him
that he had been killed from his chariot in the midst of the Egyptians, and that
his wife was at that moment attending to the interment of the body, on the banks
of a river which flowed near the field of battle. Cyrus, on hearing this,
uttered a loud exclamation of astonishment and sorrow. He dropped the business
in which he had been engaged with his council, mounted his horse, commanded
attendants to follow him with every thing that could be necessary on such an
occasion, and then, asking those who knew to lead the way, he drove off to find
Panthea. When he arrived at the spot, the dead body of Abradates was lying upon
the ground, while Panthea sat by its side, holding the head in her lap,
overwhelmed herself with unutterable sorrow. Cyrus leaped from his horse, knelt
down by the side of the corpse, saying, at the same time, |Alas! thou brave and
faithful soul, and art thou gone?| At the same time, he took hold of the hand of
Abradates; but, as he attempted to raise it, the arm came away from the body. It
had been cut off by an Egyptian sword. Cyrus was himself shocked at the
spectacle, and Panthea’s grief broke forth anew. She cried out with bitter
anguish, replaced the arm in the position in which she had arranged it before,
and told Cyrus that the rest of the body was in the same condition. Whenever she
attempted to speak, her sobs and tears almost prevented her utterance. She
bitterly reproached herself for having been, perhaps, the cause of her husband’s
death, by urging him, as she had done, to fidelity and courage when he went into
battle. |And now,| she said, |he is dead, while I, who urged him forward into
the danger, am still alive.|

Cyrus said what he could to console Panthea’s grief; but he found it utterly
inconsolable. He gave directions for furnishing her with every thing which she
could need, and promised her that he would make ample arrangements for providing
for her in future. |You shall be treated,| he said, |while you remain with me,
in the most honorable manner; or if you have any friends whom you wish to join,
you shall be sent to them safely whenever you please.|

Panthea thanked him for his kindness. She had a friend, she said, whom she
wished to join, and she would let him know in due time who it was. In the mean
time, she wished that Cyrus would leave her alone, for a while, with her
servants, and her waiting-maid, and the dead body of her husband. Cyrus
accordingly withdrew. As soon as he had gone, Panthea sent away the servants
also, retaining the waiting-maid alone. The waiting-maid began to be anxious and
concerned at witnessing these mysterious arrangements, as if they portended some
new calamity. She wondered what her mistress was going to do. Her doubts were
dispelled by seeing Panthea produce a sword, which she had kept concealed
hitherto beneath her robe. Her maid begged her, with much earnestness and many
tears, not to destroy herself; but Panthea was immovable. She said she could not
live any longer. She directed the maid to envelop her body, as soon as she was
dead, in the same mantle with her husband, and to have them both deposited
together in the same grave; and before her stupefied attendant could do any
thing to save her, she sat down by the side of her husband’s body, laid her head
upon his breast, and in that position gave herself the fatal wound. In a few
minutes she ceased to breathe.

* * * * *

Cyrus expressed his respect for the memory of Abradates and Panthea by erecting
a lofty monument over their common grave.


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  CHAPTER 12: 1.11     CHAPTER 11. CONVERSATIONS.
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CHAPTER XI. CONVERSATIONS.

General character of Xenophon’s history. -- Dialogues and conversations. --
Ancient mode of discussion. -- Cyrus’s games. -- Grand procession. -- The races.
-- The Sacian. -- His success. -- Mode of finding a worthy man. -- Pheraulas
wounded. -- Pheraulas pursues his course. -- He receives the Sacian’s horse. --
Sumptuous entertainment. -- Pheraulas and the Sacian. -- Riches a source of
disquiet and care. -- Argument of Pheraulas. -- Remark of the Sacian. -- Reply
of Pheraulas. -- Singular proposal of Pheraulas. -- The Sacian accepts it. --
The plan carried into effect. -- The happy result. -- Cyrus’s dinner party. --
Conversation about soldiers. -- The discontented soldier. -- His repeated
misfortunes. -- Amusement of the party. -- The awkward squad. -- Merriment of
the company. -- The file-leader and the letters. -- Remark of Cyrus. --
Animadversion version of Aglaitadas. -- Aglaitadas’s argument for melancholy. --
Defense of the officers. -- General character of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia.

We have given the story of Panthea, as contained in the preceding chapter, in
our own language, it is true, but without any intentional addition or
embellishment whatever. Each reader will judge for himself whether such a
narrative, written for the entertainment of vast assemblies at public games and
celebrations, is most properly to be regarded as an invention of romance, or as
a simple record of veritable history. A great many extraordinary and dramatic
incidents and adventures, similar in general character to the story of Panthea,
are interwoven with the narrative in Xenophon’s history. There are also, besides
these, many long and minute details of dialogues and conversations, which, if
they had really occurred, would have required a very high degree of skill in
stenography to produce such reports of them as Xenophon has given. The
incidents, too, out of which these conversations grew, are worthy of attention,
as we can often judge, by the nature and character of an incident described,
whether it is one which it is probable might actually occur in real life, or
only an invention intended to furnish an opportunity and a pretext for the
inculcation of the sentiments, or the expression of the views of the different
speakers. It was the custom in ancient days, much more than it is now, to
attempt to add to the point and spirit of a discussion, by presenting the
various views which the subject naturally elicited in the form of a conversation
arising out of circumstances invented to sustain it. The incident in such cases
was, of course, a fiction, contrived to furnish points of attachment for the
dialogue -- a sort of trellis, constructed artificially to support the vine.

We shall present in this chapter some specimens of these conversations, which
will give the reader a much more distinct idea of the nature of them than any
general description can convey. At one time in the course of Cyrus’s career,
just after he had obtained some great victory, and was celebrating his triumphs,
in the midst of his armies, with spectacles and games, he instituted a series of
races, in which the various nations that were represented in his army furnished
their several champions as competitors The army marched out from the city which
Cyrus had captured, and where he was then residing, in a procession of the most
imposing magnificence. Animals intended to be offered in sacrifice, caparisoned
in trappings of gold, horsemen most sumptuously equipped, chariots of war
splendidly built and adorned, and banners and trophies of every kind, were
conspicuous in the train. When the vast procession reached the race-ground, the
immense concourse was formed in ranks around it, and the racing went on. When it
came to the turn of the Sacian nation to enter the course, a private man, of no
apparent importance in respect to his rank or standing, came forward as the
champion; though the man appeared insignificant, his horse was as fleet as the
wind. He flew around the arena with astonishing speed, and came in at the goal
while his competitor was still midway of the course. Every body was astonished
at this performance. Cyrus asked the Sacian whether he would be willing to sell
that horse, if he could receive a kingdom in exchange for it -- kingdoms being
the coin with which such sovereigns as Cyrus made their purchases. The Sacian
replied that he would not sell his horse for any kingdom, but that he would
readily give him away to oblige a worthy man.

|Come with me,| said Cyrus, |and I will show you where you may throw blindfold,
and not miss a worthy man.| So saying, Cyrus conducted the Sacian to a part of
the field where a number of his officers and attendants were moving to and fro,
mounted upon their horses, or seated in their chariots of war. The Sacian took
up a hard clod of earth from a bank as he walked along. At length they were in
the midst of the group.

|Throw!| said Cyrus. The Sacian shut his eyes and threw.

It happened that, just at that instant, an officer named Pheraulas was riding
by. He was conveying some orders which Cyrus had given him to another part of
the field. Pheraulas had been originally a man of humble life, but he had been
advanced by Cyrus to a high position on account of the great fidelity and zeal
which he had evinced in the performance of his duty. The clod which the Sacian
threw struck Pheraulas in the mouth, and wounded him severely. Now it is the
part of a good soldier to stand at his post or to press on, in obedience to his
orders, as long as any physical capacity remains; and Pheraulas, true to his
military obligation, rode on without even turning to see whence and from what
cause so unexpected and violent an assault had proceeded. The Sacian opened his
eyes, looked around, and coolly asked who it was that he had hit. Cyrus pointed
to the horseman who was riding rapidly away, saying, |That is the man, who is
riding so fast past those chariots yonder. You hit him.| |Why did he not turn
back, then?| asked the Sacian.

|It is strange that he did not,| said Cyrus; |he must be some madman.| The
Sacian went in pursuit of him. He found Pheraulas with his face covered with
blood and dirt, and asked him if he had received a blow. |I have,| said
Pheraulas, |as you see.| |Then,| said the Sacian, |I make you a present of my
horse.| Pheraulas asked an explanation. The Sacian accordingly gave him an
account of what had taken place between himself and Cyrus, and said, in the end,
that he gladly gave him his horse, as he, Pheraulas, had so decisively proved
himself to be a most worthy man.

Pheraulas accepted the present, with many thanks, and he and the Sacian became
thereafter very strong friends.

Some time after this, Pheraulas invited the Sacian to an entertainment, and when
the hour arrived, he set before his friend and the other guests a most sumptuous
feast, which was served in vessels of gold and silver, and in an apartment
furnished with carpets, and canopies, and couches of the most gorgeous and
splendid description. The Sacian was much impressed with this magnificence, and
he asked Pheraulas whether he had been a rich man at home, that is, before he
had joined Cyrus’s army. Pheraulas replied that he was not then rich. His
father, he said, was a farmer, and he himself had been accustomed in early life
to till the ground with the other laborers on his father’s farm. All the wealth
and luxury which he now enjoyed had been bestowed upon him, he said, by Cyrus.

|How fortunate you are!| said the Sacian; |and it must be that you enjoy your
present riches all the more highly on account of having experienced in early
life the inconveniences and ills of poverty. The pleasure must be more intense
in having desires which have long been felt gratified at last than if the
objects which they rested upon had been always in one’s possession.|

|You imagine, I suppose,| replied Pheraulas, |that I am a great deal happier in
consequence of all this wealth and splendor; but it is not so. As to the real
enjoyments of which our natures are capable, I can not receive more now than I
could before. I can not eat any more, drink any more, or sleep any more, or do
any of these things with any more pleasure than when I was poor. All that I gain
by this abundance is, that I have more to watch, more to guard, more to take
care of. I have many servants, for whose wants I have to provide, and who are a
constant source of solicitude to me. One calls for food, another for clothes,
and a third is sick, and I must see that he has a physician. My other
possessions, too, are a constant care. A man comes in, one day, and brings me
sheep that have been torn by the wolves; and, on another day, tells me of oxen
that have fallen from a precipice, or of a distemper which has broken out among
the flocks or herds. My wealth, therefore, brings me only an increase of anxiety
and trouble, without any addition to my joys.|

|But those things,| said the Sacian, |which you name, must be unusual and
extraordinary occurrences. When all things are going on prosperously and well
with you, and you can look around on all your possessions and feel that they are
yours, then certainly you must be happier than I am.|

|It is true,| said Pheraulas, |that there is a pleasure in the possession of
wealth, but that pleasure is not great enough to balance the suffering which the
calamities and losses inevitably connected with it occasion. That the suffering
occasioned by losing our possessions is greater than the pleasure of retaining
them, is proved by the fact that the pain of a loss is so exciting to the mind
that it often deprives men of sleep, while they enjoy the most calm and quiet
repose so long as their possessions are retained, which proves that the pleasure
does not move them so deeply. They are kept awake by the vexation and chagrin on
the one hand, but they are never kept awake by the satisfaction on the other.|

|That is true,| replied the Sacian. |Men are not kept awake by the mere
continuing to possess their wealth, but they very often are by the original
acquisition of it.|

|Yes, indeed,| replied Pheraulas; |and if the enjoyment of being rich could
always continue as great as that of first becoming so, the rich would, I admit,
be very happy men; but it is not, and can not be so. They who possess much, must
lose, and expend, and give much; and this necessity brings more of pain than the
possessions themselves can give of pleasure.| The Sacian was not convinced. The
giving and expending, he maintained, would be to him, in itself, a source of
pleasure. He should like to have much, for the very purpose of being able to
expend much. Finally, Pheraulas proposed to the Sacian, since he seemed to think
that riches would afford him so much pleasure, and as he himself, Pheraulas,
found the possession of them only a source of trouble and care, that he would
convey all his wealth to the Sacian, he himself to receive only an ordinary
maintenance from it.

|You are in jest,| said the Sacian.

|No,| said Pheraulas, |I am in earnest.| And he renewed his proposition, and
pressed the Sacian urgently to accept of it. The Sacian then said that nothing
could give him greater pleasure than such an arrangement. He expressed great
gratitude for so generous an offer, and promised that, if he received the
property, he would furnish Pheraulas with most ample and abundant supplies for
all his wants, and would relieve him entirely of all responsibility and care. He
promised, moreover, to obtain from Cyrus permission that Pheraulas should
thereafter be excused from the duties of military service, and from all the
toils, privations, and hardships of war, so that he might thenceforth lead a
life of quiet, luxury, and ease, and thus live in the enjoyment of all the
benefits which wealth could procure, without its anxieties and cares. The plan,
thus arranged, was carried into effect. Pheraulas divested himself of his
possessions, conveying them all to the Sacian. Both parties were extremely
pleased with the operation of the scheme, and they lived thus together for a
long time. Whatever Pheraulas acquired in any way, he always brought to the
Sacian, and the Sacian, by accepting it, relieved Pheraulas of all
responsibility and care. The Sacian loved Pheraulas, as Xenophon says, in
closing this narrative, because he was thus continually bringing him gifts; and
Pheraulas loved the Sacian, because he was always willing to take the gifts
which were thus brought to him.

Among the other conversations, whether real or imaginary, which Xenophon
records, he gives some specimens of those which took place at festive
entertainments in Cyrus’s tent, on occasions when he invited his officers to
dine with him. He commenced the conversation, on one of these occasions, by
inquiring of some of the officers present whether they did not think that the
common soldiers were equal to the officers themselves in intelligence, courage,
and military skill, and in all the other substantial qualities of a good
soldier.

|I know not how that may be,| replied one of the officers. |How they will prove
when they come into action with the enemy, I can not tell; but a more perverse
and churlish set of fellows in camp, than these I have got in my regiment, I
never knew. The other day, for example, when there had been a sacrifice, the
meat of the victims was sent around to be distributed to the soldiers. In our
regiment, when the steward came in with the first distribution, he began by me,
and so went round, as far as what he had brought would go. The next time he
came, he began at the other end. The supply failed before he had got to the
place where he had left off before, so that there was a man in the middle that
did not get any thing. This man immediately broke out in loud and angry
complaints, and declared that there was no equality or fairness whatever in such
a mode of division, unless they began sometimes in the center of the line.

|Upon this,| continued the officer, |I called to the discontented man, and
invited him to come and sit by me, where he would have a better chance for a
good share. He did so. It happened that, at the next distribution that was made,
we were the last, and he fancied that only the smallest pieces were left, so he
began to complain more than before. ’Oh, misery!’ said he, ’that I should have
to sit here!’ ’Be patient,’ said I; ’pretty soon they will begin the
distribution with us, and then you will have the best chance of all.’ And so it
proved for, at the next distribution, they began at us, and the man took his
share first; but when the second and third men took theirs, he fancied that
their pieces looked larger than his, and he reached forward and put his piece
back into the basket, intending to change it; but the steward moved rapidly on,
and he did not get another, so that he lost his distribution altogether. He was
then quite furious with rage and vexation.|

Cyrus and all the company laughed very heartily at these mischances of
greediness and discontent; and then other stories, of a somewhat similar
character, were told by other guests. One officer said that a few days previous
he was drilling a part of his troops, and he had before him on the plain what is
called, in military language, a squad of men, whom he was teaching to march.
When he gave the order to advance, one, who was at the head of the file, marched
forward with great alacrity, but all the rest stood still. |I asked him,|
continued the officer, |what he was doing. ’Marching,’ said he, ’as you ordered
me to do.’ ’It was not you alone that I ordered to march,’ said I, ’but all.’ So
I sent him back to his place, and then gave the command again. Upon this they
all advanced promiscuously and in disorder toward me, each one acting for
himself, without regard to the others, and leaving the file-leader, who ought to
have been at the head, altogether behind. The file-leader said, ’Keep back! keep
back!’ Upon this the men were offended, and asked what they were to do about
such contradictory orders. ’One commands us to advance, and another to keep
back!’ said they; ’how are we to know which to obey?’|

Cyrus and his guests were so much amused at the awkwardness of these recruits,
and the ridiculous predicament in which the officer was placed by it, that the
narrative of the speaker was here interrupted by universal and long-continued
laughter.

|Finally,| continued the officer, |I sent the men all back to their places, and
explained to them that, when a command was given, they were not to obey it in
confusion and unseemly haste, but regularly and in order, each one following the
man who stood before him. ’You must regulate your proceeding,’ said I, ’by the
action of the file-leader; when he advances, you must advance, following him in
a line, and governing your movements in all respects by his.’

|Just at this moment,| continued the officer, |a man came to me for a letter
which was to go to Persia, and which I had left in my tent. I directed the
file-leader to run to my tent and bring the letter to me. He immediately set
off, and the rest, obeying literally the directions which I had just been giving
them, all followed, running behind him in a line like a troop of savages, so
that I had the whole squad of twenty men running in a body off the field to
fetch a letter!| When the general hilarity which these recitals occasioned had a
little subsided, Cyrus said he thought that they could not complain of the
character of the soldiers whom they had to command, for they were certainly,
according to these accounts, sufficiently ready to obey the orders they
received. Upon this, a certain one of the guests who was present, named
Aglaitadas, a gloomy and austere-looking man, who had not joined at all in the
merriment which the conversation had caused, asked Cyrus if he believed those
stories to be true.

|Why?| asked Cyrus; |what do you think of them?|

|I think,| said Aglaitadas, |that these officers invented them to make the
company laugh. It is evident that they were not telling the truth, since they
related the stories in such a vain and arrogant way.|

|Arrogant!| said Cyrus; |you ought not to call them arrogant; for, even if they
invented their narrations, it was not to gain any selfish ends of their own, but
only to amuse us and promote our enjoyment. Such persons should be called polite
and agreeable rather than arrogant.|

|If, Aglaitadas,| said one of the officers who had related the anecdotes, |we
had told you melancholy stories to make you gloomy and wretched, you might have
been justly displeased; but you certainly ought not to complain of us for making
you merry.|

|Yes,| said Aglaitadas, |I think I may. To make a man laugh is a very
insignificant and useless thing. It is far better to make him weep. Such
thoughts and such conversation as makes us serious, thoughtful, and sad, and
even moves us to tears, are the most salutary and the best.|

|Well,| replied the officer, |if you will take my advice, you will lay out all
your powers of inspiring gloom, and melancholy, and of bringing tears, upon our
enemies, and bestow the mirth and laughter upon us. There must be a prodigious
deal of laughter in you, for none ever comes out. You neither use nor expend it
yourself, nor do you afford it to your friends.| |Then,| said Aglaitadas, |why
do you attempt to draw it from me?|

|It is preposterous!| said another of the company; |for one could more easily
strike fire out of Aglaitadas than get a laugh from him!|

Aglaitadas could not help smiling at this comparison; upon which Cyrus, with an
air of counterfeited gravity, reproved the person who had spoken, saying that he
had corrupted the most sober man in the company by making him smile, and that to
disturb such gravity as that of Aglaitadas was carrying the spirit of mirth and
merriment altogether too far.

* * * * *

These specimens will suffice. They serve to give a more distinct idea of the
Cyropaedia of Xenophon than any general description could afford. The book is a
drama, of which the principal elements are such narratives as the story of
Panthea, and such conversations as those contained in this chapter, intermingled
with long discussions on the principles of government, and on the discipline and
management of armies. The principles and the sentiments which the work
inculcates and explains are now of little value, being no longer applicable to
the affairs of mankind in the altered circumstances of the present day. The
book, however, retains its rank among men on account of a certain beautiful and
simple magnificence characterizing the style and language in which it is
written, which, however, can not be appreciated except by those who read the
narrative in the original tongue.


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  CHAPTER 13: 1.12     CHAPTER 12. THE DEATH OF CYRUS.
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CHAPTER XII. THE DEATH OF CYRUS.

B.C.530

Progress of Cyrus’s conquests. -- The northern countries. -- The Scythians. --
Their warlike character. -- Cyrus’s sons. -- His queen. -- Selfish views of
Cyrus. -- Customs of the savages. -- Cyrus arrives at the Araxes. --
Difficulties of crossing the river. -- Embassage from Tomyris. -- Warning of
Tomyris. -- Cyrus calls a council of war. -- Opinion of the officers. -- Dissent
of Croesus. -- Speech of Croesus. -- His advice to Cyrus. -- Cyrus adopts the
plan of Croesus. -- His reply to Tomyris. -- Forebodings of Cyrus. -- He
appoints Cambyses regent. -- Hystaspes. -- His son Darius. -- Cyrus’s dream. --
Hystaspes’s commission. -- Cyrus marches into the queen’s country. -- Success of
the stratagem. -- Spargapizes taken prisoner. -- Tomyris’s concern for her son’s
safety. -- Her conciliatory message. -- Mortification of Spargapizes. -- Cyrus
gives him liberty within the camp. -- Death of Spargapizes. -- Grief and rage of
Tomyris. -- The great battle. -- Cyrus is defeated and slain. -- Tomyris’s
treatment of Cyrus’s body. -- Reflections. -- Hard-heartedness, selfishness, and
cruelty characterize the ambitious.

After having made the conquest of the Babylonian empire, Cyrus found himself the
sovereign of nearly all of Asia, so far as it was then known. Beyond his
dominions there lay, on every side, according to the opinions which then
prevailed, vast tracts of uninhabitable territory, desolate and impassable.
These wildernesses were rendered unfit for man, sometimes by excessive heat,
sometimes by excessive cold, sometimes from being parched by perpetual drought,
which produced bare and desolate deserts, and sometimes by incessant rains,
which drenched the country and filled it with morasses and fens. On the north
was the great Caspian Sea, then almost wholly unexplored, and extending, as the
ancients believed, to the Polar Ocean. On the west side of the Caspian Sea were
the Caucasian Mountains, which were supposed, in those days, to be the highest
on the globe. In the neighborhood of these mountains there was a country,
inhabited by a wild and half-savage people, who were called Scythians. This was,
in fact, a sort of generic term, which was applied, in those days, to almost all
the aboriginal tribes beyond the confines of civilization. The Scythians,
however, if such they can properly be called, who lived on the borders of the
Caspian Sea, were not wholly uncivilized. They possessed many of those
mechanical arts which are the first to be matured among warlike nations. They
had no iron or steel, but they were accustomed to work other metals,
particularly gold and brass. They tipped their spears and javelins with brass,
and made brazen plates for defensive armor, both for themselves and for their
horses. They made, also, many ornaments and decorations of gold. These they
attached to their helmets, their belts, and their banners. They were very
formidable in war, being, like all other northern nations, perfectly desperate
and reckless in battle. They were excellent horsemen, and had an abundance of
horses with which to exercise their skill; so that their armies consisted, like
those of the Cossacks of modern times, of great bodies of cavalry. The various
campaigns and conquests by which Cyrus obtained possession of his extended
dominions occupied an interval of about thirty years. It was near the close of
this interval, when he was, in fact, advancing toward a late period of life,
that he formed the plan of penetrating into these northern regions, with a view
of adding them also to his domains.

He had two sons, Cambyses and Smerdis. His wife is said to have been a daughter
of Astyages, and that he married her soon after his conquest of the kingdom of
Media, in order to reconcile the Medians more easily to his sway, by making a
Median princess their queen. Among the western nations of Europe such a marriage
would be abhorred, Astyages having been Cyrus’s grandfather; but among the
Orientals, in those days, alliances of this nature were not uncommon. It would
seem that this queen was not living at the time that the events occurred which
are to be related in this chapter. Her sons had grown up to maturity, and were
now princes of great distinction.

One of the Scythian or northern nations to which we have referred were called
the Massagetae. They formed a very extensive and powerful realm. They were
governed, at this time, by a queen named Tomyris. She was a widow, past middle
life. She had a son named Spargapizes, who had, like the sons of Cyrus, attained
maturity, and was the heir to the throne. Spargapizes was, moreover, the
commander-in-chief of the armies of the queen. The first plan which Cyrus formed
for the annexation of the realm of the Massagetae to his own dominions was by a
matrimonial alliance. He accordingly raised an army and commenced a movement
toward the north, sending, at the same time, embassadors before him into the
country of the Massagetae, with offers of marriage to the queen. The queen knew
very well that it was her dominions, and not herself, that constituted the great
attraction for Cyrus, and, besides, she was of an age when ambition is a
stronger passion than love. She refused the offers, and sent back word to Cyrus
forbidding his approach.

Cyrus, however, continued to move on. The boundary between his dominions and
those of the queen was at the River Araxes, a stream flowing from west to east,
through the central parts of Asia, toward the Caspian Sea. As Cyrus advanced, he
found the country growing more and more wild and desolate. It was inhabited by
savage tribes, who lived on roots and herbs, and who were elevated very little,
in any respect, above the wild beasts that roamed in the forests around them.
They had one very singular custom, according to Herodotus. It seems that there
was a plant which grew among them, that bore a fruit, whose fumes, when it was
roasting on a fire, had an exhilarating effect, like that produced by wine.
These savages, therefore, Herodotus says, were accustomed to assemble around a
fire, in their convivial festivities, and to throw some of this fruit in the
midst of it. The fumes emitted by the fruit would soon begin to intoxicate the
whole circle, when they would throw on more fruit, and become more and more
excited, until, at length, they would jump up, and dance about, and sing, in a
state of complete inebriation.

Among such savages as these, and through the forests and wildernesses in which
they lived, Cyrus advanced till he reached the Araxes. Here, after considering,
for some time, by what means he could best pass the river, he determined to
build a floating bridge, by means of boats and rafts obtained from the natives
on the banks, or built for the purpose. It would be obviously much easier to
transport the army by using these boats and rafts to float the men across,
instead of constructing a bridge with them; but this would not have been safe,
for the transportation of the army by such a means would be gradual and slow;
and if the enemy were lurking in the neighborhood, and should make an attack
upon them in the midst of the operation, while a part of the army were upon one
bank and a part upon the other, and another portion still, perhaps, in boats
upon the stream, the defeat and destruction of the whole would be almost
inevitable. Cyrus planned the formation of the bridge, therefore, as a means of
transporting his army in a body, and of landing them on the opposite bank in
solid columns, which could be formed into order of battle without any delay.

While Cyrus was engaged in the work of constructing the bridge, embassadors
appeared, who said that they had been sent from Tomyris. She had commissioned
them, they said, to warn Cyrus to desist entirely from his designs upon her
kingdom, and to return to his own. This would be the wisest course, too, Tomyris
said, for himself, and she counseled him, for his own welfare, to follow it. He
could not foresee the result, if he should invade her dominions and encounter
her armies. Fortune had favored him thus far, it was true, but fortune might
change, and he might find himself, before he was aware, at the end of his
victories. Still, she said, she had no expectation that he would be disposed to
listen to this warning and advice, and, on her part, she had no objection to his
persevering in his invasion. She did not fear him. He need not put himself to
the expense and trouble of building a bridge across the Araxes. She would agree
to withdraw all her forces three days’ march into her own country, so that he
might cross the river safely and at his leisure, and she would await him at the
place where she should have encamped; or, if he preferred it, she would cross
the river and meet him on his own side. In that case, he must retire three days’
march from the river, so as to afford her the same opportunity to make the
passage undisturbed which she had offered him. She would then come over and
march on to attack him. She gave Cyrus his option which branch of this
alternative to choose.

Cyrus called a council of war to consider the question. He laid the case before
his officers and generals, and asked for their opinion. They were unanimously
agreed that it would be best for him to accede to the last of the two proposals
made to him, viz., to draw back three days’ journey toward his own dominions,
and wait for Tomyris to come and attack him there.

There was, however, one person present at this consultation, though not
regularly a member of the council, who gave Cyrus different advice. This was
Croesus, the fallen king of Lydia. Ever since the time of his captivity, he had
been retained in the camp and in the household of Cyrus, and had often
accompanied him in his expeditions and campaigns. Though a captive, he seems to
have been a friend; at least, the most friendly relations appeared to subsist
between him and his conqueror; and he often figures in history as a wise and
honest counselor to Cyrus, in the various emergencies in which he was placed. He
was present on this occasion, and he dissented from the opinion which was
expressed by the officers of the army.

|I ought to apologize, perhaps,| said he, |for presuming to offer any counsel,
captive as I am; but I have derived, in the school of calamity and misfortune in
which I have been taught, some advantages for learning wisdom which you have
never enjoyed. It seems to me that it will be much better for you not to fall
back, but to advance and attack Tomyris in her own dominions; for, if you retire
in this manner, in the first place, the act itself is discreditable to you: it
is a retreat. Then, if, in the battle that follows, Tomyris conquers you, she is
already advanced three days’ march into your dominions, and she may go on, and,
before you can take measures for raising another army, make herself mistress of
your empire. On the other hand, if, in the battle, you conquer her, you will be
then six days’ march back of the position which you would occupy if you were to
advance now.

|I will propose,| continued Croesus, |the following plan: Cross the river
according to Tomyris’s offer, and advance the three days’ journey into her
country. Leave a small part of your force there, with a great abundance of your
most valuable baggage and supplies -- luxuries of all kinds, and rich wines, and
such articles as the enemy will most value as plunder. Then fall back with the
main body of your army toward the river again, in a secret manner, and encamp in
an ambuscade. The enemy will attack your advanced detachment. They will conquer
them. They will seize the stores and supplies, and will suppose that your whole
army is vanquished. They will fall upon the plunder in disorder, and the
discipline of their army will be overthrown. They will go to feasting upon the
provisions and to drinking the wines, and then, when they are in the midst of
their festivities and revelry, you can come back suddenly with the real strength
of your army, and wholly overwhelm them.|

Cyrus determined to adopt the plan which Croesus thus recommended. He
accordingly gave answer to the embassadors of Tomyris that he would accede to
the first of her proposals. If she would draw back from the river three days’
march, he would cross it with his army as soon as practicable, and then come
forward and attack her. The embassadors received this message, and departed to
deliver it to their queen. She was faithful to her agreement, and drew her
forces back to the place proposed, and left them there, encamped under the
command of her son.

Cyrus seems to have felt some forebodings in respect to the manner in which this
expedition was to end. He was advanced in life, and not now as well able as he
once was to endure the privations and hardships of such campaigns. Then, the
incursion which he was to make was into a remote, and wild, and dangerous
country and he could not but be aware that he might never return. Perhaps he may
have had some compunctions of conscience, too, at thus wantonly disturbing the
peace and invading the territories of an innocent neighbor, and his mind may
have been the less at ease on that account. At any rate, he resolved to settle
the affairs of his government before he set out, in order to secure both the
tranquillity of the country while he should be absent, and the regular
transmission of his power to his descendants in case he should never return.

Accordingly, in a very formal manner, and in the presence of all his army, he
delegated his power to Cambyses, his son, constituting him regent of the realm
during his absence. He committed Croesus to his son’s special care, charging him
to pay him every attention and honor. It was arranged that these persons, as
well as a considerable portion of the army, and a large number of attendants
that had followed the camp thus far, were not to accompany the expedition across
the river, but were to remain behind and return to the capital. These
arrangements being all thus finally made, Cyrus took leave of his son and of
Croesus, crossed the river with that part of the army which was to proceed, and
commenced his march. The uneasiness and anxiety which Cyrus seems to have felt
in respect to his future fate on this memorable march affected even his dreams.
It seems that there was among the officers of his army a certain general named
Hystaspes. He had a son named Darius, then a youth of about twenty years of age,
who had been left at home, in Persia, when the army marched, not being old
enough to accompany them. Cyrus dreamed, one night, immediately after crossing
the river, that he saw this young Darius with wings on his shoulders, that
extended, the one over Asia and the other over Europe, thus overshadowing the
world. When Cyrus awoke and reflected upon his dream, it seemed to him to
portend that Darius might be aspiring to the government of his empire. He
considered it a warning intended to put him on his guard. When he awoke in the
morning, he sent for Hystaspes, and related to him his dream. |I am satisfied,|
said he, |that it denotes that your son is forming ambitious and treasonable
designs. Do you, therefore, return home, and arrest him in this fatal course.
Secure him, and let him be ready to give me an account of his conduct when I
shall return.|

Hystaspes, having received this commission, left the army and returned. The name
of this Hystaspes acquired a historical immortality in a very singular way, that
is, by being always used as a part of the appellation by which to designate his
distinguished son. In after years Darius did attain to a very extended power. He
became Darius the Great. As, however, there were several other Persian monarchs
called Darius, some of whom were nearly as great as this the first of the name,
the usage was gradually established of calling him Darius Hystaspes; and thus
the name of the father has become familiar to all mankind, simply as a
consequence and pendant to the celebrity of the son.

After sending off Hystaspes, Cyrus went on. He followed, in all respects, the
plan of Croesus. He marched his army into the country of Tomyris, and advanced
until he reached the point agreed upon. Here he stationed a feeble portion of
his army, with great stores of provisions and wines, and abundance of such
articles as would be prized by the barbarians as booty. He then drew back with
the main body of his army toward the Araxes, and concealed his forces in a
hidden encampment. The result was as Croesus had anticipated. The body which he
had left was attacked by the troops of Tomyris, and effectually routed. The
provisions and stores fell into the hands of the victors. They gave themselves
up to the most unbounded joy, and their whole camp was soon a universal scene of
rioting and excess. Even the commander, Spargapizes, Tomyris’s son, became
intoxicated with the wine.

While things were in this state, the main body of the army of Cyrus returned
suddenly and unexpectedly, and fell upon their now helpless enemies with a force
which entirely overwhelmed them. The booty was recovered, large numbers of the
enemy were slain, and others were taken prisoners. Spargapizes himself was
captured; his hands were bound; he was taken into Cyrus’s camp, and closely
guarded. The result of this stratagem, triumphantly successful as it was, would
have settled the contest, and made Cyrus master of the whole realm, if as he, at
the time, supposed was the case, the main body of Tomyris’s forces had been
engaged in this battle; but it seems that Tomyris had learned, by reconnoiterers
and spies, how large a force there was in Cyrus’s camp, and had only sent a
detachment of her own troops to attack them, not judging it necessary to call
out the whole. Two thirds of her army remained still uninjured. With this large
force she would undoubtedly have advanced without any delay to attack Cyrus
again, were it not for her maternal concern for the safety of her son. He was in
Cyrus’s power, a helpless captive, and she did not know to what cruelties he
would be exposed if Cyrus were to be exasperated against her. While her heart,
therefore, was burning with resentment and anger, and with an almost
uncontrollable thirst for revenge, her hand was restrained. She kept back her
army, and sent to Cyrus a conciliatory message.

She said to Cyrus that he had no cause to be specially elated at his victory;
that it was only one third of her forces that had been engaged, and that with
the remainder she held him completely in her power. She urged him, therefore, to
be satisfied with the injury which he had already inflicted upon her by
destroying one third of her army, and to liberate her son, retire from her
dominions, and leave her in peace. If he would do so, she would not molest him
in his departure; but if he would not, she swore by the sun, the great god which
she and her countrymen adored, that, insatiable as he was for blood, she would
give it to him till he had his fill. Of course Cyrus was not to be frightened by
such threats as these. He refused to deliver up the captive prince, or to
withdraw from the country, and both parties began to prepare again for war.

Spargapizes was intoxicated when he was taken, and was unconscious of the
calamity which had befallen him. When at length he awoke from his stupor, and
learned the full extent of his misfortune, and of the indelible disgrace which
he had incurred, he was overwhelmed with astonishment, disappointment, and
shame. The more he reflected upon his condition, the more hopeless it seemed.
Even if his life were to be spared, and if he were to recover his liberty, he
never could recover his honor. The ignominy of such a defeat and such a
captivity, he knew well, must be indelible.

He begged Cyrus to loosen his bonds and allow him personal liberty within the
camp. Cyrus, pitying, perhaps, his misfortunes, and the deep dejection and
distress which they occasioned, acceded to this request. Spargapizes watched an
opportunity to seize a weapon when he was not observed by his guards, and killed
himself. His mother Tomyris, when she heard of his fate, was frantic with grief
and rage. She considered Cyrus as the wanton destroyer of the peace of her
kingdom and the murderer of her son, and she had now no longer any reason for
restraining her thirst for revenge. She immediately began to concentrate her
forces, and to summon all the additional troops that she could obtain from every
part of her kingdom. Cyrus, too, began in earnest to strengthen his lines, and
to prepare for the great final struggle. At length the armies approached each
other, and the battle began. The attack was commenced by the archers on either
side, who shot showers of arrows at their opponents as they were advancing. When
the arrows were spent, the men fought hand to hand, with spears, and javelins,
and swords. The Persians fought desperately, for they fought for their lives.
They were in the heart of an enemy’s country, with a broad river behind them to
cut off their retreat, and they were contending with a wild and savage foe,
whose natural barbarity was rendered still more ferocious and terrible than ever
by the exasperation which they felt, in sympathy with their injured queen. For a
long time it was wholly uncertain which side would win the day. The advantage,
here and there along the lines, was in some places on one side, and in some
places on the other; but, though overpowered and beaten, the several bands,
whether of Persians or Scythians, would neither retreat nor surrender, but the
survivors, when their comrades had fallen, continued to fight on till they were
all slain. It was evident, at last, that the Scythians were gaining the day.
When night came on, the Persian army was found to be almost wholly destroyed;
the remnant dispersed. When all was over, the Scythians, in exploring the field,
found the dead body of Cyrus among the other ghastly and mutilated remains which
covered the ground. They took it up with a ferocious and exulting joy, and
carried it to Tomyris.

Tomyris treated it with every possible indignity. She cut and mutilated the
lifeless form; as if it could still feel the injuries inflicted by her insane
revenge. |Miserable wretch!| said she; |though I am in the end your conqueror,
you have ruined my peace and happiness forever. You have murdered my son. But I
promised you your fill of blood, and you shall have it.| So saying, she filled a
can with Persian blood, obtained, probably, by the execution of her captives,
and, cutting off the head of her victim from the body, she plunged it in,
exclaiming, |Drink there, insatiable monster, till your murderous thirst is
satisfied.| This was the end of Cyrus. Cambyses, his son, whom he had appointed
regent during his absence, succeeded quietly to the government of his vast
dominions. In reflecting on this melancholy termination of this great
conqueror’s history, our minds naturally revert to the scenes of his childhood,
and we wonder that so amiable, and gentle, and generous a boy should become so
selfish, and unfeeling, and overbearing as a man. But such are the natural and
inevitable effects of ambition and an inordinate love of power. The history of a
conqueror is always a tragical and melancholy tale. He begins life with an
exhibition of great and noble qualities, which awaken in us, who read his
history, the same admiration that was felt for him, personally, by his friends
and countrymen while he lived, and on which the vast ascendency which he
acquired over the minds of his fellow-men, and which led to his power and fame,
was, in a great measure, founded. On the other hand, he ends life neglected,
hated, and abhorred. His ambition has been gratified, but the gratification has
brought with it no substantial peace or happiness; on the contrary, it has
filled his soul with uneasiness, discontent, suspiciousness, and misery. The
histories of heroes would be far less painful in the perusal if we could reverse
this moral change of character, so as to have the cruelty, the selfishness, and
the oppression exhaust themselves in the comparatively unimportant transactions
of early life, and the spirit of kindness, generosity, and beneficence blessing
and beautifying its close. To be generous, disinterested, and noble, seems to be
necessary as the precursor of great military success; and to be hard-hearted,
selfish, and cruel is the almost inevitable consequence of it. The exceptions to
this rule, though some of them are very splendid, are yet very few. THE END.


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  CHAPTER 14: 2. DARIUS THE GREAT
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Darius The Great By Jacob Abbott This is a 12 chapter historical work on the
person of Darius the Great.

Table of Contents

Preface.

Engravings.

Chapter I. Cambyses.

Chapter II. The End Of Cambyses.

Chapter III. Smerdis The Magian.

Chapter IV. The Accession Of Darius.

Chapter V. The Provinces.

Chapter VI. The Reconnoitering Of Greece.

Chapter VII. The Revolt Of Babylon.

Chapter VIII. The Invasion Of Scythia.

Chapter IX. The Retreat From Scythia.

Chapter X. The Story Of Histiaeus.

Chapter XI. The Invasion Of Greece And The Battle Of Marathon.

Chapter XII. The Death Of Darius.

Transcriber’s Notes

PREFACE. In describing the character and the action of the personages whose
histories form the subjects of this series, the writer makes no attempt to
darken the colors in which he depicts their deeds of violence and wrong, or to
increase, by indignant denunciations, the obloquy which heroes and conquerors
have so often brought upon themselves, in the estimation of mankind, by their
ambition, their tyranny, or their desperate and reckless crimes. In fact, it
seems desirable to diminish, rather than to increase, the spirit of
censoriousness which often leads men so harshly to condemn the errors and sins
of others, committed in circumstances of temptation to which they themselves
were never exposed. Besides, to denounce or vituperate guilt, in a narrative of
the transactions in which it was displayed, has little influence in awakening a
healthy sensitiveness in the conscience of the reader. We observe, accordingly,
that in the narratives of the sacred Scriptures, such denunciations are seldom
found. The story of Absalom’s undutifulness and rebellion, of David’s adultery
and murder, of Herod’s tyranny, and all other narratives of crime, are related
in a calm, simple, impartial, and forbearing spirit, which leads us to condemn
the sins, but not to feel a pharisaical resentment and wrath against the sinner.
This example, so obviously proper and right, the writer of this series has made
it his endeavor in all respects to follow.

ENGRAVINGS.

Page MAP OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.

DARIUS CROSSING THE BOSPORUS Frontispiece. THE ARMY OF CAMBYSES OVERWHELMED IN
THE DESERT 35 PHAEDYMA FEELING FOR SMERDIS’S EARS 69 THE INDIAN GOLD HUNTERS 121
THE BABYLONIANS DERIDING DARIUS FROM THE WALL 156 MAP OF GREECE 232 THE INVASION
OF GREECE 256 [Illustration: MAP OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.]


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  CHAPTER 15: 2.01     CHAPTER 1. CAMBYSES.
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CHAPTER I. CAMBYSES.

B.C.530-524

Cyrus the Great. -- His extended conquests. -- Cambyses and Smerdis. --
Hystaspes and Darius. -- Dream of Cyrus. -- His anxiety and fears. -- Accession
of Cambyses. -- War with Egypt. -- Origin of the war with Egypt. -- Ophthalmia.
-- The Egyptian physician. -- His plan of revenge. -- Demand of Cyrus. --
Stratagem of the King of Egypt. -- Resentment of Cassandane. -- Threats of
Cambyses. -- Future conquests. -- Temperament and character of Cambyses. --
Impetuosity of Cambyses. -- Preparations for the Egyptian war. -- Desertion of
Phanes. -- His narrow escape. -- Information given by Phanes. -- Treaty with the
Arabian king. -- Plan for providing water. -- Account of Herodotus. -- A great
battle. -- Defeat of the Egyptians. -- Inhuman conduct of Cambyses. -- His
treatment of Psammenitus. -- The train of captive maidens. -- The young men. --
Scenes of distress and suffering. -- Composure of Psammenitus. -- Feelings of
the father. -- His explanation of them. -- Cambyses relents. -- His treatment of
the body of Amasis. -- Cambyses’s desecrations. -- The sacred bull Apis. --
Cambyses stabs the sacred bull. -- His mad expeditions. -- The sand storm. --
Cambyses a wine-bibber. -- Brutal act of Cambyses. -- He is deemed insane.

About five or six hundred years before Christ, almost the whole of the interior
of Asia was united in one vast empire. The founder of this empire was Cyrus the
Great. He was originally a Persian; and the whole empire is often called the
Persian monarchy, taking its name from its founder’s native land.

Cyrus was not contented with having annexed to his dominion all the civilized
states of Asia. In the latter part of his life, he conceived the idea that there
might possibly be some additional glory and power to be acquired in subduing
certain half-savage regions in the north, beyond the Araxes. He accordingly
raised an army, and set off on an expedition for this purpose, against a country
which was governed by a barbarian queen named Tomyris. He met with a variety of
adventures on this expedition, all of which are fully detailed in our history of
Cyrus. There is, however, only one occurrence that it is necessary to allude to
particularly here. That one relates to a remarkable dream which he had one
night, just after he had crossed the river. To explain properly the nature of
this dream, it is necessary first to state that Cyrus had two sons. Their names
were Cambyses and Smerdis. He had left them in Persia when he set out on his
expedition across the Araxes. There was also a young man, then about twenty
years of age, in one of his capitals, named Darius. He was the son of one of the
nobles of Cyrus’s court. His father’s name was Hystaspes. Hystaspes, besides
being a noble of the court, was also, as almost all nobles were in those days,
an officer of the army. He accompanied Cyrus in his march into the territories
of the barbarian queen, and was with him there, in camp, at the time when this
narrative commences.

Cyrus, it seems, felt some misgivings in respect to the result of his
enterprise; and, in order to insure the tranquillity of his empire during his
absence, and the secure transmission of his power to his rightful successor in
case he should never return, he established his son Cambyses as regent of his
realms before he crossed the Araxes, and delivered the government of the empire,
with great formality, into his hands. This took place upon the frontier, just
before the army passed the river. The mind of a father, under such
circumstances, would naturally be occupied, in some degree, with thoughts
relating to the arrangements which his son would make, and to the difficulties
he would be likely to encounter in managing the momentous concerns which had
been committed to his charge. The mind of Cyrus was undoubtedly so occupied, and
this, probably, was the origin of the remarkable dream. His dream was, that
Darius appeared to him in a vision, with vast wings growing from his shoulders.
Darius stood, in the vision, on the confines of Europe and Asia, and his wings,
expanded either way, overshadowed the whole known world. When Cyrus awoke and
reflected on this ominous dream, it seemed to him to portend some great danger
to the future security of his empire. It appeared to denote that Darius was one
day to bear sway over all the world. Perhaps he might be even then forming
ambitious and treasonable designs. Cyrus immediately sent for Hystaspes, the
father of Darius; when he came to his tent, he commanded him to go back to
Persia, and keep a strict watch over the conduct of his son until he himself
should return. Hystaspes received this commission, and departed to execute it;
and Cyrus, somewhat relieved, perhaps, of his anxiety by this measure of
precaution, went on with his army toward his place of destination.

Cyrus never returned. He was killed in battle; and it would seem that, though
the import of his dream was ultimately fulfilled, Darius was not, at that time,
meditating any schemes of obtaining possession of the throne, for he made no
attempt to interfere with the regular transmission of the imperial power from
Cyrus to Cambyses his son. At any rate, it was so transmitted. The tidings of
Cyrus’s death came to the capital, and Cambyses, his son, reigned in his stead.
The great event of the reign of Cambyses was a war with Egypt, which originated
in the following very singular manner:

It has been found, in all ages of the world, that there is some peculiar quality
of the soil, or climate, or atmosphere of Egypt which tends to produce an
inflammation of the eyes. The inhabitants themselves have at all times been very
subject to this disease, and foreign armies marching into the country are always
very seriously affected by it. Thousands of soldiers in such armies are
sometimes disabled from this cause, and many are made incurably blind. Now a
country which produces a disease in its worst form and degree, will produce
also, generally, the best physicians for that disease. At any rate, this was
supposed to be the case in ancient times; and accordingly, when any powerful
potentate in those days was afflicted himself with ophthalmia, or had such a
case in his family, Egypt was the country to send to for a physician.

Now it happened that Cyrus himself, at one time in the course of his life, was
attacked with this disease, and he dispatched an embassador to Amasis, who was
then king of Egypt, asking him to send him a physician. Amasis, who, like all
the other absolute sovereigns of those days, regarded his subjects as slaves
that were in all respects entirely at his disposal, selected a physician of
distinction from among the attendants about his court, and ordered him to repair
to Persia. The physician was extremely reluctant to go. He had a wife and
family, from whom he was very unwilling to be separated; but the orders were
imperative, and he must obey. He set out on the journey, therefore, but he
secretly resolved to devise some mode of revenging himself on the king for the
cruelty of sending him.

He was well received by Cyrus, and, either by his skill as a physician, or from
other causes, he acquired great influence at the Persian court. At last he
contrived a mode of revenging himself on the Egyptian king for having exiled him
from his native land. The king had a daughter, who was a lady of great beauty.
Her father was very strongly attached to her. The physician recommended to Cyrus
to send to Amasis and demand this daughter in marriage. As, however, Cyrus was
already married, the Egyptian princess would, if she came, be his concubine
rather than his wife, or, if considered a wife, it could only be a secondary and
subordinate place that she could occupy. The physician knew that, under these
circumstances, the King of Egypt would be extremely unwilling to send her to
Cyrus, while he would yet scarcely dare to refuse; and the hope of plunging him
into extreme embarrassment and distress, by means of such a demand from so
powerful a sovereign, was the motive which led the physician to recommend the
measure.

Cyrus was pleased with the proposal, and sent, accordingly, to make the demand.
The king, as the physician had anticipated, could not endure to part with his
daughter in such a way, nor did he, on the other hand, dare to incur the
displeasure of so powerful a monarch by a direct and open refusal. He finally
resolved upon escaping from the difficulty by a stratagem.

There was a young and beautiful captive princess in his court named Nitetis. Her
father, whose name was Apries, had been formerly the King of Egypt, but he had
been dethroned and killed by Amasis. Since the downfall of her family, Nitetis
had been a captive; but, as she was very beautiful and very accomplished, Amasis
conceived the design of sending her to Cyrus, under the pretense that she was
the daughter whom Cyrus had demanded. He accordingly brought her forth, provided
her with the most costly and splendid dresses, loaded her with presents, ordered
a large retinue to attend her, and sent her forth to Persia.

Cyrus was at first very much pleased with his new bride. Nitetis became, in
fact, his principal favorite; though, of course, his other wife, whose name was
Cassandane, and her children, Cambyses and Smerdis, were jealous of her, and
hated her. One day, a Persian lady was visiting at the court, and as she was
standing near Cassandane, and saw her two sons, who were then tall and handsome
young men, she expressed her admiration of them, and said to Cassandane, |How
proud and happy you must be!| |No,| said Cassandane; |on the contrary, I am very
miserable; for, though I am the mother of these children, the king neglects and
despises me. All his kindness is bestowed on this Egyptian woman.| Cambyses, who
heard this conversation, sympathized deeply with Cassandane in her resentment.
|Mother,| said he, |be patient, and I will avenge you. As soon as I am king, I
will go to Egypt and turn the whole country upside down.| In fact, the tendency
which there was in the mind of Cambyses to look upon Egypt as the first field of
war and conquest for him, so soon as he should succeed to the throne, was
encouraged by the influence of his father; for Cyrus, although he was much
captivated by the charms of the lady whom the King of Egypt had sent him, was
greatly incensed against the king for having practiced upon him such a
deception. Besides, all the important countries in Asia were already included
within the Persian dominions. It was plain that if any future progress were to
be made in extending the empire, the regions of Europe and Africa must be the
theatre of it. Egypt seemed the most accessible and vulnerable point beyond the
confines of Asia; and thus, though Cyrus himself, being advanced somewhat in
years, and interested, moreover, in other projects, was not prepared to
undertake an enterprise into Africa himself, he was very willing that such plans
should be cherished by his son.

Cambyses was an ardent, impetuous, and self-willed boy, such as the sons of rich
and powerful men are very apt to become. They imbibe, by a sort of sympathy, the
ambitious and aspiring spirit of their fathers; and as all their childish
caprices and passions are generally indulged, they never learn to submit to
control. They become vain, self-conceited, reckless, and cruel. The conqueror
who founds an empire, although even his character generally deteriorates very
seriously toward the close of his career, still usually knows something of
moderation and generosity. His son, however, who inherits his father’s power,
seldom inherits the virtues by which the power was acquired. These truths, which
we see continually exemplified all around us, on a small scale, in the families
of the wealthy and the powerful, were illustrated most conspicuously, in the
view of all mankind, in the case of Cyrus and Cambyses. The father was prudent,
cautious, wise, and often generous and forbearing. The son grew up headstrong,
impetuous, uncontrolled, and uncontrollable. He had the most lofty ideas of his
own greatness and power, and he felt a supreme contempt for the rights, and
indifference to the happiness of all the world besides. His history gives us an
illustration of the worst which the principle of hereditary sovereignty can do,
as the best is exemplified in the case of Alfred of England.

Cambyses, immediately after his father’s death, began to make arrangements for
the Egyptian invasion. The first thing to be determined was the mode of
transporting his armies thither. Egypt is a long and narrow valley, with the
rocks and deserts of Arabia on one side, and those of Sahara on the other. There
is no convenient mode of access to it except by sea, and Cambyses had no naval
force sufficient for a maritime expedition.

While he was revolving the subject in his mind, there arrived in his capital of
Susa, where he was then residing, a deserter from the army of Amasis in Egypt.
The name of this deserter was Phanes. He was a Greek, having been the commander
of a body of Greek troops who were employed by Amasis as auxiliaries in his
army. He had had a quarrel with Amasis, and had fled to Persia, intending to
join Cambyses in the expedition which he was contemplating, in order to revenge
himself on the Egyptian king. Phanes said, in telling his story, that he had had
a very narrow escape from Egypt; for, as soon as Amasis had heard that he had
fled, he dispatched one of his swiftest vessels, a galley of three banks of
oars, in hot pursuit of the fugitive. The galley overtook the vessel in which
Phanes had taken passage just as it was landing in Asia Minor. The Egyptian
officers seized it and made Phanes prisoner. They immediately began to make
their preparations for the return voyage, putting Phanes, in the mean time,
under the charge of guards, who were instructed to keep him very safely. Phanes,
however, cultivated a good understanding with his guards, and presently invited
them to drink wine with him. In the end, he got them intoxicated, and while they
were in that state he made his escape from them, and then, traveling with great
secrecy and caution until he was beyond their reach, he succeeded in making his
way to Cambyses in Susa.

Phanes gave Cambyses a great deal of information in respect to the geography of
Egypt, the proper points of attack, the character and resources of the king, and
communicated, likewise, a great many other particulars which it was very
important that Cambyses should know. He recommended that Cambyses should proceed
to Egypt by land, through Arabia; and that, in order to secure a safe passage,
he should send first to the King of the Arabs, by a formal embassy, asking
permission to cross his territories with an army, and engaging the Arabians to
aid him, if possible, in the transit. Cambyses did this. The Arabs were very
willing to join in any projected hostilities against the Egyptians; they offered
Cambyses a free passage, and agreed to aid his army on their march. To the
faithful fulfillment of these stipulations the Arab chief bound himself by a
treaty, executed with the most solemn forms and ceremonies. The great difficulty
to be encountered in traversing the deserts which Cambyses would have to cross
on his way to Egypt was the want of water. To provide for this necessity, the
king of the Arabs sent a vast number of camels into the desert, laden with great
sacks or bags full of water. These camels were sent forward just before the army
of Cambyses came on, and they deposited their supplies along the route at the
points where they would be most needed. Herodotus, the Greek traveler, who made
a journey into Egypt not a great many years after these transactions, and who
wrote subsequently a full description of what he saw and heard there, gives an
account of another method by which the Arab king was said to have conveyed water
into the desert, and that was by a canal or pipe, made of the skins of oxen,
which he laid along the ground, from a certain river of his dominions, to a
distance of twelve days’ journey over the sands! This story Herodotus says he
did not believe, though elsewhere in the course of his history he gravely
relates, as true history, a thousand tales infinitely more improbable than the
idea of a leathern pipe or hose like this to serve for a conduit of water. By
some means or other, at all events, the Arab chief provided supplies of water in
the desert for Cambyses’s army, and the troops made the passage safely. They
arrived, at length, on the frontiers of Egypt.[A] Here they found that Amasis,
the king, was dead, and Psammenitus, his son, had succeeded him. Psammenitus
came forward to meet the invaders. A great battle was fought. The Egyptians were
routed. Psammenitus fled up the Nile to the city of Memphis, taking with him
such broken remnants of his army as he could get together after the battle, and
feeling extremely incensed and exasperated against the invader. In fact,
Cambyses had now no excuse or pretext whatever for waging such a war against
Egypt. The monarch who had deceived his father was dead, and there had never
been any cause of complaint against his son or against the Egyptian people.
Psammenitus, therefore, regarded the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses as a wanton
and wholly unjustifiable aggression, and he determined, in his own mind, that
such invaders deserved no mercy, and that he would show them none. Soon after
this, a galley on the river, belonging to Cambyses, containing a crew of two
hundred men, fell into his hands. The Egyptians, in their rage, tore these
Persians all to pieces. This exasperated Cambyses in his turn, and the war went
on, attended by the most atrocious cruelties on both sides.

[Footnote A: For the places mentioned in this chapter, and the track of Cambyses
on his expedition, see the map at the commencement of this volume.] In fact,
Cambyses, in this Egyptian campaign, pursued such a career of inhuman and
reckless folly, that people at last considered him insane. He began with some
small semblance of moderation, but he proceeded, in the end, to the perpetration
of the most terrible excesses of violence and wrong. As to his moderation, his
treatment of Psammenitus personally is almost the only instance that we can
record. In the course of the war, Psammenitus and all his family fell into
Cambyses’s hands as captives. A few days afterward, Cambyses conducted the
unhappy king without the gates of the city to exhibit a spectacle to him. The
spectacle was that of his beloved daughter, clothed in the garments of a slave,
and attended by a company of other maidens, the daughters of the nobles and
other persons of distinction belonging to his court, all going down to the
river, with heavy jugs, to draw water. The fathers of all these hapless maidens
had been brought out with Psammenitus to witness the degradation and misery of
their children. The maidens cried and sobbed aloud as they went along,
overwhelmed with shame and terror. Their fathers manifested the utmost agitation
and distress. Cambyses stood smiling by, highly enjoying the spectacle.
Psammenitus alone appeared unmoved. He gazed on the scene silent, motionless,
and with a countenance which indicated no active suffering; he seemed to be in a
state of stupefaction and despair. Cambyses was disappointed, and his pleasure
was marred at finding that his victim did not feel more acutely the sting of the
torment with which he was endeavoring to goad him. When this train had gone by,
another came. It was a company of young men, with halters about their necks,
going to execution. Cambyses had ordered that for every one of the crew of his
galley that the Egyptians had killed, ten Egyptians should be executed. This
proportion would require two thousand victims, as there had been two hundred in
the crew. These victims were to be selected from among the sons of the leading
families; and their parents, after having seen their delicate and gentle
daughters go to their servile toil, were now next to behold their sons march in
a long and terrible array to execution. The son of Psammenitus was at the head
of the column. The Egyptian parents who stood around Psammenitus wept and
lamented aloud, as one after another saw his own child in the train. Psammenitus
himself, however, remained as silent and motionless, and with a countenance as
vacant as before. Cambyses was again disappointed. The pleasure which the
exhibition afforded him was incomplete without visible manifestations of
suffering in the victim for whose torture it was principally designed.

After this train of captives had passed, there came a mixed collection of
wretched and miserable men, such as the siege and sacking of a city always
produces in countless numbers. Among these was a venerable man whom Psammenitus
recognized as one of his friends. He had been a man of wealth and high station;
he had often been at the court of the king, and had been entertained at his
table. He was now, however, reduced to the last extremity of distress, and was
begging of the people something to keep him from starving. The sight of this man
in such a condition seemed to awaken the king from his blank and death-like
despair. He called his old friend by name in a tone of astonishment and pity,
and burst into tears.

Cambyses, observing this, sent a messenger to Psammenitus to inquire what it
meant. |He wishes to know,| said the messenger, |how it happens that you could
see your own daughter set at work as a slave, and your son led away to execution
unmoved, and yet feel so much commiseration for the misfortunes of a stranger.|
We might suppose that any one possessing the ordinary susceptibilities of the
human soul would have understood without an explanation the meaning of this,
though it is not surprising that such a heartless monster as Cambyses did not
comprehend it. Psammenitus sent him word that he could not help weeping for his
friend, but that his distress and anguish on account of his children were too
great for tears. The Persians who were around Cambyses began now to feel a
strong sentiment of compassion for the unhappy king, and to intercede with
Cambyses in his favor. They begged him, too, to spare Psammenitus’s son. It will
interest those of our readers who have perused our history of Cyrus to know that
Croesus, the captive king of Lydia, whom they will recollect to have been
committed to Cambyses’s charge by his father, just before the close of his life,
when he was setting forth on his last fatal expedition, and who accompanied
Cambyses on this invasion of Egypt, was present on this occasion, and was one of
the most earnest interceders in Psammenitus’s favor. Cambyses allowed himself to
be persuaded. They sent off a messenger to order the execution of the king’s son
to be stayed; but he arrived too late. The unhappy prince had already fallen.
Cambyses was so far appeased by the influence of these facts, that he abstained
from doing Psammenitus or his family any further injury.

He, however, advanced up the Nile, ravaging and plundering the country as he
went on, and at length, in the course of his conquests, he gained possession of
the tomb in which the embalmed body of Amasis was deposited. He ordered this
body to be taken out of its sarcophagus, and treated with every mark of
ignominy. His soldiers, by his orders, beat it with rods, as if it could still
feel, and goaded it, and cut it with swords. They pulled the hair out of the
head by the roots, and loaded the lifeless form with every conceivable mark of
insult and ignominy. Finally, Cambyses ordered the mutilated remains that were
left to be burned, which was a procedure as abhorrent to the ideas and feelings
of the Egyptians as could possibly be devised.

Cambyses took every opportunity to insult the religious, or as, perhaps, we
ought to call them, the superstitious feelings of the Egyptians. He broke into
their temples, desecrated their altars, and subjected every thing which they
held most sacred to insult and ignominy. Among their objects of religious
veneration was the sacred bull called Apis. This animal was selected from time
to time, from the country at large, by the priests, by means of certain marks
which they pretended to discover upon its body, and which indicated a divine and
sacred character. The sacred bull thus found was kept in a magnificent temple,
and attended and fed in a most sumptuous manner. In serving him, the attendants
used vessels of gold.

Cambyses arrived at the city where Apis was kept at a time when the priests were
celebrating some sacred occasion with festivities and rejoicings. He was himself
then returning from an unsuccessful expedition which he had made, and, as he
entered the town, stung with vexation and anger at his defeat, the gladness and
joy which the Egyptians manifested in their ceremonies served only to irritate
him, and to make him more angry than ever. He killed the priests who were
officiating. He then demanded to be taken into the edifice to see the sacred
animal, and there, after insulting the feelings of the worshipers in every
possible way by ridicule and scornful words, he stabbed the innocent bull with
his dagger. The animal died of the wound, and the whole country was filled with
horror and indignation. The people believed that this deed would most assuredly
bring down upon the impious perpetrator of it the judgments of heaven.

Cambyses organized, while he was in Egypt, several mad expeditions into the
surrounding countries. In a fit of passion, produced by an unsatisfactory answer
to an embassage, he set off suddenly, and without any proper preparation, to
march into Ethiopia. The provisions of his army were exhausted before he had
performed a fifth part of the march. Still, in his infatuation, he determined to
go on. The soldiers subsisted for a time on such vegetables as they could find
by the way; when these failed, they slaughtered and ate their beasts of burden;
and finally, in the extremity of their famine, they began to kill and devour one
another; then, at length, Cambyses concluded to return. He sent off, too, at one
time, a large army across the desert toward the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, without
any of the necessary precautions for such a march. This army never reached their
destination, and they never returned. The people of the Oasis said that they
were overtaken by a sand storm in the desert, and were all overwhelmed.

[Illustration: THE ARMY OF CAMBYSES OVERWHELMED IN THE DESERT.]

There was a certain officer in attendance on Cambyses named Prexaspes. He was a
sort of confidential friend and companion of the king; and his son, who was a
fair, and graceful, and accomplished youth, was the king’s cup-bearer, which was
an office of great consideration and honor. One day Cambyses asked Prexaspes
what the Persians generally thought of him. Prexaspes replied that they thought
and spoke well of him in all respects but one. The king wished to know what the
exception was. Prexaspes rejoined, that it was the general opinion that he was
too much addicted to wine. Cambyses was offended at this reply; and, under the
influence of the feeling, so wholly unreasonable and absurd, which so often
leads men to be angry with the innocent medium through which there comes to them
any communication which they do not like, he determined to punish Prexaspes for
his freedom. He ordered his son, therefore, the cup-bearer, to take his place
against the wall on the other side of the room. |Now,| said he, |I will put what
the Persians say to the test.| As he said this, he took up a bow and arrow which
were at his side, and began to fit the arrow to the string. |If,| said he, |I do
not shoot him exactly through the heart, it shall prove that the Persians are
right. If I do, then they are wrong, as it will show that I do not drink so much
as to make my hand unsteady.| So saying, he drew the bow, the arrow flew through
the air and pierced the poor boy’s breast. He fell, and Cambyses coolly ordered
the attendants to open the body, and let Prexaspes see whether the arrow had not
gone through the heart.

These, and a constant succession of similar acts of atrocious and reckless
cruelty and folly, led the world to say that Cambyses was insane.


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  CHAPTER 16: 2.02     CHAPTER 2. THE END OF CAMBYSES.
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CHAPTER II. THE END OF CAMBYSES.

B.C.523-522 Cambyses’s profligate conduct. -- He marries his own sisters. --
Consultation of the Persian judges. -- Their opinion. -- Smerdis. -- Jealousy of
Cambyses. -- The two magi. -- Cambyses suspicious. -- He plans an invasion of
Ethiopia. -- Island of Elephantine. -- The Icthyophagi. -- Classes of savage
nations. -- Embassadors sent to Ethiopia. -- The presents. -- The Ethiopian king
detects the imposture. -- The Ethiopian king’s opinion of Cambyses’s presents.
-- The Ethiopian bow. -- Return of the Icthyophagi. -- Jealousy of Cambyses. --
He orders Smerdis to be murdered. -- Cambyses grows more cruel. -- Twelve
noblemen buried alive. -- Cambyses’s cruelty to his sister. -- Her death. -- The
venerable Croesus. -- His advice to Cambyses. -- Cambyses’s rage at Croesus. --
He attempts to kill him. -- The declaration of the oracle. -- Ecbatane, Susa,
and Babylon. -- Cambyses returns northward. -- He enters Syria. -- A herald
proclaims Smerdis. -- The herald seized. -- Probable explanation. -- Rage of
Cambyses. -- Cambyses mortally wounded. -- His remorse and despair. -- Cambyses
calls his nobles about him. -- His dying declaration. -- Death of Cambyses. --
His dying declaration discredited.

Among the other acts of profligate wickedness which have blackened indelibly and
forever Cambyses’s name, he married two of his own sisters, and brought one of
them with him to Egypt as his wife. The natural instincts of all men, except
those whose early life has been given up to the most shameless and dissolute
habits of vice, are sufficient to preserve them from such crimes as these.
Cambyses himself felt, it seems, some misgivings when contemplating the first of
these marriages; and he sent to a certain council of judges, whose province it
was to interpret the laws, asking them their opinion of the rightfulness of such
a marriage. Kings ask the opinion of their legal advisers in such cases, not
because they really wish to know whether the act in question is right or wrong,
but because, having themselves determined upon the performance of it, they wish
their counselors to give it a sort of legal sanction, in order to justify the
deed, and diminish the popular odium which it might otherwise incur. The Persian
judges whom Cambyses consulted on this occasion understood very well what was
expected of them. After a grave deliberation, they returned answer to the king
that, though they could find no law allowing a man to marry his sister, they
found many which authorized a king of Persia to do whatever he thought best.
Cambyses accordingly carried his plan into execution. He married first the older
sister, whose name was Atossa. Atossa became subsequently a personage of great
historical distinction. The daughter of Cyrus, the wife of Darius, and the
mother of Xerxes, she was the link that bound together the three most
magnificent potentates of the whole Eastern world. How far these sisters were
willing participators in the guilt of their incestuous marriages we can not now
know. The one who went with Cambyses into Egypt was of a humane, and gentle, and
timid disposition, being in these respects wholly unlike her brother; and it may
be that she merely yielded, in the transaction of her marriage, to her brother’s
arbitrary and imperious will.

Besides this sister, Cambyses had brought his brother Smerdis with him into
Egypt. Smerdis was younger than Cambyses, but he was superior to him in strength
and personal accomplishments. Cambyses was very jealous of this superiority. He
did not dare to leave his brother in Persia, to manage the government in his
stead during his absence, lest he should take advantage of the temporary power
thus committed to his hands, and usurp the throne altogether. He decided,
therefore, to bring Smerdis with him into Egypt, and to leave the government of
the state in the hands of a regency composed of two magi. These magi were public
officers of distinction, but, having no hereditary claims to the crown, Cambyses
thought there would be little danger of their attempting to usurp it. It
happened, however, that the name of one of these magi was Smerdis. This
coincidence between the magian’s name and that of the prince led, in the end, as
will presently be seen, to very important consequences. The uneasiness and
jealousy which Cambyses felt in respect to his brother was not wholly allayed by
the arrangement which he thus made for keeping him in his army, and so under his
own personal observation and command. Smerdis evinced, on various occasions, so
much strength and skill, that Cambyses feared his influence among the officers
and soldiers, and was rendered continually watchful, suspicious, and afraid. A
circumstance at last occurred which excited his jealousy more than ever, and he
determined to send Smerdis home again to Persia. The circumstance was this:

After Cambyses had succeeded in obtaining full possession of Egypt, he formed,
among his other wild and desperate schemes, the design of invading the
territories of a nation of Ethiopians who lived in the interior of Africa,
around and beyond the sources of the Nile. The Ethiopians were celebrated for
their savage strength and bravery. Cambyses wished to obtain information
respecting them and their country before setting out on his expedition against
them, and he determined to send spies into their country to obtain it. But, as
Ethiopia was a territory so remote, and as its institutions and customs, and the
language, the dress, and the manners of its inhabitants were totally different
from those of all the other nations of the earth, and were almost wholly unknown
to the Persian army, it was impossible to send Persians in disguise, with any
hope that they could enter and explore the country without being discovered. It
was very doubtful, in fact, whether, if such spies were to be sent, they could
succeed in reaching Ethiopia at all.

Now there was, far up the Nile, near the cataracts, at a place where the river
widens and forms a sort of bay, a large and fertile island called Elephantine,
which was inhabited by a half-savage tribe called the Icthyophagi. They lived
mainly by fishing on the river, and, consequently, they had many boats, and were
accustomed to make long excursions up and down the stream. Their name was, in
fact, derived from their occupation. It was a Greek word, and might be
translated |Fishermen.|[B] The manners and customs of half-civilized or savage
nations depend entirely, of course, upon the modes in which they procure their
subsistence. Some depend on hunting wild beasts, some on rearing flocks and
herds of tame animals, some on cultivating the ground, and some on fishing in
rivers or in the sea. These four different modes of procuring food result in as
many totally diverse modes of life: it is a curious fact, however, that while a
nation of hunters differs very essentially from a nation of herdsmen or of
fishermen, though they may live, perhaps, in the same neighborhood with them,
still, all nations of hunters, however widely they may be separated in
geographical position, very strongly resemble one another in character, in
customs, in institutions, and in all the usages of life. It is so, moreover,
with all the other types of national constitution mentioned above. The Greeks
observed these characteristics of the various savage tribes with which they
became acquainted, and whenever they met with a tribe that lived by fishing,
they called them Icthyophagi.

[Footnote B: Literally, fish-eaters.]

Cambyses sent to the Icthyophagi of the island of Elephantine, requiring them to
furnish him with a number of persons acquainted with the route to Ethiopia and
with the Ethiopian language, that he might send them as an embassy. He also
provided some presents to be sent as a token of friendship to the Ethiopian
king. The presents were, however, only a pretext, to enable the embassadors, who
were, in fact, spies, to go to the capital and court of the Ethiopian monarch in
safety, and bring back to Cambyses all the information which they should be able
to obtain. The presents consisted of such toys and ornaments as they thought
would most please the fancy of a savage king. There were some purple vestments
of a very rich and splendid dye, and a golden chain for the neck, golden
bracelets for the wrists, an alabaster box of very precious perfumes, and other
similar trinkets and toys. There was also a large vessel filled with wine. The
Icthyophagi took these presents, and set out on their expedition. After a long
and toilsome voyage and journey, they came to the country of the Ethiopians, and
delivered their presents, together with the message which Cambyses had intrusted
to them. The presents, they said, had been sent by Cambyses as a token of his
desire to become the friend and ally of the Ethiopian king. The king, instead of
being deceived by this hypocrisy, detected the imposture at once. He knew very
well, he said, what was the motive of Cambyses in sending such an embassage to
him, and he should advise Cambyses to be content with his own dominions, instead
of planning aggressions of violence, and schemes and stratagems of deceit
against his neighbors, in order to get possession of theirs. He then began to
look at the presents which the embassadors had brought, which, however, he
appeared very soon to despise. The purple vest first attracted his attention. He
asked whether that was the true, natural color of the stuff, or a false one. The
messengers told him that the linen was dyed, and began to explain the process to
him. The mind of the savage potentate, however, instead of being impressed, as
the messengers supposed he would have been through their description, with a
high idea of the excellence and superiority of Persian art, only despised the
false show of what he considered an artificial and fictitious beauty. |The
beauty of Cambyses’s dresses,| said he, |is as deceitful, it seems, as the fair
show of his professions of friendship.| As to the golden bracelets and
necklaces, the king looked upon them with contempt. He thought that they were
intended for fetters and chains, and said that, however well they might answer
among the effeminate Persians, they were wholly insufficient to confine such
sinews as he had to deal with. The wine, however, he liked. He drank it with
great pleasure, and told the Icthyophagi that it was the only article among all
their presents that was worth receiving. In return for the presents which
Cambyses had sent him, the King of the Ethiopians, who was a man of prodigious
size and strength, took down his bow and gave it to the Icthyophagi, telling
them to carry it to Cambyses as a token of his defiance, and to ask him to see
if he could find a man in all his army who could bend it. |Tell Cambyses,| he
added, |that when his soldiers are able to bend such bows as that, it will be
time for him to think of invading the territories of the Ethiopians; and that,
in the mean time, he ought to consider himself very fortunate that the
Ethiopians were not grasping and ambitious enough to attempt the invasion of
his.| When the Icthyophagi returned to Cambyses with this message, the strongest
men in the Persian camp were of course greatly interested in examining and
trying the bow. Smerdis was the only one that could be found who was strong
enough to bend it; and he, by the superiority to the others which he thus
evinced, gained great renown. Cambyses was filled with jealousy and anger. He
determined to send Smerdis back again to Persia. |It will be better,| thought he
to himself, |to incur whatever danger there may be of his exciting revolt at
home, than to have him present in my court, subjecting me to continual
mortification and chagrin by the perpetual parade of his superiority.| His mind
was, however, not at ease after his brother had gone. Jealousy and suspicion in
respect to Smerdis perplexed his waking thoughts and troubled his dreams. At
length, one night, he thought he saw Smerdis seated on a royal throne in Persia,
his form expanded supernaturally to such a prodigious size that he touched the
heavens with his head. The next day, Cambyses, supposing that the dream
portended danger that Smerdis would be one day in possession of the throne,
determined to put a final and perpetual end to all these troubles and fears, and
he sent for an officer of his court, Prexaspes -- the same whose son he shot
through the heart with an arrow, as described in the last chapter -- and
commanded him to proceed immediately to Persia, and there to find Smerdis, and
kill him. The murder of Prexaspes’s son, though related in the last chapter as
an illustration of Cambyses’s character, did not actually take place till after
Prexaspes returned from this expedition.

Prexaspes went to Persia, and executed the orders of the king by the
assassination of Smerdis. There are different accounts of the mode which he
adopted for accomplishing his purpose. One is, that he contrived some way to
drown him in the sea; another, that he poisoned him; and a third, that he killed
him in the forests, when he was out on a hunting excursion. At all events, the
deed was done, and Prexaspes went back to Cambyses, and reported to him that he
had nothing further to fear from his brother’s ambition. In the mean time,
Cambyses went on from bad to worse in his government, growing every day more
despotic and tyrannical, and abandoning himself to fits of cruelty and passion
which became more and more excessive and insane. At one time, on some slight
provocation, he ordered twelve distinguished noblemen of his court to be buried
alive. It is astonishing that there can be institutions and arrangements in the
social state which will give one man such an ascendency over others that such
commands can be obeyed. On another occasion, Cambyses’s sister and wife, who had
mourned the death of her brother Smerdis, ventured a reproach to Cambyses for
having destroyed him. She was sitting at table, with some plant or flower in her
hand, which she slowly picked to pieces, putting the fragments on the table. She
asked Cambyses whether he thought the flower looked fairest and best in
fragments, or in its original and natural integrity. |It looked best,
certainly,| Cambyses said, |when it was whole.| |And yet,| said she, |you have
begun to take to pieces and destroy our family, as I have destroyed this
flower.| Cambyses sprang upon his unhappy sister, on hearing this reproof, with
the ferocity of a tiger. He threw her down and leaped upon her. The attendants
succeeded in rescuing her and bearing her away; but she had received a fatal
injury. She fell immediately into a premature and unnatural sickness, and died.

These fits of sudden and terrible passion to which Cambyses was subject, were
often followed, when they had passed by, as is usual in such cases, with remorse
and misery; and sometimes the officers of Cambyses, anticipating a change in
their master’s feelings, did not execute his cruel orders, but concealed the
object of his blind and insensate vengeance until the paroxysm was over. They
did this once in the case of Croesus. Croesus, who was now a venerable man,
advanced in years, had been for a long time the friend and faithful counselor of
Cambyses’s father. He had known Cambyses himself from his boyhood, and had been
charged by his father to watch over him and counsel him, and aid him, on all
occasions which might require it, with his experience and wisdom. Cambyses, too,
had been solemnly charged by his father Cyrus, at the last interview that he had
with him before his death, to guard and protect Croesus, as his father’s ancient
and faithful friend, and to treat him, as long as he lived, with the highest
consideration and honor.

Under these circumstances, Croesus considered himself justified in remonstrating
one day with Cambyses against his excesses and his cruelty. He told him that he
ought not to give himself up to the control of such violent and impetuous
passions; that, though his Persian soldiers and subjects had borne with him thus
far, he might, by excessive oppression and cruelty, exhaust their forbearance
and provoke them to revolt against him, and that thus he might suddenly lose his
power, through his intemperate and inconsiderate use of it. Croesus apologized
for offering these counsels, saying that he felt bound to warn Cambyses of his
danger, in obedience to the injunctions of Cyrus, his father.

Cambyses fell into a violent passion at hearing these words. He told Croesus
that he was amazed at his presumption in daring to offer him advice, and then
began to load his venerable counselor with the bitterest invectives and
reproaches. He taunted him with his own misfortunes, in losing, as he had done,
years before, his own kingdom of Lydia, and then accused him of having been the
means, through his foolish counsels, of leading his father, Cyrus, into the
worst of the difficulties which befell him toward the close of his life. At
last, becoming more and more enraged by the reaction upon himself of his own
angry utterance, he told Croesus that he had hated him for a long time, and for
a long time had wished to punish him; |and now,| said he, |you have given me an
opportunity.| So saying, he seized his bow, and began to fit an arrow to the
string. Croesus fled. Cambyses ordered his attendants to pursue him, and when
they had taken him, to kill him. The officers knew that Cambyses would regret
his rash and reckless command as soon as his anger should have subsided, and so,
instead of slaying Croesus, they concealed him. A few days after, when the
tyrant began to express his remorse and sorrow at having destroyed his venerable
friend in the heat of passion, and to mourn his death, they told him that
Croesus was still alive. They had ventured, they said, to save him, till they
could ascertain whether it was the king’s real and deliberate determination that
he must die. The king was overjoyed to find Croesus still alive, but he would
not forgive those who had been instrumental in saving him. He ordered every one
of them to be executed.

Cambyses was the more reckless and desperate in these tyrannical cruelties
because he believed that he possessed a sort of charmed life. He had consulted
an oracle, it seems, in Media, in respect to his prospects of life, and the
oracle had informed him that he would die at Ecbatane. Now Ecbatane was one of
the three great capitals of his empire, Susa and Babylon being the others.
Ecbatane was the most northerly of these cities, and the most remote from
danger. Babylon and Susa were the points where the great transactions of
government chiefly centered, while Ecbatane was more particularly the private
residence of the kings. It was their refuge in danger, their retreat in sickness
and age. In a word, Susa was their seat of government, Babylon their great
commercial emporium, but Ecbatane was their home. And thus as the oracle, when
Cambyses inquired in respect to the circumstances of his death, had said that it
was decreed by the fates that he should die at Ecbatane, it meant, as he
supposed, that he should die in peace, in his bed, at the close of the usual
period allotted to the life of man. Considering thus that the fates had removed
all danger of a sudden and violent death from his path, he abandoned himself to
his career of vice and folly, remembering only the substance of the oracle,
while the particular form of words in which it was expressed passed from his
mind. At length Cambyses, after completing his conquests in Egypt, returned to
the northward along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, until he came into
Syria. The province of Galilee, so often mentioned in the sacred Scriptures, was
a part of Syria. In traversing Galilee at the head of the detachment of troops
that was accompanying him, Cambyses came, one day, to a small town, and encamped
there. The town itself was of so little importance that Cambyses did not, at the
time of his arriving at it, even know its name. His encampment at the place,
however, was marked by a very memorable event, namely, he met with a herald
here, who was traveling through Syria, saying that he had been sent from Susa to
proclaim to the people of Syria that Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, had assumed the
throne, and to enjoin upon them all to obey no orders except such as should come
from him!

Cambyses had supposed that Smerdis was dead. Prexaspes, when he had returned
from Susa, had reported that he had killed him. He now, however, sent for
Prexaspes, and demanded of him what this proclamation could mean. Prexaspes
renewed, and insisted upon, his declaration that Smerdis was dead. He had
destroyed him with his own hands, and had seen him buried. |If the dead can rise
from the grave,| added Prexaspes, |then Smerdis may perhaps, raise a revolt and
appear against you; but not otherwise.|

Prexaspes then recommended that the king should send and seize the herald, and
inquire particularly of him in respect to the government in whose name he was
acting. Cambyses did so. The herald was taken and brought before the king. On
being questioned whether it was true that Smerdis had really assumed the
government and commissioned him to make proclamation of the fact, he replied
that it was so. He had not seen Smerdis himself, he said, for he kept himself
shut up very closely in his palace; but he was informed of his accession by one
of the magians whom Cambyses had left in command. It was by him, he said, that
he had been commissioned to proclaim Smerdis as king.

Prexaspes then said that he had no doubt that the two magians whom Cambyses had
left in charge of the government had contrived to seize the throne. He reminded
Cambyses that the name of one of them was Smerdis, and that probably that was
the Smerdis who was usurping the supreme command. Cambyses said that he was
convinced that this supposition was true. His dream, in which he had seen a
vision of Smerdis, with his head reaching to the heavens, referred, he had no
doubt, to the magian Smerdis, and not to his brother. He began bitterly to
reproach himself for having caused his innocent brother to be put to death; but
the remorse which he thus felt for his crime, in assassinating an imaginary
rival, soon gave way to rage and resentment against the real usurper. He called
for his horse, and began to mount him in hot haste, to give immediate orders,
and make immediate preparations for marching to Susa. As he bounded into the
saddle, with his mind in this state of reckless desperation, the sheath, by some
accident or by some carelessness caused by his headlong haste, fell from his
sword, and the naked point of the weapon pierced his thigh. The attendants took
him from his horse, and conveyed him again to his tent. The wound, on
examination, proved to be a very dangerous one, and the strong passions, the
vexation, the disappointment, the impotent rage, which were agitating the mind
of the patient, exerted an influence extremely unfavorable to recovery.
Cambyses, terrified at the prospect of death, asked what was the name of the
town where he was lying. They told him it was Ecbatane.

He had never thought before of the possibility that there might be some other
Ecbatane besides his splendid royal retreat in Media; but now, when he learned
that was the name of the place where he was then encamped, he felt sure that his
hour was come, and he was overwhelmed with remorse and despair.

He suffered, too, inconceivable pain and anguish from his wound. The sword had
pierced to the bone, and the inflammation which had supervened was of the worst
character. After some days, the acuteness of the agony which he at first endured
passed gradually away, though the extent of the injury resulting from the wound
was growing every day greater and more hopeless. The sufferer lay, pale,
emaciated, and wretched, on his couch, his mind, in every interval of bodily
agony, filling up the void with the more dreadful sufferings of horror and
despair. At length, on the twentieth day after his wound had been received, he
called the leading nobles of his court and officers of his army about his
bedside, and said to them that he was about to die, and that he was compelled,
by the calamity which had befallen him, to declare to them what he would
otherwise have continued to keep concealed. The person who had usurped the
throne under the name of Smerdis, he now said, was not, and could not be, his
brother Smerdis, the son of Cyrus. He then proceeded to give them an account of
the manner in which his fears in respect to his brother had been excited by his
dream, and of the desperate remedy that he had resorted to in ordering him to be
killed. He believed, he said, that the usurper was Smerdis the magian, whom he
had left as one of the regents when he set out on his Egyptian campaign. He
urged them, therefore, not to submit to his sway, but to go back to Media, and
if they could not conquer him and put him down by open war, to destroy him by
deceit and stratagem, or in any way whatever by which the end could be
accomplished. Cambyses urged this with so much of the spirit of hatred and
revenge beaming in his hollow and glassy eye as to show that sickness, pain, and
the approach of death, which had made so total a change in the wretched
sufferer’s outward condition, had altered nothing within.

Very soon after making this communication to his nobles, Cambyses expired.

It will well illustrate the estimate which those who knew him best, formed of
this great hero’s character, to state, that those who heard this solemn
declaration did not believe one word of it from beginning to end. They supposed
that the whole story which the dying tyrant had told them, although he had
scarcely breath enough left to tell it, was a fabrication, dictated by his
fraternal jealousy and hate. They believed that it was really the true Smerdis
who had been proclaimed king, and that Cambyses had invented, in his dying
moments, the story of his having killed him, in order to prevent the Persians
from submitting peaceably to his reign.


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  CHAPTER 17: 2.03     CHAPTER 3. SMERDIS THE MAGIAN.
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CHAPTER III. SMERDIS THE MAGIAN.

B.C.520

Usurpation of the magians. -- Circumstances favoring it. -- Murder of Smerdis
not known. -- He is supposed to be alive. -- Precautions taken by Smerdis. --
Effect of Cambyses’s measures. -- Opinion in regard to Smerdis. -- Acquiescence
of the people. -- Dangerous situation of Smerdis. -- Arrangement with
Patizithes. -- Smerdis lives in retirement. -- Special grounds of apprehension.
-- Cambyses’s wives. -- Smerdis appropriates them. -- Phaedyma. -- Measures of
Otanes. -- Otanes’s communications with his daughter. -- Her replies. --
Phaedyma discovers the deception. -- Otanes and the six nobles. -- Arrival of
Darius. -- Secret consultations. -- Various opinions. -- Views of Darius. --
Apology for a falsehood. -- Opinion of Gobryas. -- Uneasiness of the magi. --
Situation of Prexaspes. -- Measures of the magi. -- An assembly of the people.
-- Decision of Prexaspes. -- His speech from the tower. -- Death of Prexaspes.
-- The conspirators. -- The omen. -- The conspirators enter the palace. --
Combat with the magi. -- Flight of Smerdis. -- Smerdis is killed. -- Exultation
of the conspirators. -- General massacre of the magians.

Cambyses and his friends had been right in their conjectures that it was Smerdis
the magian who had usurped the Persian throne. This Smerdis resembled, it was
said, the son of Cyrus in his personal appearance as well as in name. The other
magian who had been associated with him in the regency when Cambyses set out
from Persia on his Egyptian campaign was his brother. His name was Patizithes.
When Cyrus had been some time absent, these magians, having in the mean time,
perhaps, heard unfavorable accounts of his conduct and character, and knowing
the effect which such wanton tyranny must have in alienating from him the
allegiance of his subjects, conceived the design of taking possession of the
empire in their own name. The great distance of Cambyses and his army from home,
and his long-continued absence, favored this plan. Their own position, too, as
they were already in possession of the capitals and the fortresses of the
country, aided them; and then the name of Smerdis, being the same with that of
the brother of Cambyses, was a circumstance that greatly promoted the success of
the undertaking. In addition to all these general advantages, the cruelty of
Cambyses was the means of furnishing them with a most opportune occasion for
putting their plans into execution. The reader will recollect that, as was
related in the last chapter, Cambyses first sent his brother Smerdis home, and
afterward, when alarmed by his dream, he sent Prexaspes to murder him. Now the
return of Smerdis was publicly and generally known, while his assassination by
Prexaspes was kept a profound secret. Even the Persians connected with
Cambyses’s court in Egypt had not heard of the perpetration of this crime, until
Cambyses confessed it on his dying bed, and even then, as was stated in the last
chapter, they did not believe it. It is not probable that it was known in Media
and Persia; so that, after Prexaspes accomplished his work, and returned to
Cambyses with the report of it, it was probably generally supposed that his
brother was still alive, and was residing somewhere in one or another of the
royal palaces.

Such royal personages were often accustomed to live thus, in a state of great
seclusion, spending their time in effeminate pleasures within the walls of their
palaces, parks, and gardens. When the royal Smerdis, therefore, secretly and
suddenly disappeared, it would be very easy for the magian Smerdis, with the
collusion of a moderate number of courtiers and attendants, to take his place,
especially if he continued to live in retirement, and exhibited himself as
little as possible to public view. Thus it was that Cambyses himself, by the
very crimes which he committed to shield himself from all danger of a revolt,
opened the way which specially invited it, and almost insured its success. Every
particular step that he took, too, helped to promote the end. His sending
Smerdis home; his waiting an interval, and then sending Prexaspes to destroy
him; his ordering his assassination to be secret -- these, and all the other
attendant circumstances, were only so many preliminary steps, preparing the way
for the success of the revolution which was to accomplish his ruin. He was, in a
word, his own destroyer. Like other wicked men, he found, in the end, that the
schemes of wickedness which he had malignantly aimed at the destruction of
others, had been all the time slowly and surely working out his own. The people
of Persia, therefore, were prepared by Cambyses’s own acts to believe that the
usurper Smerdis was really Cyrus’s son, and, next to Cambyses, the heir to the
throne. The army of Cambyses, too, in Egypt, believed the same. It was natural
that they should do so for they placed no confidence whatever in Cambyses’s
dying declarations; and since intelligence, which seemed to be official, came
from Susa declaring that Smerdis was still alive, and that he had actually taken
possession of the throne, there was no apparent reason for doubting the fact.
Besides, Prexaspes, as soon as Cambyses was dead, considered it safer for him to
deny than to confess having murdered the prince. He therefore declared that
Cambyses’s story was false, and that he had no doubt that Smerdis, the monarch
in whose name the government was administered at Susa, was the son of Cyrus, the
true and rightful heir to the throne. Thus all parties throughout the empire
acquiesced peaceably in what they supposed to be the legitimate succession. In
the mean time, the usurper had placed himself in an exceedingly dizzy and
precarious situation, and one which it would require a great deal of address and
skillful management to sustain. The plan arranged between himself and his
brother for a division of the advantages which they had secured by their joint
and common cunning was, that Smerdis was to enjoy the ease and pleasure, and
Patizithes the substantial power of the royalty which they had so stealthily
seized. This was the safest plan. Smerdis, by living secluded, and devoting
himself to retired and private pleasures, was the more likely to escape public
observation; while Patizithes, acting as his prime minister of state, could
attend councils, issue orders, review troops, dispatch embassies, and perform
all the other outward functions of supreme command, with safety as well as
pleasure. Patizithes seems to have been, in fact, the soul of the whole plan. He
was ambitious and aspiring in character, and if he could only himself enjoy the
actual exercise of royal power, he was willing that his brother should enjoy the
honor of possessing it. Patizithes, therefore, governed the realm, acting,
however, in all that he did, in Smerdis’s name.

Smerdis, on his part, was content to take possession of the palaces, the parks,
and the gardens of Media and Persia, and to live in them in retired and quiet
luxury and splendor. He appeared seldom in public, and then only under such
circumstances as should not expose him to any close observation on the part of
the spectators. His figure, air, and manner, and the general cast of his
countenance, were very much like those of the prince whom he was attempting to
personate. There was one mark, however, by which he thought that there was
danger that he might be betrayed, and that was, his ears had been cut off. This
had been done many years before, by command of Cyrus, on account of some offense
of which he had been guilty. The marks of the mutilation could, indeed, on
public occasions, be concealed by the turban, or helmet, or other head-dress
which he wore; but in private there was great danger either that the loss of the
ears, or the studied effort to conceal it, should be observed. Smerdis was,
therefore, very careful to avoid being seen in private, by keeping himself
closely secluded. He shut himself up in the apartments of his palace at Susa,
within the citadel, and never invited the Persian nobles to visit him there.

Among the other means of luxury and pleasure which Smerdis found in the royal
palaces, and which he appropriated to his own enjoyment, were Cambyses’s wives.
In those times, Oriental princes and potentates -- as is, in fact, the case at
the present day, in many Oriental countries -- possessed a great number of
wives, who were bound to them by different sorts of matrimonial ties, more or
less permanent, and bringing them into relations more or less intimate with
their husband and sovereign. These wives were in many respects in the condition
of slaves: in one particular they were especially so, namely, that on the death
of a sovereign they descended, like any other property, to the heir, who added
as many of them as he pleased to his own seraglio. Until this was done, the
unfortunate women were shut up in close seclusion on the death of their lord,
like mourners who retire from the world when suffering any great and severe
bereavement. The wives of Cambyses were appropriated by Smerdis to himself on
his taking possession of the throne and hearing of Cambyses’s death. Among them
was Atossa, who has already been mentioned as the daughter of Cyrus, and, of
course, the sister of Cambyses as well as his wife. In order to prevent these
court ladies from being the means, in any way, of discovering the imposture
which he was practicing, the magian continued to keep them all closely shut up
in their several separate apartments, only allowing a favored few to visit him,
one by one, in turn, while he prevented their having any communication with one
another. The name of one of these ladies was Phaedyma. She was the daughter of a
Persian noble of the highest rank and influence, named Otanes. Otanes, as well
as some other nobles of the court, had observed and reflected upon the
extraordinary circumstances connected with the accession of Smerdis to the
throne, and the singular mode of life that he led in secluding himself, in a
manner so extraordinary for a Persian monarch, from all intercourse with his
nobles and his people. The suspicions of Otanes and his associates were excited,
but no one dared to communicate his thoughts to the others. At length, however,
Otanes, who was a man of great energy as well as sagacity and discretion,
resolved that he would take some measures to ascertain the truth.

He first sent a messenger to Phaedyma, his daughter, asking of her whether it
was really Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, who received her when she went to visit
the king. Phaedyma, in return, sent her father word that she did not know, for
she had never seen Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, before the death of Cambyses. She
therefore could not say, of her own personal knowledge, whether the king was the
genuine Smerdis or not. Otanes then sent to Phaedyma a second time, requesting
her to ask the queen Atossa. Atossa was the sister of Smerdis the prince, and
had known him from his childhood. Phaedyma sent back word to her father that she
could not speak to Atossa, for she was kept closely shut up in her own
apartments, without the opportunity to communicate with any one. Otanes then
sent a third time to his daughter, telling her that there was one remaining mode
by which she might ascertain the truth, and that was, the next time that she
visited the king, to feel for his ears when he was asleep. If it was Smerdis the
magian, she would find that he had none. He urged his daughter to do this by
saying that, if the pretended king was really an impostor, the imposture ought
to be made known, and that she, being of noble birth, ought to have the courage
and energy to assist in discovering it. To this Phaedyma replied that she would
do as her father desired, though she knew that she hazarded her life in the
attempt. |If he has no ears,| said she, |and if I awaken him in attempting to
feel for them, he will kill me; I am sure that he will kill me on the spot.| The
next time that it came to Phaedyma’s turn to visit the king, she did as her
father had requested. She passed her hand very cautiously beneath the king’s
turban, and found that his ears had been cut off close to his head. Early in the
morning she communicated the knowledge of the fact to her father.

[Illustration: PHAEDYMA FEELING FOR SMERDIS’S EARS.]

Otanes immediately made the case known to two of his friends, Persian nobles,
who had, with him, suspected the imposture, and had consulted together before in
respect to the means of detecting it. The question was, what was now to be done.
After some deliberation, it was agreed that each of them should communicate the
discovery which they had made to one other person, such as each should select
from among the circle of his friends as the one on whose resolution, prudence,
and fidelity he could most implicitly rely. This was done, and the number
admitted to the secret was thus increased to six. At this juncture it happened
that Darius, the son of Hystaspes, the young man who has already been mentioned
as the subject of Cyrus’s dream, came to Susa. Darius was a man of great
prominence and popularity. His father, Hystaspes, was at that time the governor
of the province of Persia, and Darius had been residing with him in that
country. As soon as the six conspirators heard of his arrival, they admitted him
to their councils, and thus their number was increased to seven.

They immediately began to hold secret consultations for the purpose of
determining how it was best to proceed, first binding themselves by the most
solemn oaths never to betray one another, however their undertaking might end.
Darius told them that he had himself discovered the imposture and usurpation of
Smerdis, and that he had come from Persia for the purpose of slaying him; and
that now, since it appeared that the secret was known to so many, he was of
opinion that they ought to act at once with the utmost decision. He thought
there would be great danger in delay.

Otanes, on the other hand, thought that they were not yet ready for action. They
must first increase their numbers. Seven persons were too few to attempt to
revolutionize an empire. He commended the courage and resolution which Darius
displayed, but he thought that a more cautious and deliberate policy would be
far more likely to conduct them to a safe result.

Darius replied that the course which Otanes recommended would certainly ruin
them. |If we make many other persons acquainted with our plans,| said he, |there
will be some, notwithstanding all our precautions, who will betray us, for the
sake of the immense rewards which they well know they would receive in that case
from the king. No,| he added, |we must act ourselves, and alone. We must do
nothing to excite suspicion, but must go at once into the palace, penetrate
boldly into Smerdis’s presence, and slay him before he has time to suspect our
designs.|

|But we can not get into his presence,| replied Otanes. |There are guards
stationed at every gate and door, who will not allow us to pass. If we attempt
to kill them, a tumult will be immediately raised, and the alarm given, and all
our designs will thus be baffled.|

|There will be little difficulty about the guards,| said Darius. |They know us
all, and, from deference to our rank and station, they will let us pass without
suspicion, especially if we act boldly and promptly, and do not give them time
to stop and consider what to do. Besides, I can say that I have just arrived
from Persia with important dispatches for the king, and that I must be admitted
immediately into his presence. If a falsehood must be told, so let it be. The
urgency of the crisis demands and sanctions it.|

It may seem strange to the reader, considering the ideas and habits of the
times, that Darius should have even thought it necessary to apologize to his
confederates for his proposal of employing falsehood in the accomplishment of
their plans; and it is, in fact, altogether probable that the apology which he
is made to utter is his historian’s, and not his own. The other conspirators had
remained silent during this discussion between Darius and Otanes; but now a
third, whose name was Gobryas, expressed his opinion in favor of the course
which Darius recommended. He was aware, he said, that, in attempting to force
their way into the king’s presence and kill him by a sudden assault, they
exposed themselves to the most imminent danger; but it was better for them to
die in the manly attempt to bring back the imperial power again into Persian
hands, where it properly belonged, than to acquiesce any further in its
continuance in the possession of the ignoble Median priests who had so
treacherously usurped it. To this counsel they all finally agreed, and began to
make arrangements for carrying their desperate enterprise into execution. In the
mean time, very extraordinary events were transpiring in another part of the
city. The two magi, Smerdis the king and Patizithes his brother, had some cause,
it seems, to fear that the nobles about the court, and the officers of the
Persian army, were not without suspicions that the reigning monarch was not the
real son of Cyrus. Rumors that Smerdis had been killed by Prexaspes, at the
command of Cambyses, were in circulation. These rumors were contradicted, it is
true, in private, by Prexaspes, whenever he was forced to speak of the subject;
but he generally avoided it; and he spoke, when he spoke at all, in that timid
and undecided tone which men usually assume when they are persisting in a lie.
In the mean time, the gloomy recollections of his past life, the memory of his
murdered son, remorse for his own crime in the assassination of Smerdis, and
anxiety on account of the extremely dangerous position in which he had placed
himself by his false denial of it, all conspired to harass his mind with
perpetual restlessness and misery, and to make life a burden. In order to do
something to quiet the suspicions which the magi feared were prevailing, they
did not know how extensively, they conceived the plan of inducing Prexaspes to
declare in a more public and formal manner what he had been asserting timidly in
private, namely, that Smerdis had not been killed. They accordingly convened an
assembly of the people in a court-yard of the palace, or perhaps took advantage
of some gathering casually convened, and proposed that Prexaspes should address
them from a neighboring tower. Prexaspes was a man of high rank and of great
influence, and the magi thought that his public espousal of their cause, and his
open and decided contradiction of the rumor that he had killed Cambyses’s
brother, would fully convince the Persians that it was really the rightful
monarch that had taken possession of the throne. But the strength even of a
strong man, when he has a lie to carry, soon becomes very small. That of
Prexaspes was already almost exhausted and gone. He had been wavering and
hesitating before, and this proposal, that he should commit himself so formally
and solemnly, and in so public a manner, to statements wholly and absolutely
untrue, brought him to a stand. He decided, desperately, in his own mind, that
he would go on in his course of falsehood, remorse, and wretchedness no longer.
He, however, pretended to accede to the propositions of the magi. He ascended
the tower, and began to address the people. Instead, however, of denying that he
had murdered Smerdis, he fully confessed to the astonished audience that he had
really committed that crime; he openly denounced the reigning Smerdis as an
impostor, and called upon all who heard him to rise at once, destroy the
treacherous usurper, and vindicate the rights of the true Persian line. As he
went on, with vehement voice and gestures, in this speech, the utterance of
which he knew sealed his own destruction, he became more and more excited and
reckless. He denounced his hearers in the severest language if they failed to
obey his injunctions, and imprecated upon them, in that event, all the curses of
Heaven. The people listened to this strange and sudden phrensy of eloquence in
utter amazement, motionless and silent; and before they or the officers of the
king’s household who were present had time even to consider what to do,
Prexaspes, coming abruptly to the conclusion of his harangue, threw himself
headlong from the parapet of the tower, and came down among them, lifeless and
mangled, on the pavement below. Of course, all was now tumult and commotion in
the court-yard, and it happened to be just at this juncture that the seven
conspirators came from the place of their consultation to the palace, with a
view of executing their plans. They were soon informed of what had taken place.
Otanes was now again disposed to postpone their attempt upon the life of the
king. The event which had occurred changed, he said, the aspect of the subject,
and they must wait until the tumult and excitement should have somewhat
subsided. But Darius was more eager than ever in favor of instantaneous action.
He said that there was not a moment to be lost; for the magi, so soon as they
should be informed of the declarations and of the death of Prexaspes, would be
alarmed, and would take at once the most effectual precautions to guard against
any sudden assault or surprise.

These arguments, at the very time in which Darius was offering them with so much
vehemence and earnestness, were strengthened by a very singular sort of
confirmation; for while the conspirators stood undetermined, they saw a flock of
birds moving across the sky, which, on their more attentively regarding them,
proved to be seven hawks pursuing two vultures. This they regarded an omen,
intended to signify to them, by a divine intimation, that they ought to proceed.
They hesitated, therefore, no longer.

They went together to the outer gates of the palace. The action of the guards
who were stationed there was just what Darius had predicted that it would be.
Awed by the imposing spectacle of the approach of seven nobles of the highest
distinction, who were advancing, too, with an earnest and confident air, as if
expecting no obstacle to their admission, they gave way at once, and allowed
them to enter. The conspirators went on until they came to the inner apartments,
where they found eunuchs in attendance at the doors. The eunuchs resisted, and
demanded angrily why the guards had let the strangers in. |Kill them,| said the
conspirators, and immediately began to cut them down. The magi were within,
already in consternation at the disclosures of Prexaspes, of which they had just
been informed. They heard the tumult and the outcries of the eunuchs at the
doors, and seized their arms, the one a bow and the other a spear. The
conspirators rushed in. The bow was useless in the close combat which ensued,
and the magian who had taken it turned and fled. The other defended himself with
his spear for a moment, and wounded severely two of his assailants. The wounded
conspirators fell. Three others of the number continued the unequal combat with
the armed magian, while Darius and Gobryas rushed in pursuit of the other. The
flying magian ran from one apartment to another until he reached a dark room,
into which the blind instinct of fear prompted him to rush, in the vain hope of
concealment. Gobryas was foremost; he seized the wretched fugitive by the waist,
and struggled to hold him, while the magian struggled to get free. Gobryas
called upon Darius, who was close behind him, to strike. Darius, brandishing his
sword, looked earnestly into the obscure retreat, that he might see where to
strike.

|Strike!| exclaimed Gobryas. |Why do you not strike?| |I can not see,| said
Darius, |and I am afraid of wounding you.|

|No matter,| said Gobryas, struggling desperately all the time with his frantic
victim. |Strike quick, if you kill us both.|

Darius struck. Gobryas loosened his hold, and the magian fell upon the floor,
and there, stabbed again through the heart by Darius’s sword, almost immediately
ceased to breathe.

They dragged the body to the light, and cut off the head. They did the same with
the other magian, whom they found that their confederates had killed when they
returned to the apartments where they had left them contending. The whole body
of the conspirators then, except the two who were wounded, exulting in their
success, and wild with the excitement which such deeds always awaken, went forth
into the streets of the city, bearing the heads upon pikes as the trophies of
their victory. They summoned the Persian soldiers to arms, and announced every
where that they had ascertained that the king was a priest and an impostor, and
not their legitimate sovereign, and that they had consequently killed him. They
called upon the people to kill the magians wherever they could find them, as if
the whole class were implicated in the guilt of the usurping brothers. The
populace in all countries are easily excited by such denunciations and appeals
as these. The Persians armed themselves, and ran to and fro every where in
pursuit of the unhappy magians, and before night vast numbers of them were
slain.


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  CHAPTER 18: 2.04     CHAPTER 4. THE ACCESSION OF DARIUS.
========================================================================

CHAPTER IV. THE ACCESSION OF DARIUS.

B.C.520

Confusion at Susa. -- No heir to the throne. -- Five days’ interregnum. --
Provisional government. -- Consultation of the confederates. -- Otanes in favor
of a republic. -- Otanes’s republic. -- Principles of representation. -- Large
assemblies. -- Nature of ancient republics. -- Nature of a representative
republic. -- Megabyzus. -- He opposes the plan of Otanes. -- Speech of
Megabyzus. -- He proposes an oligarchy. -- Speech of Darius. -- He advocates a
monarchy. -- Four of the seven confederates concur with Darius. -- Otanes
withdraws. -- Agreement made by the rest. -- Singular mode of deciding which
should be the king. -- The groom Oebases. -- His method of making Darius’s horse
neigh. -- Probable truth or falsehood of this account. -- Ancient statesmen. --
Their character and position. -- The conspirators governed, in their decision,
by superstitious feelings. -- The conspirators do homage to Darius. -- The
equestrian statue. For several days after the assassination of the magi the city
was filled with excitement, tumults, and confusion. There was no heir, of the
family of Cyrus, entitled to succeed to the vacant throne, for neither Cambyses,
nor Smerdis his brother, had left any sons. There was, indeed, a daughter of
Smerdis, named Parmys, and there were also still living two daughters of Cyrus.
One was Atossa, whom we have already mentioned as having been married to
Cambyses, her brother, and as having been afterward taken by Smerdis the magian
as one of his wives. These princesses, though of royal lineage, seem neither of
them to have been disposed to assert any claims to the throne at such a crisis.
The mass of the community were stupefied with astonishment at the sudden
revolution which had occurred. No movement was made toward determining the
succession. For five days nothing was done.

During this period, all the subordinate functions of government in the
provinces, cities, and towns, and among the various garrisons and encampments of
the army, went on, of course, as usual, but the general administration of the
government had no head. The seven confederates had been regarded, for the time
being, as a sort of provisional government, the army and the country in general,
so far as appears, looking to them for the means of extrication from the
political difficulties in which this sudden revolution had involved them, and
submitting, in the mean time, to their direction and control. Such a state of
things, it was obvious, could not long last; and after five days, when the
commotion had somewhat subsided, they began to consider it necessary to make
some arrangements of a more permanent character, the power to make such
arrangements as they thought best resting with them alone. They accordingly met
for consultation.

Herodotus the historian,[C] on whose narrative of these events we have mainly to
rely for all the information respecting them which is now to be attained, gives
a very minute and dramatic account of the deliberations of the conspirators on
this occasion. The account is, in fact, too dramatic to be probably true.

[Footnote C: An account of Herodotus, and of the circumstances under which he
wrote his history, which will aid the reader very much in forming an opinion in
respect to the kind and degree of confidence which it is proper to place in his
statements, will be found in the first chapter of our history of Cyrus the
Great.]

Otanes, in this discussion, was in favor of establishing a republic. He did not
think it safe or wise to intrust the supreme power again to any single
individual. It was proved, he said, by universal experience, that when any one
person was raised to such an elevation above his fellow-men, he became
suspicious, jealous, insolent, and cruel. He lost all regard for the welfare and
happiness of others, and became supremely devoted to the preservation of his own
greatness and power by any means, however tyrannical, and to the accomplishment
of the purposes of his own despotic will. The best and most valuable citizens
were as likely to become the victims of his oppression as the worst. In fact,
tyrants generally chose their favorites, he said, from among the most abandoned
men and women in their realms, such characters being the readiest instruments of
their guilty pleasures and their crimes. Otanes referred very particularly to
the case of Cambyses as an example of the extreme lengths to which the despotic
insolence and cruelty of a tyrant could go. He reminded his colleagues of the
sufferings and terrors which they had endured while under his sway, and urged
them very strongly not to expose themselves to such terrible evils and dangers
again. He proposed, therefore, that they should establish a republic, under
which the officers of government should be elected, and questions of public
policy be determined, in assemblies of the people.

It must be understood, however, by the reader, that a republic, as contemplated
and intended by Otanes in this speech, was entirely different from the mode of
government which that word denotes at the present day. They had little idea, in
those times, of the principle of representation, by which the thousand separate
and detached communities of a great empire can choose delegates, who are to
deliberate, speak, and act for them in the assemblies where the great
governmental decisions are ultimately made. By this principle of representation,
the people can really all share in the exercise of power. Without it they can
not, for it is impossible that the people of a great state can ever be brought
together in one assembly; nor, even if it were practicable to bring them thus
together, would it be possible for such a concourse to deliberate or act. The
action of any assembly which goes beyond a very few hundred in numbers, is
always, in fact, the action exclusively of the small knot of leaders who call
and manage it. Otanes, therefore, as well as all other advocates of republican
government in ancient times, meant that the supreme power should be exercised,
not by the great mass of the people included within the jurisdiction in
question, but by such a portion of certain privileged classes as could be
brought together in the capital. It was such a sort of republic as would be
formed in this country if the affairs of the country at large, and the municipal
and domestic institutions of all the states, were regulated and controlled by
laws enacted, and by governors appointed, at great municipal meetings held in
the city of New York. This was, in fact, the nature of all the republics of
ancient times. They were generally small, and the city in whose free citizens
the supreme power resided, constituted by far the most important portion of the
body politic. The Roman republic, however, became at one period very large. It
overspread almost the whole of Europe; but, widely extended as it was in
territory, and comprising innumerable states and kingdoms within its
jurisdiction, the vast concentration of power by which the whole was governed,
vested entirely and exclusively in noisy and tumultuous assemblies convened in
the Roman forum.

Even if the idea of a representative system of government, such as is adopted in
modern times, and by means of which the people of a great and extended empire
can exercise, conveniently and efficiently, a general sovereignty held in common
by them all, had been understood in ancient times, it is very doubtful whether
it could, in those times, have been carried into effect, for want of certain
facilities which are enjoyed in the present age, and which seem essential for
the safe and easy action of so vast and complicated a system as a great
representative government must necessarily be. The regular transaction of
business at public meetings, and the orderly and successful management of any
extended system of elections, requires a great deal of writing; and the general
circulation of newspapers, or something exercising the great function which it
is the object of newspapers to fulfill, that of keeping the people at large in
some degree informed in respect to the progress of public affairs, seems
essential to the successful working of a system of representative government
comprising any considerable extent of territory.

However this may be, whether a great representative system would or would not
have been practicable in ancient times if it had been tried, it is certain that
it was never tried. In all ancient republics, the sovereignty resided,
essentially, in a privileged class of the people of the capital. The territories
governed were provinces, held in subjection as dependencies, and compelled to
pay tribute; and this was the plan which Otanes meant to advocate when
recommending a republic, in the Persian council. The name of the second speaker
in this celebrated consultation was Megabyzus. He opposed the plan of Otanes. He
concurred fully, he said, in all that Otanes had advanced in respect to the
evils of a monarchy, and to the oppression and tyranny to which a people were
exposed whose liberties and lives were subject to the despotic control of a
single human will. But in order to avoid one extreme, it was not necessary to
run into the evils of the other. The disadvantages and dangers of popular
control in the management of the affairs of state were scarcely less than those
of a despotism. Popular assemblies were always, he said, turbulent, passionate,
capricious. Their decisions were controlled by artful and designing demagogues.
It was not possible that masses of the common people could have either the
sagacity to form wise counsels, or the energy and steadiness to execute them.
There could be no deliberation, no calmness, no secrecy in their consultations.
A populace was always governed by excitements, which spread among them by a
common sympathy; and they would give way impetuously to the most senseless
impulses, as they were urged by their fear, their resentment, their exultation,
their hate, or by any other passing emotion of the hour.

Megabyzus therefore disapproved of both a monarchy and a republic. He
recommended an oligarchy. |We are now,| said he, |already seven. Let us select
from the leading nobles in the court and officers of the army a small number of
men, eminent for talents and virtue, and thus form a select and competent body
of men, which shall be the depository of the supreme power. Such a plan avoids
the evils and inconveniences of both the other systems. There can be no tyranny
or oppression under such a system; for, if any one of so large a number should
be inclined to abuse his power, he will be restrained by the rest. On the other
hand, the number will not be so large as to preclude prudence and deliberation
in counsel, and the highest efficiency and energy in carrying counsels into
effect.| When Megabyzus had completed his speech, Darius expressed his opinion.
He said that the arguments of those who had already spoken appeared plausible,
but that the speakers had not dealt quite fairly by the different systems whose
merits they had discussed, since they had compared a good administration of one
form of government with a bad administration of another. Every thing human was,
he admitted, subject to imperfection and liable to abuse; but on the supposition
that each of the three forms which had been proposed were equally well
administered, the advantage, he thought, would be strongly on the side of
monarchy. Control exercised by a single mind and will was far more concentrated
and efficient than that proceeding from any conceivable combination. The forming
of plans could be, in that case, more secret and wary, and the execution of them
more immediate and prompt. Where power was lodged in many hands, all energetic
exercise of it was paralyzed by the dissensions, the animosities and the
contending struggles of envious and jealous rivals. These struggles, in fact,
usually resulted in the predominance of some one, more energetic or more
successful than the rest, the aristocracy or the democracy running thus, of its
own accord, to a despotism in the end, showing that there were natural causes
always tending to the subjection of nations of men to the control of one single
will.

Besides all this, Darius added, in conclusion, that the Persians had always been
accustomed to a monarchy, and it would be a very dangerous experiment to attempt
to introduce a new system, which would require so great a change in all the
habits and usages of the people.

Thus the consultation went on. At the end of it, it appeared that four out of
the seven agreed with Darius in preferring a monarchy. This was a majority, and
thus the question seemed to be settled. Otanes said that he would make no
opposition to any measures which they might adopt to carry their decision into
effect, but that he would not himself be subject to the monarchy which they
might establish. |I do not wish,| he added, |either to govern others or to have
others govern me. You may establish a kingdom, therefore, if you choose, and
designate the monarch in any mode that you see fit to adopt, but he must not
consider me as one of his subjects. I myself, and all my family and dependents,
must be wholly free from his control.| This was a very unreasonable proposition,
unless, indeed, Otanes was willing to withdraw altogether from the community to
which he thus refused to be subject; for, by residing within it, he necessarily
enjoyed its protection, and ought, therefore, to bear his portion of its
burdens, and to be amenable to its laws. Notwithstanding this, however, the
conspirators acceded to the proposal, and Otanes withdrew. The remaining six of
the confederates then proceeded with their arrangements for the establishment of
a monarchy. They first agreed that one of their own number should be the king,
and that on whomsoever the choice should fall, the other five, while they
submitted to his dominion, should always enjoy peculiar privileges and honors at
his court. They were at all times to have free access to the palaces and to the
presence of the king, and it was from among their daughters alone that the king
was to choose his wives. These and some other similar points having been
arranged, the manner of deciding which of the six should be the king remained to
be determined. The plan which they adopted, and the circumstances connected with
the execution of it, constitute, certainly, one of the most extraordinary of all
the strange transactions recorded in ancient times. It is gravely related by
Herodotus as sober truth. How far it is to be considered as by any possibility
credible, the reader must judge, after knowing what the story is.

They agreed, then, that on the following morning they would all meet on
horseback at a place agreed upon beyond the walls of the city, and that the one
whose horse should neigh first should be the king! The time when this ridiculous
ceremony was to be performed was sunrise. As soon as this arrangement was made
the parties separated, and each went to his own home. Darius called his groom,
whose name was OEbases, and ordered him to have his horse ready at sunrise on
the next morning, explaining to him, at the same time, the plan which had been
formed for electing the king. |If that is the mode which is to be adopted,| said
Oebases, |you need have no concern, for I can arrange it very easily so as to
have the lot fall upon you.| Darius expressed a strong desire to have this
accomplished, if it were possible, and Oebases went away. The method which
Oebases adopted was to lead Darius’s horse out to the ground that evening, in
company with another, the favorite companion, it seems, of the animal. Now the
attachment of the horse to his companion is very strong, and his recollection of
localities very vivid, and Oebases expected that when the horse should approach
the ground on the following morning, he would be reminded of the company which
he enjoyed there the night before, and neigh. The result was as he anticipated.
As the horsemen rode up to the appointed place, the horse of Darius neighed the
first, and Darius was unanimously acknowledged king. In respect to the
credibility of this famous story, the first thought which arises in the mind is,
that it is utterly impossible that sane men, acting in so momentous a crisis,
and where interests so vast and extended were at stake, could have resorted to a
plan so childish and ridiculous as this. Such a mode of designating a leader,
seriously adopted, would have done discredit to a troop of boys making
arrangements for a holiday; and yet here was an empire extending for thousands
of miles through the heart of a vast continent, comprising, probably, fifty
nations and many millions of people, with capitals, palaces, armies, fleets, and
all the other appointments and machinery of an immense dominion, to be
appropriated and disposed of absolutely, and, so far as they could see, forever.
It seems incredible that men possessing such intelligence, and information, and
extent of view as we should suppose that officers of their rank and station
would necessarily acquire, could have attempted to decide such a momentous
question in so ridiculous and trivial a manner. And yet the account is seriously
recorded by Herodotus as sober history, and the story has been related again and
again, from that day to this, by every successive generation of historians,
without any particular question of its truth. And it may possibly be that it is
true. It is a case in which the apparent improbability is far greater than the
real. In the first place, it would seem that, in all ages of the world, the acts
and decisions of men occupying positions of the most absolute and exalted power
have been controlled, to a much greater degree, by caprice and by momentary
impulse, than mankind have generally supposed. Looking up as we do to these vast
elevations from below, they seem invested with a certain sublimity and grandeur
which we imagine must continually impress the minds of those who occupy them,
and expand and strengthen their powers, and lead them to act, in all respects,
with the circumspection, the deliberation, and the far-reaching sagacity which
the emergencies continually arising seem to require. And this is, in fact, in
some degree the case with the statesmen and political leaders raised to power
under the constitutional governments of modern times. Such statesmen are clothed
with their high authority, in one way or another, by the combined and deliberate
action of vast masses of men, and every step which they take is watched, in
reference to its influence on the condition and welfare of these masses, by many
millions; so that such men live and act under a continual sense of
responsibility, and they appreciate, in some degree, the momentous importance of
their doings. But the absolute and independent sovereigns of the Old World, who
held their power by conquest or by inheritance, though raised sometimes to very
vast and giddy elevations, seem to have been unconscious, in many instances, of
the dignity and grandeur of their standing, and to have considered their acts
only as they affected their own personal and temporary interests. Thus, though
placed on a great elevation, they took only very narrow and circumscribed views;
they saw nothing but the objects immediately around them; and they often acted,
accordingly, in the most frivolous and capricious manner.

It was so, undoubtedly, with these six conspirators. In deciding which of their
number should be king, they thought nothing of the interests of the vast realms,
and of the countless millions of people whose government was to be provided for.
The question, as they considered it, was doubtless merely which of them should
have possession of the royal palaces, and be the center and the object of royal
pomp and parade in the festivities and celebrations of the capital. And in the
mode of decision which they adopted, it may be that some degree of superstitious
feeling mingled. The action and the voices of animals were considered, in those
days, as supernatural omens, indicating the will of heaven. These conspirators
may have expected, accordingly, in the neighing of the horse, a sort of divine
intimation in respect to the disposition of the crown. This idea is confirmed by
the statement which the account of this transaction contains, that immediately
after the neighing of Darius’s horse, it thundered, although there were no
clouds in the sky from which the thunder could be supposed naturally to come.
The conspirators, at all events, considered it solemnly decided that Darius was
to be king. They all dismounted from their horses and knelt around him, in
acknowledgment of their allegiance and subjection.

It seems that Darius, after he became established on his throne, considered the
contrivance by which, through the assistance of his groom, he had obtained the
prize, not as an act of fraud which it was incumbent on him to conceal, but as
one of brilliant sagacity which he was to avow and glory in. He caused a
magnificent equestrian statue to be sculptured, representing himself mounted on
his neighing horse. This statue he set up in a public place with this
inscription:

DARIUS, SON OF HYSTASPES, OBTAINED THE SOVEREIGNTY OF PERSIA BY THE SAGACITY OF
HIS HORSE AND THE INGENIOUS CONTRIVANCE OF OEBASES HIS GROOM.


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  CHAPTER 19: 2.05     CHAPTER 5. THE PROVINCES.
========================================================================

CHAPTER V. THE PROVINCES.

B.C.520

Intaphernes. -- He is denied admittance to Darius. -- Intaphernes’s cruelty to
the two guards. -- Darius’s apprehensions. -- Intaphernes and family arrested.
-- They are condemned to die. -- Alternative offered to Intaphernes’s wife. --
Her strange decision. -- Death of Intaphernes. -- The provinces. -- The
governors. -- Their independence. -- Power of the governors. -- Oretes, governor
of Sardis. -- Conversation between Oretes and Mitrobates. -- Polycrates. --
Dominion of Polycrates. -- Letter of Amasis. -- Suggestion of Amasis. -- Adopted
by Polycrates. -- Polycrates throws away his ring. -- Its singular recovery. --
Predictions of Amasis. -- Their fulfillment. -- Letter of Oretes. -- His
hypocrisy. -- The pretended treasure. -- Fears of Polycrates’s daughter. --
Oretes murders Polycrates. -- He commits other murders. -- Oretes destroys
Darius’s messenger. -- Darius is incensed. -- Plan of Darius for punishing
Oretes. -- His proposal. -- Commission of Bagaeus. -- His plan. -- Oretes
beheaded. -- Divisions of Darius’s empire. -- Tribute of the satrapies. -- The
white horses. -- The gold of India. -- Mode of gathering it. -- The wonderful
ants. -- Their prodigious size.

Several of the events and incidents which occurred immediately after the
accession of Darius to the throne, illustrate in a striking manner the degree in
which the princes and potentates of ancient days were governed by caprice and
passionate impulse even in their public acts. One of the most remarkable of
these was the case of Intaphernes.

Intaphernes was one of the seven conspirators who combined to depose the magian
and place Darius on the throne. By the agreement which they made with each other
before it was decided which should be the king, each of them was to have free
access to the king’s presence at all times. One evening, soon after Darius
became established on his throne, Intaphernes went to the palace, and was
proceeding to enter the apartment of the king without ceremony, when he was
stopped by two officers, who told him that the king had retired. Intaphernes was
incensed at the officers’ insolence, as he called it. He drew his sword, and cut
off their noses and their ears. Then he took the bridle off from his horse at
the palace gate, and tied the officers together; and then, leaving them in this
helpless and miserable condition, he went away. The officers immediately
repaired to the king, and presented themselves to him, a frightful spectacle,
wounded and bleeding, and complaining bitterly of Intaphernes as the author of
the injuries which they had received. The king was at first alarmed for his own
safety. He feared that the conspirators had all combined together to rebel
against his authority, and that this daring insult offered to his personal
attendants, in his very palace, was the first outbreak of it. He accordingly
sent for the conspirators one by one, to ask of them whether they approved of
what Intaphernes had done. They promptly disavowed all connection with
Intaphernes in the act, and all approval of it, and declared their determination
to adhere to the decision that they had made, by which Darius had been placed on
the throne.

Darius then, after taking proper precautions to guard against any possible
attempts at resistance, sent soldiers to seize Intaphernes, and also his son,
and all of his family, relatives, and friends who were capable of bearing arms;
for he suspected that Intaphernes had meditated a rebellion, and he thought
that, if so, these men would most probably be his accomplices. The prisoners
were brought before him. There was, indeed, no proof that they were engaged in
any plan of rebellion, nor even that any plan of rebellion whatever had been
formed; but this circumstance afforded them no protection. The liberties and the
lives of all subjects were at the supreme and absolute disposal of these ancient
kings. Darius thought it possible that the prisoners had entertained, or might
entertain, some treasonable designs, and he conceived that he should,
accordingly, feel safer if they were removed out of the way. He decreed,
therefore, that they must all die.

While the preparations were making for the execution, the wife of Intaphernes
came continually to the palace of Darius, begging for an audience, that she
might intercede for the lives of her friends. Darius was informed of this, and
at last, pretending to be moved with compassion for her distress, he sent her
word that he would pardon one of the criminals for her sake, and that she might
decide which one it should be. His real motive in making this proposal seems to
have been to enjoy the perplexity and anguish which the heart of a woman must
suffer in being compelled thus to decide, in a question of life and death,
between a husband and a son. The wife of Intaphernes did not decide in favor of
either of these. She gave the preference, on the other hand, to a brother.
Darius was very much surprised at this result, and sent a messenger to her to
inquire how it happened that she could pass over and abandon to their fate her
husband and her son, in order to save the life of her brother, who was certainly
to be presumed less near and dear to her. To which she gave this extraordinary
reply, that the loss of her husband and her son might perhaps be repaired, since
it was not impossible that she might be married again, and that she might have
another son; but that, inasmuch as both her father and mother were dead, she
could never have another brother. The death of her present brother would,
therefore, be an irreparable loss. The king was so much pleased with the novelty
and unexpectedness of this turn of thought, that he gave her the life of her son
in addition to that of her brother. All the rest of the family circle of
relatives and friends, together with Intaphernes himself, he ordered to be
slain.

Darius had occasion to be so much displeased, too, shortly after his accession
to the throne, with the governor of one of his provinces, that he was induced to
order him to be put to death. The circumstances connected with this governor’s
crime, and the manner of his execution, illustrate very forcibly the kind of
government which was administered by these military despots in ancient times. It
must be premised that great empires, like that over which Darius had been called
to rule, were generally divided into provinces. The inhabitants of these
provinces, each community within its own borders, went on, from year to year, in
their various pursuits of peaceful industry, governed mainly, in their relations
to each other, by the natural sense of justice instinctive in man, and by those
thousand local institutions and usages which are always springing up in all
human communities under the influence of this principle. There were governors
stationed over these provinces, whose main duty it was to collect and remit to
the king the tribute which the province was required to furnish him. These
governors were, of course, also to suppress any domestic outbreak of violence,
and to repel any foreign invasion which might occur. A sufficient military force
was placed at their disposal to enable them to fulfill these functions. They
paid these troops, of course, from sums which they collected in their provinces
under the same system by which they collected the tribute. This made them, in a
great measure, independent of the king in the maintenance of their armies. They
thus intrenched themselves in their various capitals at the head of these
troops, and reigned over their respective dominions almost as if they were kings
themselves. They had, in fact, very little connection with the supreme monarch,
except to send him the annual tribute which they had collected from their
people, and to furnish, also, their quota of troops in case of a national war.
In the time of our Savior, Pilate was such a governor, intrusted by the Romans
with the charge of Judea, and Matthew was one of the tax gatherers employed to
collect the tribute. Of course, the governors of such provinces, as we have
already said, were, in a great measure, independent of the king. He had,
ordinarily, no officers of justice whose jurisdiction could control, peacefully,
such powerful vassals. The only remedy in most cases, when they were disobedient
and rebellious, was to raise an army and go forth to make war upon them, as in
the case of any foreign state. This was attended with great expense, and
trouble, and hazard. The governors, when ambitious and aspiring, sometimes
managed their resources with so much energy and military skill as to get the
victory over their sovereign in the contests in which they engaged with them,
and then they would gain vast accessions to the privileges and powers which they
exercised in their own departments; and they would sometimes overthrow their
discomfited sovereign entirely, and take possession of his throne themselves in
his stead.

Oretes was the name of one of these governors in the time of Darius. He had been
placed by Cyrus, some years before, in charge of one of the provinces into which
the kingdom of Lydia had been divided. The seat of government was Sardis.[D] He
was a capricious and cruel tyrant, as, in fact, almost all such governors were.
We will relate an account of one of the deeds which he performed some time
before Darius ascended the throne, and which sufficiently illustrates his
character.

[Footnote D: For the position of Sardis, and of other places mentioned in this
chapter, see the map at the commencement of the volume, and also that at the
commencement of chapter xi.]

He was one day sitting at the gates of his palace in Sardis, in conversation
with the governor of a neighboring territory who had come to visit him. The name
of this guest was Mitrobates. As the two friends were boasting to one another,
as such warriors are accustomed to do, of the deeds of valor and prowess which
they had respectively performed, Mitrobates said that Oretes could not make any
great pretensions to enterprise and bravery so long as he allowed the Greek
island of Samos, which was situate at a short distance from the Lydian coast, to
remain independent, when it would be so easy to annex it to the Persian empire.
|You are afraid of Polycrates, I suppose,| said he. Polycrates was the king of
Samos.

Oretes was stung by this taunt, but, instead of revenging himself on Mitrobates,
the author of it, he resolved on destroying Polycrates, though he had no reason
other than this for any feeling of enmity toward him.

Polycrates, although the seat of his dominion was a small island in the AEgean
Sea, was a very wealthy, and powerful, and prosperous prince. All his plans and
enterprises had been remarkably successful. He had built and equipped a powerful
fleet, and had conquered many islands in the neighborhood of his own. He was
projecting still wider schemes of conquests, and hoped, in fact, to make himself
the master of all the seas. A very curious incident is related of Polycrates,
which illustrates very strikingly the childish superstition which governed the
minds of men in those ancient days. It seems that in the midst of his
prosperity, his friend and ally, the King of Egypt -- for these events, though
narrated here, occurred before the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses -- sent to him
a letter, of which the following is the purport.

|Amasis, king of Egypt, to Polycrates.

|It always gives me great satisfaction and pleasure to hear of the prosperity of
a friend and ally, unless it is too absolutely continuous and uninterrupted.
Something like an alternation of good and ill fortune is best for man; I have
never known an instance of a very long-continued course of unmingled and
uninterrupted success that did not end, at last, in overwhelming and terrible
calamity. I am anxious, therefore, for you, and my anxiety will greatly increase
if this extraordinary and unbroken prosperity should continue much longer. I
counsel you, therefore, to break the current yourself, if fortune will not break
it. Bring upon yourself some calamity, or loss, or suffering, as a means of
averting the heavier evils which will otherwise inevitably befall you. It is a
general and substantial welfare only that can be permanent and final.|

Polycrates seemed to think there was good sense in this suggestion. He began to
look around him to see in what way he could bring upon himself some moderate
calamity or loss, and at length decided on the destruction of a very valuable
signet ring which he kept among his treasures. The ring was made with very
costly jewels set in gold, and was much celebrated both for its exquisite
workmanship and also for its intrinsic value. The loss of this ring would be, he
thought, a sufficient calamity to break the evil charm of an excessive and
unvaried current of good fortune. Polycrates, therefore, ordered one of the
largest vessels in his navy, a fifty-oared galley, to be equipped and manned,
and, embarking in it with a large company of attendants, he put to sea. When he
was at some distance from the island, he took the ring, and in the presence of
all his attendants, he threw it forth into the water, and saw it sink, to rise,
as he supposed, no more. But Fortune, it seems, was not to be thus outgeneraled.
A few days after Polycrates had returned, a certain fisherman on the coast took,
in his nets, a fish of very extraordinary size and beauty; so extraordinary, in
fact, that he felt it incumbent on him to make a present of it to the king. The
servants of Polycrates, on opening the fish for the purpose of preparing it for
the table, to their great astonishment and gratification, found the ring within.
The king was overjoyed at thus recovering his lost treasure; he had, in fact,
repented of his rashness in throwing it away, and had been bitterly lamenting
its loss. His satisfaction and pleasure were, therefore, very great in regaining
it; and he immediately sent to Amasis an account of the whole transaction,
expecting that Amasis would share in his joy.

Amasis, however, sent word back to him in reply, that he considered the return
of the ring in that almost miraculous manner as an extremely unfavorable omen.
|I fear,| said he, |that it is decreed by the Fates that you must be
overwhelmed, at last, by some dreadful calamity, and that no measures of
precaution which you can adopt will avail to avert it. It seems to me, too,| he
added, |that it is incumbent on me to withdraw from all alliance and connection
with you, lest I should also, at last, be involved in your destined
destruction.|

Whether this extraordinary story was true, or whether it was all fabricated
after the fall of Polycrates, as a dramatic embellishment of his history, we can
not now know. The result, however, corresponded with these predictions of
Amasis, if they were really made; for it was soon after these events that the
conversation took place at Sardis between Oretes and Mitrobates, at the gates of
the palace, which led Oretes to determine on effecting Polycrates’s destruction.
In executing the plans which he thus formed, Oretes had not the courage and
energy necessary for an open attack on Polycrates, and he consequently resolved
on attempting to accomplish his end by treachery and stratagem. The plan which
he devised was this: He sent a messenger to Polycrates with a letter of the
following purport:

|Oretes, governor of Sardis, to Polycrates of Samos.

|I am aware, sire, of the plans which you have long been entertaining for
extending your power among the islands and over the waters of the Mediterranean,
until you shall have acquired the supreme and absolute dominion of the seas. I
should like to join you in this enterprise. You have ships and men, and I have
money. Let us enter into an alliance with each other. I have accumulated in my
treasuries a large supply of gold and silver, which I will furnish for the
expenses of the undertaking. If you have any doubt of my sincerity in making
these offers, and of my ability to fulfill them, send some messenger in whom you
have confidence, and I will lay the evidence before him.|

Polycrates was much pleased at the prospect of a large accession to his funds,
and he sent the messenger, as Oretes had proposed. Oretes prepared to receive
him by filling a large number of boxes nearly full with heavy stones, and then
placing a shallow layer of gold or silver coin at the top. These boxes were then
suitably covered and secured, with the fastenings usually adopted in those days,
and placed away in the royal treasuries. When the messenger arrived, the boxes
were brought out and opened, and were seen by the messenger to be full, as he
supposed, of gold and silver treasure. The messenger went back to Polycrates,
and reported that all which Oretes had said was true; and Polycrates then
determined to go to the main land himself to pay Oretes a visit, that they might
mature together their plans for the intended campaigns. He ordered a fifty-oared
galley to be prepared to convey him. His daughter felt a presentiment, it seems,
that some calamity was impending. She earnestly entreated her father not to go.
She had had a dream, she said, about him, which had frightened her excessively,
and which she was convinced portended some terrible danger. Polycrates paid no
attention to his daughter’s warnings. She urged them more and more earnestly,
until, at last, she made her father angry, and then she desisted. Polycrates
then embarked on board his splendid galley, and sailed away. As soon as he
landed in the dominions of Oretes, the monster seized him and put him to death,
and then ordered his body to be nailed to a cross, for exhibition to all passers
by, as a public spectacle. The train of attendants and servants that accompanied
Polycrates on this expedition were all made slaves, except a few persons of
distinction, who were sent home in a shameful and disgraceful manner. Among the
attendants who were detained in captivity by Oretes was a celebrated family
physician, named Democedes, whose remarkable and romantic adventures will be the
subject of the next chapter.

Oretes committed several other murders and assassinations in this treacherous
manner, without any just ground for provocation. In these deeds of violence and
cruelty, he seems to have acted purely under the influence of that wanton and
capricious malignity which the possession of absolute and irresponsible power so
often engenders in the minds of bad men. It is doubtful, however, whether these
cruelties and crimes would have particularly attracted the attention of Darius,
so long as he was not himself directly affected by them. The central government,
in these ancient empires, generally interested itself very little in the
contentions and quarrels of the governors of the provinces, provided that the
tribute was efficiently collected and regularly paid. A case, however, soon
occurred, in Oretes’s treacherous and bloody career, which arrested the
attention of Darius and aroused his ire. Darius had sent a messenger to Oretes,
with certain orders, which, it seems, Oretes did not like to obey. After
delivering his dispatches the bearer set out on his return, and was never
afterward heard of. Darius ascertained, to his own satisfaction at least, that
Oretes had caused his messenger to be waylaid and killed, and that the bodies
both of horse and rider had been buried, secretly, in the solitudes of the
mountains, in order to conceal the evidences of the deed.

Darius determined on punishing this crime. Some consideration was, however,
required, in order to determine in what way his object could best be effected.
The province of Oretes was at a great distance from Susa, and Oretes was
strongly established there, at the head of a great force. His guards were bound,
it is true, to obey the orders of Darius, but it was questionable whether they
would do so. To raise an army and march against the rebellious governor would be
an expensive and hazardous undertaking, and perhaps, too, it would prove that
such a measure was not necessary. All things considered, Darius determined to
try the experiment of acting, by his own direct orders, upon the troops and
guards in Oretes’s capital, with the intention of resorting subsequently to an
armed force of his own, if that should be at last required.

He accordingly called together a number of his officers and nobles, selecting
those on whose resolution and fidelity he could most confidently rely, and made
the following address to them:

|I have an enterprise which I wish to commit to the charge of some one of your
number who is willing to undertake it, which requires no military force, and no
violent measures of any kind, but only wisdom, sagacity, and courage. I wish to
have Oretes, the governor of Sardis, brought to me, dead or alive. He has
perpetrated innumerable crimes, and now, in addition to all his other deeds of
treacherous violence, he has had the intolerable insolence to put to death one
of my messengers. Which of you will volunteer to bring him, dead or alive, to
me?| This proposal awakened a great enthusiasm among the nobles to whom it was
addressed. Nearly thirty of them volunteered their services to execute the
order. Darius concluded to decide between these competitors by lot. The lot fell
upon a certain man named Bagaeus, and he immediately began to form his plans and
make his arrangements for the expedition.

He caused a number of different orders to be prepared, beginning with directions
of little moment, and proceeding to commands of more and more weighty
importance, all addressed to the officers of Oretes’s army and to his guards.
These orders were all drawn up in writing with great formality, and were signed
by the name of Darius, and sealed with his seal; they, moreover, named Bagaeus
as the officer selected by the king to superintend the execution of them.
Provided with these documents, Bagaeus proceeded to Sardis, and presented
himself at the court of Oretes. He presented his own personal credentials, and
with them some of his most insignificant orders. Neither Oretes nor his guards
felt any disposition to disobey them. Bagaeus, being thus received and
recognized as the envoy of the king, continued to present new decrees and
edicts, from time to time, as occasions occurred in which he thought the guards
would be ready to obey them, until he found the habit, on their part, of looking
to him as the representative of the supreme power sufficiently established; for
their disposition to obey him was not merely tested, it was strengthened by
every new act of obedience. When he found, at length, that his hold upon the
guards was sufficiently strong, he produced his two final decrees, one ordering
the guards to depose Oretes from his power, and the other to behead him. Both
the commands were obeyed. The events and incidents which have been described in
this chapter were of no great importance in themselves, but they illustrate,
more forcibly than any general description would do the nature and the operation
of the government exercised by Darius throughout the vast empire over which he
found himself presiding.

Such personal and individual contests and transactions were not all that
occupied his attention. He devoted a great deal of thought and of time to the
work of arranging, in a distinct and systematic manner, the division of his
dominions into provinces, and to regulating precisely the amount of tribute to
be required of each, and the modes of collecting it. He divided his empire into
twenty great districts, each of which was governed by a ruler called a satrap.
He fixed the amount of tribute which each of these districts was to pay, making
it greater or less as the soil and the productions of the country varied in
fertility and abundance. In some cases this tribute was to be paid in gold, in
others in silver, and in others in peculiar commodities, natural to the country
of which they were required. For example, one satrapy, which comprised a country
famous for its horses, was obliged to furnish one white horse for every day in
the year. This made three hundred and sixty annually, that being the number of
days in the Persian year. Such a supply, furnished yearly, enabled the king soon
to have a very large troop of white horses; and as the horses were beautifully
caparisoned, and the riders magnificently armed, the body of cavalry thus formed
was one of the most splendid in the world. The satrapies were numbered from the
west toward the east. The western portion of Asia Minor constituted the first,
and the East Indian nations the twelfth and last. The East Indians had to pay
their tribute in ingots of gold. Their country produced gold. As it is now
forever too late to separate the facts from the fiction of ancient history, and
determine what is to be rejected as false and what received as true, our only
resource is to tell the whole story just as it comes down to us, leaving it to
each reader to decide for himself what he will believe. In this view of the
subject, we will conclude this chapter by relating the manner in which it was
said in ancient times that these Indian nations obtained their gold. The gold
country was situated in remote and dreary deserts, inhabited only by wild beasts
and vermin, among which last there was, it seems, a species of ants, which were
of enormous size, and wonderful fierceness and voracity, and which could run
faster than the fleetest horse or camel. These ants, in making their
excavations, would bring up from beneath the surface of the ground all the
particles of gold which came in their way, and throw them out around their
hills. The Indians then would penetrate into these deserts, mounted on the
fleetest camels that they could procure, and leading other camels, not so fleet,
by their sides. They were provided, also, with bags for containing the golden
sands. When they arrived at the ant hills, they would dismount, and, gathering
up the gold which the ants had discarded, would fill their bags with the utmost
possible dispatch, and then mount their camels and ride away. The ants, in the
mean time, would take the alarm, and begin to assemble to attack them; but as
their instinct prompted them to wait until considerable numbers were collected
before they commenced their attack, the Indians had time to fill their bags and
begin their flight before their enemies were ready. Then commenced the chase,
the camels running at their full speed, and the swarms of ants following, and
gradually drawing nearer and nearer. At length, when nearly overtaken, the
Indians would abandon the camels that they were leading, and fly on, more
swiftly, upon those which they rode. While the ants were busy in devouring the
victims thus given up to them, the authors of all the mischief would make good
their escape, and thus carry off their gold to a place of safety. These famous
ants were bigger than foxes!

[Illustration: THE INDIAN GOLD HUNTER.]


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  CHAPTER 20: 2.06     CHAPTER 6. THE RECONNOITERING OF GREECE.
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CHAPTER VI. THE RECONNOITERING OF GREECE.

B.C.519 The reconnoitering party. -- The physician Democedes. -- Story of
Democedes. -- His boyhood. -- Democedes at AEgina. -- At Athens. -- At the court
of Polycrates. -- Democedes a captive. -- He is sent to Darius. -- Democedes is
cast into prison. -- His wretched condition. -- Darius sprains his ankle. -- The
Egyptian physicians baffled. -- Sufferings of Darius. -- He sends for Democedes.
-- Democedes’s denial. -- He treats the sprain successfully. -- Darius’s
recovery. -- The golden fetters. -- Democedes released. -- Honors conferred on
him. -- Atossa cured by Democedes. -- His conditions. -- Atossa with Darius. --
She suggests the invasion of Greece. -- The exploring party. -- Democedes
appointed guide. -- Designs of Democedes. -- Darius baffled. -- The expedition
sets out. -- City of Sidon. -- The sea voyage. -- The Grecian coasts examined.
-- Arrival at Tarentum. -- Suspicions of the authorities. -- The Persians
seized. -- Escape of Democedes. -- Release of the Persians. -- Tumult at
Crotona. -- Conduct of Democedes. -- The expedition returns. -- Misfortunes. --
Cillus. -- Arrival at Susa. -- Reception by Darius. The great event in the
history of Darius -- the one, in fact, on account of which it was, mainly, that
his name and his career have been so widely celebrated among mankind, was an
attempt which he made, on a very magnificent scale, for the invasion and
conquest of Greece. Before commencing active operations in this grand
undertaking, he sent a reconnoitering party to examine and explore the ground.
This reconnoitering party met with a variety of extraordinary adventures in the
course of its progress, and the history of it will accordingly form the subject
of this chapter. The guide to this celebrated reconnoitering party was a certain
Greek physician named Democedes. Though Democedes was called a Greek, he was,
really, an Italian by birth. His native town was Crotona, which may be found
exactly at the ball of the foot on the map of Italy. It was by a very singular
series of adventures that he passed from this remote village in the west, over
thousands of miles by land and sea, to Susa, Darius’s capital. He began by
running away from his father while he was still a boy. He said that he was
driven to this step by the intolerable strictness and cruelty of his father’s
government. This, however, is always the pretext of turbulent and ungovernable
young men, who abandon their parents and their homes when the favors and the
protection necessary during their long and helpless infancy have been all
received, and the time is beginning to arrive for making some return.

Democedes was ingenious and cunning, and fond of roving adventure. In running
away from home, he embarked on board a ship, as such characters generally do at
the present day, and went to sea. After meeting with various adventures, he
established himself in the island of AEgina, in the AEgean sea, where he began
to practice as a physician, though he had had no regular education in that art.
In his practice he evinced so much medical skill, or, at least, exercised so
much adroitness in leading people to believe that he possessed it, as to give
him very soon a wide and exalted reputation. The people of AEgina appointed him
their physician, and assigned him a large salary for his services in attending
upon the sick throughout the island. This was the usual practice in those days.
A town, or an island, or any circumscribed district of country, would appoint a
physician as a public officer, who was to devote his attention, at a fixed
annual salary, to any cases of sickness which might arise in the community,
wherever his services were needed, precisely as physicians serve in hospitals
and public institutions in modern times.

Democedes remained at AEgina two years, during which time his celebrity
increased and extended more and more, until, at length, he received an
appointment from the city of Athens, with the offer of a greatly increased
salary. He accepted the appointment, and remained in Athens one year, when he
received still more advantageous offers from Polycrates, the king of Samos,
whose history was given so fully in the last chapter.

Democedes remained for some time in the court of Polycrates, where he was raised
to the highest distinction, and loaded with many honors. He was a member of the
household of the king, enjoyed his confidence in a high degree, and attended
him, personally, on all his expeditions. At last, when Polycrates went to
Sardis, as is related in the last chapter, to receive the treasures of Oretes,
and concert with him the plans for their proposed campaigns, Democedes
accompanied him as usual; and when Polycrates was slain, and his attendants and
followers were made captive by Oretes, the unfortunate physician was among the
number. By this reverse, he found that he had suddenly fallen from affluence,
ease, and honor, to the condition of a neglected and wretched captive in the
hands of a malignant and merciless tyrant.

Democedes pined in this confinement for a long time; when, at length, Oretes
himself was killed by the order of Darius, it might have been expected that the
hour of his deliverance had arrived. But it was not so; his condition was, in
fact, made worse, and not better by it; for Bagaeus, the commissioner of Darius,
instead of inquiring into the circumstances relating to the various members of
Oretes’s family, and redressing the wrongs which any of them might be suffering,
simply seized the whole company, and brought them all to Darius in Susa, as
trophies of his triumph, and tokens of the faithfulness and efficiency with
which he had executed the work that Darius had committed to his charge. Thus
Democedes was borne away, in hopeless bondage, thousands of miles farther from
his native land than before, and with very little prospect of being ever able to
return. He arrived at Susa, destitute, squalid, and miserable. His language was
foreign, his rank and his professional skill unknown, and all the marks which
might indicate the refinement and delicacy of the modes of life to which he had
been accustomed were wholly disguised by his present destitution and
wretchedness. He was sent with the other captives to the prisons, where he was
secured, like them, with fetters and chains, and was soon almost entirely
forgotten.

He might have taken some measures for making his character, and his past
celebrity and fame as a physician known; but he did not dare to do this, for
fear that Darius might learn to value his medical skill, and so detain him as a
slave for the sake of his services. He thought that the chance was greater that
some turn of fortune, or some accidental change in the arrangements of
government might take place, by which he might be set at liberty, as an
insignificant and worthless captive, whom there was no particular motive for
detaining, than if he were transferred to the king’s household as a slave, and
his value as an artisan -- for medical practice was, in those days, simply an
art -- were once known. He made no effort, therefore, to bring his true
character to light, but pined silently in his dungeon, in rags and wretchedness,
and in a mental despondency which was gradually sinking into despair.

About this time, it happened that Darius was one day riding furiously in a
chase, and coming upon some sudden danger, he attempted to leap from his horse.
He fell and sprained his ankle. He was taken up by the attendants, and carried
home. His physicians were immediately called to attend to the case. They were
Egyptians. Egypt was, in fact, considered the great seat and centre of learning
and of the arts in those days, and no royal household was complete without
Egyptian physicians. The learning and skill, however, of the Egyptians in
Darius’s court were entirely baffled by the sprain. They thought that the joint
was dislocated, and they turned and twisted the foot with so much violence, in
their attempts to restore the bones to their proper position, as greatly to
increase the pain and the inflammation. Darius spent a week in extreme and
excruciating suffering. He could not sleep day nor night, but tossed in
continual restlessness and anguish on his couch, made constantly worse instead
of better by every effort of his physicians to relieve him. At length somebody
informed him that there was a Greek physician among the captives that came from
Sardis, and recommended that Darius should send for him. The king, in his
impatience and pain, was ready for any experiment which promised the least hope
of relief, and he ordered that Democedes should be immediately summoned. The
officers accordingly went to the prison and brought out the astonished captive,
without any notice or preparation, and conducted him, just as he was, ragged and
wretched, and shackled with iron fetters upon his feet, into the presence of the
king. The fetters which such captives wore were intended to allow them to walk,
slowly and with difficulty, while they impeded the movements of the feet so as
effectually to prevent any long or rapid flight, or any escape at all from free
pursuers.

Democedes, when questioned by Darius, denied at first that he possessed any
medical knowledge or skill. Darius was, however, not deceived by these
protestations. It was very customary, in those days of royal tyranny, for those
who possessed any thing valuable to conceal the possession of it: concealment
was often their only protection. Darius, who was well aware of this tendency,
did not believe the assurances of Democedes, and in the irritation and
impatience caused by his pain, he ordered the captive to be taken out and put to
the torture, in order to make him confess that he was really a physician.

Democedes yielded without waiting to be actually put to the test. He
acknowledged at once, for fear of the torture, that he had had some experience
in medical practice, and the sprained ankle was immediately committed to his
charge. On examining the case, he thought that the harsh and violent operations
which the Egyptian physicians had attempted were not required. He treated the
inflamed and swollen joint in the gentlest manner. He made fomenting and
emollient applications, which soothed the pain, subdued the inflammation, and
allayed the restlessness and the fever. The royal sufferer became quiet and
calm, and in a short time fell asleep. In a word, the king rapidly recovered;
and, overwhelmed with gratitude toward the benefactor whose skill had saved him
from such suffering, he ordered that, in place of his single pair of iron
fetters, he should have two pairs of fetters of gold!

It might at first be imagined that such a strange token of regard as this could
be intended only as a jest and an insult; but there is no doubt that Darius
meant it seriously as a compliment and an honor. He supposed that Democedes, of
course, considered his condition of captivity as a fixed and permanent one; and
that his fetters were not, in themselves, an injustice or disgrace, but the
necessary and unavoidable concomitant of his lot, so that the sending of golden
fetters to a slave was very naturally, in his view, like presenting a golden
crutch to a cripple. Democedes received the equivocal donation with great good
nature. He even ventured upon a joke on the subject to the convalescent king.
|It seems, sire,| said he |that in return for my saving your limb and your life,
you double my servitude. You have given me two chains instead of one.| The king,
who was now in a much better humor to be pleased than when, writhing in anguish,
he had ordered Democedes to be put to the torture, laughed at this reply, and
released the captive from the bonds entirely. He ordered him to be conducted by
the attendants to the apartments of the palace, where the wives of Darius and
the other ladies of the court resided, that they might see him and express their
gratitude. |This is the physician,| said the eunuchs, who introduced him, |that
cured the king.| The ladies welcomed him with the utmost cordiality, and loaded
him with presents of gold and silver as he passed through their apartments. The
king made arrangements, too, immediately, for providing him with a magnificent
house in Susa, and established him there in great luxury and splendor, with
costly furniture and many attendants, and all other marks of distinction and
honor. In a word, Democedes found himself, by means of another unexpected change
of fortune, suddenly elevated to a height as lofty as his misery and degradation
had been low. He was, however, a captive still. The Queen Atossa, the daughter
of Cyrus, who has already been mentioned as the wife of Cambyses and of Smerdis
the magian, was one of the wives of Darius. Her sister Antystone was another. A
third was Phaedyma, the daughter of Otanes, the lady who had been so
instrumental, in connection with Atossa, in the discovery of the magian
imposture. It happened that, some time after the curing of Darius’s sprain,
Atossa herself was sick. Her malady was of such a nature, that for some time she
kept it concealed, from a feeling of delicacy.[E] At length, terrified by the
danger which threatened her, she sent for Democedes, and made her case known to
him. He said that he could cure her, but she must first promise to grant him, if
he did so, a certain favor which he should ask. She must promise beforehand to
grant it, whatever it might be. It was nothing, he said, that should in any way
compromise her honor.

[Footnote E: It was a tumor of the breast, which became, at length, an open
ulcer, and began to spread and enlarge in a very formidable manner.]

Atossa agreed to these conditions, and Democedes undertook her case. Her malady
was soon cured; and when she asked him what was the favor which he wished to
demand, he replied,

|Persuade Darius to form a plan for the invasion of Greece, and to send me, with
a small company of attendants, to explore the country, and obtain for him all
the necessary preliminary information. In this way I shall see my native land
once more.|

Atossa was faithful in her promise. She availed herself of the first favorable
opportunity, when it became her turn to visit the king, to direct his mind, by a
dexterous conversation, toward the subject of the enlargement of his empire. He
had vast forces and resources, she said, at his command, and might easily enter
upon a career of conquest which would attract the admiration of the world.
Darius replied that he had been entertaining some views of that nature. He had
thought, he said, of attacking the Scythians: these Scythians were a group of
semi-savage nations on the north of his dominions. Atossa represented to him
that subduing the Scythians would be too easy a conquest, and that it would be a
far nobler enterprise, and more worthy of his talents and his vast resources, to
undertake an expedition into Europe, and attempt the conquest of Greece. |You
have all the means at your command essential for the success of such an
undertaking, and you have in your court a man who can give you, or can obtain
for you, all the necessary information in respect to the country, to enable you
to form the plan of your campaigns.| The ambition of Darius was fired by these
suggestions. He began immediately to form projects and schemes. In a day or two
he organized a small party of Persian officers of distinction, in whom he had
great confidence, to go on an exploring tour into Greece. They were provided
with a suitable company of attendants, and with every thing necessary for their
journey, and Democedes was directed to prepare to go with them as their guide.
They were to travel simply as a party of Persian noblemen, on an excursion of
curiosity and pleasure, concealing their true design; and as Democedes their
guide, though born in Italy, was in all important points a Greek, and was well
acquainted with the countries through which they were to pass, they supposed
that they could travel every where without suspicion. Darius charged the
Persians to keep a diligent watch over Democedes, and not to allow him, on any
account to leave them, but to bring him back to Susa safely with them on their
return. As for Democedes, he had no intention whatever of returning to Persia,
though he kept his designs of making his escape entirely concealed. Darius, with
seeming generosity, said to him, while he was making his preparations, |I
recommend to you to take with you all your private wealth and treasures, to
distribute, for presents, among your friends in Greece and Italy. I will bestow
more upon you here on your return.| Democedes regarded this counsel with great
suspicion. He imagined that the king, in giving him this permission, wished to
ascertain, by observing whether he would really take with him all his
possessions, the existence of any secret determination in his mind not to come
back to Susa. If this were Darius’s plan, it was defeated by the sagacious
vigilance and cunning of the physician. He told the king, in reply, that he
preferred to leave his effects in Persia, that they might be ready for his use
on his return. The king then ordered a variety of costly articles to be provided
and given to Democedes, to be taken with him and presented to his friends in
Greece and Italy. They consisted of vessels of gold and silver, pieces of
Persian armor of beautiful workmanship, and articles of dress, expensive and
splendid. These were all carefully packed, and the various other necessary
preparations were made for the long journey. At length the expedition set out.
They traveled by land westward, across the continent, till they reached the
eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The port at which they arrived was
Sidon, the city so often mentioned in the Scriptures as a great pagan emporium
of commerce. The city of Sidon was in the height of its glory at this time,
being one of the most important ports of the Mediterranean for all the western
part of Asia. Caravans of travelers came to it by land, bringing on the backs of
camels the productions of Arabia, Persia, and all the East; and fleets of ships
by sea, loaded with the corn, and wine, and oil of the Western nations. At Sidon
the land journey of the expedition was ended. Here they bought two large and
splendid ships, galleys of three banks of oars, to convey them to Greece. These
galleys were for their own personal accommodation. There was a third vessel,
called a transport, for the conveyance of their baggage, which consisted mainly
of the packages of rich and costly presents which Darius had prepared. Some of
these presents were for the friends of Democedes, as has been already explained,
and others had been provided as gifts and offerings from the king himself to
such distinguished personages as the travelers might visit on their route. When
the vessels were ready, and the costly cargo was on board, the company of
travelers embarked, and the little fleet put to sea. The Grecian territories are
endlessly divided and indented by the seas, whose irregular and winding shores
form promontories, peninsulas, and islands without number, which are accessible
in every part by water. The Persian explorers cruised about among these coasts
under Democedes’s guidance, examining every thing, and noting carefully all the
information which they could obtain, either by personal observation or by
inquiring of others, which might be of service to Darius in his intended
invasion. Democedes allowed them to take their own time, directing their course,
however, steadily, though slowly, toward his own native town of Crotona. The
expedition landed in various places, and were every where well received. It was
not for the interest of Democedes that they should yet be intercepted. In fact,
the name and power of Darius were very much feared, or, at least, very highly
respected in all the Grecian territory, and the people were little inclined to
molest a peaceful party of Persians traveling like ordinary tourists, and under
the guidance, too, of a distinguished countryman of their own, whose name was,
in some degree, a guarantee for the honesty and innocence of their intentions.
At length, however, after spending some time in the Grecian seas, the little
squadron moved still farther west, toward the coast of Italy, and arrived
finally at Tarentum. Tarentum was the great port on the Grecian side of Italy.
It was at the head of the spacious bay which sets up between the heel and the
ball of the foot of the boot-shaped peninsula. Crotona, Democedes’s native town,
to which he was now desirous to return, was southwest of Tarentum, about two
hundred miles along the shore.[F] [Footnote F: For the situation of these
places, see the map at the commencement of chapter xi.]

It was a very curious and extraordinary circumstance that, though the expedition
had been thus far allowed to go and come as its leaders pleased, without any
hinderance or suspicion, yet now, the moment that they touched a point from
which Democedes could easily reach his home, the authorities on shore, in some
way or other, obtained some intimation of the true character of their
enterprise. The Prince of Tarentum seized the ships. He made the Persians
themselves prisoners also, and shut them up; and, in order effectually to
confine the ships, he took away the helms from them, so that they could not be
steered, and were thus entirely disabled. The expedition being thus, for the
time at least, broken up, Democedes said, coolly, that he would take the
opportunity to make a little excursion along the coast, and visit his friends at
Crotona!

It was another equally suspicious circumstance in respect to the probability
that this seizure was the result of Democedes’s management, that, as soon as he
was safely away, the Prince of Tarentum set his prisoners at liberty, releasing,
at the same time, the ships from the seizure, and sending the helms on board.
The Persians were indignant at the treatment which they had received, and set
sail immediately along the coast toward Crotona in pursuit of Democedes. They
found him in the market-place in Crotona, haranguing the people, and exciting,
by his appearance and his discourse, a great and general curiosity. They
attempted to seize him as a fugitive, and called upon the people of Crotona to
aid them, threatening them with the vengeance of Darius if they refused. A part
of the people were disposed to comply with this demand, while others rallied to
defend their townsman. A great tumult ensued; but, in the end, the party of
Democedes was victorious. He was not only thus personally rescued, but, as he
informed the people that the transport vessel which accompanied the expedition
contained property that belonged to him, they seized that too, and gave it up to
Democedes, saying to the Persians that, though they must give up the transport,
the galleys remained at their service to convey them back to their own country
whenever they wished to go. The Persians had now no other alternative but to
return home. They had, it is true, pretty nearly accomplished the object of
their undertaking; but, if any thing remained to be done, they could not now
attempt it with any advantage, as they had lost their guide, and a great portion
of the effects which had been provided by Darius to enable them to propitiate
the favor of the princes and potentates into whose power they might fall. They
accordingly began to make preparations for sailing back again to Sidon, while
Democedes established himself in great magnificence and splendor in Crotona.
When, at length, the Persians were ready to sail, Democedes wished them a very
pleasant voyage, and desired them to give his best respects to Darius, and
inform him that he could not return at present to Persia, as he was making
arrangements to be married! The disasters which had befallen these Persian
reconnoiterers thus far were only the beginning of their troubles. Their ships
were driven by contrary winds out of their course, and they were thrown at last
upon the coast of Iapygia, a country occupying the heel of Italy. Here they were
seized by the inhabitants and made slaves. It happened that there was living in
this wild country at that time a man of wealth and of cultivation, who had been
exiled from Tarentum on account of some political offenses. His name was Cillus.
He heard the story of these unhappy foreigners, and interested himself in their
fate. He thought that, by rescuing them from their captivity and sending them
home, he should make Darius his friend, and secure, perhaps, his aid in
effecting his own restoration to his native land. He accordingly paid the ransom
which was demanded for the captives, and set them free. He then aided them in
making arrangements for their return to Persia, and the unfortunate messengers
found their way back at last to the court of Darius, without their guide,
without any of the splendid appointments with which they had gone forth, but
stripped of every thing, and glad to escape with their lives.

They had some cause to fear, too, the anger of Darius, for the insensate wrath
of a tyrant is awakened as often by calamity as by crime. Darius, however, was
in this instance graciously disposed. He received the unfortunate commissioners
in a favorable manner. He took immediate measures for rewarding Cillus for
having ransomed them. He treasured up, too, the information which they had
obtained respecting Greece, though he was prevented by circumstances, which we
will proceed to describe, from immediately putting into execution his plans of
invasion and conquest there.


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  CHAPTER 21: 2.07     CHAPTER 7. THE REVOLT OF BABYLON.
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CHAPTER VII. THE REVOLT OF BABYLON.

B.C.516-514

City of Babylon. -- The captive Jews. -- Wickedness of the Babylonians. --
Causes of discontent. -- Preparations of the Babylonians for revolt. -- Their
secrecy. -- Time chosen for revolt. -- Story of Syloson. -- Syloson’s red cloak.
-- He gives it to Darius. -- Syloson goes to Susa. -- Interview with Darius. --
Request of Syloson. -- Darius grants it. -- Citadel of Samos. -- Measures of
Maeandrius. -- Hypocrisy of Maeandrius. -- His brother Charilaus. -- Reproaches
of Charilaus. -- Character of Maeandrius. -- Attack of Charilaus. -- Slaughter
of the Samians. -- Revolt of Babylon. -- Insults and jeers of the Babylonians.
-- Ancient mode of warfare. -- Modern warfare. -- Taunt of the Babylonians. --
Fabricating prodigies. -- The mule of Zopyrus. -- Interview with Darius. --
Desperate plan of Zopyrus. -- He mutilates himself. -- Darius’s astonishment. --
Final arrangements. -- Zopyrus leaves the Persian camp. -- Success of Zopyrus’s
stratagem. -- His piteous story. -- The three victories. -- Zopyrus intrusted
with power in Babylon. -- Zopyrus admits the Persians. -- Fall of Babylon. The
city of Babylon, originally the capital of the Assyrian empire, was conquered by
Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy, when he annexed the Assyrian empire
to his dominions. It was a vast and a very magnificent and wealthy city; and
Cyrus made it, for a time, one of his capitals. When Cyrus made this conquest of
Babylon, he found the Jews in captivity there. They had been made captive by
Nebuchadnezzar, a previous king of Babylon, as is related in the Scriptures. The
holy prophets of Judea had predicted that after seventy years the captives
should return, and that Babylon itself should afterward be destroyed. The first
prediction was fulfilled by the victory of Cyrus. It devolved on Darius to
execute the second of these solemn and retributive decrees of heaven.

Although Darius was thus the instrument of divine Providence in the destruction
of Babylon, he was unintentionally and unconsciously so. In the terrible scenes
connected with the siege and the storming of the ill-fated city, it was the
impulse of his own hatred and revenge that he was directly obeying; he was not
at all aware that he was, at the same time, the messenger of the divine
displeasure. The wretched Babylonians, in the storming and destruction of their
city, were expiating a double criminality. Their pride, their wickedness, their
wanton cruelty toward the Jews, had brought upon them the condemnation of God,
while their political treason and rebellion, or, at least, what was considered
treason and rebellion aroused the implacable resentment of their king. The
Babylonians had been disposed to revolt even in the days of Cyrus. They had been
accustomed to consider their city as the most noble and magnificent capital in
the world, and they were displeased that Cyrus did not make it the seat and
center of his empire. Cyrus preferred Susa; and Babylon, accordingly, though he
called it one of his capitals, soon fell to the rank of a provincial city. The
nobles and provincial leaders that remained there began accordingly to form
plans for revolting from the Persian dominion, with a view of restoring their
city to its ancient position and renown.

They had a very favorable opportunity for maturing their plans, and making their
preparations for the execution of them during the time of the magian usurpation;
for while the false Smerdis was on the throne, being shut up and concealed in
his palace at Susa, the affairs of the provinces were neglected; and when Darius
and his accomplices discovered the imposture and put Smerdis to death, there was
necessarily required, after so violent a revolution, a considerable time before
the affairs of the empire demanding attention at the capital could be settled,
so as to allow the government to turn their thoughts at all toward the distant
dependencies. The Babylonians availed themselves of all these opportunities to
put their city in the best condition for resisting the Persian power. They
strengthened their defenses, and accumulated great stores of provisions, and
took measures for diminishing that part of the population which would be useless
in war. These measures were all concerted and carried into effect in the most
covert and secret manner; and the tidings came at last to Susa that Babylon had
openly revolted, before the government of Darius was aware even of the existence
of any disaffection. The time which the Babylonians chose for their rebellion at
last was one when the movable forces which Darius had at command were at the
west, engaged in a campaign on the shores of Asia Minor. Darius had sent them
there for the purpose of restoring a certain exile and wanderer named Syloson to
Samos, and making him the monarch of it. Darius had been induced thus to
interpose in Syloson’s behalf by the following very extraordinary circumstances.

Syloson was the brother of Polycrates, whose unhappy history has already been
given. He was exiled from Samos some time before Darius ascended the throne, and
he became, consequently, a sort of soldier of fortune, serving, like other such
adventurers, wherever there was the greatest prospect of glory and pay. In this
capacity he followed the army of Cambyses into Egypt in the memorable campaign
described in the first chapter of this volume. It happened, also, that Darius
himself, who was then a young noble in the Persian court, and yet of no
particular distinction, as there was then no reason to imagine that he would
ever be elevated to the throne, was also in Cambyses’s army, and the two young
men became acquainted with one another there.

While the army was at Memphis, an incident occurred in which these two
personages were actors, which, though it seemed unimportant at the time, led, in
the end, to vast and momentous results. The incident was this:

Syloson had a very handsome red cloak, which, as he appeared in it one day,
walking in the great square at Memphis, strongly attracted the admiration of
Darius. Darius asked Syloson if he would sell him the cloak. Syloson said that
he would not sell it, but would give it to him. He thought, probably, that
Darius would decline receiving it as a present. If he did entertain that idea,
it seems he was mistaken. Darius praised him for his generosity, and accepted
the gift.

Syloson was then sorry that he had made so inconsiderate an offer, and regretted
very much the loss of his cloak. In process of time, the campaign of Cambyses in
Egypt was ended, and Darius returned to Persia, leaving Syloson in the west. At
length the conspiracy was formed for dethroning Smerdis the magian, as has
already been described, and Darius was designated to reign in his stead. As the
news of the young noble’s elevation spread into the western world, it reached
Syloson. He was much pleased at receiving the intelligence, and he saw
immediately that there was a prospect of his being able to derive some
advantage, himself, from the accession of his old fellow-soldier to the throne.

He immediately proceeded to Susa. He applied at the gates of the palace for
admission to the presence of the king. The porter asked him who he was. He
replied that he was a Greek who had formerly done Darius a service, and he
wished to see him. The porter carried the message to the king. The king could
not imagine who the stranger should be. He endeavored in vain to recall to mind
any instance in which he had received a favor from a Greek. At length he ordered
the attendant to call the visitor in.

Syloson was accordingly conducted into the king’s presence. Darius looked upon
him, but did not know him. He directed the interpreters to inquire what the
service was which he had rendered the king, and when he had rendered it. The
Greek replied by relating the circumstance of the cloak. Darius recollected the
cloak, though he had forgotten the giver. |Are you, indeed,| said he, |the man
who made me that present? I thought then that you were very generous to me, and
you shall see that I do not undervalue the obligation now. I am at length,
fortunately, in a situation to requite the favor, and I will give you such an
abundance of gold and silver as shall effectually prevent your being sorry for
having shown a kindness to Darius Hystaspes.|

Syloson thanked the king in reply, but said that he did not wish for gold and
silver. Darius asked him what reward he did desire. He replied that he wished
Samos to be restored to him: |Samos,| said he, |was the possession of my
brother. When he went away from the island, he left it temporarily in the hands
of Maeandrius, an officer of his household. It still remains in the possession
of this family, while I, the rightful heir, am a homeless wanderer and exile,
excluded from my brother’s dominions by one of his slaves.|

Darius immediately determined to accede to Syloson’s request. He raised an army
and put it under the command of Otanes, who, it will be recollected, was one of
the seven conspirators that combined to dethrone Smerdis the magian. He directed
Otanes to accompany Syloson to Samos, and to put him in possession of the
island. Syloson was particularly earnest in his request that no unnecessary
violence should be used, and no blood shed, or vindictive measures of any kind
adopted. Darius promised to comply with these desires, and gave his orders to
Otanes accordingly.

Notwithstanding this, however, the expedition resulted in the almost total
destruction of the Samian population, in the following manner. There was a
citadel at Samos, to which the inhabitants retired when they learned that Otanes
had embarked his troops in ships on the coast, and was advancing toward the
island. Maeandrius was vexed and angry at the prospect of being deprived of his
possessions and his power; and, as the people hated him on account of his
extortion and tyranny, he hated them in return, and cared not how much suffering
his measures might be the means of bringing upon them. He had a subterranean and
secret passage from the citadel to the shore of the sea, where, in a secluded
cove, were boats or vessels ready to take him away. Having made these
arrangements to secure his own safety, he proceeded to take such a course and
adopt such measures as should tend most effectually to exasperate and offend the
Persians, intending to escape, himself, at the last moment, by this subterranean
retreat, and to leave the inhabitants of the island at the mercy of their
infuriated enemies.

He had a brother whom he had shut up in a dungeon, and whose mind, naturally
depraved, and irritated by his injuries, was in a state of malignant and furious
despair. Maeandrius had pretended to be willing to give up the island to the
Persians. He had entered into negotiations with them for this purpose, and the
Persians considered the treaty as in fact concluded. The leaders and officers of
the army had assembled, accordingly, before the citadel in a peaceful attitude,
waiting merely for the completion of the forms of surrender, when Charilaus,
Maeandrius’s captive brother, saw them, by looking out between the bars of his
window, in the tower in which he was confined. He sent an urgent message to
Maeandrius, requesting to speak to him. Maeandrius ordered the prisoner to be
brought before him. The haggard and wretched-looking captive, rendered half
insane by the combined influence of the confinement he had endured, and of the
wild excitement produced by the universal panic and confusion which reigned
around him, broke forth against his brother in the boldest and most violent
invectives. He reproached him in the most bitter terms for being willing to
yield so ingloriously, and without a struggle, to an invading foe, whom he might
easily repel. |You have courage and energy enough, it seems,| said he, |to make
war upon an innocent and defenseless brother, and to keep him for years in
chains and in a dungeon, but when an actual enemy appears, though he comes to
despoil you of all your possessions, and to send you into hopeless exile, and
though, if you had the ordinary courage and spirit of a man, you could easily
drive him away, yet you dare not face him. If you are too cowardly and mean to
do your duty yourself, give me your soldiers, and I will do it for you. I will
drive these Persians back into the sea with as much pleasure as it would give me
to drive you there!|

Such a nature as that of Maeandrius can not be stung into a proper sense of duty
by reproaches like these. There seem to have been in his heart no moral
sensibilities of any kind, and there could be, of course, no compunctions for
the past, and no awakening of new and better desires for the future. All the
effect which was produced upon his mind by these bitter denunciations was to
convince him that to comply with his brother’s request would be to do the best
thing now in his power for widening, and extending, and making sure the misery
and mischief which were impending. He placed his troops, therefore, under his
brother’s orders; and while the infuriated madman sallied forth at the head of
them to attack the astonished Persians on one side of the citadel, Maeandrius
made his escape through the under-ground passage on the other. The Persians were
so exasperated at what appeared to them the basest treachery, that, as soon as
they could recover their arms and get once more into battle array, they
commenced a universal slaughter of the Samians. They spared neither age, sex,
nor condition; and when, at last, their vengeance was satisfied, and they put
the island into Syloson’s hands, and withdrew, he found himself in possession of
an almost absolute solitude.

[Illustration: THE BABYLONIANS DERIDING DARIUS.]

It was while Otanes was absent on this enterprise, having with him a large part
of the disposable forces of the king, that the Babylonians revolted. Darius was
greatly incensed at hearing the tidings. Sovereigns are always greatly incensed
at a revolt on the part of their subjects. The circumstances of the case,
whatever they may be, always seem to them to constitute a peculiar aggravation
of the offense. Darius was indignant that the Babylonians had attempted to take
advantage of his weakness by rebelling when his armies were away. If they had
risen when his armies were around him, he would have been equally indignant with
them for having dared to brave his power.

He assembled all the forces at his disposal, and advanced to Babylon. The people
of the city shut their gates against him, and derided him. They danced and
capered on the walls, making all sorts of gestures expressive of contempt and
defiance, accompanied with shouts and outcries of ridicule and scorn. They had
great confidence in the strength of their defenses, and then, besides this, they
probably regarded Darius as a sort of usurper, who had no legitimate title to
the throne, and who would never be able to subdue any serious resistance which
might be offered to the establishment of his power. It was from these
considerations that they were emboldened to be guilty of the folly of taunting
and insulting their foes from the city walls.

Such incidents as this, of personal communications between masses of enemies on
the eve of a battle, were very common in ancient warfare, though impossible in
modern times. In those days, when the missiles employed were thrown chiefly by
the strength of the human arm alone, the combatants could safely draw near
enough together for each side to hear the voices and to see the gesticulations
of the other. Besiegers could advance sufficiently close to a castle or citadel
to parley insultingly with the garrison upon the walls, and yet be safe from the
showers of darts and arrows which were projected toward them in return. But all
this is now changed. The reach of cannon, and even of musketry, is so long, that
combatants, approaching a conflict, are kept at a very respectful distance
apart, until the time arrives in which the actual engagement is to begin. They
reconnoiter each other with spy-glasses from watch-towers on the walls, or from
eminences in the field, but they can hold no communication except by a formal
embassy, protected by a flag of truce, which, with its white and distant
fluttering, as it slowly advances over the green fields, warns the gunners at
the battery or on the bastion to point their artillery another way. The
Babylonians, on the walls of their city, reproached and taunted their foes
incessantly. |Take our advice,| said they, |and go back where you came from. You
will only lose your time in besieging Babylon. When mules have foals, you will
take the city, and not till then.| The expression |when mules have foals| was
equivalent in those days to our proverbial phrase, |when the sky falls,| being
used to denote any thing impossible or absurd, inasmuch as mules, like other
hybrid animals, do not produce young. It was thought in those times absolutely
impossible that they should do so; but it is now well known that the case is not
impossible, though very rare.

It seems to have added very much to the interest of an historical narrative in
the minds of the ancient Greeks, to have some prodigy connected with every great
event; and, in order to gratify this feeling, the writers appear in some
instances to have fabricated a prodigy for the occasion, and in others to have
elevated some unusual, though by no means supernatural circumstance, to the rank
and importance of one. The prodigy connected with this siege of Babylon was the
foaling of a mule. The mule belonged to a general in the army of Darius, named
Zopyrus. It was after Darius had been prosecuting the siege of the city for a
year and a half, without any progress whatever toward the accomplishment of his
end. The army began to despair of success. Zopyrus, with the rest, was expecting
that the siege would be indefinitely prolonged, or, perhaps, absolutely
abandoned, when his attention was strongly attracted to the phenomenon which had
happened in respect to the mule. He remembered the taunt of the Babylonian on
the wall, and it seemed to him that the whole occurrence portended that the time
had now arrived when some way might be devised for the capture of the city.

Portents and prophecies are often the causes of their own fulfillment, and this
portent led Zopyrus to endeavor to devise some means to accomplish the end in
view. He went first, however, to Darius, to converse with him upon the subject,
with a view of ascertaining how far he was really desirous of bringing the siege
to a termination. He wished to know whether the object was of sufficient
importance in Darius’s mind to warrant any great sacrifice on his own part to
effect it.

He found that it was so. Darius was extremely impatient to end the siege and to
capture the city; and Zopyrus saw at once that, if he could in any way be the
means of accomplishing the work, he should entitle himself, in the highest
possible degree, to the gratitude of the king.

He determined to go himself into Babylon as a pretended deserter from Darius,
with a view to obtaining an influence and a command within the city, which
should enable him afterward to deliver it up to the besiegers; and, in order to
convince the Babylonians that his desertion was real, he resolved to mutilate
himself in a manner so dreadful as would effectually prevent their imagining
that the injuries which he suffered were inflicted by any contrivance of his
own. He accordingly cut off his hair and his ears, and mutilated his face in a
manner too shocking to be here detailed, inflicting injuries which could never
be repaired. He caused himself to be scourged, also, until his whole body was
covered with cuts and contusions. He then went, wounded and bleeding as he was,
into the presence of Darius, to make known his plans.

Darius expressed amazement and consternation at the terrible spectacle. He
leaped from his throne and rushed toward Zopyrus, demanding who had dared to
maltreat one of his generals in such a manner. When Zopyrus replied that he had
himself done the deed, the king’s astonishment was greater than before. He told
Zopyrus that he was insane. Some sudden paroxysm of madness had come over him.
Zopyrus replied that he was not insane; and he explained his design. His plan,
he said, was deliberately and calmly formed, and it should be steadily and
faithfully executed. |I did not make known my design to you,| said he, |before I
had taken the preliminary steps, for I knew that you would prevent my taking
them. It is now too late for that, and nothing remains but to reap, if possible,
the advantage which may be derived from what I have done.|

He then arranged with Darius the plans which he had formed, so far as he needed
the co-operation of the king in the execution of them. If he could gain a
partial command in the Babylonian army, he was to make a sally from the city
gates on a certain day, and attack a portion of the Persian army, which Darius
was to leave purposely exposed, in order that he might gain credit with the
Babylonians by destroying them. From this he supposed that the confidence which
the Babylonians would repose in him would increase, and he might consequently
receive a greater command. Thus he might, by acting in concert with Darius
without, gradually gain such an ascendency within the city as finally to have
power to open the gates and let the besiegers in. Darius was to station a
detachment of a thousand men near a certain gate, leaving them imperfectly
armed, on the tenth day after Zopyrus entered the city. These Zopyrus was to
destroy. Seven days afterward, two thousand more were to be stationed in a
similar manner at another point; and these were also to be destroyed by a second
sally. Twenty days after this, four thousand more were to be similarly exposed.
Thus seven thousand innocent and defenseless men would be slaughtered, but that,
as Zopyrus said, would be |of no consequence.| The lives of men were estimated
by heroes and conquerors in those days only at their numerical value in swelling
the army roll.

These things being all arranged, Zopyrus took leave of the King to go to
Babylon. As he left the Persian camp, he began to run, looking round behind him
continually, as if in flight. Some men, too, pretended to pursue him. He fled
toward one of the gates of the city. The sentinels on the walls saw him coming.
When he reached the gate, the porter inside of it talked with him through a
small opening, and heard his story. The porter then reported the case to the
superior officers, and they commanded that the fugitive should be admitted. When
conducted into the presence of the magistrates, he related a piteous story of
the cruel treatment which he had received from Darius, and of the difficulty
which he had experienced in making his escape from the tyrant’s hands. He
uttered, too, dreadful imprecations against Darius, and expressed the most eager
determination to be revenged. He informed the Babylonians, moreover, that he was
well acquainted with all Darius’s plans and designs, and with the disposition
which he had made of his army; and that, if they would, in a few days, when his
wounds should have in some measure healed, give him a small command, he would
show them, by actual trial, what he could do to aid their cause.

They acceded to this proposition, and furnished Zopyrus, at the end of ten days,
with a moderate force. Zopyrus, at the head of this force, sallied forth from
the gate which had been previously agreed upon between him and Darius, and fell
upon the unfortunate thousand that had been stationed there for the purpose of
being destroyed. They were nearly defenseless, and Zopyrus, though his force was
inferior, cut them all to pieces before they could be re-enforced or protected,
and then retreated safely into the city again. He was received by the
Babylonians with the utmost exultation and joy. He had no difficulty in
obtaining, seven days afterward, the command of a larger force, when, sallying
forth from another gate, as had been agreed upon by Darius, he gained another
victory, destroying, on this occasion, twice as many Persians as before. These
exploits gained the pretended deserter unbounded fame and honor within the city.
The populace applauded him with continual acclamations; and the magistrates
invited him to their councils, offered him high command, and governed their own
plans and measures by his advice. At length, on the twentieth day, he made his
third sally, at which time he destroyed and captured a still greater number than
before. This gave him such an influence and position within the city, in respect
to its defense, that he had no difficulty in getting intrusted with the keys of
certain gates -- those, namely, by which he had agreed that the army of Darius
should be admitted. When the time arrived, the Persians advanced to the attack
of the city in that quarter, and the Babylonians rallied as usual on the walls
to repel them. The contest had scarcely begun before they found that the gates
were open, and that the columns of the enemy were pouring in. The city was thus
soon wholly at the mercy of the conqueror. Darius dismantled the walls, carried
off the brazen gates, and crucified three thousand of the most distinguished
inhabitants; then establishing over the rest a government of his own, he
withdrew his troops and returned to Susa. He bestowed upon Zopyrus, at Susa, all
possible rewards and honors. The marks of his wounds and mutilations could never
be effaced, but Darius often said that he would gladly give up twenty Babylons
to be able to efface them.


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  CHAPTER 22: 2.08     CHAPTER 8. THE INVASION OF SCYTHIA.
========================================================================

CHAPTER VIII. THE INVASION OF SCYTHIA.

B.C.513

Darius’s authority fully established throughout his dominions. -- The Scythians.
-- Ancient account of them. -- Pictures of savage life. -- Their diversity. --
Social instincts of man. -- Their universality. -- Moral sentiments of mankind.
-- Religious depravity. -- Advice of Artabanus. -- Emissaries sent forward. --
The petition of Oebazus. -- Darius’s wanton cruelty. -- Place of rendezvous. --
The fleet of galleys. -- Darius’s march through Asia Minor. -- Monuments. --
Arrival at the Bosporus. -- The bridge of boats. -- Reward of Mandrocles. -- The
group of statuary. -- The Cyanean Islands. -- Darius makes an excursion to them.
-- The two monuments. -- Inscriptions on them. -- The troops cross the bridge.
-- Movements of the fleet. -- The River Tearus. -- Its wonderful sources. -- The
cairn. -- Primitive mode of census-taking. -- Instinctive feeling of dependence
on a supernatural power. -- Strange religious observance. -- Arrival at the
Danube. -- Orders to destroy the bridge. -- Counsel of the Grecian general. --
The bridge is preserved. -- Guard left to protect it. -- Singular mode of
reckoning. -- Probable reason for employing it. -- Darius’s determination to
return before the knots should be all untied. In the reigns of ancient monarchs
and conquerors, it often happened that the first great transaction which called
forth their energies was the suppression of a rebellion within their dominions,
and the second, an expedition against some ferocious and half-savage nations
beyond their frontiers. Darius followed this general example. The suppression of
the Babylonian revolt established his authority throughout the whole interior of
his empire. If that vast, and populous, and wealthy city was found unable to
resist his power, no other smaller province or capital could hope to succeed in
the attempt. The whole empire of Asia, therefore, from the capital at Susa, out
to the extreme limits and bounds to which Cyrus had extended it, yielded without
any further opposition to his sway. He felt strong in his position, and being
young and ardent in temperament, he experienced a desire to exercise his
strength. For some reason or other, he seems to have been not quite prepared yet
to grapple with the Greeks, and he concluded, accordingly, first to test his
powers in respect to foreign invasion by a war upon the Scythians. This was an
undertaking which required some courage and resolution; for it was while making
an incursion into the country of the Scythians that Cyrus, his renowned
predecessor, and the founder of the Persian empire, had fallen. The term
Scythians seems to have been a generic designation, applied indiscriminately to
vast hordes of half-savage tribes occupying those wild and inhospitable regions
of the north, that extended along the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas, and
the banks of the Danube. The accounts which are given by the ancient historians
of the manners and customs of these people, are very inconsistent and
contradictory; as, in fact, the accounts of the characters of savages, and of
the habits and usages of savage life, have always been in every age. It is very
little that any one cultivated observer can really know, in respect to the
phases of character, the thoughts and feelings, the sentiments, the principles
and the faith, and even the modes of life, that prevail among uncivilized
aborigines living in forests, or roaming wildly over uninclosed and trackless
plains. Of those who have the opportunity to observe them, accordingly, some
extol, in the highest degree, their rude but charming simplicity, their truth
and faithfulness, the strength of their filial and conjugal affection, and their
superiority of spirit in rising above the sordid sentiments and gross vices of
civilization. They are not the slaves, these writers say, of appetite and
passion. They have no inordinate love of gain; they are patient in enduring
suffering, grateful for kindness received, and inflexibly firm in their
adherence to the principles of honor and duty. Others, on the other hand, see in
savage life nothing but treachery, cruelty, brutality, and crime. Man in his
native state, as they imagine, is but a beast, with just intelligence enough to
give effect to his depravity. Without natural affection, without truth, without
a sense of justice, or the means of making law a substitute for it, he lives in
a scene of continual conflict, in which the rights of the weak and the
defenseless are always overborne by brutal and tyrannical power. The explanation
of this diversity is doubtless this, that in savage life, as well as in every
other state of human society, all the varieties of human conduct and character
are exhibited; and the attention of each observer is attracted to the one or to
the other class of phenomena, according to the circumstances in which he is
placed when he makes his observations, or the mood of mind which prevails within
him when he records them. There must be the usual virtues of social life,
existing in a greater or less degree, in all human communities; for such
principles as a knowledge of the distinction of right and wrong, the idea of
property and of individual rights, the obligation resting on every one to
respect them, the sense of justice, and of the ill desert of violence and
cruelty, are all universal instincts of the human soul, as universal and as
essential to humanity as maternal or filial affection, or the principle of
conjugal love. They were established by the great Author of nature as
constituent elements in the formation of man. Man could not continue to exist,
as a gregarious animal, without them. It would accordingly be as impossible to
find a community of men without these moral sentiments generally prevalent among
them, as to find vultures or tigers that did not like to pursue and take their
prey, or deer without a propensity to fly from danger. The laws and usages of
civilized society are the expression and the result of these sentiments, not the
origin and foundation of them; and violence, cruelty, and crime are the
exceptions to their operation, very few, in all communities, savage or
civilized, in comparison with the vast preponderance of cases in which they are
obeyed. This view of the native constitution of the human character, which it is
obvious, on very slight reflection, must be true, is not at all opposed, as it
might at first appear to be, by the doctrine of the theological writers in the
Christian Church in respect to the native depravity of man; for the depravity
here referred to is a religious depravity, an alienation of the heart from God,
and a rebellious and insubmissive spirit in respect to his law. Neither the
Scriptures nor the theological writers who interpret them ever call in question
the universal existence and prevalence of those instincts that are essential to
the social welfare of man. But we must return to the Scythians. The tribes which
Darius proposed to attack occupied the countries north of the Danube. His route,
therefore, for the invasion of their territories would lead him through Asia
Minor, thence across the Hellespont or the Bosporus into Thrace, and from Thrace
across the Danube. It was a distant and dangerous expedition.

Darius had a brother named Artabanus. Artabanus was of opinion that the
enterprise which the king was contemplating was not only distant and dangerous,
but that the country of the Scythians was of so little value that the end to be
obtained by success would be wholly inadequate to compensate for the exertions,
the costs, and the hazards which he must necessarily incur in the prosecution of
it. But Darius was not to be dissuaded. He thanked his brother for his advice,
but ordered the preparations for the expedition to go on.

He sent emissaries forward, in advance, over the route that his army was
destined to take, transmitting orders to the several provinces which were
situated on the line of his march to prepare the way for the passage of his
troops. Among other preparations, they were to construct a bridge of boats
across the Bosporus at Chalcedon. This work was intrusted to the charge and
superintendence of an engineer of Samos named Mandrocles. The people of the
provinces were also to furnish bodies of troops, both infantry and cavalry, to
join the army on its march. The soldiers that were enlisted to go on this remote
and dangerous expedition joined the army, as is usual in such cases, some
willingly, from love of adventure, or the hope of opportunities for plunder, and
for that unbridled indulgence of appetite and passion which soldiers so often
look forward to as a part of their reward; others from hard compulsion, being
required to leave friends and home, and all that they held dear, under the
terror of a stern and despotic edict which they dared not disobey. It was even
dangerous to ask for exemption. As an instance of this, it is said that there
was a Persian named Oebazus, who had three sons that had been drafted into the
army. Oebazus, desirous of not being left wholly alone in his old age, made a
request to the king that he would allow one of the sons to remain at home with
his father. Darius appeared to receive this petition favorably. He told Oebazus
that the request was so very modest and considerate that he would grant more
than he asked. He would allow all three of his sons to remain with him. Oebazus
retired from the king’s presence overjoyed at the thought that his family was
not to be separated at all. Darius ordered his guards to kill the three young
men, and to send the dead bodies home, with a message to their father that his
sons were restored to him, released forever from all obligation to serve the
king. The place of general rendezvous for the various forces which were to join
in the expedition, consisting of the army which marched with Darius from Susa,
and also of the troops and ships which the maritime provinces of Asia Minor were
to supply on the way, was on the shores of the Bosporus, at the point where
Mandrocles had constructed the bridge.[G] The people of Ionia, a region situated
in Asia Minor, on the shores of the AEgean Sea, had been ordered to furnish a
fleet of galleys, which they were to build and equip, and then send to the
bridge. The destination of this fleet was to the Danube. It was to pass up the
Bosporus into the Euxine Sea, now called the Black Sea, and thence into the
mouth of the river. After ascending the Danube to a certain point, the men were
to land and build a bridge across that river, using, very probably, their
galleys for this purpose. In the mean time, the army was to cross the Bosporus
by the bridge which had been erected there by Mandrocles, and pursue their way
toward the Danube by land, through the kingdom of Thrace. By this arrangement,
it was supposed that the bridge across the Danube would be ready by the time
that the main body of the army arrived on the banks of the river. The idea of
thus building in Asia Minor a bridge for the Danube, in the form of a vast fleet
of galleys, to be sent round through the Black Sea to the mouths of the river,
and thence up the river to its place of destination, was original and grand. It
strikingly marks the military genius and skill which gave the Greeks so extended
a fame, for it was by the Greeks that the exploit was to be performed.

[Footnote G: For the track of Darius on this expedition, see the map at the
commencement of this volume.]

Darius marched magnificently through Asia Minor, on his way to the Bosporus, at
the head of an army of seventy thousand men. He moved slowly, and the engineers
and architects that accompanied him built columns and monuments here and there,
as he advanced, to commemorate his progress. These structures were covered with
inscriptions, which ascribed to Darius, as the leader of the enterprise, the
most extravagant praise. At length the splendid array arrived at the place of
rendezvous on the Bosporus, where there was soon presented to view a very grand
and imposing scene. The bridge of boats was completed, and the Ionian fleet,
consisting of six hundred galleys, was at anchor near it in the stream. Long
lines of tents were pitched upon the shore, and thousands of horsemen and of
foot soldiers were drawn up in array, their banners flying, and their armor
glittering in the sun, and all eager to see and to welcome the illustrious
sovereign who had come, with so much pomp and splendor, to take them under his
command. The banks of the Bosporus were picturesque and high, and all the
eminences were crowded with spectators, to witness the imposing magnificence of
the spectacle.

Darius encamped his army on the shore, and began to make the preparations
necessary for the final departure of the expedition. He had been thus far within
his own dominions. He was now, however, to pass into another quarter of the
globe, to plunge into new and unknown dangers, among hostile, savage, and
ferocious tribes. It was right that he should pause until he had considered well
his plans, and secured attention to every point which could influence success.

He first examined the bridge of boats. He was very much pleased with the
construction of it. He commended Mandrocles for his skill and fidelity in the
highest terms, and loaded him with rewards and honors. Mandrocles used the money
which Darius thus gave him in employing an artist to form a piece of statuary
which should at once commemorate the building of the bridge and give to Darius
the glory of it. The group represented the Bosporus with the bridge thrown over
it, and the king on his throne reviewing his troops as they passed over the
structure. This statuary was placed, when finished, in a temple in Greece, where
it was universally admired. Darius was very much pleased both with the idea of
this sculpture on the part of Mandrocles, and with the execution of it by the
artist. He gave the bridge builder new rewards; he recompensed the artist, also,
with similar munificence. He was pleased that they had contrived so happy a way
of at the same time commemorating the bridging of the Bosporus and rendering
exalted honor to him. The bridge was situated about the middle of the Bosporus;
and as the strait itself is about eighteen miles long, it was nine miles from
the bridge to the Euxine Sea. There is a small group of islands near the mouth
of this strait, where it opens into the sea, which were called in those days the
Cyanean Islands. They were famed in the time of Darius for having once been
floating islands, and enchanted. Their supernatural properties had disappeared,
but there was one attraction which still pertained to them. They were situated
beyond the limits of the strait, and the visitor who landed upon them could take
his station on some picturesque cliff or smiling hill, and extend his view far
and wide over the blue waters of the Euxine Sea.

Darius determined to make an excursion to these islands while the fleet and the
army were completing their preparations at the bridge. He embarked, accordingly,
on board a splendid galley, and, sailing along the Bosporus till he reached the
sea, he landed on one of the islands. There was a temple there, consecrated to
one of the Grecian deities. Darius, accompanied by his attendants and followers,
ascended to this temple, and, taking a seat which had been provided for him
there, he surveyed the broad expanse of water which extended like an ocean
before him, and contemplated the grandeur of the scene with the greatest
admiration and delight. At length he returned to the bridge, where he found the
preparations for the movement of the fleet and of the army nearly completed. He
determined, before leaving the Asiatic shores, to erect a monument to
commemorate his expedition, on the spot from which he was to take his final
departure. He accordingly directed two columns of white marble to be reared, and
inscriptions to be cut upon them, giving such particulars in respect to the
expedition as it was desirable thus to preserve. These inscriptions contained
his own name in very conspicuous characters as the leader of the enterprise;
also an enumeration of the various nations that had contributed to form his
army, with the numbers which each had furnished. There was a record of
corresponding particulars, too, in respect to the fleet. The inscriptions were
the same upon the two columns, except that upon the one it was written in the
Assyrian tongue, which was the general language of the Persian empire, and upon
the other in the Greek. Thus the two monuments were intended, the one for the
Asiatic, and the other for the European world. At length the day of departure
arrived. The fleet set sail, and the immense train of the army put itself in
motion to cross the bridge.[H] The fleet went on through the Bosporus to the
Euxine, and thence along the western coast of that sea till it reached the
mouths of the Danube. The ships entered the river by one of the branches which
form the delta of the stream, and ascended for two days. This carried them above
the ramifications into which the river divides itself at its mouth, to a spot
where the current was confined to a single channel, and where the banks were
firm. Here they landed, and while one part of the force which they had brought
were occupied in organizing guards and providing defenses to protect the ground,
the remainder commenced the work of arranging the vessels of the fleet, side by
side, across the stream, to form the bridge.

[Footnote H: See Frontispiece.] In the mean time, Darius, leading the great body
of the army, advanced from the Bosporus by land. The country which the troops
thus traversed was Thrace. They met with various adventures as they proceeded,
and saw, as the accounts of the expedition state, many strange and marvelous
phenomena. They came, for example, to the sources of a very wonderful river,
which flows west and south toward the AEgean Sea. The name of the river was the
Tearus. It came from thirty-eight springs, all issuing from the same rock, some
hot and some cold. The waters of the stream which was produced by the mingling
of these fountains were pure, limpid, and delicious, and were possessed of
remarkable medicinal properties, being efficacious for the cure of various
diseases. Darius was so much pleased with this river, that his army halted to
refresh themselves with its waters, and he caused one of his monuments to be
erected on the spot, the inscription of which contained not only the usual
memorials of the march, but also a tribute to the salubrity of the waters of
this magical stream. At one point in the course of the march through Thrace,
Darius conceived the idea of varying the construction of his line of monuments
by building a cairn. A cairn is a heap of stones, such as is reared in the
mountains of Scotland and of Switzerland by the voluntary additions of every
passer by, to commemorate a spot marked as the scene of some accident or
disaster. As each guide finishes the story of the incident in the hearing of the
party which he conducts, each tourist who has listened to it adds his stone to
the heap, until the rude structure attains sometimes to a very considerable
size. Darius, fixing upon a suitable spot near one of his encampments, commanded
every soldier in the army to bring a stone and place it on the pile. A vast
mound rose rapidly from these contributions, which, when completed, not only
commemorated the march of the army, but denoted, also, by the immense number of
the stones entering into the composition of the pile, the countless multitude of
soldiers that formed the expedition.

There was a story told to Darius, as he was traversing these regions, of a
certain king, reigning over some one of the nations that occupied them, who
wished to make an enumeration of the inhabitants of his realm. The mode which he
adopted was to require every man in his dominions to send him an arrow head.
When all the arrow heads were in, the vast collection was counted by the
official arithmeticians, and the total of the population was thus attained. The
arrow heads were then laid together in a sort of monumental pile. It was,
perhaps, this primitive mode of census-taking which suggested to Darius the idea
of his cairn.

There was a tribe of barbarians through whose dominions Darius passed on his way
from the Bosporus to the Danube, that observed a custom in their religious
worship, which, though in itself of a shocking character, suggests reflections
of salutary influence for our own minds. There is a universal instinct in the
human heart, leading it strongly to feel the need of help from an unseen and
supernatural world in its sorrows and trials; and it is almost always the case
that rude and savage nations, in their attempts to obtain this spiritual aid,
connect the idea of personal privation and suffering on their part, self
inflicted if necessary, as a means of seeking it. It seems as if the instinctive
conviction of personal guilt, which associates itself so naturally and so
strongly in the minds of men with all conceptions of the unseen world and of
divine power, demands something like an expiation as an essential prerequisite
to obtaining audience and acceptance with the King of Heaven. The tribe of
savages above referred to manifested this feeling by a dreadful observance. Once
in every five years they were accustomed to choose by lot, with solemn
ceremonies, one of their number, to be sent as a legate or embassador to their
god. The victim, when chosen, was laid down upon the ground in the midst of the
vast assembly convened to witness the rite, while officers designated for the
purpose stood by, armed with javelins. Other men, selected for their great
personal strength, then took the man from the ground by the hands and feet, and
swinging him to and fro three times to gain momentum, they threw him with all
their force into the air, and the armed men, when he came down, caught him on
the points of their javelins. If he was killed by this dreadful impalement, all
was right. He would bear the message of the wants and necessities of the tribe
to their god, and they might reasonably expect a favorable reception. If, on the
other hand, he did not die, he was thought to be rejected by the god as a wicked
man and an unsuitable messenger. The unfortunate convalescent was, in such
cases, dismissed in disgrace, and another messenger chosen. The army of Darius
reached the banks of the Danube at last, and they found that the fleet of the
Ionians had attained the point agreed upon before them, and were awaiting their
arrival. The vessels were soon arranged in the form of a bridge across the
stream, and as there was no enemy at hand to embarrass them, the army soon
accomplished the passage. They were now fairly in the Scythian country, and
immediately began their preparations to advance and meet the foe. Darius gave
orders to have the bridge broken up, and the galleys abandoned and destroyed, as
he chose rather to take with him the whole of his force, than to leave a guard
behind sufficient to protect this shipping. These orders were about to be
executed, when a Grecian general, who was attached to one of the bodies of
troops which were furnished from the provinces of Asia Minor, asked leave to
speak to the king. The king granted him an audience, when he expressed his
opinion as follows:

|It seems to me to be more prudent, sire, to leave the bridge as it is, under
the care of those who have constructed it, as it may be that we shall have
occasion to use it on our return. I do not recommend the preservation of it as a
means of securing a retreat, for, in case we meet the Scythians at all, I am
confident of victory; but our enemy consists of wandering hordes who have no
fixed habitation, and their country is entirely without cities or posts of any
kind which they will feel any strong interest in defending, and thus it is
possible that we may not be able to find any enemy to combat. Besides, if we
succeed in our enterprise as completely as we can desire, it will be important,
on many accounts, to preserve an open and free communication with the countries
behind us.| The king approved of this counsel, and countermanded his orders for
the destruction of the bridge. He directed that the Ionian forces that had
accompanied the fleet should remain at the river to guard the bridge. They were
to remain thus on guard for two months, and then, if Darius did not return, and
if they heard no tidings of him, they were at liberty to leave their post, and
to go back, with their galleys, to their own land again.

Two months would seem to be a very short time to await the return of an army
going on such an expedition into boundless and trackless wilds. There can,
however, scarcely be any accidental error in the statement of the time, as the
mode which Darius adopted to enable the guard thus left at the bridge to keep
their reckoning was a very singular one, and it is very particularly described.
He took a cord, it is said, and tied sixty knots in it. This cord he delivered
to the Ionian chiefs who were to be left in charge of the bridge, directing them
to untie one of the knots every day. When the cord should become, by this
process, wholly free, the detachment were also at liberty. They might
thereafter, at any time, abandon the post intrusted to them, and return to their
homes.

We can not suppose that military men, capable of organizing a force of seventy
thousand troops for so distant an expedition, and possessed of sufficient
science and skill to bridge the Bosporus and the Danube, could have been under
any necessity of adopting so childish a method as this as a real reliance in
regulating their operations. It must be recollected, however, that, though the
commanders in these ancient days were intelligent and strong-minded men, the
common soldiers were but children both in intellect and in ideas; and it was the
custom of all great commanders to employ outward and visible symbols to
influence and govern them. The sense of loneliness and desertion which such
soldiers would naturally feel in being left in solitude on the banks of the
river, would be much diminished by seeing before them a marked and definite
termination to the period of their stay, and to have, in the cord hanging up in
their camp, a visible token that the remnant of time that remained was steadily
diminishing day by day; while, in the mean time, Darius was fully determined
that, long before the knots should be all untied, he would return to the river.


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  CHAPTER 23: 2.09     CHAPTER 9.  THE RETREAT FROM SCYTHIA.
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CHAPTER IX. THE RETREAT FROM SCYTHIA.

B.C.513

Motive for Darius’s invasion. -- The foundation of government. -- Darius without
justification in invading Scythia. -- Alarm of the Scythians. -- Condition of
the tribes. -- Men metamorphosed into wolves. -- Story of the Amazons. --
Adventures of the Amazons. -- Two of them captured. -- The corps of cavaliers.
-- Their maneuvers. -- Success of the cavaliers. -- Matrimonial alliances. --
The Amazons rule their husbands. -- They establish a separate tribe. -- The
Scythians send an embassy to the neighboring tribes. -- Habits of the Scythians.
-- Their mode of warfare. -- Message to Indathyrsus. -- His reply. -- The
Scythian cavalry. -- Their attacks on the Persians. -- Braying of the Persian
asses. -- Scythians sent to the bridge. -- Agreement with the Ionians. -- The
Scythians change their policy. -- The Scythians’ strange presents. -- Various
interpretations. -- Opinions of the Persian officers. -- The Scythians draw up
their forces. -- The armies prepare for battle. -- Hunting the hare. -- The
Persians resolve to retreat. -- Stratagem and secret flight. -- Surrender of the
camp. -- Difficulties of the retreat. -- The bridge partially destroyed. --
Darius arrives at the Danube. -- The bridge repaired. -- The army returns to
Asia. The motive which dictated Darius’s invasion of Scythia seems to have been
purely a selfish and domineering love of power. The attempts of a stronger and
more highly civilized state to extend its dominion over a weaker and more
lawless one, are not, however, necessarily and always of this character. Divine
Providence, in making men gregarious in nature, has given them an instinct of
organization, which is as intrinsic and as essential a characteristic of the
human soul as maternal love or the principle of self-preservation. The right,
therefore, of organizations of men to establish law and order among themselves,
and to extend these principles to other communities around them, so far as such
interpositions are really promotive of the interests and welfare of those
affected by them, rests on precisely the same foundation as the right of the
father to govern the child. This foundation is the existence and universality of
an instinctive principle implanted by the Creator in the human heart; a
principle which we are bound to submit to, both because it is a fundamental and
constituent element in the very structure of man, and because its recognition
and the acknowledgment of its authority are absolutely essential to his
continued existence. Wherever law and order, therefore, among men do not exist,
it may be properly established and enforced by any neighboring organization that
has power to do it, just as wherever there is a group of children they may be
justly controlled and governed by their father. It seems equally unnecessary to
invent a fictitious and wholly imaginary compact to justify the jurisdiction in
the one case as in the other.

If the Scythians, therefore, had been in a state of confusion and anarchy,
Darius might justly have extended his own well-regulated and settled government
over them, and, in so doing, would have promoted the general good of mankind.
But he had no such design. It was a desire for personal aggrandizement, and a
love of fame and power, which prompted him. He offered it as a pretext to
justify his invasion, that the Scythians, in former years, had made incursions
into the Persian dominions; but this was only a pretext. The expedition was a
wanton attack upon neighbors whom he supposed unable to resist him, simply for
the purpose of adding to his own already gigantic power. When Darius commenced
his march from the river, the Scythians had heard rumors of his approach. They
sent, as soon as they were aware of the impending danger, to all the nations and
tribes around them, in order to secure their alliance and aid. These people were
all wandering and half-savage tribes, like the Scythians themselves, though each
seems to have possessed its own special and distinctive mark of barbarity. One
tribe were accustomed to carry home the heads of the enemies which they had
slain in battle, and each one, impaling his own dreadful trophy upon a stake,
would set it up upon his house-top, over the chimney, where they imagined that
it would have the effect of a charm, and serve as a protection for the family.
Another tribe lived in habits of promiscuous intercourse, like the lower orders
of animals; and so, as the historian absurdly states, being, in consequence of
this mode of life, all connected together by the ties of consanguinity, they
lived in perpetual peace and good will, without any envy, or jealousy, or other
evil passion. A third occupied a region so infested with serpents that they were
once driven wholly out of the country by them. It was said of these people that,
once in every year, they were all metamorphosed into wolves, and, after
remaining for a few days in this form, they were transformed again into men. A
fourth tribe painted their bodies blue and red, and a fifth were cannibals. The
most remarkable, however, of all the tales related about these northern savages
was the story of the Sauromateans and their Amazonian wives. The Amazons were a
nation of masculine and ferocious women, who often figure in ancient histories
and legends. They rode on horseback astride like men, and their courage and
strength in battle were such that scarcely any troops could subdue them. It
happened, however, upon one time, that some Greeks conquered a body of them
somewhere upon the shores of the Euxine Sea, and took a large number of them
prisoners. They placed these prisoners on board of three ships, and put to sea.
The Amazons rose upon their captors and threw them overboard, and thus obtained
possession of the ships. They immediately proceeded toward the shore, and
landed, not knowing where they were. It happened to be on the northwestern coast
of the sea that they landed. Here they roamed up and down the country, until
presently they fell in with a troop of horses. These they seized and mounted,
arming themselves, at the same time, either with the weapons which they had
procured on board the ships, or fabricated, themselves, on the shore. Thus
organized and equipped, they began to make excursions for plunder, and soon
became a most formidable band of marauders. The Scythians of the country
supposed that they were men, but they could learn nothing certain respecting
them. Their language, their appearance, their manners, and their dress were
totally new, and the inhabitants were utterly unable to conceive who they were,
and from what place they could so suddenly and mysteriously have come. At last,
in one of the encounters which took place, the Scythians took two of these
strange invaders prisoners. To their utter amazement, they found that they were
women. On making this discovery, they changed their mode of dealing with them,
and resolved upon a plan based on the supposed universality of the instincts of
their sex. They enlisted a corps of the most handsome and vigorous young men
that could be obtained, and after giving them instructions, the nature of which
will be learned by the result, they sent them forth to meet the Amazons. The
corps of Scythian cavaliers went out to seek their female antagonists with
designs any thing but belligerent. They advanced to the encampment of the
Amazons, and hovered about for some time in their vicinity, without, however,
making any warlike demonstrations. They had been instructed to show themselves
as much as possible to the enemy, but by no means to fight them. They would,
accordingly, draw as near to the Amazons as was safe, and linger there, gazing
upon them, as if under the influence of some sort of fascination. If the Amazons
advanced toward them, they would fall back, and if the advance continued, they
would retreat fast enough to keep effectually out of the way. Then, when the
Amazons turned, they would turn too, follow them back, and linger near them,
around their encampment, as before. The Amazonians were for a time puzzled with
this strange demeanor, and they gradually learned to look upon the handsome
horsemen at first without fear, and finally even without hostility. At length,
one day, one of the young horsemen, observing an Amazon who had strayed away
from the rest, followed and joined her. She did not repel him. They were not
able to converse together, as neither knew the language of the other. They
established a friendly intercourse, however, by looks and signs, and after a
time they separated, each agreeing to bring one of their companions to the place
of rendezvous on the following day. A friendly intercommunication being thus
commenced, the example spread very rapidly; matrimonial alliances began to be
formed, and, in a word, a short time only elapsed before the two camps were
united and intermingled, the Scythians and the Amazons being all paired together
in the most intimate relations of domestic life. Thus, true to the instincts of
their sex, the rude and terrible maidens decided, when the alternative was
fairly presented to them, in favor of husbands and homes, rather than continuing
the life they had led, of independence, conflict, and plunder. It is curious to
observe that the means by which they were won, namely, a persevering display of
admiration and attentions, steadily continued, but not too eagerly and
impatiently pressed, and varied with an adroit and artful alternation of
advances and retreats, were precisely the same as those by which, in every age,
the attempt is usually made to win the heart of woman from hatred and hostility
to love.

We speak of the Amazonians as having been won; but they were, in fact,
themselves the conquerors of their captors, after all; for it appeared, in the
end, that in the future plans and arrangements of the united body, they ruled
their Scythian husbands, and not the Scythians them. The husbands wished to
return home with their wives, whom, they said, they would protect and maintain
in the midst of their countrymen in honor and in peace. The Amazons, however,
were in favor of another plan. Their habits and manners were such, they said,
that they should not be respected and beloved among any other people. They
wished that their husbands, therefore, would go home and settle their affairs,
and afterward return and join their wives again, and then that all together
should move to the eastward, until they should find a suitable place to settle
in by themselves. This plan was acceded to by the husbands, and was carried into
execution; and the result was the planting of a new nation, called the
Sauromateans, who thenceforth took their place among the other barbarous tribes
that dwelt upon the northern shores of the Euxine Sea.

Such was the character of the tribes and nations that dwelt in the neighborhood
of the Scythian country. As soon as Darius had passed the river, the Scythians
sent embassadors to all their people, proposing to them to form a general
alliance against the invader. |We ought to make common cause against him,| said
they; |for if he subdues one nation, it will only open the way for an attack
upon the rest. Some of us are, it is true, more remote than others from the
immediate danger, but it threatens us all equally in the end.| The embassadors
delivered their message, and some of the tribes acceded to the Scythian
proposals. Others, however, refused. The quarrel, they said, was a quarrel
between Darius and the Scythians alone, and they were not inclined to bring upon
themselves the hostility of so powerful a sovereign by interfering. The
Scythians were very indignant at this refusal; but there was no remedy, and they
accordingly began to prepare to defend themselves as well as they could, with
the help of those nations that had expressed a willingness to join them. The
habits of the Scythians were nomadic and wandering, and their country was one
vast region of verdant and beautiful, and yet, in a great measure, of
uncultivated and trackless wilds. They had few towns and villages, and those few
were of little value. They adopted, therefore, the mode of warfare which, in
such a country and for such a people, is always the wisest to be pursued. They
retreated slowly before Darius’s advancing army, carrying off or destroying all
such property as might aid the king in respect to his supplies. They organized
and equipped a body of swift horsemen, who were ordered to hover around Darius’s
camp, and bring intelligence to the Scythian generals of every movement. These
horsemen, too, were to harass the flanks and the rear of the army, and to
capture or destroy every man whom they should find straying away from the camp.
By this means they kept the invading army continually on the alert, allowing
them no peace and no repose, while yet they thwarted and counteracted all the
plans and efforts which the enemy made to bring on a general battle. As the
Persians advanced in pursuit of the enemy, the Scythians retreated, and in this
retreat they directed their course toward the countries occupied by those
nations that had refused to join in the alliance. By this artful management they
transferred the calamity and the burden of the war to the territories of their
neighbors. Darius soon found that he was making no progress toward gaining his
end. At length he concluded to try the effect of a direct and open challenge.

He accordingly sent embassadors to the Scythian chief, whose name was
Indathyrsus, with a message somewhat as follows:

|Foolish man! how long will you continue to act in this absurd and preposterous
manner? It is incumbent on you to make a decision in favor of one thing or the
other. If you think that you are able to contend with me, stop, and let us
engage. If not, then acknowledge me as your superior, and submit to my
authority.| The Scythian chief sent back the following reply:

|We have no inducement to contend with you in open battle on the field, because
you are not doing us any injury, nor is it at present in your power to do us
any. We have no cities and no cultivated fields that you can seize or plunder.
Your roaming about our country, therefore, does us no harm, and you are at
liberty to continue it as long as it gives you any pleasure. There is nothing on
our soil that you can injure, except one spot, and that is the place where the
sepulchres of our fathers lie. If you were to attack that spot -- which you may
perhaps do, if you can find it -- you may rely upon a battle. In the mean time,
you may go elsewhere, wherever you please. As to acknowledging your superiority,
we shall do nothing of the kind. We defy you.|

Notwithstanding the refusal of the Scythians to give the Persians battle, they
yet made, from time to time, partial and unexpected onsets upon their camp,
seizing occasions when they hoped to find their enemies off their guard. The
Scythians had troops of cavalry which were very efficient and successful in
these attacks. These horsemen were, however, sometimes thrown into confusion and
driven back by a very singular means of defense. It seems that the Persians had
brought with them from Europe, in their train, a great number of asses, as
beasts of burden, to transport the tents and the baggage of the army. These
asses were accustomed, in times of excitement and danger, to set up a very
terrific braying. It was, in fact, all that they could do. Braying at a danger
seems to be a very ridiculous mode of attempting to avert it, but it was a
tolerably effectual mode, nevertheless, in this case at least; for the Scythian
horses, who would have faced spears and javelins, and the loudest shouts and
vociferations of human adversaries without any fear, were appalled and put to
flight at hearing the unearthly noises which issued from the Persian camp
whenever they approached it. Thus the mighty monarch of the whole Asiatic world
seemed to depend for protection against the onsets of these rude and savage
troops on the braying of his asses!

* * * * *

While these things were going on in the interior of the country, the Scythians
sent down a detachment of their forces to the banks of the Danube, to see if
they could not, in some way or other, obtain possession of the bridge. They
learned here what the orders were which Darius had given to the Ionians who had
been left in charge, in respect to the time of their remaining at their post.
The Scythians told them that if they would govern themselves strictly by those
orders, and so break up the bridge and go down the river with their boats as
soon as the two months should have expired, they should not be molested in the
mean time. The Ionians agreed to this. The time was then already nearly gone,
and they promised that, so soon as it should be fully expired, they would
withdraw. The Scythian detachment sent back word to the main army acquainting
them with these facts, and the army accordingly resolved on a change in their
policy. Instead of harassing and distressing the Persians as they had done, to
hasten their departure, they now determined to improve the situation of their
enemies, and encourage them in their hopes, so as to protract their stay. They
accordingly allowed the Persians to gain the advantage over them in small
skirmishes, and they managed, also, to have droves of cattle fall into their
hands, from time to time, so as to supply them with food. The Persians were
quite elated with these indications that the tide of fortune was about to turn
in their favor.

While things were in this state, there appeared one day at the Persian camp a
messenger from the Scythians, who said that he had some presents from the
Scythian chief for Darius. The messenger was admitted, and allowed to deliver
his gifts. The gifts proved to be a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. The
Persians asked the bearer of these strange offerings what the Scythians meant by
them. He replied that he had no explanations to give. His orders were, he said,
to deliver the presents and then return; and that they must, accordingly, find
out the meaning intended by the exercise of their own ingenuity. When the
messenger had retired, Darius and the Persians consulted together, to determine
what so strange a communication could mean. They could not, however, come to any
satisfactory decision. Darius said that he thought the three animals might
probably be intended to denote the three kingdoms of nature to which the said
animals respectively belonged, viz., the earth, the air, and the water; and as
the giving up of weapons was a token of submission, the whole might mean that
the Scythians were now ready to give up the contest, and acknowledge the right
of the Persians to supreme and universal dominion. The officers, however, did
not generally concur in this opinion. They saw no indications, they said, of any
disposition on the part of the Scythians to surrender. They thought it quite as
probable that the communication was meant to announce to those who received it
threats and defiance, as to express conciliation and submission. |It may mean,|
said one of them, |that, unless you can fly like a bird into the air, or hide
like a mouse in the ground, or bury yourselves, like the frog, in morasses and
fens, you can not escape our arrows.|

There was no means of deciding positively between these contradictory
interpretations, but it soon became evident that the former of the two was very
far from being correct; for, soon after the present was received, the Scythians
were seen to be drawing up their forces in array, as if preparing for battle.
The two months had expired, and they had reason to suppose that the party at the
bridge had withdrawn, as they had promised to do. Darius had been so far
weakened by his harassing marches, and the manifold privations and sufferings of
his men, that he felt some solicitude in respect to the result of a battle, now
that it seemed to be drawing near, although such a trial of strength had been
the object which he had been, from the beginning, most eager to secure. The two
armies were encamped at a moderate distance from each other, with a plain,
partly wooded, between them. While in this position, and before any hostile
action was commenced by either party, it was observed from the camp of Darius
that suddenly a great tumult arose from the Scythian lines. Men were seen
rushing in dense crowds this way and that over the plain, with shouts and
outcries, which, however, had in them no expression of anger or fear, but rather
one of gayety and pleasure. Darius demanded what the strange tumult meant. Some
messengers were sent out to ascertain the cause, and on their return they
reported that the Scythians were hunting a hare, which had suddenly made its
appearance. The hare had issued from a thicket, and a considerable portion of
the army, officers and soldiers, had abandoned their ranks to enjoy the sport of
pursuing it, and were running impetuously, here and there, across the plain,
filling the air with shouts of hilarity.

|They do indeed despise us,| said Darius, |since, on the eve of a battle, they
can lose all thoughts of us and of their danger, and abandon their posts to hunt
a hare!| That evening a council of war was held. It was concluded that the
Scythians must be very confident and strong in their position, and that, if a
general battle were to be hazarded, it would be very doubtful what would be the
result. The Persians concluded unanimously, therefore, that the wisest plan
would be for them to give up the intended conquest, and retire from the country.
Darius accordingly proceeded to make his preparations for a secret retreat.

He separated all the infirm and feeble portion of the army from the rest, and
informed them that he was going that night on a short expedition with the main
body of the troops, and that, while he was gone, they were to remain and defend
the camp. He ordered the men to build the camp fires, and to make them larger
and more numerous than common, and then had the asses tied together in an
unusual situation, so that they should keep up a continual braying. These
sounds, heard all the night, and the light of the camp fires, were to lead the
Scythians to believe that the whole body of the Persians remained, as usual, at
the encampment, and thus to prevent all suspicion of their flight.

Toward midnight, Darius marched forth in silence and secrecy, with all the
vigorous and able-bodied forces under his command, leaving the weary, the sick,
and the infirm to the mercy of their enemies. The long column succeeded in
making good their retreat, without exciting the suspicions of the Scythians.
They took the route which they supposed would conduct them most directly to the
river. When the troops which remained in the camp found, on the following
morning, that they had been deceived and abandoned, they made signals to the
Scythians to come to them, and, when they came, the invalids surrendered
themselves and the camp to their possession. The Scythians then, immediately,
leaving a proper guard to defend the camp, set out to follow the Persian army.
Instead, however, of keeping directly upon their track, they took a shorter
course, which would lead them more speedily to the river. The Persians, being
unacquainted with the country, got involved in fens and morasses, and other
difficulties of the way, and their progress was thus so much impeded that the
Scythians reached the river before them.

They found the Ionians still there, although the two months had fully expired.
It is possible that the chiefs had received secret orders from Darius not to
hasten their departure, even after the knots had all been untied; or perhaps
they chose, of their own accord, to await their sovereign’s return. The
Scythians immediately urged them to be gone. |The time has expired,| they said,
|and you are no longer under any obligation to wait. Return to your own country,
and assert your own independence and freedom, which you can safely do if you
leave Darius and his armies here.| The Ionians consulted together on the
subject, doubtful, at first, what to do. They concluded that they would not
comply with the Scythian proposals, while yet they determined to pretend to
comply with them, in order to avoid the danger of being attacked. They
accordingly began to take the bridge to pieces, commencing on the Scythian side
of the stream. The Scythians, seeing the work thus going on, left the ground,
and marched back to meet the Persians. The armies, however, fortunately for
Darius, missed each other, and the Persians arrived safely at the river, after
the Scythians had left it. They arrived in the night, and the advanced guard,
seeing no appearance of the bridge on the Scythian side, supposed that the
Ionians had gone. They shouted long and loud on the shore, and at length an
Egyptian, who was celebrated for the power of his voice, succeeded in making the
Ionians hear. The boats were immediately brought back to their positions, the
bridge was reconstructed, and Darius’s army recrossed the stream. The Danube
being thus safely crossed, the army made the best of its way back through
Thrace, and across the Bosporus into Asia, and thus ended Darius’s great
expedition against the Scythians.


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  CHAPTER 24: 2.10     CHAPTER 10. THE STORY OF HISTIAEUS.
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CHAPTER X. THE STORY OF HISTIAEUS.

B.C.504

Histiaeus at the bridge on the Danube. -- Darius’s anxiety. -- Darius’s
gratitude. -- Scythia abandoned. -- Darius sends for Histiaeus. -- Petition of
Histiaeus. -- Histiaeus organizes a colony. -- The Paeonians. -- Baseness of the
Paeonian chiefs. -- Their stratagem. -- The Paeonian maiden. -- Multiplicity of
her avocations. -- Darius and the maiden. -- He determines to make the Paeonians
slaves. -- Capture of the Paeonians. -- Megabyzus discovers Histiaeus’s city. --
Histiaeus sent for. -- Darius revokes his gift. -- Histiaeus goes to Susa. --
Artaphernes. -- Island of Naxos. -- Civil war there. -- Action of Aristagoras.
-- Co-operation of Artaphernes. -- Darius consulted. -- His approval. --
Preparations. -- Sailing of the expedition. -- Plan of the commander. --
Difficulty in the fleet. -- Cruel discipline. -- Dissension between the
commanders. -- The expedition fails. -- Chagrin of Aristagoras. -- He resolves
to revolt. -- Position of Histiaeus. -- His uneasiness. -- Singular mode of
communication. -- Its success. -- Revolt of Aristagoras. -- Feigned indignation
of Histiaeus. -- The Ionian rebellion. -- Its failure. -- Death of Histiaeus.
The nature of the government which was exercised in ancient times by a royal
despot like Darius, and the character of the measures and management to which he
was accustomed to resort to gain his political ends, are, in many points, very
strikingly illustrated by the story of Histiaeus.

Histiaeus was the Ionian chieftain who had been left in charge of the bridge of
boats across the Danube when Darius made his incursion into Scythia. When, on
the failure of the expedition, Darius returned to the river, knowing, as he did,
that the two months had expired, he naturally felt a considerable degree of
solicitude lest he should find the bridge broken up and the vessels gone, in
which case his situation would be very desperate, hemmed in, as he would have
been, between the Scythians and the river. His anxiety was changed into terror
when his advanced guard arrived at the bank and found that no signs of the
bridge were to be seen. It is easy to imagine what, under these circumstances,
must have been the relief and joy of all the army, when they heard friendly
answers to their shouts, coming, through the darkness of the night, over the
waters of the river, assuring them that their faithful allies were still at
their posts, and that they themselves would soon be in safety.

Darius, though he was governed by no firm and steady principles of justice, was
still a man of many generous impulses. He was grateful for favors, though
somewhat capricious in his modes of requiting them. He declared to Histiaeus
that he felt under infinite obligations to him for his persevering fidelity, and
that, as soon as the army should have safely arrived in Asia, he would confer
upon him such rewards as would evince the reality of his gratitude. On his
return from Scythia, Darius brought back the whole of his army over the Danube,
thus abandoning entirely the country of the Scythians; but he did not transport
the whole body across the Bosporus. He left a considerable detachment of troops,
under the command of one of his generals, named Megabyzus, in Thrace, on the
European side, ordering Megabyzus to establish himself there, and to reduce all
the countries in that neighborhood to his sway. Darius then proceeded to Sardis,
which was the most powerful and wealthy of his capitals in that quarter of the
world. At Sardis, he was, as it were, at home again, and he accordingly took an
early opportunity to send for Histiaeus, as well as some others who had rendered
him special services in his late campaign, in order that he might agree with
them in respect to their reward. He asked Histiaeus what favor he wished to
receive.

Histiaeus replied that he was satisfied, on the whole, with the position which
he already enjoyed, which was that of king or governor of Miletus, an Ionian
city, south of Sardis, and on the shores of the AEgean Sea.[I] He should be
pleased, however, he said, if the king would assign him a certain small
territory in Thrace, or, rather, on the borders between Thrace and Macedonia,
near the mouth of the River Strymon. He wished to build a city there. The king
immediately granted this request, which was obviously very moderate and
reasonable. He did not, perhaps, consider that this territory, being in Thrace,
or in its immediate vicinity, came within the jurisdiction of Megabyzus, whom he
had left in command there, and that the grant might lead to some conflict
between the two generals. There was special danger of jealousy and disagreement
between them, for Megabyzus was a Persian, and Histiaeus was a Greek.

[Footnote I: For these places, see the map at the commencement of the next
chapter.]

Histiaeus organized a colony, and, leaving a temporary and provisional
government at Miletus, he proceeded along the shores of the AEgean Sea to the
spot assigned him, and began to build his city. As the locality was beyond the
Thracian frontier, and at a considerable distance from the head-quarters of
Megabyzus, it is very probable that the operations of Histiaeus would not have
attracted the Persian general’s attention for a considerable time, had it not
been for a very extraordinary and peculiar train of circumstances, which led him
to discover them. The circumstances were these:

There was a nation or tribe called the Paeonians, who inhabited the valley of
the Strymon, which river came down from the interior of the country, and fell
into the sea near the place where Histiaeus was building his city. Among the
Paeonian chieftains there were two who wished to obtain the government of the
country, but they were not quite strong enough to effect their object. In order
to weaken the force which was opposed to them, they conceived the base design of
betraying their tribe to Darius, and inducing him to make them captives. If
their plan should succeed, a considerable portion of the population would be
taken away, and they could easily, they supposed, obtain ascendency over the
rest. In order to call the attention of Darius to the subject, and induce him to
act as they desired, they resorted to the following stratagem. Their object
seems to have been to lead Darius to undertake a campaign against their
countrymen, by showing him what excellent and valuable slaves they would make.

These two chieftains were brothers, and they had a very beautiful sister; her
form was graceful and elegant, and her countenance lovely. They brought this
sister with them to Sardis when Darius was there. They dressed and decorated her
in a very careful manner, but yet in a style appropriate to the condition of a
servant; and then, one day, when the king was sitting in some public place in
the city, as was customary with Oriental sovereigns, they sent her to pass along
the street before him, equipped in such a manner as to show that she was engaged
in servile occupations. She had a jar, such as was then used for carrying water,
poised upon her head, and she was leading a horse by means of a bridle hung over
her arm. Her hands, being thus not required either for the horse or for the
vessel, were employed in spinning, as she walked along, by means of a distaff
and spindle. The attention of Darius was strongly attracted to the spectacle.
The beauty of the maiden, the novelty and strangeness of her costume, the
multiplicity of her avocations, and the ease and grace with which she performed
them, all conspired to awaken the monarch’s curiosity. He directed one of his
attendants to follow her and see where she should go. The attendant did so. The
girl went to the river. She watered her horse, filled her jar and placed it on
her head, and then, hanging the bridle on her arm again, she returned through
the same streets, and passed the king’s palace as before, spinning as she walked
along. The interest and curiosity of the king was excited more than ever by the
reappearance of the girl and by the report of his messenger. He directed that
she should be stopped and brought into his presence. She came; and her brothers,
who had been watching the whole scene from a convenient spot near at hand,
joined her and came too. The king asked them who they were. They replied that
they were Paeonians. He wished to know where they lived. |On the banks of the
River Strymon,| they replied, |near the confines of Thrace.| He next asked
whether all the women of their country were accustomed to labor, and were as
ingenious, and dexterous, and beautiful as their sister. The brothers replied
that they were.

Darius immediately determined to make the whole people slaves. He accordingly
dispatched a courier with the orders. The courier crossed the Hellespont, and
proceeded to the encampment of Megabyzus in Thrace. He delivered his dispatches
to the Persian general, commanding him to proceed immediately to Paeonia, and
there to take the whole community prisoners, and bring them to Darius in Sardis.
Megabyzus, until this time, had known nothing of the people whom he was thus
commanded to seize. He, however, found some Thracian guides who undertook to
conduct him to their territory; and then, taking with him a sufficient force, he
set out on the expedition. The Paeonians heard of his approach. Some prepared to
defend themselves; others fled to the mountains. The fugitives escaped, but
those who attempted to resist were taken. Megabyzus collected the unfortunate
captives, together with their wives and children, and brought them down to the
coast to embark them for Sardis. In doing this, he had occasion to pass by the
spot where Histiaeus was building his city, and it was then, for the first time,
that Megabyzus became acquainted with the plan. Histiaeus was building a wall to
defend his little territory on the side of the land. Ships and galleys were
going and coming on the side of the sea. Every thing indicated that the work was
rapidly and prosperously advancing.

Megabyzus did not interfere with the work; but, as soon as he arrived at Sardis
with his captives, and had delivered them to the king, he introduced the subject
of Histiaeus’s city, and represented to Darius that it would be dangerous to the
Persian interests to allow such an enterprise to go on. |He will establish a
strong post there,| said Megabyzus, |by means of which he will exercise a great
ascendency over all the neighboring seas. The place is admirably situated for a
naval station, as the country in the vicinity abounds with all the materials for
building and equipping ships. There are also mines of silver in the mountains
near, from which he will obtain a great supply of treasure. By these means he
will become so strong in a short period of time, that, after you have returned
to Asia, he will revolt from your authority, carrying with him, perhaps, in his
rebellion, all the Greeks of Asia Minor.| The king said that he was sorry that
he had made the grant, and that he would revoke it without delay.

Megabyzus recommended that the king should not do this in an open or violent
manner, but that he should contrive some way to arrest the progress of the
undertaking without any appearance of suspicion or displeasure.

Darius accordingly sent for Histiaeus to come to him at Sardis, saying that
there was a service of great importance on which he wished to employ him.
Histiaeus, of course, obeyed such a summons with eager alacrity. When he
arrived, Darius expressed great pleasure at seeing him once more, and said that
he had constant need of his presence and his counsels. He valued, above all
price, the services of so faithful a friend, and so sagacious and trusty an
adviser. He was now, he said, going to Susa, and he wished Histiaeus to
accompany him as his privy counselor and confidential friend. It would be
necessary, Darius added, that he should give up his government of Miletus, and
also the city in Thrace which he had begun to build; but he should be exalted to
higher honors and dignities at Susa in their stead. He should have apartments in
the king’s palace, and live in great luxury and splendor.

Histiaeus was extremely disappointed and chagrined at this announcement. He was
obliged, however, to conceal his vexation and submit to his fate. In a few days
after this, he set out, with the rest of Darius’s court, for the Persian
capital, leaving a nephew, whose name was Aristagoras, as governor of Miletus in
his stead. Darius, on the other hand, committed the general charge of the whole
coast of Asia Minor to Artaphernes, one of his generals. Artaphernes was to make
Sardis his capital. He had not only the general command of all the provinces
extending along the shore, but also of all the ships, and galleys, and other
naval armaments which belonged to Darius on the neighboring seas. Aristagoras,
as governor of Miletus, was under his general jurisdiction. The two officers
were, moreover, excellent friends. Aristagoras was, of course, a Greek, and
Artaphernes a Persian.

Among the Greek islands situated in the AEgean Sea, one of the most wealthy,
important, and powerful at that time, was Naxos. It was situated in the southern
part of the sea, and about midway between the shores of Asia Minor and Greece.
It happened that, soon after Darius had returned from Asia Minor to Persia, a
civil war broke out in that island, in which the common people were on one side
and the nobles on the other. The nobles were overcome in the contest, and fled
from the island. A party of them landed at Miletus, and called upon Aristagoras
to aid them in regaining possession of the island.

Aristagoras replied that he would very gladly do it if he had the power, but
that the Persian forces on the whole coast, both naval and military, were under
the command of Artaphernes at Sardis. He said, however, that he was on very
friendly terms with Artaphernes, and that he would, if the Naxians desired it,
apply to him for his aid. The Naxians seemed very grateful for the interest
which Aristagoras took in their cause, and said that they would commit the whole
affair to his charge.

There was, however, much less occasion for gratitude than there seemed, for
Aristagoras was very far from being honest and sincere in his offers of aid. He
perceived, immediately on hearing the fugitives’ story, that a very favorable
opportunity was opening for him to add Naxos, and perhaps even the neighboring
islands, to his own government. It is always a favorable opportunity to
subjugate a people when their power of defense and of resistance is neutralized
by dissensions with one another. It is a device as old as the history of
mankind, and one resorted to now as often as ever, for ambitious neighbors to
interpose in behalf of the weaker party, in a civil war waged in a country which
they wish to make their own, and, beginning with a war against a part, to end by
subjugating the whole. This was Aristagoras’s plan. He proposed it to
Artaphernes, representing to him that a very favorable occasion had occurred for
bringing the Greek islands of the AEgean Sea under the Persian dominion. Naxos
once possessed, all the other islands around it would follow, he said, and a
hundred ships would make the conquest sure.

Artaphernes entered very readily and very warmly into the plan. He said that he
would furnish two hundred instead of one hundred galleys. He thought it was
necessary, however, first to consult Darius, since the affair was one of such
importance; and besides, it was not best to commence the undertaking until the
spring. He would immediately send a messenger to Darius to ascertain his
pleasure, and, in the mean time, as he did not doubt that Darius would fully
approve of the plan, he would have all necessary preparations made, so that
every thing should be in readiness as soon as the proper season for active
operations should arrive.

Artaphernes was right in anticipating his brother’s approval of the design. The
messenger returned from Susa with full authority from the king for the execution
of the project. The ships were built and equipped, and every thing was made
ready for the expedition. The intended destination of the armament was, however,
kept a profound secret, as the invaders wished to surprise the people of Naxos
when off their guard. Aristagoras was to accompany the expedition as its general
leader, while an officer named Megabates, appointed by Artaphernes for this
purpose, was to take command of the fleet as a sort of admiral. Thus there were
two commanders -- an arrangement which almost always, in such cases, leads to a
quarrel. It is a maxim in war that one bad general is better than two good ones.
The expedition sailed from Miletus; and, in order to prevent the people of Naxos
from being apprised of their danger, the report had been circulated that its
destination was to be the Hellespont. Accordingly, when the fleet sailed, it
turned its course to the northward, as if it were really going to the
Hellespont. The plan of the commander was to stop after proceeding a short
distance, and then to seize the first opportunity afforded by a wind from the
north to come down suddenly upon Naxos, before the population should have time
to prepare for defense. Accordingly, when they arrived opposite the island of
Chios, the whole fleet came to anchor near the land. The ships were all ordered
to be ready, at a moment’s warning, for setting sail; and, thus situated, the
commanders were waiting for the wind to change.

Megabates, in going his rounds among the fleet while things were in this
condition, found one vessel entirely abandoned. The captain and crew had all
left it, and had gone ashore. They were not aware, probably, how urgent was the
necessity that they should be every moment at their posts. The captain of this
galley was a native of a small town called Cnydus, and, as it happened, was a
particular friend of Aristagoras. His name was Syclax. Megabates, as the
commander of the fleet, was very much incensed at finding one of his subordinate
officers so derelict in duty. He sent his guards in pursuit of him; and when
Syclax was brought to his ship, Megabates ordered his head to be thrust out
through one of the small port-holes intended for the oars, in the side of the
ship, and then bound him in that position -- his head appearing thus to view, in
the sight of all the fleet, while his body remained within the vessel. |I am
going to keep him at his post,| said Megabates, |and in such a way that every
one can see that he is there.|

Aristagoras was much distressed at seeing his friend suffering so severe and
disgraceful a punishment. He went to Megabates and requested the release of the
prisoner, giving, at the same time, what he considered satisfactory reasons for
his having been absent from his vessel. Megabates, however, was not satisfied,
and refused to set Syclax at liberty. Aristagoras then told Megabates that he
mistook his position in supposing that he was master of the expedition, and
could tyrannize over the men in that manner, as he pleased. |I will have you
understand,| said he, |that I am the commander in this campaign, and that
Artaphernes, in making you the sailing-master of the fleet, had no intention
that you should set up your authority over mine.| So saying, he went away in a
rage, and released Syclax from his durance with his own hands.

It was now the turn of Megabates to be enraged. He determined to defeat the
expedition. He sent immediately a secret messenger to warn the Naxians of their
enemies’ approach. The Naxians immediately made effectual preparations to defend
themselves. The end of it was, that when the fleet arrived, the island was
prepared to receive it, and nothing could be done. Aristagoras continued the
siege four months; but inasmuch as, during all this time, Megabates did every
thing in his power to circumvent and thwart every plan that Aristagoras formed,
nothing was accomplished. Finally, the expedition was broken up, and Aristagoras
returned home, disappointed and chagrined, all his hopes blasted, and his own
private finances thrown into confusion by the great pecuniary losses which he
himself had sustained. He had contributed very largely, from his own private
funds, in fitting out the expedition, fully confident of success, and of ample
reimbursement for his expenses as the consequence of it.

He was angry with himself, and angry with Megabates, and angry with Artaphernes.
He presumed, too, that Megabates would denounce him to Artaphernes, and, through
him, to Darius, as the cause of the failure of the expedition. A sudden order
might come at any moment, directing that he should be beheaded. He began to
consider the expediency of revolting from the Persian power, and making common
cause with the Greeks against Darius. The danger of such a step was scarcely
less than that of remaining as he was. While he was pondering these momentous
questions in his mind, he was led suddenly to a decision by a very singular
circumstance, the proper explaining of which requires the story to return, for a
time, to Histiaeus at Susa.

Histiaeus was very ill at ease in the possession of his forced elevation and
grandeur at Susa. He enjoyed great distinction there, it is true, and a life of
ease and luxury, but he wished for independence and authority. He was,
accordingly, very desirous to get back to his former sphere of activity and
power in Asia Minor. After revolving in his mind the various plans which
occurred to him for accomplishing this purpose, he at last decided on inducing
Aristagoras to revolt in Ionia, and then attempting to persuade Darius to send
him on to quell the revolt. When once in Asia Minor, he would join the
rebellion, and bid Darius defiance. The first thing to be done was to contrive
some safe and secret way to communicate with Aristagoras. This he effected in
the following manner: There was a man in his court who was afflicted with some
malady of the eyes. Histiaeus told him that if he would put himself under his
charge he could effect a cure. It would be necessary, he said, that the man
should have his head shaved and scarified; that is, punctured with a sharp
instrument, previously dipped in some medicinal compound. Then, after some
further applications should have been made, it would be necessary for the
patient to go to Ionia, in Asia Minor, where there was a physician who would
complete the cure. The patient consented to this proposal. The head was shaved,
and Histiaeus, while pretending to scarify it, pricked into the skin -- as
sailors tattoo anchors on their arms -- by means of a needle and a species of
ink which had probably no great medicinal virtue, the words of a letter to
Aristagoras, in which he communicated to him fully, though very concisely, the
particulars of his plan. He urged Aristagoras to revolt, and promised that, if
he would do so, he would come on, himself, as soon as possible, and, under
pretense of marching to suppress the rebellion, he would really join and aid it.
As soon as he had finished pricking this treasonable communication into the
patient’s skin, he carefully enveloped the head in bandages, which, he said,
must on no account be disturbed. He kept the man shut up, besides, in the
palace, until the hair had grown, so as effectually to conceal the writing, and
then sent him to Ionia to have the cure perfected. On his arrival at Ionia he
was to find Aristagoras, who would do what further was necessary. Histiaeus
contrived, in the mean time, to send word to Aristagoras by another messenger,
that, as soon as such a patient should present himself, Aristagoras was to shave
his head. He did so, and the communication appeared. We must suppose that the
operations on the part of Aristagoras for the purpose of completing the cure
consisted, probably, in pricking in more ink, so as to confuse and obliterate
the writing.

Aristagoras was on the eve of throwing off the Persian authority when he
received this communication. It at once decided him to proceed. He organized his
forces and commenced his revolt. As soon as the news of this rebellion reached
Susa, Histiaeus feigned great indignation, and earnestly entreated Darius to
commission him to go and suppress it. He was confident, he said, that he could
do it in a very prompt and effectual manner. Darius was at first inclined to
suspect that Histiaeus was in some way or other implicated in the movement; but
these suspicions were removed by the protestations which Histiaeus made, and at
length he gave him leave to proceed to Miletus, commanding him, however, to
return to Susa again as soon as he should have suppressed the revolt. When
Histiaeus arrived in Ionia he joined Aristagoras, and the two generals, leaguing
with them various princes and states of Greece, organized a very extended and
dangerous rebellion, which it gave the troops of Darius infinite trouble to
subdue. We can not here give an account of the incidents and particulars of this
war. For a time the rebels prospered, and their cause seemed likely to succeed;
but at length the tide turned against them. Their towns were captured, their
ships were taken and destroyed, their armies cut to pieces. Histiaeus retreated
from place to place, a wretched fugitive, growing more and more distressed and
destitute every day. At length, as he was flying from a battle field, he
arrested the arm of a Persian, who was pursuing him with his weapon upraised, by
crying out that he was Histiaeus the Milesian. The Persian, hearing this, spared
his life, but took him prisoner, and delivered him to Artaphernes. Histiaeus
begged very earnestly that Artaphernes would send him to Darius alive, in hopes
that Darius would pardon him in consideration of his former services at the
bridge of the Danube. This was, however, exactly what Artaphernes wished to
prevent; so he crucified the wretched Histiaeus at Sardis, and then packed his
head in salt and sent it to Darius.

[Illustration: GRECIAN EMPIRE.]


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  CHAPTER 25: 2.11     CHAPTER 11. THE INVASION OF GREECE AND THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.
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CHAPTER XI. THE INVASION OF GREECE AND THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.

B.C.512-490

Great battles. -- Progress of the Persian empire. -- Condition of the Persian
empire. -- Plans of Darius. -- Persian power in Thrace. -- Attempted negotiation
with Macedon. -- The seven commissioners. -- Their rudeness at the feast. --
Stratagem of Amyntas’s son. -- The commissioners killed. -- Artifice of the
prince. -- Darius’s anger against the Athenians. -- Civil dissensions in Greece.
-- The tyrants. -- Periander. -- His message to a neighboring potentate. --
Periander’s intolerable tyranny. -- His wife Melissa. -- The ghost of Melissa.
-- A great sacrifice. -- The reason of Periander’s rudeness to the assembly of
females. -- Labda the cripple. -- Prediction in respect to her progeny. --
Conspiracy to destroy Labda’s child. -- Its failure. -- The child secreted. --
Fulfillment of the oracle. -- Hippias of Athens. -- His barbarous cruelty. --
Hippias among the Persians. -- Wars between the Grecian states. -- Quarrel
between Athens and AEgina. -- The two wooden statues. -- Incursion of the
AEginetans. -- They carry off the statues. -- Attempt to recover the statues. --
They fall upon their knees. -- The Athenian fugitive. -- He is murdered by the
women. -- The Persian army. -- Its commander, Datis. -- Sailing of the fleet. --
Various conquests. -- Landing of the Persians. -- State of Athens. -- The Greek
army. -- Miltiades and his colleagues. -- Position of the armies. -- Miltiades’s
plan of attack. -- Onset of the Greeks. -- Rout of the Persians. -- Results of
the battle. -- Numbers slain. -- The field of Marathon. -- The mound. -- Song of
the Greek. In the history of a great military conqueror, there seems to be often
some one great battle which in importance and renown eclipses all the rest. In
the case of Hannibal it was the battle of Cannae, in that of Alexander the
battle of Arbela. Caesar’s great conflict was at Pharsalia, Napoleon’s at
Waterloo. Marathon was, in some respects, Darius’s Waterloo. The place is a
beautiful plain, about twelve miles north of the great city of Athens. The
battle was the great final contest between Darius and the Greeks, which, both on
account of the awful magnitude of the conflict, and the very extraordinary
circumstances which attended it, has always been greatly celebrated among
mankind. The whole progress of the Persian empire, from the time of the first
accession of Cyrus to the throne, was toward the westward, till it reached the
confines of Asia on the shores of the AEgean Sea. All the shores and islands of
this sea were occupied by the states and the cities of Greece. The population of
the whole region, both on the European and Asiatic shores, spoke the same
language, and possessed the same vigorous, intellectual, and elevated character.
Those on the Asiatic side had been conquered by Cyrus, and their countries had
been annexed to the Persian empire. Darius had wished very strongly, at the
commencement of his reign, to go on in this work of annexation, and had sent his
party of commissioners to explore the ground, as is related in a preceding
chapter. He had, however, postponed the execution of his plans, in order first
to conquer the Scythian countries north of Greece, thinking, probably, that this
would make the subsequent conquest of Greece itself more easy. By getting a firm
foothold in Scythia, he would, as it were, turn the flank of the Grecian
territories, which would tend to make his final descent upon them more effectual
and sure. This plan, however, failed; and yet, on his retreat from Scythia,
Darius did not withdraw his armies wholly from the European side of the water.
He kept a large force in Thrace, and his generals there were gradually extending
and strengthening their power, and preparing for still greater conquests. They
attempted to extend their dominion, sometimes by negotiations, and sometimes by
force, and they were successful and unsuccessful by turns, whichever mode they
employed.

One very extraordinary story is told of an attempted negotiation with Macedon,
made with a view of bringing that kingdom, if possible, under the Persian
dominion, without the necessity of a resort to force. The commanding general of
Darius’s armies in Thrace, whose name, as was stated in the last chapter, was
Megabyzus, sent seven Persian officers into Macedon, not exactly to summon the
Macedonians, in a peremptory manner, to surrender to the Persians, nor, on the
other hand, to propose a voluntary alliance, but for something between the two.
The communication was to be in the form of a proposal, and yet it was to be made
in the domineering and overbearing manner with which the tyrannical and the
strong often make proposals to the weak and defenseless. The seven Persians went
to Macedon, which, as will be seen from the map, was west of Thrace, and to the
northward of the other Grecian countries. Amyntas, the king of Macedon, gave
them a very honorable reception. At length, one day, at a feast to which they
were invited in the palace of Amyntas, they became somewhat excited with wine,
and asked to have the ladies of the court brought into the apartment. They
wished |to see them,| they said. Amyntas replied that such a procedure was
entirely contrary to the usages and customs of their court; but still, as he
stood somewhat in awe of his visitors, or, rather, of the terrible power which
the delegation represented, and wished by every possible means to avoid
provoking a quarrel with them, he consented to comply with their request. The
ladies were sent for. They came in, reluctant and blushing, their minds excited
by mingled feelings of indignation and shame. The Persians, becoming more and
more excited and imperious under the increasing influence of the wine, soon
began to praise the beauty of these new guests in a coarse and free manner,
which overwhelmed the ladies with confusion, and then to accost them familiarly
and rudely, and to behave toward them, in other respects, with so much
impropriety as to produce great alarm and indignation among all the king’s
household. The king himself was much distressed, but he was afraid to act
decidedly. His son, a young man of great energy and spirit, approached his
father with a countenance and manner expressive of high excitement, and begged
him to retire from the feast, and leave him, the son, to manage the affair.
Amyntas reluctantly allowed himself to be persuaded to go, giving his son many
charges, as he went away, to do nothing rashly or violently. As soon as the king
was gone, the prince made an excuse for having the ladies retire for a short
time, saying that they should soon return. The prince conducted them to their
apartment, and then selecting an equal number of tall and smooth-faced boys, he
disguised them to represent the ladies, and gave each one a dagger, directing
him to conceal it beneath his robe. These counterfeit females were then
introduced to the assembly in the place of those who had retired. The Persians
did not detect the deception. It was evening, and, besides, their faculties were
confused with the effects of the wine. They approached the supposed ladies as
they had done before, with rude familiarity; and the boys, at a signal made by
the prince when the Persians were wholly off their guard, stabbed and killed
every one of them on the spot.

Megabyzus sent an embassador to inquire what became of his seven messengers; but
the Macedonian prince contrived to buy this messenger off by large rewards, and
to induce him to send back some false but plausible story to satisfy Megabyzus.
Perhaps Megabyzus would not have been so easily satisfied had it not been that
the great Ionian rebellion, under Aristagoras and Histiaeus, as described in the
last chapter, broke out soon after, and demanded his attention in another
quarter of the realm. The Ionian rebellion postponed, for a time, Darius’s
designs on Greece, but the effect of it was to make the invasion more certain
and more terrible in the end; for Athens, which was at that time one of the most
important and powerful of the Grecian cities, took a part in that rebellion
against the Persians. The Athenians sent forces to aid those of Aristagoras and
Histiaeus, and, in the course of the war, the combined army took and burned the
city of Sardis. When this news reached Darius, he was excited to a perfect
phrensy of resentment and indignation against the Athenians for coming thus into
his own dominions to assist rebels, and there destroying one of his most
important capitals. He uttered the most violent and terrible threats against
them, and, to prevent his anger from getting cool before the preparations should
be completed for vindicating it, he made an arrangement, it was said, for having
a slave call out to him every day at table, |Remember the Athenians!|

It was a circumstance favorable to Darius’s designs against the states of Greece
that they were not united among themselves. There was no general government
under which the whole naval and military force of that country could be
efficiently combined, so as to be directed, in a concentrated and energetic
form, against a common enemy. On the other hand, the several cities formed, with
the territories adjoining them, so many separate states, more or less connected,
it is true, by confederations and alliances, but still virtually independent,
and often hostile to each other. Then, besides these external and international
quarrels, there was a great deal of internal dissension. The monarchical and the
democratic principle were all the time struggling for the mastery. Military
despots were continually rising to power in the various cities, and after they
had ruled, for a time, over their subjects with a rod of iron, the people would
rise in rebellion and expel them from their thrones. These revolutions were
continually taking place, attended, often, by the strangest and most romantic
incidents, which evinced, on the part of the actors in them, that extraordinary
combination of mental sagacity and acumen with childish and senseless
superstition so characteristic of the times.

It is not surprising that the populace often rebelled against the power of these
royal despots, for they seem to have exercised their power, when their interests
or their passions excited them to do it, in the most tyrannical and cruel
manner. One of them, it was said, a king of Corinth, whose name was Periander,
sent a messenger, on one occasion, to a neighboring potentate -- with whom he
had gradually come to entertain very friendly relations -- to inquire by what
means he could most certainly and permanently secure the continuance of his
power. The king thus applied to gave no direct reply, but took the messenger out
into his garden, talking with him by the way about the incidents of his journey,
and other indifferent topics. He came, at length, to a field where grain was
growing, and as he walked along, he occupied himself in cutting off, with his
sword, every head of the grain which raised itself above the level of the rest.
After a short time he returned to the house, and finally dismissed the messenger
without giving him any answer whatever to the application that he had made. The
messenger returned to Periander, and related what had occurred. |I understand
his meaning,| said Periander. |I must contrive some way to remove all those who,
by their talents, their influence, or their power, rise above the general level
of the citizens.| Periander began immediately to act on this recommendation.
Whoever, among the people of Corinth, distinguished himself above the rest, was
marked for destruction. Some were banished, some were slain, and some were
deprived of their influence, and so reduced to the ordinary level, by the
confiscation of their property, the lives and fortunes of all the citizens of
the state being wholly in the despot’s hands. This same Periander had a wife
whose name was Melissa. A very extraordinary tale is related respecting her,
which, though mainly fictitious, had a foundation, doubtless, in fact, and
illustrates very remarkably the despotic tyranny and the dark superstition of
the times. Melissa died and was buried; but her garments, for some reason or
other, were not burned, as was usual in such cases. Now, among the other oracles
of Greece, there was one where departed spirits could be consulted. It was
called the oracle of the dead. Periander, having occasion to consult an oracle
in order to find the means of recovering a certain article of value which was
lost, sent to this place to call up and consult the ghost of Melissa. The ghost
appeared, but refused to answer the question put to her, saying, with frightful
solemnity, |I am cold; I am cold; I am naked and cold. My clothes were not
burned; I am naked and cold.| When this answer was reported to Periander, he
determined to make a great sacrifice and offering, such as should at once
appease the restless spirit. He invited, therefore, a general assembly of the
women of Corinth to witness some spectacle in a temple, and when they were
convened, he surrounded them with his guards, seized them, stripped them of most
of their clothing, and then let them go free. The clothes thus taken were then
all solemnly burned, as an expiatory offering, with invocations to the shade of
Melissa. The account adds, that when this was done, a second messenger was
dispatched to the oracle of the dead, and the spirit, now clothed and
comfortable in its grave, answered the inquiry, informing Periander where the
lost article might be found. The rude violence which Periander resorted to in
this case seems not to have been dictated by any particular desire to insult or
injure the women of Corinth, but was resorted to simply as the easiest and most
convenient way of obtaining what he needed. He wanted a supply of valuable and
costly female apparel, and the readiest mode of obtaining it was to bring
together an assembly of females dressed for a public occasion, and then disrobe
them. The case only shows to what an extreme and absolute supremacy the lofty
and domineering spirit of ancient despotism attained.

It ought, however, to be related, in justice to these abominable tyrants, that
they often evinced feelings of commiseration and kindness; sometimes, in fact,
in very singular ways. There was, for example, in one of the cities, a certain
family that had obtained the ascendency over the rest of the people, and had
held it for some time as an established aristocracy, taking care to preserve
their rank and power from generation to generation, by intermarrying only with
one another. At length, in one branch of the family, there grew up a young girl
named Labda, who had been a cripple from her birth, and, on account of her
deformity, none of the nobles would marry her. A man of obscure birth, however,
one of the common people, at length took her for his wife. His name was Eetion.
One day, Eetion went to Delphi to consult an oracle, and as he was entering the
temple, the Pythian[J] called out to him, saying that a stone should proceed
from Labda which should overwhelm tyrants and usurpers, and free the state. The
nobles, when they heard of this, understood the prediction to mean that the
destruction of their power was, in some way or other, to be effected by means of
Labda’s child, and they determined to prevent the fulfillment of the prophecy by
destroying the babe itself so soon as it should be born.

[Footnote J: For a full account of these oracles, see the history of Cyrus the
Great.]

They accordingly appointed ten of their number to go to the place where Eetion
lived and kill the child. The method which they were to adopt was this: They
were to ask to see the infant on their arrival at the house, and then it was
agreed that whichever of the ten it was to whom the babe was handed, he should
dash it down upon the stone floor with all his force, by which means it would,
as they supposed, certainly be killed. This plan being arranged, the men went to
the house, inquired, with hypocritical civility, after the health of the mother,
and desired to see the child. It was accordingly brought to them. The mother put
it into the hands of one of the conspirators, and the babe looked up into his
face and smiled. This mute expression of defenseless and confiding innocence
touched the murderer’s heart. He could not be such a monster as to dash such an
image of trusting and happy helplessness upon the stones. He looked upon the
child, and then gave it into the hands of the one next to him, and he gave it to
the next, and thus it passed through the hands of all the ten. No one was found
stern and determined enough to murder it, and at last they gave the babe back to
its mother and went away. The sequel of this story was, that the conspirators,
when they reached the gate, stopped to consult together, and after many mutual
criminations and recriminations, each impugning the courage and resolution of
the rest, and all joining in special condemnation of the man to whom the child
had at first been given, they went back again, determined, in some way or other,
to accomplish their purpose. But Labda had, in the mean time, been alarmed at
their extraordinary behavior, and had listened, when they stopped at the gate,
to hear their conversation. She hastily hid the babe in a corn measure; and the
conspirators, after looking in every part of the house in vain, gave up the
search, supposing that their intended victim had been hastily sent away. They
went home, and not being willing to acknowledge that their resolution had failed
at the time of trial, they agreed to say that their undertaking had succeeded,
and that the child had been destroyed. The babe lived, however, and grew up to
manhood, and then, in fulfillment of the prediction announced by the oracle, he
headed a rebellion against the nobles, deposed them from their power, and
reigned in their stead.

One of the worst and most reckless of the Greek tyrants of whom we have been
speaking was Hippias of Athens. His father, Pisistratus, had been hated all his
life for his cruelties and his crimes; and when he died, leaving two sons,
Hippias and Hipparchus, a conspiracy was formed to kill the sons, and thus put
an end to the dynasty. Hipparchus was killed, but Hippias escaped the danger,
and seized the government himself alone. He began to exercise his power in the
most cruel and wanton manner, partly under the influence of resentment and
passion, and partly because he thought his proper policy was to strike terror
into the hearts of the people as a means of retaining his dominion. One of the
conspirators by whom his brother had been slain, accused Hippias’s warmest and
best friends as his accomplices in that deed, in order to revenge himself on
Hippias by inducing him to destroy his own adherents and supporters. Hippias
fell into the snare; he condemned to death all whom the conspirator accused, and
his reckless soldiers executed his friends and foes together. When any protested
their innocence, he put them to the torture to make them confess their guilt.
Such indiscriminate cruelty only had the effect to league the whole population
of Athens against the perpetrator of it. There was at length a general
insurrection against him, and he was dethroned. He made his escape to Sardis,
and there tendered his services to Artaphernes, offering to conduct the Persian
armies to Greece, and aid them in getting possession of the country, on
condition that, if they succeeded, the Persians would make him the governor of
Athens. Artaphernes made known these offers to Darius, and they were eagerly
accepted. It was, however, very impolitic to accept them. The aid which the
invaders could derive from the services of such a guide, were far more than
counterbalanced by the influence which his defection and the espousal of his
cause by the Persians would produce in Greece. It banded the Athenians and their
allies together in the most enthusiastic and determined spirit of resistance,
against a man who had now added the baseness of treason to the wanton wickedness
of tyranny.

Besides these internal dissensions between the people of the several Grecian
states and their kings, there were contests between one state and another, which
Darius proposed to take advantage of in his attempts to conquer the country.
There was one such war in particular, between Athens and the island of AEgina,
on the effects of which, in aiding him in his operations against the Athenians,
Darius placed great reliance. AEgina was a large and populous island not far
from Athens. In accounting for the origin of the quarrel between the two states,
the Greek historians relate the following marvelous story:

AEgina, as will be seen from the map, was situated in the middle of a bay,
southwest from Athens. On the other side of the bay, opposite from Athens, there
was a city, near the shore, called Epidaurus. It happened that the people of
Epidaurus were at one time suffering from famine, and they sent a messenger to
the oracle at Delphi to inquire what they should do to obtain relief. The
Pythian answered that they must erect two statues to certain goddesses, named
Damia and Auxesia, and that then the famine would abate. They asked whether they
were to make the statues of brass or of marble. The priestess replied, |Of
neither, but of wood.| They were, she said, to use for the purpose the wood of
the garden olive. This species of olive was a sacred tree, and it happened that,
at this time, there were no trees of the kind that were of sufficient size for
the purpose intended except at Athens; and the Epidaurians, accordingly, sent to
Athens to obtain leave to supply themselves with wood for the sculptor by
cutting down one of the trees from the sacred grove. The Athenians consented to
this, on condition that the Epidaurians would offer a certain yearly sacrifice
at two temples in Athens, which they named. This sacrifice, they seemed to
imagine, would make good to the city whatever of injury their religious
interests might suffer from the loss of the sacred tree. The Epidaurians agreed
to the condition; the tree was felled; blocks from it, of proper size, were
taken to Epidaurus, and the statues were carved. They were set up in the city
with the usual solemnities, and the famine soon after disappeared. Not many
years after this, a war, for some cause or other, broke out between Epidaurus
and AEgina. The people of AEgina crossed the water in a fleet of galleys, landed
at Epidaurus, and, after committing various ravages, they seized these images,
and bore them away in triumph as trophies of their victory. They set them up in
a public place in the middle of their own island, and instituted games and
spectacles around them, which they celebrated with great festivity and parade.
The Epidaurians, having thus lost their statues, ceased to make the annual
offering at Athens which they had stipulated for, in return for receiving the
wood from which the statues were carved. The Athenians complained. The
Epidaurians replied that they had continued to make the offering as long as they
had kept the statues; but that now, the statues being in other hands, they were
absolved from the obligation. The Athenians next demanded the statues themselves
of the people of AEgina. They refused to surrender them. The Athenians then
invaded the island, and proceeded to the spot where the statues had been
erected. They had been set up on massive and heavy pedestals. The Athenians
attempted to get them down, but could not separate them from their fastenings.
They then changed their plan, and undertook to move the pedestals too, by
dragging them with ropes. They were arrested in this undertaking by an
earthquake, accompanied by a solemn and terrible sound of thunder, which warned
them that they were provoking the anger of Heaven. The statues, too,
miraculously fell on their knees, and remained fixed in that posture! The
Athenians, terrified at these portentous signs, abandoned their undertaking and
fled toward the shore. They were, however, intercepted by the people of AEgina,
and some allies whom they had hastily summoned to their aid, and the whole party
was destroyed except one single man. He escaped. This single fugitive, however,
met with a worse fate than that of his comrades. He went to Athens, and there
the wives and sisters of the men who had been killed thronged around him to hear
his story. They were incensed that he alone had escaped, as if his flight had
been a sort of betrayal and desertion of his companions. They fell upon him,
therefore, with one accord, and pierced and wounded him on all sides with a sort
of pin, or clasp, which they used as a fastening for their dress. They finally
killed him. The Athenian magistrates were unable to bring any of the
perpetrators of this crime to conviction and punishment; but a law was made, in
consequence of the occurrence, forbidding the use of that sort of fastening for
the dress to all the Athenian women forever after. The people of AEgina, on the
other hand, rejoiced and gloried in the deed of the Athenian women, and they
made the clasps which were worn upon their island of double size, in honor of
it. The war, thus commenced between Athens and AEgina, went on for a long time,
increasing in bitterness and cruelty as the injuries increased in number and
magnitude which the belligerent parties inflicted on each other.

Such was the state of things in Greece when Darius organized his great
expedition for the invasion of the country. He assembled an immense armament,
though he did not go forth himself to command it. He placed the whole force
under the charge of a Persian general named Datis. A considerable part of the
army which Datis was to command was raised in Persia; but orders had been sent
on that large accessions to the army, consisting of cavalry, foot soldiers,
ships, and seamen, and every other species of military force, should be raised
in all the provinces of Asia Minor, and be ready to join it at various places of
rendezvous.

Darius commenced his march at Susa with the troops which had been collected
there, and proceeded westward till he reached the Mediterranean at Cilicia,
which is at the northeast corner of that sea. Here large re-enforcements joined
him; and there was also assembled at this point an immense fleet of galleys,
which had been provided to convey the troops to the Grecian seas. The troops
embarked, and the fleet advanced along the southern shores of Asia Minor to the
AEgean Sea, where they turned to the northward toward the island of Samos, which
had been appointed as a rendezvous. At Samos they were joined by still greater
numbers coming from Ionia, and the various provinces and islands on that coast
that were already under the Persian dominion. When they were ready for their
final departure, the immense fleet, probably one of the greatest and most
powerful which had then ever been assembled, set sail, and steered their course
to the northwest, among the islands of the AEgean Sea. As they moved slowly on,
they stopped to take possession of such islands as came in their way. The
islanders, in some cases, submitted to them without a struggle. In others, they
made vigorous but perfectly futile attempts to resist. In others still, the
terrified inhabitants abandoned their homes, and fled in dismay to the
fastnesses of the mountains. The Persians destroyed the cities and towns whose
inhabitants they could not conquer, and took the children from the most
influential families of the islands which they did subdue, as hostages to hold
their parents to their promises when their conquerors should have gone.

[Illustration: THE INVASION OF GREECE.] The mighty fleet advanced thus, by slow
degrees, from conquest to conquest, toward the Athenian shores. The vast
multitude of galleys covered the whole surface of the water, and as they
advanced, propelled each by a triple row of oars, they exhibited to the
fugitives who had gained the summits of the mountains the appearance of an
immense swarm of insects, creeping, by an almost imperceptible advance, over the
smooth expanse of the sea. The fleet, guided all the time by Hippias, passed on,
and finally entered the strait between the island of Euboea and the main land to
the northward of Athens. Here, after some operations on the island, the Persians
finally brought their ships into a port on the Athenian side, and landed.
Hippias made all the arrangements, and superintended the disembarkation. In the
mean time, all was confusion and dismay in the city of Athens. The government,
as soon as they heard of the approach of this terrible danger, had sent an
express to the city of Sparta, asking for aid. The aid had been promised, but it
had not yet arrived. The Athenians gathered together all the forces at their
command on the northern side of the city, and were debating the question, with
great anxiety and earnestness, whether they should shut themselves up within the
walls, and await the onset of their enemies there, or go forth to meet them on
the way. The whole force which the Greeks could muster consisted of but about
ten thousand men, while the Persian host contained over a hundred thousand. It
seemed madness to engage in a contest on an open field against such an
overwhelming disparity of numbers. A majority of voices were, accordingly, in
favor of remaining within the fortifications of the city, and awaiting an
attack. The command of the army had been intrusted, not to one man, but to a
commission of three generals, a sort of triumvirate, on whose joint action the
decision of such a question devolved. Two of the three were in favor of taking a
defensive position; but the third, the celebrated Miltiades, was so earnest and
so decided in favor of attacking the enemy themselves, instead of waiting to be
attacked, that his opinion finally carried the day, and the other generals
resigned their portion of authority into his hands, consenting that he should
lead the Greek army into battle, if he dared to take the responsibility of doing
so. The two armies were at this time encamped in sight of each other on the
plain of Marathon, between the mountain and the sea. They were nearly a mile
apart. The countless multitude of the Persians extended as far as the eye could
reach, with long lines of tents in the distance, and thousands of horsemen on
the plain, all ready for the charge. The Greeks, on the other hand, occupied a
small and isolated spot, in a compact form, without cavalry, without archers,
without, in fact, any weapons suitable either for attack or defense, except in a
close encounter hand to hand. Their only hope of success depended on the
desperate violence of the onset they were to make upon the vast masses of men
spread out before them. On the one side were immense numbers, whose force, vast
as it was, must necessarily be more or less impeded in its operations, and slow.
It was to be overpowered, therefore, if overpowered at all, by the utmost
fierceness and rapidity of action -- by sudden onsets, unexpected and furious
assaults, and heavy, vigorous, and rapid blows. Miltiades, therefore, made all
his arrangements with reference to that mode of warfare. Such soldiers as the
Greeks, too, were admirably adapted to execute such designs, and the immense and
heterogeneous mass of Asiatic nations which covered the plain before them was
exactly the body for such an experiment to be made upon. Glorying in their
numbers and confident of victory, they were slowly advancing, without the least
idea that the little band before them could possibly do them any serious harm.
They had actually brought with them, in the train of the army, some blocks of
marble, with which they were going to erect a monument of their victory, on the
field of battle, as soon as the conflict was over! At length the Greeks began to
put themselves in motion. As they advanced, they accelerated their march more
and more, until just before reaching the Persian lines, when they began to run.
The astonishment of the Persians at this unexpected and daring onset soon gave
place, first to the excitement of personal conflict, and then to universal
terror and dismay; for the headlong impetuosity of the Greeks bore down all
opposition, and the desperate swordsmen cut their way through the vast masses of
the enemy with a fierce and desperate fury that nothing could withstand.
Something like a contest continued for some hours; but, at the end of that time,
the Persians were flying in all directions, every one endeavoring, by the track
which he found most practicable for himself, to make his way to the ships on the
shore. Vast multitudes were killed in this headlong flight; others became
entangled in the morasses and fens, and others still strayed away, and sought,
in their terror, a hopeless refuge in the defiles of the mountains. Those who
escaped crowded in confusion on board their ships, and pushed off from the
shore, leaving the whole plain covered with their dead and dying companions. The
Greeks captured an immense amount of stores and baggage, which were of great
cost and value. They took possession, too, of the marble blocks which the
Persians had brought to immortalize their victory, and built with them a
monument, instead, to commemorate their defeat. They counted the dead. Six
thousand Persians, and only two hundred Greeks, were found. The bodies of the
Greeks were collected together, and buried on the field, and an immense mound
was raised over the grave. This mound has continued to stand at Marathon to the
present day. The battle of Marathon was one of those great events in the history
of the human race which continue to attract, from age to age, the admiration of
mankind. They who look upon war, in all its forms, as only the perpetration of
an unnatural and atrocious crime, which rises to dignity and grandeur only by
the very enormity of its guilt, can not but respect the courage, the energy, and
the cool and determined resolution with which the little band of Greeks went
forth to stop the torrent of foes which all the nations of a whole continent had
combined to pour upon them. The field has been visited in every age by thousands
of travelers, who have upon the spot offered their tribute of admiration to the
ancient heroes that triumphed there. The plain is found now, as of old,
overlooking the sea, and the mountains inland, towering above the plain. The
mound, too, still remains, which was reared to consecrate the memory of the
Greeks who fell. They who visit it stand and survey the now silent and solitary
scene, and derive from the influence and spirit of the spot new strength and
energy to meet the great difficulties and dangers of life which they themselves
have to encounter. The Greeks themselves, of the present day, notwithstanding
the many sources of discouragement and depression with which they have to
contend, must feel at Marathon some rising spirit of emulation in contemplating
the lofty mental powers and the undaunted spirit of their sires. Byron makes one
of them sing, |The mountains look on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone, I dreamed that Greece might still be free;

For, standing on the Persians’ grave, I could not deem myself a slave.|


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  CHAPTER 26: 2.12     CHAPTER 12. THE DEATH OF DARIUS.
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CHAPTER XII. THE DEATH OF DARIUS.

B.C.490-485 The Persian fleet sails southward. -- Fate of Hippias. -- Omens. --
The dream and the sneeze. -- Hippias falls in battle. -- Movements of the
Persian fleet. -- The Persian fleet returns to Asia. -- Anxiety of Datis. --
Datis finds a stolen statue. -- Island of Delos. -- Account of the sacred
island. -- Its present condition. -- Disposition of the army. -- Darius’s
reception of Datis. -- Subsequent history of Miltiades. -- His great popularity.
-- Miltiades’s influence at Athens. -- His ambitious designs. -- Island and city
of Paros. -- Appearance of the modern town. -- Miltiades’s proposition to the
Athenians. -- They accept it. -- Miltiades marches against Paros. -- Its
resistance. -- Miltiades is discouraged. -- The captive priestess. --
Miltiades’s interview with the priestess. -- Her instructions. -- Miltiades
attempts to enter the temple of Ceres. -- He dislocates a limb. -- Miltiades
returns to Athens. -- He is impeached. -- Miltiades is condemned. -- He dies of
his wound. -- The fine paid. -- Proposed punishment of Timo. -- Timo saved by
the Delphic oracle. -- Another expedition against Greece. -- Preparations. --
Necessity for settling the succession. -- Darius’s two sons. -- Their claims to
the throne. -- Xerxes declared heir. -- Death of Darius. -- Character of Darius.
-- Ground of his renown. The city of Athens and the plain of Marathon are
situated upon a peninsula. The principal port by which the city was ordinarily
approached was on the southern shore of the peninsula, though the Persians had
landed on the northern side. Of course, in their retreat from the field of
battle, they fled to the north. When they were beyond the reach of their enemies
and fairly at sea, they were at first somewhat perplexed to determine what to
do. Datis was extremely unwilling to return to Darius with the news of such a
defeat. On the other hand, there seemed but little hope of any other result if
he were to attempt a second landing.

Hippias, their Greek guide, was killed in the battle. He expected to be killed,
for his mind, on the morning of the battle, was in a state of great despondency
and dejection. Until that time he had felt a strong and confident expectation of
success, but his feelings had then been very suddenly changed. His confidence
had arisen from the influence of a dream, his dejection from a cause more
frivolous still; so that he was equally irrational in his hope and in his
despair. The omen which seemed to him to portend success to the enterprise in
which he had undertaken to act as guide, was merely that he dreamed one night
that he saw, and spent some time in company with, his mother. In attempting to
interpret this dream in the morning, it seemed to him that Athens, his native
city, was represented by his mother, and that the vision denoted that he was
about to be restored to Athens again. He was extremely elated at this
supernatural confirmation of his hopes, and would have gone into the battle
certain of victory, had it not been that another circumstance occurred at the
time of the landing to blast his hopes. He had, himself, the general charge of
the disembarkation. He stationed the ships at their proper places near the
shore, and formed the men upon the beach as they landed. While he was thus
engaged, standing on the sand, he suddenly sneezed. He was an old man, and his
teeth -- those that remained -- were loose. One of them was thrown out in the
act of sneezing, and it fell into the sand. Hippias was alarmed at this
occurrence, considering it a bad omen. He looked a long time for the tooth in
vain, and then exclaimed that all was over. The joining of his tooth to his
mother earth was the event to which his dream referred, and there was now no
hope of any further fulfillment of it. He went on mechanically, after this, in
marshaling his men and preparing for battle, but his mind was oppressed with
gloomy forebodings. He acted, in consequence, feebly and with indecision; and
when the Greeks explored the field on the morning after the battle, his body was
found among the other mutilated and ghastly remains which covered the ground. As
the Persian fleet moved, therefore, along the coast of Attica, they had no
longer their former guide. They were still, however, very reluctant to leave the
country. They followed the shore of the peninsula until they came to the
promontory of Sunium, which forms the southeastern extremity of it. They doubled
this cape, and then followed the southern shore of the peninsula until they
arrived at the point opposite to Athens on that side. In the mean time, however,
the Spartan troops which had been sent for to aid the Athenians in the contest,
but which had not arrived in time to take part in the battle, reached the
ground; and the indications which the Persians observed, from the decks of their
galleys, that the country was thoroughly aroused, and was every where ready to
receive them, deterred them from making any further attempts to land. After
lingering, therefore, a short time near the shore, the fleet directed its course
again toward the coasts of Asia. The mind of Datis was necessarily very ill at
ease. He dreaded the wrath of Darius; for despots are very prone to consider
military failures as the worst of crimes. The expedition had not, however, been
entirely a failure. Datis had conquered many of the Greek islands, and he had
with him, on board his galleys, great numbers of prisoners, and a vast amount of
plunder which he had obtained from them. Still, the greatest and most important
of the objects which Darius had commissioned him to accomplish had been entirely
defeated, and he felt, accordingly, no little anxiety in respect to the
reception which he was to expect at Susa.

One night he had a dream which greatly disturbed him. He awoke in the morning
with an impression upon his mind, which he had derived from the dream, that some
temple had been robbed by his soldiers in the course of his expedition, and that
the sacrilegious booty which had been obtained was concealed somewhere in the
fleet. He immediately ordered a careful search to be instituted, in which every
ship was examined. At length they found, concealed in one of the galleys, a
golden statue of Apollo. Datis inquired what city it had been taken from. They
answered from Delium. Delium was on the coast of Attica, near the place where
the Persians had landed, at the time of their advance on Marathon. Datis could
not safely or conveniently go back there to restore it to its place. He
determined, therefore, to deposit it at Delos for safe keeping, until it could
be returned to its proper home.

Delos was a small but very celebrated island near the center of the AEgean Sea,
and but a short distance from the spot where the Persian fleet was lying when
Datis made this discovery. It was a sacred island, devoted to religious rites,
and all contention, and violence, and, so far as was possible, all suffering and
death, were excluded from it. The sick were removed from it; the dead were not
buried there; armed ships and armed men laid aside their hostility to each other
when they approached it. Belligerent fleets rode at anchor, side by side, in
peace, upon the smooth waters of its little port, and an enchanting picture of
peace, tranquillity, and happiness was seen upon its shores. A large natural
fountain, or spring, thirty feet in diameter, and inclosed partly by natural
rocks and partly by an artificial wall, issued from the ground in the center of
the island, and sent forth a beautiful and fertilizing rill into a rich and
happy valley, through which it meandered, deviously, for several miles, seeking
the sea. There was a large and populous city near the port, and the whole island
was adorned with temples, palaces, colonnades, and other splendid architectural
structures, which made it the admiration of all mankind. All this magnificence
and beauty have, however, long since passed away. The island is now silent,
deserted, and desolate, a dreary pasture, where cattle browse and feed, with
stupid indifference, among the ancient ruins. Nothing living remains of the
ancient scene of grandeur and beauty but the fountain. That still continues to
pour up its clear and pellucid waters with a ceaseless and eternal flow.

It was to this Delos that Datis determined to restore the golden statue. He took
it on board his own galley, and proceeded with it, himself, to the sacred
island. He deposited it in the great temple of Apollo, charging the priests to
convey it, as soon as a convenient opportunity should occur, to its proper
destination at Delium. The Persian fleet, after this business was disposed of,
set sail again, and pursued its course toward the coasts of Asia, where at
length the expedition landed in safety. The various divisions of the army were
then distributed in the different provinces where they respectively belonged,
and Datis commenced his march with the Persian portion of the troops, and with
his prisoners and plunder, for Susa, feeling, however, very uncertain how he
should be received on his arrival there. Despotic power is always capricious;
and the character of Darius, which seems to have been naturally generous and
kind, and was rendered cruel and tyrannical only through the influence of the
position in which he had been placed, was continually presenting the most
opposite and contradictory phases. The generous elements of it, fortunately for
Datis, seemed to be in the ascendency when the remnant of the Persian army
arrived at Susa. Darius received the returning general without anger, and even
treated the prisoners with humanity.

Before finally leaving the subject of this celebrated invasion, which was
brought to an end in so remarkable a manner by the great battle of Marathon, it
may be well to relate the extraordinary circumstances which attended the
subsequent history of Miltiades, the great commander in that battle on the Greek
side. Before the conflict, he seems to have had no official superiority over the
other generals, but, by the resolute decision with which he urged the plan of
giving the Persians battle, and the confidence and courage which he manifested
in expressing his readiness to take the responsibility of the measure, he placed
himself virtually at the head of the Greek command. The rest of the officers
acquiesced in his pre-eminence, and, waiving their claims to an equal share of
the authority, they allowed him to go forward and direct the operations of the
day. If the day had been lost, Miltiades, even though he had escaped death upon
the field, would have been totally and irretrievably ruined; but as it was won,
the result of the transaction was that he was raised to the highest pinnacle of
glory and renown. And yet in this, as in all similar cases, the question of
success or of failure depended upon causes wholly beyond the reach of human
foresight or control. The military commander who acts in such contingencies is
compelled to stake every thing dear to him on results which are often as purely
hazardous as the casting of a die. The influence of Miltiades in Athens after
the Persian troops were withdrawn was paramount and supreme. Finding himself in
possession of this ascendency, he began to form plans for other military
undertakings. It proved, in the end, that it would have been far better for him
to have been satisfied with the fame which he had already acquired.

Some of the islands in the AEgean Sea he considered as having taken part with
the Persians in the invasion, to such an extent, at least, as to furnish him
with a pretext for making war upon them. The one which he had specially in view,
in the first instance, was Paros. Paros is a large and important island situated
near the center of the southern portion of the AEgean Sea. It is of an oval
form, and is about twelve miles long. The surface of the land is beautifully
diversified and very picturesque, while, at the same time, the soil is very
fertile. In the days of Miltiades, it was very wealthy and populous, and there
was a large city, called also Paros, on the western coast of the island, near
the sea. There is a modern town built upon the site of the former city, which
presents a very extraordinary appearance, as the dwellings are formed, in a
great measure, of materials obtained from the ancient ruins. Marble columns,
sculptured capitals, and fragments of what were once magnificent entablatures,
have been used to construct plain walls, or laid in obscure and neglected
pavements -- all, however, still retaining, notwithstanding their present
degradation, unequivocal marks of the nobleness of their origin. The quarries
where the ancient Parian marble was obtained were situated on this island, not
very far from the town. They remain to the present day in the same state in
which the ancient workmen left them. In the time of Miltiades the island and the
city of Paros were both very wealthy and very powerful. Miltiades conceived the
design of making a descent upon the island, and levying an immense contribution
upon the people, in the form of a fine, for what he considered their treason in
taking part with the enemies of their countrymen. In order to prevent the people
of Paros from preparing for defense, Miltiades intended to keep the object of
his expedition secret for a time. He therefore simply proposed to the Athenians
that they should equip a fleet and put it under his command. He had an
enterprise in view, he said, the nature of which he could not particularly
explain, but he was very confident of its success, and, if successful, he should
return, in a short time, laden with spoils which would enrich the city, and
amply reimburse the people for the expenses they would have incurred. The force
which he asked for was a fleet of seventy vessels. So great was the popularity
and influence which Miltiades had acquired by his victory at Marathon, that this
somewhat extraordinary proposition was readily complied with. The fleet was
equipped, and crews were provided, and the whole armament was placed under
Miltiades’s command. The men themselves who were embarked on board of the
galleys did not know whither they were going. Miltiades promised them victory
and an abundance of gold as their reward; for the rest, they must trust, he
said, to him, as he could not explain the actual destination of the enterprise
without endangering its success. The men were all satisfied with these
conditions, and the fleet set sail. When it arrived on the coast of Paros, the
Parians were, of course, taken by surprise, but they made immediate preparations
for a very vigorous resistance. Miltiades commenced a siege, and sent a herald
to the city, demanding of them, as the price of their ransom, an immense sum of
money, saying, at the same time, that, unless they delivered up that sum, or, at
least, gave security for the payment of it, he would not leave the place until
the city was captured, and, when captured, it should be wholly destroyed. The
Parians rejected the demand, and engaged energetically in the work of completing
and strengthening their defenses. They organized companies of workmen to labor
during the night, when their operations would not be observed, in building new
walls, and re-enforcing every weak or unguarded point in the line of the
fortifications. It soon appeared that the Parians were making far more rapid
progress in securing their position than Miltiades was in his assaults upon it.
Miltiades found that an attack upon a fortified island in the AEgean Sea was a
different thing from encountering the undisciplined hordes of Persians on the
open plains of Marathon. There it was a contest between concentrated courage and
discipline on the one hand, and a vast expansion of pomp and parade on the
other; whereas now he found that the courage and discipline on his part were met
by an equally indomitable resolution on the part of his opponents, guided, too,
by an equally well-trained experience and skill. In a word, it was Greek against
Greek at Paros, and Miltiades began at length to perceive that his prospect of
success was growing very doubtful and dim. This state of things, of course,
filled the mind of Miltiades with great anxiety and distress; for, after the
promises which he had made to the Athenians, and the blind confidence which he
had asked of them in proposing that they should commit the fleet so
unconditionally to his command, he could not return discomfited to Athens
without involving himself in the most absolute disgrace. While he was in this
perplexity, it happened that some of his soldiers took captive a Parian female,
one day, among other prisoners. She proved to be a priestess, from one of the
Parian temples. Her name was Timo. The thought occurred to Miltiades that, since
all human means at his command had proved inadequate to accomplish his end, he
might, perhaps, through this captive priestess, obtain some superhuman aid. As
she had been in the service of a Parian temple, she would naturally have an
influence with the divinities of the place, or, at least, she would be
acquainted with the proper means of propitiating their favor.

Miltiades, accordingly, held a private interview with Timo, and asked her what
he should do to propitiate the divinities of Paros so far as to enable him to
gain possession of the city. She replied that she could easily point out the
way, if he would but follow her instructions. Miltiades, overjoyed, promised
readily that he would do so. She then gave him her instructions secretly. What
they were is not known, except so far as they were revealed by the occurrences
that followed.

There was a temple consecrated to the goddess Ceres near to the city, and so
connected with it, it seems, as to be in some measure included within the
defenses. The approach to this temple was guarded by a palisade. There were,
however, gates which afforded access, except when they were fastened from
within. Miltiades, in obedience to Timo’s instructions, went privately, in the
night, perhaps, and with very few attendants, to this temple. He attempted to
enter by the gates, which he had expected, it seems, to find open. They were,
however, fastened against him. He then undertook to scale the palisade. He
succeeded in doing this, not, however, without difficulty, and then advanced
toward the temple, in obedience to the instructions which he had received from
Timo. The account states that the act, whatever it was, that Timo had directed
him to perform, instead of being, as he supposed, a means of propitiating the
favor of the divinity, was sacrilegious and impious; and Miltiades, as he
approached the temple, was struck suddenly with a mysterious and dreadful horror
of mind, which wholly overwhelmed him. Rendered almost insane by this
supernatural remorse and terror, he turned to fly. He reached the palisade, and,
in endeavoring to climb over it, his precipitation and haste caused him to fall.
His attendants ran to take him up. He was helpless and in great pain. They found
he had dislocated a joint in one of his limbs. He received, of course, every
possible attention; but, instead of recovering from the injury, he found that
the consequences of it became more and more serious every day. In a word, the
great conqueror of the Persians was now wholly overthrown, and lay moaning on
his couch as helpless as a child.

He soon determined to abandon the siege of Paros and return to Athens. He had
been about a month upon the island, and had laid waste the rural districts, but,
as the city had made good its defense against him, he returned without any of
the rich spoil which he had promised. The disappointment which the people of
Athens experienced on his arrival, turned soon into a feeling of hostility
against the author of the calamity. Miltiades found that the fame and honor
which he had gained at Marathon were gone. They had been lost almost as suddenly
as they had been acquired. The rivals and enemies who had been silenced by his
former success were now brought out and made clamorous against him by his
present failure. They attributed the failure to his own mismanagement of the
expedition, and one orator, at length, advanced articles of impeachment against
him, on a charge of having been bribed by the Persians to make his siege of
Paros only a feint. Miltiades could not defend himself from these criminations,
for he was lying, at the time, in utter helplessness, upon his couch of pain.
The dislocation of the limb had ended in an open wound, which at length, having
resisted all the attempts of the physicians to stop its progress, had begun to
mortify, and the life of the sufferer was fast ebbing away. His son Cimon did
all in his power to save his father from both the dangers that threatened him.
He defended his character in the public tribunals, and he watched over his
person in the cell in the prison. These filial efforts were, however, in both
cases unavailing. Miltiades was condemned by the tribunal, and he died of his
wound. The penalty exacted of him by the sentence was a very heavy fine. The sum
demanded was the amount which the expedition to Paros had cost the city, and
which, as it had been lost through the agency of Miltiades, it was adjudged that
he should refund. This sentence, as well as the treatment in general which
Miltiades received from his countrymen, has been since considered by mankind as
very unjust and cruel. It was, however, only following out, somewhat rigidly, it
is true, the essential terms and conditions of a military career. It results
from principles inherent in the very nature of war, that we are never to look
for the ascendency of justice and humanity in any thing pertaining to it. It is
always power, and not right, that determines possession; it is success, not
merit, that gains honors and rewards; and they who assent to the genius and
spirit of military rule thus far, must not complain if they find that, on the
same principle, it is failure and not crime which brings condemnation and
destruction. When Miltiades was dead, Cimon found that he could not receive his
father’s body for honorable interment unless he paid the fine. He had no means,
himself, of doing this. He succeeded, however, at length, in raising the amount,
by soliciting contributions from the family friends of his father. He paid the
fine into the city treasury, and then the body of the hero was deposited in its
long home. The Parians were at first greatly incensed against the priestess
Timo, as it seemed to them that she had intended to betray the city to
Miltiades. They wished to put her to death, but they did not dare to do it. It
might be considered an impious sacrilege to punish a priestess. They accordingly
sent to the oracle at Delphi to state the circumstances of the case, and to
inquire if they might lawfully put the priestess to death. She had been guilty,
they said, of pointing out to an enemy the mode by which he might gain
possession of their city; and, what was worse, she had, in doing so, attempted
to admit him to those solemn scenes and mysteries in the temple which it was not
lawful for any man to behold. The oracle replied that the priestess must not be
punished, for she had done no wrong. It had been decreed by the gods that
Miltiades should be destroyed, and Timo had been employed by them as the
involuntary instrument of conducting him to his fate. The people of Paros
acquiesced in this decision, and Timo was set free.

* * * * * But to return to Darius. His desire to subdue the Greeks and to add
their country to his dominions, and his determination to accomplish his purpose,
were increased and strengthened, not diminished, by the repulse which his army
had met with at the first invasion. He was greatly incensed against the
Athenians, as if he considered their courage and energy in defending their
country an audacious outrage against himself, and a crime. He resolved to
organize a new expedition, still greater and more powerful than the other. Of
this armament he determined to take the command himself in person, and to make
the preparations for it on a scale of such magnitude as that the expedition
should be worthy to be led by the great sovereign of half the world. He
accordingly transmitted orders to all the peoples, nations, languages, and
realms, in all his dominions, to raise their respective quotas of troops,
horses, ships, and munitions of war, and prepare to assemble at such place of
rendezvous as he should designate when all should be ready.

Some years elapsed before these arrangements were matured, and when at last the
time seemed to have arrived for carrying his plans into effect, he deemed it
necessary, before he commenced his march, to settle the succession of his
kingdom; for he had several sons, who might each claim the throne, and involve
the empire in disastrous civil wars in attempting to enforce their claims, in
case he should never return. The historians say that there was a law of Persia
forbidding the sovereign to leave the realm without previously fixing upon a
successor. It is difficult to see, however, by what power or authority such a
law could have been enacted, or to believe that monarchs like Darius would
recognize an abstract obligation to law of any kind, in respect to their own
political action. There is a species of law regulating the ordinary dealings
between man and man, that springs up in all communities, whether savage or
civilized, from custom, and from the action of judicial tribunals, which the
most despotic and absolute sovereigns feel themselves bound, so far as relates
to the private affairs of their subjects, to respect and uphold; but, in regard
to their own personal and governmental acts and measures, they very seldom know
any other authority than the impulses of their own sovereign will.

Darius had several sons, among whom there were two who claimed the right to
succeed their father on the throne. One was the oldest son of a wife whom Darius
had married before he became king. His name was Artobazanes. The other was the
son of Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, whom Darius had married after his
accession to the throne. His name was Xerxes. Artobazanes claimed that he was
entitled to be his father’s heir, since he was his oldest son. Xerxes, on the
other hand, maintained that, at the period of the birth of Artobazanes, Darius
was not a king. He was then in a private station, and sons could properly
inherit only what their fathers possessed at the time when they were born. He
himself, on the other hand, was the oldest son which his father had had, being a
king, and he was, consequently, the true inheritor of the kingdom. Besides,
being the son of Atossa, he was the grandson of Cyrus, and the hereditary
rights, therefore, of that great founder of the empire had descended to him.

Darius decided the question in favor of Xerxes, and then made arrangements for
commencing his march, with a mind full of the elation and pride which were
awakened by the grandeur of his position and the magnificence of his schemes.
These schemes, however, he did not live to execute. He suddenly fell sick and
died, just as he was ready to set out upon his expedition, and Xerxes, his son,
reigned in his stead.

Xerxes immediately took command of the vast preparations which his father had
made, and went on with the prosecution of the enterprise. The expedition which
followed deserves, probably, in respect to the numbers engaged in it, the
distance which it traversed, the immenseness of the expenses involved, and the
magnitude of its results, to be considered the greatest military undertaking
which human ambition and power have ever attempted to effect. The narrative,
however, both of its splendid adventures and of its ultimate fate, belongs to
the history of Xerxes. The greatness of Darius was the greatness of position and
not of character. He was the absolute sovereign of nearly half the world, and,
as such, was held up very conspicuously to the attention of mankind, who gaze
with a strong feeling of admiration and awe upon these vast elevations of power,
as they do upon the summits of mountains, simply because they are high. Darius
performed no great exploit, and he accomplished no great object while he lived;
and he did not even leave behind him any strong impressions of personal
character. There is in his history, and in the position which he occupies in the
minds of men, greatness without dignity, success without merit, vast and
long-continued power without effects accomplished or objects gained, and
universal and perpetual renown without honor or applause. The world admire
Caesar, Hannibal, Alexander, Alfred, and Napoleon for the deeds which they
performed. They admire Darius only on account of the elevation on which he
stood. In the same lofty position, they would have admired, probably, just as
much, the very horse whose neighing placed him there. THE END.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 27: 3. GENTLE CHILD TRAINING
========================================================================

Gentle Child Training Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the
Young By Jacob Abbott, 1871 The principles on which a firm parental authority
may be established and maintained, without violence or anger, and the right
development of the moral and mental capacities be promoted—by methods in harmony
with the structure and the characteristics of the young mind.

Section 1 1. Three Modes of Management 2. What Are Gentle Measures 3. There must
Be Authority 4. Gentle Punishment of Disobedience 5. The Philosophy of
Punishment

Section 2 6. Rewarding Obedience 7. The Art of Training 8. Methods Exemplified
9. Della and the Dolls 10. Sympathy—the Child with the Parent 11. Sympathy—the
Parent with the Child

Section 3 12. Commendation and Encouragement 13. Page Faults of Immaturity 14.
The Activity of Children 15. The Imagination in Children 16. Truth and Falsehood
17. Judgment and Reasoning 18. Wishes and Requests

Section 4 19. Children’s Questions 20. The Use of Money 21. Corporal Punishment
22. Gratitude in Children 23. Religious Training

24. Conclusion


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 28: 3.01     THREE MODES OF MANAGEMENT
========================================================================

Gentle Child Training Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the
Young By Jacob Abbott, 1871 The principles on which a firm parental authority
may be established and maintained, without violence or anger, and the right
development of the moral and mental capacities be promoted—by methods in harmony
with the structure and the characteristics of the young mind.

Section 1 Chapter 1. the Three Modes of Management

It is possible, that in the minds of some people the idea of employing gentle
measures in the management and training of children, may seem to imply the
abandonment of the principle of authority, as the basis of the parental
government, and the substitution of some weak and inefficient system of artifice
and maneuvering in its place. To suppose that the object of this work is to aid
in effecting such a substitution as that—is entirely to mistake its nature and
design. The only government of the parent over the child that is worthy of the
name, is one of authority—complete, absolute, unquestioned authority. The object
of this work is, accordingly, not to show how the gentle methods which will be
brought to view can be employed as a substitute for such authority—but how they
can be made to aid in establishing and maintaining it.

There are three different modes of child-training, customarily employed by
parents as means of inducing their children to comply with their requirements.
They are, 1. Government by Maneuvering and Artifice.

2. Government by Reason and Affection.

3. Government by Authority.

1. Government by MANEUVERING and ARTIFICE.

Many mothers manage their children by means of tricks and contrivances, more or
less adroit, designed to avoid direct issues with them, and to cajole or beguile
them, as it were, into compliance with their wishes. As, for example, where a
mother, recovering from sickness, is going out with her husband for the first
time, and, as she is still feeble—wishes for a very quiet drive, and so
concludes not to take little Mary with her, as she usually does on such
occasions; but knowing that if Mary sees the coach at the door, and discovers
that her father and mother are going in it, she will be very eager to go too—the
mother adopts a system of maneuvers to conceal her design. She brings down her
bonnet and shawl by stealth, and before the coach comes to the door she sends
Mary out into the garden with her sister, under pretense of showing her a bird’s
nest which is not there, trusting to her sister’s skill in diverting the child’s
mind, and diverting her with something else in the garden, until the coach has
gone. And if, either from hearing the sound of the wheels, or from any other
cause, Mary’s suspicions are awakened, (and children habitually managed on these
deceitful principles soon learn to be extremely distrustful and suspicious,) and
she insists on going into the house, and thus discovers the mother’s stratagem;
then, perhaps, her mother tells her that they are only going to the doctor’s,
and that if Mary goes with them, the doctor will give her some dreadful
medicine, and compel her to take it, thinking thus to deter her from insisting
on going with them to ride.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 29: 3.02     WHAT ARE GENTLE MEASURES
========================================================================

Chapter 2. What Are Gentle Measures?

It being thus distinctly understood that the gentle measures in the training of
children herein recommended, are not to be resorted to as a substitute for
parental authority—but as the easiest and most effectual means of establishing
and maintaining that authority in its most absolute form. We have now to
consider what the nature of these gentle measures—and by what characteristics
they are distinguished, in their action and influence, from such as may be
considered more or less violent and harsh.

Gentle measures are those which tend to exert a calming, quieting, and soothing
influence on the mind, or to produce only such excitements as are pleasurable in
their character, as means of repressing wrong actions, and encouraging right
actions. Ungentle measures are those which tend to inflame and irritate the
mind, or to agitate it with painful irritability.

There seem to be three grades or forms of punishment to which a mother may
resort in controlling her children, or, perhaps, rather three classes of
measures which are more or less violent in their effects. To illustrate these we
will take an example.

Case supposed. One day Louisa, four years old, asked her mother for an apple.
"Have you had any already?" asked her mother. "Only one," replied Louisa. "Then
Bridget may give you another," says the mother. What Louisa said was not true.
She had already eaten two apples. Bridget heard the falsehood—but she did not
consider it her duty to betray the child, so she said nothing. The mother,
however, afterwards, in the course of the day, accidentally ascertained the
truth. Now, as we have said, there are three grades in the kind and character of
the measures which may be considered violent that a mother may resort to in a
case like this.

1. BODILY punishment. The child may be whipped, or tied to the bed-post, and
kept in a constrained and uncomfortable position for a long time, or shut up in
solitude and darkness, or punished by the infliction of bodily suffering in
other ways. And there is no doubt that there is a tendency in such treatment, to
correct or cure the fault. But measures like these, whether successful or not,
are certainly violent measures. They shock the whole nervous system, sometimes
with the excitement of pain and terror, and most always, with that of resentment
and anger. In some cases this excitement is extreme. The excessively delicate
organization of the brain, through which such agitations reach the senses, and
which, in children of an early age, is in its most tender and sensitive state of
development, is subjected to a most intense and violent agitation. The evil
effects of this excessive punishment, may perhaps entirely pass away in a few
hours, and leave no trace of injury behind; but then, on the other hand, there
is certainly reason to fear that such violent measures, especially if often
repeated, tend to impede the regular and healthful development of the organs,
and that they may become the origin of mental derangements in future years. It
is impossible, perhaps, to know with certainty, whether permanent ill effects
follow in such cases or not. At any rate, such a remedy is a violent one.

2. Punishment by FRIGHTENING. There is a second grade of punishment in the
treatment of such a case, which consists in exciting terror, or other painful or
disagreeable emotions, through the imagination, by presenting to the imagination
of the child images of phantoms, hobgoblins, and other frightful monsters, whose
ire, it is pretended, is greatly excited by the misdeeds of children, and who
come in the night-time to take them away, or otherwise visit them with terrible
retribution. Domestic servants are very prone to adopt this mode of discipline.
Being forbidden to resort to physical punishment as a means of exciting pain and
terror, they attempt to accomplish the same end by other means, which, however,
in many respects, are still more injurious in their action.

Servants and attendants upon children from certain nationalities in Europe, are
peculiarly disposed to employ this method of governing children placed under
their care. One reason is that they are accustomed to this mode of management at
home; and another is that many of them are brought up under an idea, which
prevails extensively in some of those countries—that it is right to tell
falsehoods where the honest object is to accomplish a good or useful end.
Accordingly, inasmuch as the restraining of the children from wrong is a good
and useful object, they can declare the existence of ghosts and hobgoblins, who
carry away and devour bad girls and boys—with an air of positiveness and seeming
honesty, and with a calm and persistent assurance, which aids them very much in
producing on the minds of the children a conviction of the truth of what they
say.

While, on the other hand, those who, in theory at least, occupy the position
that the direct falsifying of one’s word is never justifiable, act at a
disadvantage in attempting this method. For although, in practice, they are
often inclined to make an exception to their principles in regard to truth in
the case of what is said to young children; they cannot, after all, tell
children what they know to be not true with that bold and confident air
necessary to carry full conviction to the children’s minds. They are embarrassed
by a kind of half guilty feeling, which, partially at least, betrays them, and
the children do not really and fully believe what they say. They cannot suppose
that their mother would really tell them what she knew was false. In all
countries there are many, among even the most refined and highly cultivated
classes, who are not at all embarrassed by any lying of this kind. This is
especially the case in those countries in Europe, particularly on the Continent,
where the idea above referred to, of the allowableness of falsehood in certain
cases as a means for the attainment of a good end, is generally entertained. The
French have two terrible bugbears, under the names of Monsieur and Madame
Croquemitaine, who are as familiar to the imaginations of French children as
Santa Claus is, in a much more agreeable way, to the children at our firesides.
Monsieur and Madame Croqtuemitaine are frightful monsters, who come down the
chimney, or through the roof, at night—and carry off bad children. They know who
the bad children are, where they live, and what they have done. The instinctive
trust of young children in their mother’s truthfulness is so strong that no
absurdity seems gross enough to overcome it.

There are many mothers among us who, though not quite prepared to call in the
aid of ghosts, giants, and hobgoblins, or of Monsieur and Madame Croquemitaine,
are poorly managing their children still, sometimes, try to eke out their
failing authority by threatening them with the "black man," or the "policeman,"
or some other less supernatural terror. They seem to imagine that while there is
no such thing in existence as a hobgoblin, there really are policemen and
prisons, they only half tell an untruth by saying to the unruly little one that
a policeman is coming to carry him off to jail.

Injurious Effects. Although, by these various modes of exciting imaginary fears,
there is no direct and outward infliction of bodily suffering, the effect
produced on the delicate organization of the brain by such excitements is
violent in the extreme. The feelings of dread, agitation and terror which they
sometimes excite, and which are often spontaneously renewed by darkness and
solitude, and by other exciting causes—are of the nature of temporary insanity.
Indeed, the extreme fear which they produce, sometimes becomes a real insanity,
which, though it may, in many cases, be finally outgrown—may probably in many
others lead to lasting and most deplorable results.

3. Punishment by harsh rebukes and threatenings.

There is a third mode of treatment, more common, perhaps, among us than either
of the preceding, which, though much milder in its character than they—we still
class among the violent measures, on account of its operation and effects. It
consists of stern and harsh rebukes, such as denunciations of the heinousness of
the sin of falsehood, with solemn premonitions of the awful consequences of it,
in this life and in that to come, intended to awaken feelings of alarm and
distress in the mind of the child, as a means of promoting repentance and
reformation. These are not violent measures, it is true, so far as outward
physical action is concerned; but the effects which they produce are sometimes
of quite a violent nature, in their operation on the delicate mental
susceptibilities which are excited and agitated by them.

If the mother is successful in making the impression which such a mode of
treatment is designed to produce, the child, especially if a girl, is agitated
and distressed. Her mind is greatly disturbed. If calmed for a time, the
paroxysm is very liable to return. She wakes in the night, perhaps, with an
indefinable feeling of anxiety and terror, and comes to her mother’s bedside, to
seek, in her presence, and in the sense of protection which it affords—a relief
from her distress. The conscientious mother, supremely anxious to secure the
best interests of her child, may say that, after all, it is better that she
should endure this temporary suffering, than not be saved from her sins. This is
true. But if she can be saved just as effectually without it—it is better still.

4. GENTLE punishment. We now come to the gentle measures which may be adopted in
a case of discipline like this. They are endless and varied in form—but, to
illustrate the nature and operation of them, and the spirit and temper of mind
with which they should be enforced, with a view of communicating to the mind of
the reader some general idea of the characteristics of that gentleness of
treatment which it is the object of this work to commend, we will describe an
actual case, substantially as it really occurred, where a child, whom we will
still call Louisa, told her mother a falsehood about the apple, as already
related.

Choosing the right TIME. Her mother, though Louisa’s manner at the time of
asking for the apple, led her to feel somewhat suspicious. Yet she did not
express her suspicions—but gave her the additional apple. Nor did she
afterwards, when she ascertained the facts, say anything on the subject. The day
passed away as if nothing unusual had occurred. When bed-time came she laid
Louisa in her bed, playing with her, and talking with her in an amusing manner
all the time, so as to bring her into a contented and happy frame of mind, and
to establish as close a connection as possible of affection and sympathy between
them. Then, finally, when the child’s prayer had been said, and she was about to
be left for the night, her mother, sitting in a chair at the head of her little
bed, and putting her hand lovingly upon her, said—"But first I must tell you one
more little story. Once there was a boy, and his name was Ernest. He was a
pretty big boy, for he was five years old." Louisa, it must be recollected, was
only four. "He was a very pretty boy. He had bright blue eyes and curling hair.
He was a very good boy, too. He did not like to do anything wrong. He always
found that it made him feel uncomfortable and unhappy afterwards, when he did
anything wrong. A good many children, especially good children, find that it
makes them feel uncomfortable and unhappy when they do wrong. Perhaps you do."
"Yes, mamma, I do," said Louisa. "I am glad of that," replied her mother; "that
is a good sign. Ernest went one day," added the mother, continuing her story,
"with his little cousin Anna to their uncle’s, in hopes that he would give them
some apples. Their uncle had a beautiful garden, and in it there was an
apple-tree which bore most excellent apples. They were large, and rosy, and
mellow, and sweet. The children liked the apples from that tree very much, and
Ernest and Anna went that day in hopes that their uncle would give them some of
them. He said he would. He would give them three apiece. He told them to go into
the garden and wait there until he came. They must not take any apples off the
tree, he said—but if they found any on the ground, they might take them,
provided that there were not more than three apiece; and when he came he would
take enough off the tree, he said, to make up the number to three. So the
children went into the garden and looked under the tree. They found two apples
there, and they took them up and ate them—one apiece. Then they sat down and
began to wait for their uncle to come. While they were waiting Anna proposed
that they should not tell their uncle that they had found the two apples, and so
he would give them three more, which he would take from the tree; whereas, if he
knew that they had already had one apiece, then he would only give them two
more. Ernest said that his uncle would ask them about it. Anna said, ’That
doesn’t matter—we can tell him that we did not find any.’ Ernest seemed to be
thinking about it for a moment, and then, shaking his head, said, ’No, I think
we had better not tell him a lie!’ So when he saw their uncle coming, he said,
’Come, Anna, let us go and tell him about it, just how it was.’ So they ran
together to meet their uncle, and told him that they had found two apples under
the tree, one apiece, and had eaten them. Then he gave them two more apiece,
according to his promise, and they went home feeling contented and happy. They
might have had one more apple apiece, probably, by combining together to tell a
falsehood; but in that case they would have gone home feeling guilty and
unhappy."

Louisa’s mother paused a moment, after finishing her story, to give Louisa time
to think about it a little. "I think," she added at length, after a suitable
pause, "that it was a great deal better for them to tell the truth, as they
did." "I think so too, mamma," said Louisa, at the same time casting down her
eyes and looking a little confused. "But you know," added her mother, speaking
in a very kind and gentle tone, "that you did not tell me the truth today about
the apple that Bridget gave you." Louisa paused a moment, looked in her mother’s
face, and then, reaching up to put her arms around her mother’s neck, she said,
"Mamma, I am determined never to tell you another wrong story as long as I
live."

Now it is not at all probable that if the case had ended here, Louisa would have
kept her promise. This was one good lesson, it is true—but it was only one. And
the lesson was given by a method so gentle, that the child’s mind was not
irritated or morbidly excited by it. Moreover, no one who knows anything of the
workings of the childish mind can doubt that the impulse in the right direction
given by this conversation was not only better in character—but was greater in
amount, than could have been effected by either of the other methods of
management previously described.

How gentle measures operate. By the gentle measures, then, which are to be here
discussed and recommended, are meant such as do not react in a violent and
irritating manner, in any way, upon the extremely delicate condition of the
child’s mind, in which the gradual development of the mental and moral faculties
are so intimately involved. They do not imply any relaxation of the force of
parental authority, or any lowering whatever of the standards of moral
obligation—but are, on the contrary, the most effectual, the surest and the
safest way of establishing the one and of enforcing the other.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 30: 3.03     THERE MUST BE AUTHORITY
========================================================================

Chapter 3. There must be PARENTAL AUTHORITY. The first duty which devolves upon
the mother in the training of her child—is the establishment of her authority
over him—that is, the forming in him the habit of immediate, implicit, and
unquestioning obedience to all her commands. And the first step to be taken, or,
rather, perhaps the first essential condition required for the performance of
this duty—is the fixing of the conviction in her own mind that this is her
God-given duty. Unfortunately, however, there are not only vast numbers of
mothers who do not in any degree perform this duty—but a large proportion of
them have not even a theoretical idea of the obligation of it! An Objection. "I
wish my child to be governed by reason and reflection," says one. "I wish him to
see the necessity and propriety of what I require of him, so that he may render
a ready and willing compliance with my wishes, instead of being obliged blindly
to submit to arbitrary and despotic power." She forgets that the faculties of
reason and reflection, and the power of appreciating "the necessity and
propriety of things," and of bringing considerations of future, remote, and
perhaps contingent good and evil to restrain and subdue the impetuousness of
appetites and passions eager for present pleasure—are qualities that appear
late, and are very slowly developed, in the childish mind; that no real reliance
whatever, can be placed upon them in the early years of life; and that,
moreover, one of the chief and expressly intended objects of the establishment
of the parental relation is to provide, in the mature reason and reflection of
the father and mother, the means of guidance which the youthful reason and
reflection of the child do not possess during the period of his immaturity. The
elements of parental duty and obligation. Indeed, the chief end and aim of the
parental relation, as designed by the Author of nature, may be considered as
comprised, it would seem, in these two objects, namely: First, the physical
sustenance of the child by his parents, during the period necessary for the
development of his strength. Secondly, the guidance and direction of the child’s
mind, during the development of his reason. The second of these obligations is
no less a duty than the first. To expect him to provide the means of his
physical sustenance from the resources of his own childish strength—would imply
no greater misapprehension on the part of his father and mother, than to expect
him to provide the means of his mental sustenance by his childish reason. The
expectation in the two cases would be equally vain. The only difference would be
that, in the failure which would inevitably result from the trial, it would be
in the one case the body that would suffer, and in the other the mind. The
judgment and mental capacity, are more slowly developed than the body. Indeed,
the necessity that the mind and conduct of the child should be controlled by the
reason of the parents—is in one point of view greater, or at least more
protracted, than that his physical needs should be supplied by their power; for
the development of the thinking and reasoning powers is late and slow, in
comparison with the advancement toward maturity of the physical powers. It is
considered that a boy attains, in this country, to a sufficient degree of
physical strength at the age of from seven to ten years, to earn his living; but
his reason is not sufficiently mature to make it safe to entrust him with the
care of himself and of his affairs—until he is of more than twice that age. The
parents can actually thus sooner look to the physical strength of the child for
his support, than they can to his reason for his guidance. To aid in the
development and cultivation of the child’s thinking and reasoning powers, is
doubtless a very important part of a parent’s duty. But to cultivate these
faculties is one thing, while to make any control which may be procured for them
over the mind of the child the basis of government, is another. To explain the
reasons of our commands is excellent—if it is done in the right time and manner.
The wrong time is when the question of obedience is pending; and the wrong
manner is to offer them inducements to obey. We may offer reasons for
recommendations, when we leave the child to judge of their force, and to act
according to our recommendations or not, as his judgment shall dictate. But
reasons should never be given as inducements to obey a command. The more
completely the obedience to a command rests on the principle of simple
submission to parental authority—the easier and better it will be both for
parent and child.


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  CHAPTER 31: 3.04     GENTLE PUNISHMENT OF DISOBEDIENCE
========================================================================

Chapter 4. Gentle Punishment of Disobedience.

Children have no natural instinct of obedience to their parents, though they
have other instincts by means of which the habit of obedience, as an
acquisition, can easily be formed. The true state of the case is well
illustrated by what we observe among the lower animals. The hen can call her
chickens when she has food for them, or when any danger threatens—and they come
to her. They come, however, simply under the impulse of a desire for food or
fear of danger, not from any instinctive desire to conform their action to their
mother’s will; or, in other words, with no idea of submission to parental
authority. It is so, substantially, with many other animals whose habits in
respect to the relation between parents and children, come under human
observation. The colt and the calf follow and keep near the mother, not from any
instinct of desire to conform their conduct to her will—but solely from love of
food, or fear of danger. Cows last are strictly instinctive. They act
spontaneously—and require no training of any sort to establish or to maintain
them. The case is substantially the same with children. They run to their mother
by instinct, when need, fear, or pain impels them. They require no teaching or
training for this. But for them to come simply because their mother wishes them
to come—to be controlled, in other words, by her will, instead of by their own
impulses—is a different thing altogether. They have no instinct for that. They
have only a ’capacity for its development’.

’Instincts and Capacities’.

It may, perhaps, be maintained that there is no real difference between
instincts and capacities—and it certainly is possible that they may pass into
each other by insensible gradations. Still, practically, and in reference to our
treatment of any intelligent nature which is in course of gradual development
under our influence, the difference is wide. The dog has an instinct impelling
him to attach himself to and follow his master; but he has no instinct leading
him to draw his master’s cart. He requires no teaching for the one. It comes, of
course, from the innate impulses of his nature. For the other he requires a
skillful and careful training. If we find a dog who evinces no disposition to
seek the society of man—but roams off into woods and solitudes alone, he is
useless—and we attribute the fault to his own wolfish nature. But if he will not
fetch and carry at command, or bring home a basket in his mouth from market, the
fault, if there be any fault, is in his master, in not having taken the proper
time and pains to train him, or in not knowing how to do it. He has an instinct
leading him to attach himself to a human master—and to follow his master
wherever he goes. But he has no instinct leading him to fetch and carry, or to
draw carts for anybody. If he shows no affection for man, it is his own
fault—that is, the fault of his nature. But if he does not fetch and carry well,
or go out of the room when he is ordered out, or draw steadily in a cart, it is
his teacher’s fault. He has not been properly trained.

’Who is Responsible?’ So with the child. If he does not seem to know how to take
his food, or shows no disposition to run to his mother when he is hurt or when
he is frightened, we have reason to suspect something wrong, or, at least,
something abnormal, in his mental or physical constitution. But if he does not
obey his mother’s commands—no matter how insubordinate or unmanageable he may
be—the fault does not, certainly, indicate anything at all wrong in ’him’. The
fault is in his training. In witnessing his disobedience, our reflection should
not be, "What a bad boy!" but, "What an incompetent mother!"

I have dwelt the longer on this point because it is fundamental. As long as a
mother imagines, as so many mothers seem to do, that obedience on the part of
the child is, or ought to be, a matter of course, she will never properly
undertake the work of training him. But when she thoroughly understands that her
children will not submit their will to hers—except so far as she forms in them
the habit of submission—the battle is half won.

’Actual Instincts of Children’. The natural instinct which impels her children
to come at once to her for refuge and protection in all their troubles and
fears—is a great source of happiness to every mother. This instinct shows itself
in a thousand ways. "A mother, one morning"—I quote the anecdote from a
newspaper which came to hand while I was writing this chapter—"gave her two
little ones books and toys to amuse them, while she went to attend to some work
in an upper room. Half an hour passed quietly—and then a timid voice at the foot
of the stairs called out:

’Mamma, are you there?’

’Yes, darling.’

’All right, then!’ and the child went back to its play.

"By-and-by the little voice was heard again, repeating, ’Mamma, are you there?’

’Yes.’

’All right, then;’ and the little ones returned again, satisfied and reassured,
to their toys." The sense of their mother’s presence, or at least the certainty
of her being near at hand, was necessary to their security and contentment in
their playings. But this feeling was not the result of any teachings that they
had received from their mother, or upon her having inculcated upon their minds
in any way the necessity of their keeping always within reach of maternal
protection; nor had it been acquired by their own observation or experience of
dangers or difficulties which had befallen them when too far away. It was a
natural instinct of the soul—the same that leads the lamb and the calf to keep
close to their mother’s side—and causes the unweaned babe to cling to its
mother’s bosom—and to shrink from being put away into the crib or cradle alone.

’The Responsibility rests upon the Mother’. The mother must understand that the
principle of obedience is not to be expected to come by nature into the heart of
her child—but to be implanted by parental training. She must understand this so
fully as to feel that if she finds that her children are disobedient to her
commands, that it is ’her’ fault, not theirs. Perhaps I ought not to say her
’fault’ exactly, for she may have done as well as she knows how; but, at any
rate, her failure. Instead, therefore, of being angry with the children, or
fretting and complaining about the trouble they give her, she should leave them,
as it were, out of the case—and turn her thoughts to herself—and to her own
management, with a view to the discovery and the correcting of her own
delinquencies and errors. In a word, she must set regularly and systematically
about the work of ’teaching’ her children to subject their will to hers.

’Three Methods’.

I shall give three principles of management, or rather three different classes
of measures, by means of which children may certainly be made obedient. The most
perfect success will be attained by employing them all. But they require very
different degrees of skill and tact on the part of the mother. The first
requires very little skill. It demands only steadiness, calmness—and
perseverance. The second draws much more upon the mother’s mental resources—and
the last, most of all. Indeed, as will presently be seen, there is no limit to
the amount of tact and ingenuity, not to say genius, which may be advantageously
exercised in the last method. The first is the most essential; and it will
alone, if faithfully carried out, accomplish the end. The second, if the mother
has the tact and skill to carry it into effect, will aid very much in
accomplishing the result—and in a manner altogether more agreeable to both
parties. The third will make the work of forming the habit of obedience on the
part of the mother—and of acquiring it on the part of the child, a source of the
highest enjoyment to both. But then, unfortunately, it requires more skill and
dexterity, more gentleness of touch, so to speak—and a more delicate
constitution of soul, than most mothers can be expected to possess. But let us
see what the three methods are.

1. The first principle is that the mother should so regulate her management of
her child, that he should ’never’ gain any desired end by any act of
insubmission—but ’always’ incur some small trouble, inconvenience, or privation,
by disobeying or neglecting to obey his mother’s command. The important words in
this statement of the principle are ’never’ and ’always’. It is the absolute
certainty that disobedience will hurt him—and not help him, in which the whole
efficacy of the rule consists.

It is very surprising how small a punishment will prove efficacious if it is
only ’certain’ to follow the transgression. You may set apart a certain place
for a prison—a corner of the sofa, a certain ottoman, a chair, a stool, anything
will answer; and the more entirely everything like an air of displeasure or
severity is excluded, in the manner of making the preliminary arrangements, the
better. A mother without any tact, or any proper understanding of the way in
which the hearts and minds of young children are influenced, will begin, very
likely, with a scolding—"Children! You are getting very disobedient. I have to
speak three or four times before you move to do what I say. Now, I am going to
have a prison. The prison is to be that dark closet—and I am going to shut you
up in it for half an hour every time you disobey. Now, remember! The very next
time!"

’Empty Threatening’.

Mothers who govern by threatening, seldom do anything but threaten. Accordingly,
the first time the children disobey her, after such an announcement, she says
nothing, if the case happens to be one in which the disobedience occasions her
no particular trouble. The next time, when the transgression is a little more
serious, she thinks, very rightly perhaps, that to be shut up half an hour in a
dark closet would be a disproportionate punishment. Then, when at length some
very willful and grave act of insubordination occurs, she happens to be in a
particularly good-mood, for some reason—and has not the heart to shut "the poor
thing" in the closet; or, perhaps, there is company present—and she does not
wish to make a scene. So the penalty announced with so much emphasis turns out
to be an empty threat, as the children knew it would from the beginning.

’How Discipline may be both Gentle and Efficient’. With a little dexterity and
tact on the mother’s part, the case may be managed very differently—and with a
very different result. Let us suppose that some day, while she is engaged with
her sewing or her other household duties—and her children are playing around
her, she tells them that in some great schools in Europe, when the boys are
disobedient, or violate the rules, they are shut up for punishment in a kind of
prison; and perhaps she entertains them with invented examples of boys that
would not go to prison—and had to be taken there by force—and kept there longer
on account of their defiance. She also tells them of other noble boys, who went
readily when they had done wrong and were ordered into confinement—and bore
their punishment like men—and who were accordingly set free all the sooner on
that account. Then she proposes to them the idea of adopting that plan
herself—and asks them to look all about the room and find a good seat which they
can have for their prison—one end of the sofa, perhaps, a stool in a corner, or
a box used as a house for a kitten. I once knew an instance where a step before
a door leading to a staircase served as penitentiary—and sitting upon it for a
minute or less was the severest punishment required to maintain most perfect
discipline in a family of young children for a long time. When any one of the
children violated any rule or direction which had been enjoined upon them—as,
for example, when they left the door open in coming in or going out, in the
winter; or interrupted their mother when she was reading, instead of standing
quietly by her side and waiting until she looked up from her book and gave them
permission to speak to her; or used any violence towards each other, by pushing,
or pulling, or struggling for a plaything or a place; or did not come promptly
to her when called; or did not obey at once, the first command in any case, the
mother would say simply, "Mary! — Prison!" She would pronounce this sentence
without any appearance of displeasure—and often with a smile, as if they were
only playing prison—and then, in a very few minutes after they had taken the
penitential seat, she would say "Free!" which word set them at liberty again.

’Must begin at the Beginning’.

I have no doubt that some mothers, in reading this, will say that such
management as this is mere trifling and play; and that real and actual children,
with all their natural turbulence, insubordination and obstinacy, can never be
really governed by any such means. I answer that whether it proves on trial to
be merely trifling and play, or not, depends upon the firmness, steadiness—and
decision with which the mother carries it into execution. Every method of
management requires firmness, perseverance and decision on the part of the
mother to make it successful—but, with these qualities duly exercised, it is
astonishing what slight and gentle penalties will suffice for the most complete
establishment of her authority. I knew a mother whose children were trained to
habits of almost perfect obedience—and whose only method of punishment, so far
as I know, was to require the offender to stand on one foot and count five, ten,
or twenty, according to the nature and aggravation of the offense. Such a
mother, of course, begins early with her children. She trains them from their
earliest years to this constant subjection of their will to hers.

Such penalties, moreover, owe their efficiency not to the degree of pain or
inconvenience that they impose upon the offender—but mainly upon their ’calling
his attention, distinctly’, after every offense, to the fact that he has done
wrong. Slight as this is, it will prove to be sufficient if it ’always’ comes—if
no case of disobedience or of willful wrong-doing of any kind is allowed to pass
unnoticed, or is not followed by the infliction of the proper penalty. It is in
all cases the certainty—and not the severity, of punishment, which constitutes
its power.

’Suppose one is not at the Beginning’.

What has been said thus far relates obviously to cases where the mother is at
the commencement of her work of child training. This is the way to ’begin’; but
you cannot begin unless you are at the beginning. If your children are partly
grown—and you find that they are not under your command, the difficulty is much
greater. The principles which should govern the management are the same—but they
cannot be applied by means so gentle. The prison, it may be, must now be
somewhat more real, the terms of imprisonment somewhat longer—and there may be
cases of insubordination so decided as to require the offender to be carried to
it by force, on account of his refusal to go of his own accord—and perhaps to be
held there, or even to be tied. Cases requiring treatment so decisive as this,
must be very rare with children under ten years of age; and when they occur, the
mother has reason to feel great self-condemnation—or at least great
self-abasement—at finding that she has failed so entirely in the first great
moral duty of the mother—which is to train her children to complete submission
to her authority from the beginning.

’Children coming under New Control’.

Sometimes, however, it happens that children are transferred from one charge to
another, so that the one upon whom the duty of government devolves, perhaps only
for a time, finds that the child or children put under his or her charge have
been trained by previous mismanagement to habits of utter insubordination. I
say, trained to such habits, for the practice of allowing children to gain their
ends by any particular means is really training them to the use of those means.
Thus multitudes of children are taught to disobey—and trained to habits of
insubmission and insubordination, by the means most effectually adapted to that
end.

’Difficulties’. When under these circumstances the children come under a new
charge, whether permanently or temporarily, the task to re-form their characters
is more delicate and difficult than where one can begin at the beginning; but
the principles are the same—and the success is equally certain. The difficulty
is somewhat increased by the fact that the person thus provisionally in charge
has often no natural authority over the child—and the circumstances may moreover
be such as to make it necessary to abstain carefully from any measures that
would lead to difficulty or complaints to the mother—or any of those other forms
of commotion or annoyance, which ungoverned children know so well how to employ
in gaining their ends. The mother may be one of those weak-minded women who can
never see anything unreasonable in the crying complaints made by their children
against other people.

If the penalty annexed to the transgression is made as much as possible the
necessary and natural consequence of it—and is insisted upon calmly,
deliberately, and with inflexible decision—but without irritation, without
reproaches, almost without any indications even of displeasure—but is, on the
contrary, lightened as much as possible by sympathy and kindness, and admitting
the most palliating considerations in respect to the nature of the offense, the
result will certainly be the establishment of the authority of the parent or
guardian on a firm and permanent basis.

There are a great many cases of this kind, where a child with confirmed habits
of insubordination comes under the charge of a person who is not responsible for
the formation of these habits. Even the mother herself sometimes finds herself
in substantially this position with her own children; as, for example, when
after some years of lax and inefficient government she becomes convinced that
her management has been wrong—and that it threatens to bring forth bitter fruits
unless it is reformed. In these cases, although the work is somewhat more
difficult, the principles on which success depends are the same. Slight
penalties, firmly, decisively, and invariably enforced—without violence, without
scolding, without any manifestation of resentment or anger—and, except in
extreme cases, without even expressions of displeasure—constitute a system
which, if carried out calmly—but with firmness and decision, will assuredly
succeed.

’The real Difficulty’. The case would thus seem to be very simple—and success
very easy. But, alas! this is far from being the case. Nothing is required, it
is true—but firmness, steadiness and decision; but, unfortunately, these are the
very requisites which, of all others, it seems most difficult for mothers to
command. They cannot govern their children—because they cannot govern
themselves!

Still, if the mother possesses these qualities in any tolerable degree, or is
able to acquire them, this method of training her children to the habit of
submitting implicitly to her authority, by calmly and good-naturedly—but firmly
and invariably, affixing some slight privation or penalty to every act of
resistance to her will, is the easiest to practice—and will certainly be
successful. It requires no ingenuity, no skill, no contrivance, no
thought—nothing but steady persistence in a simple routine. This was the first
of the three modes of action enumerated at the commencement of this discussion.
There were two others named, which, though requiring higher qualities in the
mother than simple steadiness of purpose, will make the work far more easy and
agreeable, where these qualities are possessed.

Some further consideration of the subject of punishment, with special reference
to the light in which it is to be regarded in respect to its nature and its true
mode of action, will occupy the next chapter.


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  CHAPTER 32: 3.05     THE PHILOSOPHY OF PUNISHMENT
========================================================================

Chapter 5. The Philosophy of Punishment.

It is very desirable that every parent and teacher should have a distinct and
clear conception of the true nature of punishment—and of the precise manner in
which it is designed to act in repressing offenses. This is necessary in order
that the punitive measures which he may employ, may accomplish the desired
good—and avoid the evils which so often follow in their train.

’Nature and Design of Punishment’. The first question which is to be considered
in determining upon the principles to be adopted and the course to be pursued
with children in respect to punishment, is—which of the two views in respect to
the nature and design of punishment which prevail in the minds of men we will
adopt in shaping our system. For,

1. Punishment may be considered in the light of a vindictive retribution for
sin—a penalty demanded by the eternal principles of justice, as the natural and
proper sequel and complement of the past act of transgression, with or without
regard to any beneficial effects which may result from it in respect to future
acts. Or,

2. It may be considered as a remedial measure, adopted solely with reference to
its influence as a means of deterring the subject of it, or others, from
transgression in time to come.

According to the first view, punishment is a ’penalty’ which ’justice’ demands
as a satisfaction for the past. According to the other it is a ’remedy’ which
’goodness’ devises for the benefit of the future.

Theologians have lost themselves in endless speculations on the question how
far, in the government of God, punishment is to be considered as possessing one
or the other of these two characters, or both combined. There seems to be also
some uncertainty in the minds of men, in relation to the precise light in which
the penalties of violated law are to be regarded by civil governments—and the
spirit in which they are to be administered—they being apparently, as prescribed
and employed by most governments, in some respects—and to some extent,
retributive and vindictive—and in other respects remedial and curative.

It would seem, however, that in respect to school and family government, there
could be no question on this point. The punishment of a child by a parent, or of
a pupil by a teacher, ought certainly, one would think, to exclude the element
of vindictive retribution altogether—and to be employed solely with reference to
the beneficial influences that may be expected from it in time to come. If the
injunction "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay it, says the Lord" is to be
recognized at all, it certainly ought to be acknowledged here. This principle,
once fully and cordially admitted, simplifies the subject of punishment, as
administered by parents and teachers, very much. One extremely important and
very striking result of it will appear from a moment’s reflection. It is this,
namely:

It excludes completely and effectually all manifestations of irritation or
annoyance in the infliction of punishment—all harsh tones of voice, all scowling
or angry looks, all violent or threatening gesticulations—and every other mode,
in fact, of expressing indignation or passion. Such indications as these are
wholly out of place in punishment considered as the ’application of a remedy’
devised beneficently with the sole view of accomplishing a future good. They
comport only with punishment considered as vengeance, or a vindictive
retribution for the past sin. This idea is fundamental. The mother who is made
angry by the misconduct of her children—and punishes them in a passion—acts
under the influence of a brute instinct. Her family government is in principle
the same as that of the lower animals over their young. It is, however, at any
rate, a ’government’; and such government is certainly better than none. But
human parents, in the training of their children, ought surely to aim at
something higher and nobler. They who do so, who possess themselves fully with
the idea that punishment, as they are to administer it, is wholly remedial in
its character—that is to say, is to be considered solely with reference to the
future good to be attained by it—will have established in their minds a
principle that will surely guide them into right ways—and bring them out
successfully in the end. They will soon acquire the habit of never threatening,
of never punishing in anger—and of calmly considering, in the case of the faults
which they observe in their children, what course of procedure will be most
effectual in correcting them.

Parents seem sometimes to have an idea that a manifestation of something like
anger—or, at least, very serious displeasure on their part—is necessary in order
to make a proper impression in respect to its fault on the mind of the child.
This, however, I think, is a mistake. The impression is made by what we ’do’—and
not by the indications of irritation or displeasure which we manifest in doing
it. To illustrate this, I will state a case, narrating all its essential points
just as it occurred.

’Mary’s Walk’.

"Mary," said Mary’s aunt, Jane, who had come to make a visit at Mary’s mother’s
in the country, "I am going to the village this afternoon—and if you would like
you may go with me."

Mary was, of course, much pleased with this invitation.

"A part of the way," continued her aunt, "is by a path across the fields. While
we are there you must keep in the path all the time, for it rained a little this
morning—and I am afraid that the grass may not be quite dry."

"Yes, Aunt Jane; I’ll keep in the path," said Mary. So they set out on the walk
together. When they came to the gate which led to the path across the fields,
Aunt Jane said, "Remember, Mary, you must keep in the path."

Mary said nothing—but ran forward. Pretty soon she began to walk a little on the
margin of the grass—and, before long, observing a place where the grass was
short and where the sun shone, she ran out boldly upon it—and then, looking down
at her shoes, she observed that they were not wet. She held up one of her feet
to her aunt as she came opposite to the place, saying, "See, aunt, the grass is
not wet at all."

"I see it is not," said her aunt. "I thought it would not be wet; though I was
not sure but that it might be. But come," she added, holding out her hand, "I
have concluded not to go to the village, after all. We are going back home."

"Oh, Aunt Jane!" said Mary, following her aunt as she began retracing her steps
along the path. "What is that for?"

"I have altered my mind," said her aunt.

"What makes you alter your mind?" By this time Aunt Jane had taken hold of
Mary’s hand—and they were walking together along the path towards home.

"Because you don’t obey me," she said.

"Why, auntie," said Mary, "the grass was not wet at all where I went."

"No," said her aunt, "it was perfectly dry."

"But it did not do any harm at all for me to walk upon it," said Mary.

"Not a bit of harm," said her aunt.

"Then why are you going home?" asked Mary.

"Because you don’t obey me," replied her aunt.

"You see," said her aunt, "there is one thing about this that you don’t
understand, because you are such a little girl. You will understand it
by-and-by, when you grow older; and I don’t blame you for not knowing it now,
because you are so young."

"What is it that I don’t know?" asked Mary.

"I am afraid you would not understand it very well, if I were to explain it,"
replied her aunt.

"Try me," said Mary.

"Well, you see," replied her aunt, "I don’t feel safe with any child that does
not obey me. This time no harm was done, because the grass happened to be dry;
but farther on there was a brook. I might have told you not to go near the brink
of the brook for fear of your falling in. Then you might have gone,
notwithstanding, if you thought there was no danger, just as you went out upon
the grass because you thought it was not wet, notwithstanding my saying that you
must keep in the path. So you see I never feel safe in taking walks in places
where there is any danger with children that I cannot always depend upon to do
exactly what I say."

Mary was, of course, now ready to make profuse promises that she would obey her
aunt in future on all occasions, and began to beg that she would continue her
walk to the village.

"No," said her aunt, "I don’t think it would be quite safe for me to trust to
your promises, though I have no doubt you honestly mean to keep them. But you
remember you promised me that you would keep in the path when we planned this
walk; and yet when the time of temptation came, you could not keep the promise;
but you will learn. When I am going on some perfectly safe walk I will take you
with me again; and if I stay here some time you will learn to obey me so
perfectly, that I can take you with me to any place, no matter how dangerous it
may be."

Aunt Jane thus gently—but firmly, persisted in abandoning the walk to the
village—and returning home. But she immediately turned the conversation away
from the subject of Mary’s fault—and amused her with stories and aided her in
gathering flowers, just as if nothing had happened; and when she arrived at home
she said nothing to anyone of Mary’s disobedience. Here now was punishment
calculated to make a very strong impression—but still without scolding, without
anger, almost, in fact, without even any manifestations of displeasure. And yet
how long can any reasonable person suppose it would be before Mary would learn,
if her aunt acted invariably on the same principles, to submit implicitly to her
will?

’A Different Management’.

Compare the probable result of this mode of management with the scolding and
threatening policy. Suppose Aunt Jane had called to Mary angrily, "Mary! Mary!
come directly back into the path. I told you not to go out of the path—and you
are a very naughty child to disobey me. The next time you disobey me, I will
send you directly home!"

Mary would have been vexed and irritated, perhaps—and would have said to
herself, "How cross Aunt Jane is today!" but the "next time" she would have been
as disobedient as ever.

If mothers, instead of scowling, scolding and threatening—and putting off doing
the thing that ought to be done to the "next time," would do that thing at
once—and give up the scowling, scolding and threatening altogether, they would
find all parties immensely benefited by the change.

It is evident, moreover, that by this mode of management the punishment is
employed not in the way of retribution—but as a remedy. Mary loses her walk, not
on the ground that she deserved to lose it—but because it was not safe to
continue it.

’An Objection’.

Some mother may perhaps say, in reference to the case of Mary and her aunt, that
it may be all very well in theory—but that practically mothers have not the
leisure and the means for adopting such moderate measures. We cannot stop, she
may say, every time we are going to the village, on important business
perhaps—and turn back and lose the afternoon on account of the waywardness of a
disobedient child. My answer is that it will not have to be done continually—but
only very seldom. The effect of acting once or twice on this principle, with the
certainty on the part of the child that the mother or the aunt will always act
consistently, when the occasion calls for it, very soon puts an end to all
necessity for such action. Indeed, if Mary, in the instance above given, had
been managed in this way from infancy—she would not have thought of leaving the
path when forbidden to do so. It is only in some such case as that of an aunt
who knows how to manage right, coming as a visitor into the family of a mother
who manages wrong—that such an incident as this could occur.

Still it must be admitted that the gentle methods of discipline, which reason
and common sense indicate as the true ones for permanently influencing the minds
of children and forming their characters, do, in each individual case, require
more time and care than the cuffs and slaps dictated by angry passion. A cuff on
the ear, such as a cat gives to a rebellious kitten, is certainly the ’quickest’
application that can be made. The measures which are calculated to reach and
affect the heart, cannot vie with blows and scoldings—in respect to the
promptness of their action. Still, the parent or the teacher who will begin to
act on the principles here recommended with children while they are young, will
find that such methods are far more prompt in their action and more effectual in
immediate results than they would suppose—and that they will be the means of
establishing the only kind of authority which is really worthy of the name, more
rapidly than any other. The special point, however, with a view to which these
illustrations are introduced, is, as has been already remarked, that penalties
of this nature—and imposed in this spirit, are not vindictive—but simply
remedial and reformatory. They are not intended to satisfy the sense of justice
for what is past—but only to secure greater safety and happiness in time to
come.

’The Element of Invariableness’.

Punishments may be very light and gentle in their character, provided they are
certain to follow the offense. It is in their ’certainty’—and not in their
’severity’, that the efficiency of them lies. Very few children are ever
severely burnt by putting their fingers into the flame of a candle. They are
effectually taught not to put them in by very slight burnings, on account of the
’absolute invariableness’ of the result produced by the contact.

Mothers often do not understand this. They attempt to cure some habitual fault
by scoldings and threats, and declarations of what they will certainly do "next
time," and perhaps by occasional acts of real severity in cases of peculiar
aggravation. Instead, a quiet, gentle and comparatively trifling infliction in
’every instance’ of the fault, which would be altogether more effectual. A
child, for example, has acquired the habit of leaving the door open. Now
occasionally scolding him, when it is specially cold—will never cure him of the
fault. But if there were an ’automaton’ standing by the side of the door, to say
to him ’every time’ that he came through without shutting it, ’Door!’ which call
should be a signal to him to go back and shut the door—and then sit down in a
chair near by and count ten; and if this slight penalty was ’invariably’
enforced, he would be most effectually cured of the fault in a very short time.

Now, the mother cannot be exactly this automaton, for she cannot always be
there; but she can recognize the principle—and carry it into effect as far as
possible—that is, ’invariably, when she is there’. And though she will not thus
cure the boy of the fault so soon as the automaton would do it, she will still
do it very soon.

’Irritation and Anger’.

Avoid, as much as possible, everything of an irritating character in the
punishments inflicted, for to irritate frequently the mind of a child tends, of
course, to form within him an irritable and unamiable temper. It is true,
perhaps, that it is not possible absolutely to avoid this effect of punishment
in all cases; but a great deal may be done to diminish the evil, by the exercise
of a little tact and ingenuity on the part of the mother whose attention is once
particularly directed to the subject. The first and most important measure of
precaution on this point is the absolute exclusion of everything like angry
looks and words—as accompaniments of punishment. If you find that any wrong
which your child commits awakens irritation or anger in your mind, suspend your
judgment of the case and postpone all action until the irritation and anger have
subsided—and you can consider calmly and deliberately what to do, with a view,
not of satisfying your own resentment—but of doing good to the child. Then, when
you have decided what to do, carry your decision into effect in a good-natured
manner—firmly and inflexibly—but still without any bitterness, or even harshness
of manner.

’Cooperation of the Offender’.

There are many cases in which, by the exercise of a little tact and ingenuity,
the parent can actually secure the ’cooperation’ of the child in the infliction
of the punishment prescribed for incurring of a fault. There are many advantages
in this, when it can be done. It gives the child an interest in curing himself
of the fault; it makes the punishment more effectual; and it removes almost all
possibility of its producing any irritation or resentment in his mind. To
illustrate this we will give a case. It is of no consequence, for the purpose of
this article, whether it is a real or an imaginary one.

Little Egbert, seven years old, had formed the habit so common among children of
wasting a great deal of time in dressing himself, so as not to be ready for
breakfast when the second bell rang. His mother offered him a reward if he would
himself devise any plan that would cure him of the fault.

"I don’t know what to do, exactly, to cure you," she said; "but if you will
think of any plan that will really succeed, I will give you an excursion in a
carriage."

"How far?" asked Egbert.

"Ten miles," said his mother. "I will take you in a carriage on an excursion
anywhere you say, for ten miles, if you will find out some way to cure yourself
of this fault."

"I think you ought to punish me," said Egbert, speaking in rather a timid tone.

"That’s just it," said his mother, "It is for you to think of some kind of
punishment that won’t be too disagreeable for me to inflict—and which will yet
be successful in curing you of the fault. I will allow you two weeks to get
cured. If you are not cured in two weeks I shall think the punishment is not
enough, or that it is not of a good kind; but if it works so well as to cure you
in two weeks, then you shall have the ride."

Egbert wished to know whether he must think of the punishment himself, or
whether his sister Mary might help him. His mother gave him permission to ask
anybody to help him that he pleased. Mary, after some reflection, recommended
that, whenever he was not dressed in time, he was to have only one lump of
sugar, instead of four, in his tumbler of water for breakfast. His usual drink
at breakfast was a tumbler of water, with four lumps of sugar in it. The first
bell was rung at half-past six—and breakfast was at half-past seven. His sister
recommended that, as half an hour was ample time for the work of dressing,
Egbert should go down every morning and report himself ready before the clock
struck seven. If he failed of this, he was to have only one lump of sugar,
instead of four, in his glass of water.

There was some question about the necessity of requiring him to be ready before
seven; Egbert being inclined to argue that if he was ready by breakfast-time,
that would be enough. But Mary said no. "To allow you a full hour to dress," she
said, "when half an hour is enough, may answer very well in respect to having
you ready for breakfast—but it is no way to cure you of the fault. That would
enable you to play half of the time while you are dressing, without incurring
the punishment; but the way to cure you is to make it sure that you will have
the punishment to bear if you play at all." So it was decided to allow only half
an hour for the dressing-time.

Egbert’s mother said she was a little afraid about the one lump of sugar that
was left to him when he failed.

"The plan may succeed," she said; "I am very willing that you should try it; but
I am afraid that when you are tempted to stop and play in the midst of your
dressing, you will say, I shall have ’one’ lump of sugar, at any rate—and so
will yield to the temptation. So perhaps it would be safer for you to make the
rule that you are not to have ’any’ sugar at all when you fail. Still, perhaps
your plan will succeed. You can try it and see. I would wish to have the
punishment as slight as possible, to produce the effect." By such management as
this, it is plain that Egbert is brought into actual cooperation with his mother
in the infliction of a punishment to cure him of a fault. It is true, that
making such an arrangement as this—and then leaving it to its own working, would
lead to no result. As in the case of all other plans and methods, it must be
strictly, firmly—and perseveringly followed up, by the watchful efficiency of
the mother. We cannot ’substitute’ the action of the child for that of the
parent in the work of early training—but we can often derive very great
advantage by securing his cooperation.

’Playful Punishments’. So true is it that the efficacy of any mode of punishment
consists in the ’certainty of its infliction’, that even playful punishments are
in many cases sufficient to accomplish the cure of a fault. George, for example,
was in the habit of continually getting into disputes and mild quarrels with his
sister Amelia, a year or two younger than himself. "I know it is very foolish,"
he said to his mother, when she was talking with him on the subject one evening
after he had gone to bed—and she had been telling him a story—and his mind was
in a calm and tranquil state. "It is very foolish—but somehow I can’t help it. I
forget."

"Then you must have some punishment to make you remember," said his mother.

"But sometimes ’she’ is the one to blame," said George, "and then she must have
the punishment."

"No," replied his mother. "When a lady and a gentleman become involved in a
dispute in polite society, it is always the gentleman that must be considered to
be to blame."

"But Amelia and I are not polite society," said George.

"You ought to be," said his mother. "At any rate, when you, an older brother,
get into disputes with your sister, it is because you have not sense enough to
manage so as to avoid them. If you were a little older and wiser you would have
sense enough."

"Well, mother, what shall the punishment be?" said George.

"Would you really like to have a punishment, so as to cure yourself of the
fault?" asked his mother.

George said that he ’would’ like one.

"Then," said his mother, "I propose that every time you get into a dispute with
Amelia, you turn your jacket wrong side out—and wear it so a little while as a
symbol of folly."

George laughed heartily at this idea—and said he would like such a punishment as
that very much. It would only be fun, he said. His mother explained to him that
it would be fun, perhaps, two or three times—but after that it would only be a
trouble; but still, if they decided upon that as a punishment, he must submit to
it in every case. Every time he found himself getting into any dispute or
difficulty with his sister, he must stop at once and turn his jacket inside out;
and if he did not himself think to do this, she herself, if she was within
hearing, would simply say, "Jacket!" and then he must do it.

"No matter which of us is most to blame?" asked George.

"You will always be the one that is most to blame," replied his mother, "or, at
least, almost always. When a boy is playing with a sister younger than himself,
’he’ is the one that is most to blame for the quarreling. His sister may be to
blame by doing something wrong in the first instance; but he is the one to blame
for allowing it to lead to a quarrel. If it is a little thing, he ought to yield
to her—and not to mind it; and if it is a great thing, he ought to go away and
leave her, rather than to stop and quarrel about it. So you see you will be the
one to blame for the quarrel in almost all cases. There may possibly be some
cases where you will not be to blame at all—and then you will have to be
punished when you don’t deserve it—and you must bear it like a man. This is a
liability that happens under all systems."

"We will try the plan for two weeks," she continued. "So now remember, every
single time that I hear you disputing or quarreling with Amelia, you must take
off your jacket and put it on again—wrong side out—no matter whether you think
you were to blame or not—and wear it so a few minutes. You can wear it so for a
longer or shorter time, just as you think is best to make the punishment
effectual in curing you of the fault. By the end of the two weeks we shall be
able to see whether the plan is working well and doing any good."

"So now," continued his mother, "shut up your eyes and go to sleep. You are a
good boy to wish to cure yourself of such faults—and to be willing to help me in
contriving ways to do it. And I have no doubt that you will submit to this
punishment good-naturedly every time—and not make any trouble about it."

Let it be remembered, now, that the efficacy of such management as this,
consists not in the devising of it, nor in holding such a conversation as the
above with the boy—beneficial as this might be—but in the ’faithfulness and
strictness with which it is followed up’ during the two weeks of trial. In the
case in question, the progress which George made in diminishing his tendency to
get into disputes with his sister was so great, that his mother told him, at the
end of the first two weeks, that their plan had succeeded "admirably"—so much
so, she said, that she thought the punishment of taking off his jacket and
turning it inside out would be for the future unnecessarily severe—and she
proposed to substitute for it taking off his cap—and putting it on upside down.
The reader will, of course, understand that the object of such an illustration
as this is not to recommend the particular measure here described for adoption
in other cases—but to illustrate the spirit and temper of mind in which all
measures adopted by the mother in the training of her children should be carried
into effect. Measures that involve no threats, no scolding, no angry
manifestations of displeasure—but are even playful in their character, may be
very efficient in action—if they are firmly and perseveringly maintained.

’Punishments that are the Natural Consequence of the Offense’.

There is great advantage in adapting the character of the punishment, to that of
the fault—making it, as far as possible, the natural and proper consequence of
it. For instance, if the boys of a school do not come in promptly at the close
of the twenty minutes’ recess—but waste five minutes by their dilatoriness in
obeying the summons of the bell—and the teacher keeps them for ’five minutes
beyond the usual hour of dismissal’, to make up for the lost time, the
punishment may be felt by them to be deserved—and it may have a good effect in
diminishing the evil it is intended to remedy. But it will probably excite a
considerable degree of mental irritation, if not of resentment, on the part of
the children, which will diminish the good effect, or is, at any rate, an evil
which is to be avoided if possible.

If now, on the other hand, he assigns precisely the same penalty in another
form, the whole of the good effect may be secured without the evil. Suppose he
addresses the boys just before they are to go out at the next recess, as
follows:

"I think, boys, that twenty minutes is about the right length of time for the
recess, all told—that is, from the time you go out to the time when you are
’all’ back in your seats again, quiet and ready to resume your studies. I found
yesterday that it took five minutes for you all to come in—that is, that it was
five minutes from the time the bell was rung before all were in their seats; and
today I shall ring the bell after ’fifteen’ minutes, so as to give you time to
come in. If I find today that it takes ten minutes, then I will give you more
time to come in tomorrow, by ringing the bell after you have been out ’ten’
minutes."

"I am sorry to have you lose so much of your recess—and if you can make the time
for coming in shorter, then, of course, your recess can be longer. I would not
wonder if, after a few trials, you should find that you could all come in and
get into your places in ’one’ minute; and if so, I shall be very glad, for then
you can have an uninterrupted recess of ’nineteen’ minutes, which will be a
great gain."

Everyone who has had any considerable experience in the management of boys will
readily understand how different the effect of this measure will be from that of
the other, while yet the penalty is in both cases precisely the same—namely, the
loss, for the boys, of five minutes of their play.

’The Little Runaway’. In the same manner, where a child three or four years old
was in the habit, when allowed to go out by himself in the yard to play, of
running off into the street, a very appropriate punishment would be to require
him, for the remainder of the day, to stay in the house and keep in sight of his
mother, on the ground that it was not safe to trust him by himself in the yard.
This would be much better than sending him to bed an hour earlier, or subjecting
him to any other inconvenience or privation having no obvious connection with
the fault. For it is of the greatest importance to avoid, by every means, the
exciting of feelings of irritation and resentment in the mind of the child, so
far as it is possible to do this without impairing the efficiency of the
punishment. It is not always possible to do this. The efficiency of the
punishment is, of course, the essential thing. But parents and teachers who turn
their attention to the point, will find that it is much less difficult than one
would suppose to secure this end completely without producing the too frequent
accompaniments of punishment—anger, ill-temper, and ill-will. In the case, for
example, of the child not allowed to go out into the yard—but required to remain
in the house in sight of his mother, the mother should not try to make the
punishment ’more heavy’ by speaking again and again of his fault—and evincing
her displeasure by trying to make the confinement as irksome to the child as
possible; but, on the other hand, should do all in her power to alleviate it. "I
am very sorry," she might say, "to have to keep you in the house. It would be
much pleasanter for you to go out and play in the yard—if it was only safe. I
don’t blame you very much for running away. It is what foolish little children,
as little as you, very often do. I suppose you thought it would be good fun to
run out a little way in the street. And it is good fun; but it is not safe.
By-and-by, when you grow a little older, you won’t be so foolish—and then I can
trust you in the yard at any time without having to watch you at all. And now
what can I get for you to amuse you while you stay in the house with me?"

Punishment coming in this way—and administered in this spirit, will irritate the
mind and injure the temper comparatively little; and, instead of being less;
will be much more effective in accomplishing the ’right kind’ of cure for the
fault, than any stern, severe and vindictive retribution can possibly be.

’The Question of Physical Punishment’. The question of resorting to physical
punishment in the training of the young has been much, very much, argued and
discussed on both sides by writers on education; but it seems to me to be mainly
a question of competency and skill. If the parent or teacher has tact or skill
enough—and practical knowledge enough of the workings of the youthful mind, he
can gain all the necessary ascendency over it—without resort to the violent
infliction of bodily pain in any form. If he has not these qualities, then he
must turn to the next best means at his disposal; for it is better that a child
should be trained and governed by the rod—than not trained and governed at all.
I do not suppose that savages could possibly control their children without
blows. On the other hand, Maria Edgeworth would have brought under complete
submission to her will, a family of the most ardent and impulsive juveniles,
perhaps without even a harsh word or a frown. If a mother begins with children
at the beginning, is just and true in all her dealings with them, gentle in
manner—but inflexibly firm in act—and looks constantly for Divine guidance and
aid in her conscientious efforts to do her duty—I feel quite confident that it
will never be necessary for her to strike them. The necessity may, however,
sooner or later come—in the case of those who act on the contrary principle.
Under such management, the rod may come to be the only alternative to absolute
unmanageableness and anarchy.

There will be occasion, however, to refer to this subject more fully in a future
chapter.


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  CHAPTER 33: 3.06     REWARDING OBEDIENCE
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Gentle Child Training Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the
Young By Jacob Abbott, 1871 The principles on which a firm parental authority
may be established and maintained, without violence or anger, and the right
development of the moral and mental capacities be promoted—by methods in harmony
with the structure and the characteristics of the young mind.

Section 2 Chapter 6. Rewarding Obedience. The mode of action described in the
last two chapters for training children to habits of obedience, consisted in
discouraging disobedience by connecting some certain, though mild and gentle
disadvantage, inconvenience, or penalty—with every transgression. In this
chapter is to be considered another mode, which is in some respects the converse
of the first, inasmuch as it consists in the encouragement of obedience, by
often—not necessarily always—connecting with it some advantage, or gain, or
pleasure; or, as it may be stated summarily—the cautious encouragement of
obedience by rewards. This method of action is more difficult than the other in
the sense that it requires more skill, tact, and delicacy of perception and
discrimination, to carry it successfully into effect. The other demands only
firm—but gentle and steady persistence. If the penalty, however slight it may
be, ’always comes,’ the effect will take care of itself. But judiciously to
administer a system of rewards, or even of commendations, requires tact,
discrimination, and skill. It requires some observation of the peculiar
characteristics of the different minds acted upon—and of the effects
produced—and often some intelligent modification of the measures is required—to
fit them to varying circumstances and times.

’Obedience must not be Bought’.

If the bestowing of commendation and rewards is made a matter of mere blind
routine, as the assigning of gentle penalties may be—the result will become a
mere system of ’bribing’, or rather ’paying’ children to be good. And goodness
which is bought, if it deserves the name of virtue at all, is certainly virtue
of a very inferior quality.

Whether a reward conferred for obedience shall operate as a bribe, or rather as
a price paid—for a ’bribe’, strictly speaking, is a price paid, not for doing
right—but for doing wrong—depends sometimes on very slight differences in the
management of the particular case—differences which an undiscriminating mother
will not be very ready to appreciate. A mother, for example, going into the
village on a summer afternoon, leaves her children playing in the yard, under
the general charge of Susan, who is at work in the kitchen, whence she can
observe them from time to time through the open window. She thinks the children
will be safe, provided they remain in the yard. The only thing to be guarded
against is the danger that they may go out through the gate into the road.

’Two Different Modes of Management’.

Under some circumstances, as, for example, where the danger to which they would
be exposed in going into the road was very great, or where the mother cannot
rely upon her power to control her children’s conduct by moral means in any way,
the only safe method would be to fasten the gate. But if she prefers to depend
for their safety on their voluntary obedience to her commands—and wishes,
moreover, to promote the spirit of obedience by rewarding rather than punishing,
she can make her rewards of the nature of hire or not, according to her mode of
management.

If she wishes to ’hire’ obedience, she has only to say to the children that she
is going into the village for a little time—and that they may play in the yard
while she is gone—but must not go out of the gate; adding, that she is going to
bring home some oranges or candies, which she will give them if she finds that
they have obeyed her—but which she will not give them if they have disobeyed.

Such a promise, provided the children have the double confidence in their mother
which such a method requires—namely, first, a full belief that she will really
bring home the promised rewards, if they obey her; and secondly—and this is a
confidence much less frequently felt by children—and much less frequently
deserved by their mothers—a conviction that, in case they disobey, no
importunities on their part or promises for the next time will induce their
mother to give them the good things—but that the rewards will certainly be lost
to them unless they are deserved, according to the conditions of the promise—in
such a case—that is, when this double confidence exists, the promise will have
great influence upon the children. Still, it is, in its nature, ’hiring’ them to
obey. I do not say that this is necessarily a bad plan, though I think there is
a better. Children may, perhaps, be trained gradually to habits of obedience, by
a system of direct rewards—and in a manner, too, far more agreeable to the
parent and better for the child than by a system of compulsion through threats
and punishment.

’The Method of Indirect Rewarding’. But there is another way of connecting
pleasurable ideas and associations, with submission to parental authority in the
minds of children, as a means of alluring them to the habit of obedience—one
that is both more efficient in its results, and more healthful and beneficial in
its action, than the practice of bestowing direct recompenses and rewards.

Suppose, for example, in the case above described, the mother, on leaving the
children, simply gives them the command that they are not to leave the yard—but
makes no promises—and then, on returning from the village with the bonbons in
her bag, simply asks Susan, when she comes in, whether the children have obeyed
her injunction not to leave the yard. If Susan says yes, she nods to them, with
a look of satisfaction and pleasure—and adds: "I thought they would obey me. I
am very glad. Now I can trust them again."

Then, by-and-by, towards the close of the day, perhaps—and when the children
suppose that the affair is forgotten, she takes an opportunity to call them to
her, saying that she has something to tell them.

"You remember when I went to the village today, I left you in the yard and said
that you must not go out of the gate—and you obeyed. Perhaps you would have
liked to go out into the road and play there—but you would not go because I had
forbidden it. I am very glad that you obeyed. I thought of you when I was in the
village—and I thought you would obey me. I felt quite safe about you. If you had
been disobedient children, I would have felt uneasy and anxious. But I felt
safe. When I had finished my shopping, I thought I would buy you some
bonbons—and here they are. You can go and sit down together on the carpet and
divide them. Mary can choose one—and then Jane; then Mary—and then Jane again;
and so on until they are all chosen."

’Difference in the Character of the Effects’.

It may, perhaps, be said by the reader that this is substantially the same as
giving a direct reward for the obedience. I admit that it is in some sense
’substantially’ the same thing—but it is not the same in form. And this is one
of those cases where the effect is modified very greatly by the form. Where
children are directly promised a reward if they do so and so, they naturally
regard the transaction as of the nature of a contract or a bargain, such that
when they have fulfilled the conditions on their part the reward is their due,
as, indeed, it really is; and they come and demand it as such. The tendency,
then, is, to divest their minds of all sense of obligation in respect to doing
right—and to make them feel that it is in some sense optional with them whether
to do right and earn the reward, or not to do right and lose it. In the case,
however, last described, which seems at first view to differ only in form from
the preceding one, the commendation and the bonbons would be so connected with
the act of obedience as to associate very agreeable ideas with it in the
children’s minds—and thus to make doing right appear attractive to them on
future occasions, while, at the same time, they would not in any degree deprive
the act itself of its spontaneous character, as resulting from a sense of duty
on their part, or produce the impression on their minds that their remaining
within the gate was of the nature of a service rendered to their mother for
hire—and afterwards duly paid for. The lesson which we deduce from this
illustration and the considerations connected with it may be stated as follows:

’The General Principle’. That the rewards conferred upon children with a view of
connecting pleasurable ideas and associations with good conduct, should not take
the form of compensations stipulated for beforehand—and then conferred according
to agreement, as if they were of the nature of payment for a service rendered.
But the rewards should come as the natural expression of the satisfaction and
happiness felt by the mother in the good conduct of her child—expressions as
free and spontaneous on her part—as the good conduct was on the part of the
child. The mother who understands the full import of this principle—and whose
mind becomes fully possessed of it, will find it constantly coming into
practical use in a thousand ways. She has undertaken, for example, to teach her
little son to read. Of course learning to read is irksome to him. He dislikes
extremely to leave his play—and come to take his lesson. Sometimes a mother is
inconsiderate enough to be pained at this. She is troubled to find that her boy
takes so little interest in so useful a work—and even, perhaps, scolds him—and
threatens him for not loving study. "If you don’t learn to read," she says to
him, in a tone of irritation and displeasure, "you will grow up to be a
dunce—and everybody will laugh at you—and you will be ashamed to be seen."

’Children’s Difficulties’. But let her imagine that she herself was to be called
away two or three times a day, for half an hour, to study Chinese, with a very
exacting teacher, always more or less impatient and dissatisfied with her
progress; and yet the irksomeness and difficulty for the mother, in learning to
decipher Chinese, would be as nothing compared with that of the child in
learning to read. The only thing that could make the work even tolerable to the
mother would be a pretty near, distinct and certain prospect of going to China
under circumstances that would make the knowledge of great advantage to her. But
the child has no such near, distinct and certain prospect of the advantages of
knowing how to read. He has scarcely any idea of these advantages at all. You
can describe them to him—but the description will have no perceptible effect
upon his mind. Those faculties by which we bring the future vividly before us so
as to influence our present action—are not yet developed in the child. His
cerebral organization has not yet advanced to that condition, any more than his
bones have advanced to the hardness, rigidness—and strength of manhood. His mind
is only capable of being influenced strongly by what is present, or, at least,
very near. It is the design of Divine Providence that this should be so. The
young child is not created with faculties to look much forward; and the mother
who is pained and distressed because he will not look forward, shows a great
ignorance of the nature of the childish mind—and of the manner of its
development. If she finds fault with her boy for not feeling distinctly enough
the future advantages of learning to lead him to love study now, she is simply
finding fault with a boy for not being possessed of the most slowly developed
faculties of a man. The way, then, to induce children to attend to such duties
as learning to read, is not to reason with them on the advantages of it—but to
put it simply on the ground of authority. "It is very irksome, I know—but you
must do it. When you are at play—and having a very pleasant time, I know very
well that it is hard for you to be called away to study over your letters and
your reading. It was very hard for me when I was a child. It is very hard for
all children; but then it must be done." The way in this, as in all other
similar cases, to reduce the irksomeness of disagreeable duties to a minimum, is
not to attempt to convince or persuade the child—but to put the performance of
them simply on the ground of submission to parental authority. The child must
leave his play and come to take his lesson, not because he sees that it is
better for him to learn to read, than to play all the time; nor because he is to
receive a reward in the form of compensation—but because his mother requires him
to do it.

’Indirect Rewarding’.

If, therefore, she concludes, in order to connect agreeable ideas with the hard
work of learning to read, that she will often, at the close of the lessons, tell
him a little story, or show him a picture, or have a frolic with him, or give
him a piece of candy or a lump of sugar, or bestow upon him any other little
gratification—it is better not to promise these things beforehand, so as to give
to the coming of the child, when called, the character of a service rendered for
hire. Let him come simply because he is called; and then let the gratifications
be bestowed as the expressions of his mother’s satisfaction and happiness, in
view of her boy’s ready obedience to her commands and faithful performance of
his duty.

’Obedience, though Implicit, need not be Blind’.

It must not be supposed from what has been said that because a mother is not to
’rely upon’ the reason, and the respect to future advantages to accrue from
efforts or sacrifices, as motives of present action, that she is not to employ
the influence of these motives at all. It is true that those faculties of the
mind by which we apprehend distant things and govern our conduct by them are not
yet developed in the child; but they are ’to be’ developed—and the aid of the
parent will be of the greatest service in promoting the development of them. At
proper times, then, the pleasures and advantages of knowing how to read should
be described to the child—and presented moreover in the most attractive form.
The proper time for doing this would be when no lesson is in question—during a
ride or a walk, or in the midst of a story, or while looking at a book of
pictures. A most improper time would be when a command had been given and was
disregarded, or was reluctantly obeyed; for then such representations would only
tend to enfeeble the principle of authority by bringing in the influence of
reasonings and persuasions to make up for its disobedience. It is one of those
cases where a force is weakened by reinforcement—as a plant, by being long held
up by a stake, comes in the end not to be able to stand alone. So a mother
cannot in any way more effectually undermine her authority, as ’authority’, than
by attempting to eke out its force by arguments and cajolings and coaxings.

’Authority not to be made Oppressive’.

While the parent must thus take care to establish the ’principle of authority’
as the ground of obedience on the part of his children—and must not make their
doing what he requires any the less acts of ’obedience’, through vainly
attempting to diminish the hardship of obeying a command by mingling the
influence of reasonings and persuasions with it—he may in other ways do all in
his power—and that will be a great deal—to make the acts of obedience easy, or,
at least, to diminish the difficulty of them, and the severity of the trial
which they often bring to the child.

One mode by which this may be done is by not springing disagreeable obligations
upon a child suddenly—but by giving his mind a little time to form itself to the
idea of what is to come. When Johnny and Mary are playing together happily with
their blocks upon the floor—and are, perhaps, just completing a tower which they
have been building, if their mother comes suddenly into the room, announces to
them abruptly that it is time for them to go to bed, throws down the tower and
brushes the blocks into the basket—and then hurries the children away to the
undressing, she gives a sudden and painful shock to their whole nervous
system—and greatly increases the disappointment and pain which they experience
in being obliged to give up their play. The delay of a single minute would be
sufficient to bring their minds around easily and gently into submission to the
necessity of the case. If she comes to them with a smile, looks upon their work
with an expression of interest and pleasure upon her countenance—and then says,
"It is bed-time, children—but I would like to see you finish your tower."

One minute of delay like this, to soften the suddenness of the transition, will
make the act of submission to the necessity of giving up play and going to bed,
in obedience to the mother’s command, comparatively easy; instead of being, as
it very likely would otherwise have been, extremely vexatious and painful.

’Give a Little Time’. In the same way, in bringing to a close an evening party
of children at play, if the lady of the house comes a little before the time and
says to them that after "one more play," or "two more plays," as the case may
be," the party must come to an end," the closing of it would be made easy; while
by waiting till the hour had come—and then suddenly interrupting the gaiety,
perhaps in the middle of a game, by the abrupt announcement to the children that
the clock has struck—and they must stop their plays and begin to get ready to go
home, she brings upon them a sudden shock of painful surprise,
disappointment—and, perhaps, irritation.

So, if children are to be called away from their play for any purpose whatever,
it is always best to give them a little notice, if it be only a moment’s notice,
beforehand. "John, in a minute or two I shall wish you to go and get some wood.
You can be getting your things ready to be left." "Mary, it is almost time for
your lesson. You had better put Dolly to sleep and lay her in the cradle."
"Boys, in ten minutes it will be time for you to go to school. So do not begin
any new whistles—but only finish what you have begun." On the same principle, if
boys are at play in the open air—at ball, or skating, or flying kites—and are to
be recalled by a bell, obedience to the call will be made much more easy to them
by a preliminary signal, as a warning, given five minutes before the time. Of
course, it will not always be convenient to give these signals and these times
of preparation. Nor will it be always necessary to give them. To determine how
and in what cases it is best to apply the principle here explained will require
some tact and good judgment on the part of the parent. It would be folly to lay
down a rigid rule of this kind to be considered as always obligatory. All that
is desirable is that the mother should understand the principle—and that she
should apply it as far as she conveniently and easily can do so. She will find
in practice that when she once appreciates the value of it—and observes its kind
and beneficent working, she will find it convenient and easy to apply it far
more generally than she would suppose.

’No weakening of Authority in this’.

It is very plain that softening thus the hardship for the child of any act of
obedience required of him, by giving him a little time—implies no abatement of
the authority of the parent—nor does it detract at all from the implicitness of
the obedience on the part of the child. The submission to authority is as
complete in doing a thing in five minutes—if the order was to do it in five
minutes—as in doing it at once if the order was to do it at once. And the mother
must take great care, when thus trying to make obedience more easy by allowing
time, that it should be prompt and absolute when the time has expired. The idea
is, that though the parent is bound fully to maintain his authority over his
children, in all its force, he is also bound to make the exercise of it as
little irksome and painful to them as possible—and to prevent as much as
possible the pressure of it from encroaching upon their juvenile joys. He must
insist inexorably on being obeyed; but he is bound to do all in his power to
make the yoke of obedience, light and easily to be borne.

’Influence on the healthful Development of the Brain’.

Indeed, besides the bearing of these views on the happiness of the children, it
is not at all improbable that the question of health may be seriously involved
in them. The organs in childhood, are in an exceedingly immature, tender—and
delicate condition; and all sudden, sharp—and, especially, painful emotions,
greatly excite—and sometimes cruelly irritate them. When we consider how
seriously the action of the digestive organs, in people in an ordinary state of
health, is often interfered with by mental anxiety or distress; how frequently,
in people subject to headaches, the paroxysm is brought on by worryings or
perplexities endured incidentally on the preceding day; and especially how often
violent and painful emotions, when they are extreme, result in decided and
sometimes in permanent and hopeless insanity—that is, in an irreparable damage
to some delicate mechanism in the brain—we shall see that there is every reason
for supposing that all sudden shocks to the nervous system of children, all
violent and painful excitements, all vexations and irritations—and ebullitions
of ill-temper and anger—have a tendency to disturb the healthy development of
the cerebral organs—and may, in many cases, seriously affect the future health
and welfare, as well as the present happiness, of the child.

It is true that mental disturbances and agitations of this kind cannot be wholly
avoided. But they should be avoided as far as possible; and the most efficient
means for avoiding them is a firm, though calm and gentle, establishment and
maintenance of parental authority—and not, as many mothers very mistakingly
imagine, by unreasonable indulgences—and by endeavors to manage their children
by persuasions, bribings—and maneuverings , instead of by commands. The most
indulged children—and the least governed—are always the most petulant and
irritable children. While a strong parental government, if regular, uniform and
just—and if administered by gentle measures—is the most effectual of all
possible instrumentalities for surrounding childhood with an atmosphere of
calmness and peace. In a word, while the mother is bound to do all in her power
to render submission to her authority easy and agreeable to her children, by
softening as much as possible the disappointment and hardship which her commands
sometimes occasion—and by connecting pleasurable ideas and sensations with acts
of obedience on the part of the child, she must not at all relax the authority
itself—but must maintain it under all circumstances in its full force, with a
very firm and decided, though still gentle hand.


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  CHAPTER 34: 3.07     THE ART OF TRAINING
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Chapter 7. The Art of Training.

It is very clear that the most simple and the most obvious of the modes by which
a parent may establish among his children the habit of submission to his
authority, are those which have been already described, namely, punishments and
rewards. Punishments, gentle in their character—but invariably enforced, as the
sure results of acts of insubordination. And rewards for obedience, occasionally
and cautiously bestowed, in such a manner that they may be regarded as
recognitions simply, on the part of the parent, of the good conduct of his
children—and expressions of his gratification—and not in the light of payment or
hire. These are obviously the most simple modes—and the ones most ready at hand.
They require no exalted or unusual qualities on the part of father or mother,
unless, indeed, we consider gentleness, combined with firmness and good sense—as
an assemblage of rare and exalted qualities. To assign—and firmly and uniformly
to enforce, just but gentle penalties for disobedience; and to recognize—and
sometimes reward, special acts of obedience and submission—are measures fully
within the reach of every parent, however humble may be the condition of his
intelligence or his attainments of knowledge.

’Another Class of Influences’.

There is, however, another class of influences to be adopted, not as a
substitute for these simple measures—but in connection and cooperation with
them, which will be far more deep, powerful—and permanent in their results,
though they require much higher qualities in the parent for carrying them
successfully into effect. This higher method consists in a systematic effort to
develop in the mind of the child a love of the principle of obedience, by
express and appropriate training.

’Parents not aware of the Extent of their Responsibility’.

Many parents, perhaps indeed nearly all, seem, as we have already shown, to act
as if they considered the duty of obedience on the part of their children as a
matter of course. They do not expect their children to read or to write without
being taught; they do not expect a dog to fetch and carry, or a horse to draw
and to understand commands and signals, without being ’trained’. In all these
cases they perceive the necessity of training and instruction—and understand
that the initiative is with ’them’. If a horse, endowed by nature with average
good qualities, does not work well—the fault is attributed at once to the man
who undertook to train him. But what mother, when her child, grown large and
strong, becomes the trial and sorrow of her life by his ungovernable
disobedience and insubordination, takes the blame to herself in reflecting that
he was placed in her hands when all the powers and faculties of his soul were in
embryo, tender, pliant and unresisting, to be formed and fashioned at her will?

’The Spirit of filial Obedience not Instinctive’.

Children, as has already been remarked, do not require to be taught and trained
to eat and drink, to resent injuries, to cling to their possessions, or to run
to their mother in danger or pain. They have natural instincts which provide for
all these things. But to speak, to read, to write; to tell the truth—and to obey
their parents; to forgive injuries, to face bravely imaginary dangers, and bear
patiently unavoidable pain—are attainments for which no natural instincts can
adequately provide. There are instincts that will aid in the work—but none that
can of themselves be relied upon without instruction and training. In actual
fact, children usually receive their instruction and training in respect to some
of these things incidentally—as it happens—by the rough knocks and frictions—and
various painful experiences which they encounter in the early years of life. In
respect to others, the guidance and aid afforded them is more direct and
systematic. Unfortunately the establishment in their minds of the principle of
obedience comes ordinarily under the former category. No systematic and
appropriate efforts are made by the parent to implant it. It is left to the
uncertain and fitful influences of accident—to remonstrances, reproaches and
injunctions called forth under sudden excitement in the various emergencies of
domestic discipline—and to other means, vague, capricious and uncertain—and
having no wise adaptedness to the attainment of the end in view.

’Requires appropriate Training’.

How much better and more successfully the object would be accomplished, if the
mother were to understand distinctly at the outset—that the work of training her
children to the habit of submission to her authority is a duty, the
responsibility of which devolves not upon her children—but upon her! That it is
a duty, moreover, of the highest importance—and one that demands careful
consideration, much forethought—and the wise adaptation of means to the end.

’Methods’. The first thought of some parents may possibly be—that they do not
know of any other measures to take in order to teach their children submission
to their authority, than to reward them when they obey, and punish them when
they disobey. To show that there are other methods, we will consider a
particular case.

Mary, a young lady of seventeen, came to make a visit to her sister. She soon
perceived that her sister’s children, Adolphus and Lucia, were entirely
ungoverned. Their mother coaxed, cajoled, remonstrated, advised, gave
reasons—did everything, in fact, except simply to command. And the children,
consequently, did pretty much what they pleased. Their mother reproached the
children for their undutiful behavior. But the reproaches produced no effect.

"The first thing that I have to do," said Mary to herself, in observing this
state of things, "is to teach the children to obey—at least to obey ’me’. I will
give them their first lesson at once."

’Mary makes a Beginning’. So she proposed to them to go out with her into the
garden and show her the flowers, adding that if they would do so she would make
each of them a bouquet. She could make them some very pretty bouquets, she said,
provided they would help her—and would follow her directions and obey her
implicitly while gathering and arranging the flowers. This the children promised
to do—and Mary went with them into the garden. There, as she passed about from
border to border, she gave them a great many different directions in respect to
things which they were to do, or which they were not to do. She gathered
flowers—and gave some to one child—and some to the other, to be held and
carried—with special instructions in respect to many details, such as directing
some flowers to be put together—and others to be kept separate—and specifying in
what manner they were to be held or carried. Then she led them to a bower where
there was a long seat—and explained to them how they were to lay the flowers in
order upon the seat—and directed them to be very careful not to touch them after
they were once laid down. They were, moreover, to leave a place in the middle of
the seat entirely clear. They asked what that was for. Mary said that they would
see by-and-by. "You must always do just as I say," she added, "and perhaps I
shall explain the reason afterwards, or perhaps you will see what the reason is
yourselves."

After going on in this way until a sufficient number and variety of flowers were
collected, Mary took her seat in the vacant place which had been left—and
assigned the two portions of the seat upon which the flowers had been placed to
the children, giving each the charge of the flowers upon one portion, with
instructions to select and give to her such as she should call for. From the
flowers thus brought she formed two bouquets, one for each of the children. Then
she set them both at work to make bouquets for themselves, giving them minute
and special directions in regard to every step. If her object had been to
cultivate their taste and judgment, then it would have been better to allow them
to choose the flowers and determine the arrangement for themselves; but she was
teaching them ’obedience’, or, rather, beginning to form in them the ’habit’ of
obedience; and so, the more numerous and minute the commands the better,
provided that they were not in themselves unreasonable, nor so numerous and
minute as to be vexatious, so as to incur any serious danger of their not being
readily and good-humoredly obeyed.

’The Art of Training’. When the bouquets were finished Mary gave the children,
the two which had been made for them; and the two which they had made for
themselves she took into the house and placed them in glasses upon the parlor
mantel-piece—and then stood back with the children in the middle of the room to
admire them.

"See how pretty they look! And how nicely the work went on while we were making
them! That was because you obeyed me so well while we were doing it. You did
exactly as I said in everything."

’A Beginning only’.

Now this was an excellent ’first lesson’ in training the children to the habit
of obedience. It is true that it was ’only’ a first lesson. It was a
beginning—but it was a very good beginning. If, on the following day, Mary had
given the children a command which it would be irksome to them to obey, or one
which would have called for any special sacrifice or self-denial on their part,
they would have disregarded it. Still they would have been a little less
inclined to disregard it than if they had not received their first lesson; and
there can be no doubt that if Mary were to continue her training in the same
spirit in which she commenced it she would, before many weeks, acquire a
complete ascendancy over them—and make them entirely submissive to her will. And
yet this is a species of training, the efficacy of which depends on influences
in which the hope of reward or the fear of punishment does not enter. The
bouquets were not promised to the children at the outset, nor were they given to
them at last as rewards. It is true that they saw the advantages resulting from
due subordination of the inferiors to the superior in concerted action—and at
the end they felt a satisfaction in having acted right; but these advantages did
not come in the form of rewards. The efficacy of the lesson depended on a
different principle altogether.

’The Philosophy of it’. The philosophy of it was this: Mary, knowing that the
principle of obedience in the children was extremely weak—and that it could not
stand any serious test, contrived to bring it into exercise a great many times
under the lightest possible pressure. She called upon them to do a great many
different things, each of which was very easy to do—and gave them many little
prohibitions which it required a very slight effort of self-denial on their part
to regard; and she connected agreeable associations in their minds with the idea
of submission to authority, through the interest which she knew they would feel
in seeing the work of gathering the flowers and making the bouquets go
systematically and prosperously on—and through the commendation of their
conduct, which she expressed at the end.

Such people as Mary do not analyze distinctly, in their thoughts, nor could they
express in words, the principles which underlie their management; but they have
an instinctive mental perception of the adaptation of such means to the end in
view. Other people, who observe how easily and quietly they seem to obtain an
ascendency over all children coming within their influence—and how absolute this
ascendency often becomes, are frequently surprised at it. They think there is
some mystery about it; they say it is "a knack that some people have;" but there
is no mystery about it at all—and nothing unusual or strange, except so far as
practical good sense, considerate judgment, and intelligent observation and
appreciation of the characteristics of childhood, are unusual and strange.

Mary was aware that, although the principle of obedience is seldom or never
entirely obliterated from the hearts of children—that is, that the impression
upon their minds, which, though it may not be absolutely instinctive, is very
early acquired, that it is incumbent on them to obey those set in authority over
them—is seldom wholly effaced. This sentiment had become extremely feeble in the
minds of Adolphus and Lucia; and that it was like a frail and dying plant, which
required very delicate and careful nurture to quicken it to life and give it its
normal health and vigor. Her management was precisely of this character. It
called the weak and feeble principle into gentle exercise, without putting it to
any severe test—and thus commenced the formation of a ’habit of action’. Anyone
will see that a course of training on these principles, patiently and
perseveringly continued for the proper time, could not fail of securing the
desired end, except in cases of children characterized by unusual and entirely
abnormal perversity.

We cannot here follow in detail the various modes in which such a manager as
Mary would adapt her principle to the changing incidents of each day—and to the
different stages of progress made by her pupils in learning to obey—but can only
enumerate certain points worthy of the attention of parents, who may feel
desirous to undertake such a work of training.

’Three practical Directions’.

1. Relinquish entirely the idea of expecting children to be ’spontaneously’
docile and obedient. Relinquish entirely the practice of scolding or punishing
them vindictively when they are disobedient. Instead of so doing, understand
that submissiveness and obedience on their part is to be the result of wise,
careful, and persevering, though gentle training, on the part of the parent.

2. If the children have already formed habits of disobedience and
insubordination, do not expect that the desirable change can be effected by
sudden, spasmodic and violent efforts, accompanied by denunciations and
threats—and declarations that you are going to "turn over a new leaf." The
attempt to change perverted tendencies in children by such means is like trying
to straighten a bend in the stem of a growing tree by blows with a hammer.

3. Instead of this, begin without saying at all what you are going to do, or
finding any fault with the past—and, with a distinct recognition of the fact
that whatever is bad in the ’native tendencies’ of your children’s minds is
probably inherited from their parents—and, perhaps, specially from yourself—and
that whatever is wrong in their ’habits of action’ is certainly the result of
your bad training; proceed cautiously and gently—but perseveringly and firmly,
in bringing the bent stem gradually up to the right position. In doing this,
there is no amount of ingenuity and skill, however great, that may not be
usefully employed; nor is there, on the other hand, except in very rare and
exceptional cases, any parent who has an allotment so small as not to be
sufficient to accomplish the end, if conscientiously and faithfully employed.


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  CHAPTER 35: 3.08     METHODS EXEMPLIFIED
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Chapter 8. Methods Exemplified. In order to give a more clear idea of what I
mean by forming habits of obedience in children, by methods other than those
connected with a system of rewards and punishments, I will specify some such
methods, introducing them, however, only as illustrations of what is intended.
For, while in respect to rewards and punishments, something like special and
definite rules and directions may be given; these other methods, as they depend
on the tact, ingenuity and inventive powers of the parents for their success,
depend also in great measure upon these same qualities for the discovery of
them. The only help that can be received from others, must consist of
suggestions and illustrations, which can only serve to communicate to the mind
some general ideas in respect to them.

’Recognizing the Right.’

1. A very excellent effect is produced in forming habits of obedience in
children, by simply ’noticing’ their good conduct when they do right—and letting
them see that you notice it. When children are at play upon the carpet—and their
mother from time to time calls one of them—Mary, we will say—to come to her to
render some little service; it is very often the case that the mother is
accustomed, when Mary obeys the call at once, leaving her play immediately and
coming directly, to say nothing about the prompt obedience—but to treat it as a
matter of course. It is only in the cases of failure that she seems to notice
the action. When Mary, greatly interested in what for the moment she is doing,
delays her coming, mother says, "You ought to come at once, Mary, when I call
you—and not make me wait in this way!" In the cases when Mary did come at once,
she had said nothing.

Mary goes back to her play after the reproof, a little disturbed in mind, at any
rate, and perhaps considerably out of sorts.

Now Mary may, perhaps, be in time induced to obey more promptly under this
management—but she will have no heart in making the improvement—and she will
advance reluctantly and slowly, if at all. But if, at the first time that she
comes promptly—and then, after doing the errand, is ready to go back to her
play, her mother says, "You left your play and came at once when I called you.
That was right. It pleases me very much to find that I can depend upon your
being so prompt, even when you are at play," Mary will go back to her play
pleased and happy; and the tendency of the incident will be to cause her to feel
a spontaneous and cordial interest in the principle of prompt obedience in time
to come.

Johnny is taking a walk through the fields with his mother. He sees a butterfly
and sets off in chase of it. When he has gone away from the path among the rocks
and bushes as far as his mother thinks is safe, she calls him to come back. In
many cases, if the boy does not come at once in obedience to such a call, he
would perhaps receive a scolding. If he does come back at once, nothing is said.
In either case no decided effect would be produced upon him. But if his mother
says, "Johnny, you obeyed me at once when I called you. It must be hard, when
you are after a butterfly and think you have almost caught him, to stop
immediately and come back to your mother when she calls you; but you did it,"
Johnny will be led by this treatment to feel a desire to come back more promptly
still the next time.

’A Caution.’ Of course there is an endless variety of ways by which you can show
your children that you notice and appreciate the efforts they make to do right.
Doubtless there is a danger to be guarded against. To adopt the practice of
noticing and commending what is right—and paying ’no attention whatever’ to what
is wrong, would be a great perversion of this counsel.

There is a danger more insidious than this—but still very serious and real—of
fostering a feeling of vanity and self-conceit by constant and inconsiderate
praise. These things must be guarded against; and to secure the good aimed
at—and at the same time to avoid the evil, requires the exercise of the tact and
ingenuity which has before been referred to. But with proper skill and proper
care the habit of noticing and commending, or even noticing alone, when children
do right—and of even being more quick to notice and to be pleased with the
right, than to detect and be dissatisfied with the wrong—will be found to be a
very powerful means of training children in the right way.

Children will act with a great deal more readiness and alacrity to preserve a
good character which people already attribute to them, than to relieve
themselves of the opprobrium of a bad one with which they are charged. In other
words, it is much easier to allure them to what is right—than to drive them from
what is wrong.

’Giving Advice.’

2. There is, perhaps, nothing more irksome to children, than to listen to
fault-finding advice given to them in a direct and simple form—and perhaps there
is nothing that has less influence upon them in the formation of their
characters than advice so given. And there is good reason for this; for if it is
practical and particular at all, it must be so with reference to their own daily
experience in life—in which case it becomes more irksome still, as they
necessarily regard it as an indirect mode of fault-finding. Indeed, this kind of
advice is almost certain to assume the form of half-concealed fault-finding, for
the subject of the counsel given would be, in almost all cases, suggested by the
errors, or shortcomings, or failures which had been recently observed in the
conduct of the children. The art, then, of giving to children general advice and
instruction in respect to their conduct and behavior, consists in making it
definite and practical—and at the same time contriving some way of divesting it
entirely of all direct application to themselves in respect to their ’past’
conduct. Of course, the more we make it practically applicable to them in
respect to the future the better.

There are various ways of giving advice of this character. It requires some
ingenuity to invent them—and some degree of tact and skill to apply them
successfully. But the necessary tact and skill would be easily acquired by any
mother whose heart is really set upon finding gentle modes of leading her child
into the path of duty.

’James and his Cousins’.

James, going to spend one of his college vacations at his uncle’s, was taken by
his two cousins, Walter and Ann—eight and six years old—into their room. The
room was all in confusion. There was a set of book-shelves upon one side, the
books upon them lying tumbled about in all directions. There was a case
containing playthings in another place, the playthings broken and in disorder;
and two tables, one against the wall—and the other in the middle of the room,
both covered with litter. Now if James had commenced his conversation by giving
the children a lecture on the disorder of their room—and on the duty, on their
part, of taking better care of their things, the chief effect would very
probably have been simply to prevent their wishing to have him come to their
room again. But James managed the case differently. After going about the room
for a few minutes with the children—and looking with them at their various
treasures—and admiring what they seemed to admire—but without finding any fault,
he sat down before the fire and took the children upon his lap—one upon each
knee—and began to talk to them. Ann had one of her picture-books in her hand,
some of the leaves torn—and the rest defaced with dog’s-ears.

"Now, Walter," said James, "I’m going to give you some advice. I am going to
advise you what to do and how to act when you go to college. By-and-by you will
grow to be a young man—and will then, perhaps, go to college." The idea of
growing to be a young man and going to college was very pleasing to Walter’s
imagination—and brought his mind into what may be called a receptive
condition—that is, into a state to receive readily—and entertain with favor, the
thoughts which James was prepared to present.

James then went on to draw a very agreeable picture of Walter’s leaving home and
going to college, with many details calculated to be pleasing to his cousin’s
fancy—and came at length to his room—and to the circumstances under which he
would take possession of it. Then he told him of the condition in which
different scholars kept their respective rooms—how some were always in
disorder—and everything in them topsy-turvy, so that they had no pleasant or
home-like aspect at all; while in others everything was well arranged—and kept
continually in that condition, so as to give the whole room, to everyone who
entered it, a very charming appearance.

"The books on their shelves were all properly arranged," he said, "all standing
up in order—those of a like size together. Jump down, Ann—and go to your
shelves—and arrange the books on the middle shelf in that way, to show him what
I mean."

Ann jumped down—and ran with great alacrity to arrange the books according to
the directions. When she had arranged one shelf, she was proceeding to do the
same with the next—but James said she need not do any more then. She could
arrange the others, if she pleased, at another time, he said. "But come back
now," he added, "and hear the rest of the advice."

"I advise you to keep your book-shelves in nice order at college," he continued;
"and so with your apparatus and your cabinet. For at college, you see, you will
perhaps have articles of educational apparatus—and a cabinet of instruments,
instead of playthings. I advise you, if you should have such things, to keep
them all nicely arranged upon their shelves."

Here James turned his chair a little, so that he and the children could look
towards the cabinet of playthings. Walter climbed down from his cousin’s lap and
ran off to that side of the room—and there began hastily to arrange the
playthings.

"Yes," said James, "that is the way. But never mind that now. I think you will
know how to arrange your educational instruments and your cabinet very nicely
when you are in college; and you can keep your playthings in order in your room
here, while you are a boy, if you please. But come back now and hear the rest of
the advice." So Walter came back and took his place again upon James’s knee.

"And I advise you," continued James, "to take good care of your books when you
are in college. It is pleasanter, at the time, to use books that are clean and
nice—and then, besides, you will like to take your college books with you, after
you leave college—and keep them as long as you live, as memorials of your early
days—and you will value them a great deal more if they are in good order."

Here Ann opened the book which was in her hand—and began to fold back the
dog’s-ears and to smooth down the leaves.

’The Principle Involved’. In a word, by the simple expedient of shifting the
time, in the imagination of the children, when the advice which he was giving
them would come to its practical application, he divested it of all appearance
of fault-finding in respect to their present conduct—and so secured not merely
its ready admission—but a cordial welcome for it, in their minds.

Any mother who sees and clearly apprehends the principle here illustrated—and
has ingenuity enough to avail herself of it, will find an endless variety of
modes by which she can make use of it, to gain easy access to the hearts of her
children, for instructions and counsels which, when they come in the form of
fault-finding advice, make no impression whatever.

’Expectations of Results must be Reasonable’.

Some people, however, who read without much reflection—and who do not clearly
see the principle involved in the case above described—and do not understand it
as it is intended—that is, as a single specimen or example of a mode of action
capable of an endless variety of applications, will perhaps say, "Oh, that was
all very well. James’s talk was very good for the purpose of amusing the
children for a few minutes while he was visiting them—but it is idle to suppose
that such a conversation could produce any permanent or even lasting impression
upon them; still less, that it could work any effectual change in respect to
their habits of order." That is very true. In the work of forming the hearts and
minds of children it is "line upon line—and precept upon precept" which is
required; and it cannot be claimed that one such conversation as that of James
is anything more than ’one line’. But it certainly is that. It would be as
unreasonable to expect that one single lesson like that could effectually and
completely accomplish the end in view, as that one single watering of a plant
will suffice to enable it to attain completely its growth—and enable it to
produce in perfection its fruits or its flowers. But if a mother thus often
clothes the advice or instruction which she has to give to her children in some
imaginative guise like this, advising them what to do when they are on a
journey, for example, or when they are making a visit at the house of a friend
in the country. Or, in the case of a boy, what she would counsel him to do in
case he were a young man employed by a farmer to help him on his farm, or a
clerk in a store, or a sea-captain in charge of a ship, or a general commanding
a force in the field. Or, if a girl, what dangers or what undesirable habits or
actions she should avoid when traveling in Europe, or when, as a young lady, she
joins in picnics or goes on excursions, or attends concerts or evening parties,
or in any of the countless other situations which it is pleasant for young
people to picture to their minds, introducing into all, so far as her ingenuity
and skill enable her to do it, interesting incidents and details—she will find
that she is opening to herself an avenue to her children’s hearts for the sound
moral principles that she wishes to inculcate upon them, which she can often
employ easily, pleasantly—and very advantageously, both to herself and to them.
When a child is physically sick, it may be of little consequence whether the
medicine which is required is agreeable or disagreeable to the taste. But with
moral remedies the case is different. Sometimes the whole efficiency of the
treatment administered as a corrective for a moral disorder depends upon the
readiness and willingness with which it is taken. To make it disagreeable,
consequently, in such cases, is to neutralize the intended action of it—a result
which the methods described in this chapter greatly tend to avoid.

>


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  CHAPTER 36: 3.09     DELLA AND THE DOLLS
========================================================================

Chapter 9. Della and the Dolls. This book may, perhaps, sometimes fall into the
hands of people who have, temporarily or otherwise, the charge of young children
without any absolute authority over them, or any means, or even any right—to
enforce their commands, as was the case, in fact, with the older brothers or
sister referred to in the preceding illustrations. To such people, these
indirect modes of training children in habits of subordination to their will, or
rather of yielding to their influence, are specially useful. Such people may be
interested in the manner in which Della made use of the children’s dolls, as a
means of guiding and governing their little mothers.

’Della’.

Della had a young sister named Maria—and a cousin whose name was Jane. Jane used
often to come to make to a visit Maria—and when together the children were
accustomed to spend a great deal of time in playing with their dolls. Besides
dressing and undressing them—and playing take them out to excursions and visits,
they used to talk with them a great deal—and give them much useful and valuable
information and instruction.

Now Della contrived to obtain a great influence and ascendency over the minds of
the children by means of these dolls. She fell at once into the idea of the
children in regard to them—and treated them always as if they were real people;
often speaking of them and to them, in the presence of the other children, in
the most serious manner. This not only pleased the children very much—but
enabled Della, under pretense of talking to the dolls, to communicate a great
deal of useful instruction to the children—and sometimes to make very beneficial
and lasting impressions upon their minds.

’Lectures to the Dolls’. For instance, sometimes when Jane was making a visit to
Maria—and the two children came into her room with their dolls in their arms,
she would speak to them as if they were real people—and then taking them in her
hands would set them before her on her knee—and give them a very serious lecture
in respect to the proper behavior which they were to observe during the
afternoon. If Della had attempted to give precisely the same lecture to the
children themselves, they would very soon have become restless and uneasy—and it
would have made very little impression upon them. But being addressed to the
dolls, they would be greatly interested in it—and would listen with the utmost
attention; and there is no doubt that the counsels and instructions which she
gave made a much stronger impression upon their minds than if they had been
addressed directly to the children themselves. To give an idea of these
conversations I will report one of them in full.

"How do you do, my children?" she said, on one such occasion. "I am very glad to
see you. How nice you look! You have come—Josie (Josie was the name of Jane’s
doll), to make Rosalie a visit. I am very glad. You will have a very pleasant
time, I am sure; because you never quarrel. I observe that, when you both wish
for the same thing, you don’t quarrel for it and try to pull it away from one
another; but one waits like a lady until the other has done with it. I expect
you have been a very good girl—Josie, since you were here last."

Then, turning to Jane, she asked, in a somewhat altered tone, "Has she been a
good girl, Jane?"

"She has been a ’pretty’ good girl," said Jane, "but she has been sick."

"Ah!" said Della in a tone of great concern—and looking again at Josie, "I heard
that you had been sick. And you don’t look very well now. You must take good
care of yourself—and if you don’t feel well, you must ask your mother to bring
you in to me and I will give you a dose of my medicine—my ’aqua saccharina’. I
know you always take your medicine like a little heroine when you are sick,
without making any difficulty or trouble at all."

’Aqua saccharina’ was the Latin name which Della gave to a preparation of which
she kept a supply in a small vial on her table, ready to make-believe give to
the dolls when they were sick. Maria and Jane were very fond of playing that
their dolls were sick and bringing them to Della for medicine, especially as
Della always recommended to them to taste the medicine themselves from a spoon
first, in order to set their children a good example of taking it well.

Sometimes Della would let the children take the vial away, so as to have it
always at hand in case the dolls should be taken suddenly worse. But in such
cases as this, the attacks were usually so frequent—and the mothers were obliged
to do so much tasting to encourage the patients, that the vial was soon brought
back nearly or quite empty, when Della used to replenish it by filling it nearly
full of water—and then pouring a sufficient quantity of sugar into the mouth of
it from the sugar-bowl with a spoon. Nothing more was necessary except to shake
up the mixture in order to facilitate the process of solution—and the medicine
was ready.

’A Medium of Reproof.’

Della was accustomed to use the dolls not only for the purpose of
instruction—but sometimes for reproof, in many ingenious ways. For instance, one
day the children had been playing upon the piazza with blocks and other
playthings—and finally had gone into the house, leaving all the things on the
floor of the piazza, instead of putting them away in their places, as they ought
to have done. They were now playing with their dolls in the parlor.

Della came to the parlor—and with an air of great mystery beckoned the children
aside—and said to them, in a whisper, "Leave Josie and Rosalie here—and don’t
say a word to them. I want you to come with me. There is a secret—something I
would not have them know on any account." So saying, she led the way on tiptoe,
followed by the children out of the room—and round by a circuitous route to the
piazza.

"There!" said she, pointing to the playthings; "see! all your playthings left
out! Put them away quick before Josie and Rosalie see them. I would not have
them know that their mothers leave their playthings laying around in that way.
They would think that they might leave their playthings laying around too—and
that would make you a great deal of trouble. You teach them, I have no doubt,
that they must always put their playthings away—and they must see that you set
them a good example. Put these playthings all away quick—and carefully—and we
will not let them know anything about your leaving them out." So the children
went to work with great alacrity—and put the playthings all away. And this
method of treating the case was much more effectual in making them disposed to
avoid committing a similar fault another time, than any direct rebukes or
expressions of displeasure addressed personally to them would have been.

Besides, a scolding would have made them unhappy. But this method did not make
them unhappy at all; it amused and entertained them. If you can lead children to
cure themselves of their faults in such a way that they shall have a good time
in doing it—there is a double gain. In due time, by this kind of management—and
by other modes conceived and executed in the same spirit, Bella gained so great
an ascendency over the children that they were far more ready to conform to her
will—and to obey all her directions, than they would have been to submit to the
most legitimate authority which was maintained, as such authority too often is,
by fault-finding and threats—and without any sympathy to the fancies and
feelings which reign over the hearts of the children in the little world in
which they live.


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  CHAPTER 37: 3.10     SYMPATHY-THE CHILD WITH THE PARENT
========================================================================

Chapter 10. The Power of Sympathy.

(What Abbott means by the power of sympathy in the mind of a child, is its
tendency to imbibe the opinions or sentiments, of those whom he loves and
respects.) ’The Child with the Parent.’ The subject of sympathy between children
and parents is to be considered in two aspects: first, that of the child with
the parent; and secondly, that of the parent with the child. That is to say, an
emotion may be awakened in the child by its existence and manifestation in the
parent—and secondly, it may be awakened in the parent by its existence in the
child.

We are all ready to acknowledge in words, the great power and influence of
sympathy—but very few are aware how very vast this power is—and how
inconceivably great is the function which this principle fulfills in the
formation of the human character—and in regulating the conduct of men.

’Mysterious Action of the Principle of Sympathy’.

There is a great mystery in the nature of it—and in the manner of its action.
This we see very clearly in the simplest and most striking material form of
it—the act of gaping. Why and how does the witnessing of the act of gaping in
one person, or even the thought of it, produce a tendency to the same action in
the nerves and muscles of another person? When we attempt to trace the chain of
connection through the eye, the brain—and the thoughts—through which line of
agencies the chain of cause and effect must necessarily run—we are lost and
bewildered.

Other states and conditions in which the mental element is more apparent are
communicated from one to another in the same or, at least, in some analogous
way. Being simply in the presence of one who is amused, or happy, or sad—causes
us to feel amused, or happy, or sad ourselves—or, at least, has that
tendency—even if we do not know from what cause the emotion which is
communicated to us, proceeds. A person of a joyous and happy disposition often
brightens up at once any little circle into which he enters, while a morose and
melancholy man carries gloom with him wherever he goes. Eloquence, which, if we
were to hear it addressed to us personally and individually, in private
conversation, would move us very little, will excite us to a pitch of the
highest enthusiasm if we hear it in the midst of a vast audience; even though
the words—and the gestures—and the inflections of the voice—and the force with
which it reaches our ears, were to be precisely the same in the two cases. And
so a joke, which would produce only a quiet smile if we read it by ourselves at
the fireside alone, will evoke convulsions of laughter when heard in a crowded
theater, where the hilarity is shared by thousands. A new element, indeed, seems
to come into action in these last two cases; for the mental condition of one
mind is not only communicated to another—but it appears to be increased and
intensified by the communication. Each does not feel ’merely’ the enthusiasm or
the mirth which would naturally be felt by the other—but the general emotion is
vastly heightened by its being so largely shared. It is like the case of the
live coal, which does not merely set the dead coal on fire by being placed in
contact with it—but the two together, when together, burn far more brightly than
when apart.

’Wonderful Power of Sympathy’. So much for the reality of this principle; and it
is almost impossible to exaggerate the extent and the magnitude of the influence
it exerts in forming the character and shaping the ideas and opinions of
people—and in regulating all their ordinary habits of thought and feeling.
People’s opinions are not generally formed or controlled by arguments or
reasonings—as they might fondly suppose. They are imbibed by sympathy from those
whom they like or love—and who are, or have been, their associates. Thus people,
when they arrive at maturity, adhere in the main to the associations, both in
religion and in politics, in which they have been brought up, from the influence
of sympathy with those whom they love. They believe in this or that doctrine or
system—not because they have been convinced by proof—but chiefly because those
whom they love believe in them. On religious questions, the arguments are
presented to them, it is true, while they are young, in catechisms and in other
forms of religious instruction—and in politics by the conversations which they
overhear; but it is a mistake to suppose that arguments thus offered have any
material effect as processes of reasoning, in producing any logical conviction
upon their minds. An English boy is Whig or Tory because his father—and his
brothers—and his uncles are Whigs or Tories. He may, indeed, have many arguments
at his command with which to maintain his opinions—but it is not the force of
the arguments that has convinced him, nor do they have any force as a means of
convincing the other boys to whom he offers them. ’They’ are controlled by their
sympathies, as he is by his. But if he is a popular boy—and makes himself a
favorite among his companions, the very fact that he is of this or that party
will have more effect upon the other boys, than the most logical and conclusive
trains of reasoning that can be conceived. So it is with the religious and
political differences in this and in every other country. Everyone’s opinions—or
rather the opinion of people in general, for of course there are many individual
exceptions—are formed from sympathy with those with whom in mind and heart they
have been in friendly communication during their years of childhood and youth.
And even in those cases where people change their religious opinions in adult
age, the explanation of the mystery is generally to be found, not in seeking for
the ’argument which convinced them’—but for the ’person who led them’, in the
accomplishment of the change. For such changes can very often—and perhaps
generally, be traced to some person or people whose influence over them, if
carefully scrutinized, would be found to consist really not in the force of the
arguments they offered—but in the magic power of a silent and perhaps
unconscious sympathy. The way, therefore, to convert people to our ideas and
opinions is to make them like us or love us—and then to avoid arguing with
them—but simply let them perceive what our ideas and opinions are. The
well-known proverb, "Example is better than precept," is only another form of
expressing the predominating power of sympathy; for example can have little
influence except so far as a sympathetic feeling in the observer leads him to
imitate it. So that, example is better than precept—means only that sympathy has
more influence in the human heart than reasoning.

’The Power of Sympathy in Childhood’. This principle, so powerful at every
period of life, is at its maximum in childhood. It is the origin, in a very
great degree, of the spirit of imitation which forms so remarkable a
characteristic of the first years of life. The child’s thoughts and feelings
being spontaneously drawn into harmony with the thoughts and feelings of those
around him whom he loves—leads, of course, to a reproduction of their
actions—and the prevalence and universality of the effect, shows how constant
and how powerful is the cause. So the great secret of success for a mother, in
the formation of the character of her children, is to make her children respect
and love her—and then simply to ’be’ herself what she wishes them to be. And to
make them respect and love her, is to control them by a firm government where
control is required—and to indulge them almost without limit, where indulgence
will do no harm.

’Special Application of the Principle’. But besides this general effect of the
principle of sympathy in aiding parents in forming the minds and hearts of their
children, there are a great many cases in which a father or mother who
understands the secret of its wonderful and almost magic power, can avail
themselves of it to produce special effects. One or two examples will show more
clearly what I mean.

William’s aunt Maria came to pay his mother a visit in the village where they
lived. On the same day she went to take a walk with William—who is about nine
years old—to see the village. As they went along together upon the sidewalk,
they came to two small boys who were trying to fly a kite. One of the boys was
standing upon the sidewalk, embarrassed a little by some entanglement of the
string.

"Hey, fellow!" said William, as he and his aunt approached the spot, "get out of
the way with your kite—and let us go by." The boy hurried out of the way—and, in
so doing, got his kite-string more entangled in the branches of a tree which
grew at the margin of the sidewalk.

Now William’s aunt might have taken the occasion, as she and her nephew walked
along, to give him some kind and friendly instruction or counsel about the duty
of being kind to everybody in any difficulty, trouble, or perplexity, whether
they are young or old; showing him how we increase the general sum of happiness
in so doing—and how we feel happier ourselves when we have done good to anyone,
than when we have increased in any way, or even slighted or disregarded, their
troubles. How William would receive such a lecture, would depend a great deal
upon his disposition and state of mind. But in most cases such counsels, given
at such a time, involving, as they would, some covert though very gentle
censure, would cause the heart of the boy to close itself in a greater or less
degree against them, like the leaves of a sensitive-plant shrinking from the
touch. The reply would very probably be, "Well, he had no business to be on the
sidewalk, right in our way."

William and his aunt walked on a few steps. His aunt then stopped,
hesitatingly—and said, "How would it do to go back and help that boy disentangle
his kite-string? He’s a little fellow—and does not know as much about kites and
kite-strings as you do."

Here the suggestion of giving help to perplexity and distress, came associated
with a compliment instead of what implied censure—and the leaves of the
sensitive-plant expanded at once—and widely, to the congenial influence.

"Yes!" said William; "let’s go!" So his aunt turned and went back a step or
two—and then said, "You can go and do it without me. I’ll wait here till you
come back. I don’t suppose you want any help from me. If you do, I’ll come."

"No," aid William, "I can do it alone." So William ran on with great alacrity to
help the boys clear the string—and then came back with a beaming face to his
aunt—and they walked on.

William’s aunt made no further allusion to the affair until the end of the
walk—and then, on entering the gate, she said, "We have had a very pleasant
walk—and you have taken very good care of me. And I am glad we helped those boys
out of their trouble with the kite."

"So am I!" said William.

’Analysis of the Incident’.

Now it is possible that some one may say that William was wrong in his harsh
treatment of the boys, or at least in his lack of consideration for their
perplexity; and that his aunt, by her mode of treating the case, covered up the
wrong, when it ought to have been brought distinctly to view and openly amended.
But when we come to analyze the case, we shall find that it is not at all
certain that there was anything wrong on William’s part in the transaction, so
far as the state of his heart, in a moral point of view, is concerned. All such
incidents are very complicated in their nature—and in their bearings and
relations. They present many aspects which vary according to the point of view
from which they are regarded. Even grown people do not always see all the
different aspects of an affair in respect to which they are called upon to act
or to form an opinion—and children, perhaps, never; and in judging their
conduct, we must always consider the aspect in which the action is presented to
their minds. In this case, William was thinking only of his aunt. He wished to
make her walk convenient and agreeable to her. The boy disentangling his string
on the sidewalk was to him, at that time, simply an obstacle in his aunt’s
way—and he dealt with it as such, sending the boy off as an act of kindness and
attention to his aunt solely. The idea of a sentient being suffering distress
which he might either increase by harshness or relieve by help, was not present
in his mind at all. We may say that he ought to have thought of this. But a
youthful mind, still imperfect in its development, cannot be expected to take
cognizance at once of all the aspects of a transaction which tends in different
directions to different results. It is true, that he ought to have thought of
the distress of the boys, if we mean that he ought to be taught or trained to
think of such distress when he witnessed it; and that was exactly what his aunt
was endeavoring to do. We ourselves have learned, by long experience of life, to
perceive at once the many different aspects which an affair may present—and the
many different results which may flow in various directions from the same
action; and we often inconsiderately blame children, simply because their minds
are yet so imperfectly developed that they cannot take simultaneous cognizance
of more than one or two of them. This is the true understanding of most of what
is called heedlessness in children—and for which, poor things, they receive so
many harsh reprimands and so much punishment. A little girl, for example,
undertakes to water her sister’s plants. In her praiseworthy desire to do her
work well and thoroughly, she fills the mug too full—and spills the water upon
some books that are lying upon the table. The explanation of the misfortune is
simply that her mind was filled, completely filled, with the thoughts of helping
her sister. The thought of the possibility of spilling the water, did not come
into her mind at all. There was no room for it while the other thought, so
engrossing, was there; and to say that she ’ought’ to have thought of both the
results which might follow her action, is only to say that she ought to be
older.

’Sympathy as the Origin of childish Fears’. The ’power of sympathy’ in the mind
of a child—that is, its tendency to imbibe the opinions or sentiments manifested
by others in their presence—may be made very effectual, not only in inculcating
principles of right and wrong—but in relation to every other idea or emotion!
Children are afraid of thunder and lightning, or of robbers at night, or of
ghosts—because they perceive that their parents, or older brothers or sisters,
are afraid of them. Where the parents do not believe in ghosts, the children are
not afraid of them; unless, indeed, there are domestics in the house, or
playmates at school, or other companions from whom they take the contagion. So,
what they see that their parents value—they prize themselves. They imbibe from
their playmates at school a very large proportion of their tastes, their
opinions, and their ideas—not through arguments or reasoning—but from sympathy!
And most of the wrong or foolish notions of any kind that they have acquired
have not been established in their minds by false reasoning—but have been taken
by sympathy, as a disease is communicated by infection; and the remedy is in
most cases, not reasoning—but a countervailing sympathy.

’Afraid of a Kitten’.

Little Jane was very much afraid of a kitten which her brother brought home—the
first that she had known. She had, however, seen a picture of a tiger or some
other feline animal devouring a man in a forest—and had been frightened by it;
and she had heard too, perhaps, of children being scratched by cats or kittens.
So, when the kitten was brought in and put down on the floor, she ran to her
sister in great terror—and began to cry.

Now her sister might have attempted to reason with her by explaining the
difference between the kitten and the wild animals of the same class in the
woods—and by assuring her that thousands of children have kittens to play with
and are never scratched by them so long as they treat them kindly—and all
without producing any sensible effect. But, instead of this, she adopted a
different plan. She took the child up into her lap—and after quieting her fears,
began to talk to the kitten.

"Poor little pussy," said she, "I am glad you have come. You never scratch
anybody, I am sure, if they are kind to you. Jennie will give you some milk some
day—and she and I will like to see you lap it up with your pretty little tongue.
And we will give you a ball to play with some day upon the carpet. See, Jennie,
see! She is going to lie down upon the rug. She is glad that she has come to
such a nice home. Now she is putting her head down—but she has not any pillow to
lay it upon. Wouldn’t you like a pillow, kitty? Jennie will make you a pillow
some day, I am sure, if you would like one. Jennie is beginning to learn to
sew—and she could make you a nice pillow—and stuff it with cotton wool. Then we
can see you lying down upon the rug, with the pillow under your head that Jennie
will have made for you—all comfortable."

Such a talk as this, though it could not be expected entirely and at once to
dispel Jennie’s unfounded fears, would be far more effectual towards beginning
the desired change than any arguments or reasoning could possibly be.

Any mother who will reflect upon the principle here explained will at once
recall to mind many examples and illustrations of its power over the hearts and
minds of children which her own experience has afforded. And if she begins
practically and systematically to appeal to it, she will find herself in
possession of a new element of power—new, at least, to her realization—the
exercise of which will be as easy and agreeable to herself as it will be
effective in its influence over her children.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 38: 3.11     SYMPATHY-THE PARENT WITH THE CHILD
========================================================================

Chapter 11. Sympathy— the Parent with the Child.

I think there can be no doubt that the most effectual way of securing the
confidence and love of children—and of acquiring an ascendancy over them—is by
sympathizing with them in their child-like hopes and fears—and joys and
sorrows—in their ideas, their fancies—and even in their caprices—in all cases
where duty is not concerned. Indeed, the more child-like, that is, the more
peculiar to the children themselves, the feelings are that we enter into with
them, the closer is the bond of kindness and affection that is formed.

’An Example’.

If a gentleman coming to reside in a new town concludes that it is desirable
that he should be on good terms with the boys in the streets, there are various
ways by which he can seek to accomplish the end. Fortunately for him, the
simplest and easiest mode is the most effectual. On going into the village one
day, we will suppose he sees two small boys playing horse. One boy is horse—and
the other driver. He stops to look at them with a pleased expression of
countenance—and then says, addressing the driver, with a face of much
seriousness, "That’s a first-rate horse of yours. Would you like to sell him? He
seems to be very spirited." The horse immediately begins to prance and caper.
"You must have paid a high price for him. You must take good care of him. Give
him plenty of oats—and don’t drive him hard when it is hot weather. And if ever
you conclude to sell him, I wish you would let me know." So saying, the
gentleman walks on—and the horse, followed by his driver, goes galloping forward
in high glee.

Now, by simply manifesting thus a fellow-feeling with the boys in their childish
play, the stranger not only gives a fresh impulse to their enjoyment at the
time—but establishes a friendly relationship between them and him which, without
his doing anything to strengthen or perpetuate it, will of itself endure for a
long time. If he does not speak to the boys again for months, every time they
meet him they will be ready to greet him with a smile. The incident will go much
farther towards establishing friendly relations between him and them than any
presents that he could make them—except so far as his presents were of such a
kind—and were given in such a way, as to be expressions of kindly feeling
towards them—that is to say, such as to constitute of themselves a manifestation
of sympathy. The uncle who gives his nephews and nieces presents, let them be
ever so costly or beautiful—and takes no interest in their affairs, never
inspires them with any feeling of personal affection. They like him as they like
the apple-tree which bears them sweet and juicy apples, or the cow that gives
them milk—which is on their part a very different sentiment from that which they
feel for the kitten that plays with them and shares their joys—or even for their
dolls, which are only pictured in their imagination as sharing them.

’Sophronia and Aurelia’.

Miss Sophronia calls at a house to make a visit. A child of seven or eight years
of age is playing upon the floor. After a little time, at a pause in the
conversation, she calls the child—addressing her as "My little girl"—to come to
her. The child—a shade being cast over her mind by being thus unnecessarily
reminded of her littleness—hesitates to come. The mother says, "Come and shake
hands with the lady, my dear!" The child comes reluctantly. Miss Sophronia asks
what her name is, how old she is, whether she goes to school, what she studies
there—and whether she likes to go to school—and at length releases her. The
child, only too glad to be free from such a tiresome visitor, goes back to her
play—and afterwards the only ideas she has associated with the person of her
visitor are those relating to her school and her lessons, which may or may not
be of an agreeable character.

Presently, after Miss Sophronia has gone, Miss Aurelia comes in. After some
conversation with the mother, she goes to see what the child is building with
her blocks. After looking on for a moment with an expression of interest in her
countenance, she asks her if she has a doll. The child says she has four. Miss
Aurelia then asks which she likes best—and expresses a desire to see that one.
The child, much pleased, runs away to bring it—and presently comes back with all
four. Miss Aurelia takes them in her hands, examines them, talks about them—and
talks to them; and when at last the child goes back to her play, she goes with
the feeling in her heart that she has found a new friend.

Thus, to bring ourselves near to the hearts of children, we must go to them by
entering into ’their world’. They cannot come to us by entering ours. They have
no experience of it—and cannot understand it. But we have had experience of
theirs—and can enter it if we choose; and in that way we bring ourselves very
near to them.

’Sympathy must be Sincere’. But the sympathy which we thus express with
children, in order to be effectual, must be sincere and genuine—and not
pretended. We must renew our own childish ideas and imaginations—and become for
the moment, in feeling, one with them, so that the interest which we express in
what they are saying or doing may be real—and not merely pretended. They seem to
have a natural instinct to distinguish between an honest and actual sharing of
their thoughts and emotions—and all mere condescension and pretense, however
adroitly it may be disguised.

’Lack of Time’.

Some mothers may perhaps say that they have not time thus to enter into the
ideas and occupations of their children. They are engrossed with the serious
cares of life, or busy with its various occupations. But it does not require
time. It is not a question of time—but of manner. The farmer’s wife, for
example, is busy ironing, or sewing, or preparing breakfast for her husband and
sons, who are expected every moment to come in hungry from their work. Her
little daughter, ten years old, comes to show her a shawl she has been making
from a piece of calico for her doll. The busy mother thinks she must say, "Yes;
but run away now, Mary; I am very busy!"—because that is the easiest and
quickest thing to say; but it is just as easy and just as quick to say, "What a
pretty shawl! Play now that you are going to take Minette out for a walk in it!"
The one mode sends the child away repulsed and a little disappointed; the other
pleases her and makes her happy—and tends, moreover, to form a new bond of union
and sympathy between her mother’s heart and her own. A merchant, engrossed all
day in his business, comes home to his house at dinner-time—and meets his boy of
fifteen on the steps returning from his school. "Well, James," he says, as they
walk together up stairs, "I hope you have been a good boy at school today."
James, not knowing what to say, makes some inaudible or unmeaning reply. His
father then goes on to say that he hopes his boy will be diligent and attentive
to his studies—and improve his time well, as his future success in life will
depend upon the use which he makes of his advantages while he is young; and then
leaves him at the head of the stairs, each to go to his room.

All this is very well. Advice given under such circumstances and in such a way
produces, undoubtedly, a certain good effect—but it does not tend at all to
bring the father and son together. But if, instead of giving this common-place
advice, the father asks—supposing it to be winter at the time—"Which kind of
skates are the most popular among the boys nowadays, James?" Then, after hearing
his reply, he asks him what ’his’ opinion is—and whether any great improvement
has been made within a short time—and whether any of the patent inventions are
of much consequence. The tendency of such a conversation as this, equally brief
with the other, will be to draw the father and son more together. Even in a
moral point of view, the influence would be, indirectly, very beneficial; for
although no moral counsel or instruction was given at the time, the effect of
such a participation in the thoughts with which the boy’s mind is occupied is to
strengthen the bond of union between the heart of the boy and that of his
father—and thus to make the boy far more ready to receive and be guided by the
advice or admonitions of his father on other occasions.

Let no one suppose, from these illustrations, that they are intended to
inculcate the idea that a father is to lay aside the parental counsels and
instructions that he has been accustomed to give to his children—and replace
them by talks about skates! They are only intended to show one aspect of the
difference of effect produced by the two kinds of conversation—and that the
father, if he wishes to gain and retain an influence over the hearts of his
boys, must descend sometimes into the world in which they live—and with which
their thoughts are occupied—and must enter it, not merely as a spectator, or a
fault-finder, or a counselor—but as a sharer, to some extent, in the ideas and
feelings which are appropriate to it.

’Ascendancy over the Minds of Children’.

Sympathizing with children in their own pleasures and enjoyments, however
childish they may seem to us when we do not regard them, as it were, with
children’s eyes—is, perhaps, the most powerful of all the means at our command
for gaining a powerful ascendancy over them. This will lead us not to interfere
with their own plans and ideas—but to be willing that they should be happy in
their own way. In respect to their duties, those connected, for example, with
their studies, their serious employments—and their compliance with directions of
any kind emanating from superior authority, of course their will must be under
absolute subjection to the will of those who are older and wiser than they. In
all such things they must bring their thoughts and actions into accord with
ours. In these things they must come to us, not we to them. But in everything
that relates to their child-like pleasures and joys, their modes of recreation
and amusement, their playful explorations of the mysteries of things—and the
various novelties around them in the strange world into which they find
themselves ushered—in all these things we must not attempt to bring them to
us—but we must go to them. In this, their own sphere, the more perfectly they
are at liberty, the better; and if we join them in it at all, we must do so by
bringing our ideas and wishes into accord with theirs.

’Foolish Fears’. The effect of our sympathy with children in winning their
confidence and love, is all the more powerful when it is exercised in cases
where they are naturally inclined not to expect sympathy—that is, in relation to
feelings which they would suppose that older people would be inclined to
condemn. Perhaps the most striking example of this is in what is commonly called
foolish fears. Now a fear is foolish or otherwise, not according to the absolute
facts involving the supposed danger—but according to the means which the person
in question has of knowing the facts. A lady, for example, in passing along the
sidewalk of a great city comes to a place where workmen are raising an immense
and ponderous iron safe, which, slowly rising, hangs suspended twenty feet above
the walk. She is afraid to pass under it. The foreman, however, who is engaged
in directing the operation, passing freely to and fro under the impending
weight, as he has occasion—and without the least concern, smiles, perhaps, at
the lady’s "foolish fears." But the fears which might, perhaps, be foolish in
him, are not so in her, since he ’knows’ the nature and the strength of the
machinery and securities above—and she does not. She only knows that accidents
do sometimes happen from lack of due precaution in raising heavy weights—and she
does not know—and has no means of knowing, whether or not the due precautions
have been taken in this case. So she manifests good sense—and not folly, in
going out of her way to avoid all possibility of danger. This is really the
proper explanation of a large class of what are usually termed foolish fears.
Viewed in the light of the individual’s knowledge of the facts in the case, they
are sensible fears—and not foolish ones at all. A girl of twelve, from the city,
spending the summer in the country, wishes to go down to the river to join her
brothers there—but is stopped by observing a cow in a field which she has to
cross. She comes back to the house—and is there laughed at for her foolishness
in being "afraid of a cow!" But why should she not be afraid of a cow? She has
heard stories of people being gored by bulls—and sometimes by cows—and she has
no means whatever of estimating the reality or the extent of the danger in any
particular case. The farmer’s daughters, however, who laugh at her, know the cow
in question perfectly well. They have milked her—and fed her—and tied her up to
her manger a hundred times; so, while it would be a very foolish thing for them
to be afraid to cross a field where the cow was feeding, it is a very sensible
thing for the stranger-girl from the city to be so. Nor would it certainly
change the case much for the child, if the farmer’s girls were to assure her
that the cow was perfectly peaceable—and that there was no danger; for she does
not know the girls any better than she does the cow—and cannot judge how far
their statements or opinions are to be relied upon. It may possibly not be the
cow they think it is. They are very positive, it is true; but very positive
people are often mistaken. Besides, the cow may be peaceable with them—and yet
be disposed to attack a stranger. What a child requires in such a case is
sympathy and help, not ridicule.

She does meet with sympathy in the form of the farmer’s son, a young man browned
in face and plain in attire, who comes along while she stands loitering at the
fence looking at the cow—and not daring after all, notwithstanding the
assurances she has received at the house—to cross the field. His name is
Joseph—and he is a natural gentleman—a class of people of whom a much larger
number is found in this humble guise—and a much smaller number in proportion
among the fashionables in elegant life, than is often supposed. "Yes," says
Joseph, after hearing the child’s statement of the case, "you are right. Cows
are sometimes vicious, I know; and you are perfectly right to be on your guard
against such as you do not know when you meet them in the country. This one, as
it happens, is very kind; but still, I will go through the field with you." So
he goes with her through the field, stopping on the way to talk a little to the
cow—and to feed her with an apple which he has in his pocket.

It is in this spirit that the fears—and antipathies—and false imaginations of
children are generally to be dealt with; though, of course, there may be many
exceptions to the general rule.

’When Children are in the Wrong’.

There is a certain sense in which we should feel a sympathy with children in the
wrong that they do. It would seem paradoxical to say that in any sense there
should be sympathy with sin—and yet there is a sense in which this is true,
though perhaps, strictly speaking—it is sympathy with the trial and temptation
which led to the sin, rather than with the act of transgression itself. In
whatever light a nice metaphysical analysis would lead us to regard it, it is
certain that the most successful efforts that have been made by philanthropists
for reaching the hearts and reforming the conduct of criminals and malefactors,
have been prompted by a feeling of compassion for them, not merely for the
sorrows and sufferings which they have brought upon themselves by their
wrongdoing—but for the mental conflicts which they endured, the fierce impulses
of appetite and passion, more or less connected with and dependent upon the
material condition of the bodily organs, under the onset of which their feeble
moral sense, never really brought into a condition of health and vigor, was
over-borne. These merciful views of the diseased condition and action of the
soul in the commission of crime are not only in themselves right views for man
to take of the crimes and sins of his fellow-man—but they lie at the foundation
of all effort that can afford any serious hope of promoting reformation. This
principle is eminently true in its application to children. They need the
influence of a kind and considerate sympathy when they have done wrong—more,
perhaps, than at any other time. And the effects of the proper manifestation of
this sympathy on the part of the mother will, perhaps, be greater and more
beneficial in this case than in any other. Of course the sympathy must be of the
right kind—and must be expressed in the right way, so as not to allow the
tenderness or compassion for the wrong-doer, to be mistaken for approval or
justification of the wrong.

’Case supposed’. A boy, for instance, comes home from school in a state of great
distress—and perhaps of indignation and resentment, on account of having been
punished. Mothers sometimes say at once, in such a case, "I don’t pity you at
all. I have no doubt you deserved it." This only increases the tumult of
commotion in the boy’s mind, without at all tending to help him to feel a sense
of his guilt. His mind, still imperfectly developed, cannot take cognizance
simultaneously of all the parts and all the aspects of a complicated
transaction. The sense of his wrong-doing, which forms in his teacher’s and in
his mother’s mind so essential a part of the transaction, is not present in his
conceptions at all. There is no room for it, so totally engrossed are all his
faculties with the stinging recollections of suffering, the tumultuous emotions
of anger and resentment—and now with the additional thought that even his mother
has taken part against him. The mother’s conception of the transaction is
equally limited and imperfect, though in a different way. She thinks only that
if she were to treat the child with kindness and sympathy, she would be taking
the part of a bad boy against his teacher; whereas, in reality, she might do it
in such a way as only to be taking the part of a suffering boy against his pain.

It would seem that the true and proper course for a mother to take with a child
in such a case, would be to soothe and calm his agitation—and to listen, if need
be, to his account of the affair, without questioning or controverting it at
all, however plainly she may see that, under the blinding and distorting
influence of his excitement, he is misrepresenting the facts. Let him tell his
story. Listen to it patiently to the end. It is not necessary to express or even
to form an opinion on the merits of it. The ready and willing hearing of one
side of a case does not commit the tribunal to a decision in favor of that side.
On the other hand, it is the only way to give weight and a sense of impartiality
to a decision against it.

Thus the mother may sympathize with her boy in his troubles, appreciate fully
the force of the circumstances which led him into the wrong—and help to soothe
and calm his agitation—and thus take his part—and place herself closely to him
in respect to his suffering, without committing herself at all in regard to the
original cause of it; and then, at a subsequent time, when the tumult of his
soul has subsided, she can, if she thinks best, far more easily and effectually
lead him to see wherein he was wrong.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 39: 3.12     COMMENDATION AND ENCOURAGMENT
========================================================================

Gentle Child Training Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the
Young By Jacob Abbott, 1871 The principles on which a firm parental authority
may be established and maintained, without violence or anger, and the right
development of the moral and mental capacities be promoted—by methods in harmony
with the structure and the characteristics of the young mind.

Section 3 Chapter 12. Commendation and Encouragement.

We are very apt to imagine that the disposition to do right is, or ought to be,
the natural and normal condition of childhood—and that doing wrong is something
unnatural and exceptional with children. As a consequence, when they do right we
think there is nothing to be said. We think that the child’s doing right is, or
ought to be, a matter of course. It is only when they do wrong that we notice
their conduct—and then, of course, with censure and reproaches. Thus our
discipline consists mainly, not in gently leading and encouraging them in the
right way—but in deterring them, by fault-finding and punishment, from going
wrong.

Now we ought not to forget that in respect to moral conduct, as well as to
mental attainments, children know nothing when they come into the world—but have
everything to learn, either from the instructions or from the example of those
around them. We do not propose to enter at all into the consideration of the
various theological and metaphysical theories held by different classes of
philosophers in respect to the native constitution and original tendencies of
the human soul—but to look at the phenomena of mental and moral action in a
plain and practical way, as they present themselves to the observation of
mothers in the every-day walks of life. And in order the better to avoid any
complication with these theories, we will take first an extremely simple case,
namely, the fault of making too much noise in opening and shutting the door in
going in and out of a room.

Georgie and Charlie are two boys, both about five years old—and both prone to
the same fault. We will suppose that their mothers take opposite methods to
correct them; Georgie’s mother depending upon the influence of commendation and
encouragement when he does right—and Charlie’s, upon the efficacy of reproaches
and punishments when he does wrong.

’One Method’.

Georgie, eager to ask his mother some question, or to obtain some permission in
respect to his play, bursts into her room some morning with great noise, opening
and shutting the door violently—and making much disturbance. In a certain sense
he is not to blame for this, for he is wholly unconscious of the disturbance he
makes. The entire cognizant capacity of his mind is occupied with the object of
his request. He not only had no intention of doing any harm—but has no idea of
his having done any. His mother takes no notice of the noise he made—but answers
his question—and he goes away making almost as much noise in going out as he did
in coming in. The next time he comes in it happens—entirely by accident, we will
suppose—that he makes a little less noise than before. This furnishes his mother
with her opportunity.

"Georgie," she says, "I see you are improving."

"Improving?" repeats Georgie, not knowing to what his mother refers.

"Yes," said his mother; "you are improving, in coming into the room without
making a noise by opening and shutting the door. You did not make nearly as much
noise this time as you did before when you came in. Some boys, whenever they
come into a room, make so much noise in opening and shutting the door, that it
is very disagreeable. If you go on improving as you have begun, you will soon
come in as still as any gentleman." The next time that Georgie comes in, he
takes the utmost pains to open and shut the door as silently as possible.

He makes his request. His mother shows herself unusually ready to grant it.

"You opened and shut the door like a gentleman," she says. "I ought to do
everything for you that I can, when you take so much pains not to disturb or
trouble me."

’Another Method’.

Charlie’s mother, on the other hand, acts on a different principle. Charlie
comes in sometimes, we will suppose, in a quiet and proper manner. His mother
takes no notice of this. She considers it a matter of course. By-and-by,
however, under the influence of some special eagerness, he makes a great noise.
Then his mother interposes. She breaks out upon him with, "Charlie, what a loud
noise you make! Don’t you know better than to slam the door in that way when you
come in? If you can’t learn to make less noise in going in and out—I shall not
let you go in and out at all."

Charlie knows very well that this is an empty threat. Still, the utterance of
it—and the scolding that accompanies it, irritate him a little—and the only
possible good effect that can be expected to result from it is to make him try,
the next time he comes in, to see how small an abatement of the noise he usually
makes will do, as a kind of make-believe obedience to his mother’s command. He
might, indeed, honestly answer his mother’s angry question by saying that he
does ’not’ know better than to make such a noise. He does not know why the noise
of the door should be disagreeable to his mother. It is not disagreeable to
’him’. On the contrary, it is agreeable. Children always like noise, especially
if they make it themselves. And although Charlie has often been told that he
must not make any noise, the reason for this—namely, that though noise is a
source of pleasure, generally, to children, especially when they make it
themselves, it is almost always a source of annoyance and pain to grown
people—has never really entered his mind so as to be actually comprehended us a
practical reality. His ideas in respect to the philosophy of the transaction
are, of course, exceedingly vague; but so far as he forms any idea, it is that
his mother’s words are the expression of some mysterious but unreasonable
sensitiveness on her part, which awakens in her a spirit of fault-finding and
angry-mood that vents itself upon him in blaming him for nothing at all; or, as
he would express it more tersely, if not so elegantly, that she is "very cross."
In other words, the impression made by the transaction upon his moral sense is
that of wrong-doing on his ’mother’s part’—and not at all on his own.

It is evident, when we thus look into the secret workings of this method of
curing children of their faults, that even when it is successful in restraining
certain kinds of outward misconduct—and is thus the means of effecting some
small amount of good— the injury which it does by its reaction on the spirit of
the child may be vastly greater, through the irritation and vexation which it
occasions—and the impairing of his confidence in the justice and goodness of his
mother.

Before leaving this illustration, it must be carefully observed that in the
first-mentioned case—namely, that of Georgie—the work of curing the fault in
question is not to be at all considered as ’effected’ by the step taken by his
mother which has been already described. That was only a beginning—a ’right’
beginning, it is true—but still only a beginning. It produced in him a cordial
willingness to do right, in one instance. That is a great thing—but it is, after
all, only one single step. The work is not complete until a ’habit’ of doing
right is formed, which is another thing altogether—and requires special and
continual measures directed to this particular end. Children have to be
’trained’ in the way they should go—not merely shown the way—and induced to make
a beginning of entering it. We will now try to show how the influence of
commendation and encouragement may be brought into action in this more essential
part of the process.

’Habit to be Formed’.

Having taken the first step already described, Georgie’s mother finds some
proper opportunity, when she can have the undisturbed and undivided attention of
her boy—perhaps at night, after he has gone to his his trundle-bed—and just
before she leaves him; or, perhaps, at some time while she is at work—and he is
sitting by her side, with his mind calm, quiet—and unoccupied.

"Georgie," she says, "I have a plan to propose to you."

Georgie is eager to know what it is.

"You know how pleased I was when you came in so quietly today."

Georgie remembers it very well.

"It is very curious," continued his mother, "that there is a great difference
between grown people and children about noise. Children ’like’ almost all kinds
of noises very much, especially, if they make the noises themselves; but grown
people dislike them even more, I think, than children like them. If there were a
number of boys in the house—and I would tell them that they might run back and
forth through the rooms—and rattle and slam all the doors as they went as loud
as they could, they would like it very much. They would think it excellent fun."

"Yes," says Georgie, "indeed, they would. I wish you would let us do it some
day."

"But grown people," continues his mother, "would not like such an amusement at
all. On the contrary, such a racket would be excessively disagreeable to them,
whether they made it themselves or whether somebody else made it. So, when
children come into a room where grown people are sitting—and make a noise in
opening and shutting the door, it is very disagreeable. Of course, grown people
always like those children the best, who come into a room quietly—and in a
gentlemanly and lady-like manner." As this explanation comes in connection with
Georgia’s having done right—and with the commendation which he has received for
it, his mind and heart are open to receive it, instead of being disposed to
resist and exclude it—as he would have been if the same things exactly had been
said to him in connection with censure and reproaches for having acted in
violation of the principle.

"Yes, mother," says he, "and I mean always to open and shut the door as still as
I can."

"Yes, I know you ’mean’ to do so," rejoined his mother, "but you will forget,
unless you have some plan to make you remember it until the ’habit is formed’.
Now I have a plan to propose to help you form the habit. When you get the habit
once formed there will be no more difficulty.

"The plan is this: whenever you come into a room making a noise, I will simply
say, ’Noise!’ Then you will step back again softly and shut the door—and then
come in again in a quiet and proper way. You will not go back as a punishment,
for you would not have made the noise on purpose—and so would not deserve any
punishment. It is only to help you remember—and so to form the habit of coming
into a room in a quiet and gentlemanly manner."

Now Georgie, especially if all his mother’s management of him is conducted in
this spirit, will enter into this plan with great cordiality.

"I would not propose this plan," continued his mother, "if I thought that when I
say ’Noise!’—and you have to go out and come in again, it would put you out of
sorts—and make you cross or sullen. I am sure you will be good-natured about
it—and even if you consider it a kind of punishment, that you will go out
willingly—and take the punishment like a man; and when you come in again you
will come in still—and look pleased and happy to find that you are carrying out
the plan honorably."

Then if, on the first occasion when he is sent back, he ’does’ take it
good-naturedly, this must be noticed and commended.

Now, unless we are entirely wrong in all our ideas of the nature and tendencies
of the childish mind, it is as certain that a course of procedure like this will
be successful in curing the fault which is the subject of treatment, as that
water will extinguish fire. It cures it, too, without occasioning any
irritation, annoyance, or bad-mood in the mind either of mother or child. On the
contrary, it is a source of real satisfaction and pleasure to them both—and
increases and strengthens the bond of sympathy by which their hearts are united
to each other.

’The Principle involved’.

It must be understood distinctly that this case is given only as an illustration
of a principle, which is applicable to all cases. The act of opening and
shutting a door in a noisy manner is altogether too insignificant a fault to
deserve this long discussion of the method of curing it, were it not that
methods founded on the same principles, and conducted in the same spirit—are
applicable universally in all that pertains to the domestic management of
children. And it is a method, too, directly the opposite of that which is
often—I will not say generally—but certainly very often pursued. The child tells
the truth many times—and in some cases, perhaps, when the inducement was very
strong to tell an untruth. We take no notice of these cases, considering it a
matter of course that he should tell the truth. We reserve our action altogether
for the first case when, overcome by a sudden temptation, he tells a lie—and
then interpose with reproaches and punishment.

Perhaps nineteen times he gives up what belongs to his little brother or sister
of his own accord, perhaps after a severe internal struggle. The twentieth time
the result of the struggle goes the wrong way—and he attempts to retain by
violence what does not belong to him. We take no notice of the nineteen cases
when the little fellow did right—but come and box his ears in the one case when
he does wrong.

’Origin of the Error’. The idea on which this improper mode of treatment is
founded—namely, that it is a ’matter of course’ that children will do right, so
that when they do right there is nothing to be said—and that doing wrong is the
abnormal condition and exceptional action which alone requires the parent to
interfere—is, to a great extent, a mistake. Indeed, the ’matter of course’ is
all the other way. As a ’matter of course’ that children will do wrong! A babe
will seize the plaything of another babe without the least compunction, long
after it is keenly alive to the injustice and wrongfulness of having its own
playthings taken by any other child. So in regard to truth. The first impulse of
all children, when they have just acquired the use of language, is to use it in
such a way as to effect their object for the time being, without any sense of
the sacred obligation of making the words always correspond truly with the
facts. The principles of doing justice to the rights of others—to one’s own
damage; and of speaking the truth—when falsehood would serve the present purpose
better; are principles that are developed or acquired by slow degrees—and at a
later period. I say developed ’or’ acquired—for different classes of
metaphysicians and theologians entertain different theories in respect to the
way by which the ideas of right and of duty enter into the human mind. But all
will agree in this—that whatever may be the origin of the moral sense in man, it
does not appear as a ’practical element of control for the conduct’ until some
time after the physical appetites and passions have begun to exercise their
power.

Whether we regard this sense as arising from a development within of a latent
principle of the soul, or as an essential element of the inherited and native
constitution of man, though remaining for a time embryonic and inert, or as a
habit acquired under the influence of instruction and example—all will admit
that the period of its appearance as a perceptible motive of action is so
delayed—and the time required for its attaining sufficient strength to exercise
any real and effectual control over the conduct extends over so many of the
earlier years of life, that no very material help in governing the appetites and
passions and impulses can be reasonably expected from it at a very early period.
Indeed, conscience, so far as its existence is manifested at all in childhood,
seems to show itself chiefly in the form of the simple ’fear of detection’ in
what there is reason to suppose will lead, if discovered, to reproaches or
punishment. At any rate, the moral sense in childhood, whatever may be our
philosophy in respect to the origin and the nature of it, cannot be regarded as
a strong and settled principle on which we can throw the responsibility of
regulating the conduct—and holding it sternly to its obligations. The moral
sense in childhood is, on the contrary, a very tender plant, slowly coming
forward to the development of its beauty and its power—and requiring the most
gentle fostering and care on the part of those entrusted with the training of
the infant mind; and the influence of commendation and encouragement when the
youthful monitor succeeds in its incipient and feeble efforts—will be far more
effectual in promoting its development, than that of censure and punishment when
it fails.

’Important Caution’. For every good thing there seems to be something in its
form and semblance that is spurious and bad. The principle brought to view in
this chapter has its counterfeit, in the indiscriminate praise and flattery of
children by their parents, which only makes them self-conceited and vain,
without at all promoting any good end. The distinction between the two might be
easily pointed out, if time and space permitted; but the intelligent parent, who
has rightly comprehended the method of management here described—and the spirit
in which the process of applying it is to be made, will be in no danger of
confounding one with the other. This principle of noticing and commending,
within proper limits and restrictions, what is right; rather than finding fault
with what is wrong, will be found to be as important in the work of
instruction—as in the regulation of conduct. We have, in fact, a very good
opportunity of comparing the two systems, as it is a curious fact that in
certain things it is almost the universal custom to adopt one method—and in
certain others, the other.

’The two Methods exemplified’.

There are, for example, two arts which children have to learn, in the process of
their mental and physical development, in which their faults, errors, and
deficiencies are never pointed out—but in the dealings of their parents with
them, all is commendation and encouragement. They are the arts of walking and
talking. The first time that a child attempts to walk alone, what a feeble,
staggering—and awkward exhibition it makes. And yet its mother shows, by the
excitement of her countenance—and the delight expressed by her exclamations, how
pleased she is with the performance; and she, perhaps, even calls in people from
the next room to see how well the baby can walk! Not a word about imperfections
and failings, not a word about the tottering, the awkward reaching out of arms
to preserve the balance, the crookedness of the way, the anxious expression of
the countenance, or any other faults. These are left to correct themselves by
the continued practice which encouragement is sure to lead to.

It is true that words would not be available in such a case for fault-finding;
for a child when learning to walk would be too young to understand them. But the
parent’s sense of the imperfections of the performance might be expressed in
looks and gestures which the child would understand; but he sees, on the
contrary, nothing but indications of satisfaction and pleasure—and it is very
manifest how much he is encouraged by them. Seeing the pleasure which his
efforts give to the spectators, he is made proud and happy by his success—and
thus he goes on making efforts to improve with alacrity and delight.

It is the same with learning to talk. The mistakes, deficiencies and errors of
the first crude attempts are seldom noticed—and still more seldom pointed out by
the parent. On the contrary, the child takes the impression, from the readiness
with which its words are understood and the delight it evidently gives its
mother to hear them, that it is going on triumphantly in its work of learning to
talk, instead of feeling that its attempts are only tolerated because they are
made by such a little child—and that they require a vast amount of correction,
alteration and improvement, before they will be at all satisfactory. Indeed, so
far from criticizing and pointing out the errors and faults, the mother very
frequently meets the child half way in its progress, by actually adopting the
faults and errors herself in her replies. So that when the little beginner in
the use of language, as he wakes up in his crib—and stretching out his hands to
his mother says, "I want to get up" she comes to take him—and replies, her face
beaming with delight, "My little darling! you shall ’get up’;" thus filling his
mind with happiness at the idea that his mother is not only pleased that he
attempts to speak—but is fully satisfied—and more than satisfied, with his
success. The result is, that in learning to walk and to talk, children always go
forward with alacrity and ardor. They practice continually and spontaneously,
requiring no promises of reward to allure them to effort—and no threats of
punishment to overcome repugnance or aversion. It might be too much to say that
the rapidity of their progress and the pleasure which they experience in making
it, are owing wholly to the commendation and encouragement they receive—for
other causes may cooperate with these. But it is certain that these influences
contribute very essentially to the result. There can be no doubt at all that if
it were possible for a mother to stop her child in its efforts to learn to walk
and to talk, and explain to it—no matter how kindly—all its shortcomings,
failures and mistakes—and were to make this her daily and habitual practice, the
consequence would be, not only a great diminution of the ardor and animation of
the little pupil, in pressing forward in its work—but also a great retardation
in its progress!

’Example of the other Method’.

Let us now, for the more full understanding of the subject, go to the other
extreme—and consider a case in which the management is as far as possible
removed from that above referred to. We cannot have a better example than the
method often adopted in schools and seminaries for teaching composition; in
other words, the art of expressing one’s thoughts in written language—an art
which one would suppose to be so analogous to that of learning to talk—that is,
to express one’s thoughts in ’oral’ language—that the method which was found so
eminently successful in the one would be naturally resorted to in the other.
Instead of that, the method often pursued is exactly the reverse. The pupil
having with infinite difficulty—and with many forebodings and anxious fears,
made his first attempt, brings it to his teacher. The teacher, if he is a
kind-hearted and considerate man, perhaps briefly commends the effort with some
such dubious and equivocal praise as it is "Very well for a beginner," or "As
good a composition as could be expected at the first attempt," and then proceeds
to go over the exercise in a cool and deliberate manner, with a view of
revealing and bringing out clearly and conspicuously to the view, not only in
front of the little author himself—but often of all his classmates and
friends—every imperfection, failure, mistake, omission, or other fault which a
rigid scrutiny can detect in the performance. However kindly he may do this—and
however gentle the tones of his voice, still the work is criticism and
fault-finding from beginning to end. The boy sits on thorns and nettles while
submitting to the operation—and when he takes his marked and corrected
manuscript to his seat, he feels mortified and ashamed—and is often hopelessly
discouraged.

’How Faults are to be Corrected’.

Someone may, perhaps, say that pointing out the errors and faults of pupils is
absolutely essential to their progress, inasmuch as, unless they are made to see
what their faults are, they cannot be expected to correct them. I admit that
this is true to a certain extent—but by no means to so great an extent as is
often supposed. There are a great many ways of teaching pupils to do better what
they are going to do, besides showing them the faults in what they have already
done.

Thus, without pointing out the errors and faults which he observes, the teacher
may only refer to and commend what is right, while he at the same time observes
and remembers the prevailing faults, with a view of adapting his future
instructions to the removal of them. These instructions, when given, will take
the form, of course, of general information on the art of expressing one’s
thoughts in writing—and on the faults and errors to be avoided, perhaps without
any, or, at least, very little allusion to those which the pupils themselves had
committed. Instruction thus given, while it will have at least an equal tendency
with the other mode to form the pupils to habits of correctness and accuracy,
will not have the effect upon their mind of disparagement of what they have
already done—but rather of aid and encouragement for them in regard to what they
are next to do. In following the instructions thus given them, the pupils will,
as it were, leave the faults previously committed behind them, being even, in
many instances, unconscious, perhaps, of their having themselves ever committed
them. The ingenious mother will find various modes analogous to this, of leading
her children forward into what is right, without at all disturbing their minds
by censure of what is wrong—a course which it is perfectly safe to pursue in the
case of all errors and faults which result from inadvertence or immaturity.

There is, doubtless, another class of faults—those of willful carelessness or
neglect—which must be specially pointed out to the attention of the
delinquents—and a degree of discredit attached to the commission of them—and
perhaps, in special cases, some kind of punishment imposed, as the most proper
corrective of the evil. And yet, even in cases of carelessness and neglect of
duty, it will generally be found much more easy to awaken ambition, and a desire
to improve, in a child—by discovering, if possible, something good in his
work—and commending that, as an encouragement to him to make greater exertion
the next time, than to attempt to cure him of his negligence by calling his
attention to the faults which he has committed, as subjects of censure, however
obvious the faults may be—and however deserving of blame. The advice, however,
made in this chapter, to employ commendation and encouragement to a great
extent, rather than criticism and fault-finding, in the management and
instruction of children, must, like all other general counsels of the kind, be
held subject to all proper limitations and restrictions. Some mother may,
perhaps, object to what is here advanced, saying, "If I am always
indiscriminately praising my child’s doings, he will become self-conceited and
vain—and he will cease to make progress, being satisfied with what he has
already attained." Of course he will—and therefore you must take care not to be
always and indiscriminately praising him. You must exercise tact and good
judgment, or at any rate, common sense, in properly proportioning your criticism
and your praise. There are no principles of management, however sound—which may
not be so exaggerated, or followed with so blind a disregard of attendant
circumstances, as to produce more harm than good.

It must be especially borne in mind that the counsels here given in relation to
curing the faults of children by dealing more with what is good in them than
what is bad—are intended to apply to faults of ignorance, inadvertence, or habit
only—and not to acts of known and willful wrong. When we come to cases of
deliberate and intentional disobedience to a parent’s commands, or open
resistance to his authority, something different, or at least something more, is
required.

’The Principle of Universal Application.’ In conclusion, it is proper to add
that the principle of influencing human character and action, by noticing and
commending what is right, rather than finding fault with what is wrong—is of
universal application, with the mature as well as with the young. The
susceptibility to this influence is in full operation in the minds of all men
everywhere—and acting upon it will lead to the same results in all the relations
of society. The way to awaken a stingy man to the performance of generous deeds,
is not by remonstrating with him, however kindly, on his stinginess—but by
watching his conduct till we find some act which bears some semblance of
liberality—and commending him for that. If you have a neighbor who is surly and
troublesome—tell him that he is so—and you make him worse than ever! But watch
for some occasion in which he shows you some little kindness—and thank him
cordially for such a good neighborly act—and he will feel a strong desire to
repeat it. If mankind universally understood this principle—and would generally
act upon it in their dealings with others—of course, with such limitations and
restrictions as good sense and sound judgment would impose—the world would not
only go on much more smoothly and harmoniously than it does now—but the progress
of improvement would, I think, in all respects be infinitely more rapid.


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  CHAPTER 40: 3.13     PAGE FAULTS OF IMMATURITY
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Chapter 13. Faults of Immaturity. A great portion of the errors and mistakes—and
of what we call the follies, of children, arise from simple ignorance.
Principles of philosophy, whether pertaining to external nature or to mental
action, are involved which have never come home to their minds. They may have
been presented—but they have not been understood and appreciated. It requires
some tact—and sometimes delicate observation, on the part of the mother—to
determine whether an action which she sees ought to be corrected, results from
childish ignorance and inexperience, or from willful wrong-doing. Whatever may
be the proper treatment in the latter case, it is evident that in the former
what is required is not censure—but instruction.

’Boasting’. A mother came into the room one day and found Johnny disputing
earnestly with his cousin Jane on the question of who was the tallest—Johnny
very strenuously maintaining that he was the tallest, ’because he was a boy’.
His older brother, James, who was present at the time, measured them—and found
that Johnny in reality was the tallest.

Now there was nothing wrong in his feeling a pride and pleasure in the thought
that he was physically superior to his cousin—and though it was foolish for him
to insist himself on this superiority in a boasting way, it was the foolishness
of ignorance only. He had not learned the principle—which half of mankind do not
seem ever to learn during the whole course of their lives—that it is far wiser
and better to let our good qualities appear naturally of themselves, than to
claim credit for them by boasting. It would have been much wiser for Johnny to
have admitted at the outset that Jane might possibly be taller than he—and then
to have awaited quietly the result of the measuring. But we cannot blame him
much for not having learned this particular wisdom at five years of age, when so
many full-grown men and women never learn it at all. Nor was there anything
blameworthy in him in respect to the false logic involved in his argument, that
his being a boy made him necessarily taller than his cousin, a girl of the same
age. There was a ’semblance’ of proof in that fact—what the logicians term a
presumption. But the reasoning powers are very slowly developed in childhood.
They are very seldom aided by any instruction really adapted to the improvement
of them; and we ought not to expect that such children can at all clearly
distinguish a semblance from a reality in ideas so extremely abstruse, as those
relating to the logical connection between the premises and the conclusion in a
process of rationalization. In this case as in the other we expect them to
understand at once, without instruction, what we find it extremely difficult to
learn ourselves; for a large portion of mankind prove themselves utterly unable
ever to discriminate between sound arguments and those which are utterly
inconsequent and absurd. In a word, what Johnny requires in such a case as this
is, not ridicule to shame him out of his false reasoning, nor censure or
punishment to cure him of his boasting—but simply instruction. And this
instruction, it is much better to give ’not’ in direct connection with the
occurrence which indicated the need of it. If you attempt to explain to your boy
the folly of boasting in immediate connection with some act of boasting of his
own, he feels that you are really finding fault with him; his mind instinctively
puts itself into a position of defense—and the truth which you wish to impart to
it finds a much less easy admission.

If, for example, in this case Johnny’s mother attempts on the spot to explain to
him the folly of boasting—and to show how much wiser it is for us to let our
good qualities, if we have any, speak for themselves, without any direct agency
of ours in claiming the merit of them, he listens reluctantly and nervously as
to a scolding in disguise. If he is a well-managed boy, he waits, perhaps, to
hear what his mother has to say—but it makes no impression. If he is badly
trained, he will probably interrupt his mother in the midst of what she is
saying, or break away from her to go on with his play.

’A right Mode of Treatment.’

If now, instead of this, the mother waits until the dispute and the transaction
of measuring have passed by and been forgotten—and then takes some favorable
opportunity to give the required ’instruction’, the result will be far more
favorable. At some time, when tired of his play, he comes to stand by her to
observe her at her work, or perhaps to ask her for a story; or, after she has
put him to bed and is about to leave him for the night, she says to him as
follows:

"I’ll tell you a story about two boys, Jack and Henry—and you shall tell me
which of them came off best. They both went to the same school and were in the
same class—and there was nobody else in the class but those two. Henry, who was
the most diligent scholar, was at the head of the class—and Jack was below
him—and, of course, as there were only two, he was at the foot.

"One day there was company at the house—and one of the ladies asked the boys how
they got along at school. Jack immediately said, ’Very well. I’m next to the
head of my class!’ The lady then praised him—and said that he must be a very
good scholar to be so high in his class. Then she asked Henry how high he was in
his class. He said he was ’next to the foot.’

"The lady was somewhat surprised, for she, as well as the others present,
supposed that Henry was the best scholar; they were all a little puzzled too,
for Henry looked a little sportive and sly when he said it. But just then the
teacher came in—and she explained the case; for she said that the boys were in
the same class—and they were all that were in it; so that Henry, who was really
at the head, was next one to the foot; while Jack, who was at the foot, was next
but one to the head. On having this explanation made to the company, Jack felt
very much confused and ashamed, while Henry, though he said nothing, could not
help feeling pleased.

"And now," asks the mother, in conclusion, "which of these boys do you think
came off the best?"

Johnny answers that Henry came out best.

"Yes," adds his mother, "and it is always better that people’s merits, if they
have any, should come out in other ways than by their own boasting of them."

It is true that this case of Henry and Jack does not correspond exactly—not even
nearly, in fact—with that of Johnny and his cousin. Nor is it necessary that the
instruction given in these ways should logically conform to the incident which
calls them forth. It is sufficient that there should be such a degree of analogy
between them, that the interest and turn of thought produced by the incident may
prepare the mind for appreciating and receiving the lesson. But the mother may
bring the lesson nearer if she pleases.

"I will tell you another story," she says. "There were two men at a fair. Their
names were Thomas and Philip.

"Thomas was boasting of his strength. He said he was a great deal stronger than
Philip. ’Perhaps you are,’ said Philip. Then Thomas pointed to a big stone which
was lying upon the ground—and dared Philip to try which could throw it the
farthest. ’Very well,’ said Philip, ’I will try—but I think it very likely you
will beat me, for I know you are very strong.’ So they tried—and it proved that
Philip could throw it a great deal farther than Thomas could. Then Thomas went
away looking very much incensed and very much ashamed, while Philip’s triumph
was altogether greater for his not having boasted." The mother may, if she
pleases, come still nearer than this, if she wishes to suit Johnny’s individual
case, without exciting any resistance in his heart to the reception of her
lesson. She may bring his exact case into consideration, provided she changes
the names of the actors, so that Johnny’s mind may be relieved from the uneasy
sensitiveness which it is so natural for a child to feel when his own conduct is
directly the object of unfavorable comment. It is surprising how slight a change
in the mere outward incidents of an affair will suffice to divert the thoughts
of the child from himself in such a case—and enable him to look at the lesson to
be imparted without personal feeling—and so to receive it more readily.

Johnny’s mother may say, "There might be a story in a book about two boys that
were disputing a little about which was the tallest. What do you think would be
good names for the boys, if you were making up such a story?" When Johnny has
proposed the names, his mother could go on and give an almost exact narrative of
what took place between Johnny and his cousin, offering just such instructions
and such advice as she would like to offer; and she will find, if she manages
the conversation with ordinary tact and discretion, that the lessons which she
desires to impart will find a ready admission to the mind of her child, simply
from the fact that, by divesting them of all direct personal application, she
has eliminated from them the element of covert censure which they would
otherwise have contained. Very slight disguises will, in all such cases, be
found to be sufficient to veil the personal applicability of the instruction, so
far as to divest it of all that is painful or disagreeable to the child. He may
have a vague feeling that you mean him—but the feeling will not produce any
effect of irritation or repellence.

Now, the object of these illustrations is to show that those errors and faults
which, when we look at their real and intrinsic character, we see to be results
of ignorance and inexperience—and not instances of willful and intentional
wrong-doing, are not to be dealt with harshly—and made occasions of censure and
punishment. The child does not deserve censure or punishment in such cases; what
he requires is instruction. It is the bringing in of light to illuminate the
path that is before him which he has yet to tread—and not the infliction of
pain, to impress upon him the evil of the missteps he made, in consequence of
the obscurity, in the path behind him.

Indeed, in such cases as this, it is the influence of pleasure rather than
pain—that the parent will find the most efficient means of aiding him; that is,
in these cases, the more pleasant and agreeable the modes by which he can impart
the needed knowledge to the child—in other words, the more attractive he can
make the paths by which he can lead his little charge onward in its progress
towards maturity—the more successful he will be.

’Ignorance of Material Properties and Laws.’ In the example already given, the
mental immaturity consisted in imperfect acquaintance with the qualities and the
action of the mind—and the principles of sound reasoning. But a far larger
portion of the mistakes and failures into which children fall—and for which they
incur undeserved censure, are due to their ignorance of the laws of external
nature—and of the properties and qualities of material objects. A boy, for
example, seven or eight years old, receives from his father a present of a
knife, with a special injunction to be careful of it. He is, accordingly, very
careful of it in respect to such dangers as he understands—but in attempting to
bore a hole with it in a piece of wood, out of which he is trying to make a
windmill, he breaks the small blade. The accident, in such a case, is not to be
attributed to any censurable carelessness—but to lack of instruction in respect
to the strength of such a material as steel—and the nature and effects of the
degree of tempering given to knife-blades. The boy had seen his father bore
holes with a gimlet—and the knife-blade was larger—in one direction at least,
that is, in breadth—than the gimlet—and it was very natural for him to suppose
that it was stronger. What a boy needs in such a case, therefore, is not a
scolding, or punishment—but simply information.

’The Intention good’. A girl of about the same age—a farmer’s daughter, we will
suppose—under the influence of a dutiful desire to aid her mother in preparing
the table for breakfast, attempts to carry across the room a pitcher of milk
which is too full—and she spills a portion of it upon the floor. The mother,
forgetting the good intention which prompted the act—and thinking only of the
inconvenience which it occasions her, administers at once a sharp rebuke. The
cause of the trouble was, simply, that the child was not old enough to
understand the laws of momentum and of oscillation which affect the condition of
a fluid when subjected to movements more or less irregular. She has had no
theoretical instruction on the subject—and is too young to have acquired the
necessary knowledge practically, by experience or observation.

It is so with a very large portion of the accidents which befall children. They
arise not from any evil design, nor even anything that can properly be called
carelessness, on their part—but simply from the immaturity of their knowledge in
respect to the properties and qualities of the material objects with which they
have to deal.

It is true that children may be—and often, doubtless, are, in fault for these
accidents. The boy may have been warned by his father not to attempt to bore
with his knife-blade, or the girl forbidden to attempt to carry the
milk-pitcher. The fault, however, would be, even in these cases, in the
disobedience—and not in the damage that accidentally resulted from it. And it
would be far more reasonable and proper to reprove and punish the fault when no
evil followed, than when a damage was the result; for in the latter case the
damage itself acts, ordinarily, as a more than sufficient punishment.

’Misfortunes befalling Men’.

These cases are exactly analogous to a large class of accidents and calamities
which happen among men. A ship-master sails from port at a time when there are
causes existing in the condition of the atmosphere—and in the agencies in
readiness to act upon it, that must certainly, in a few hours, result in a
violent storm. He is consequently caught in the gale—and his topmasts and upper
rigging are carried away. The owners do not censure him for the loss which they
incur, if they are only assured that the meteorological knowledge at the
captain’s command at the time of leaving port was not such as to give him
warning of the danger; and provided, also, that his knowledge was as advanced as
could reasonably be expected from the opportunities which he had enjoyed. But we
are very much inclined to hold children responsible for as much knowledge of the
sources of danger around them as we ourselves, with all our experience, have
been able to acquire—and are accustomed to condemn and sometimes even to punish
them, for lack of this knowledge.

Indeed, in many cases, both with children and with men, the means of knowledge
in respect to the danger may be fully within reach—and yet the situation may be
so novel—and the combination of circumstances so peculiar—that the connection
between the causes and the possible evil effects does not occur to the minds of
the people engaged. An accident which has just occurred at the time of this
present writing will illustrate this. A company of workmen constructing a tunnel
for a railway, when they had reached the distance of some miles from the
entrance, prepared a number of charges for blasting the rock—and accidentally
laid the wires connected with the powder, in too close proximity to the
temporary railway-track already laid in the tunnel. The charges were intended to
be fired from an electric battery provided for the purpose; but a thunder-cloud
came up—and the electric force from it was conveyed by the rails into the tunnel
and exploded the charges—and several men were killed. No one was inclined to
censure the unfortunate men for carelessness in not guarding against a
contingency so utterly unforeseen by them, though it is plain that, as is often
said to children in precisely analogous cases, they ’might have known’.

’Children’s Studies’.—’Spelling’.

There is, perhaps, no department of the management of children in which they
incur more undeserved censure—and even punishment—and are treated with so little
consideration for faults arising solely from the immaturity of their minds, than
in the direction of what may be called school studies. Few people have any
proper appreciation of the enormous difficulties which a child has to encounter
in learning to read and spell. How many parents become discouraged—and manifest
their discouragement and dissatisfaction to the child in reproving and
complaints, at what they consider his slow progress in learning to
spell—forgetting that in the English language there are in common, every-day use
eight or ten thousand words, almost all of which are to be learned separately,
by a bare and cheerless toil of committing to memory, with comparatively little
definite help from the sound. We have ourselves become so accustomed to seeing
the word ’bear’, for example, when denoting the animal, spelled ’b e a r’, that
we are very prone to imagine that there is something naturally appropriate in
those letters and in that collocation of them, to represent that sound when used
to denote that idea. But what is there in the nature and power of the letters to
aid the child in perceiving—or, when told, in remembering—whether, when
referring to the animal, he is to write ’bear’, or ’bare’, or ’bair’, or ’bayr’,
or ’bere’, as in ’where’. So with the word ’you.’ It seems to us the most
natural thing in the world to spell it ’y o u’. And when the little pupil,
judging by the sound, writes it ’y u’, we mortify him by our ridicule, as if he
had done something in itself absurd. But how is he to know, except by the
hardest, most meaningless—and distasteful toil of the memory, whether he is to
write ’you’, or ’yu’, or ’yoo,’ or ’ewe’, or ’yew’, or ’yue’, as in ’flue’, or
even ’yo’ as in ’do’—and to determine when and in what cases respectively he is
to use those different forms? The truth is, that each elementary sound that
enters into the composition of words is represented in our language by so many
different combinations of letters, in different cases, that the child has very
little clue from the sound of a syllable, to guide him in the spelling of it. We
ourselves, from long habit, have become so accustomed to what we call the right
spelling—which, of course, means nothing more than the customary one—that we are
apt to imagine, as has already been said, that there is some natural fitness in
it; and a mode of representing the same sound, which in one case seems natural
and proper, in another appears ludicrous and absurd. We smile to see ’laugh’
spelled ’larf,’ just as we should to see ’scarf’ spelled ’scaugh’, or ’scalf’,
as in ’half’; and we forget that this perception of apparent incongruity is
entirely the result of long habit in us—and has no natural foundation—and that
children cannot be sensible of it, or have any idea of it whatever. They learn,
in learning to talk—what sound serves as the name by which the drops of water
that they find upon the grass in the morning is denoted—but they can have no
clue whatever to guide them in determining which of the various modes by which
precisely that sound is represented in different words, as ’dew, do, due, du,
doo’ and ’dou’, is to be employed in this case—and they become involved in
hopeless perplexity if they attempt to imagine "’how it ought to be spelled’;"
and we think them stupid because they cannot extricate themselves from the
difficulty on our calling upon them to "think!" No doubt there is a reason for
the particular mode of spelling each particular word in the language—but that
reason is hidden in the past history of the word and in facts connected with its
origin and derivation from some barbarous or dead language—and is as utterly
beyond the reach of each generation of spellers—as if there were no such reasons
in existence. There cannot be the slightest help in any way from the exercise of
the thinking or the reasoning powers.

It is true that the variety of the modes by which a given sound may be
represented is not so great in all words as it is in these examples, though with
respect to a vast number of the words in common use the above are fair
specimens. They were not specially selected—but were taken almost at random. And
there are very few words in the language, the sound of which might not be
represented by several different modes.

Take, for example, the three last words of the last sentence, which, as the
words were written without any thought of using them for this purpose, may be
considered, perhaps, as a fair specimen of words taken actually at random. The
sound of the word ’several’ might be expressed in perfect accordance with the
usage of English spelling, as ’ceveral, severul, sevaral, cevural’—and in many
other different modes. The combinations ’dipherant, diferunt, dyfferent,
diffurunt’—and many others, would as well represent the sound of the second word
as the usual mode. And so with ’modes’, which, according to the analogy of the
language, might as well be expressed by ’moads, mowdes, moades, mohdes’, or even
’mhodes’, as in ’Rhodes’. An exceptionally precise speaker might doubtless make
some slight difference in the sounds indicated by the different modes of
representing the same syllable as given above; but to the ordinary appreciation
of childhood, the distinction in sound between such combinations, for example,
as ’a n t’ in ’constant’ and ’e n t’ in ’different’ would not be perceptible.

Now, when we consider the obvious fact that the child has to learn mechanically,
without any principles whatever to guide him in discovering which, out of the
many different forms, equally probable, judging simply from analogy, by which
the sound of the word is to be expressed, is the right one; and considering how
small a portion of his time each day is or can be devoted to this work—and that
the number of words in common use, all of which he is expected to know how to
spell correctly by the time that he is twelve or fifteen years of age, is
probably ten or twelve thousand (there are in Webster’s dictionary, considerably
over a hundred thousand); when we take these considerations into account, it
would seem that a parent, on finding that a letter written by his daughter,
twelve or fourteen years of age, has all but three or four words spelled right,
ought to be pleased and satisfied—and to express his satisfaction for the
encouragement of the learner, instead of appearing to think only of the few
words that are wrong—and disheartening and discouraging the child by attempts to
make her ashamed of her spelling. The case is substantially the same with the
enormous difficulties to be encountered in learning to read and to write. The
names of the letters, as the child pronounces them individually, give very
little clue to the sound that is to be given to the word formed by them. Thus,
the letters ’h i t’, as the child pronounces them individually—’aitch,’ ’eye,’
’tee’—would naturally spell to him some such word as ’achite’, not ’hit’ at all.
And as for the labor and difficulty of writing, a mother who is impatient at the
slow progress of her children in the attainment of the art would be aided very
much in obtaining a just idea of the difficulties which they experience by
sitting upon a chair and at a table both much too high for her—and trying to
copy Chinese characters by means of a hair-pencil—and with her left hand—the
work to be closely inspected every day by a stern Chinaman of whom she stands in
dread—and all the minutest deviations from the copy pointed out to her attention
with an air of dissatisfaction and reproval!

’Effect of Ridicule’.

There is, perhaps, no one cause which exerts a greater influence in chilling the
interest which children naturally feel in the acquisition of knowledge, than the
depression and discouragement which result from having their mistakes and
errors—for a large portion of which they are in no sense to blame—made subjects
of censure or ridicule. The effect is still more decided in the case of girls
than in that of boys, the gentler gender being naturally so much more sensitive.
I have found in many cases, especially in respect to girls who are far enough
advanced to have had a tolerably full experience of the usual influences of
schools, that the fear of making mistakes—and of being "thought stupid," has had
more effect in hindering and retarding progress, by repressing the natural ardor
of the pupil—and destroying all alacrity and courage in the efforts to advance,
than all other causes combined.

’Stupidity’.

How unkind—and even cruel—it is to reproach or ridicule a child for stupidity,
is evident when we reflect that any supposed inferiority in his mental
organization cannot, by any possibility, be ’his’ fault. The question what
degree of natural intelligence he shall be endowed with, in comparison with
other children, is determined, not by himself—but by his Creator—and depends,
probably, upon conditions of organization in his cerebral system as much beyond
his control as anything abnormal in the features of his face, or blindness, or
deafness, or any other physical disadvantage. The child who shows any
indications of inferiority in any of these respects—should be the object of his
parent’s or his teacher’s special tenderness and care. If he is near-sighted,
give him, at school, a seat as convenient as possible to the blackboard. If he
is hard of hearing, place him near the teacher; and for reasons precisely
analogous, if you suspect him to be of inferior mental capacity, help him gently
and tenderly in every possible way. Do everything in your power to encourage
him—and to conceal his deficiencies both from others and from himself, so far as
these objects can be attained consistently with the general good of the family
or of the school.

And, at all events, let those who have in any way the charge of children, keep
the distinction well defined in their minds—between the faults which result from
evil intentions, or deliberate and willful neglect of known duty—and those
which, whatever the inconvenience they may occasion, are in part or in whole the
results of mental or physical immaturity. In all our dealings, whether with
plants, or animals, or with the human soul, we ought, in our training, to act
very gently in respect to all that pertains to the natural condition.


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  CHAPTER 41: 3.14     THE ACTIVITY OF CHILDREN
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Chapter 14. The Activity of Children. In order rightly to understand the true
nature of that extraordinary energy and activity, which is so noticeable in all
children who are in a state of health, so as to be able to deal with it on the
right principles and in a proper manner—it is necessary to turn our attention
somewhat carefully to certain scientific truths in respect to the nature and
action of force in general, which are now abundantly established, and which
throws great light on the true character of that peculiar form of it, which is
so characteristic of childhood—and is, indeed, so abundantly developed by the
vital functions of almost all young animals. One of the fundamental principles
of this system of scientific truth is that which is called the persistence of
force.

’The Persistence of Force’. By the persistence of force, is meant the
principle—that in the ordinary course of nature, no force is either ever
originated or ever destroyed—but only changed in form. In other words, that all
existing forces are but the continuation or prolongation of other forces
preceding them, either of the same or other forms—but precisely equivalent in
amount; and that no force can terminate its action in any other way, than by
being transmuted into some other force, either of the same or of some other
form; but still, again, precisely equivalent in amount.

It was formerly believed that a force might under certain circumstances be
’originated’—created, as it were—and hence the attempts to contrive machines for
perpetual motion—that is, machines for the ’production’ of force. This idea is
now wholly renounced by all well-informed men as utterly impossible in the
nature of things. All that human mechanism can do is to provide modes for using
advantageously a force previously existing, without the possibility of either
increasing or diminishing it. No existing force can be destroyed. The only
changes possible are changes of direction, changes in the relation of intensity
to quantity—and changes of form. The cases in which a force is apparently
increased or diminished, as well as those in which it seems to disappear, are
all found, on examination, to be illusive. For example, the apparent increase of
a man’s power by the use of a lever is really no increase at all. It is true
that, by pressing upon the outer arm with his own weight, he can cause the much
greater weight of the stone to rise; but then it will rise only a very little
way in comparison with the distance through which his own weight descends. His
own weight must, in fact, descend through a distance as much greater than that
by which the stone ascends, as the weight of the stone is greater than his
weight. In other words, so far as the balance of the forces is concerned, the
whole amount of the ’downward motion’ consists of the smaller weight descending
through a greater distance, which will be equal to the whole amount of that of
the larger one ascending through a smaller distance; and, to produce a
preponderance, the whole amount of the downward force must be somewhat greater.
Thus the lever only ’gathers’ or ’concentrates’ force, as it were—but does not
at all increase it.

It is so with all the other contrivances for managing force for the
accomplishment of particular purposes. None of them increase the force—but only
alter its form and character, with a view to its better adaptation to the
purpose in view. Nor can any force be extinguished. When a bullet strikes
against a solid wall, the force of its movement, which seems to disappear, is
not lost; it is converted into heat—the temperature of both the bullet and of
that part of the wall on which it impinges being raised by the concussion. And
it is found that the amount of the heat which is thus produced is always in
exact proportion to the quantity of mechanical motion which is stopped; this
quantity depending on the weight of the bullet—and on the velocity with which it
was moving. And it has been ascertained, moreover, by the most careful, patient
and many times repeated experiments and calculations—that the quantity of this
heat is exactly the same with that which, through the medium of steam, or by any
other mode of applying it, may be made to produce the same quantity of
mechanical motion that was extinguished in the bullet. Thus the force was not
destroyed—but only converted into another form.

’The Arrest and temporary Reservation of Force’.

Now, although it is thus impossible that any force should be destroyed, or in
any way cease to exist in one form without setting in action a precisely equal
amount in some other form—it may, as it were, pass into a condition of
’restraint’—and remain thus suspended and latent for an indefinite period—ready,
however, to break into action again the moment that the restraint is removed.
Thus a perfectly elastic spring may be bent by a certain force—and retained in
the bent position a long time. But the moment that it is released it will unbend
itself, exercising in so doing precisely the degree of force expended in bending
it. In the same manner, air may be compressed in an air-gun—and held thus, with
the force, as it were, imprisoned, for any length of time, until at last, when
the detent is released by the trigger, the elastic force comes into action,
exercising in its action a power precisely the same as that with which it was
compressed.

Force or power may be thus, as it were, stored up in a countless variety of
ways—and reserved for future action; and, when finally released, the whole
amount may be set free at once, so as to expend itself in a single impulse, as
in case of the arrow or the bullet; or it may be partially restrained, so as to
expend itself gradually, as in the case of a clock or watch. In either case the
total amount expended will be precisely the same—namely, the exact equivalent of
that which was placed in store.

’Practical Applications of these Principles’.

If we watch a bird for a little while hopping along upon the ground—and up and
down between the ground and the branches of a tree, we shall at first be
surprised at his incessant activity—and next, if we reflect a little, at the
utter aimlessness and uselessness of it. He runs a little way along the path;
then he hops up upon a twig, then down again upon the ground; then "makes
believe" peck at something which he imagines or pretends that he sees in the
grass; then, tipping his head to one side and upward, the branch of a tree there
happens to strike his eye, upon which he at once flies up to it. Perching
himself upon it for the moment, he utters a burst of joyous song—and then,
instantly afterwards, down he comes upon the ground again, runs along, stops,
runs along a little farther, stops again, looks around for a moment, as if
wondering what to do next—and then flies off out of our field of view. If we
could follow—and had patience to watch him so long, we would find him continuing
this incessantly changing but never-ceasing activity all the day long.

We sometimes imagine that the bird’s movements are to be explained by supposing
that he is engaged in the search for food in these evolutions. But when we
reflect how small a quantity of food his little crop will contain, we shall be
at once convinced that a large proportion of his apparent pecking for food is
only make-believe—and that he moves thus incessantly not so much on account of
the end he seeks to attain by it, as on account of the very pleasure of the
motion. He hops about and pecks, not for the love of anything he expects to
find—but just for the love of hopping and pecking. The real explanation is that
the food which he has taken is delivering up, within his system, the force
stored in it that was received originally from the beams of the sun, while the
plant which produced it was growing. This force must have an outlet—and it finds
this outlet in the incessant activity of the bird’s muscles and brain. The
various objects which attract his attention, ’invite’ the force to expend itself
in ’certain special directions’; but the impelling cause is within—and not
without; and were there nothing without to serve as objects for its action, the
necessity of its action would be none the less imperious. The lion, when
imprisoned in his cage, walks to and fro continuously, if there is room for him
to take two steps and turn; and if there is not room for this, he moves his head
incessantly from side to side. The force within him, which his vital organs are
setting at liberty from its imprisonment in his food—must in some way find
outlet.

Mothers do not often stop to speculate upon—and may even, perhaps, seldom
observe the restless and incessant activity of birds—but that restless and
incessant activity of their children forces itself upon their attention by its
effects in disturbing their own quiet avocations and pleasures; and they often
wonder what can be the inducement which leads to such a perpetual succession of
movements made apparently without motive or end. And, not perceiving any
possible inducement to account for it, they are apt to consider this restless
activity so causeless and unreasonable as to make it a fault for which the child
is to be censured or punished, or which they are to attempt to cure by means of
artificial restraints. They would not attempt such repressions as this, if they
were aware that all this muscular and mental energy of action in the child is
only the outward manifestation of an inward force developed in a manner wholly
independent of its will—a force, too, which must spend itself in some way or
other—and that, if not allowed to do this in its own way, by impelling the limbs
and members to outward action, it will do so by destroying the delicate
mechanism within. We see this in the case of men who are doomed for long periods
to solitary confinement. The force derived from their food—and released within
their systems by the vital processes, being cut off by the silence and solitude
of the dungeon from all usual and natural outlets, begins to work mischief
within, by disorganizing the cerebral and other vital organs—and producing
insanity and death.

’Common Mistake’.

We make a great mistake when we imagine that children are influenced in their
activity, mainly by a desire for the objects which they attain by it. It is not
the ends attained—but the pleasurable feeling which the action of the internal
force, issuing by its natural channels, affords them—and the sense of power
which accompanies the action. An end which presents itself to be attained
invites this force to act in one direction rather than another—but it is the
action—and not the end, in which the charm resides.

Give a child a bow and arrow—and send him out into the yard to try it—and if he
does not happen to see anything to shoot at, he will shoot at random into the
air. But if there is any object which will serve as a mark in sight, it seems to
have the effect of drawing his aim towards it. He shoots at the vane on the
barn, at an apple on a tree, a knot in a fence—anything which will serve the
purpose of a mark. This is not because he has any end to accomplish in hitting
the vane, the apple, or the knot—but only because there is an impulse within him
leading him to shoot—and if there happens to be anything to shoot at, it gives
that impulse a direction.

It is precisely the same with the incessant muscular activity of a child. He
comes into a room and sits down in the first seat that he sees. Then he jumps up
and runs to another, then to another, until he has tried all the seats in the
room. This is not because he particularly wishes to try the seats. He wishes to
’move’—and the seats happen to be at hand—and they simply give direction to the
impulse. If he were out of doors, the same office would be fulfilled by a fence
which he might climb over, instead of going through an open gate close by; or a
wall that he could walk upon with difficulty, instead of going, without
difficulty, along a path at the foot of it; or a pole which he could try to
climb, when there was no motive for climbing it but a desire to make muscular
exertion; or a steep bank where he can scramble up, when there is nothing that
he wishes for on the top of it. In other words, the things that children do, are
not done for the sake of the things—but for the sake of the ’doing’.

Parents very often do not understand this—and are accordingly continually asking
such foolish questions as, "George, what do you wish to climb over that fence
for, when there is a gate all open close by?" "James, what good do you expect to
get by climbing up that tree, when you know there is nothing on it, not even a
bird’s nest?" and, "Lucy, what makes you keep jumping up all the time and
running about to different places? Why can’t you, when you get a good seat, sit
still in it?" The children, if they understood the philosophy of the case, might
answer, "We don’t climb over the fence at all because we wish to be on the other
side of it; or scramble up the bank for the sake of anything that is on the top
of it; or run about to different places because we wish to be in the places
particularly. It is the internal force that is in us working itself off—and it
works itself off in the ways that come most readily to hand."

’Various Modes in which the Reserved Force reappears’. The force thus stored in
the food and liberated within the system by the vital processes, finds scope for
action in several different ways, prominent among which are, First, in the
production of animal heat.

Secondly, in muscular contractions and the motions of the limbs and members
resulting from them.

Thirdly, in mental phenomena connected with the action of the brain and the
nerves. This last branch of the subject is yet enveloped in great mystery; but
the proof seems to be decisive that the nervous system of man comprises organs
which are actively exercised in the performance of mental operations—and that in
this exercise they consume important portions of the vital force. If, for
example, a child is actually engaged at play—and we direct him to take a seat
and sit still, he will find it very difficult to do so. The inward force will
soon begin to struggle within him to find an outlet. But if, while he is so
sitting, we begin to relate to him some very surprising or exciting story, to
occupy his ’mind’, he will become motionless—and very likely remain so until the
story is ended. It is supposed that in such cases the force is drawn off, so to
speak, through the cerebral organs which it is employed in keeping in play, as
the instruments by which the emotions and ideas which the story awakens in the
mind are evolved. This part of the subject, as has already been remarked, is
full of mystery; but the general fact that a portion of the force derived from
the food is expended in actions of the brain and nervous system, seems well
established.

Indeed, the whole subject of the reception and the storing up of force from the
sun by the processes of vegetable and animal life—and the subsequent liberation
of it in the fulfillment of the various functions of the animal system, is full
of difficulties and mysteries. It is only a very simple view of the ’general
principle’ which is presented in these articles. In nature, the operations are
not simple at all. They are involved in endless complications which are yet only
to a very limited extent unravelled. The general principle is, however, well
established; and if understood, even as a general principle, by parents and
teachers, it will greatly modify their reaction in dealing with the incessant
restlessness and activity of the young. It will teach them, among other things,
the following practical rules.

’Practical Rules’.

1. Never find fault with children for their incapacity to keep still. You may
stop the supply of force, if you will, by refusing to give them food; but if you
continue the supply, you must not complain of its manifesting itself in action.
After giving your boy his breakfast, to find fault with him for being
incessantly in motion when his system has absorbed it, is simply to find fault
with him for being healthy and happy. To give children food and then to restrain
the resulting activity, is conduct very analogous to that of the engineer who
should lock the action of his engine, turn off all the stop-cocks—and shut down
the safety-valve, while he still went on all the time putting in coal under the
boiler. The least that he could expect would be a great hissing and fizzling at
all the joints of his machine; and it would be only by means of such a degree of
looseness in the joints as would allow of the escape of the imprisoned force in
this way that could prevent the repression ending in a frightful catastrophe.

Now, nine-tenths of the whispering and playing of children in school—and of the
noise, the crudeness—and the petty mischief of children at home, is just this
hissing and fizzling of an imprisoned power—and nothing more! In a word, we must
favor and promote, by every means in our power, the activity of children—not
censure and repress it. We may endeavor to turn it aside from wrong
channels—that is, to prevent its manifesting itself in ways injurious to them or
annoying to others. We must not, however, attempt to divert it from these
channels by damming it up—but by opening other channels that will draw it away
in better directions.

2. In encouraging the activity of children—and in guiding the direction of it in
their hours of play, we must not expect to make it available for useful results,
other than that of promoting their own physical development and health. At
least, we can do this only in a very limited degree. Almost all useful results
require for their attainment a long continuance of efforts of the same kind—that
is, expenditure of the vital force by the continued action of the same organs.
Now, it is a principle of nature, that while the organs of an animal system are
in process of formation and growth, they can exercise their power only for a
very brief period at a time without exhaustion. This necessitates on the part of
all young animals incessant changes of action, or alternations of action and
repose. A farmer of forty years of age, whose organs are well developed and
mature, will chop wood all day without excessive fatigue. Then, when he comes
home at night, he will sit for three hours in the evening upon the settle by his
fireside, ’thinking’—his mind occupied, perhaps, upon the details of the
management of his farm, or upon his plans for the following day. The vital force
thus expends itself for many successive hours through his muscles—and then,
while his muscles are at rest, it finds its outlet for several other hours
through the brain. But in the ’child’ the mode of action must change every few
minutes. He is made tired with five minutes’ labor. He is satisfied with five
minutes’ rest. He will ride his rocking-horse, if alone, a short time—and then
he comes to you to ask you to tell him a story. While listening to the story,
his muscles are resting—and the force is spending its strength in working the
mechanism of the brain. If you make your story too long, the brain, in turn,
becomes fatigued—and he feels instinctively impelled to divert the vital force
again into muscular action.

If, instead of being alone with his rocking-horse, he has company there, he will
’seem’ to continue his bodily effort a long time; but he does not really do so,
for he stops continually, to talk with his companion, thus allowing his muscles
to rest for a brief period, during which the vital force expends its strength in
carrying on trains of thought and emotion through the brain.

He is not to be blamed for this seeming capriciousness. These frequent changes
in the mode of action are a necessity—and this necessity evidently unfits him
for any kind of monotonous or continued exertion—the only kind which, in
ordinary cases, can be made conducive to any useful results.

3. Parents at home and teachers at school must recognize these physiological
laws, relating to the action of the young—and make their plans and arrangements
conform to them. The periods of confinement to any one mode of action in the
very young—and especially mental action, must be short; and they must alternate
frequently with other modes. That rapid succession of bodily movements and of
mental ideas—and the emotions mingling and alternating with them, which
constitutes what children call play, must be regarded not simply as an
indulgence—but as a necessity for them. The play must be considered as essential
as the study—and that not merely for the very young, but for all, up to the age
of maturity. For older pupils, in the best institutions of the country, some
suitable provision is made for this need; but the mothers of young children at
home are often at a loss by what means to effect this purpose—and many are very
imperfectly aware of the desirableness—and even the necessity, of doing this. As
for the means of accomplishing the object—that is, providing channels for the
complete expenditure of this force in the safest and most agreeable manner for
the child—and the least inconvenient and troublesome for others, much must
depend upon the tact, the ingenuity and the discretion of the mother. It will,
however, be a great point gained for her when she once fully comprehends that
the ’tendency’ to incessant activity—and even to turbulence and noise, on the
part of her child, only shows that he is all right in his vital machinery—and
that this exuberance of energy is something to be pleased with and directed—not
denounced and restrained!


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  CHAPTER 42: 3.15     THE IMAGINATION IN CHILDREN
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Chapter 15. The IMAGINATION in Children. The reader may, perhaps, recollect that
in the last chapter there was an intimation that a portion of the force which
was produced, or rather liberated and brought into action, by the consumption of
food in the vital system, expended itself in the development of thoughts,
emotions—and other forms of mental action, through the organization of the brain
and of the nerves.

’Expenditure of Force through the Brain.’ The whole subject of the expenditure
of material force in maintaining those forms of mental action which are carried
on through the medium of bodily organs, it must be admitted, is involved in
great obscurity; for it is only a glimmering of light, which science has yet
been able to throw into this field. It is, however, becoming the settled
opinion, among all well-informed people, that the soul, during the time of its
connection with a material system in this life, performs many of those functions
which we class as mental, through the medium, or instrumentality, in some
mysterious way, of material organs; just as we all know is the case with the
sensations—that is, the impressions made through the organs of sense; and that
the maintaining of these mental organs, so to speak, in action, involves a
certain expenditure of some form of physical force, the source of this force
being in the food that is consumed in the nourishment of the body.

’Phenomena explained by this Principle’. This truth, if it be indeed a truth,
throws great light on what would be otherwise quite inexplicable in the playful
activity of the mental faculties of children. The curious fantasies, imaginings
and make-believes—the pleasure of listening to marvelous and impossible
tales—and of hearing odd and unpronounceable words or combination of words—the
love of acting, and of disguises—of the impersonation of inanimate objects—of
seeing things as they are not—and of creating and giving reality to what has no
existence except in their own minds—are all the gambollings and frolics, so to
speak, of the youthful mental faculties just becoming conscious of their
existence—and affording, like the muscles of motion, so many different outlets
for the internal force derived from the food.

Thus the action of the mind of a child—in holding an imaginary conversation with
a doll, or in inventing or in relating an impossible fairy story, or in
converting a switch on which he pretends to be riding into a prancing horse—is
precisely analogous to that of the muscles of the lamb, or the calf, or any
other young animal in its gambols—that is—it is the result of the force which
the vital functions are continually developing within the system—and which flows
and must flow continually out through whatever channels are open to it; and in
thus flowing, sets all the various systems of machinery into play, each in its
own appropriate manner. In any other view of the subject than this, many of the
phenomena of childhood would be still more bewildering and inexplicable, than
they are. One would have supposed, for example, that the imagination—being, as
is commonly thought, one of the most exalted and refined of the mental faculties
of man—would be one of the last, in the order of time, to manifest itself in the
development of the mind; instead of which it is, in fact, one of the earliest.
Children live, in a great measure, from the earliest age in an imaginary
world—their pains and their pleasures, their joys and their fears being, to a
vast extent, the concomitants of phantasms and illusions having often the
slightest bond of connection with the realities around them. The realities
themselves, moreover, often have far greater influence over them by what they
suggest, than by what they really are.

Indeed, the younger the child is, within reasonable limits, the more susceptible
he seems to be to the power of the imagination—and the more easily his mind and
heart are reached and influenced through this avenue. At a very early period,
the realities of actual existence and the phantasms of the mind seem inseparably
mingled—and it is only after much experience and a considerable development of
his powers, that the line of distinction between them becomes defined. The power
of investing an elongated bag of stuffing (that is, a doll) with the attributes
and qualities of a thinking being, so as to make it an object of solicitude and
affection, which would seem to imply a high exercise of one of the most refined
and exalted of the human faculties, does not come, as we might have expected, at
the end of a long period of progress and development—but springs into existence,
as it were, at once, in the very earliest years. The progress and development
are required to enable the child to perceive that the crude and shapeless doll,
is ’not’ a living and lovable thing. This mingling of the real and imaginary
worlds shows itself to the close observer in a thousand curious ways. The true
explanation of the phenomenon seems to be that the various youthful faculties
are brought into action by the vital force at first in a very irregular,
intermingled—and capricious manner, just as the muscles are in the endless and
objectless play of the limbs and members. They develop themselves and grow by
this very action—and we ought not only to indulge—but to nourish the action in
all its beautiful manifestations by every means in our power. These mental
organs, so to speak—that is, the organs of the brain, through which, while its
connection with the body continues, the mind performs its mental functions—grow
and thrive, as the muscles do—by being reasonably kept in exercise.

It is evident, from these facts, that the parent should be pleased with—and
should encourage the exercise of these youthful powers in his children; and both
father and mother may be greatly aided in their efforts to devise means for
reaching and influencing their hearts by means of them—and especially through
the action of the imagination, which will be found, when properly employed, to
be capable of exercising an almost magical power of imparting great
attractiveness, and giving great effect to lessons of instruction which, in
their simple form, would be dull, tiresome and ineffective. Precisely what is
meant by this will be shown more clearly by some examples.

’Methods exemplified’.

One of the simplest and easiest modes by which a mother can avail herself of the
vivid imagination of the child in amusing and entertaining him, is by holding
conversations with representations of people, or even of animals, in the
pictures which she shows him. Thus, in the case, for example, of a picture which
she is showing to her child sitting in her lap—the picture containing, we will
suppose, a representation of a little girl with books under her arm—she may say,
"My little girl, where are you going?" "I am going" (speaking now in a somewhat
altered voice, to represent the voice of the little girl) "to school." "Ah! you
are going to school. You don’t look quite old enough to go to school. Who sits
next to you at school?" "George Williams." "George Williams? Is he a good boy?"
"Yes, he’s a very good boy." "I am glad you have a good boy—and one that is kind
to you, to sit by you. That must be very pleasant." And so on, as long as the
child is interested in listening.

Or, "What is your name, my little girl?" "My name is Lucy." "That’s a pretty
name! And where do you live?" "I live in that house under the trees." "Ah! I see
the house. And where is your room in that house?" "My room is the one where you
see the window open." "I see it. What have you got in your room?" "I have a
bed—and a table by the window; and I keep my doll there. I have got a cradle for
my doll—and a little trunk to keep her clothes in. And I have got . . ." The
mother may go on in this way—and describe a great number and variety of objects
in the room, such as are calculated to interest and please the little listener.

It is the pleasurable exercise of some dawning faculty or faculties acting
through youthful organs of the brain, by which the mind can picture to itself,
more or less vividly, unreal scenes, which is the source of the enjoyment in
such cases as this. A child may be still more interested, perhaps, by imaginary
conversations of this kind with pictures of animals—and by varying the form of
them in such a way as to call a new set of mental faculties into play; as, for
example—Here is a picture of a rabbit. I’ll ask him where he lives. "Bunny!
bunny! stop a minute; I want to speak to you. I want you to tell me where you
live." "I live in my hole." "Where is your hole?" "It is under that big log that
you see back in the woods." "Yes" (speaking now to the child), I see the log. Do
you see it? Touch it with your finger. Yes, that must be it. But I don’t see any
hole." "Bunny’ (assuming now the tone of speaking again to the rabbit), "I don’t
see your hole." "No, I did not mean that anybody should see it. I made it in a
hidden place in the ground, so as to have it out of sight." "I wish I could see
it—and I wish more that I could look down into it and see what is there. What is
there ’in’ your hole, bunny?" "My nest is there—and my little bunnies." "How
many little bunnies have you got?" And so on, to any extent that you desire.

It is obvious that conversations of this kind may be made the means of
conveying, indirectly, a great deal of instruction to young children on a great
variety of subjects; and lessons of morals and duty may be inculcated thus in a
very effective manner—and by a method which is at the same time easy and
agreeable for the mother—and extremely attractive to the child. This may seem a
very simple thing—and it is really very simple; but any mother who has never
resorted to this method of amusing and instructing her child, will be surprised
to find what an easy and inexhaustible resource for her it may become. Children
are always coming to ask for stories—and the mother often has no story at
hand—and her mind is too much preoccupied to invent one. Here is a ready resort
in every such emergency.

"Very well," replies the mother to such a request, "I’ll tell you a story; but I
must have a picture to my story. Find me a picture in some book." The child
brings a picture, it does not matter what the picture is. There is no possible
picture that will not suggest to a person possessed of ordinary ingenuity, an
endless number of talks to interest and amuse the child. To take an extreme
case, suppose the picture is a crude pencil drawing of a post—and nothing
besides. You can imagine a boy hidden behind the post—and you can call to
him—and finally obtain an answer from him—and have a long talk with him about
his play and who he is hiding from—and what other ways he has of playing with
his friend. Or you can talk with the post directly. Ask him where he came from,
who put him in the ground—and what he was put in the ground for—and what kind of
a tree he was when he was a part of a tree growing in the woods; and, following
the subject out, the conversation may be the means of not only amusing the child
for the moment—but also of gratifying his curiosity—and imparting a great amount
of useful information to him which will materially aid in the development of his
powers. Or you may ask the post whether he has any relatives—and he may reply
that he has a great many cousins. He has some cousins that live in the city—and
they are called lamp-posts—and their business is to hold lamps to light people
along the streets; and he has some other cousins who stand in a long row and
hold up the telegraph-wire to carry messages from one part of the world to
another; and so on, without end. If all this may done by means of a crude
representation of a simple post, it may easily be seen that no picture which the
child can possibly bring, can fail to serve as a subject for such conversations.

Some mothers may, perhaps, think it must require a great deal of ingenuity and
skill to carry out these ideas effectively in practice—and that is true; or
rather, it is true that there is in it scope for the exercise of a great deal of
ingenuity and skill—and even of genius, for those who possess these qualities;
but the degree of ingenuity required for a commencement in this method is very
small—and that necessary for complete success in it is very easily acquired.

’Personification of Inanimate Objects’.

It will at once occur to the mother that any inanimate object may be personified
in this way and addressed as a living and intelligent being. Your child is sick,
I will suppose—and is somewhat feverish and fretful. In adjusting his dress you
prick him a little with a pin—and the pain and annoyance acting on his morbid
sensibilities bring out expressions of irritation and bad mood. Now you may, if
you please, tell him that he must not be so impatient, that you did not mean to
hurt him, that he must not mind a little prick—and the like; and you will meet
with the ordinary success that attends such admonitions. Or, in the spirit of
the foregoing suggestions, you may say, "Did the pin prick you? I’ll catch the
little rogue—and hear what he has to say for himself. Ah, here he is—I’ve caught
him! I’ll hold him fast. Lie still in my lap—and we will hear what he has to
say.

"’Look up here, my little prickler—and tell me what your name is." "My name is
pin." "Ah, your name is pin, is it? How bright you are! How did you come to be
so bright?" "Oh, they brightened me when they made me." "Indeed! And how did
they make you?" "They made me in a machine." "In a machine? That’s very curious!
How did they make you in the machine? Tell us all about it!" "They made me out
of wire. First the machine cut off a piece of the wire long enough to make
me—and then I was carried around to different parts of the machine to have
different things done to me. I went first to one part to get straightened. Don’t
you see how straight I am?" "Yes, you are very straight indeed." "Then I went to
another part of the machine and had my head put on; and then I went to another
part and had my point sharpened; and then I was polished—and covered all over
with a beautiful silvering, to make me bright and white." And so on
indefinitely. The mother may continue the talk as long as the child is
interested, by letting the pin give an account of the various adventures that
happened to it in the course of its life—and finally call it to account for
pricking a poor little sick child.

Any mother can judge whether such a mode of treating the case, or the more usual
one of gravely exhorting the child to patience and good mood, when sick, is
likely to be most effectual in soothing the nervous irritation of the little
patient—and restoring its mind to a condition of calmness and repose. The mother
who reads these suggestions in a cursory manner—and contents herself with saying
that they are very good—but makes no resolute and persevering effort to acquire
for herself the ability to avail herself of them, will have no idea of the
immense practical value of them as a means of aiding her in her work—and in
promoting the happiness of her children. But if she will make the attempt, she
will most certainly find enough encouragement in her first effort to induce her
to persevere.

She must, moreover, not only originate, herself, modes of amusing the
imagination of her children—but must fall in with and aid those which ’they’
originate. If your little daughter is playing with her doll, look up from your
work and say a few words to the doll or the child in a grave and serious manner,
assuming that the doll is a living and sentient being. If your boy is playing
horsie in the garden while you are there attending to your flowers, ask him with
all gravity what he values his horse at—and whether he wishes to sell him. Ask
him whether he ever bites, or breaks out of his pasture; and give him some
advice about not driving him too fast up hill—and not giving him oats when he is
warm. He will at once enter into such a conversation in the most serious
manner—and the pleasure of his play will be greatly increased by your joining
with him in maintaining the illusion.

There is a still more important advantage than the temporary increase to your
children’s happiness by acting on this principle. By thus joining with them,
even for a few moments, in their play, you establish a closer bond of sympathy
between your own heart and theirs—and attach them to you more strongly than you
can do by any other means. Indeed, in many cases the most important moral
lessons can be conveyed in connection with these illusions of children—and in a
way not only more agreeable, but far more effective than by any other method.

’Influence without Claim to Authority’.

Acting through the imagination of children—if the art of doing so is once
understood—will prove at once an invaluable and an inexhaustible resource for
all those classes of people who are placed in situations requiring them to
exercise an influence over children without having any proper authority over
them; such, for example, as uncles and aunts, older brothers and sisters—and
even visitors residing more or less permanently in a family—and desirous, from a
wish to do good, of promoting the welfare and the improvement of the younger
members of it. It often happens that such a visitor, without any actual right of
authority, acquires a greater influence over the minds of the children than the
parents themselves; and many a mother, who, with all her threatenings and
scoldings—and even punishments, cannot make herself obeyed—is surprised at the
absolute ascendency which some visitor residing in the family acquires over them
by means so silent, gentle—and unpretending, that they seem mysterious and
almost magical. "What is the secret of it?" asks the mother sometimes in such a
case. "You never punish the children—and you never scold them—and yet they obey
you a great deal more readily and certainly than they do me."

There are a great many different means which may be employed in combination with
each other for acquiring this kind of ascendency—and among them the use which
may be made of the power of the imagination in the young, is one of the most
important.

’The Intermediation of the Dolls again’. A young teacher, for example, in
returning from school some day, finds the children of the family in which she
resides, who have been playing with their dolls in the yard, engaged in some
angry dispute. The first impulse with many people in such a case might be to sit
down with the children upon the seat where they were playing—and remonstrate
with them, though in a very kind and gentle manner, on the wrongfulness and
folly of such disputings, to show them that the thing in question is not worth
disputing about, that angry feelings are uncomfortable and unhappy feelings—and
that it is, consequently, not only a sin—but a folly to indulge in them.

Now such a remonstrance, if given in a kind and gentle manner, will undoubtedly
do good. The children will be somewhat less likely to become involved in such a
dispute immediately after it than before—and in process of time—and through many
repetitions of such counsels, the fault may be gradually cured. Still, at the
time, it will make the children uncomfortable, by producing in their minds a
certain degree of irritation. They will be very apt to listen in silence—and
with a morose and sullen air; and if they do not call the admonition a scolding,
on account of the kind and gentle tones in which it is delivered, they will be
very apt to consider it much in that light.

Suppose, however, that, instead of dealing with the case in this matter-of-fact
and naked way, the teacher calls the imagination of the children to her aid—and
administers her admonition and reproof indirectly, through the dolls. She takes
the dolls in her hand, asks their names—and inquires which of the two girls is
the mother of each. The dolls’ names are Bella and Araminta—and the mothers’ are
Lucy and Mary.

"But I might have asked Araminta herself," she adds; and, so saying, she holds
the doll before her—and enters into a long imaginary conversation with her, more
or less spirited and original, according to the talent and ingenuity of the
young lady—but, in any conceivable case, enough so to completely absorb the
attention of the children and fully to occupy their minds. She asks each of them
her name—and inquires of each which of the girls is her mother—and makes first
one of them—and then the other, point to her mother in giving her answer. By
this time the illusion is completely established in the children’s minds of
regarding their dolls as living beings, responsible to mothers for their conduct
and behavior; and the young lady can go on and give her admonitions and
instructions in respect to the sin and folly of quarreling to them—the children
listening. And it will be found that by this management the impression upon the
minds of the children will be far greater and more effective than if the
counsels were addressed directly to them; while, at the same time, though they
may even take the form of very severe reproof, they will produce no sullenness
or vexation in the minds of those for whom they are really intended. Indeed, the
very reason why the admonition thus given will be so much more effective is the
fact that it does ’not’ tend in any degree to awaken resentment and vexation—but
associates the lesson which the teacher wishes to convey with amusement and
pleasure.

"You are very pretty"—she says, we will suppose, addressing the dolls—"and you
look very amiable. I suppose you ’are’ very amiable."

Then, turning to the children, she asks, in a confidential undertone, "Do they
ever get into disputes and quarrels?"

"Sometimes," says one of the children, entering at once into the idea of the
teacher.

"Ah!" the teacher exclaims, turning again to the dolls. "I hear that you dispute
and quarrel sometimes—and I am very sorry for that. That is very foolish. It is
only silly little children that we expect will dispute and quarrel. I should not
have supposed it possible in the case of such young ladies as you. It is a great
deal better to be yielding and kind. If one of you says something that the other
thinks is not true, let it pass without contradiction; as it is foolish to
quarrel about it. And so if one has anything that the other wants, it is
generally much better to wait for it, than to quarrel. It is hateful to quarrel.
Besides, it spoils your beauty. When children are quarreling they look like
little furies." The teacher may go on in this way—and give a long moral lecture
to the dolls in a tone of mock gravity—and the children will listen to it with
the most profound attention; and it will have a far greater influence upon them,
than the same admonitions addressed directly to ’them’. So effectually, in fact,
will this element of play in the transaction, open their hearts to the reception
of good counsel, that even direct admonitions to ’them’ will be admitted with
it, if the same guise is maintained; for the teacher may add, in conclusion,
addressing now the children themselves with the same mock solemnity:

"That is a very bad fault of your children—very bad, indeed. And it is one that
you will find very hard to correct. You must give them a great deal of good
counsel on the subject—and, above all, you must be careful to set them a good
example yourselves. Children always imitate what they see in their mothers,
whether it is good or bad. If you are always amiable and kind to one
another—they will be so too." The thoughtful mother, in following out the
suggestions here given, will see at once how the interest which the children
take in their dolls—and the sense of reality which they feel in respect to all
their dealings with them, opens before her a boundless field in respect to modes
of reaching and influencing their minds and hearts.

’The Ball itself made to teach Carefulness’.

There is literally no end to the modes by which people having the charge of
young children can avail themselves, of their vivid imaginative powers in
inculcating moral lessons or influencing their conduct. A boy, we will suppose,
has a new ball. Just as he is going out to play with it his father takes it from
him to examine it—and, after turning it round and looking at it attentively on
every side, holds it up to his ear. The boy asks what his father is doing. "I am
listening to hear what he says." "And what does he say, father?" "He says that
you won’t have him to play with long." "Why not?" "I will ask him, why not?"
(holding the ball again to his ear). "What does he say, father?" "He says he is
going to run away from you and hide. He says you will go to play near some
building—and he means, when you throw him or knock him, to fly against the
windows and break the glass—and then people will take your ball away from you."
"But I won’t play near any windows." "He says, at any rate you will play near
some building—and when you knock him he means to fly up to the roof and get
behind a chimney, or roll down into the gutter where you can’t get him." "But,
father, I am not going to play near any building at all." "Then you will play in
some place where there are holes in the ground, or thickets of bushes near,
where he can hide." "No, father, I mean to look well over the ground—and not
play in any place where there is any danger at all." "Well, we shall see; but
the little rogue is determined to hide somewhere." The boy takes his ball and
goes out to play with it, far more effectually cautioned than he could have been
by any direct admonition.

’The Teacher and the Tough Logs’ A teacher who was engaged in a district school
in the country, where the arrangement was for the older boys to saw and split
the wood for the fire, on coming one day to see how the work was going on, found
that the boys had laid one rather hard-looking log aside. "They could not split
that log," they said.

"Yes," said the teacher, looking at the log, "I don’t wonder. I know that log. I
saw him before. His name is Old Gnarly. He says he has no idea of coming open
for a parcel of boys, even if they ’have’ got axe and wedges. It takes a man, he
says, to split ’him’." The boys stood looking at the log with a very grave
expression of countenance as they heard these words.

"Is that what he says?" asked one of them. "Let’s try him again, Joe."

"It will do no good," said the teacher, "for he won’t come open, if he can
possibly help it. And there’s another fellow (pointing). His name is
Slivertwist. If you get a crack in him, you will find him full of twisted
splinters that he holds himself together with. The only way is to cut them
through with a sharp axe. But he holds on so tight with them that I don’t
believe you can get him open. He says he never gives up to boys." So saying, the
teacher went away. It is scarcely necessary to say to anyone who knows boys,
that the teacher was called out not long afterwards, to see that Old Gnarly and
Old Slivertwist were both split up fine—the boys standing around the heaps of
well-prepared fire-wood which they had afforded—and regarding them with an air
of exultation and triumph.

’Muscles reinvigorated through the Action of the Mind’. An older sister has been
taking a walk with little Johnny, four years old, as her companion. On their
return, when within half a mile of home, Johnny, tired of gathering flowers and
chasing butterflies, comes to his sister, with a fatigued and languid air—and
says he cannot walk any farther—and wants to be carried.

"I can’t carry you very well," she says, "but I will tell you what we will do;
we will stop at the first inn we come to and rest. Do you see that large flat
stone out there at the turn of the road? That is the inn—and you shall be my
courier. A courier is a man that goes forward as fast as he can on his horse—and
tells the inn-keeper that the traveler is coming—and orders supper. So you may
gallop on as fast as you can go—and, when you get to the inn, tell the
inn-keeper that the princess is coming—I am the princess—and that he must get
ready an excellent supper." The boy will gallop on and wait at the stone. When
his sister arrives she may sit and rest with him a moment, entertaining him by
imagining conversations with the inn-keeper—and then resume their walk.

"Now," she may say, "I must send my courier to the post-office with a letter. Do
you see that fence far away? That fence is the post-office. We will play that
one of the cracks between the boards is the letter-box. Take this letter
(handing him any little scrap of paper which she has taken from her pocket and
folded to represent a letter) and put it in the letter-box—and speak to the
postmaster through the crack—and tell him to send the letter as soon as he can."

Under such management as this, unless the child’s exhaustion is very great, his
sense of it will disappear—and he will accomplish the walk not only without any
more complaining—but with a great feeling of pleasure. The nature of the action
in such a case, seems to be that the vital force, when, in its direct and
ordinary passage to the muscles through the nerves, it has exhausted the
resources of that mode of transmission, receives in some mysterious way a
reinforcement to its strength in passing round, by a new channel, through the
organs of intelligence and imagination.

These trivial instances are only given as examples to show how infinitely varied
are the applications which may be made of this principle of appealing to the
imagination of children—and what a variety of effects may be produced through
its instrumentality by a parent or teacher who once takes pains to make himself
possessed of it. But each one must make himself possessed of it by his own
practice and experience. No general instructions can do anything more than to
offer the suggestion—and to show how a beginning is to be made.


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  CHAPTER 43: 3.16     TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD
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Chapter 16. Truth and Falsehood. The duty of telling the truth seems to us,
until we have devoted special consideration to the subject, the most simple
thing in the world, both to understand and to perform; and when we find young
children disregarding it, we are surprised and shocked—and often imagine that it
indicates something peculiar and abnormal in the moral sense of the offender. A
little reflection, however, will show us how very different the state of the
case really is. What do we mean by the obligation resting upon us to tell the
truth? It is simply, in general terms—that it is our duty to make our statements
correspond with the realities which they purpose to express. This is, no doubt,
our duty, as a general rule—but there are so many exceptions to this rule—and
the principles on which the admissibility of the exceptions depend are so
complicated and so abstruse, that it is amazing that children learn to make the
necessary distinctions as soon as they do.

’Natural Guidance to the Duty of telling the Truth’. The child, when he first
acquires the art of using and understanding language, is filled with wonder and
pleasure to find that he can represent external objects that he observes—and
also ideas passing through his mind, by means of sounds formed by his organs of
speech. Such sounds, he finds, have both these powers—that is, they can
represent realities, or imaginary things. Thus, when he utters the sounds ’I see
a bird’, they may denote either a mere conception in his mind, or an outward
actuality. How is he possibly to know, by any instinct, or intuition, or moral
sense when it is right for him to use them as representations of a mere idea—and
when it is wrong for him to use them, unless they correspond with some actual
reality? The fact that vivid images or conceptions may be awakened in his mind
by the mere hearing of certain sounds made by himself or another is something
strange and wonderful to him; and though he comes to his consciousness of this
susceptibility by degrees, it is still, while he is acquiring it—and extending
the scope and range of it, a source of continual pleasure to him. The necessity
of any correspondence of these words—and of the images which they excite, with
actual realities, is a necessity which arises from the relations of man to man
in the social state—and he has no means whatever of knowing anything about it
except by instruction.

There is not only no ground for expecting that children should perceive any such
necessity either by any kind of instinct, or intuition, or youthful moral sense,
or by any reasoning process of which his incipient powers are capable; but even
if he should by either of these means be inclined to entertain such an idea, his
mind would soon be utterly confused in regard to it by what he observes
constantly taking place around him in respect to the use of language by others
whose conduct, much more than their precepts, he is accustomed to follow as his
guide.

’A very nice Distinction’. A mother, for example, takes her little son, four or
five years old, into her lap to amuse him with a story. She begins: "When I was
a little boy I lived by myself. All the bread and cheese I got, I laid upon the
shelf," and so on to the end. The mother’s object is accomplished. The boy is
amused. He is greatly interested and pleased by the astonishing phenomenon
taking place within him of curious images awakened in his mind by means of
sounds entering his ear—images of a little boy living alone, of his reaching up
to put bread and cheese upon a shelf—and finally of his attempting to wheel a
little wife home—the story ending with the breaking and downfall of the
wheelbarrow, wife and all. He does not reflect philosophically upon the
subject—but the principal element of the pleasure afforded him is the wonderful
phenomenon of the formation of such vivid and strange images in his mind by
means of the mere sound of his mother’s voice.

He knows at once, if any half-formed reflections arise in his mind at all, that
what his mother has told him is not true—that is, that the words and images
which they awaken in his mind had no actual realities corresponding with them.
He knows, in the first place, that his mother never was a boy—and does not
suppose that she ever lived by herself—and laid up her bread and cheese upon a
shelf. The whole story, he understands, if he exercises any thought about it
whatever— wheelbarrow catastrophe and all—consists only of words which his
mother speaks to him to give him pleasure.

By-and-by his mother gives him a piece of cake—and he goes out into the garden
to play. His sister is there and asks him to give her a piece of his cake. He
hesitates. He thinks of the request long enough to form a distinct image in his
mind of giving her half of it—but finally concludes not to do so—and eats it all
himself. When at length he comes in, his mother accidentally asks him some
question about the cake—and he says he gave half of it to his sister. His mother
seems much pleased. He knew that she would be pleased. He said it, in fact, on
purpose to please her. The words represented no actual reality—but only a
thought passing through his mind—and he spoke, in a certain sense, for the
purpose of giving his mother pleasure. The case corresponds in all these
particulars with that of his mother’s statement in respect to her being once a
little boy and living by herself. Those words were spoken by her to give him
pleasure—and he said what he did to give her pleasure. To give her pleasure! the
reader will perhaps say, with some surprise, thinking that to assign such a
motive as that is not, by any means, putting a fair and proper construction upon
the boy’s act. His design was, it will be said, to shield himself from censure,
or to procure undeserved praise. And it is, no doubt, true that, on a careful
analysis of the motives of the act, such as we, in our maturity, can easily
make, we shall find that a design of deception, obscurely mingled with them. But
the child does not analyze. He cannot. He does not look forward to ultimate
ends, or look for the hidden springs which lie concealed among the complicated
combinations of impulses which animate him. In the case that we are supposing,
all that we can reasonably believe to be present to his mind, is a kind of
instinctive feeling that for him to say that he ate the cake all himself would
bring a frown, or at least a look of pain and distress, to his mother’s face—and
perhaps words of displeasure for him; while, if he says that he gave half to his
sister, she will look pleased and happy. This is as far as he sees. And he may
be of such an age—and his mental organs may be in so embryonic a condition, that
it is as far as he ought to be expected to look; so that, as the case presents
itself to his mind in respect to the impulse which at the moment prompts him to
act, he said what he did from a desire to give his mother pleasure—and not pain.
As to the secret motive, which might have been his ultimate end, ’that’ lay too
deeply concealed for him to be conscious of it. And we ourselves too often act
from the influence of hidden impulses of selfishness, the existence of which we
are wholly unconscious of—to judge him too harshly for his blindness. At length,
by-and-by, when his sister conies in—and the untruth is discovered, the boy is
astonished and bewildered by being called to account in a very solemn manner by
his mother—on account of the awful wickedness of having told a lie!

’How the Child sees it’.

Now I am very ready to admit that, notwithstanding the apparent resemblance
between these two cases, this resemblance is only apparent and superficial; but
the question is, whether it is not sufficient to cause such a child to confound
them—and to be excusable, until he has been enlightened by appropriate
instruction, for not clearly distinguishing the cases where words must be held
strictly to conform to actual realities, from those where it is perfectly right
and proper that they should only represent images or conceptions of the mind. A
father, playing with his children, says, "Now I am a bear—and am going to
growl." So he growls. Then he says, "Now I am a dog—and am going to bark." He is
not a bear—and he is not a dog—and the children know it. His words, therefore,
even to the apprehension of the children, express an untruth, in the sense that
they do not correspond with any actual reality. It is not a wrongful untruth.
The children understand perfectly well that in such a case as this it is not in
any sense wrong to say what is not true. But how are they to know what kind of
untruths are right—and what kind are wrong—until they are taught what the
distinction is and upon what it depends.

Unfortunately many parents confuse the ideas, or rather the moral sense of their
children, in a much more vital manner by untruths of a different kind from
this—as, for example, when a mother, in the presence of her children, expresses
a feeling of vexation and annoyance at seeing a certain visitor coming to make a
call—and then, when the visitor enters the room, receives her with pretended
pleasure—and says, out of politeness, that she is very glad to see her.
Sometimes a father will join with his children, when peculiar circumstances
seem, as he thinks, to require it, in concealing something from their mother, or
deceiving her in regard to it by misrepresentations or positive untruths.
Sometimes even the mother will do this in reference to the father. Of course
such management as this, must necessarily have the effect of bringing up the
children to the idea that deceiving by untruths is a justifiable resort in
certain cases--a doctrine which, though entertained by many well-meaning people,
strikes a fatal blow at all confidence in the veracity of men. For whenever we
know of any people, that they entertain this idea, it is never afterwards safe
to trust in what they say, since we never can know that the case in hand is not,
for some reason unknown to us—one of those which justify a resort to falsehood.
But to return to the case of the children that are under the training of parents
who will not themselves, under any circumstances, falsify their word—that is,
will never utter words that do not represent actual reality in any of the
wrongful ways. Such children cannot be expected to know of themselves, or to
learn without instruction, what the wrongful ways are—and they never do learn
until they have made many failures. Many, it is true, learn when they are very
young. Many evince a remarkable tenderness of conscience in respect to this, as
well as to all their other duties—as fast as they are taught them. And some
become so faithful and scrupulous in respect to truth, at so early an age, that
their parents quite forget the progressive steps by which they advanced at the
beginning. We find many a mother who will say of her boy that he never told an
untruth—but we do not find any man who will say of himself, that when he was a
boy he never told one.

’Imaginings and Rememberings easily mistaken for each other’. But besides the
complicated character of the general subject, as it presents itself to the minds
of children—that is, the intricacy to them of the question, when there must be a
strict correspondence between the words spoken and an actual reality—and when
they may rightly represent mere images or fancies of the mind—there is another
great difficulty in their way, one that is very little considered and often,
indeed, not at all understood by parents—and that is, that in the earliest years
the distinction between realities and mere fancies of the mind, is very
indistinctly drawn. Even in our minds the two things are often confounded. We
often have to pause and think in order to decide whether a mental perception of
which we are conscious is a remembrance of a reality, or a revival of some image
formed at some previous time, perhaps remote, by a vivid description which we
have read or heard, or even by our own imagination. "Is that really so, or did I
dream it?" How often is such a question heard. And people have been known to
certify honestly, in courts of justice, to facts which they think they
personally witnessed—but which were really pictured in their minds in other ways
than reality. The picture was so distinct and vivid that they lost, in time, the
power of distinguishing it from other and, perhaps, similar pictures which had
been made by their witnessing the corresponding realities.

Indeed, instead of being surprised that these different origins of present
mental images are sometimes confounded, it is actually astonishing that they can
generally be so clearly distinguished; and we cannot explain, even to ourselves,
what the difference is by which we do distinguish them. For example, we can call
up to our minds the picture of a house burning and a fireman going up by a
ladder to rescue some person appearing at the window. Now the image, in such a
case, may have had several different modes of origin. 1. We may have actually
witnessed such a scene the evening before. 2. Someone may have given us a vivid
description of it. 3. We may have fancied it in writing a tale. 4. We may have
dreamed it. Here are four different prototypes of a picture which is now
renewed—and there is something in the present copy which enables us, in most
cases, to determine at once what the real prototype was. That is, there is
something in the picture which now arises in our mind as a renewal or repetition
of the picture made the day before, which makes us immediately cognizant of the
cause of the original picture—that is, whether it came from a reality that we
witnessed, or from a verbal or written description by another person, or whether
it was a fanciful creation of our own mind while awake, or a dream. And it is
extremely difficult for us to discover precisely what it is, in the present
mental picture, which gives us this information in respect to the origin of its
prototype. It is very easy to say, "Oh, we remember." But remember is only a
word. We can only mean by it, in such a case as this, that there is some ’latent
difference’ between the several images made upon our minds today of things seen,
heard of, imagined, or dreamed yesterday, by which we distinguish each from all
the others. But the most acute metaphysicians—men who are accustomed to the
closest scrutiny of the movements and the mode of action of their minds—find it
very difficult to discover what this difference is.

’The Result in the Case of Children’.

Now, in the case of young children, the faculties of perception and
consciousness and the power of recognizing the distinguishing characteristics of
the different perceptions and sensations of their minds, are all immature—and
distinctions which even to mature minds are not so clear, but that they are
often confounded—for them form a bewildering maze. Their minds are occupied with
a mingled and blended though beautiful combination of sensations, conceptions,
imaginations and remembrances, which they do not attempt to separate from each
other—and their vocal organs are animated by a constant impulse to exercise
themselves with any utterances which the incessant and playful gambollings of
their faculties frame. In other words, the vital force liberated by the
digestion of the food seeks an outlet—now in this way and now in that—through
every variety of mental and bodily action. Of course, to arrange and systematize
these actions, to establish the true relations between all these various
faculties and powers—and to regulate the obligations and duties by which the
exercise of them should be limited and controlled, is a work of time—and is to
be effected, not by the operation of any instinct or early intuition—but by a
course of development—effected mainly by the progress of growth and experience,
though it is to be aided and guided by assiduous but gentle training and
instruction.

If these views are correct, we can safely draw from them the following practical
conclusions.

’Practical Conclusions’.

1. We must not expect from children, that they will from the beginning,
understand and feel the obligation to speak the truth—any more than we look for
a recognition, on their part, of the various other principles of duty which
arise from the relations of man to man in the social state. We do not expect
that two babies creeping upon the floor towards the same plaything, should each
feel instinctively impelled to grant the other the use of it half of the time.
Children must be taught to tell the truth, just as they must be taught the
principles of justice and equal rights. They generally get taught by
experience—that is, by the rough treatment and hard knocks which they bring upon
themselves by their violation of these principles. But the faithful parent can
aid them in acquiring the necessary knowledge in a far easier and more agreeable
manner, by appropriate instruction.

2. The mother must not be distressed or too much troubled when she finds that
her children, while very young are prone to fall into deviations from the
truth—but only to be made to feel more impressed with the necessity of renewing
her own efforts to teach them the duty—and to train them to the performance of
it.

3. She must not be too stern or severe in punishing the deviations from truth,
in very young children, or in expressing the displeasure which they awaken in
her mind. It is instruction, not expressions of anger or vindictive
punishment—which is required in most cases. Explain to them the evils that would
result if we could not believe what people say—and tell them stories of
truth-loving children on the one hand—and of false and deceitful children on the
other. And, above all, notice, with indications of approval and pleasure, when
the child speaks the truth under circumstances which might have tempted him to
deviate from it. One instance of this kind, in which you show that you observe
and are pleased by his truthfulness, will do more to awaken in his heart a
genuine love for the truth than ten reprovals, or even punishments, incurred by
the violation of it. And in the same spirit we must make use of the religious
considerations which are appropriate to this subject—that is, we must encourage
the child with the approval of his heavenly Father, when he resists the
temptation to deviate from the truth, instead of frightening him, when he falls,
by terrible denunciations of the anger of God against liars; denunciations
which, however well-deserved in the cases to which they are intended to apply,
are not designed for children in whose minds the necessary discriminations, as
pointed out in this chapter, are yet scarcely formed.

’Danger of confounding Deceitfulness and Falsehood’.

4. Do not confound the criminality of deceitfulness by acts—with falsehood by
words, by telling the child, when he resorts to any artifice or deception in
order to gain his ends, that it is as bad to deceive as to lie. It is not as
bad, by any means. There is a marked line of distinction to be drawn between
falsifying one’s word and all other forms of deception, for there is such a
sacredness in the spoken word, that the violation of it is in general far more
reprehensible than the attempt to accomplish the same end, by mere deceitful
action.

If a man has lost a leg, it may be perfectly right for him to wear a wooden one
which is so perfectly made, as to deceive people—and even to wear it, too, with
the ’intent’ to deceive people by leading them to suppose that both his legs are
genuine. But it would be wrong—for him to assert in words, that this limb was
not an artificial one. It is right to put a chalk egg in a hen’s nest, to
deceive the hen, when, if the hen could understand language—and if we were to
suppose hens "to have any rights that we are bound to respect," it would be
wrong to ’tell’ her that it was a real egg. It would be right for a person, when
his house was entered by a robber at night, to point an empty gun at the robber
to frighten him away by leading him to think that the gun was loaded; but it
would be wrong, as I think—though I am aware that many people would think
differently—for him to say in words that the gun was loaded—and that he would
fire unless the robber went away. These cases show that there is a great
difference between deceiving by false appearances, which is sometimes right—and
deceiving by false statements, which, as I think, is always wrong. There is a
special and inviolable sacredness, which every lover of the truth should attach
to his spoken word.

5. We must not allow the leniency with which, according to the views here
presented, we are to regard the violations of truth by young people, while their
mental faculties and their powers of discrimination are yet imperfectly
developed, to lead us to lower the standard of right in their minds, so as to
allow them to imbibe the idea that we think that falsehood is, after all, no
great sin—and still less, to suppose that we consider it sometimes, in extreme
cases, allowable. We may, indeed, say, "The truth is not to be spoken at all
times," but to make the aphorism complete, we must add, that ’falsehood’ is
’never’ to be spoken. There is no other possible ground for absolute confidence
in the word of any man, except the conviction that his principle is—that it is
’never, under any circumstances, or to accomplish any purpose whatever,’ right
for him to falsify it. A different opinion, I am aware, prevails very
extensively among mankind—and especially among the continental nations of
Europe, where it seems to be very generally believed that in those cases in
which falsehood will on the whole be conducive of greater good than the
truth—that it is allowable to employ falsehood. But it is easy to see that, so
far as we know, that those around us hold to this philosophy, all reasonable
ground for confidence in their statements is taken away; for we never can know,
in respect to any statement which they make, that the case is not one of those
in which, for reasons not manifest to us—they think it is expedient—that is,
conducive in some way to good—to state what is not true.

While, therefore, we must allow children a reasonable time to bring their minds
to a full sense of the obligation of making their words always conform to what
is true, instead of shaping them so as best to attain their purposes for the
time being—which is the course to which their earliest natural instincts prompt
them—and must deal gently and leniently with their incipient failures, we must
do all in our power to bring them forward as fast as possible to the adoption of
the very highest standard as their rule of duty in this respect; inculcating it
upon them, by example as well as by precept—that we cannot innocently, under any
circumstances, falsify our word to escape any evil, or to gain any end. For
there is no evil so great—and no end to be attained so valuable, as to justify
the adoption of a principle which destroys all foundation for confidence between
man and man.


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  CHAPTER 44: 3.17     JUDGMENT AND REASONING
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Chapter 17. Judgment and Reasoning.

It is a very unreasonable thing for parents to expect young children to be
reasonable. Being reasonable in one’s conduct or wishes implies the taking into
account of those bearings and relations of an act which are more remote and less
obvious, in contradistinction from being governed exclusively by those which are
immediate and near. Now, it is not reasonable to expect children to be
influenced by these remote considerations, simply because in them the faculties
by which they are brought forward into the mind and invested with the attributes
of reality, are not yet developed. These faculties are all in a nascent or
formative state—and it is as idle to expect them, while thus immature, to
fulfill their functions for any practical purpose, as it would be to expect a
baby to expend the strength of its little arms in performing any useful labor.

’Progress of Mental Development’. The mother sometimes, when she looks upon her
infant lying in her arms—and observes the intentness with which he seems to gaze
upon objects in the room—upon the bright light of the window or of the lamp, or
upon the pictures on the wall—wonders what he is thinking of. The truth probably
is that he is not thinking at all; he is simply ’seeing’—that is to say, the
light from external objects is entering his eyes and producing images upon his
sensorium—and that is all. He ’sees’ only. There might have been a similar image
of the light in his mind the day before—but the reproduction of the former image
which constitutes memory, does not probably take place at all in his case if he
is very young, so that there is not present to his mind, in connection with the
present image, any reproduction of the former one. Still less does he make any
mental comparison between the two. The mother, as she sees the light of today,
may remember the one of yesterday—and mentally compare the two; may have many
’thoughts’ awakened in her mind by the sensation and the recollection—such as,
this is from a new kind of oil—and gives a brighter light than the other; that
she will use this kind of oil in all her lamps—and will recommend it to her
friends—and so on indefinitely. But the child has none of these thoughts and can
have none; for neither have the faculties been developed within him by which
they are conceived, nor has he had the experience of the previous sensations to
form the materials for framing them. He is conscious of the present
sensations—and that is all. As he advances, however, in his experience of
sensations—and as his mental powers gradually begin to be unfolded, what may be
called ’thoughts’ arise, consisting at first, probably, of recollections of past
sensations entering into his consciousness in connection with the present ones.
These combinations—and the mental acts of various kinds which are excited by
them, multiply as he advances towards maturity; but the images produced by
present realities are infinitely more vivid and have a very much greater power
over him, than those which memory brings up from the past, or that his
imagination can anticipate in the future. This state of things, though there is,
of course, a gradual advancement in the relative influence of what the mind can
conceive, as compared with that which the senses make real, continues
substantially the same through all the period of childhood and youth. In other
words, the organs of sense and of those mental faculties which are directly
occupied with the sensations, are the earliest to be developed, as we might
naturally suppose would be the case; and, by consequence, the sensible
properties of objects and the direct and immediate effects of any action, are
those which have a controlling influence over the volitions of the mind during
all the earlier periods of its development. The ’reason’, on the other hand,
which, as applied to the practical affairs of life, has for its function the
bringing in of the more remote bearings and relations of a fact, or the indirect
and less obvious results of an action, is very slowly developed. It is precisely
on this account, that the period of immaturity in the human species is so long
protracted in comparison with that of the inferior animals. The lives of these
animals are regulated by the cognizance simply of the sensible properties of
objects—and by the immediate results of their acts—and they accordingly become
mature as soon as their senses and their bodily organs are brought completely
into action. But man, who is to be governed by his reason—that is, by much more
far-reaching and comprehensive views of what concerns him—requires a much longer
period to fit him for independent action, since he must wait for the development
of those higher faculties which are necessary for the attainment of these
extended views; and during this period he must depend upon the reason of his
parents, instead of being governed by his own.

’Practical Effect of these Truths’. The true course, then, for parents to pursue
is not to expect too much from the ability of their children to understand what
is right and proper for them—but to decide all important questions themselves,
using their own experience and their own power of foresight as their guide. They
are, indeed, to cultivate and train the reasoning and reflective powers of their
children—but are not to expect them in early life to be sufficiently developed
and strengthened to bear any heavy strain, or to justify the placing of any
serious reliance upon them. They must, in a word, treat the reason and the
judgment of their children as the farmer treats the strength of his young colt,
which he exercises and, to a certain extent, employs—but never puts upon it any
heavy burden.

It results from this view of the case that it is not wise for a parent to resort
to arguing or reasoning with a child—as a substitute for authority—or even as an
aid to make up for a deficiency of authority, in regard to what it is necessary
that the child should do. No doubt it is a good plan sometimes to let the child
decide for himself—but when you pretend to allow him to decide, let him do it
really. When you go out with him to take a walk, if it is so nearly immaterial
which way you go, that you are willing that he should determine the question,
then lay the case before him, giving him the advantages and disadvantages of the
different ways—and let him decide; and then act according to his decision. But
if you have determined in your own mind which way to go, simply announce your
determination; and if you give reasons at all, do not give them in such a way as
to convey the idea to his mind that his obligation to submit is to rest partly
on his seeing the force of them. For every parent will find that this principle
is a sound one, and one of fundamental importance in the successful management
of children—namely, that it is much easier for a child to do what he does not
like to do as an act of simple submission to superior authority—than for him to
bring himself to an accordance with the decision by hearing and considering the
reasons. In other words, it is much easier for him to obey your decision—than to
bring himself to the same decision against his own will.

’In serious Cases no Reliance to be placed on the Reason of the Child’. In all
those cases, therefore, in which the parent cannot safely allow the children
really to decide, such as the question of going to school, going to church,
taking medicine, remaining indoors on account of indisposition or of the
weather, making visits, choice of playmates and companions—and a great many
others which it would not be safe actually to allow them to decide, it is true
kindness to them to spare their minds the painful perplexity of a conflict.
Decide for them. Do not say, "Oh, I would not do this or that"—whatever it may
be—"because"—and then go on to assign reasons thought of perhaps at the moment,
to meet the emergency—and indeed generally false; but, "Yes, I don’t wonder that
you would like to do it. I would like it if I were you. But it cannot be done."
When there is medicine to be taken, do not put the child in misery for half an
hour while you resort to all sorts of arguments—and perhaps artifices, to bring
him to a willingness to take it; but simply present it to him, saying, "It is
something very disagreeable, I know—but it must be taken;" and if it is refused,
allow of no delay—but at once, though without any appearance of displeasure—and
in the gentlest-manner possible, force it down. Then, after the excitement of
the affair has passed away—and you have your little patient in your lap—and he
is in good-mood—this is all, of course, on the supposition that he is not very
sick—say to him, "You would not take your medicine a little while ago—and we had
to force it down. I hope it did not hurt you much." The child will probably make
some fretful answer. "It is not surprising that you did not like to take it. All
children, while they are too young to be reasonable—and all animals, such as
horses and cows, when they are sick, are very unwilling to take their
medicine—and we often have to force it down. You will, perhaps, refuse to take
yours a good many times yet before you are old enough to see that it is a great
deal easier to take it willingly, than it is to have it forced down." And then
go on and tell him some amusing story of the difficulty some people had in
forcing medicine down the throat of a sick horse, who did not know enough to
take it like a man. The idea is—for this case is only meant as an illustration
of a general principle—that the comfort and enjoyment of children, as well as
the easy and successful working of parental government, is greatly promoted by
deciding for the children at once—and placing their action on the simple ground
of obedience to authority in all those cases where the decision cannot really
and honestly be left to the children themselves. To listen reluctantly to the
persistent arguments of children in favor of their being allowed to do what we
are sure that we shall decide in the end that it is not best for them to do—and
to meet them with counter arguments which, if they are not actually false, as
they are very apt to be in such a case, are utterly powerless, from the
incapacity of the children to appreciate them, on account of their being blinded
by their wishes, is not to strengthen the reasoning powers—but to confuse and
bewilder them—and impede their development.

’Mode of Dealing with the REASON of a Child’. The effect, however, will be
excellent of calling into exercise the reason and the judgment of the child, in
cases where the conclusion which he arrives at can be safely allowed to
determine his action. You can help him in such cases by giving him any
information that he desires—but do not confuse him—or interfere with his
exercising his own judgment, by obtruding advice. Allow him in this way perhaps,
to lay out his own garden; or to plan the course of a walk or a ride; or to
decide upon the expenditure of his own pocket-money; but within certain
restrictions in respect to such things as would be dangerous or hurtful to
himself, or annoying to others. As he grows older you can give him the charge of
the minor arrangements on a journey, such as taking care of a certain number of
the parcels, choosing a seat in the car, etc. Commit such things to his charge
only so fast as you can really entrust him with power to act—and then, with
slight and not obtrusive supervision on your part, leave the responsibility with
him, noticing encouragingly whatever of fidelity and success you observe—and
taking little notice—generally in fact, none at all—of such errors and failures
as result simply from inexperience and immaturity. In a word, make no attempt to
seek support from his judgment, or by convincing his reason, in important
cases—but in all such cases rest your decisions solely upon your own authority.
But then, on the other hand, in unimportant cases, where no serious evil can
result whichever of the various possible courses are taken, call his judgment
into exercise—and abide by its decisions. Give him the responsibility if he
likes to take it—but with the responsibility give him the power.

Substantially the same principles as explained above, in their application to
the exercise of the judgment, apply to the cultivation of the reasoning
powers—that is to say, in the act of reasoning, or drawing conclusions from
premises. Nothing can be more unprofitable and useless, to say nothing of its
irritating and vexatious effect, than maintaining an argument with a child—or
with anybody else, in fact—to convince him against his will. Arguing very soon
degenerates, in such a case, into an irritating and utterly useless dispute. The
difference of opinion which gives occasion for such discussions, arises
generally from the fact that the child sees only certain of the more obvious and
immediate relations and bearings of the subject in question, which is, in fact,
all that can be reasonably expected of him—and forms his opinion from these
alone. The parent, on the other hand, takes a wider view—and includes among the
premises on which his conclusion is founded considerations which have never been
brought to the attention of the child. The proper course, therefore, for him to
pursue in order to bring the child’s mind into harmony with his own, is not to
ridicule the boy’s reasoning, or chide him for taking so short-sighted a view of
the subject, or to tell him it is very foolish for him to talk as he does, or
silence him by a dogmatic decision, delivered in a dictatorial and overbearing
manner—all of which is too often found to characterize the discussions between
parents and children—but calmly and quietly to present to him the considerations
bearing upon the question which he has not yet seen. To this end—and to bring
the mind of the child into that listening and willing state without which all
arguments and even all attempts at instruction are wasted, we must listen
candidly to what he says himself, put the best construction upon it, give it its
full force; see it, in a word, as nearly as possible as ’he’ sees it—and let him
know that we do so. Then he will be much more ready to receive any additional
considerations which we may present to his mind, as things that must also be
taken into account in forming a final judgment on the question. A boy, for
example, who is full of health and increasing vigor—and in whom, of course,
those organs on which the consciousness of strength and the impulses of courage
depend, are in the course of rapid and healthy development, in reading to his
mother a story in which a thief that came into a back store-room of a house in
the evening, with a bag, to steal grain, was detected by the owner and
frightened away, looks up from his book and says, in a very valiant manner, "If
I had been there—and had a gun, I would have shot him on the spot."

’The Rough Mode of Treatment’.

Now, if the mother wishes to confuse and bewilder—and to crush down, so to
speak, the reasoning faculties of her child, she may say,

"Nonsense, George! It is of no use for you to talk big in that way. You would
not dare to fire a gun in such a case, still less, to shoot a man. The first
thing you would do would be to run away and hide. And then, besides, it would be
very wicked for you to kill a man in that way. You would be very likely to get
yourself hung for murder. Besides, the Bible says that we must not resist evil;
so you should not talk so coolly about shooting a man." The poor boy would be
overpowered by such a rebuke as this—and perhaps silenced. The incipient and
half-formed ideas in his mind in respect to the right of self-defense, the
virtue of courage, the sanctity of life, the nature and the limits of the
doctrine of non-resistance, would be all thrown together into a jumble of
hopeless confusion in his mind—and the only result would be his muttering to
himself, after a moment of bewilderment and vexation, "I ’would’ shoot him,
anyhow." Such treatment would not only fail to convince him that his idea was
wrong—but would effectually close his heart against any such conviction.

’The Gentle Mode of Treatment’. But let the mother first see and recognize those
bearings and relations of the question which the boy sees—that is, those which
are the most direct and immediate—and allow them their full force—and she
establishes a sympathy between his mind and hers—and prepares the way for his
being led by her to taking into the account other considerations which, though
of greater importance, are not so obvious—and which it would be wholly
unreasonable to expect that the boy would see himself, since they do not come
within the range of observation that could be reached spontaneously, by the
unaided faculties of such a child. Suppose the mother says, in reply to her
boy’s boastful declaration that he would shoot the robber, "There would be a
certain degree of justice in that, no doubt."

"Yes," rejoins the boy, "it would be no more than he deserved."

"When a man engages in the commission of a crime," adds the mother, "he runs the
risk of all the perils that he exposes himself to, from the efforts of people to
defend their property—and perhaps their lives; so that, perhaps, ’he’ would have
no right to complain if people did shoot at him."

"Not a bit of right," says the boy.

"But then there are some other things to be considered," says the mother,
"which, though they do not show that it would be unjust towards him, might make
it bad for ’us’ to shoot him."

"What things?" asks the boy. The mother having candidly admitted whatever there
was of truth in the boy’s view of the subject—and thus placed herself, as it
were, side by side with him, he is prepared to see and admit what she is going
to point out to his observation—not as something directly antagonistic to what
he has said—but as something additional, something which is ’also’ to be taken
into the account.

"In the first place," continues the mother, "there would be the body to be
disposed of, if you were to shoot him. How should we manage that?"

It would make a great difference in such a case in respect to the danger of
putting the boy’s mind into a state of antagonism against his mother’s
presentation of the case, whether she says, "How shall ’we’ manage that?" or,
"How will ’you’ manage that?"

"Oh," replies the boy, "we would send to where he lives—and let his family come
and take him away; or, if he was in a city, we would call in the police."

"That would be a good plan," says his mother. "We would call in the police, if
there were any police at hand. But then there would be the blood all over the
carpet and the floor."

"There would not be any carpet on the floor in a store-room," says the boy.

"True," replies the mother; "you are right there; so that there would not be,
after all, any great trouble about the blood. But the man might not be killed
outright—and it might be some time before the policemen would come—and we should
see him all that time writhing and struggling in dreadful convulsions, which
would fix horrid impressions upon our minds, that would haunt us for a long time
afterwards." The mother could then go on to explain that, if the man had a wife
and children, anyone who had killed the husband and father would pity them as
long as he lived—and could never see them or hear them spoken of without feeling
pain—and even some degree of self-reproach; although, so far as the man himself
was concerned, it might be that no injustice had been done. After the excitement
was over, too, he would begin to make excuses for the man, thinking that perhaps
he was poor—and his children were suffering for lack of bread—and it was on
their account that he was tempted to steal—and this, though it would not
justify, might in some degree palliate the act for which he was slain; or that
he had been badly brought up, having never received any proper instruction—but
had been trained and taught from his boyhood to pilfer and steal.

These and many analogous considerations might be presented to the child, going
to show that, whatever the rule of strict justice in respect to the criminal may
enjoin, it is not right to take the life of a wrong-doer merely to prevent the
commission of a minor offense. The law of the land recognizes this principle—and
does not justify the taking of life except in extreme cases, such as those of
imminent personal danger. A friendly conversation of this kind, carried on, not
in a spirit of antagonism to what the boy has said—but in the form of presenting
information novel to him, in respect to considerations which were to be taken
into the account in addition to those which he had himself perceived, will have
a great effect not only in modifying his opinion in this case—but also in
impressing him with the general idea that, before adopting a decisive opinion on
any subject, we must take care to acquaint ourselves not merely with the most
direct and obvious relations of it—but must look farther into its bearings and
results, so that our conclusion may have a solid foundation by reposing upon as
many as possible of the considerations which ought really to affect it. Thus, by
avoiding all appearance of antagonism, we secure a ready reception for the
truths we offer—and cultivate the reasoning powers at the same time.

’General Principles’. The principles, then, which are meant to be illustrated
and enforced in this chapter are these:

1. That the mental faculties of children on which the exercise of judgment and
of the power of reasoning depend, are not among those which are the earliest
developed—and they do not attain, in the first years of life, to such a degree
of strength or maturity as to justify placing any serious reliance upon them for
the conduct of life.

2. Parents should, accordingly, not put them to any serious test, or impose any
heavy burden upon them; but should rely solely on their own authority, as the
expression of their own judgment—and not upon their ability to convince the
judgment of the child, in important cases, or in those where its inclinations or
its feelings are concerned.

3. But they may greatly promote the healthy development of these faculties on
the part of their children, by bringing to their view the less obvious bearings
and relations of various acts and occurrences on which judgment is to be passed,
in cases where their feelings and inclinations are not specially concerned—doing
this either in the form of explaining their own parental principles of
management, or practically, by entrusting them with responsibility—and giving
them a degree of actual power commensurate with it, in cases where it is safe to
do so.

4. They may enlarge the range of the children’s ideas—and accustom them to take
wider views of the various subjects which occupy their attention, by discussing
with them the principles involved in the several cases; but such discussions
must be conducted in a calm, gentle and considerate manner, the parent looking
always upon what the child says in the most favorable light, putting the best
construction upon it, and admitting its force—and then presenting such
additional views as ought also to be taken into account, with moderate
earnestness—and in an unobtrusive manner. Thus taking short and easy steps
himself in order to accommodate his own rate of progress to the still
imperfectly developed capabilities of the child. In a word, it is with the
unfolding of the mental faculties of the young, as it is with the development of
their muscles and the improvement of their bodily powers; and just as the way to
teach a child to walk is not to drag him along hurriedly and forcibly by the arm
faster than he can himself form the necessary steps—but to go slowly,
accommodating your movements to those which are natural to him—and encouraging
him by letting him perceive that his own efforts produce appreciable and useful
results. Just so, in cultivating any of their thinking and reasoning powers, we
must not put at the outset too heavy a burden upon them—but must call them
gently into action, within the limits prescribed by the degree of maturity to
which they have attained, standing a little aside, as it were, in doing so—and
encouraging them to do the work themselves, instead of taking it out of their
hands and doing it for them.


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  CHAPTER 45: 3.18     WISHES AND REQUESTS
========================================================================

Chapter 18. Wishes and Requests. In respect to the course to be pursued in
relation to the requests and wishes of children, the following general rules
result from the principles inculcated in the chapter on ’Judgment and
Reasoning,’ or, at least, are in perfect accordance with them—namely:

’Absolute Authority in Cases of vital Importance’.

1. In respect to all those questions in the decision of which their permanent
and essential welfare are involved, such as those relating to their health, the
company they keep, the formation of their characters, the progress of their
education, and the like—the parent should establish and maintain in the minds of
the children from their earliest years, a distinct understanding that the
decision of all such questions is reserved for his own or her own exclusive
jurisdiction. While on any of the details connected with these questions the
feelings and wishes of the child ought to be ascertained—and, so far as
possible, taken into the account, the course to be pursued should not, in
general, be discussed with the child, nor should their objections be replied to
in any form. The parent should simply take such objections as the judge takes
the papers in a case which has been tried before him—and reserve his decision.
The principles by which the parent is governed in the course which he pursues,
and the reasons for them—may be made the subject of very free conversation, and
may be fully explained, provided that care is taken that this is never done when
any practical question is pending, such as would give the explanations of the
parent the aspect of persuasions, employed to supply the deficiency of authority
too weak to enforce obedience to a command. It is an excellent thing to have
children see and appreciate the reasonableness of their parents’ commands,
provided that this reasonableness is shown to them in such a way that they are
not led to imagine that their being able to see it, is in any sense a condition
precedent of obedience.

’Great Indulgence in Cases not of vital Importance’.

2. The authority of the parent being thus fully established, in regard to all
those things which, being of paramount importance in respect to the child’s
present and future welfare, ought to be regulated by the comparative far-seeing
wisdom of the parent, with little regard to the evanescent imagination of the
child; it is on every account best, in respect to all other things, to allow to
the children the largest possible indulgence. The largest indulgence for them in
their plays—and even in their caprices and the freaks of their imagination,
means ’freedom of action’ for their unfolding powers of body and mind; and
freedom of action for these powers means the most rapid and healthy development
of them. The rule is, in a word, that, after all that is essential for their
health, the formation of their characters, and their progress in study is
secured, by being brought under the dominion of absolute parental authority; in
respect to what remains, the children are to be indulged and allowed to have
their own way as much as possible. When, in their plays, they come to you for
permission to do a particular thing, do not consider whether or not it seems to
you that you would like to do it yourself—but only whether there is any ’real
and substantial objection to their doing it’.

’The Hearing to come before the Decision, not after it’. The courts of justice
adopt what seems to be a very sensible and a very excellent mode of proceeding,
though it is exactly the contrary to the one which many parents pursue. That is,
they hear the case first—and decide afterwards. A great many parents seem to
prefer to decide first—and then hear. That is to say, when the children come to
them with any request or proposal, they answer at once with a refusal more or
less decided—and then allow themselves to be led into a long discussion on the
subject, if discussion that may be called which consists chiefly of simple
persistence and pestering on the child’s side—and a gradually relaxing
resistance on the parent’s side—until a reluctant consent is finally obtained.

Now, just as it is an excellent way to develop and strengthen the muscles of a
child’s arms, for his father to hold the two ends of his cane in his hands while
the child grasps it by the middle—and then for them to pull against each other,
about the yard, until, finally, the child is allowed to get the cane away; so
the way to cherish and confirm the habit of "pestering" in children is to
maintain a discussion with them for a time in respect to some request which is
at first denied—and then finally, after a protracted and gradually weakening
resistance, to allow them to gain the victory and carry their point. On the
other hand, an absolutely certain way of preventing any such habit from being
formed—and of effectually breaking it up when it is formed, is the simple
process of hearing first—and deciding afterwards.

When, therefore, children come with any request, or express any wish, in cases
where no serious interests are involved, in deciding upon the answer to be
given, the mother should, in general, simply ask herself, not "Is it wise? Will
they succeed in it? Will they enjoy it? Would I like to do it if I were they?"
But simply, "Is there any harm or danger in it?" If not, readily and cordially
consent. But do not announce your decision until ’after’ you have heard all that
they have to say, if you intend to hear what they have to say at all.

If there are any objections to what the children propose, which affect the
question in relation to it as a means of ’amusement for them’, you may state
them in the way of information for them, ’after’ you have given your consent. In
that way you present the difficulties as subjects for their consideration—and
not as objections on your part to their plan. But, however serious the
difficulties may be in the way of the children’s accomplishing the object which
they have in view, they constitute no objection to their making the attempt,
provided that their plans involve no serious harm or damage to themselves, or to
any other person or interest.

’The Wrong Way’.

Two boys, for example, William and James, who have been playing in the yard with
their little sister Lucy, come in to their mother with a plan for a fish-pond.
They wish for permission to dig a hole in a corner of the yard and fill it with
water—and then to get some fish out of the brook to put into it. The mother, on
hearing the proposal, says at once, without waiting for any explanations,

"Oh no, I would not do that. It is a very foolish plan. You will only get
yourselves all muddy. Besides, you can’t catch any fish to put into it—and if
you do, they won’t live. And then the grass is so thick that you could not get
it up to make your hole." But William says that they can dig the grass up with
their little spades. They had tried it—and found that they could do so. And
James says that they have already tried catching the fishes—and found that they
could do it by means of a long-handled dipper; and Lucy says that they will all
be very careful not to get themselves wet and muddy.

"But you’ll get your feet wet standing on the edge of the brook," says the
mother. "You can’t help it."

"No, mother," replies James, "there is a large flat stone that we can stand
upon—and so keep our feet perfectly dry. See!" So saying, he shows his own feet,
which are quite dry.

Thus the discussion goes on; the mother’s objections made—being, as usual in
such cases, half of them imaginary ones, brought forward only for effect—are one
after another disposed of, or at least set aside, until at length the mother, as
if beaten off her ground after a contest, gives a reluctant and hesitating
consent—and the children go away to commence their work only half pleased—and
separated in heart and affection, for the time being, from their mother by not
finding in her, as they think, any sympathy with them, or disposition to aid
them in their pleasures.

They have, however, by their mother’s mis-management of the case, received an
excellent lesson in arguing and pestering. They have found by it, what they have
undoubtedly often found on similar occasions before—that their mother’s first
decision is not at all to be taken as a final one; that they have only to
persevere in replying to her objections and answering her arguments—and
especially in persisting in their pestering—and they will be pretty sure to gain
their end at last. This mode of management, also, has the effect of fixing the
position of their mother, in their minds as one of antagonism to them, in
respect to their childish pleasures.

’The Right Way’.

If in such a case as this the mother wishes to avoid these evils, the way is
plain. She must first consider the proposal herself—and come to her own decision
in regard to it. Before coming to a decision, she may, if she has leisure and
opportunity, make additional inquiries in respect to the details of the plan;
or, if she is otherwise occupied, she may consider them for a moment in her own
mind. If her objections are decisive, she should not state them at the time,
unless she specially wishes them not to have a fair hearing; for when children
have a plan in mind which they are eager to carry out, their very eagerness
entirely incapacitates them for properly appreciating any objections which may
be offered to it. It is on every account better, therefore—as a general rule—not
to offer any such objections at the time—but simply to give your decision. On
the other hand, if there is no serious evil to be apprehended in allowing
children to attempt to carry any particular plan they form into effect, the
foolishness of it, in a practical point of view, or even the impossibility of
success in accomplishing the object proposed, constitute no valid objection to
it; for children amuse themselves as much—and sometimes learn as much—and
promote as effectually the development of their powers and faculties—by their
failures as by their successes. In the case supposed, then, the mother, in order
to manage it right, would first consider for a moment whether there was any
decisive objection to the plan. This would depend, perhaps, upon the manner in
which the children were dressed at the time, or upon the amount of injury that
would be done to the yard; and this question would in its turn depend, in many
cases, on the comparative value set by the mother upon the beauty of her
yard—and the health, development, and happiness of her children. But supposing
that she sees—which she can do in most instances at a glance—that there can no
serious harm be done by the experiment—but only that it is a foolish plan so far
as the attainment of the object is concerned—and utterly hopeless of success,
which, considering that the real end to be attained is the healthy development
of the children’s powers by the agreeable exercise of them in useless as well as
in useful labors—is no objection at all, then she should answer at once, "Yes,
you can do that if you like; and perhaps I can help you about planning the
work."

After saying this, any pointing out of obstacles and difficulties on her part
does not present itself to their minds in the light of opposition to their
plan—but of aid in helping it forward—and so places her, in their view, ’on
their side’, instead of in antagonism to them.

"What do you propose to do with the soil that you take out of the hole?" she
asks. The children had, perhaps, not thought of that.

Continues the mother, "How would it do—to put the soil in your wheelbarrow and
let it stay there, so that in case your plan should not succeed—and men, in
anything that they undertake, always consider it wise to take into account the
possibility that they may not succeed—you can easily bring it all back and fill
up the hole again." The children think that would be a very good plan.

"And how are you going to fill your hole with water when you get it dug out?"
asks the mother.

They were going to carry the water from the pump in a pail.

"And how are you going to prevent spilling the water over upon your trousers and
into your shoes while carrying it?"

"Oh, we will be very careful," replied William.

"How would it do—only to fill the pail half full each time," suggests the
mother. "You would have to go more times, it is true—but that would be better
than getting splashed with water." The boys think that that would be a very good
plan. In this manner the various difficulties to be anticipated may be brought
to the notice of the children, while, they and their mother being in harmony and
sympathy with each other—and not in opposition—in the consideration of them, she
can bring the various difficulties forward without any problem—and make them the
means of teaching the children many useful lessons of prudence and precaution.

’Capriciousness in Play’. The mother, then, after warning the children that they
must expect to encounter many unexpected difficulties in their undertaking—and
telling them that they must not be too much disappointed if they should find
that they could not succeed, dismisses them to their work. They proceed to dig
the hole, putting the materials in the wheelbarrow—and then fill up the hole
with water brought in half pailfuls at a time from the pump; but are somewhat
disappointed to find that the water soaks away pretty rapidly into the
ground—and that, moreover, it is so turbid—and the surface is so covered with
little leaves, sticks—and dust, as to make it appear very doubtful whether they
would be able to see the fish, if they were to succeed in catching any to put
in. However, they take their long-handled dipper and proceed towards the brook.
On the way they stop to gather some flowers that grow near the path that leads
through the field, when the idea suddenly enters Lucy’s head that it would be
better to make a garden than a fish-pond; flowers, as she says, being so much
prettier than fish. So they all go back to their mother and explain the change
of their plan. They ask for permission to dig up a place which they had found
where the ground was loose and sandy—and easy to dig—and to set out flowers in
it which they had found in the field already in bloom. "We are going to give up
the fish-pond," they say in conclusion, "because flowers are so much prettier
than fish." The mother, instead of finding fault with them for being so
capricious and changeable in their plans, says, "I think you are right. Fish
look pretty enough when they are swimming in the brook—but flowers are much
prettier to transport and take care of. But first go and fill up the hole you
made for the pond with the soil that is in the wheelbarrow; and when you have
made your garden and moved the flowers into it, I advise you to get the
watering-pot and give them a good watering."

It may be said that children ought to be brought up in habits of steadiness and
perseverance in what they undertake—and that this kind of indulgence in their
capriciousness would have a very bad tendency in this respect. The answer is,
that there are times and seasons for all the different kinds of lessons which
children have to learn—and that when in their hours of recreation they are
amusing themselves in play, lessons in perseverance and system are out of place.
The object to be sought for ’then’ is the exercise and growth of their bodily
organs and members, the development of their imagination, and their powers of
observation of nature. The work of training them to habits of system and of
steady perseverance in serious pursuits, which, though it is a work that ought
by no means to be neglected, is not the appropriate work of such a time.

’Summary of Results’. The general rules for the government of the parent in his
treatment of his children’s requests and wishes are these: In all matters of
essential importance— he is to decide himself and simply announce his decision,
without giving any reasons ’for the purpose of justifying it’, or for ’inducing
submission to it’. And in all matters not of essential importance he is to allow
the children the greatest possible freedom of action. And the rule for children
is, that they are always to obey the command the first time it is given, without
question—and to take the first answer to any request without any objection or
pestering whatever.

It is very easy to see how smoothly and happily the affairs of domestic
government would go on, if these rules were established and obeyed. All that is
required on the part of parents for their complete establishment is, first—a
clear comprehension of them—and then a calm, quiet, and gentle—but still
inflexible firmness in maintaining them. Unfortunately, however, such qualities
as these, simple as they seem, are the most rare. If, instead of gentle but firm
consistency and steadiness of action—ardent, impulsive, and capricious energy
and violence were required—it would be comparatively easy to find them. How
seldom do we see a mother’s management of her children regulated by a calm,
quiet, gentle and considerate decision, which thinks before it speaks in all
important matters—and when it speaks, is firm; and yet, which readily and gladly
accords to the children every liberty and indulgence which can do themselves or
others no harm. And on the other hand, how often do we see foolish laxity and
indulgence, in yielding to pestering in cases of vital importance, alternating
with vexatious thwartings, rebuffs and refusals—in respect to desires and wishes
the gratification of which could do no injury at all!


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  CHAPTER 46: 3.19     CHILDREN'S QUESTIONS
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Section 4 Chapter 19. Children’s Questions. The disposition to ask questions,
which is so universal and so strong a characteristic of childhood, is the open
door which presents to the mother the readiest and most easy access possible to
the mind and heart of her child. The opportunities and facilities thus afforded
to her would be the source of the greatest pleasure to herself—and of the
greatest benefit to her child, if she understood better how to avail herself of
them. I propose, in this chapter, to give some explanations and general
directions for the guidance of mothers, of older brothers and sisters—and of
teachers—of all people, in fact, who may, from time to time, have young children
under their care or in their presence. I have no doubt that some of my rules
will strike parents, at first view, as paradoxical and, perhaps, almost absurd;
but I hope that on more mature reflection they will be found to be reasonable
and just.

’The CURIOSITY of Children is not a Fault’.

1. The curiosity of children is not a fault—and therefore we must never censure
them for asking questions, or lead them to think that we consider their
disposition to ask questions—to be a fault on their part. But, on the other
hand, their disposition to ask questions—is to be encouraged as much as
possible.

We must remember that a child, when his powers of observation begin to be
developed, finds everything around him full of mystery and wonder. Why are some
things hard and some are soft? Why will some things roll and some will not? Why
is he is not hurt when he falls on the sofa—and is hurt when he falls on the
floor? Why does a chair tumble over when he climbs up by the rounds of it—while
the steps of the stairs remain firm and can be ascended without danger? Why is
one thing black—and another red—and another green? Why does water all go away by
itself from his hands or his dress, while mud will not? Why can he can dig in
the ground—but cannot dig in a floor? All is a mystery—and the little adventurer
is in a continual state of curiosity and wonder, not only to learn the meaning
of all these things—but also of desire to extend his observations—and find out
more and more of the astonishing phenomena that are exhibited around him. The
good feeling of the mother, or of any intelligent friend who is willing to aid
him in his efforts, is, of course, invaluable to him as a means of promoting his
advancement in knowledge and of developing his powers.

Remember, therefore, that the disposition of a child to ask questions is not a
fault—but only an indication of his increasing mental activity—and of his desire
to avail himself of the only means within his reach, of advancing his knowledge
and of enlarging the scope of his intelligence, in respect to the strange and
astonishing phenomena constantly observable around him.

’Sometimes his questions are a source of inconvenience’. Of course there will be
times when it is inconvenient for the parent to attend to the questions of the
child—and when the child must, consequently, be debarred of the pleasure and
privilege of asking them; but even at such times as these, the disposition to
ask them, must not be attributed to him as a fault. Never tell him that he is "a
little pest," or that "you are tired to death of answering his questions," or
that he is "a chatter-box who would weary the patience of Job;" or that, "if he
will sit still for half an hour, without speaking a word, you will give him a
reward." If you are busy—and so cannot attend to him, say to him that you ’wish’
you could talk with him and answer his questions—but that you are going to be
busy and cannot do it; and then, after providing him with some other means of
occupation, require him to be silent. Though even then you ought to relieve the
tedium of silence for him, by stopping every ten or fifteen minutes from your
reading, or your letter-writing, or whatever your employment may be—and giving
your attention to him for a minute or two—and affording him an opportunity to
relieve the pressure on his mind by a little conversation.

’Answers to be short and simple’.

2. Give generally to children’s questions the shortest and simplest answers
possible.

One reason why parents find the questions of children so fatiguing to them, is
that ’they attempt too much’ in their answers. If they would give the right kind
of answers, they would find the work of replying very easy—and in most time, it
would occasion them very little interruption. These short and simple answers are
all that a child requires. A full and detailed explanation of anything they ask
about is as tiresome for them to listen to—as it is for the mother to frame and
give; while a short and simple reply which advances them one step in their
knowledge of the subject is perfectly easy for the mother to give—and is, at the
same time, all that they wish to receive. For example, let us suppose that the
father and mother are taking a ride on a summer afternoon after a shower, with
little Johnny sitting upon the seat between them. The parents are engaged in
conversation with each other, we will suppose—and would not like to be
interrupted. Johnny presently spies a rainbow on a cloud in the east—and, after
uttering an exclamation of delight, asks his mother what made the rainbow. She
hears the question—and her mind, glancing for a moment at the difficulty of
giving an intelligible explanation of so grand a phenomenon to such a child,
experiences an obscure sensation of perplexity and annoyance—but not quite
enough to take off her attention from her conversation; so she goes on and takes
no notice of Johnny’s inquiry. Johnny, accordingly, soon repeats it, "Mother!
mother! what makes the rainbow?" At length her attention is forced to the
subject—and she either tells Johnny that she can’t explain it to him—that he is
not old enough to understand it; or, perhaps, scolds him for interrupting her,
with so many pestering questions. In another such case, the mother, on hearing
the question, pauses long enough to look kindly and with a smile of
encouragement upon her face towards Johnny—and to say simply, "The sun," and
then goes on with her conversation. Johnny says "Oh!" in a tone of satisfaction.
It is a new and grand idea to him that the sun makes the rainbow—and it is
enough to fill his mind with contemplation for several minutes, during which his
parents go on without interruption in their talk. Presently Johnny asks again,
"Mother, ’how’ does the sun make the rainbow?" His mother answers in the same
way as before, "By shining on the cloud," and, leaving that additional idea for
Johnny to reflect upon and receive fully into his mind, turns again to her
husband and resumes her conversation with him after a scarcely perceptible
interruption.

Johnny, after having reflected in silence some minutes, during which he has
looked at the sun and at the rainbow—and observed that the cloud on which the
arch is formed is exactly opposite to the sun—and fully exposed to his beams, is
prepared for another step—and asks, "Mother, how does the sun make a rainbow by
shining on the cloud?" His mother replies that it shines on millions of little
drops of rain in the cloud—and makes them of all colors, like drops of dew on
the ground—and all the colors together make the rainbow.

Here are images presented to Johnny’s mind enough to occupy his thoughts for a
considerable interval, when perhaps he will have another question still, to be
answered by an equally short and simple reply; though, probably, by this time
his curiosity will have become satisfied in respect to his subject of
inquiry—and his attention will have been arrested by some other object. To
answer the child’s questions in this way is so easy—and the pauses which the
answers lead to on the part of the questioner are usually so long, that very
little serious interruption is occasioned by them to any of the ordinary
pursuits in which a mother is engaged; and the little interruption which is
caused is greatly overbalanced by the pleasure which the mother will experience
in witnessing the gratification and improvement of the child—if she really loves
him and is seriously interested in the development of his thinking and reasoning
powers.

’Answers should attempt to communicate but little instruction’.

3. The answers which are given to children, should not only be short and simple
in form—but each one should be studiously designed to communicate as small an
amount of information as possible. This may seem, at first view, a strange
idea—but the import of it simply is that, in giving the child his intellectual
nourishment, you must act as you do in respect to his bodily food—that is,
divide what he is to receive into small portions—and administer a little at a
time. If you give him too much at once in either case, you are in danger of
choking him. For example, Johnny asks some morning in the early winter, when the
first snow is falling—and he has been watching it for some time from the window
in wonder and delight, "Mother, what makes it snow?" Now, if the mother imagines
that she must give anything like a full answer to the question, her attention
must be distracted from her work to enable her to frame it; and if she does not
give up the attempt altogether, and rebuke the boy for teasing her with "so many
silly questions," she perhaps suspends her work—and, after a moment’s perplexing
thought, she says the vapor of the water from the rivers and seas and damp
ground rises into the air—and there at last congeals into flakes of snow—and
these fall through the air to the ground. The boy listens and attempts to
understand the explanation—but he is bewildered and lost in the endeavor to take
in at once this extended and complicated process—one which is, moreover, not
only extended and complicated—but which is composed of elements all of which are
entirely new to him.

If the mother, however, should act on the principle of communicating as small a
portion of the information required as it is possible to give in one answer,
Johnny’s inquiry would lead, probably, to a conversation somewhat like the
following, the answers on the part of the mother being so short and simple as to
require no perceptible thought on her part—and so occasioning no serious
interruption to her work, unless it should be something requiring special
attention.

"Mother," asks Johnny, "what makes it snow?"

"It is the snow-flakes coming down out of the sky," says his mother. "Watch
them!"

"Oh!" says Johnny, uttering the child’s little exclamation of satisfaction. He
looks at the flakes as they fall, catching one after another with his eye—and
following it in its meandering descent. He will, perhaps, occupy himself several
minutes in silence and profound attention, in bringing fully to his mind the
idea that a snow-storm consists of a mass of descending flakes of snow falling
through the air. To us, who are familiar with this fact, it seems nothing to
observe this—but to him, the analyzing of the phenomenon, which before he had
looked upon as one grand spectacle filling the whole sky—and only making an
impression on his mind by its general effect—and resolving it into its elemental
parts of individual flakes fluttering down through the air, is a great step. It
is a step which exercises his emerging powers of observation and reflection very
deeply—and gives him full occupation for an interval of time. At length, when he
has familiarized himself with this idea, he asks again, perhaps, "Where do the
flakes come from, mother?"

"Out of the sky."

"Oh!" says Johnny again, for the moment entirely satisfied.

One might at first think that these words would be almost unmeaning, or, at
least, that they would give the little questioner no real information. But they
do give him information that is both important and novel. They advance him one
step in his inquiry. Out of the sky means, to him, from a great height. The
words give him to understand that the flakes are not formed where they first
come into his view—but that they descend from a higher region. After reflecting
on this idea a moment, he asks, we will suppose, "How high in the sky, mother?"

Now, perhaps, a mother might think that there was no possible answer to be given
to such a question as this except that "she does not know;" inasmuch as few
people have any accurate ideas of the elevation in the atmosphere at which
snow-clouds usually form. But this accurate information is not what the child
requires. Even if the mother possessed it, it would be useless for her to
attempt to communicate it to him. In the sense in which he asks the question she
’does’ understand it—and can give him a perfectly satisfactory answer.

"How high is it in the sky, mother, to where the snow comes from?" asks the
child.

"Oh, ’very’ high—higher than the top of the house," replies the mother.

"As high as the top of the chimney?"

"Yes, higher than that."

"As high as the moon?"

"No, not so high as the moon."

"How high is it then, mother?"

"About as high as birds can fly."

"Oh!" says Johnny, perfectly satisfied. The answer is somewhat indefinite, it is
true—but its indefiniteness is the chief element in the value of it. A definite
and precise answer, even if one of that character were ready at hand, would be
utterly inappropriate to the occasion.

’An answer may even be good, which gives no information at all’.

4. It is not even always necessary that an answer to a child’s question should
convey ’any information at all’. A little conversation on the subject of the
inquiry, giving the child an opportunity ’to hear and to use language’ in
respect to it, is often all that is required.

It must be remembered that the power to express thoughts, or to represent
external objects by language, is a new power to young children—and, like all
other new powers, the mere exercise of it gives great pleasure. If a person in
full health and vigor were suddenly to acquire the art of flying, he would take
great pleasure in moving, by means of his wings, through the air from one high
point to another, not because he had any object in visiting those high
points—but because it would give him pleasure to find that he could do so—and to
exercise his newly acquired power. So with children in their talk. They talk
often, perhaps generally, for the sake of the ’pleasure of talking’, not for the
sake of what they have to say. So, if you will only talk with them and allow
them to talk to you about anything that interests them, they are pleased,
whether you communicate to them any new information or not. This single thought,
once fully understood by a mother, will save her a great deal of trouble in
answering the incessant questions of her children. The only essential thing in
many cases is to ’say something’ in reply to the question, no matter whether
what you say communicates any information or not.

If a child asks, for instance, what makes the stars shine—and his mother
answers, "Because they are so bright," he will be very likely to be as well
satisfied as if she attempted to give a scientific explanation of the
phenomenon. So, if he asks what makes him see himself in the looking-glass, she
may answer, "You see an ’image’ of yourself there. They call it an image. Hold
up a book and see if you can see an image of that in the glass too." He is
pleased and satisfied. Nor are such answers useless, as might at first be
supposed. They give the child practice in the use of language—and, if properly
managed, they may be made the means of greatly extending his knowledge of
language and, by necessary consequence, of the ideas and realities which
language represents.

"Father," says Mary, as she is walking with her father in the garden, "what
makes some roses white and some red?" "It is very interesting, is it not?" says
her father. "Yes, father, it is very interesting indeed. What makes it so?"
"There must be ’some’ cause for it" says her father. "And the apples that grow
on some trees are sweet—and on others they are sour. That is interesting too."
"Yes, very interesting indeed," says Mary. "The ’leaves’ of trees seem to be
always green," continues her father, "though the flowers are of various colors."
"Yes, father," says Mary. "Except," adds her father, "when they turn yellow, and
red and brown—in the fall of the year." A conversation like this, without
attempting anything like an answer to the question with which it commenced, is
as satisfactory to the child—and perhaps as useful in developing its powers and
increasing its knowledge of language, as any attempt to explain the scientific
phenomenon would be. Understanding this, will make it easy for the mother to
dispose of many a question which might seriously interrupt her, if she conceived
it necessary either to attempt a satisfactory explanation of the difficulty, or
not to answer it at all. Be always ready to say "I don’t know."

5. The mother should be always ready and willing to say "I don’t know," in
answer to children’s questions.

Parents and teachers are very often somewhat averse to this, lest, by often
confessing their own ignorance, they should lower themselves in the estimation
of their pupils or their children. So they feel bound to give some kind of an
explanation to every difficulty, in hopes that it may satisfy the inquirer,
though it does not satisfy themselves. But this is a great mistake. The sooner
that pupils and children understand that the field of knowledge is utterly
boundless—the better for all concerned.

’Questions on Religious Subjects.’ The considerations presented in this chapter
relate chiefly to the questions which children ask in respect to what they
observe taking place around them in external nature. There is another class of
questions and difficulties which they raise—namely, those which relate to
religious and moral subjects; and to these I have not intended now to refer. The
inquiries which children make on these subjects arise, in a great measure—from
the false and infantile conceptions which they are so apt to form in respect to
spiritual things; and from which they deduce all sorts of absurdities. The false
conceptions in which their difficulties originate, are due partly to errors and
imperfections in our modes of teaching them on these subjects—and partly to the
immaturity of their powers, which incapacitates them from clearly comprehending
any elements of thought, which lie beyond the direct cognizance of the senses.
We shall, however, have occasion to refer to this subject in another chapter. In
respect, however, to all that class of questions which children ask in relation
to the visible world around them, the principles here explained may render the
mother some aid in her interaction with the little learners under her charge—if
she clearly understands and intelligently applies them. And she will find the
practice of holding frequent conversations with them, in these ways, a source of
great pleasure to her—as well as of unspeakable advantage to them. Indeed, the
conversation of a kind and intelligent mother, is by far the most valuable and
important means of education for a child during many years of its early life. A
boy whose mother is pleased to have him near her, who likes to hear and answer
his questions, to watch the gradual development of his thinking and reasoning
powers, and to enlarge and extend his knowledge of language—thus necessarily and
of course expanding the range and scope of his ideas—will find that though his
studies, strictly so called—that is, his learning to read—and the committing to
memory lessons from books—may be deferred, yet, when he finally commences them,
he will go at once to the head of his classes at school, because of the superior
strength and ampler development which his mental powers will have attained.


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  CHAPTER 47: 3.20     THE USE OF MONEY
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Chapter 20. The Use of MONEY. The use of money, in the management and training
of children, has a distinct bearing on the subjects of some of the preceding
chapters. It is extremely important, first, in respect to opportunities which
are afforded in connection with the use of money, for cultivating and developing
the qualities of sound judgment and of practical wisdom. Then, in the second
place—the proper mode of dealing with their wishes and requests.

’Evil Results of a very Common Method’.

If a parent wishes to eradicate from the mind of his boy all feelings of
delicacy and manly pride, to train him to the habit of obtaining what he wants
by servile pestering—and to prevent his having any means of acquiring any
practical knowledge of the right use of money, any principles of economy, or any
of that forethought and thrift so essential to sure prosperity in future
life—the best way to accomplish these ends, would be to have no system in
supplying him with money in his boyish days—but to give it to him only when he
asks for it—and in quantities determined only by the frequency and pestering of
his calls. Of course under such a system the boy has no inducement to take care
of his money; to form any plans of expenditure; to make any calculations; or to
practice self-denial today, for the sake of a greater good tomorrow. The source
of supply from which he draws money, fitful and uncertain as it may be in what
it yields to him, he considers unlimited; and as the amount which he can draw
from it does not depend at all upon his frugality, his foresight, or upon any
incipient financial skill that he may exercise—but solely upon his adroitness in
coaxing, or his persistence in pestering! It is this group of bad qualities—and
not the good, which such management tends to foster. The effect of such a system
is, in other words, not to encourage the development and growth of those
qualities on which thrift and forethought in the management of his affairs in
future life—and, in consequence, his success and prosperity, depend. But, on the
contrary, to cherish the growth of all the base and ignoble propensities of
human nature by accustoming him, so far as relates to this subject, to gain his
ends by the arts of a beggar, by crude pestering pertinacity. Not that this
system always produces these results. It may be—and perhaps generally is,
greatly modified by other influences acting upon the mind of the child at the
same time, as well as by the natural tendencies of the boy’s character—and by
the character and general influence upon him of his father and mother in other
respects. It cannot be denied, however, that the tendency of the above system,
which makes a boy’s income of spending-money, a matter of mere chance, on which
no calculations can be founded, except so far as he can increase it by adroit
maneuvering or by asking for it directly, with more or less of urgency or
pestering persistence, as the case may require. That is to say, by precisely
those means which are the most ignoble and most generally despised by
honorably-minded men as means for the attainment of any human end.

Now one of the most important parts of the education of both girls and boys,
whether they are to inherit riches, or to enjoy a moderate income from the
fruits of their own industry, or to spend their lives in extreme poverty—is to
teach them the proper management and use of money. And this may be very
effectually done by giving them a fixed and definite income to manage—and then
throwing upon them the responsibility of the management of it, with such a
degree of guidance, encouragement and aid—as a parent can easily render.

’Objection to the Plan of a regular Allowance’.

There are no parents among those who will be likely to read this book, whose
resources are so limited that they will not, from time to time, allow their
children ’some’ amount of spending-money in a year. All that is necessary,
therefore, is to appropriate to them this amount and pay it to them, or credit
them with it, in a business-like and regular manner. It is true that by this
system the children will soon begin to regard their monthly or weekly allowance
as their due; and the parent will lose the pleasure, if it is any pleasure to
him or her, of having the money which they give them regarded in each case as a
present—and received with a sense of obligation. This is sometimes considered an
objection to this plan. "When I furnish my children with money," says the
parent, "as a gratification, I wish to have the pleasure of ’giving’ it to them.
Whereas, on this proposed plan of paying it to them regularly at stated
intervals, they will come to consider each payment as simply the payment of a
debt. I wish them to consider it as a gratuity on my part, so that it may awaken
gratitude and renew their love for me."

There is some seeming force in this objection, though it is true that the
adoption of the plan of a systematic allowance, as here recommended, does not
prevent the making of other presents of money, or of anything else, to the
children, whenever either parent desires to do so. Still the plan will not
generally be adopted, except by parents in whose minds the laying of permanent
foundations for their children’s welfare and happiness through life, by training
them from their earliest years to habits of forecast and thrift; and the
exercise of judgment and skill in the management of money—is entirely paramount
to any petty sentimental gratification to themselves, while the children are
young.

’Two Methods’. In case the parent—it may be either the father or the
mother—decides to adopt the plan of appropriating systematically and regularly a
certain sum to be at the disposal of the child, there are two modes by which the
business may be transacted—one by paying over the money itself in the amounts
and at the stated periods determined upon. And the other by opening an account
with the child—and giving him credit for the amount due, charging on the other
side the amounts which he draws.

1. ’Paying the money’. This is the simplest plan. If it is adopted, the money
must be ready and be paid at the appointed time with the utmost exactitude and
certainty. Having made the arrangement with a child that he is to have a certain
sum—six cents, twelve cents, twenty-five cents—as the case may be—every Saturday
night, the mother—if it is the mother who has charge of the execution of the
plan—must consider it a sacred debt—and must be ’always’ ready. She cannot
expect that her children will learn regularity, punctuality and system in the
management of their monetary affairs, if she sets them the example of laxity and
forgetfulness in fulfilling her engagements—and offering excuses for non-payment
when the time comes, instead of having the money ready when it is due. The
money, when paid, should not, in general, be carried by the children about the
person—but they should be provided with a purse or other safe receptacle, which,
however, should be entirely in their custody—and so exposed to all the accidents
to which any carelessness in the custody would expose it. The mother must
remember that the very object of the plan is to have the children learn by
experience, to take care of money themselves—and that she defeats that object by
virtually relieving them of this care. It should, therefore, be paid to them
with the greatest punctuality, especially at the first introduction of the
system—and with the distinct understanding that the charge and care of keeping
it, devolves entirely upon them from the time of its passing into their hands.

2. ’Opening an account’. The second plan—and one that will prove much the most
satisfactory in its working—though many mothers will shrink from it on the
ground that it would make them a great deal of trouble—is to keep an account.
For this purpose a small book should be made, with as many leaves as there are
children, so that for each account there can be two pages. The book should be
ruled for accounts—and the name of each child should be entered at the head of
the two pages appropriated to his account. Then, from time to time, the amount
of his allowance that has fallen due, should be entered on the credit side—and
any payment made to him on the other. The plan of keeping an account in this way
obviates the necessity of paying money at stated times, for the account will
show at any time how much is due.

There are some advantages in each of these modes. Much depends on the age of the
children—and still more upon the facilities which the father or mother have at
hand for making entries in writing. To a man of business, accustomed to
accounts, who could have a book made small enough to go into his wallet, or to a
mother who is systematic in her habits—and has in her work-table or her
secretary facilities for writing at any time, the plan of opening an account
will be found much the best. It will afford an opportunity of giving the
children a great deal of useful knowledge in respect to account-keeping—or,
rather, by habituating them from an early age to the management of their affairs
in this systematic manner, will train them from the beginning, to habits of
system and exactness. A very perceptible effect in this direction will be
produced on the minds of children, even while they have not yet learned to
read—and so cannot understand at all the written record made of their financial
transactions. They will, at any rate, understand that a written record is made;
they will take a certain pride and pleasure in it—and impressions will be
produced which may have an effect upon their habits of accuracy and system, in
their financial transactions through all future life.

’Interest on Balances’.

One great advantage of the plan of having an account over that of paying cash at
stated times is, that it affords an opportunity for the father or mother to
allow interest for any balances left from time to time in their hands, so as to
initiate the children into a knowledge of the nature and the advantages of
productive investments—and familiarize them with the idea that money saved, has
within it a principle of increase. The interest allowed should be altogether
greater than the regular rate, so as to make the advantage of it in the case of
such small sums, appreciable to the children—but not too great. Some judgment
and discretion must be exercised on this as on all other points connected with
the system. The arrangements for the keeping of an account being made—and the
account opened, there is, of course, no necessity—as in the case of payments
made simply in cash—that the business should be transacted at stated times. At
any time when convenient, the entry may be made of the amount which has become
due since the time of the last entry. And when, from time to time, the child
wishes for money, the parent will look at his account and see if there is a
balance to his credit. If there is, the child will be entitled to receive
whatever he desires up to the amount of the balance. Once in a month, or at any
other times when convenient, the account can be settled—and the balance, with
the accrued interest, carried to a new account.

All this, instead of being a trouble, will only be a source of interest and
pleasure to the parent, as well as to the children themselves; and, without
occupying any sensible portion of time, will be the means of gradually
communicating a great deal of very useful instruction.

’Employment of the Money’.

It will have a great effect in "training up children in the way in which they
should go," in respect to the employment of money, if a rule is made for them
that a certain portion, one-quarter or one-half, for example, of all the money
which comes into their possession, both from their regular allowance and from
gratuities, is to be laid aside as a permanent investment—and an account at some
Savings Bank be opened, or some other formal mode of placing it be adopted—the
bank-book or other documentary evidence of the amount so laid up to be deposited
among the child’s treasures. In respect to the other portion of the
money—namely, that which is to be employed by the children themselves as
spending-money, the disbursement of it should be left ’entirely at their
discretion’, subject only to the restriction that they are not to buy anything
that will be injurious or dangerous to themselves, or a means of disturbance or
annoyance to others. The mother may give them any information or any counsel in
regard to the employment of their money, provided she does not do it in the form
of expressing any ’wish’, on her part, in regard to it. For the very object of
the whole plan is to bring out into action—and thus to develop and strengthen,
the judgment and discretion of the child. And just as children cannot learn to
walk by always being carried, so they cannot learn to be good managers without
having the responsibility of actual management, on a scale adapted to their
years, thrown really upon them. If a boy wishes to buy a bow and arrow, it may
in some cases be right not to give him permission to do it, on account of the
danger accompanying the use of such a plaything. But if he wishes to buy a kite
which the mother is satisfied is too large for him to manage, or if she thinks
there are so many trees about the house that he cannot prevent its getting
entangled in them, she must not object to it on that account. She can explain
these dangers to the boy, if he is inclined to listen—but not in a way to show
that she herself wishes him not to buy the kite. "Those are the difficulties
which you may meet with," she may say, "but you may buy the kite if you think
best."

Then when he meets with the difficulties, when he finds that he cannot manage
the kite, or that he loses it among the trees, she must not triumph over him—and
say, "I told you how it would be. You would not take my advice—and now you see
how it is." On the contrary, she must help him—and try to alleviate his
disappointment, saying, "Never mind. It is a loss, certainly. But you did what
you thought was best at the time—and we all meet with losses sometimes, even
when we have done what we thought was best. You will make a great many other
mistakes, probably, hereafter in spending money—and meet with losses; and this
one will give you an opportunity of learning to bear them like a man."

’The most implicit Faith to be kept with Children in Money Transactions’.

I will not say that a father, if he is a man of business, ought to be as jealous
of his credit with his children as he is of his credit at the bank; but I think,
if he takes a right view of the subject, he will be extremely sensitive in
respect to both. If he is a man of high and honorable sentiments—and especially
if he looks forward to future years when his children shall have arrived at
maturity, or shall be approaching towards it—and sees how important and how
delicate the financial relations between himself and them may be at that time,
he will feel the importance of beginning by establishing, at the very
commencement, not only by means of precept—but by example, a habit of precise,
systematic—and scrupulous exactitude in the fulfillment of every financial
obligation. It is not necessary that he should do anything base or small in his
dealings with them in order to accomplish this end. He may be as liberal and as
generous with them in many ways as he pleases—but he must keep his accounts with
them correctly. He must always, without any demurring or any excuse, be ready to
fulfill his engagements—and teach them to fulfill theirs.

’Possible Range of Transactions between Parents and Children’. The parent, after
having initiated his children into the regular transaction of business by his
mode of managing their allowance-fund, may very advantageously extend the
benefits of the system by engaging with them from time to time in other affairs,
to be regulated in a business-like and systematic manner. For example, if one of
his boys has been reserving a portion of his spending-money as a watch-fund—and
has already half enough for the purchase, the father may offer to lend him the
balance and take a mortgage of the watch, to stand until the boy shall have
taken it up out of future savings; and he can make out a mortgage-deed
expressing in a few and simple words the fact that the watch is pledged to him
as security for the sum advanced—and is not to become the absolute property of
the boy till the money for which it is pledged is paid. In the course of years,
a great number of transactions in this way may take place between the father or
mother and their boy, each of which will not only be a source of interest and
enjoyment to both parties—but will afford the best possible means of imparting,
not only to the child directly interested in them—but to the other children, a
practical knowledge of financial transactions—and of forming in them the habit
of conducting all their affairs in a systematic and business-like manner. The
effect of such methods as these is not only to make the years of childhood pass
more pleasantly—but also to prepare them to enter, when the time comes, upon the
serious business of life with some considerable portion of that practical wisdom
in the management of money which is often, when it is deferred to a later
period, acquired only by bitter experience and through much suffering.

Indeed, any parent who appreciates and fully enters into the views presented in
this chapter will find, in ordinary cases, that his children make so much
progress in business capacity that he can extend the system so as to embrace
subjects of real and serious importance before the children arrive at maturity.
A boy, for instance, who has been trained in this way will be found competent,
by the time that he is ten or twelve years old, to take the contract for
furnishing himself with caps, or boots and shoes—and, a few years later, with
all his clothing, at a specified annual sum. Of course, to manage such a system
successfully, so that it could afterwards be extended to other classes of
expenses, requires tact, skill, system, patience—and steadiness on the part of
the father or mother who should attempt it; but when the parent possesses these
qualities, the time and attention that would be required would be as nothing
compared with the trouble, the vexation, the endless dissatisfaction on both
sides, that attend upon the ordinary methods of supplying children’s wants—to
say nothing of the incalculable benefit to the boy himself of such a training,
as a part of his preparation for future life.

’Evil Results to be feared’. Nor is it merely upon the children themselves—and
that after they enter upon the responsibilities of active life, that the evils
resulting from their having had no practical training in youth in respect to
financial responsibilities and obligations, that evil consequences will fall.
The great cities are full of wealthy men whose lives are rendered miserable, by
the recklessness in respect to money which is displayed by their sons and
daughters as they advance towards maturity—and by the utter lack, on their part,
of all sense of delicacy and of obligation, or of responsibility of any kind
towards their parents in respect to their financial transactions. Of course this
must, in a vast number of cases, be the result when the boy is brought up from
infancy with the idea that the only limit to his supply of money is his
ingenuity in devising modes of putting a pressure upon his father. Fifteen or
twenty years spent in managing his affairs on this principle must, of course,
produce the fruit naturally to be expected from such seed.

’The great Difficulty’.

It would seem, perhaps, at first view, from what has been said in this chapter,
that it would be a very simple and easy thing to train up children thus to
correct ideas and habits in respect to the use of money; and it would be so—for
the principles involved seem to be very plain and simple—were it not that the
’qualities which it requires in the parent’ are just those which are most rare.
Deliberateness in forming the plan, calmness and quietness in proposing it,
inflexible but mild and gentle firmness in carrying it out, perfect honesty in
allowing the children to exercise the power and responsibility promised them—and
an indulgent spirit in relation to the faults and errors into which they fall in
the exercise of it—these and other such qualities are not very easily found. To
make an arrangement with a child that he is to receive a certain sum every
Saturday—and then after two or three weeks to forget it—and when the boy comes
to call for it, to say, petulantly, "Oh, don’t come to bother me about that
now—I am busy; and besides, I have not got the money now;" or, when a boy has
spent all his allowance on the first two or three days of the week—and comes to
beg importunately for more, to say, "It was very wrong in you to spend all your
money at once—and I have a great mind not to give you any more. I will, however,
do it just this time—but I shall not again!" Or, to borrow money in some sudden
emergency out of the fund which a child has accumulated for a special
purpose—and then to forget or neglect to repay it—to manage loosely and
capriciously in any such ways as these, will be sure to make the attempt a total
failure; that is to say, such management will be sure to be a failure in respect
to teaching the boy to act on right principles in the management of money—and
training him to habits of exactness and faithfulness in the fulfillment of his
obligations. But in making him a thoughtless, wasteful, pesty and selfish boy
while he remains a boy—and fixing him, when he comes to manhood, in the class of
those who are utterly untrustworthy, faithless in the performance of their
promises—and wholly unscrupulous in respect to the means by which they obtain
money, it may very probably turn out to be a splendid success.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 48: 3.21     CORPORAL PUNISHMENT
========================================================================

Chapter 21. Physical Punishment.

It might, perhaps, be thought that, in a book which professes to show how an
efficient government can be established and maintained by ’gentle measures’, the
subject of physical punishment could have no place. It seems important, however,
that there should be here introduced a brief though distinct presentation of the
light in which, in a philosophical point of view, this instrumentality is to be
regarded.

’The Teachings of Scripture’. The resort to physical punishment in the training
of children seems to be spoken of in many passages contained in the Scriptures
as of fundamental necessity. But there can be no doubt that the word ’rod’, as
used in those passages, is used simply as the emblem of parental authority. This
is in accordance with the ordinary custom of Hebrew writers in those days—and
with the idiom of their language, by which a single visible or tangible object
was employed as the representative or expression of a general idea—as, for
example, the sword is used as the emblem of magisterial authority; and the sun
and the rain, which are spoken of as being sent with their genial and
fertilizing power upon the evil and the good, denote not specially and
exclusively those agencies—but all the beneficent influences of nature which
they are employed to represent. The injunctions, therefore, of Solomon in
respect to the use of the rod are undoubtedly to be understood as simply
enjoining upon parents the necessity of bringing up their children ’in complete
subjection’ to their authority. No one can imagine, that he could wish the rod
to be used when complete subjection to the parental authority could be secured
by more gentle means. And how this is to be done it is the object precisely of
this book to show. In this sense, therefore—and it is undoubtedly the true
sense—namely, that children must be ’governed by the authority of the parent’,
the passages in question express a great and most essential truth. It is
sometimes said that children must be governed by reason—and this is true—but it
is the reason of their parents—and not their own, which must hold the control.
If children were endowed with the capacity of seeing what is best for them—and
with sufficient self-control to pursue what is best against the
counter-influences of their animal instincts and propensities, there would be no
necessity that the period of subjection to parental authority should be extended
over so many years. But so long as their powers are yet too immature to be
safely relied upon, they must, of necessity, be subject to the parental will;
and the sooner and the more perfectly they are made to understand this—and to
yield a willing submission to the necessity, the better it will be, not only for
their parents—but also for themselves. The parental authority must, therefore,
be established—by gentle means, if possible—but it must by all means be
established—and be firmly maintained. If you cannot govern your child without
physical punishment, it is better to resort to it than not to govern him at all.
Taking a wide view of the field, I think there may be several cases in which a
resort to the infliction of physical pain as the only available means of
establishing authority, may be the only alternative. There are three cases of
this kind that are to be specially considered.

’Possible cases in which it is the only alternative. Savages’.

1. In savage or half-civilized life—and even, perhaps, in so crude a state of
society as must have existed in some parts of Judea when the Proverbs of Solomon
were written, it is conceivable that many parents, owing to their own
ignorance—and primitive condition, would have no other means at their command
for establishing their authority over their children, than scoldings and blows.
It must be so among savages. And it is certainly better, if the mother knows no
other way of inducing her boy to keep within her sight, that she should whip him
when he runs away, than that he should be bitten by serpents or devoured by
bears. She ’must’ establish her authority in some way—and if this is the best
that she is capable of pursuing, she must use it.

’Teachers whose Tasks surpass their Skill’.

2. A teacher, in entering upon the charge of a large school of boys made unruly
by previous mismanagement, may, perhaps, possibly find himself unable to
establish submission to his authority without this resource. It is true that if
it is so, it is due, in a certain sense, to lack of skill on the teacher’s part;
for there are men—and women too, who will take any company of boys that you can
give them—and, by a certain skill, or tact, or knowledge of human nature, or
other qualities which seem sometimes to other people almost magical—will have
them all completely under subjection in a week—and that without violence,
without scolding, almost without even a frown. The time may, perhaps, come when
every teacher, to be considered qualified for his work, must possess this skill.
Indeed, the world is evidently making great and rapid progress in this
direction. The methods of instruction and the modes by which the teacher gains
and holds his influence over his pupils, have been wonderfully improved in
recent times, so that where there was one teacher, fifty years ago, who was
really beloved by his pupils, we have fifty now. In Dr. Johnson’s time, which
was about a hundred and fifty years ago, it would seem that there was no other
mode, but that of violent coercion recognized as worthy to be relied upon in
imparting instruction, for he said that he knew of no way by which Latin could
be taught to boys in his day but "by having it flogged into them." From such a
state of things to that which prevails at the present day there has been an
astonishing change. And now, whether a teacher is able to manage an average
school of boys without physical force is simply a question of tact, knowledge of
the right principles—and skill in applying them on his part. It is, perhaps, yet
too soon to expect that all teachers can possess, or can acquire, these
qualifications to such a degree as to make it safe to forbid the infliction of
bodily pain in any case—but the time for it is rapidly approaching—and in some
parts of the country it has, perhaps, already arrived. Until that time comes,
every teacher who finds himself under the necessity of beating a boy’s body in
order to attain certain moral or intellectual ends, ought to understand that the
reason is the incompleteness of his understanding and skill in dealing directly
with the child’s mind; though for this incompleteness he may not himself be
personally at all to blame.

’Children spoiled by Neglect and Mismanagement’.

3. I am even willing to admit that one or more boys in a family may reach such a
condition of rudeness and insubordination, in consequence of neglect or
mismanagement on the part of their parents in their early years—and the present
clumsiness and incapacity of the father in dealing with the susceptibilities and
impulses of the human soul—that the question will lie between keeping them
within some kind of subordination by bodily punishment, or not controlling them
at all. If a father has been so engrossed in his business that he has neglected
his children, has never established any common bond of sympathy between himself
and them, has taken no interest in their enjoyments, nor brought them by moral
means to an habitual subjection to his will; and if their mother is a weak,
irresolute woman, occupying herself with the pursuits and pleasures of
fashionable society—and has mis-managed the children; the children will, of
course, in general, grow up troublesome, turbulent, and ungovernable. And when,
with advancing maturity, their increasing strength and vigor makes this
turbulence and disorder intolerable in the house—and there is, as of course
there usually will be in such a case, no proper knowledge and skill in the
management of the young on the part of either parent to remedy the evil by
gentle measures—the only alternative in many cases may be either a resort to
violent punishment, or the sending away of the unmanageable subjects to school.
The latter part of the alternative is the best—and, fortunately, it is the one
generally adopted. But where it cannot be adopted, it is certainly better that
the boys should be governed by the rod, than to grow up under no government at
all.

’Gentle Measures effectual where Rightfully and Faithfully employed’.

However it may be with respect to the exceptional cases above enumerated—and
perhaps some others, there can, I think, be no doubt that parents who should
train their children from the beginning on the principles explained in this
volume—and upon others analogous to them, would never, in any case, have to
strike a blow. They would accomplish the end enjoined by the precepts of
Solomon, namely, the complete subjection of their children to their authority,
by improved methods not known in his day, or, at least, not so fully developed
that they could then be relied upon. They who imagine that parents are bound to
use the rod as the instrumentality, because the Scriptures speak of the rod as
the means of establishing parental authority best known in those days, instead
of employing the more effective methods which the progress of improvement has
developed and made available at the present day, ought, in order to be
consistent, to insist on the retention of the harp in religious worship, because
David enjoins it upon believers to "praise the Lord with harp:" to "sing unto
him with psaltery—and an instrument of ten strings." The truth is, that what we
are to look at in such injunctions is the end that is to be attained, which is,
in this last case, the impressive and reverential exaltation of Almighty God in
our minds by the acts of public worship; and if, with the improvements in
musical instruments which have been made in modern times, we can do this more
satisfactorily by employing in the place of a psaltery or a harp of ten strings
an organ of ten or a hundred stops, we are bound to make the substitution. In a
word, we must look at the end and not at the means, remembering that in
questions of Scripture interpretation the "letter kills, the spirit makes
alive."

’Protracted Contests with Obstinacy’.

It seems to me, though I am aware that many excellent people think differently,
that it is never wise for the parent to allow himself to be drawn into a contest
with a child, in attempting to compel him to do something that from ill-temper
or obstinacy he refuses to do. If the attempt is successful—and the child yields
under a moderate severity of coercion, it is all very well. But there is
something mysterious and unaccountable in the strength of the obstinacy
sometimes manifested in such cases—and the degree of endurance which it will
often inspire, even in children of the most tender age. We observe the same
inexplicable fixedness sometimes in the lower animals—in the horse, for example;
which is the more unaccountable from the fact that we cannot suppose, in his
case, that peculiar combination of intelligence and ill-temper, which we
generally consider the sustaining power of the protracted obstinacy on the part
of the child. The degree of persistence which is manifested by children in
contests of this kind is something astonishing—and cannot easily be explained by
any of the ordinary theories in respect to the influence of motives on the human
mind. A state of cerebral excitement and exaltation is not unfrequently produced
which seems akin to insanity—and instances have been known in which a child has
allowed itself to be beaten to death, rather than yield obedience to a very
simple command. And in vast numbers of instances, the parent, after a protracted
contest, gives up in despair, and is compelled to invent some plausible pretext
for bringing it to an end.

Indeed, when we reflect upon the subject, we see what a difficult task we
undertake in such contests—it being nothing less than that of ’forcing the
formation of a volition’ in a human mind. We can easily control the bodily
movements and actions of another person by means of an external coercion that we
can apply—and we have various indirect means of ’inducing’ volitions; but in
these contests we seem to come up squarely to the work of attempting, by outward
force, to compel the ’forming of a volition’ in the mind; and it is not
surprising that this should, at least sometimes, prove a very difficult
undertaking.

’No Necessity for these Contests’.

There seems to be no necessity that a parent or teacher should ever become
involved in struggles of this kind in maintaining his authority. The way to
avoid them, as it seems to me, is, when a child refuses out of obstinacy to do
what is required of him, to impose the proper punishment or penalty for the
refusal—and let that close the transaction. Do not attempt to enforce his
compliance by continuing the punishment until he yields. A child, for example,
going out to play, wishes for his blue cap. His mother chooses that he shall
wear his gray one. She hangs the blue cap up in its place—and gives him the gray
one. He declares that he will not wear it—and throws it down upon the floor. The
temptation now is for the mother, indignant, to punish him—and then to order him
to take up the cap which he had thrown down—and to feel that it is her duty, in
case he refuses, to persist in the punishment until she conquers his will—and
compels him to take it up and put it upon his head. But instead of this, a safer
and a better course, it seems to me, is to avoid a contest altogether by
considering the offense complete—and the transaction on his part finished by the
single act of rebellion against her authority. She may take the cap up from the
floor herself and put it in its place—and then simply consider what punishment
is proper for the wrong already done. Perhaps she forbids the boy to go out at
all. Perhaps she reserves the punishment—and sends him to bed an hour earlier
that night. The age of the boy, or some other circumstances connected with the
case, may be such as to demand a severer treatment still. At any rate, she
limits the transaction to the single act of disobedience and rebellion already
committed, without giving an opportunity for a repetition of it by renewing the
command—and inflicts for it the proper punishment—and that is the end of the
affair. And so a boy in reciting a lesson will not repeat certain words after
his mother. She enters into no controversy with him—but shuts the book and puts
it away. He, knowing his mother’s usual mode of management in such cases—and
being sure that some penalty, privation, or punishment will sooner or later
follow, relents—and tells his mother that he will say the words if she will try
him again.

"No, my son," she should reply, "the opportunity is past. You should have done
your duty at the right time. You have disobeyed me—and I must take time to
consider what to do."

If, at the proper time, in such a case, when all the excitement of the affair is
over, a penalty or punishment apportioned to the fault, or some other
appropriate measures in relation to it, are ’certain to come’—and if this method
is always pursued in a calm and quiet manner but with inflexible firmness in
act—the spirit of rebellion will be much more effectually subdued, than by any
protracted struggles at the time, though ending in victory however complete. But
all this is a digression, though it seemed proper to allude to the subject of
these contests here, since it is on these occasions, perhaps, that parents are
most frequently led, or, as they think, irresistibly impelled, to the infliction
of bodily punishments as the last resort, when they would, in general, be
strongly inclined to avoid them.

’The Infliction of Pain sometimes the speediest Remedy’.

There are, moreover, some cases, perhaps, in the ordinary exigencies of domestic
life, as the world goes, when some personal infliction is the ’shortest’ way of
disposing of a case of discipline—and may appear, for the time being, to be the
most effectual. A slap is very quickly given—and a mother may often think that
she has not time for a more gentle mode of managing the case, even though she
may admit that if she had the time at her command, the gentle mode would be the
best. And it is, indeed, doubtless true, that the principles of management
advocated in this work are such as require that the parents should devote some
time and attention—and, still more essentially, some ’heart’ to the work. And
those who do not consider the welfare and happiness of their children in future
life—and their own happiness in connection with them as they advance towards
their declining years, as of sufficient importance to call for the bestowment of
this time and attention—will doubtless often resort to more speedy methods in
their discipline than those here recommended.

’The Sting that it leaves behind’.

Indeed, the great objection, after all, to the occasional resort to the
infliction of bodily pain in extreme cases is, as it seems to me, the sting
which it leaves behind; not that, which it leaves in the heart of the child who
may suffer it—for that soon passes away—but in the heart of the parent who
inflicts it. The one is, or may be, very evanescent; the other may very long
remain; and what is worse, the anguish of it may be revived and made very
poignant in future years. This consideration makes it specially imperative on
every parent never, for any cause, to inflict punishment by violence, when
himself under the influence of any irritation or anger awakened by the offense.
For though the anger which the fault of the child naturally awakens in you,
carries you through the act of punishing well enough, it soon afterwards passes
away, while the memory of it remains—and in after years, like any other sin, it
may come back to exact a painful retribution. When the little loved one who now
puts you out of patience with her heedlessness, her inconsiderateness, and,
perhaps, by worse faults and failings—all, however, faults which may very
possibly, in part or in whole, be the result of the immature and undeveloped
condition of her mental or bodily powers—falls sick and dies—and you follow her
as she is borne away—and with a bursting heart see her laid in her little grave,
it will be a great comfort to you then to reflect that you did all in your
power, by means of the gentlest measures at your command, to train her to truth
and duty, that you never lost patience with her—and that she never felt from
your hand anything but gentle assistance or a loving caress. And your boy—now so
ardent and impulsive—and often, perhaps, noisy, troublesome, and crude, from the
exuberant action of his growing powers—when these powers shall have received
their full development—and he has passed from your control to his place in the
world as a man—and he comes back from time to time to the maternal home in
grateful remembrance of his obligations to his mother, bringing with him tokens
of his affection and love—you will think with pain, of the occasions when you
subjected him to the torture of the rod under the impulse of irritation or
anger—or to accomplish the ends of discipline which might have been attained in
other ways. Time, as you then look back over the long interval of years which
have elapsed, will greatly soften the recollection of the fault—but it will
greatly aggravate that of the pain which was made the retribution of it. You
will say to yourself, it is true, "I did it for the best. If I had not done it,
my son would perhaps not be what he is." He, if he remembers the transaction,
will doubtless say so too; but there will be none the less for both a certain
sting in the recollection, and you will wish that the same end could have been
accomplished by gentler means. The substance of it is that children must, at all
events, be governed. The proper authority over them ’must be’ maintained; but it
is a great deal better to secure this end by gentle measures, if the parents
have, or can acquire the skill to employ them.


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  CHAPTER 49: 3.22     GRATITUDE IN CHILDREN
========================================================================

Chapter 22. Gratitude in Children.

Mothers are very often pained at what seems to them the ingratitude of their
children. They long, above all things, for their love. They do everything in
their power to win it. They make every sacrifice—and give every possible
evidence of affection; but they seem to fail entirely of bringing out any of
those evidences of gratitude and affection in return which, if they could only
witness them, would fill their hearts with gladness and joy. But the only
feeling which their children manifest towards them seems to be a selfish one.
They come to them when in trouble, they even fly to them eagerly when in
danger—and they consider their parents the chief resource for procuring nearly
all their means of gratification. But they think little, as it often seems, of
the mother’s comfort and enjoyment in return—and seldom or never do anything
voluntarily to give her pleasure.

It would be a great exaggeration to say that this is always the feeling of the
mother in respect to her children. I only mean that this is sometimes—and I
might probably say very often, the case.

’Two Forms of Love.’

Now there are two distinct forms which the feeling of love may assume in the
mature mind, both of which are gratifying to the object of it, though they are
very different—and indeed in some sense exactly the opposite of each other.
There is the ’receiving’ and the ’bestowing’ love. It is true that the two forms
are often conjoined, or rather they often exist in intimate combination with
each other; but in their nature they are essentially distinct. A young lady, for
example, may feel a strong attachment for the gentleman to whom she is
engaged—or a wife for her husband—in the sense of liking to receive kindness and
attention from him, more than from any other man. She may be specially pleased
when he invites her to ride with him, or makes her presents, or shows in any way
that he thinks of her and seeks her happiness—more so than she would be to
receive the same attentions from any other person. This is love. It may be very
genuine love; but it is love in the form of taking special pleasure in the
kindness and favor bestowed by the object of it. Yet it is none the less true,
as most people have had occasion to learn from their own experience, that this
kind of love may be very strong without being accompanied by any corresponding
desire on the part of the person manifesting it, to make sacrifices of her own
ease and comfort in order to give happiness to the object of her love in return.
In the same manner a gentleman may feel a strong sentiment of love for a lady,
which shall take the form of enjoying her society, of being happy when he is
near her—and greatly pleased at her making sacrifices for his sake, or
manifesting in any way a strong attachment for him. There ’may be’ also united
with this the other form of love—namely, that which would lead him to deny
himself and make sacrifices ’for her’. But the two, though they may
often—perhaps generally—exist together, are in their nature so essentially
different that they may be entirely separated—and we may have one in its full
strength, while there is very little of the other. You may love a person in the
sense of taking greater pleasure in receiving attentions and favors from him
than from all the world beside, while yet you seldom think of making efforts to
promote his comfort and happiness in anything in which you are not yourself
personally concerned. On the other hand, you may love him with the kind of
affection which renders it the greatest pleasure of your life, to make
sacrifices and endure self-denial to promote his welfare in any way. In some
cases these two forms are in fact entirely separated—and one or the other can
exist entirely distinct from the other—as in the case of the kind feelings of a
good man towards the poor and miserable. It is quite possible to feel a very
strong interest in such objects—and to be willing to put ourselves to
considerable inconvenience to make them comfortable and happy—and to take great
pleasure in learning that our efforts have been effectual, without feeling any
love for them at all in the other form—that is, any desire to have them with us,
to receive attentions and kindness from them—and to enjoy their society. On the
other hand, in the love of a young child for his mother the case is reversed.
The love of the child consists chiefly in liking to be with his mother, in going
to her rather than to anyone else for relief from pain or for comfort in
sorrow—and is accompanied with very few and very faint desires to make efforts,
or to submit to privations, or to make sacrifices, for the promotion of her
good.

’Order of their Development’.

Now the qualities and characteristics of the soul on which the capacity for
these two forms of love depend, seem to be very different—and they advance in
development and come to maturity at different periods of life; so that the
mother, in feeling dejected and sad because she cannot awaken in the mind of her
child the gratitude and the consideration for her comfort and happiness which
she desires—is simply looking for a certain kind of fruit at the wrong time. You
have one of the forms of love for you on the part of the child now while he is
young. In due time, when he arrives at maturity, if you will wait patiently—you
will assuredly have the other. Now he runs to you in every emergency. He asks
you for everything that he needs. He can find comfort nowhere else but in your
arms, when he is in distress or in suffering from pain, disappointment, or
sorrow. But he will not make any effort to be still when you are sick, or to
avoid interrupting you when you are busy; and insists, perhaps, on your carrying
him when he is tired, without seeming to think or care whether you may not be
tired too. But in due time all this will be changed. Twenty years hence, he will
conceal all his troubles from you, instead of coming with them to you for
comfort. He will be off in the world engaged in his pursuits, no longer bound
closely to your side. But he will think all the time of your comfort and
happiness. He will bring you presents—and pay you innumerable attentions to
cheer your heart in your declining years. He will not run to you when he has
hurt himself; but if anything happens to ’you’, he will leave everything to
hasten to your relief—and bring with him all the comforts and means of enjoyment
for you that his resources can command. The time will thus come, when you will
have his love to your heart’s content—in the second form. You must be satisfied,
while he is so young, with the first form of it, which is all that his powers
and faculties in their present stage are capable of developing. The truth of the
case seems to be that the faculties of the human mind—or I should perhaps rather
say, the susceptibilities of the soul—like the instincts of animals, are
developed in the order in which they are required for the good of the subject of
them.

Indeed, it is very interesting and curious to observe how striking the analogy
in the order of development, in respect to the nature of the bond of attachment
which binds the children to the parent, runs through all those ranks of the
animal creation—in which the young for a time depend upon the mother for food or
for protection. The chicks in any moment of alarm, run to the hen; and the lamb,
the calf and the colt to their respective mothers; but none of them would feel
the least inclination to come to the rescue of the parent if the parent was in
danger. With the mother herself it is exactly the reverse. Her heart—if we can
speak of the seat of the maternal affections of such creatures as a heart—is
filled with desires to bestow good upon her children, without a desire, or even
a thought, of receiving any good from them in return.

There is this difference, however, between the race of man and those of the
inferior animals—namely, that in his case the instinct, or at least a natural
desire which is in some respects analogous to an instinct, prompting him to
repay to his parents the benefits which he received from them in youth—comes in
due time; while in that of the lower animals—it seems never to come at all. The
little birds, after opening their mouths so wide every time the mother comes to
the nest during all the weeks while their wings are growing, fly away when they
are grown, without the least care or concern for the anxiety and distress of the
mother occasioned by their imprudent flights; and once away and free, never come
back, so far as we know, to make any return to their mother for watching over
them, sheltering them with her body and working so indefatigably to provide them
with food during the helpless period of their infancy. They still less to seek
and protect and feed her in her old age. But the boy, reckless as he sometimes
seems in his boyhood, insensible apparently to his obligations to his mother—and
little mindful of her wishes or of her feelings—his affection for her showing
itself mainly in his readiness to go to her with all his needs, and in all his
troubles and sorrows—will begin, when he has arrived at maturity and no longer
needs her aid, to remember with gratitude the past aid that she has rendered
him. The current of affection in his heart will turn and flow the other way.
Instead of wishing to receive—he will now only wish to give. If she is in
need—he will do all he can to supply her. If she is in sorrow—he will be happy
if he can do anything to comfort her. He will send her memorials of his
gratitude—and objects of comfort and embellishment for her home—and will watch
with solicitude and sincere affection over her declining years. And all this
change, if not the result of a new instinct which reaches its development only
when the period of maturity arrives—is the unfolding of a sentiment of the
heart, belonging essentially to the nature of the subject of it as man. It is
true that this capacity may, under certain circumstances, be very feebly
developed. In some cases, indeed, it would seem that it was scarcely developed
at all; but there is a provision for it in the nature of man, while there is no
provision for it at all in the sentient principles of the lower animals.

’Advancing the Development of the Sentiment of Gratitude.’

Now, although parents must not be impatient at the slow appearance of this
feeling in their children—and must not be troubled in its not appearing before
its time—they can do much by proper efforts to cultivate its growth—and give it
an earlier and a more powerful influence over them, than it would otherwise
manifest. The mode of doing this is the same as in all other cases of the
cultivation of moral sentiments in children—and that is by the influence over
them of sympathy with those they love. Just as the way to cultivate in the minds
of children a feeling of pity for those who are in distress is not to preach it
as a duty—but to make them love you—and then show such pity yourself; and the
way to make them angry and revengeful in character—if we can conceive of your
being actuated by so wicked a desire—would be often to express violent
resentment yourself, with scowling looks and fierce denunciations against those
who have offended you. Just so, to awaken them to sentiments of gratitude for
the favors they receive, you must gently lead them to sympathize with you in the
gratitude which ’you’ feel for the favors that ’you’ receive. When a child shows
some special unwillingness to comply with her mother’s desires, her mother may
address to her a kind but direct and plain expostulation on the obligations of
children to their parents—and the duty incumbent on them of being grateful for
their kindness—and to be willing to do what they can in return. Such an address
would probably do no good at all. The child would receive it simply as a
scolding, no matter how mildly and gently the reproof might be expressed—and
would shut her heart against it. It is something which she must stand still and
endure—and that is all. But let the mother say the same things precisely when
the child has shown a willingness to make some little sacrifice to aid or to
gratify her mother, so that the sentiment expressed may enter her mind in the
form of approval and not of condemnation—and the effect will be very different.
The sentiments will, at any rate, now not be rejected from the mind—but the way
will be open for them to enter—and the conversation will have a good effect, so
far as didactic teaching can have effect in such a case. But now to bring in the
element of sympathy as a means of reaching and influencing the mind of the
child. The mother, we will suppose, standing at the door some morning before
breakfast in spring, with her little daughter, seven or eight years old, by her
side, hears a bird singing on a tree near by. She points to the tree—and says,
in a half-whisper, "Listen!" When the sound ceases, she looks to the child with
an expression of pleasure upon her countenance—and says, "Suppose we give that
bird some crumbs because he has been singing us such a pretty song."

"Well!" says the child.

"Would you?" asks the mother.

"Yes, mother, I should like to give him some very much. Do you suppose he sang
the song for us?"

"I don’t ’know’ that he did," replies the mother. "We don’t know exactly what
the birds mean by all their singing. They take some pleasure in seeing us, I
think, or else they would not come so much around our house; and I don’t know
but that this bird’s song may come from some kind of joy or gladness he felt in
seeing us come to the door. At any rate, it will be a pleasure to us to give him
some crumbs to pay him for his song." The child will think so too—and will run
off joyfully to bring a piece of bread to form crumbs to be scattered upon the
path. And the whole transaction will have the effect of awakening and nourishing
the sentiment of gratitude in her heart. The effect will not be great, it is
true—but it will be of the right kind. It will be a drop of water upon the
unfolding leafs of a seed just peeping up out of the ground, which will gain
vigor below, after you have gone away—and give the little roots a new impulse of
growth. For when you have left the child seated upon the door-step, occupied in
throwing out the crumbs to the bird, her heart will be occupied with the
thoughts you have put into it—and the sentiment of gratitude for kindness
received will commence its course of development, if it had not commenced it
before.

’The Case of older Children’. Of course the employment of such an occasion as
this of the singing of a little bird, and such a conversation in respect to it
for cultivating the sentiment of gratitude in the heart, is adapted only to the
case of quite a young child. For older children, while the principle is the
same, the circumstances and the manner of treating the case must be adapted to a
maturer age. Robert, for example—twelve years of age—had been sick—and during
his convalescence his sister Mary, two years older than himself, had been very
assiduous in her attendance upon him. She had waited upon him at his meals—and
brought him books and playthings, from time to time, to amuse him. After he had
fully recovered his health, he was sitting in the garden, one sunny morning in
the spring, with his mother—and she said, "How kind Mary was to you while you
were sick!"

"Yes," said Robert, "she was very kind indeed."

"If you would like to do something for her in return," continued his mother,
"I’ll tell you what would be a good plan."

Robert, who, perhaps, without this conversation would not have thought
particularly of making any return, said he would like to do something for her
very much.

"Then," said his mother, "you might make her a garden. I can mark off a place
for a bed for her, large enough to hold a number of kinds of flowers—and then
you can dig it up—and rake it over—and lay it off into little beds—and sow the
seeds. I’ll buy the seeds for you. I would like to do something towards making
the garden for her, for she helped me a great deal, as well as you, in the care
she took of you."

"Well," said Robert, "I’ll do it."

"You are well and strong now, so you can do it pretty easily," added the mother;
"I think it would please her very much as an expression of your gratitude and
love for her."

"Yes," said Robert, "I would like to do it myself—and I will begin this very
day." And yet, if his mother had not made the suggestion, he would probably not
have thought of making any such return, or even any return at all, for his
sister’s devoted kindness to him when he was sick. In other words, the sentiment
of gratitude was in his heart, or, rather, the capacity for it was there—but it
needed a little fostering care to bring it out into action. And the thing to be
observed is, that by this fostering care, it was not only brought out at the
time—but, by being thus brought out and drawn into action, it was strengthened
and made to grow, so as to be ready to come out itself without being called, on
the next occasion. It was like a little plant just coming out of the ground
under influences not altogether favorable. It needs a little help and
encouragement; and the aid that is given by a few drops of water at the right
time, will bring it forward and help it to attain soon such a degree of strength
and vigor as will make it independent of all external aid. But there must be
consideration, tact, a proper regard to circumstances, and, above all, there
must be no secret and selfish ends concealed, on the part of the mother in such
cases. You may deluge and destroy your little plant by throwing on the water
roughly or crudely! Or, in the case of a boy upon whose mind you seem to be
endeavoring to produce some moral result, you may really have in view some
object of your own—your interest in the moral result, being only a pretense. For
instance, Egbert, under circumstances similar to those recited above—in respect
to the sickness of the boy—and the kind attentions of his sister—came to his
mother one afternoon for permission to go a-fishing with some other boys who had
called for him. He was full of excitement and enthusiasm at the idea. But his
mother was not willing to allow him to go. The weather was lowering. She thought
that he had not yet fully recovered his health; and she was afraid of other
dangers. Instead of saying calmly, after a moment’s reflection, to show that her
answer was a deliberate one, that he could not go—and then quietly and
firmly—but without assigning any reasons, adhering to her decision—a course
which, though it could not have saved the boy from emotions of disappointment,
would be the best for making those feelings as light and as brief in duration as
possible—began to argue the case thus; "Oh no, Egbert, I would not go a-fishing
this afternoon, if I were you. I think it is going to rain. Besides, it is a
nice cool day to work in the garden—and Lucy would like very much, to have her
garden made. You know that she was very kind to you when you were sick—how many
things she did for you; and preparing a garden for her, would be such a nice way
of making her a return. I am sure you would not wish to show yourself ungrateful
for so much kindness."

Then follows a discussion of some minutes, in which Egbert, in a fretful and
pestering tone, persists in urging his desire to go a-fishing. He can make the
garden, he says—some other day. His mother finally yields, though with great
unwillingness, doing all she can to extract all graciousness and sweetness from
her consent—and to spoil the pleasure of the excursion to the boy, by saying as
he goes away, that she is sure he ought not to go—and that she shall be uneasy
about him all the time that he is gone.

Now it is plain that such management as this, though it takes ostensibly the
form of a plea on the part of the mother in favor of a sentiment of gratitude in
the heart of the boy, can have no effect in nourishing and bringing forward into
life any such sentiment of gratitude, even if it should be already existent
there in a nascent state; but can only tend to make the object of it more
selfish and heartless than ever.

Thus the art of cultivating the sentiment of gratitude, as is the case in all
other departments of moral training, cannot be taught by definite lessons or
learned by rote. It demands tact and skill—and, above all, an honest and full
sincerity. The mother must really look to—and aim for the actual moral effect in
the heart of the child—and not merely make formal efforts ostensibly for this
end—but really to accomplish some temporary object of her own. Children easily
see through all covert intentions of any kind. They sometimes play the hypocrite
themselves—but they are always great detectors of hypocrisy in others! But
gentle and cautious efforts of the right kind—such as require no high
attainments on the part of the mother—but only the right spirit—will in time
work wonderful effects. And the mother who perseveres in them—and who does not
expect the fruits too soon—will watch with great interest for the time to
arrive, when her boy will spontaneously, from the promptings of his own heart,
take some real trouble, or submit to some real privation or self-denial, to give
pleasure to her. She will then enjoy the double gratification— first, of
receiving the pleasure, whatever it may be, that her boy has procured for her;
and also the joy of finding that the tender plant which she has watched and
watered so long—and which for a time seemed so frail that she almost despaired
of its ever coming to any good—is really advanced to the stage of beginning to
bear fruit—and giving her a pledge of the abundant fruits which she may
confidently expect from it in future years.


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  CHAPTER 50: 3.23     RELIGIOUS TRAINING
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Chapter 23. Religious Training.

It has been my aim in this volume to avoid, as far as possible, all topics
involving controversy—and only to present such truths, and to elucidate such
principles, as can be easily made to commend themselves to the good sense and
the favorable appreciation of all the classes of minds likely to be found among
the readers of the work. There are certain very important aspects of religious
training, which may be presented, I think, without any serious deviation from
this policy.

’In what True Piety consists’.

Indeed—I think there is far more real, than seeming agreement among parents in
respect to this subject; or rather a large portion of the apparent difference
consists in different modes of expressing in words thoughts and conceptions
connected with spiritual things, which none of them, from their very nature—be
adequately expressed in language at all. And thus it happens that what are
substantially the same ideas are customarily clothed by different classes of
people in very different phraseology; while, on the other hand, the same set of
phrases actually represent in different minds very different sets of ideas. For
instance, there is perhaps universal agreement in the idea that some kind of
change—a change, too, of a very important character—is implied in the implanting
or developing of the spirit of piety in the heart of a child. There is also
universal agreement in the fact—often very emphatically asserted in the New
Testament—that the essential principles in which true piety consists are those
of entire submission in all things to the will of God—and cordial kind feeling
towards every man. There is endless disagreement—and much earnest contention
among different denominations of Christians, in respect to the means by which
the implanting of these principles is to be secured—and to the modes in which,
when implanted, they will manifest themselves. But there is not, so far as would
appear, any dissent whatever anywhere from the opinion that the end to be aimed
at is the implanting of these principles—that is that it consists in bringing
the heart to a state of complete and cordial submission to the authority and to
the will of God—and to a sincere regard for the welfare and happiness of every
human being.

’A Question of Words’

There seems, at first view, to be a special difference of opinion in respect to
the nature of the process by which these principles come to be implanted or
developed in the minds of the young; for all must admit that in early infancy
they are not there, or, at least, that they do not appear. No one would expect
to find in two infants—twin-brothers, we will suppose—creeping on the floor,
with one apple between them, that there could be, at that age, any principles of
right or justice, or of brotherly love existing in their hearts, that could
prevent their both crying and quarreling for it. "True," says one; "but there
are germs of those principles which, in time, will be developed." "No," rejoins
another," there are no ’germs’ of them, there are only ’capacities’ for them,
through which, by Divine power, the germs may hereafter be introduced." But when
we reflect upon the difficulty of forming any clear and practical idea of the
difference between a ’germ’—in a bud upon an apple-tree, for instance—which may
ultimately produce fruit—and a ’capacity’ for producing it which may
subsequently be developed—and still more, how difficult is it to picture to our
minds what is represented by these words in the case of a human soul—it would
seem as if the apparent difference in people’s opinions on such a point must be
less a difference in respect to facts, than in respect to the phraseology by
which the facts should be represented. And there would seem to be confirmation
of this view in the fact that the great apparent difference among men in regard
to their theoretical views of human nature—does not seem to produce any marked
difference in their action in practically dealing with it. Some parents, it is
true, habitually treat their children with gentleness, kindness and love; others
are harsh and severe in all their interactions with their children. But we would
find, on investigation, that such differences have very slight connection with
the theoretical views of the nature of the human soul, which the parents
respectively entertain. Parents who in their theories seem to think the worst of
the native tendencies of the human heart, are often as kind and considerate and
loving in their dealings with it as any. While no one would be at all surprised
to find another, who is very firm in his belief in the native tendency of
childhood to good, showing himself, in practically dealing with the actual
conduct of children—to be fretful, impatient, complaining—and very ready to
recognize, in fact, tendencies which in theory he seems to deny. And so, two
bank directors—or members of the board of management of any industrial
undertaking, when they meet in the street on Sunday, in returning from their
respective places of public worship, if they fall into conversation on the moral
nature of man, may find, or think they find, that they differ extremely in their
views—and may even think each other bigoted or heretical, as the case may be;
but yet the next day, when they meet at a session of their board—and come to the
work of actually dealing with the conduct and the motives of men, they may find
that there is ’practically’ no difference between them whatever. Or, if there
should be any difference, such as would show itself in a greater readiness in
one than in the other to place confidence in the promises or to confide in the
integrity of men—the difference would, in general, have no perceptible relation
whatever to the difference in the theological phraseology which they have been
accustomed to hear and to assent to in their respective churches. All which
seems to indicate, as has already been said—that the difference in question is
rather apparent than real—and that it implies less actual disagreement about the
facts of human nature, than diversity in the phraseology by which the facts are
represented.

’Agency of the Divine Spirit’.

It may, however, be said that in this respect, if not in any other, there is a
radical difference among parents in respect to human nature, in relation to the
religious education of children—namely, that some think that the implanting of
the right principles of repentance for all wrong-doing—and sincere desires for
the future to conform in all things to the will of God—and seek the happiness
and welfare of men, cannot come except by a special act of Divine
intervention—and is utterly beyond the reach—in respect to any actual
efficiency—of all human instrumentalities. This is no doubt true; but it is also
no less true in respect to all the powers and capacities of the human soul, as
well as to those pertaining to moral and religious duty. If the soul itself is
the product of the creative agency of God—’all’ its powers and faculties must be
so—and, consequently, the development of them all—and there certainly can be no
reason for making the sentiment of true and genuine piety an exception—must be
the work of the same creative power. But someone may say. There is, however,
after all, a difference; for while we all admit that both the original entrance
of the embryo soul into existence—and every step of its subsequent progress and
development, including the coming into being and into action of all its various
faculties and powers, are the work of the Supreme creative power—the
commencement of the divine life in the soul is, in a ’special and peculiar
sense’, the work of the Divine hand. And this also is doubtless true; at least,
there is a certain important truth expressed in that statement. And yet when we
attempt to picture to our minds two modes of Divine action, one of which is
special and peculiar—and the other is not so, we are very likely to find
ourselves bewildered and confused—and we soon perceive that in making such
inquiries we are going out of our depth—or, in other words, are attempting to
pass beyond the limits which mark the present boundaries of human knowledge. In
view of these thoughts and suggestions, in the truth of which it would seem that
all reasonable people must concur, we may reasonably conclude that all parents
who are willing to look simply at the facts—and who are not too much confined by
the forms of phraseology to which they are accustomed, must agree in admitting
the substantial soundness of the following principles relating to the religious
education of children.

’Order of Development in respect to different Propensities and Powers’.

1. We must not expect any perceptible awakening of the moral and pious
sentiments too soon—nor feel discouraged and disheartened because they do not
earlier appear; for, like all the other higher attributes of the soul, pious
sentiments pertain to a portion of the mental structure, which is not early
developed. It is the group of purely animal propensities, which first show
themselves in the young—and those even, as we see in the young of the lower
animals, generally appear somewhat in the order in which they are required for
the individual’s good.

Birds just hatched from the egg seem to have, for the first few days, only one
instinct ready for action—that of opening their mouths wide at the approach of
anything towards their nest. Even this instinct is so imperfect and immature
that it cannot distinguish between the coming of their mother and the appearance
of the face of a boy peering down upon them, or even the rustling of the leaves
around them by a stick. In process of time, as their wings become formed,
another instinct begins to appear—that of desiring to use the wings and come
forth into the air. The development of this instinct and the growth of the wings
advance together. Later still, when the proper period of maturity arrives, other
instincts appear as they are required—such as the love of a mate, the desire to
construct a nest—and the principle of maternal affection.

Now there is something analogous to this in the order of development to be
observed in the progress of the human being through the period of infancy to
that of maturity—and we must not look for the development of any power or
susceptibility before its time—nor be too much troubled if we find that, in the
first two or three years of life, the animal propensities—which are more
advanced in respect to the organization which they depend upon—seem sometimes to
overpower the higher sentiments and principles, which, so far as the capacity
for them exists at all, must be yet in embryo. We must be willing to wait for
each to be developed in its own appointed time.

’Dependence upon Divine Aid’.

2. Anyone who is ready to feel and to acknowledge his dependence upon Divine aid
for anything whatever in the growth and preservation of his child, will surely
be ready to do so in respect to the work of developing or awakening in his heart
the principles of piety—since it must be admitted by all that the human soul is
the highest of all the manifestations of Divine power—and that that portion of
its structure on which the existence and exercise of the moral and pious
sentiments depend, is the crowning glory of it. It is right, therefore, that if
the parent feels and acknowledges his dependence upon Divine power in anything,
he should specially feel and acknowledge it here; while there is nothing so well
adapted as a deep sense of this dependence—and a devout and habitual recognition
of it—and reliance upon it—to give earnestness and efficiency to his efforts,
and to furnish a solid ground of hope that they will be crowded with success.

’The Christian Paradox’.

3. The great principle so plainly taught in the Sacred Scriptures—namely, that
while we depend upon the exercise of Divine power for the success of all our
efforts for our own spiritual improvement or that of others, just as if we could
do nothing ourselves—that we must do everything that is possible ourselves, just
us if nothing was to be expected from Divine power. This may be called the
Christian paradox. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling—for it
is God who works in you both to will and to do." It would seem, it might be
thought, much more logical to say, "Work out your own salvation—for there is
nobody to help you." Or, "It is not necessary to make any effort yourselves—for
it is God that works in you." It seems strange and paradoxical to say, "Work out
your own salvation, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do." But
in this, as in all other paradoxes, the difficulty is in the explanation of the
theory—and not in the practical working of it. The Christian paradox gives rise
to a great deal of metaphysical floundering and bewilderment among young
theologians in their attempts to vindicate and explain it—but the humble-minded
Christian parent finds no difficulty in practice. It comes very easy to him to
do all he can, just as if everything depended upon his efforts—and at the same
time to cast all his care upon God, just as if there was nothing at all that he
himself could do.

’Means must be Right Means’.

4. We are apt to imagine—or, at least, to act sometimes, as if we imagined—that
our dependence upon the Divine aid for what our Savior, Jesus, designated as the
new birth, makes some difference in the obligation on our part to employ such
means as are naturally adapted to the end in view. If a gardener, for example,
were to pour sand from his watering-pot upon his flowers, in time of drought,
instead of water, he might make something like a plausible defense of his
action, in reply to a remonstrance, thus: "I have no power to make the flowers
grow and bloom. The secret processes on which the successful result depends are
altogether beyond my reach—and in the hands of God—and he can just as easily
bless one kind of instrumentality as another. I am bound to do something, it is
true, for I must not be idle and inert; but God, if he chooses to do so, can
easily bring out the flowers into beauty and bloom, however imperfect and
ill-adapted the instrumentalities I use may be. He can as easily make use, for
this purpose, of sand as of water."

Now, although there may be a certain plausibility in this reasoning, such
conduct would appear to everyone totally absurd; and yet many parents seem to
act on a similar principle. A mother who is from time to time, during the week,
fretful and impatient, evincing no sincere and hearty consideration for the
feelings, still less for the substantial welfare and happiness, of those
dependent upon her; who shows her lack of submission to the will of God, by
complaints and repinings at anything disturbing which befalls her; and who
evinces a selfish love for her own gratification—her dresses, her personal
pleasures, and her fashionable standing; and then, as a means of securing the
salvation of her children, is very strict, when Sunday comes, in enforcing upon
them the study of their Sunday lessons, or in requiring them to read good books,
or in repressing on that day any undue exuberance of their spirits—relying upon
the blessing of God upon her endeavors—will be very apt to find, in the end,
that she has been watering her delicate flowers with sand! The means which we
use to awaken or impart the feelings of sorrow for sin, submission to God, and
cordial good-will to man—in which all true piety consists—must be means that are
’appropriate in themselves’ to the accomplishment of the end intended. The means
must be water—and not sand—applied with judgment, discrimination, and tact. The
principle is—that the means must be an appropriate one—that is, one indicated by
a wise consideration of the circumstances of the case—and of the natural
characteristics of the childish mind.

’Power of Sympathy’.

5. In respect to pious influence over the minds of children, as in all other
departments of early training, the tendency to sympathetic action between the
heart of the child and the parent is the great source of the parental influence
and power. The principle, "Make a young person love you—and then simply ’be’ in
his presence what you wish him to be," is the secret of success. The tendency of
young children to become what they see those around them whom they love are,
seems to be altogether the most universally acting and the most powerful of the
influences on which the formation of the character depends; and yet it is
remarkable that we have no really appropriate name for it. We call it sometimes
sympathy; but the word sympathy is associated more frequently in our minds with
the idea of compassionate participation in the sufferings of those we love.
Sometimes we term it a spirit of imitation—but that phrase implies rather a
conscious effort to ’act’ like those whom we love, than that involuntary
tendency to ’become’ like them—which is the real character of the principle in
question. We mean a willing, spontaneous and even unconscious tendency to
’become what those around us are’. This tendency is very strong in the young
while the opening faculties are in the course of formation and development—and
it is immensely strengthened by the influence of love. Whatever, therefore, a
mother wishes her child to be—whether a sincere, honest Christian, submissive to
God’s will and conscientious in the discharge of every duty—or proud, vain,
deceitful, hypocritical, and pharisaical—she has only to be either the one or
the other herself—and without any special teaching—her child will be pretty sure
to be a good copy of the model.

’Theological Instruction.’

6. If the principle above stated is correct—it helps to explain why so little
good effect is ordinarily produced by what may be called instruction in
theological truth on the minds of the young. Any system of theological truth,
consists of grand generalizations, which, like all other generalizations, are
very interesting—and often very profitable, to mature minds, especially to minds
of a certain class. But they are not appreciable by children—and can only in
general be received by them as words to be fixed in the memory by rote.
Particulars first, generalizations afterwards, is, or ought to be, the order of
progress in all acquisition of knowledge. This certainly has been the course
pursued by the Divine Spirit in the moral training of the human race. There is
very little systematic theology in the Old Testament—and it requires a
considerable degree of ingenuity— to see as much doctrine as the theologians
desire to find even in the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is very well to
exercise this ingenuity, and the systematic results which are to be obtained by
it may be very interesting, and very beneficial—to those whose minds are mature
enough to enter into and appreciate them. But they are not adapted to the
spiritual needs of children—and can only be received by them, if they are
received at all—in a dry, formal, mechanical manner.

Read, therefore, the stories in the Old Testament, or the parables and
discourses of Jesus in the New Testament, without attempting to draw many
inferences from them in the way of theoretical belief—but simply to bring out to
the mind and heart of the child the moral point intended in each particular
case—and the heart of the child will be touched—and he will receive an ’element’
of instruction which he can arrange and group with others in theological
generalization by-and-by, when his faculties have advanced to the generalizing
stage.

’No repulsive personal applications’.

7. In reading the Scriptures—and, indeed, in all forms of giving religious
counsel or instruction, we must generally beware of presenting the thoughts that
we communicate in the form of reproachful personal application. There may be
exceptions to this rule—but it is undoubtedly, in general, a sound one. For the
work which we have to do, is not to attempt to drive the heart from the wrong to
the right, by any repellent action which the wrong may be made to exert—but to
allure it by an attractive action with which the right may be invested. We must,
therefore, present the incidents and instructions of the Word in their alluring
aspect—assuming, in a great measure, that our little pupil will feel pleasure
with us in the manifestations of the right—and will sympathize with us in
disapproval of the wrong. To secure them to our side, in the views which we
take, we must show a disposition to ’take’ them to it by an affectionate
sympathy. Our Savior set us an excellent example of relying on the superior
efficiency of the bond of sympathy and love in its power over the hearts of
children, as compared with that of formal theological instruction, in the few
glimpses which we have of his mode of dealing with them. When they brought
little children to him, he did not begin to expound to them the principles of
the government of God, or the theoretical aspects of the way of salvation; but
took them ’up in his arms and blessed them’—and called the attention of the
bystanders at the same time to qualities and characteristics which they
possessed, which he seemed to regard with special affection—and which others
must imitate to be fit for the kingdom of God. Of course the children went away
pleased and happy from such an interview—and would be made ready by it to
receive gladly to their hearts any truths or sentiments which they might
subsequently hear attributed to one who was so kind a friend to them.

If, however, instead of this, he had told them—no matter in what kind and gentle
tones—that they had very wicked hearts, which must be changed before either God
or any good man could truly love them—and that this change could only be
produced by a power which they could only understand to be one external to
themselves—and that they must earnestly pray for it every day—how different
would have been the effect! They would have listened in mute distress, would
have been glad to make their escape when the conversation was ended—and would
shrink from ever seeing or hearing again one who placed himself in an attitude
so uncongenial to them.

They might have had yet only such appetites and propensities developed within
them as would, if these thoughts continued to hold paramount control over them
all their lives—make them selfish, unfeeling and wicked men; and that they were,
in a special though mysterious manner, dependent on the Divine power for
bringing into action within them other and nobler principles. And so, if a
physician were called in to see a sick child, he might see that it was in
desperate danger—and that unless something could be done—and that speedily, to
arrest the disease, his little patient would be dead in a few hours. And yet to
overwhelm that poor child with terror and distress, would not be a very suitable
course of procedure for averting the apprehended result.

’Promised Rewards and threatened Punishments’.

8. It is necessary to be extremely moderate and cautious in employing the
influence of promised rewards or threatened punishments, as a means of promoting
early piety. In a religious point of view, as in every other, goodness that is
bought is only a pretense of goodness—is, in reality—no goodness at all. And as
it is true that love casts out fear, so it is also true that fear casts out
love.

Suppose, though it is almost too violent a supposition to be made even for
illustration’s sake—that the whole Christian world could be suddenly led to
believe that there was to be no happiness or suffering at all for them beyond
the grave—and that the inducement to be grateful to God for his goodness and
submissive to his will—and to be warmly interested in the welfare and happiness
of man—were henceforth to rest on the intrinsic excellence of those
principles—and to their constituting essentially the highest and noblest
development of the moral and spiritual nature of man. In such a case, how many
of the professed disciples of Jesus would abandon their present devotion to the
cause of love to God and love to man? Not one—except the hypocrites and
pretenders! The truth is, that as piety which is genuine and sincere must rest
on very different foundations, from hope of future reward or fear of future
punishment; so this hope and this fear are very unsuitable instrumentalities to
be relied on for awakening it. The kind of gratitude to God which we wish to
cherish in the mind of a child is not such as would be awakened towards an
earthly benefactor by saying—in the case of a present made by an uncle, for
instance—"Your uncle has made you a beautiful present. Go and thank him very
cordially—and perhaps you will get another." It is rather of a kind which might
be induced by saying, "Your uncle, who has been so kind to you in past years, is
poor and sick—and can never do anything more for you now. Would you like to go
and sit in his sick-room to show your love for him—and to be ready to help him
if he needs anything?"

True piety, in a word, which consists in entering into and steadily maintaining
the right moral and spiritual relations with God and man—marks the highest
condition which the possibilities of human nature allow—and must rest in the
soul which attains to it on a very different foundation from anything like hope
or fear. That there is a function which it is the province of hope or fear to
fulfill, is abundantly proved by the use that is sometimes made of them in the
Scriptures. But the more we reflect upon the subject, the more we shall be
convinced, I think, that all such considerations ought to be kept very much in
the back-ground in our dealings with children.

If a child is sick—and is even likely to die, it is a very serious question
whether any warning given to him of his danger will not operate as a hindrance
rather than a help, in awakening those feelings which will constitute the best
state of preparation for the change. For a sense of gratitude to God for his
goodness—and to the Savior for the sacrifice which he made for his sake,
penitence for his sins, and trust in the forgiving mercy of his Maker—are the
feelings to be awakened in his bosom; and these, so far as they exist, will lead
him to lie quietly, calmly and submissively in God’s hands, without anxiety in
respect to what is before him. It is a serious question whether an entire
uncertainty as to the time when his death is to come, is not more favorable to
the awakening of these feelings, than the state of alarm and distress which
would be excited, by the thought that it was near.

’The Reasonableness of Gentle Measures in Religious Training’. The mother may
sometimes derive from certain religious considerations, the idea that she is
bound to look upon the moral delinquencies and dangers which she observes in her
children, under an aspect more stern and severe, than seems to be recommended
here in this book. But a little reflection must convince us, that the way to
true repentance of, and turning from sin—is not necessarily through the
suffering of terror and distress. The Gospel is not an instrumentality for
producing terror and distress, even as means to an end. It is an instrumentality
for saving us from these ills; and the Divine Spirit, in the hidden and
mysterious influence which it exercises in forming, or transforming, the human
soul into the image of God—must be as ready, it would seem, to sanction and
bless efforts made by a mother to allure her child away from its sins, by loving
and gentle invitations and encouragements—as any attempts to drive her from
them, by the agency of terror or pain. It would seem that no one who remembers
the way in which Jesus Christ dealt with the children who were brought to him
could possibly have any doubt of this.

Chapter 24. Conclusion.

Any person who has acquired the art of examining and analyzing his own thoughts,
will generally find that the mental pictures which he forms of the landscapes,
or the interiors, in which the scenes are laid of the events or incidents
related in any work of fiction which interests him, are modeled more or less
closely from prototypes previously existing in his own mind—and generally upon
those furnished by the experiences of his childhood. If, for example, he reads
an account of transactions represented as taking place in an English palace or
castle, he will usually, on a careful scrutiny, find that the basis of his
conception of the scene is derived from the arrangement of the rooms of some
fine house with which he was familiar in early life. Thus, a great many things
which attract our attention—and impress themselves upon our memories in
childhood, become the models and prototypes—more or less aggrandized and
improved, perhaps—of the conceptions and images which we form in later years.

’Nature of the Effect produced by Early Impressions’.

Few people who have not specially reflected on this subject, or examined closely
the operations of their own minds, are aware what an extended influence the
images thus stored in the mind in childhood, have in forming the basis, or
furnishing the elements of the mental structures of future life. But the truth,
when once understood, shows of what vast importance it is with what images the
youthful mind is to be stored. A child who ascends a lofty mountain, under
favorable circumstances in his childhood, has his conceptions of all the
mountain scenery that he reads of, or hears of through life, modified and
aggrandized by the impression made upon his sensorium at this early stage. Take
your daughter, who has always, we will suppose, lived in the country, on an
excursion with you to the sea-shore—and allow her to witness for an hour, as she
sits in silence on the cliff, the surf rolling in incessantly upon the beach—and
infinitely the smallest part of the effect, is that one day’s gratification
which you have given her. That is comparatively nothing. You have made a
life-long change, if not in the very structure, at least in the permanent
furnishing of her mind—and performed a work which can never by any possibility
be undone. The images which have been awakened in her mind, the emotions
connected with them—and the effect of these images and emotions upon her
faculties of imagination and conception, will infuse a life into them which will
make her a different being as long as she lives.

’The Nature and Origin of general Ideas’.

It is the same substantially in respect to all those abstract and general ideas
on moral or other kindred subjects which constitute the mental furnishing of the
adult man—and have so great an influence in the formation of his habits of
thought and of his character. They are chiefly formed from combinations of the
impressions made in childhood. A person’s idea of justice, for instance, or of
goodness—is a generalization of the various instances of justice or goodness
which ever came to his knowledge; and of course, among the materials of this
generalization, those instances which were brought to his mind during the
impressible years of childhood must have taken a very prominent part. Every
story, therefore, which you relate to a child to exemplify the principles of
justice or goodness takes its place, or, rather, the impression which it makes
takes its place, as one of the elements out of which the ideas that are to
govern his future life are formed.

’Vast Importance and Influence of this mental Furnishing’. The ideas and
generalizations thus mainly formed from the images and impressions received in
childhood become, in later years, the elements of the machinery, so to speak, by
which all his mental operations are performed. Thus they seem to constitute more
than the mere furniture of the mind; they form, as it were, almost a part of the
structure itself. So true, indeed, is this—and so engrossing a part does what
remains in the mind of former impressions play in its subsequent action—that
some philosophers have maintained that the whole of the actual consciousness of
man consists only in the ’resultant’ of all these impressions preserved more or
less imperfectly by the memory—and made to mingle together in one infinitely
complicated but harmonious whole. Without going to any such extreme as this, we
can easily see, on reflection, how vast an influence on the ideas and
conceptions, as well as on the principles of action in mature years, must be
exerted by the nature and character of the images which the period of infancy
and childhood impresses upon the mind. All parents should, therefore, feel that
it is not merely the present welfare and happiness of their child which is
concerned in their securing to him a tranquil and happy childhood—but that his
capacity for enjoyment through life is greatly dependent upon it! They are, in a
very important sense, entrusted with the work of building up the structure of
his soul for all time! It is incumbent upon them, with reference to the future
as well as to the present—to be very careful what materials they allow to go
into the work, as well as in what manner they lay them.

Among the other bearings of this thought, it gives great weight to the
importance of employing gentle measures in the management and training of the
young, provided that such measures can be made effectual in the accomplishment
of the end. The pain produced by an act of hasty and angry violence to which a
father subjects his son may soon pass away—but the memory of it does not pass
away with the pain. Even the remembrance of it may at length fade from the
mind—but there is still an ’effect’ which does not pass away with the
remembrance. Every strong impression which you make upon his perceptive powers,
must have a very lasting influence—and even the impression itself may, in some
cases, be forever indelible!

Let us, then, take care that these impressions shall be, as far as possible,
such as shall be sources of enjoyment for them in future years. It is true that
we ’must’ govern them. They are committed to our charge during the long time
which is required for the gradual unfolding of their youthful powers, for the
express purpose that during that interval they may be guided by our reason—and
not by their own. We cannot surrender this trust. But there is a way of
faithfully fulfilling the duties of it—if we have discernment to see it—and
skill to follow it—which will make the years of their childhood years of
tranquility and happiness, both to ourselves and to them.


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