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A RIDE WITH WENDELL PHILLIPS.

A DOZEN years ago, I was called on business to a town in western Maine. It was in the spring; the roads were rough, and I had left the train at the nearest railroad point, still fourteen miles from my destination. While I was pacing the platform with rueful thoughts on my ride by stage over the muddy roads, a fine team, driven at a lively pace, came up to the platform, and I recognized in the gentleman driving an old acquaintance, who was a prominent citizen of the town to which I was bound. I informed him that I was on my way there. "Well," said he, "I can get you over there quicker than the stage can, and I can give you good company." He then told me he had come to the station for Mr. Phillips, who was to deliver a lecture in the town that evening. The kind invitation to ride with them was gladly accepted, and in a few minutes the train bearing Mr. Phillips arrived, and we started on what proved to be one of the most enjoyable rides of my life. Our road lay among the foothills of Mt. Washington, and there were many grand views given us of the White Mountain range. Mr. Phillips was one of the most delightful of talkers, and we were eager listeners. As we journeyed on, we turned the base of a hill which opened up a view of a valley before us, and a lonely farmhouse on the side of a hill opposite arrested Mr. Phillips's attention. Requesting our driver to halt, he gazed in silence for a few moments at the solitary house on the hillside. Then turning to us, he said, "Gentlemen, that house reminds me of John Brown's home among the Adirondacks, the place where they buried him." We resumed our journey, and he gave us in his own unequalled manner story after story of John Brown, and those times that tried men's souls. One story among others, from the graphic way in which it was told, made a lasting impression on my memory. According to Mr. Phillips, after Brown's arrival in Kansas to aid the free state men in their struggle for freedom, the slaveholding element finding him a formidable opponent, and that he could neither be driven away nor cowed by any effort of theirs, put a warrant for his arrest in the hands of the United States marshal of the district, a fierce fellow from South Carolina. He, knowing Brown's courage

and determination, and not liking to undertake the job without solid support, called on Colonel Sumner (afterwards a general in the war of the Rebellion), who commanded the United States forces in the territory, for troops to assist him in making the arrest. Colonel Sumner furnished him a company of dragoons and, obedient soldier that he was, accompanied them himself, though heartily detesting the whole business. The marshal and his party arrived at Brown's cabin a little past noon, just as he was eating his lunch. Brown hearing the noise outside, came to the door and inquired their business. When it was made known, he said, pointing to the marshal, "That man will never arrest me!" Something further was said by the arresting party, and Brown again said, "That man will never arrest me!" The whole party, of course, awaited the movements of the marshal, who did not seem to be in haste to lay hands upon his man, though Brown stood before him in the cabin-door alone and, as far as could be seen, unarmed. Colonel Sumner suggested to the marshal that he was there with his troops to assist him, if he was unable to execute the warrant alone, but he must first make the attempt. At this, Brown the third time said, "That man will never arrest me!" The marshal, after a further delay spent in fumbling over his pockets, decided that he had not brought the proper documents with him, gave up the attempt, and the whole party rode away, leaving Brown "holding the fort." Shortly after this event, this same marshal with a posse of the slaveholding element, ambushed Brown and a few of his followers, and in the rencontre that ensued he was killed and his party put to flight. Mr. Phillips said that Colonel Sumner told him that never did he see such coolness and nerve as Brown showed during the time of the attempted arrest, and that he did not wonder, under that determined look fixed upon him, that the marshal felt that "discretion was the better part of valor."

As we arrived in front of our hotel, Mr. Phillips said, "What, here so soon, gentlemen?" That afternoon ride with that wonderful man, his genial, sunny disposition, together with the graphic glimpses he gave us of those troublous times and famous men, I treasure as one of the rarest experiences of my life. 7. H. Barnes.

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JONCORD, the home of Emerson and Alcott, of Hawthorne and Thoreau, becomes more and more a place of pilgrimage for those who appreciate what is best, thus far, in American literature. Every day, almost, brings to that plain Massachusetts town these pilgrims from far and near, old lovers of the place and its poets, returning to their first love, or else new comers, who have heard of Concord, and wish to see what it is like. Who can explain the geographical mystery of genius, or measure its attractive and consecrating force? We visit the slender and sluggish Avon winding through green meadows, among elms and willows, or twining round the base of wooded heights crowned with an old castle, or a church-tower, - yet what charms us is not the beauty of the scenery, lovely as that is, drawn thither by the memory of Shakespeare, meadows, sailed on this stream, and made love amid these So is it with the quiet loveliness of Concord,

who rambled in these groves of oak and elm.

"Its silver lakes that unexhausted gleam,

And peaceful woods beside the cottage door."

We value these not so much for their own grace and charm, as for the pleasure they gave to Emerson and his friends, who have made the name of Concord as famous in America as Stratford is in England. Most of all do we think of Emerson there, since to him more than to all the rest does the town owe its celebrity, and by him has its landscape best been painted in memorable words:

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"For me in showers, in sweeping showers the Spring
Visits the valley, -break away the clouds, -
I bathe in the morn's soft and silvered air,
And loiter willing by yon loitering stream.
Sparrows far off, and nearer April's bird,
Blue-coated, flying before from tree to tree,
Courageous sings a delicate overture,
To lead the tardy concert of the year.

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The surge of summer's beauty; dell and crag,
Hollow and lake, hillside and pine arcade
Are touched with genius. Yonder ragged cliff
Has thousand faces in a thousand hours.

"I am a willow of the wilderness,
Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts
My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk,
A quest of river grapes, a mocking thrush,
A wild rose or rock-loving columbine
Salve my worst wounds." 1

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These pictures, and countless from Emerson's pen, not only describe the scenes amid which he lived for half a century, but show us, by literal record or glancing allusion, his whole way of life 1 Emerson's "Musketaquid."

Copyright, 1890, by New England Magazine Corporation, Boston. All rights reserved.

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