No More Learning

Yourn, (ez I 'xpec' to be nex' spring,)
B. , MARKISS O' BIG BOOSY.





No. IV

A MESSAGE OF JEFF DAVIS IN SECRET SESSION

_Conjecturally reported by_ H. BIGLOW

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, 10th March, 1862.

GENTLEMEN,--My leisure has been so entirely occupied with the hitherto
fruitless endeavour to decypher the Runick inscription whose fortunate
discovery I mentioned in my last communication, that I have not found
time to discuss, as I had intended, the great problem of what we are to
do with slavery,--a topick on which the publick mind in this place is at
present more than ever agitated. What my wishes and hopes are I need not
say, but for safe conclusions I do not conceive that we are yet in
possession of facts enough on which to bottom them with certainty.
Acknowledging the hand of Providence, as I do, in all events, I am
sometimes inclined to think that they are wiser than we, and am willing
to wait till we have made this continent once more a place where freemen
can live in security and honour, before assuming any further
responsibility. This is the view taken by my neighbour Habakkuk
Sloansure, Esq. , the president of our bank, whose opinion in the
practical affairs of life has great weight with me, as I have generally
found it to be justified by the event, and whose counsel, had I followed
it, would have saved me from an unfortunate investment of a considerable
part of the painful economies of half a century in the Northwest-Passage
Tunnel. After a somewhat animated discussion with this gentleman a few
days since, I expanded, on the _audi alteram partem_ principle,
something which he happened to say by way of illustration, into the
following fable.


FESTINA LENTE

Once on a time there was a pool
Fringed all about with flag-leaves cool
And spotted with cow-lilies garish,
Of frogs and pouts the ancient parish.
Alders the creaking redwings sink on,
Tussocks that house blithe Bob o' Lincoln
Hedged round the unassailed seclusion,
Where muskrats piled their cells Carthusian;
And many a moss-embroidered log,
The watering-place of summer frog,
Slept and decayed with patient skill,
As watering-places sometimes will.

Now in this Abbey of Theleme,
Which realized the fairest dream
That ever dozing bull-frog had,
Sunned on a half-sunk lily-pad,
There rose a party with a mission
To mend the polliwogs' condition,
Who notified the selectmen
To call a meeting there and then.
'Some kind of steps,' they said, 'are needed;
They don't come on so fast as we did:
Let's dock their tails; if that don't make 'em
Frogs by brevet, the Old One take 'em!
That boy, that came the other day
To dig some flag-root down this way,
His jack-knife left, and 'tis a sign
That Heaven approves of our design:
'Twere wicked not to urge the step on,
When Providence has sent the weapon. '

Old croakers, deacons of the mire,
That led the deep batrachian choir,
_Uk! Uk! Caronk! _ with bass that might
Have left Lablache's out of sight,
Shook nobby heads, and said, 'No go!
You'd better let 'em try to grow:
Old Doctor Time is slow, but still
He does know how to make a pill. '

But vain was all their hoarsest bass,
Their old experience out of place,
And spite of croaking and entreating,
The vote was carried in marsh-meeting.

'Lord knows,' protest the polliwogs,
'We're anxious to be grown-up frogs;
But don't push in to do the work
Of Nature till she prove a shirk;
'Tis not by jumps that she advances,
But wins her way by circumstances;
Pray, wait awhile, until you know
We're so contrived as not to grow;
Let Nature take her own direction,
And she'll absorb our imperfection;
_You_ mightn't like 'em to appear with,
But we must have the things to steer with. '

'No,' piped the party of reform,
'All great results are ta'en by storm;
Fate holds her best gifts till we show
We've strength to make her let them go;
The Providence that works in history,
And seems to some folks such a mystery,
Does not creep slowly on _incog. _,
But moves by jumps, a mighty frog;
No more reject the Age's chrism,
Your queues are an anachronism;
No more the Future's promise mock,
But lay your tails upon the block,
Thankful that we the means have voted
To have you thus to frogs promoted. '

The thing was done, the tails were cropped.
And home each philotadpole hopped,
In faith rewarded to exult,
And wait the beautiful result.
Too soon it came; our pool, so long
The theme of patriot bull-frog's song,
Next day was reeking, fit to smother,
With heads and tails that missed each other,--
Here snoutless tails, there tailless snouts;
The only gainers were the pouts.


MORAL

From lower to the higher next,
Not to the top, is Nature's text;
And embryo Good, to reach full stature,
Absorbs the Evil in its nature.


I think that nothing will ever give permanent peace and security to this
continent but the extirpation of Slavery therefrom, and that the
occasion is nigh; but I would do nothing hastily or vindictively, nor
presume to jog the elbow of Providence. No desperate measures for me
till we are sure that all others are hopeless,--_flectere si nequeo_
SUPEROS, _Acheronta movebo_.