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The Sea Scorpion.
It Will Revolutionize Naval Warfare.
Some Account nt Torpedoes, Past
and Present.
When that Connecticut genius, David Bnsh-
nell, invented the Torpedo a hundred years aso.
it was pooh-poohed by Europe n nations as a
Yankee humbug. Our own government thought
little of the invention,though Bnshuell succeed
ed in blowing up a schooner and destroying a
on board but one man. In the beginning of the
war for independence, be failed to blow up the
Eagle, an English sixty-four gun-ship, in New
York harbor, but it was only because the diving
machine, to which was attached the torpedo,
arranged to go off by clock work,missed the ves
sel. It did explode at the end of an hour-tbe
time arranged for the clock to go off-and with
a power that would have blown the Eagle as high
as a kite,had it been under her bottom.
Robert Fulton-the great steam-boat inventor
—next tackled the torpedo question and did his
best to make the nations of the world recognize
its importance in naval warfare. He declared,
in his letter to Joel Burton in 1807, that steam
navigation itself was not halt as important as
the torpedo system of defense and attack, and
affirmed that if the Government would only give
means of action, he would convince the
him
world of the torpedo’s superiority.
He took his pet invention to Europe—to France
first, where he showed to the first Napoleon the
agent by which he might contend with the for
midable British Sea Lion. But the shrewd con
queror for once was short-sighted, and Fulton,
whose sympathies were elastic, took his torpe
do to England and showed John Bull how he
could dispense with his fleets. But the British
eye could not. or would not, see it. The Ad
mirals (haughty old sea dogs, glorying in the
grand fleet of war vessels that made Britain mis
tress of the Seas) laughed in loud scorn at the
Yankee ‘gimcrack,’ which they declared coward
ly and contemptible, and fit only for Chinamen
and Fejee islanders. Bat Pitt, the shrewdest
head in England, thought there might be some
thing in it and got a committee to decide upon
it, which body was composed of men knowing
as little about the matter under discussion as
committees usually do (those at Fairs, for in
stance.) There was only one naval officer among
them. It was decided to put down the torpedo
at once, lest if brought in use it would, by its
short cuts to victory, soon put inferior nations
on a naval equality with Britain. So Fnlton,
disgusted,came back to his native country where
he succeeded in obtaining five thousand dollars
devil after her; bar So effectually had old Com
modore Rogers protected the brig with iron
ports below New Orleans, no fleet could have
passed those ports.’ So says Admirable Porter,
in a leDgthy and able article on ‘Torpedo War
fare’ in the last North American Review -(au ar
ticle from which we have gathered most of the
information here given about this stealthy arm
of the naval service.) The Admiral is a stong
advocate of the torpedo and contends that no
false humanity"thould prevent its being used
in war, and perhaps, since nations will fight
each other,the most prompt and deadly measures
had better be used in order to secure decisive
results at once, and end the hostilities so inimi-
cable to commerce and agriculture.
Our little water scorpions succeeded in de
stroying no less than twenty of the enemies’ big
vessels during the war. Some of them cost over
a million of dollars each—the Tecumseh for in
stance, blown up with Craven and all his men
and officers on board in the attack of the Feder-
als upon Mobile, by a hundred pound torpedo,
that did not cost a hundred dollars. Admiral
Porter gives a graphic account of the destruc
tion in James River of the big Commodore
Jones, that, while dragging for torpedoes, light
ed upon one to her sorrow, and was ‘suddenly
and without any apparent cause, lifted up bod
ily, her wheels rapidly revolving in the air, till
persons declared they could see the green grass
of the river bank beneath her keel. An im
mense fountain of foaming wat.9r shot to a great
height, followed by a denser column thick with
mud. The vessel absolutely crumbled to pieces,
dissolved, as it were, in mid air, enveloped by
the falling spray, mud, water and smoke. When
the excitement of the explosion subsided, not a
vestige of the vessel remained in sight, except
small fragments of her frameithat came shoot
ing to the surface. Every man on board was
either killed or wounded.’
That was a big result to be eff .cted by a few
hundred pounds of powder contained in a tank
and fired off by electricity. A yet more primi
tive machine blew up the formidable iron clad,
Baron Da Kalb, off Yazoo City—merely a three
gallon demijohn filled with powder and ignited
by a friction fuse. In the famous expedition
up Red River, it was a little twenty pound tor
pedo that crippled the splendid and costly iron
ram, Eastport so badly she had to be blown up
to prevent her falling into the hands of the Con-
‘•Toll Mr. Srcils I thank him for
his kind oiler, hat I am dying ” Not
two weeks ago we were called upon to record
the death of Miss Sallie E. Renan, of Tennessee,
who was stricken down by yellow fever a few
days after she had written one of her bright, en
ergetic letters to our Senior, accepting his prop
osition that she should take charge of his, ‘Bovs
and Girls' paper, which he was arranging to is
sue regularly. About the same time came a let
ter from Mrs. Boyd ^Syivia Hope), formerly re
siding here in Atlanta, where she has family
connections and many friends, but then resid
ing in McComb City. Miss. She wrote in pro
found sadness. Her husband, to whom she was
tenderly attached, had died of yellow fever a few
days before; death and gloom were all around
her, the future seemed devoid of brightness; she
had no children to live for, and yet she felt it
her duty to live and to try to be of some use in
the world. Though she had some money which
she desired to invent, she felt that only const
ant work would keep her from morbid brooding
over her sorrow and loneliness, and no work
would please her so well as that of speaking
through her pen to the young, for whom she
felt such warm sympathy.
Well pleased to secure so pure and pleasant a
writer for his paper, Mr. Seals wrote at once of
fering her the Editorship of the ‘B jys and Girls
of the South, - and telling her to come on im
mediately to Atlanta. He was expecting her on
every train when he opened the black-sealed let-
tc r containing the sad words:
‘Sylvia Hope is no more. She fell a victim to
the fatal scourge. She would remain and nurse
her husband through his last illness, and after
hie death, weakened by grief and fatigue, she
easily fell a prey to the fever. Your letter came
to her on her death bed; she would have dictat
ed an answer but could not; she only said ‘Tell
Mr. Seals I thank him for his kind offer, but I
am dying.’
Not often has a letter cast such a gloom over
a household as did this over our little commu
nity of the Sunny South. We had been lookiug
forward to the pleasure of having Mrs. Boyd
among us, associated with us in our daily labor.
Her loveliness of character, her refinement, ami
ability, sprightly intelligence, and gift of rapid
and graceful composition, promised much for
the future. Before we saw her hert, as the love
ly woman we had known her years ago as
federates. Admiral Porter declares that if Mai- / bright -eyed, gifted little girl in our old alma ma
spars and netting reaching to the bottom, that
she proved unassailable,and the test resulted in
failure. Fulton felt that he had not had fair play,
but he was disheartened and abandoned his
cherished system of torpedo warfare to devote
himself to the discovery that has given him suoh
fame—that of steam navigation.
The torpedo slept until 1829, when another
American inventive genius became fascinated
with its possibilities. This was no other than
Samuel Colt, the inventor of the revolver. A*
his very first public experiment, he blew up the
old gun boat. Boxer, in New York Bay, with a
torpedo exploded by galvanism. Afterwards, in
the presence of the Cabinet and citizens of Wash-
1 ngton, he ‘utterly destroyed a schooner off Al.
exandria, Virginia, while stationed five miles
from her.’ This looked like business; and Con
gress voted the enterprising experimenter sev
enteen thousand dollars to perfect his plans.
But public opinion was against him, the human
itarians got after him sharp and bitter, headed
by John Quincy Adams, who denounced the pro
posed system of warfare as cowardly and dis
honest. Colt was classed with Guy Faukes and
spoken of as a disgrace to his country—a man
who would discredit the glorious traditions of the
young navy.
So Colt succumbed to the pressure, as Fulton
had done, and set himself to manufacturing the
wonderful pistol, which introduced a new era of
small arms.
lory and his horse-marines had shown their usu
al intelligence aDd energy in resisting with
their torpedoes the Federal advance up Red
River, few if any of the gunboats would have es
caped. No wonder Geueral Beauregard asserted
concerning Charleston, that he attached more
importance to one torpedo for defending the
place than to five ten inoh guns.
The ‘Davids’ used by the Confederates was
the first practical embodiment of the idea of tor
pedo boats now being brought to such perfec
tion. The David (so called in allusion to the
Bible story of David and Goliah) was a number
of narrow ‘cigar-shaped vessels each about fifty
feet long, and carrying a torpedo at the end of
a boom which could be run out, lowered uud*-
j a j i t*. A si v^oued
t>y nSfcRssity" was the original of the perfected
torpedo vessel ‘which,’ says Admiral Porter,
‘will in future decide the issues of Naval bat'
ties.’ For, since our little Confederacy pepper
ed them so with torpedoes during her gallant
struggle for independence, the United States
naval officers have paid special attention to that
heretofore despised branch of sea warfare. The
torpedo vessel has been successfully developed,
and the sagacious Admiral, who stands at the
head of the naval service, declares that a Com
mander ‘may well stand aghast at the prospect
of his own iron clad ship, with its monster
guns, being struck unawares by one of these
stealthy and effective sea-devils, bristling with
out riggers and exploding tails and endowed
with a speed sufficient to overtake or escape
frnm fViA cfrnnnoof oU{ nn >
America meddled no more for the present with
the torpedo,but she had a glimpse of what might
be done with it, in the Crimean war, when the
Russians used it to cripple some of John Bull’s
big war dogs on the Baltic. But it was not un
til onr civil war broke out in 1861, that the Sea
Scorpion was brought into active use as a terri
ble agent of offense and defense. It was David
against Goliah with onr weak little Confederacy
in those days,when our powerful enemy brought
her fleet of mighty iron-clads against us. Only
cunning could oope with this superior force.
We must act the sword fish to this whale. Invul
nerable from its outside,we must dive down and
strike at the bottom with the active, daring and
deadly little torpedo. How we did harass our
big foe in those days of daring! Harbors and
navigable rivers were filled with these water dev
ils, as the Yankees called them, sometimes laid
in groups and fired off by eleotricity and often
of more simple construction. Batteries watched
them on shore, and Wilmington, Charleston!
and Savannah remained sealed ports to the ene.
my till near the close of the war. Our blockade
ranners passed out in safety and brought back
the sinews of war, but the Federal Bhips were
kept at bay. Persistently and bravely, under
the heavy fire of our guns, they hunted with
their grappling hooks and other tackle for the
infernal machines;Joften they drew them out,but
steadily and stealthily they were put back by
the Southern boys. Had they been used at the
from the strongest ships.
Faither developements of the torpedo may be
ooufidt3iitly looked for,since an average of twenty
young officers now graduate each year from the
Torpedo School at Newport, Rhode Island, and
boards of officers are constantly testing fresh
torpedo inventions at Newport. There are au
tomatic powder-torpedoes—forty or more in
number, and others charged with gun cotton
and dynamite and fired by electricity. The fa
mous fish torpedo, Whitehead, a clever im
provement on our Confederate David, is cigar
shaped and discharged from vessels. It is pro
pelled by an engine using compressed air.
Sometimes it fails, as our Davids used to do, and
Admiral Porter gives a funny instance of
‘Whitehead’ which a British man-of-war dis
charged against a Peruvian iron-clad—the Hu-
ascan. The latter dexterously dodged the com
pliment, and the torpedo ran into an harbor
near by, where, having expended its compressed
air, it rested quietly along side a Dutch mer
chantman at anchor. ‘The Dutch Captain, sup
posing it was a big fish, got out his fishing tackle
and was disgusted at not getting a bite. ’ •
ter institute at Thomasviile, Ga. We had seen
the gradaal unfolding of her intellect, the deep
ening and widening of her range of thought
and aympathy and experience, destined to make
her one of the best writers of our country. The
readers of the Sunny South remember her pleas
ant stories. In the first year of that paper’s ex
istence she wrote for it regularly. Afterwards,
she was possessed with the ‘noble discontent’
with her own work which is the earnest of high,
er effort; and having leisure she set herself to
study. She was also engaged in writing a book,
and occasionally she wrote for Northern peri
odicals in order to extend her literary reputation
before her book should appear. She wrote al.
fts-ugntiui, stndi&Tffi, young (she had not yet
reached the prime of life), her future was full
of promise, Alas, that it is blighted by the ter
rible hand that has cut down so many of the
young and gifted and beautiful during this fa
tal summer!
Sylvia Hope was eminently fitted to make
friends and to render her home and husband hap
py. She had innate tact, a warm, sympathetic
nature, and fine artistic tastes that made her love
to surround herself with the beautiful. To show
how deeply she was regretted where she had liv
ed, and how useful was her life and calm her
death, we subjoin this memorial, written by the
friend whose letter announced the mournful tid
ings of her death. .
Is Slie l*ro<ligy or Plagiarist ? -The
letter^ which we publish below from Mr.
William Flemming, Superintendant of Pub
lic Schools in Augusta, was not for pub
lication, bat the matter it so fully ex
plains has so moved our curiosity, that,
being unable ourself to answer the question,
Did she write it ?” we cannot resist the temp
tation of endeavoring to solve it in the best way
we know of—by submitting the question ol
authorship to the many readers cf the “Sunny
South.” Besides, the letter is so pleasantly
written, it shows such appreciation of poetry,
such interest on the part of the writer in the
youDg minds of which he has charge, and such
a kindly consideration for the little girl’s feel
ings, that we are sure it will please others as it
lias done the one to whom it is addressed; and
we trust to receive pardon for having taken the
liberty to put it in print. The poem sent, beau
tiful as it is, yet simple enough in matter to
have been written by a girl of twelve. The
wonder is in the finish, the polished simplicity,
the felicity of expression. It seems singular
that so young a writer should attain such per
fection of style, yet it is not impossible. The
poem has somehow a familiar sound ; and there
comes a haunting recollection of having read it
in the pages of the Noctes Ambrosianae long
ago, but those special volumes ^almost the best
prized of any in our possession) happened to be
lent j ust now. We withhold the name of the little
girl for the present. If no one among our
readers can “place” the lines, we will give her
the credit she deserves : *
My Dear Madam.—Knowing of your exten
sive acquaintance with all the departments of
poetic literature, I take the liberty of writing to
request that jou inform me whether or not you
have ever see before the exquisite verses of
poetry which I enclose with this letter. The
circumstances connected with this little gem are
most remarkable : “The teacher of one of our
public schools out in the country has been in
the habit of requiring original composition from
her pupils, and a few days ago a little girl of
twelve or thirteen, who has enjoyed no special
advantages of education and whose parents are
comparatively ignorant, handed in these verses
as her composition. She has been accustomed
to write her little essays in verse, but this one
was so remarkable that the teacher intimated to
her aunt that she had copied it. She positively
denied this, and claimed the verses as her own
unaided production. The teacher brought the
poem to me to know if I could identify it. I
was charmed, but knew nothing of its origin.
L showed it to quite a number of literary friends,
all of whom are delighted, but no one has been
able to say positively that it has ever appeared
in print before, though one iady is almost sure
she has seen it in a magazine. Now we are in
much doubt as to whether the little girl is a
plagiarrist or a genius. The poem bears un
mistakable marks of high talent or rather of
genius in one so young and uncultivated, and
yet all the circnmstaucial evidence we can ob
tain goes to prove that she wrote it. I was so
much interested in the matter, that I went, in
company wi h a friend, on Saturday afternoon
out to her humble home, some six miles from
the city. The poetess was sweeping in the yard.
Upon recognizing me, and divining our purpose,
she dropped her broom, and ran into the house.
After considerable persuasion, we induced her
to come to the door and talk to us. She avows
“?'***'* ——^to.thajioehrx-wul^agaj^^h^d^no
by exhausting you, not only of electricity-which
is the essence of physical force—but of the more
subtle, cdic fluid, which is the secret of menta
power, the delicate, intangible life of thought.
One of these soul-suckers, cruel as the sanguin
ary bat of the tropics, will fasten upon the intel
lectual being, gradually, imperceptibly; soothing
you with the charm of his presence, as the vam
pire soothes with his fanning wings, until before
you are aware of it, you are mentally exhausted i
your brain is sapped and inelastic; all its riches
have gone to feed the vampire, that for months
has been a parasite upon it.
Such a cold and crueFvampirisra was that which
George Sand practiced upon Alfred De Musset,
the most giftei poet that ever enriched French
literature with his songs. Young, impassioned,
was he ; imaginative, full of genius, and fire, and
enthusiasm, and George Sand-then a beautiful,
talented and ambitious woman—coveted to possess
him intellectually more than physically. » c he
wanted to drink the fine, subtle wine of his genius,
that it might inspire the works she might give to
the world. lie was a subject she desired to study,
to analyze, to probe to its deepest depths, its in
most and most delicate recesses; to dip her pen in
all the warm, rich colors of his nature, though she
must pierce his heart to reach them.
The history of their intercourse is w -own ;
it was all gain to her. Her cold, selfish, calculat
ing nature absorbed the wealth of his own being*
yielded up to her subtle searching, her keen curi
osity, her cold analysis. It was a fruitful episode
in her life, a fatal one to him. It furnished her
with woof for many a vari- colored literary fabric ;
for him it was the hot bed that forced iDto feverish
growth some few splendid flowers of passionate
thought, but which withered the root of his genius
forever. When he returned from that fatal tour
through Italy, in which he had accompanied
George Sand, ‘he was,’ says his biographer, ‘sick
in mind and sioul—an old, helpless man at twenty*
three.’
The intellectual vampire had done its work.
Swift was a vampire. He drained the soul of
beautiful, devoted Stella of all its rich, delicate
aroma, both of thought and feeling. He fed upon
it, refreshed his jaded intellect with a nature rarer
than his, a nature which yielded up its fine reserve
only through the devotion of love. That it was
speedily exhausted and suffered death in life was
inevitable.
That Lass O’Lowrie’s.
she consented, and was not all discomposed
when I impressed upon her the seriousness of
the affair and told her how mortified she would
teel if it should at last be found out that it was
written by someone else. as
From her manner I cannot doubt th;-t she
J IOte iL 1 am to save her
rom public disgrace of plagiarism, and hence
before the piece is published. I want to fini
real author if she is not the one tne
Can you throw any light on the subject ’ I
am very much interested and hope that a new
star has amsen on the poetical horrizon.
.Please reply at your earliest conveniencs.
I am, with great respeot,
Your obedient servant,
Wm. H. Flemming.
The Q,narrel About its Dramatization.
Charles Rsaue, who stole the plot of ‘Fair Play,
from Mrs. Southworth, has dramatized Mrs,
Burnett’s popular novel ‘That Lass O Lowrie’B,
for prod uction on the American as well as the
English stage, warning all managers not to tres
pass on his stage right, under penalty of beiDg
pr emptly prosecuted. And this, when Mrs.
Burn ett specially reserved the right of dramatiz
ing her story— and when a stage version of it,
prepared by her is now being put upon the Phil
adelphia boards. Mrs. Burnett’s husband hav
ing addressed a letter of remonstrance toReade,
he replies in a strain of mingled insolence,
sophism and condescension, saying generously !
that he will allow Mrs. Burnett a fee every time
^.nerfoiyTtoibiA^nt^v. a He also
people to complain of literary theft, pirates of
literature as they are, which is true, though it
< L°™ 6 LT ith * bad . gr&ce from Mr. Reade. Mrs
Burnett’s reply to this letter is the most complete
bit of quiet and keen ‘taHr...
Tearless Madness.-One of the most
curious tacts connected with madness is the ut-
ter absence of tears amidst the insane, observes
the British Medical Journal. Whatever the form
of madness, tears are conspicuous by their ab
sence, as much in the depression of melancho
lia, or the excitement of mania, as in the utter
apathy of dementia. If a patient in a lunatic
asylum be discovered in tears, it will be found
that it is either a patient commencing to recover,
or an emotional outbreak in an epileptio who is
scarcely truly insane; while actually insane pa
tients appear to have lost the power of weeping;
it is only returning reason whioh can once more’
unloose the fountains of their tears. Even when
a iunatic is telling one in fervid language how
she has been deprived of her children, or the
outrages that have been perpetrated on herself
her eye is never even moist.
°f yeHow fever at McComb, Miss, on
in il"!’ of Oct. 1878, Mrs. G. H. Boyd, known
Honie* readeiS of tbe SuNNT South as Sylvia
Mrs. Boyd was a devoted wife and sister, and
aa earnest worker in the Episcopal Church of
this place. She is deeply mourned by a large
circle of friends, for she was beloved by all who
came within the radius of her bright smile, and
her death has left a void in our hearts.
Just eighteen days previous to her death, her
husband fell a victim to the dreaded fever which
18 f d 0W !L° nT j rtlng our idolizfld South into a vale
t °, de l h a , nd “owning. With Christian forti
tude she bore her affliction; and her bleeding
broken heart was endeavoring to say: ‘Father
thy will, not mine, be done,’ when she was called
to join her husband on ‘the other shore.’
As in an agony of tears we bent over her life
less form, we were comforted by the knowledge
that it was only soulless clay whioh was so soon
Mr LOVE AND L
to mingle with the dust, 'and that her pure
spirit had winged its flight to realms of eternal
maud* to faUhfully tad" she'obeyed 'the^c!^
Beside the silver winding Wve
We strayed one eve, my love -ind T
We rested on one sunny spot-
?Mv U rov^ e blu ,? f °r-get-me-not.
. V ove * said he. ‘this flnwnr or.
bit oi quiet and keen ‘taking off’ that we have
read in a long time. She hews down his soph
istry with the keen blade of truth barbed with
sarcasm, none the less affective, because she
chances to be a country woman, of the man she
so calmly uses up. Here is her letter:
Washington, D. C,
Mr. Charles Reade,
or a KC a» 1Xt
UI faith and love and constancy,”
Beside the silver winding Wve‘
I strayed alone; and with a r*-«-
1 rested on the same sweet spot ’
And kissed my poor n/-»f
™° r , h . < :. lla ' i , S!liled across the sea.
D«wicu across tne sen
a« J?_ a y e V le flower to me
As pledge of mutual constancy-
Beside the silver winding Wye
We 11 walk no more, my love and I
This sprig of dead for-got-me-not
me of that sweet spot
a , t . 1 , ermo , re l,lls fl°wer shall be
A pledge of love and constancy.
“So live that when the summons comes to ioin
To fho UI f lerSb L e carava ' 1 th **‘ moves J
lo the pale ranks of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death. k
1 hou go not like the quarry-slave at night
B^n 8 unfi?,eH..l U ^°. u L ha !’ 8U , 8tai '' ed and soothed
AbmHR The draperyof 1his couch
About him and lies down to pleasant dreams.*
VT „ „ Belmont.
.McComb, Miss. Oct 26th, 1878.
An ingenidus locksmith in this city has iu
Boys — Judging by the press reports,
‘ h 9m b ? Js . of tbls f ' ee country were on theram-
page last week. One boy of ten tried to wreck
a train through revenge, another shot a little
girl for annoying himr half a dozen committed
nntfi la v, leS L°A 6 fiulcided * one choked his mother
until she had a spasm, while Jesse Pomeroy
the boy fiend is reported to have flayed alive
a poor little white kitten that was sent him by a
compassionate lady as a pet. Of the girls, we
ad t0 , 8 . a 7’ tbe ar gns-eyed Press gentlemen
nnl i7 ery *L l ! le that * 8 bad t0 sa y* and we find
one Rem that records a bit of heroism, on the
fathifiw ht . tle T «xas girl, t en years old. Her
M ® 1 ! d * ca Boon * bung himself to a tree,
nd the child rescued him by climbing the tree
and cutting the rope. .
vented a new front door look, whioh, by a clock
work arrangement, becomes deaf tc the en
treaties of a latch-key after 12 o’clock at night.
Whenever you pass a house at 1 a. m. and see a Parana awennanoe is expected,
man sleeping on the fence, yon may know that nh»™hL . ‘ distance and those of other
hi. wife ha. purchased onoon toeffly ‘I toeCel^bition y invited to b ® pr080nt at
at Madison, Ga.—
H^n^ ath ° dl,4t Sabbath School in Madison has
its anniversary oelebration on Thursday 7th inst
i an nsually interesting ocoasion.
Choice selections of sacred music, songs, an ap-
?^^f B t % addr ti 8 ,and ori « inaI recitations are
tatom«nf d *“ th ® 1 P ro 8 ramm ® of the enter-
A very large attendance is expected.
Human Vampires.-Once I had a trav
eler from South America to describe to me his
sensations after having suffered from a visitation
of the vampire. He had gone to sleep in his
swinging hammock, one breezeless, sultry night •
on waking next morning, he found a peculiar
anguor in all his limbs; even breathing seemed
a tiresome operation. An old native woman brought
him his coffee, and looking at him declared he
was exhausted from having his veins tapped by
the blood-sucking bat of (he country.
Shuddering, I thanked Providence that there
were no such creatures here, and yet I am not
sure that the moral vampire is not worse than the
physical one. The moral vampire is human, though
without humanity. When he ^.'possess a heart,
he is minus brains, and vice versa. He fasten,
upon you and exhausts you at one of his visits
either by drenching you with talk
In one weak, washy, everlasting flood •
or by forcing you to talk for his entertainment
sitting and looking at you, in a cor placent, often
a condescending silence that acts like an irritating
plaster to your patience. You talk per force. Your
instinct of courtesy, as well as your nervousness
forbids you sitting with folded hands and a cool
stare as your visitor does. You talk and talk
ransack your brain for some spark of Prsmethean
fire wherewith to animate the clay before you
The effort leaves you exhausted. You have con-
tributed to your vampire’s enjoyment, possibly,
but it has drained you of vital force, taken all the
electrical crispness out of your composition, and
left you limp as a paper collar in dog days.
There is a subtler kind of vampire that drains
Oct., 27, 1878.
Dear Sir: I have just been reading your renlv
to Dr. Burnett’s letter, and I see from u 7
how a little misunderstanding has arisen I dH
not see Dr. Burnett’s letter bffore It was“ent Lt
T can scarcely tmnk he meant to ask from what
you seem to fancy. I am a young woman and an
English woman, but I am not young enough to ex
pect anything from my compatriots whiclf the law
does not demand for me. - ne law
scendingly printed in English witiTThe'™ 8 Conde '
ment on the front page that it wasd^ with™*™®'
cial permission of the authorities, ’ and I wa «
formed of that fact by a letter from Messrs. Warne
& Co nobly accompanied by a gift of a yellow-
backed copy of the book which 1 shall naturally
EE.? sacredly and tenderl r a « a delicate
tribute from a generous publisher to a grateful
author—a publisher who even went to the godlike
ength of saying that he should be glad to give lo
he world any other books I might write-upon
the same terms. A gentlemen of the name of
Hatton, in conjunction with another of the name
Matthison, wrote a play founded on the story
which made of Joan Lowrie a big-boned, maudlin
young woman with a semimental passion for a
pretentious prig; of Anice Barholm, an entrancing
creature with all the engaging jauntiness and
abandon of a barmaid, and also improved the other
characters m the most encouraging manner Thesa
gentlemen of course paid me nothing, but' 1 was
not young enough then to expect sueh romantic
lavishness; and besides, I felt it was onlyfair that
they should have all they could make as a re
compense for writing such a play. If I had writ
ten such a, play I should have expected to be re-
munerated handsomely, When I read it I was so
moved by—shaii we deal in glittering generalises
and call them conflicting emotions?—that I wrote
a long letter to you, giving y OU all the pension I
rJt- nay ’ e \ en begging y° u a « aa act of gen™ \
osi y to rescue the people I am fond of from drl-
mu m mfamvr i__ , liras
matic infamy, and make a good play which t
n k ”-r co # u,d . do if you took it inhand diJ
not ask you to give me any of the proceeds of i*
L d . ld "°i:‘ hln , k 0f that at a »i what I cared for
was something else. After I had written the ,if
ter, I thought that perhaps as the thin? Knd l
spoiled already, you would not care foH^a^dht
not send it. 1 wish I had now k k * and dld
l“j ?hth n ret ‘ ined an illu8i °uor s e o aU UntH e now I
I fancied that a man’s Right was enough for Sim
notwithstanding other people’s Wrong R f fh®
point is that I wish you to feel Quito af Ut tbe
score of my asking you to shar« UUC f ? Me on tlla
proceeds of youfplay wifh ™ 7 ^ 1 **. ° f the
would only be a fine accentuatinn e * 8 * H
mand what other people don't get.° f '® 78elf t0 de ‘
QftTQ DO Plcrhfa in Un — j
rights in America and it Uhl ere; but
to infringe on these thm ®™ 8 ® youhave ^ed
, T ,, , 8 «»ese that I nrote«i t !
Ia8S here, copyrighted it h„ pr ° te8t ' * wrote
iffhts h... g l . 11 , ere > reserved <.t»<»
«»> l..’ .TiTuS
States)- wrote my plav hero ir . — —•*»»
to produce another verson I 'shill Lr “® attemp<a
—as I can. You W. k defend myself
of Tiurn,, fed. it, own bntalr-I—• YouWS
I ■». I k." bu, did ”