Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. by Various

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

* * * * *

VOLUME XII.

M DCCC LXIII.

* * * * *

[Transcriber's note: Converted page numbers to issue numbers.]

CONTENTS. ISSUE.

American, An,
in the House of Lords _Francis Wayland, Jr._ 70.

Brothers, The _Louisa M. Alcott_ 73.
Burke, Edmund,
Interesting Manuscripts of _Charles Sumner_ 71.

Carlyle, Thomas, A Letter to _D.A. Wasson_ 72.
Civic Banquets _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 70.
Claims, The,
to Service or Labor _Robert Dale Owen_ 69.
Continents, The Growth of _Prof. Louis Agassiz_ 69.
Cuba, The Conquest of _C.C. Hazewell_ 72.

Deacon's Holocaust, The _J.P. Quincy_ 72.
Debby's Debut _Louisa M. Alcott_ 70.
Delacroix, Eugene _W.J. Stillman_ 74.
De Quincy, Thomas _Henry M. Alden_ 71.
Doings of the Sunbeam _O.W. Holmes_ 69.

English Naval Power and
English Colonies _C. Reynolds_ 69.

Fleur-de-Lis, The,
at Port Royal _F. Parkman_ 69.
Fleur-de-Lis, The, in Florida _F. Parkman_ 70.
Freedmen, The, at Port Royal _Edward L. Pierce_ 71.
French Struggle for Naval and
Colonial Power, The _G. Reynolds_ 73.

Gala-Days _Gail Hamilton_ 69.
Geological Middle Age, The _Prof. Louis Agassiz_ 70.
Glacier, Internal Structure
and Progression of the _Prof. Louis Agassiz_ 74.
Glaciers, The Formation of _Prof. Louis Agassiz_ 73.
Great Air-Engine, The _Author of "Margret Howth"_ 74.
Great Instrument, The _O.W. Holmes_ 73.

Harvard's Heroes _Walter Mitchell_ 71.

Lamb's, Charles,
Uncollected Writings _J.E. Babson_ 72.
Legend, The,
of Monte del Diablo _F.B. Harte_ 72.
Letter to a Peace Democrat _Francis Wayland, Jr_ 74.
Life without Principle _H.D. Thoreau_ 72.
Literary Life in Paris 74.
Longfellow _George W. Curtis_ 74.

Man without a Country, The _Edward E. Hale_ 74.
Mather Safe, The _J.P. Quincy_ 71.
Monograph from
an Old Note-Book _Charles Sumner_ 73.
Mr. Martin's Disappointments 71.
Mrs. Lewis _Mrs. C.A. Hopkinson_ 71, 72, 73.
Musician, The _Miss L. Hale_ 69.

Night and Moonlight _H.D. Thoreau_ 73.

Our Domestic Relations _Charles Sumner_ 72.
Our General 69.
Outside Glimpses of
English Poverty _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 69.

Paul Blecker _Author of "Margret Howth"_ 69.
Political Problems and
Conditions of Peace _Woodbury Davis_ 70.
Puritan Minister, The _T.W. Higginson_ 71.

Sam Adams Regiments, The,
in the Town of Boston _Richard Frothingham_ 73.
Schumann, Robert and Clara _M.D. Conway_ 71.
Side-Glances at
Harvard Class-Day _Gail Hamilton_ 70.
Something about Bridges _H.T. Tuckerman_ 74.
Spaniard, The,
and the Heretic _F. Parkman_ 73.
Sympathetic Lying 74.

Tertiary Age, The, and
its Characteristic Animals _Prof. Louis Agassiz_ 71.

United States Armory, The _G.B. Prescott_ 72.

Wet-Weather Work _Donald G. Mitchell_ 70, 73.
Who is Roebuck? _W.J. Austin_ 71.
Winthrop's, Theodore, Writings _Charles Nordhoff_ 70.

POETRY.

Andante _A. West_ 73.

Barbara Frietchie _John G. Whittier_ 72.
Birds of Killingworth, The _H.W. Longfellow_ 74.
By the River _J.T. Trowbridge_ 69.

Equinoctial _Mrs. A.D.T. Whitney_ 72.

Her Epitaph _T.W. Parsons_ 69.
Hilary _Lucy Larcom_ 70.

In an Attic _Mrs. Paul Akers_ 74.

King's Wine, The _T.B. Aldrich_ 73.

Love's Challenge _T.W. Parsons_ 70.
Loyal Woman's No, A 74.
Lyrics of the Street _Mrs. Julia Ward Howe_ 71.

My Palace _A. West_ 72.

New Sangreal, The _Rose Terry_ 71.
No and Yes _Theodore Tilton_ 71.

Pewee, The _J.T. Trowbridge_ 72.

Seaward _Mrs. A.D.T. Whitney_ 70.
Something Left Undone _H.W. Longfellow_ 73.

Thoreau's Flute _Louisa M. Alcott_ 71.
Two Scenes from
the Life of Blondel _James Russell Lowell_ 73.

Voluntaries _R.W. Emerson_ 72.

Weariness _H.W. Longfellow_ 73.
White-Throated Sparrow, The _A. West_ 70.
Wraith of Odin, The _H.W. Longfellow_ 69.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Cullum's Systems of Military Bridges 74.

Dicey's Six Months in the Federal States 71.

Fuller's Good Thoughts in Bad Times 74.

Hospital Transports 71.
Howitt's History of the Supernatural 71.

Kemble's, Frances Anne, Journal of a Residence on
a Georgian Plantation 70.
Kirk's History of Charles the Bold 74.

Livermore's Historical Research 70.
Long's Translation of the Thoughts of
the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus 72.
Lyell's Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man 69.

Mitchell's Astronomy of the Bible 69.

Phillips's, Wendell, Speeches, Lectures, and Letters 74.

Richter's Levana 72.

Spurgeon's Sermons 69.
Substance and Shadow 69.

Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature 73.

Washburn on the American Law of Easements and Servitudes 69.

RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS 69, 70, 73, 74.

* * * * *

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

* * * * *

VOL. XII.--JULY, 1863.--NO. LXIX.

* * * * *

DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM.

Few of those who seek a photographer's establishment to have their
portraits taken know at all into what a vast branch of commerce this
business of sun-picturing has grown. We took occasion lately to visit one
of the principal establishments in the country, that of Messrs. E. & H.T.
Anthony, in Broadway, New York. We had made the acquaintance of these
gentlemen through the remarkable instantaneous stereoscopic views
published by them, and of which we spoke in a former article in terms
which some might think extravagant. Our unsolicited commendation of these
marvellous pictures insured us a more than polite reception. Every detail
of the branches of the photographic business to which they are more
especially devoted was freely shown us, and "No Admittance" over the doors
of their inmost sanctuaries came to mean for us, "Walk in; you are
heartily welcome."

We should be glad to tell our readers of all that we saw in the two
establishments of theirs which we visited, but this would take the whole
space which we must distribute among several subdivisions of a subject
that offers many points of interest. We must confine ourselves to a few
glimpses and sketches.

* * * * *

The guests of the neighboring hotels, as they dally with their morning's
omelet, little imagine what varied uses come out of the shells which
furnished them their anticipatory repast of disappointed chickens. If they
had visited Mr. Anthony's upper rooms, they would have seen a row of young
women before certain broad, shallow pans filled with the glairy albumen
which once enveloped those potential fowls.

The one next us takes a large sheet of photographic paper, (a paper made
in Europe for this special purpose, very thin, smooth, and compact,) and
floats it evenly on the surface of the albumen. Presently she lifts it
very carefully by the turned-up corners and hangs it _bias_, as a
seamstress might say, that is, cornerwise, on a string, to dry. This
"albumenized" paper is sold most extensively to photographers, who find it
cheaper to buy than to prepare it. It keeps for a long time uninjured, and
is "sensitized" when wanted, as we shall see by-and-by.

The amount of photographic paper which is annually imported from France
and Germany has been estimated at fifteen thousand reams. Ten thousand
native partlets--

"_Sic vos non vobis nidificatis, aves_"--

cackle over the promise of their inchoate offspring, doomed to perish
unfeathered, before fate has decided whether they shall cluck or crow, for
the sole use of the minions of the sun and the feeders of the
caravanseras.

In another portion of the same establishment are great collections of the
chemical substances used in photography. To give an idea of the scale on
which these are required, we may state that the estimate of the annual
consumption of the precious metals for photographic purposes, in this
country, is set down at ten tons for silver and half a ton for gold. Vast
quantities of the hyposulphite of soda, which, we shall see, plays an
important part in the process of preparing the negative plate and
finishing the positive print, are also demanded.

In another building, provided with steam power, which performs much of the
labor, is carried on the great work of manufacturing photographic albums,
cases for portraits, parts of cameras, and of printing pictures from
negatives. Many of these branches of work are very interesting. The
luxurious album, embossed, clasped, gilded, resplendent as a tropical
butterfly, goes through as many transformations as a "purple emperor". It
begins a pasteboard larva, is swathed and pressed and glued into the
condition of a chrysalis, and at last alights on the centre table gorgeous
in gold and velvet, the perfect _imago_. The cases for portraits are made
in lengths, and cut up, somewhat as they say ships are built in Maine, a
mile at a time, to be afterwards sawed across so as to become sloops,
schooners, or such other sized craft as may happen to be wanted.

Each single process in the manufacture of elaborate products of skill
often times seems and is very simple. The workmen in large establishments,
where labor is greatly subdivided, become wonderfully adroit in doing a
fraction of something. They always remind us of the Chinese or the old
Egyptians. A young person who mounts photographs on cards all day long
confessed to having never, or almost never, seen a negative developed,
though standing at the time within a few feet of the dark closet where the
process was going on all day long. One forlorn individual will perhaps
pass his days in the single work of cleaning the glass plates for
negatives. Almost at his elbow is a toning bath, but he would think it a
good joke, if you asked him whether a picture had lain long enough in the
solution of gold or hyposulphite.

We always take a glance at the literature which is certain to adorn the
walls in the neighborhood of each operative's bench or place for work. Our
friends in the manufactory we are speaking of were not wanting in this
respect. One of the girls had pasted on the wall before her,

"_Kind words can never die._"

It would not have been easy to give her a harsh one after reading her
chosen maxim. "The Moment of Parting" was twice noticed. "The Haunted
Spring", "Dearest May", "The _Bony_ Boat", "Yankee Girls", "Yankee Ship
and Yankee Crew", "My Country, 'tis of thee", and--was there ever anybody
that ever broke up prose into lengths who would not look to see if there
were not a copy of some performance of his own on the wall he was
examining, if he were exploring the inner chamber of a freshly opened
pyramid?

We left the great manufacturing establishment of the Messrs. Anthony, more
than ever impressed with the vast accession of happiness which has come to
mankind through this art, which has spread itself as widely as
civilization. The photographer can procure every article needed for his
work at moderate cost and in quantities suited to his wants. His prices
have consequently come down to such a point that pauperism itself need
hardly shrink from the outlay required for a family portrait-gallery. The
"tin-types," as the small miniatures are called,--stanno-types would be
the proper name,--are furnished at the rate of _two cents_ each! A
portrait such as Isabey could not paint for a Marshal of France,--a
likeness such as Malbone could not make of a President's Lady, to be had
for two coppers,--a dozen _chefs d'oeuvre_ for a quarter of a dollar!

* * * * *

We had been for a long time meditating a devotion of a part of what is
left of our more or less youthful energies to acquiring practical
knowledge of the photographic art. The auspicious moment came at last, and
we entered ourselves as the temporary apprentice of Mr. J.W. Black of this
city, well known as a most skilful photographer and a friendly assistant
of beginners in the art.

We consider ourselves at this present time competent to set up a
photographic ambulance or to hang out a sign in any modest country town.
We should, no doubt, over-time and under-tone, and otherwise wrong the
countenances of some of our sitters; but we should get the knack in a week
or two, and if Baron Wenzel owned to having spoiled a hat-full of eyes
before he had fairly learned how to operate for cataract, we need not
think too much of libelling a few village physiognomies before considering
ourselves fit to take the minister and his deacons. After years of
practice there is always something to learn, but every one is surprised to
find how little time is required for the acquisition of skill enough to
make a passable negative and print a tolerable picture. We could not help
learning, with the aid that was afforded us by Mr. Black and his
assistants, who were all so very courteous and pleasant, that, as a token
of gratitude, we offered to take photographs of any of them who would sit
to us for that purpose. Every stage of the process, from preparing a plate
to mounting a finished sun-print, we have taught our hands to perform, and
can therefore speak with a certain authority to those who wish to learn
the way of working with the sunbeam.

Notwithstanding the fact that the process of making a photographic picture
is detailed in a great many books,--nay, although we have given a brief
account of the principal stages of it in one of our former articles, we
are going to take the reader into the sanctuary of the art with us, and
ask him to assist, in the French sense of the word, while we make a
photograph,--say, rather, while the mysterious forces which we place in
condition to act work that miracle for us.

We are in a room lighted through a roof of ground glass, its walls covered
with blue paper to avoid reflection. A camera mounted on an adjustable
stand is before us. We will fasten this picture, which we are going to
copy, against the wall. Now we will place the camera opposite to it, and
bring it into focus so as to give a clear image on the square of ground
glass in the interior of the instrument. If the image is too large, we
push the camera back; if too small, push it up towards the picture and
focus again. The image is wrong side up, as we see; but if we take the
trouble to reverse the picture we are copying, it will appear in its
proper position in the camera. Having got an image of the right size, and
perfectly sharp, we will prepare a sensitive plate, which shall be placed
exactly where the ground glass now is, so that this same image shall be
printed on it.

For this purpose we must quit the warm precincts of the cheerful day, and
go into the narrow den where the deeds of darkness are done. Its
dimensions are of the smallest, and its aspect of the rudest. A feeble
yellow flame from a gas-light is all that illuminates it. All round us are
troughs and bottles and water-pipes, and ill-conditioned utensils of
various kinds. Everything is blackened with nitrate of silver; every form
of spot, of streak, of splash, of spatter, of stain, is to be seen upon
the floor, the walls, the shelves, the vessels. Leave all linen behind
you, ye who enter here, or at least protect it at every exposed point.
Cover your hands in gauntlets of India-rubber, if you would not utter Lady
Macbeth's soliloque over them when they come to the light of day. Defend
the nether garments with overalls, such as plain artisans are wont to
wear. Button the ancient coat over the candid shirt-front, and hold up the
retracted wristbands by elastic bands around the shirt-sleeve above the
elbow. Conscience and nitrate of silver are telltales that never forget
any tampering with them, and the broader the light the darker their
record. Now to our work.

Here is a square of crown glass three-fourths as large as a page of the
"Atlantic Monthly," if you happen to know that periodical. Let us brush it
carefully, that its surface may be free from dust. Now we take hold of it
by the upper left-hand corner and pour some of this thin syrup-like fluid
upon it, inclining the plate gently from side to side, so that it may
spread evenly over the surface, and let the superfluous fluid drain back
from the right hand upper corner into the bottle. We keep the plate
rocking from side to side, so as to prevent the fluid running in lines, as
it has a tendency to do. The neglect of this precaution is evident in some
otherwise excellent photographs; we notice it, for instance, in Frith's
Abou Simbel, No. 1, the magnificent rock-temple facade. In less than a
minute the syrupy fluid has dried, and appears like a film of transparent
varnish on the glass plate. We now place it on a flat double hook of gutta
percha and lower it gently into the nitrate-of-silver bath. As it must
remain there three or four minutes, we will pass away the time in
explaining what has been already done.

The syrupy fluid was _iodized collodion_. This is made by dissolving
gun-cotton in ether with alcohol, and adding some iodide of ammonium. When
a thin layer of this fluid is poured on the glass plate, the ether and
alcohol evaporate very speedily, and leave a closely adherent film of
organic matter derived from the cotton, and containing the iodide of
ammonium. We have plunged this into the bath, which contains chiefly
nitrate of silver, but also some iodide of silver,--knowing that a
decomposition will take place, in consequence of which the iodide of
ammonium will become changed to the iodide of silver, which will now fill
the pores of the collodion film. The iodide of silver is eminently
sensitive to light. The use of the collodion is to furnish a delicate,
homogeneous, adhesive, colorless layer in which the iodide may be
deposited. Its organic nature may favor the action of light upon the
iodide of silver.

While we have been talking and waiting, the process just described has
been going on, and we are now ready to take the glass plate out of the
nitrate-of-silver bath. It is wholly changed in aspect. The film has
become in appearance like a boiled white of egg, so that the glass
produces rather the effect of porcelain, as we look at it. Open no door
now! Let in no glimpse of day, or the charm is broken in an instant! No
Sultana was ever veiled from the light of heaven as this milky tablet we
hold must be. But we must carry it to the camera which stands waiting for
it in the blaze of high noon. To do this we first carefully place it in
this narrow case, called a _shield_, where it lies safe in utter darkness.
We now carry it to the camera, and, having removed the ground glass on
which the camera-picture had been brought to an exact focus, we drop the
shield containing the sensitive plate into the groove the glass occupied.
Then we pull out a slide, as the blanket is taken from a horse before he
starts. There is nothing now but to remove the brass cap from the lens.
That is giving the word Go! It is a tremulous moment for the beginner.

As we lift the brass cap, we begin to count seconds,--by a watch, if we
are naturally unrhythmical,--by the pulsations in our souls, if we have an
intellectual pendulum and escapement. Most persons can keep tolerably even
time with a second-hand while it is traversing its circle. The light is
pretty good at this time, and we count only as far as thirty, when we
cover the lens again with the cap. Then we replace the slide in the
shield, draw this out of the camera, and carry it back into the shadowy
realm where Cocytus flows in black nitrate of silver and Acheron stagnates
in the pool of hyposulphite, and invisible ghosts, trooping down from the
world of day, cross a Styx of dissolved sulphate of iron, and appear
before the Rhadamanthus of that lurid Hades.

Such a ghost we hold imprisoned in the shield we have just brought from
the camera. We open it and find our milky-surfaced glass plate looking
exactly as it did when we placed it in the shield. No eye, no microscope,
can detect a trace of change in the white film that is spread over it. And
yet there is a potential image in it,--a latent soul, which will presently
appear before its judge. This is the Stygian stream,--this solution of
proto-sulphate of iron, with which we will presently flood the white
surface.

We pour on the solution. There is no change at first; the fluid flows over
the whole surface as harmless and as useless as if it were water. What if
there were no picture there? Stop! what is that change of color beginning
at this edge, and spreading as a blush spreads over a girl's cheek? It is
a border, like that round the picture, and then dawns the outline of a
head, and now the eyes come out from the blank as stars from the empty
sky, and the lineaments define themselves, plainly enough, yet in a
strange aspect,--for where there was light in the picture we have shadow,
and where there was shadow we have light. But while we look it seems to
fade again, as if it would disappear. Have no fear of that; it is only
deepening its shadows. Now we place it under the running water which we
have always at hand. We hold it up before the dull-red gas-light, and then
we see that every line of the original and the artist's name are
reproduced as sharply as if the fairies had engraved them for us. The
picture is perfect of its kind, only it seems to want a little more force.
That we can easily get by the simple process called "intensifying" or
"redeveloping." We mix a solution of nitrate of silver and of pyro-gallic
acid in about equal quantities, and pour it upon the pictured film and
back again into the vessel, repeating this with the same portion of fluid
several times. Presently the fluid grows brownish, and at the same time
the whole picture gains the depth of shadow in its darker parts which we
desire. Again we place it under the running water. When it is well washed,
we plunge it into this bath of hyposulphite of soda, which removes all the
iodide of silver, leaving only the dark metal impregnating the film. After
it has remained there a few minutes, we take it out and wash it again as
before under the running stream of water. Then we dry it, and when it is
dry, pour varnish over it, dry that, and it is done. This is a
_negative_,--not a true picture, but a reversed picture, which puts
darkness for light and light for darkness. From this we can take true
pictures, or _positives_.

Let us now proceed to take one of these pictures. In a small room, lighted
by a few rays which filter through a yellow curtain, a youth has been
employed all the morning in developing the sensitive conscience of certain
sheets of paper, which came to him from the manufacturer already glazed by
having been floated upon the white of eggs and carefully dried, as
previously described. This "albumenized" paper the youth lays gently and
skilfully upon the surface of a solution of nitrate of silver. When it has
floated there a few minutes, he lifts it, lets it drain, and hangs it by
one corner to dry. This "sensitized" paper is served fresh every morning,
as it loses its delicacy by keeping.

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