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| Table of Contents | |
| Section | Page |
| Start of eBook | 1 |
| FOOTNOTES | 1 |
| FOLLOWING THE TIBER. | 1 |
| SIX MONTHS AMONG CANNIBALS. | 11 |
| AN AMERICAN GIRL AND HER LOVERS. | 19 |
| A JAPANESE MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE. | 40 |
| THE LOST BABY. | 50 |
| THREE FEATHERS. | 50 |
| CHAPTER XXIII. | 50 |
| CHAPTER XXIV. | 59 |
| CHAPTER XXV. | 63 |
| FEVER. | 68 |
| SONNET. | 78 |
| SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF HIRAM POWERS. | 78 |
| CORN. | 93 |
| A SINGULAR FAMILY. | 106 |
| 117 | |
| CHAPTER I. | 118 |
| CHAPTER II. | 126 |
| THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATES OF PARIS. | 134 |
| OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. | 141 |
| THE “GIORNO DEI MORTI.” | 145 |
| MR. MILL’S MOTHER. | 150 |
| NOTES. | 151 |
| LITERATURE OF THE DAY. | 153 |
| FOOTNOTES. | 158 |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Temple of the Clitumnus.
The falls of terni.
Orvieto.
CIVITA Bagnorea.
The Tiber, from Orte.
Borghetto.
St. Peter’s and
the Vatican, from the falls
of the Tiber.
The castle of st.
Angelo.
Island of the Tiber.
Cupola of st. Peter’s.
The PINCIO, from the
villa Borghese.
Soracte.
Veii, from the Campagna.
Tivoli.
Castle at ostia.
Head of the trajan
canal, near ostia.
Concluding paper.
[Illustration: Temple of the Clitumnus.]
One branch of the little river which encompasses Assisi is the Clitumnus, the delight of philosophers and poets in the Augustan age. Near its source stands a beautiful little temple to the divinity of the stream. Although the ancients resorted hither for the loveliness of the spot, they did not bathe in the springs, a gentle superstition holding it sacrilege for the human body to lave itself in a stream near its source.
[Illustration: The falls of terni.]
They came by the Via Flaminia, the old high-road from Rome to Florence, which crosses the modern railroad hard by. Following its course, which takes a more direct line than the devious Tiber, past Spoleto on its woody castellated height, the traveler reaches Terni on the tumultuous Nar, the wildest and most rebellious of all the tributaries. It was to save the surrounding country from its outbreaks that the channel was made by the Romans B.C. 271, the first of several experiments which resulted in these cascades, which have been more sung and oftener painted than any other in the world. The beauty of Terni is so hackneyed that enthusiasm over it becomes cockney, yet the beauty of hackneyed things is as eternal as the verity of truisms, and no more loses its charm than the other its point. But one must not talk about it. The foaming torrent rages along between its rocky walls until spanned by the bridge of Augustus at Narni, a magnificent viaduct sixty feet high, thrown from ridge to ridge across the ravine for the passage of the Flaminian Way—a wreck now, for two of the arches have fallen, but through the last there is a glimpse of the rugged hillsides with their thick forests and the turbulent waters rushing through the chasm. Higher still is Narni, looking over her embattled walls. It is one of the most striking positions on the way from Florence to Rome, and the next half hour, through savage gorges and black tunnels, ever beside the tormented waters of the Nar until they meet the Tiber, swollen by the tributes of the Paglia and Chiana, is singularly fine.
[Illustration: Orvieto.]
Where the Paglia and Chiana flow together, at the issue of the charming Val di Chiana, stands Orvieto on its steep and sudden rock, crowned with one of the triumphs of Italian Gothic, the glorious cathedral. After toiling up the ladder-like paths which lead from the plain to the summit of the bluff, and passing through the grand mediaeval gateway along the slanting streets, where even the peasants dismount and walk beside their donkeys, seeing nothing within the whole small compass of the walls save what speaks of the narrowest and humblest life in the most remote of hill-fastnesses, a few deserted and dilapidated palaces alone telling of a period of importance long past, nothing can describe the effect of coming out of this indigence and insignificance upon the silent, solitary piazza where the incomparable cathedral rears its front, covered from base to pinnacle with the richest sculpture and most brilliant mosaic. The volcanic mass on which the town is built is over seven hundred feet high, and nearly half as much in circumference: it would be a fitting pedestal for this gorgeous duomo if it stood there alone. But it is almost wedged in among the crooked streets, a few paces of grass-grown stones allowing less than space enough to embrace the whole result of proportion and color: one cannot go far enough off to escape details. An account of those details would require a volume, and one has already been written which leaves no more to be said;[1] yet fain would we take the reader with us into that noble nave, where the “glorious company of the apostles” stands colossal in marble beside the pillars whose sculptured capitals are like leafy branches blown by the wind; where the light comes rich and mellow through stained glass and semilucent alabaster, like Indian-summer sunshine in autumn woods; where Fra Angelico’s and Benozzo Gozzoli’s angelic host smile upon us with ineffable mildness from above the struggle and strife of Luca Signorelli’s “Last Judgment,” the great forerunner of Michael Angelo’s. It added greatly to the impressiveness that there was never a single human being in the cathedral: except one afternoon at vespers we had it all to ourselves. There is little else to see in the place, although it is highly picturesque and the inhabitants wear a more complete costume than any other I saw in Italy—the women, bright bodices, striped skirts and red stockings; the men, jaunty jackets and breeches, peaked hats and splendid sashes.
The discomfort of Perugia was luxury to what we found at Orvieto, and it was no longer May but December, when it is nearly as cold north of Rome as with us; and Rome was drawing us with her mighty magnet. So, one wintry morning, soon after daybreak, we set out in a close carriage with four horses, wrapped as if we were going in a sleigh, with a scaldino (or little brazier) under our feet, for the nearest railway station on our route, a nine hours’ drive.
[Illustration: CIVITA Bagnorea.]
We stopped to lunch at Viterbo, a town more closely connected with the history of the Papacy than any except Rome itself, and full of legends and romantic associations: it is dirty and dilapidated, and has great need of all its memories. Being but eight miles from Montefiascone, we called for a bottle of the fatal Est, which we had tasted once at Augsburg, where the host of the Three Moors has it in his cellar, in honor perhaps of the departed Fugger family, whose palace has become his hotel: there we had found it delicious—a wine as sweet as cordial, with a soul of fire and a penetrating but delicate flavor of its own—how different from the thin, sour stuff they brought us in the long-necked, straw-covered flask, nothing to attest its relationship to the generous juice at the Three Moors except the singular, unique flavor! After this little disappointment we left Viterbo, and drove on through the same sort of scenery, which seemed to grow more and more beautiful in the rosy light of the sinking sun. But it is hard to tell, for nothing makes a journey so beautiful as to know that Rome is the goal. As the last rays were flushing the hill-tops we came in sight of Orte, with its irregular lines of building clinging to the sides of its precipitous cliff in such eyrie-wise that it is difficult to say what is house and what is rock, and whether the arched passages with which it is pierced are masonry or natural grottoes; and there was the Tiber—already the yellow Tiber—winding through the valley as far as eye could follow. Here we waited for the train, which was ten minutes late, and tried to make up for lost time by leaving our luggage, all duly marked and ready, standing on the track. We soon began to greet familiar sites as we flitted by: the last we made out plainly was Borghetto, a handful of houses, with a ruined castle keeping watch on a hill hard by: then twilight gathered, and we strained our eyes in
[Illustration: The Tiber, from Orte.]
[Illustration: Borghetto.]
[Illustration: St. Peter’s and the Vatican, from the falls of the Tiber.]
The Tiber, winding as it does like a great artery through the heart of Rome, is seldom long either out of sight or mind. One constantly comes upon it in the most unexpected manner, for there is no river front to the city. There is a wide open space on the Ripetta—a street which runs from the Piazza del Popolo, at the head of the foreign quarter, to remoter parts—where a broad flight of marble steps descends to the level of the flood, and a ferry crosses to the opposite bank: looking over at the trees and fields, it is like the open country, yet beyond are St. Peter’s and the Vatican, and the whole of what is known as the Leonine City. But one cannot follow the Tiber through the streets of Rome as one may the Seine in Paris: in the thickly-built quarters the houses back upon the stream and its yellow waves wash their foundations, working wrath and woe from time to time, as those who were there in the winter of 1870 will recollect. Sometimes it is lost to sight for half a mile together, unless one catches a glimpse of it through the carriage-way of a palace. From the wharf of the Ripetta it disappears until you come upon it again at the bridge of St. Angelo, the AElian bridge of ancient Rome, which is the most direct passage from the fashionable and foreign quarter to the Trastevere. It must be confessed that the idle sense of mere pleasure generally supersedes recollection and association after one’s first astonishment to find one’s self among the historic places subsides; yet how often, as our horses’ hoofs rang on the slippery stones, my thoughts went suddenly back to the scene when Saint Gregory passed over, chanting litanies, at the head of the whole populace, who formed one vast penitential procession, and saw the avenging angel alight on the mausoleum of Adrian and sheath his sword in sign that the plague was stayed; or to that terrible day when the ferocious mercenaries of the Constable de Bourbon and the wretched inhabitants given over to sack and slaughter swarmed across together, butchering and butchered, while the troops in the castle hurled down what was left of its classic statues upon the heads of friend and foe, and the Tiber was turned to blood!
[Illustration: The castle of st. Angelo.]
[Illustration: Island of the Tiber.]
From the bridge of St. Angelo the river is lost again for a long distance, although one can make one’s way to it at various points—where at low water the submerged piers of the Pons Triumphalis are to be seen, where the Ponte Sisto leads to the foot of the Janiculum Hill, and on the opposite bank the orange-groves of the Farnesina palace hang their golden fruit and dusky foliage over the long garden-wall upon the river—until we come to the Ponte Quatro Capi (Bridge of the Four Heads) and the island of the Tiber. This is said to have been formed in the kingly period by the accumulation of a harvest cast into the stream a little way above, which the current could not sweep away: it made a nucleus for alluvial deposit, and the island gradually arose. Several hundred years afterward it was built into the form of a ship, as bridges and wharves are built, with a temple in the midst, and a tall obelisk set up in guise of its mast. In mediaeval days a church replaced the heathen fane, and now it stands between its two bridges, a huddle of houses, terraces and gardens, whence one looks down on the fine mass of the Ponte Rotto (Broken Bridge), whose shattered arches pause in mid-stream, and across to the low arch of the Cloaca Maxima and the exquisite little circular temple of Vesta. From here down, the river is in full view from either side until it passes beyond the walls near the Monte Testaccio—on one side the Ripa Grande (Great Bank or Wharf), a long series of quays, on the other the Marmorata or marble landing, where the ships from the quarries unload. Here, on each side, all sorts of small craft lie moored, not betokening a very extensive commerce from their size and shape, but quaint and oddly rigged, making a very good fore-or back-ground, according as one looks at the picture. The Marmorata is at the foot of the Aventine, the most lonely and unvisited of the Seven Hills. From among the vegetable-gardens and cypress-groves which clothe its long flank rise large, formless piles, whose foundations are as old as the Eternal City, and whose superstructures are the wreck of temples of the kingly and republican periods, and palaces and villas of imperial times, and haughty feudal abodes, only to be distinguished from one another by the antiquary amid their indiscriminate ruin and the tangle of wild-briers and fern, ivy and trailers with which they are overgrown. On the summit no trace of ancient Rome is to be seen. There are no dwellings of men on this deserted ground: a few small and very early Christian churches have replaced the temples which once stood here, to be in their turn neglected and forsaken: they stand forlornly apart, separated by vineyards and high blank walls. On the brow of the hill is the esplanade of a modern fort, and within its quiet precincts are
[Illustration: Cupola of st. Peter’s.]
[Illustration: The PINCIO, from the villa Borghese.]
The prospect from the Priorato surpasses anything in Rome—even the wonderful view from the Janiculum, even the enchanting outlook from the Pincian Hill. But the last was at our very doors: we could go thither in the morning to watch the white mist curl up from the valleys and hang about the mountain-brows, and at noon, when even in January the cool avenues and splashing fountains were grateful, and at sunset, when the city lay before us steeped in splendor. That was the view of our daily walks—the beloved view of which one thinks most often and fondly in remembering Rome.
[Illustration: Soracte.]
But it is in riding that one grows to feel most familiar with the Tiber and all his Roman children, whether it be strolling somewhat sulkily in a line with his banks by the Via Flaminia or the Via Cassia, impatient to get away from their stones and dust to the soft, springing turf; or hailing him from afar as a guide after losing one’s self in the endless undulations of the open country; or cantering over daffodil-sheeted meadows beside the Anio at the foot of the grassy heights on which Antemnae stood; or threading one’s way doubtfully among the ravines which intersect the course of the little Cremera as one goes to Veii. The last is a most beautiful and interesting expedition, for, what with the distance—more than twelve miles—and the difficulty of finding the way, it is quite an enterprise. As one turns his horse’s head away from the river, off the high-road, to the high grassy flats, the whole Campagna seems to lie before one like a vast table-land, with nothing between one’s self and Soracte as he lifts his heavy shoulder from the plain—not half hidden by intervening mountains, as from some points of view, but majestic and isolated, thirty miles away to the north. But here, as in every other part of the Campagna, one cannot go far without finding hillocks and hollows, long steep slopes and sudden little dells, and, stranger still, unsuspected tracts of woodland, for the general effect of the Roman landscape is quite treeless. So there is a few miles’ gallop across the trackless turf, sometimes asking the way of a solitary shepherd, who looms up against the sky like a tower, sometimes following it by faint landmarks, few and far between, of which we have been told, and hard to find in that waste, until we pass a curious little patriarchal abode shaped like a wigwam, where, in the midst of these wide pastures dwells a herdsman surrounded by his family, his cattle, his dogs, his goats and his fowls—the beautiful animals of the Campagna, long-haired, soft-eyed, rich-colored, like the human children of the soil. Then we strike the Cremera, and exploring begins among its rocky gullies, up and down which the spirited, sure-footed horses scramble like chamois. Thick woods of cork-oak clothe their sides, and copses of a deciduous tree which I never saw in its summer dress of green, but which keeps its dead leaves all through the winter,
[Illustration: Veii, from the Campagna.]
[Illustration: Tivoli.]
The scenery differs entirely on different sides of Rome. Here there is not a ruin, not a vestige, except a few low heaps of stone-or brickwork hidden by weeds: on the other, toward Tivoli, much of the beauty is due to the work of man—the stately remnants of ancient aqueduct, temple and tomb; the tall square towers of feudal barons, round which cluster low farm-buildings scarcely less old and solid; the vast, gloomy grottoes of Cerbara, which look like the underground palace of a bygone race, but which are the tufa-quarries of classic times; the ruined baths of Zenobia, where the rushing milky waters of the Aquae Albulae fill the air with sulphurous fumes; and, as a climax, the Villa of Hadrian, less a country-place
[Illustration: Castle at ostia.]
The fairy-tale went on next day, when, after wending our way through the dirty, crooked little streets, we crossed a courtyard and descended a long subterranean stairway to emerge on a magnificent terrace with a heavy marble balustrade, whence flights of steps led down to lower grades, amid statues, urns, vases, fountains, reservoirs, camellias in bloom mingled with laurel and myrtle and laurustinums covered with creamy flowers, cypresses tall as cathedral spires, ilex avenues, and broad straight walks between huge walls of box: the whole space was filled with the song of nightingales, the tinkle of falling water, with whiffs of aromatic shrubs and the breath of hidden roses and violets;—a princely garden, a royal pleasaunce, but in exquisite disorder and neglect; the shrubbery too thick and straggling, the flowers straying beyond their rightful boundaries, the statues stained and moss-grown, the balusters entangled in clinging luxuriance, the fountains dripping through fern and maiden-hair—Nature supreme, as one always sees her in this land of Art. It was the Villa d’Este, famous these three hundred years for its fountains and cypresses. Nor did the wonder cease when we forsook this enchanting spot for the mountain-road which overhangs the great ravine. Opposite, backed by mountains, rose the crags topped by the clustering town and all its towers, arches, niches, battlements, bridges, long lines of classic ruins, and on the edge of the abyss the perfect little temple of the Sibyl; rushing down from everywhere the waterfalls, one great column plunging at the head of the gorge, and countless frolic streams, the cascatelle, leaping and dancing from rock to rock through mist and rainbow and extravagance of emerald moss and herbage, down among sea-green, silvery olives, finally sliding away, between softer foliage and verdure, through the valley into the plain—the immense azure plain, with its grand symphonic harmonies of form and color. O land of dreams fulfilled, of satisfied longing! when across these thousands of miles I recall your entrancing charm, your unimaginable beauty, I sometimes wonder if you were not a dream, if you have any place in this real existence, this lower earth: are you still delighting other eyes with the rapture of your loveliness, or were you only an illusion, a vision, which vanishes like the glow of sunset or “golden exhalations of the dawn “?
The Campagna has one more aspect, different from all the rest, where the Tiber, weary with his long wanderings, rolls lazily to the sea. It is a dreary waste of swamp and sandhill and scrub growth, but with a forlorn beauty of its own, and the beauty of color, never absent in Italy. The tall, coarse grass and reeds pass through a series of vivid tones, culminating in tawny gold and deep orange, against which the silver-fretted violet blue-green of the Mediterranean assumes a magical
[Illustration: Head of the trajan canal, near ostia.]
[Illustration: A Halt in the brush.]
Perhaps as good an illustration of the purely absurd (according to civilized notions) as can be imagined is a congregation of cannibals in a missionary church weeping bitterly over the story of Calvary. Fresh from their revolting feasts upon the flesh of their conquered enemies, these gentle savages weep over the sufferings of One separated from them by race, by distance, by almost every conceivable lack of the conditions for natural sympathy, and by over eighteen hundred years of time! Surely there must be hope for people who manifest such sensibility, and we may fairly question whether cannibalism be necessarily the sign of the lowest human degradation. A good deal of light is thrown upon the subject by the writings of the young engineer, Jules Garnier, who was lately charged by the French minister of the interior with a mission of exploration in New Caledonia, the Pacific island discovered by Captain Cook just one hundred years ago, and ceded to the French in 1853.
It is about three hundred and sixty miles from Sydney to New Caledonia, a long, narrow island lying just north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and completely surrounded by belts of coral reef crenellated here and there, and forming channels or passes where ships may enter. Navigation through these channels is, however, exceedingly hazardous in any but calm weather; and it was formerly thought that the island was on this account practically valueless for colonization. Once inside them, however, vessels may anchor safely anywhere, for there is in effect a continuous roadstead all around the island. The passage through the narrow pass of Dumbea, just outside of Noumea, affords a striking spectacle. On each side of the ship is a wall of foam, and the reverberating thunder of the waves dashing and breaking upon the jagged reefs keeps the mind in breathless suspense.
The site of Noumea seems to be the most unfortunate that could be chosen. It is a barren, rocky spot, divested of all luxuriance of vegetation, and the nearest water, a brook called Pont des Francais, is ten miles away. The appearance of the town, which fronts the harbor in the form of an amphitheatre, the houses and gardens rising higher and higher as they recede from the sea, tended somewhat to reassure the explorer, who had been wondering that human stupidity should have been equal to selecting in a tropical country, and in one of the best-watered islands of the world, such a situation for its capital. Wells are of little account, for the water thus obtained is at the level of the sea, and always salt. The population has to depend upon the rain that falls on roofs, and as the cleanliness of these is of prime importance, domesticating pigeons is strictly forbidden. This might not be much of a deprivation in most places, but in New Caledonia, of all the world, there is a kind of giant pigeon as large as a common hen! This is the noton, (sic) the Carpophage Goliath of the naturalist.
The hotel at Noumea was a kind of barracks, with partitions so slight that every guest was forced to hear every sound in his neighbors’ rooms. M. Garnier, to escape this inconvenience, purchased a garden-plot, had a cottage built in a few days, and so became a proprietor in Oceanica. Before setting out on his exploring expedition into the interior he tried to interest the government in a plan for cisterns to supply the city with water—a project easy of execution from the natural conformation of the locality. But his scheme received no encouragement from the old-fogyish authorities. They were at that moment entertaining one which for simplicity reminded Garnier of the egg problem of Columbus. This was to distill the sea-water. He made a calculation of the cost of thus supplying each of the sixteen hundred inhabitants with five quarts of water a day, which showed that the proposition was impracticable under the circumstances.
From the showing of official accounts, this French colony of New Caledonia must be one of the most absurd that exists. The military and naval force far exceeds in number the whole civil population; and this, too, when the natives are quiet and submissive, few in number, and fast dying out through the inordinate use of the worst kind of tobacco, pulmonary consumption and other concomitants of civilization not necessary to enumerate. Contrast this with the rich and populous province of Victoria, which has only three hundred and fifty soldiers; with Brisbane, which has only sixteen to a population of one hundred thousand; and finally Tasmania, which has only seven soldiers for two hundred thousand colonists!
It was believed formerly that New Caledonia was rich in gold-mines, and the principal object of the expedition of M. Garnier was to discover these. After one or two short excursions in the neighborhood of Noumea he set out on an eight months’ journey through the entire eastern portion of the island. The plan which he adopted was to double the southern extremity of the island, sail up the eastern coast between the reefs and the mainland, as is the custom, stopping at the principal stations and making long excursions into the interior, accompanied by a guard of seven men. This plan he carried out, though some parts of the country to be explored were inhabited by tribes that had seldom or never seen a European. His testimony as to the almost unexceptionable kindness of the natives, cannibals though they are, must be gratifying to those who accept the doctrine of the brotherhood of man. Of the natives near Balarde he says: “The moment you land all offer to guide your steps, and in every way they can to satisfy your needs. Do you wish to hunt? A native is ever ready to show you the marsh where ducks most abound. Are you hungry or thirsty? They fly to the cocoanut plantation with the agility of monkeys. If a swamp or a brook stops your course, the shoulders of the first comer are ever ready to carry you across. If it rains, they run to bring banana-leaves or make you a shelter of bark. When night comes they light your way with resinous torches, and finally, when you leave them, you read in their faces signs of sincere regret.”
Captain Cook, in his eulogies of these gentle savages, probably never dreamed that they were anthropophagi, and if he had known the fact, his kindly nature would have found some extenuation for them. Cannibals, as a rule—certainly those of New Caledonia—do not eat each other indiscriminately. For example, they dispose of their dead with tender care, though they despatch with their clubs even their best friends when dying; but this is with them a religious duty. They only eat their enemies when they have killed them in battle. This also, in their code of morals, appears to be a duty. Toussenel, in his Zooelogie Passionelle, has a kind word even for these savages: “Let us pity the cannibal, and not blame him too severely. We who boast of our refined Christian civilization murder men by tens of thousands from motives less excusable than hunger. The crime lies not in roasting our dead enemy, but in killing him when he wishes to live.”
During M. Garnier’s expedition he met the chief Onime, once the head of a powerful tribe, now old and dispossessed of his power through the revolt of his tribe some years previous. At that time a price had been put upon his head, and he took refuge in the mountains. There was no sign of discouragement or cruelty in his manners, but his face expressed a bitter and profound sorrow. There was not a pig or a chicken on his place—for he would have nothing imported by the papales, or Europeans—but
These natives speak a kind of “pigeon English.” It would be pigeon French, doubtless, had their first relations been with the French instead of the English. The government has now stopped the sale of spirituous liquors to the natives, and recommended the chiefs to forbid their subjects smoking until a certain age, but no precautions yet taken have had much influence upon their physical condition. They are rapidly dying out. The most prevalent disease is pulmonary consumption, which they declare has been given them by the Europeans. Fewer and fewer children are born every year, and in the tribes about Pooebo and some others these are almost all males. Here is a curious fact for scientists. Is not the cause to be found in the deteriorated physical condition of the women? Mary Trist, in her careful and extensive experimentation with butterfly grubs, has shown that by generous feeding these all develop into females, while by starving males only appear.
M. Garnier believes that the principal cause of the deterioration and decay of the natives in New Caledonia is the terrible tobacco that is furnished to them. “Everybody pays for any service from the natives in this poison.” A missionary once asked a native convert why he had not attended mass. “Because you don’t give me any tobacco,” replied this hopeful Christian. To him, as to many others, says M. Garnier, going to church means working for the missionary, just as much as digging
During one of M. Garnier’s excursions into the interior he came across one of the sacred groves where the natives bury their dead, if hanging them up in trees can be so designated. His guides all refused to accompany him, fearing to excite the anger of the manes of their ancestors. He therefore entered the high grove alone. Numerous corpses, enveloped in carefully-woven mats and then bound in a kind of basket, were suspended from the branches of the trees. Some of these were falling in pieces, and the ground was strewn with whitened bones. It seems strange that this form of burial should be chosen in a country where at least once a year there occurs a terrible cyclone that destroys crops, unroofs houses, uproots trees, and often sends these basket-caskets flying with the cocoanuts through the air.
In New Caledonia there are no ferocious beasts, and the largest animal is a very rare bird which the natives call the kagon. When, therefore, they saw the English eating the meat from beef bones they inferred that these were the bones of giants, and naively inquired how they were captured and what weapons of war they used. The confidence and admiration of these children of Nature are easily gained, and under such circumstances they talk freely and delight in imparting all the information they possess. Among one of the tribes near Balarde, M. Garnier noticed a young woman of superior beauty, and made inquiries about her. This was Iarat, daughter of the chief Oundo. The hornlike protuberances on her head were two “scarlet flowers, which were very becoming in her dark hair.”
[Illustration: Iarat, daughter of the chief Oundo.]
This poor little woman had a history. It is told in a few words: her father sold her to the captain of a trading-vessel for a cask of brandy. The “extenuating circumstances” in this case are that Oundo had been invited on board the captain’s ship, plied with brandy, and when nearly drunk assented to the shameless bargain. When Oundo became sober he repented of his act, and the more bitterly because the young girl was betrothed to the young chief of a neighboring tribe. But he had given his word, and was as great a moral coward as many of his betters are, who think that honor may be preserved by dishonor. Nearly every coaster has a native woman on board—some poor girl of low extraction, or some orphan left to the mercy of her chief and sold for a hatchet or a few yards of tawdry calico; but the daughters of chiefs are not thus delivered over to the lusts of Europeans. The case of Iarat was an exception. These coasters’ wives, if such they may be called, are said to be very devoted mothers and faithful servants. All day long they may be seen managing the rudder or cooking in the narrow kitchen on deck.
The vessel in the service of M. Garnier left him at Balarde, near the north-eastern extremity of the island, but, having determined to explore farther north, he applied to Oundo, who furnished him with a native boat or canoe and two men for the expedition. In this boat were stowed the camping and exploring apparatus and cooking utensils, and three of his men, who were too fatigued by late excursions to follow Garnier on foot. The canoe was not very large, and this freight sunk it very low in the water; yet as the sea was perfectly calm, no danger was apprehended until, a slight breeze springing up, a sail was hoisted. The shore-party continued their course, exploring, digging, breaking minerals, etc., generally in sight of the canoe, which M. Garnier watched with some anxiety. Suddenly, Poulone, his faithful native guide, exclaimed, “Captain, the pirogue sinks!” There was no time to be lost, for one of the men could not swim at all, and the other two but indifferently. Fortunately, the trunk of a tree was found near the water, some paddles were improvised, and this primitive kind of boat was quickly afloat, with the captain and Poulone on board. The canoe was some rods from the shore, but the three men were picked up, having been supported meanwhile by their dark companions. The latter did not swim ashore, but the moment they were relieved from their charges, and without a word, set about getting the canoe afloat. As to the cargo, it was all in plain sight, but more than twenty feet under the limpid water. This was a great misfortune. Some of the instruments were valuable, and could not be replaced. If not recovered, the expedition to the north of the island must be abandoned. In this strait Garnier despatched a messenger back to Oundo, asking the old chief to come to the rescue with all his tribe. “I did not count in vain,” says he, “upon the generosity of this man, for very soon I saw him approach, followed by the young people of his tribe.” He listened to the recital of the misfortune with every sign of sympathy.
“Oundo,” said M. Garnier, “I expect that you will once more show your well-tried friendship for the French people by rendering me a great service. Do you think you can recover these things for me?”
“Oundo will try,” replied the chief simply. He then addressed his people and gave his commands. In a moment, and with a loud cry of approbation and good-will, they dashed into the water and swam out to the scene of disaster.
It is a fine sight to see these natives of Oceanica, the best swimmers in the world, darting under the water like bronze tritons. They generally swim beneath the surface, coming up from time to time to breathe, and shaking the water from their thick curly hair. M. Garnier followed the natives on the log that had served as a lifeboat, and to encourage them by example undressed and threw himself into the water. The work commenced. Twenty or thirty feet is not much of a dive for a South Sea Islander. Every minute the divers brought up some object with a shout of triumph. They were in their element, and so spiritedly did they undertake the task that women, and even the children, dived to the bottom and constantly brought up some small object. The three guns of the men, their trappings, the heavy box of zoological specimens, all the instruments, were brought up in succession. Even the sole cooking-pot of the expedition and the tin plates were recovered. The work occupied some six hours. M. Garnier thanked the chief and his brave people, who when the work was finished returned to their huts as quietly as they came. And this chief was the man who had sold his daughter for a keg of brandy!
Another chief, named Bourarte, the head of a great tribe near Hienguene, deserves a few words. He was a chief of very superior experience and intelligence. He had studied civilization diligently, enjoyed the society of Europeans and knew that his people were barbarians. His story is a most touching one. He said: “I always loved the English. They treated me as a chief, and paid me honestly for all they received. One day I consented to go with them to their great city of Sydney. It was there that I learned the weakness of my people. I was well received everywhere, but I longed to return. It was with pleasure that I saw again our mountains and heard the joyful cries of welcome from my tribe. About that time your people came. I paid little attention to them at first, but because one of my men killed a Kanacka who was a protege of the missionaries there came a great ship (the Styx) into my port. The captain sent for me. I went on board without fear, but my confidence was betrayed. I was made a prisoner and transported to Tahiti. It was six years before I saw my tribe again: they had already mourned me as dead. I will tell you what happened in my absence. My people prepared for vengeance: the French were apprised of the fact. They came again. And as my people, filled with curiosity, flocked to the shore, the French fired their cannon into the crowd. My people were frightened and fled into the woods. Your soldiers landed, and for three days they burned our huts, destroyed our plantations and cut down our cocoa trees. And all this time,” added the old chief with a heavy sigh, “I was a prisoner at Tahiti, braiding baskets to gain a little food, and the grief that I suffered whitened my head before the time.”
[Illustration: A Kanacka family traveling.]
After a long pause, during which the old Bourarte seemed lost in thought, he said, “It is true that my people revenged themselves. They killed a good many, and among them one of your chiefs. What is most strange about this war is, that three English colonists, who lived peacefully among us by their commerce and fishing, were taken by the French and shot. Another Englishman, Captain Paddon, to whom I had sold many a cargo of sandal-wood, on learning the fate of his compatriots, fled on board a little boat with one Kanacka and a few provisions, got out to sea, and, as I have been told, actually gained the port of Sydney.” This, it seems, is a historical fact. It was a boat without a deck, and the distance is three hundred and sixty marine miles!
The result of the exploring mission of M. Garnier was not a discovery of gold-mines, as so many had hoped. He is of the opinion that gold deposits are scarce in the island. His report of the natives is on the whole favorable, and confirms the testimony of missionaries and others, that they are superior savages, easily civilized and Christianized, but from some cause or combination of causes fast dying out before the advance of civilization. In some respects they are less rude than other South Sea Islanders, but they treat their women in much the same way. M. Garnier gives us a photograph of a New Caledonia family on the road, the head of the family, a big, stolid brute apparently, burdened only with his club, while his wife staggers along under the combined load of sugar-canes, yams, dried fishes and other provisions.
A more revolting, but also, happily, a far rarer sight, was that of a cannibal banquet, of which M. Garnier was a concealed witness. The scene was a thicket in the wildest portion of the country, and only the chiefs of the tribe, which had just gained a victory over its enemies, took part in the feast. A blazing fire threw its bright glare on a dozen figures seated around huge banana-leaves, on which were spread the smoking viands of the diabolical repast. A disgusting odor was wafted toward the spot where our Frenchman and his companions lay perdu, enchained by a horrible fascination which produced the sensation of nightmare. Directly in front of them was an old chief with long white beard and wrinkled skin, who gnawed a head still covered with the singed hair. Thrusting a pointed stick into the eye-sockets, he contrived to extract a portion of the brain, afterward placing the skull in the hottest part of the fire, and thus separating the bones to obtain a wider aperture. The click of a trigger close to his ear recalled M. Garnier to his senses, and arresting the arm of his sergeant, who, excited to indignation, had brought his musket to his shoulder, he hurried from a scene calculated, beyond all others, to thrill the nerves and curdle the blood of a civilized spectator.
In the spring of 1869 I was induced, for the sake of rest and recreation, to take charge of a young American girl during a tour in Europe. This young girl was Miss Helen St. Clair of Detroit, Michigan. We two were by no means strangers. She had been my pupil since the time when she was the prettiest little creature that ever wore a scarlet hood. I have a little picture, scarlet hood and all, that I would not exchange for the most beautiful one that Greuze ever painted. Not that her face bore any resemblance to the pictures of Greuze. It had neither the sweet simplicity of the girl in “The Broken Pitcher,” nor the sentimental graces which he bestows on his court beauties. It was an exceedingly piquant, animated face, never at rest, always kindling, flashing, gleaming, whether with sunlight or lightning. Her movements were quick and darting, like those of a humming-bird. Her enunciation, though perfectly distinct, was marvelously rapid. The same quickness characterized her mental operations. Her conclusions, right or wrong, were always instantaneous. Her prompt decisiveness, her talent for mimicry and her witchery of grace and beauty won her a devoted following of school-girls, to whom her tastes and opinions were as authoritative as ever were those of Eugenie to the ladies of her court. School-girls, like college-boys, are very apt in nicknames, and Helen’s was the “Little Princess,” which her pretty, imperious ways made peculiarly appropriate.
I do not know how her parents dared trust her to me for a year beyond the sea, but they did. We set off in high enthusiasm, and Helen was full of mirth and laughter till we were fairly on board the steamer in New York harbor, when she threw herself on her father’s breast with a gesture of utter abandonment that would have made the fortune of a debutante on any stage in the world. It was so unlooked-for that we all broke down, and Mr. St. Clair was strongly inclined to take her home with him. But so sudden was she in all her moods that his foot had scarcely touched the shore before she was again radiant with anticipation.
I will not linger on the pleasant summer travel, the Rhine majesty, the Alpine glory. September saw us established in the city of cities—Paris. Everywhere we had met throngs of Americans. Neighbors from over the way in our own city greeted us warmly in most unexpected places. But we had not crossed the ocean merely to see our own countrymen. In Paris we were determined to eschew hotels and pensions and to become the inmates of a French home. Everybody told us this would be impossible, but I find nothing so stimulating as the assertion that a thing can’t be done. Two weeks of eager inquiry, and we were received into a family which could not have been more to our wish if it had been created expressly for us. It was that of Monsieur Le Fort, a professor in the Medical College, a handsome elderly man with the bit of red ribbon coveted by Frenchmen in his buttonhole. Madame Le Fort, a charming, graceful woman midway between thirty and forty, and a pretty daughter of seventeen, completed the family. With great satisfaction we took possession of the pretty rooms, all white and gold, that overlooked the Rond Point des Champs Elysees.
My little princess had found a prince in her own country, and, considering the laws of attraction, his sudden appearance in Paris ought not to have been a surprise to her. But, to his discomfiture, and even anger, Helen refused to see him. She had bidden him good-bye at home, she said; they would not be married for three years, if they ever were: she was going to devote herself to her music; and she did not wish to see him here. When he had completed his studies and their engagement was announced (it was only a mutual understanding now) there would be time enough to see each other at home. Excellent reasoning! but a fortnight later a tiny hand slipped between my eyes and the Figaro a little note on which I read:
“Dear Fred: I think I should like to say good-bye again.
“Yours, Helen.”
The dark eyes looked half shyly, half coaxingly into mine.
“Well,” said I, “Katrine will mail it for you.”
The next day I saw for the first time Mr. Frederic Denham. He was tall and slender; with a sallow complexion, rather dull gray eyes and black hair, by no means handsome, but sufficiently well-looking to please a friendly eye. In his manners there was a coldness and reserve which passed for haughtiness. He was said to possess great talents and ambition, and Helen had the fullest belief in his genius and success. Not Goethe himself was a greater man in her eyes.
I had frequent opportunities of seeing them together, for, according to French ideas, nothing is more improper than to leave a young man and woman a moment by themselves. Was it my fancy that he seemed too much absorbed in himself, too little sensible of the rare good-fortune which made him the favored lover of the beautiful Miss St. Clair? It might be so, but others shared it.
“What ails the American?” asked Madame Le Fort. “Is it possible that he is not in love with that fascinating young creature? Or are all your countrymen so cold and inanimate? Elle est ravissante, adorable! I cannot comprehend it.”
“Probably,” I replied, “he has too much reserve and delicacy to make a display of his feelings in the presence strangers.”
But I was not satisfied. The more I watched them, the more I perceived a lack of deference to her opinions and respect for her judgment—an irritating assumption of superior wisdom, as if he had worn the visible inscription, “I will accept homage, but not suggestions. Offer incense and be content.” Would the little princess be content? I saw symptoms of rebellion.
“Do you think I am a little fool, Madame Fleming?” she asked with heightened color and impetuous tone, turning suddenly to me while they were conversing apart one evening.
November came, and we were launched on the full tide of Parisian society. Mr. Denham had gone to Germany to complete certain scientific studies, and he left his fair betrothed with a parting injunction not to dance with any foreigner. As well shut her up in a cell! Nowhere is there such a furore for dancing as in Paris. Every family has its weekly reception, and every card of invitation bears in the corner, “On dansera.” These receptions are the freest and gayest imaginable. Any person who has the entree of the house comes when he feels inclined. Introductions are not indispensable as with us: any gentleman may ask a lady to dance with him, whether he has been formally presented or not, and it would be an affront to decline except for a previous engagement. The company assemble about ten, and often dance till three or four in the morning. In any one house we see nearly the same people once a week for the whole winter, and such frequent companionship gives a feeling of intimacy. It is surprising how many French men and French women have some special artistic talent, dramatic or musical, and with what ready good-humor each contributes to the entertainment of the rest. In every assembly, with all its sparkle of youth and gayety, there is a background of mature age; but though a card-room is generally open, it never seems to draw many from the salons de danse.
In these salons the little princess entered, at once upon her royalty. Her dancing was the poetry of motion. She sang, and the most brilliant men hung over her enraptured. “She was like Adelina Patti,” they said, “but of a more perfect and delicate type of beauty. What wonderful eyes, with the long thick lashes veiling Oriental depths of liquid light! How the music trickled from her fingers, and poured from her small throat like the delicious warble of a nightingale! What a loss to art that her position precluded her from singing in the opera! Not Malibran or Grisi ever had triumphs that would equal hers.” Eminent painters wished to make a study of her face. Authors who had received the prizes of the Academy for grave historical works sent her adulatory verses. “May I—flirtation—wid you—loavely meess?” asked one of “the immortal forty,” displaying his English.
It grew rather annoying. I was importuned with questions, such as “Will you receive proposals of marriage for Miss St. Clair?” “What is her dowry?” “Are you entrusted to find a husband for her abroad?” I was tired of answering, “Miss St. Clair will probably marry in her own country.” “Her parents would be very reluctant to consent to any foreign marriage.” “I cannot tell what Mr. St. Clair will give his daughter. It is not the custom to give dowries with us, as with you.”
One evening we saw at Madame Le Fort’s reception a young man so distinguished in appearance that he was known as “le beau Vergniaud.” He was six feet in height and well made, with abundant chestnut hair, dark hazel eyes, clearly-cut, regular features, and a complexion needlessly fine for a man. From that time he was invariably present, not only at Madame Le Fort’s, but wherever we went.
One day Helen said to me, “I made a silly speech last evening. I was dancing with M. Vergniaud, and we were talking of that charming Madame de Launay. I said, ’I should think she might be happy, having an elegant house in Paris, a chateau in the country, and such a handsome husband so devoted to her.’ And he rejoined instantly, very low, ’My dear Miss St. Clair, can I not give you all this?’ It was not fair to take advantage of me in that way.”
“What did you say?”
“Oh, I laughed it off. I did not think he was in earnest, but he spoke to me again before he went away.”
That afternoon Madame Le Fort came into my room with the look of one who has something important to communicate. “I have been wishing to see you,” she said. “M. Vergniaud has taken me into his confidence. He has formed a serious attachment to Miss St. Clair, and wishes to make her his wife. It is a splendid alliance,” she continued, warming with her theme: “if he had asked for my daughter I would give her to him blindfold. He belongs to one of our old families. You should see his house on the Avenue de Montaigne. Have you never seen him driving with his superb horses in the Bois de Boulogne? He has an estate with a fine old chateau in Touraine, a family inheritance. His character and habits are unexceptionable too,” she added by way of parenthesis. “It is not often that you find all that in a man of twenty-six. So handsome besides!”
“True,” said I, “but you forget Mr. Denham.”
“On the contrary, I remember him too well to conceive the possibility of his being a rival to Rene Vergniaud.”
“But did you mention him to M. Vergniaud?”
“Yes, and he was greatly disturbed at first, but when I told him that he had no expectation of marrying for two or three years to come, he laughed and said it was of no importance. M. Vergniaud would like to be married in a few weeks, as is the custom with us, but I suppose it will take longer to adjust the preliminaries on account of her parents being across the Atlantic. What dowry has my little jewel?” (The inevitable question, always put with as much simplicity and directness as if one were asking the time of day.)
“I do not know,” I replied. “It is so contrary to all our notions. I do not think there is a man in America who in asking a father for the hand of his daughter would inquire how much money he was to have with her. It would be considered an insult.”
“Perhaps Mr. St. Clair would prefer to settle an annuity on his daughter. Is that the way the thing is managed in your country?”
“It is not managed at all. A man gives his daughter what he likes, or he gives her nothing but her bridal outfit. It is never a condition of the marriage.”
“How strange all that is! One can hardly believe it in France. We set by a sum of money for Clarice’s dowry almost as soon as she was born, and it would be a hard necessity that could compel us to diminish it by a single sou. If you would like it, in a couple of days I can give you an exact inventory of all M. Vergniaud’s property and possessions. I could guarantee that it will not vary twenty napoleons from the fact. We do everything so systematically here.”
“Thanks! I think it will hardly be necessary. I do not know that Helen likes him particularly.”
“Nobody admires that little paragon more than I—I should be frantically in love with her if I were a man—but she had better think twice before rejecting such a parti as Rene Vergniaud, especially if she has no dowry. You will surely not permit her to do so without communicating with her father? He will understand her interests better.”
“In this case I shall let her do just as she pleases, as her father would if he were here.”
Madame Le Fort’s look of amazed incredulity was truly comical. What ought I to do? I queried. On the whole, I decided to do the easiest thing—wait.
The next day I was honored with a call from M. Vergniaud. He believed that Madame Le Fort had spoken to me of his profound attachment to the lovely Miss St. Clair—the most passionate, the most devoted. Might he hope for my influence with her father and mother? The matter of dowry was indifferent to him: his income was sufficiently large, and, alas! he had no parents to consult. Would I favor him with Mr. St. Clair’s address and a few words of introduction to him? He should be under everlasting obligations to me, and if there was anything he could do to show his gratitude, his appreciation—
I interrupted these protestations: “I doubt if Mr. St. Clair would consent to any marriage which would separate him from his daughter, however advantageous it might be in other respects.”
“My dear madame, who asks it? I have no business or profession: we could easily spend a part of every year in America if it were desirable.”
“That would certainly make it easier, but it will be better to defer writing till we have some intimation of Miss St. Clair’s sentiments. Her father will be guided chiefly by her inclination.”
“It is a nice country for young girls, America,” said he with a smile. “I shall do all that is possible to win Miss St. Clair’s favor, for life would be worthless without her.” And he bowed himself gracefully out.
Is it possible that Helen will be indifferent to this young Antinous? thought I. Poor Mr. Denham would have small chance with me if I were in her place.
An hour later the concierge sent up to me an exquisite bouquet of violets and white camellias, with the card of Rene Vergniaud and a folded note: “If Madame Fleming does not think it improper, will she be so kind as to give these flowers to my beautiful queen?”
M. Vergniaud had asked Madame Le Fort’s permission to call on Miss St. Clair. “Certainly not,” she replied. “I am astounded at such presumption! But you may call to see me. To-morrow evening we go to the opera, and Wednesday to Madame Perier’s, and Thursday is my reception, and Friday we have tickets to Phedre at the Francais. Saturday, then: it is the first evening we have free.”
We were all assembled in the salon as usual after dinner when M. Vergniaud was announced. The little princess was radiant. She had never been merrier in a school-girl frolic or more ready with gibe and jest and laughter. She sang her best songs, putting her whole soul into them—“Si tu savais comme je l’aime.” Rene Vergniaud was so dazed that he came near bidding farewell to his senses for ever. He evidently thought that all this brilliancy was for him, and was in such a rapture of delight that he never noticed Madame Le Fort’s repeated glances at the clock, and was only roused by the polite invitation to come again. He was not too disconcerted to make a charming apology, like a true Parisian, and tore himself away.
Late as it was, as soon as we were in our own little parlor I could not forbear saying, “I was surprised at you to-night, Helen. How could you run on so? Madame Le Turc there, too! and you know the young French girls never open their lips to say more than ’Oui, monsieur’—’Non, monsieur,’ to a gentleman. What will M. Vergniaud think?”
“I don’t care what he thinks,” flinging herself down on an ottoman with her head in my lap; “but I do care what you think, Madame Fleming. Did I behave so very badly? I didn’t mean to, but I was resolved he should not get a chance to talk any nonsense to-night; and he did, after all. I hate being made love to before a whole room full. I had to laugh or else cry.” And the little fairy dissolved in a shower of tears, like another Undine.
Another week went by. On Saturday afternoon Helen asked, “Will you be so kind as to take me to the little Protestant church beyond the Arc d’Etoile this evening, Madame Fleming? I should like so much to hear that good M. Bercier.”
“So should I. But you have not forgotten that M. Vergniaud will be here.”
“I am under no obligation to entertain Madame Le Fort’s callers.”
“But you know, Helen, that he comes for your sake. It is well for you to consider that the future Madame Vergniaud will have in some respects a more brilliant position than perhaps any man in our country could offer you.”
“I know all that, and I don’t pretend to say that I should not like it. I am ashamed of being so worldly, but to have a superb establishment and all this charming Parisian society, and give a grand ball whenever I liked, would be just paradise. And to have it all in my grasp, and not be able to take it, is too aggravating. It is so vexatious that the right man never has the right things.”
We went to church. M. Vergniaud called, but recollected an engagement which took him away early. Monday evening he dropped in again just after dinner: “Do not let me derange you in the least, je vous en prie, madame. I come early because I am engaged to three balls to-night.”
Miss St. Clair could hardly have been more mute and statue-like if she had been born and bred in France, where in the presence of gentlemen young girls silently adhere to their brilliant mothers, whose wit and grace and social tact make the charm of the Parisian salons. Apparently, the French consider that the combined attractions of youthful faces and sprightly conversation would be too much for any man, and mercifully divide the two. And this leaves them helpless before a little American girl, laughing, talking, jesting, teasing, till, bewildered by such a phenomenon, they are swept down so easily that one is reminded of Attila’s taunt to the Romans, “The thicker the grass, the quicker it is mowed.”
This social etiquette was very irksome to my little firefly, who seemed always opening and shutting her wings. In the course of the evening M. Vergniaud slipped into her hand, unperceived by any of us, a closed envelope with the whisper, “Put it in your pocket. Do not let any one see you.”
She opened it deliberately: “M. Vergniaud is so kind as to give me his photograph, Madame Fleming. Do you think it a good likeness?”
The mystery which French people are fond of attaching to harmless trifles is inconceivable. One evening, in the earlier part of our stay in Paris, a cousin of Miss St. Clair’s, who was in the same hotel with Mr. Denham, called on us, and when he was taking leave she held out an unsealed note: “Will you give this to Fred? Don’t forget it.”
Madame Le Fort was thunderstruck: “Is it possible? Send a note to a young gentleman right before Madame Fleming and all of us!”
“Why,” said I, “do young people never write notes to each other in France?” “Not openly like that—little three-cornered notes to slip into the hand while dancing.”
“This is the way to fold them,” said Clarice, taking up a small sheet of paper. “You see that will just fit into the hollow of the hand, and nobody could ever see it.”
“I like our way much better. What is done openly is not half so mischievous.”
“Nor half so interesting,” rejoined Clarice.
The nimble hours danced on, as they had a trick of doing in Madame Le Fort’s salon. “I am afraid you forget the three balls, M. Vergniaud.”
“How can you be so cruel, mademoiselle? I shall only make my compliments to the hostess and dance one set at each. I never do more except when I come here.”
A few days later I asked Helen, “Have you made up your mind what answer to give M. Vergniaud? He intends to write to your father. He was speaking to me about it again to-day.”
“I won’t have him writing to my father,” she replied with her wonted impetuosity. “I will not have my father worried about nothing. It would be a month before I could set it right.”
“He seems to be very much in love with you. He says he shall be in despair, wretched for ever, if you reject him.”
“So they all say. I don’t believe a word of it, and I can’t help it if they are. I can’t marry more than one of them, and I don’t believe I shall ever marry anybody. I won’t be persecuted to death.”
The little princess was irritated. Something had evidently gone wrong. It soon came out: “I had a letter from Fred this morning—a very disagreeable letter.”
“Indeed! You have not yet answered it, I suppose.”
“No: he will have to write differently from that before he gets any answer from me. I am not going to be lessoned and scolded as if I were a little girl. Father never does it, and I will not submit to it from him” After a pause: “He is not so much to blame. It is that odious Mr. Wilkins, who keeps writing to him how much attention I receive, and all that. As if I could help it! Poor old Fred! We have known each other ever since we were children.”
That explains it, I thought. “Helen, if you have decided to say no to M. Vergniaud, the sooner you say it the better.”
“I have said it, and he doesn’t mind it in the least. I wish you would tell him: you always speak so that people know you are in earnest and can’t help believing you.”
“Very well, Helen. I will ask Madame Le Fort to tell him that his suit is hopeless, and that he must not annoy you by persisting in it.”
Early in February the Belgian ambassador, M. le comte de Beyens, and Madame la comtesse, kindly took charge of Miss St. Clair to the imperial ball at the Tuileries. She had never looked more charming than in the exquisite costume of pale rose-colored faille, with a floating mist of white tulle, caught here and there by rosebuds that might have grown in Chrimhild’s garden. The airy figure, so graceful in every motion, the well-poised head with its flutter of shining curls, the wonderful dark eyes, the perfect eyebrows, the delicious little mouth where love seemed to nestle—when she had vanished “it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.” Madame la comtesse congratulated me on her appearance, and afterward on her success. The emperor had distinguished her in a very flattering manner, and Eugenie, looking earnestly at her, said to the comtesse, “Nothing is so beautiful as youth,” perhaps beginning to regret her own. No one had made so decided a sensation.
At Madame Le Fort’s next reception there was a sudden influx of new guests—a young Belgian baron of old historic name, slim and stiff as a poker; a brisk French viscount, who told me that he had been connected with the embassy at Washington, and had quite fallen in love with our institutions; an Italian chevalier, a Russian prince.
Ugliness has its compensations, thought I. Nobody makes such a fuss over a pretty girl at home (they are not so uncommon), and I will never bring one to Paris again. Thank Heaven! we are going to Italy soon.
* * * * *
The piercing Tramontane came down upon us in the Bay of Naples with so fierce a blast that we doubted if we were not in Iceland, and were glad to make our escape to Rome, where we found an asylum in the Hotel de Minerve, not far from the Pantheon. Many of the old palaces and convents of Italy have been transformed into hotels. This was the ancient palace of the princes of Conti. I was so captivated by the superb dining-room that the quality of the dinners made but a faint impression. What! eat in the presence of all those marble goddesses, looking down upon us, serene and cold, as if from their thrones on the starry Olympus! Or if I turned my eyes resolutely away from Juno, Ceres and Minerva, they were sure to be snared by the dancing-girls of Pompeii stepping out from the frescoed walls, or inextricably entangled in the lovely garlands of fruit and flowers that wound their mazy way along the borders.
One evening, while we were waiting for one of the endless courses of a table-d’hote dinner, my wandering eyes were caught by the most perfect human head I had ever seen. It seemed that of the youthful Lord Byron, so well known in busts and engravings—the same small head with high forehead and clustering dark-brown curls, the perfectly-moulded chin, the full, ripe beauty of the lips. The eyes were a deep blue, but I thought them black at first, they were so darkly shaded by the thick black lashes. I am convinced that Byron must have had just such eyes, for some of his biographers describe them as black and others as blue. When he rose from the table I saw a slight, well-knit figure of exquisite proportions, like the Greek god of love. (Not Cupid with his vulgar arrows, but the true heavenly Eros. I saw him once in the Museum at Naples, and again in the Vatican. Is it Love, or Death, or Immortality? I queried, and then I knew it was the three in one.) I soon learned that the youth whose ideal beauty had impressed me so strongly was the Count Francisco de Alvala of Toledo in Spain. I fancy that his eyes were as easily attracted to beauty as mine, for the next day he was my vis-a-vis at table; not for the sake of looking at me, I was well aware, but on account of my beautiful neighbor. However, he sought my acquaintance with the grave courtesy becoming a grandee of Spain, and naturally gained that of Miss St. Clair also.
It is the most natural thing in the world to make acquaintances in Rome. People talk together of the things they have seen or wish to see: they go to the same places by day, and in the evening they meet in the ladies’ parlor to compare their impressions. The young count never failed to join us in the evening. He had always something to show us—prints of his home in Spain, articles of virtu that he had bought, sketches that he had made, for he was a good amateur artist.
A group of young people of different nations generally collected on these occasions, and the conversation often turned on the usages peculiar to their respective countries.
“In Spain I could not greet a lady with a simple good-evening,” said the count. “I should say, ’Permit the humblest of your servants to lay himself at your feet,’ or something like that.”
“Why do you not say it to us?” asked a bright-eyed Canadian girl.
“Well, it might be a little awkward if you should happen to take it literally. In Spain it is the merest commonplace.”
“If such exaggerated phrases are frittered into commonplaces, and the most impassioned words grow meaningless, what can a Spanish gentleman find to say when his heart is really touched?” I inquired.
“I fancy we should find some very simple words to say it in,” said the boy, flushing like a girl. “But I do not know—I have never learned.”
“Talk some more,” commanded the little princess.
“If a pretty young lady is walking in our streets a mantle is often flung suddenly in her way, and proud and happy is its owner if she deigns to set her dainty foot upon it.”
“What do they do that for? Because the streets are so muddy?” inquired an obtuse young woman. But nobody volunteered to enlighten her.
“Cannot we go to Spain?” asked Miss St. Clair. “I should like to see a modern Sir Walter Raleigh.”
“If the senorita should appear in our streets they would be strewn with mantles,” said the young count gallantly.
“Would you throw down yours for me to step upon?”
“Surely, senorita.”
“I’ll come, then. It must be of velvet, mind.”
“Yes, studded with jewels.”
I loved the beautiful youth. His presence was like a poem in my life, and if it ever occurred to me that the familiar intercourse of the young people might not be altogether prudent, I dismissed it with the thought, He is only a boy.
There was to be an illumination of the Coliseum. We were going of course, and Count Alvala begged that I would honor him by making use of his carriage on this occasion. “Thank you, but I have already spoken to Piero to come for us.”
“Oh, but we can send him away. You will find my carriage more comfortable, and it will be in every way pleasanter,” he urged beseechingly; but my negative was peremptory.
Eight o’clock came. Miss St. Clair and I descended to the court of the hotel, but where was Piero? “It is singular. He was never late before, but I am confident that he will be here presently. We have only to wait a little.”
The minutes went by, and they were long minutes. It was awkward waiting in so public a place. The count had joined us with his friend, an Italian marquis some thirty years of age, with whom we had a slight acquaintance. The count’s handsome equipage was drawn up near us. There was no Piero.
“I really think you had better accept my young friend’s carriage. It would be a pity to miss so grand a spectacle,” said the marquis.
We entered the carriage. The count wrapped us in a magnificent feather robe, such as the Montezumas wore, for the April nights in Rome are chill, however hot the sunshine. It was strange to see the Forum, ordinarily solitary and desolate, now thronged with an eager multitude on foot and with numerous open carriages, in which were seated ladies in full dress as at the opera with us. Arriving at the Coliseum, we left the carriage and passed through the huge portal. The gloomy arches were obscurely seen in the dusky Roman twilight, when suddenly, as if by magic, every arch and crevice of the gigantic ruin glowed, incarnadined, as if dyed with the blood of the martyrs that had drenched its soil. There were salvos of artillery, bursts of military music and a few vivas from the multitude. A brilliant spectacle, but the tender beauty of moonlight harmonizes better with the solemnity of ruins.
Rapt in the memories that the scene awakened, I paid little attention to the monologue of my Italian friend, when I was suddenly roused by the question, “Did you ever see a prettier couple?”
“Who?” I asked absently.
“There,” he rejoined, pointing to the count and Miss St. Clair, who preceded us.
“He is too young,” I replied, but the question was asked so significantly that it disturbed me a little, and I resolved to be more cautious than heretofore.
The next morning Piero appeared with his carriage to take us to the Baths of Caracalla. He hoped madame did not lose the illumination. He was wretched to disappoint madame: he begged a thousand pardons. His little boy was taken violently ill: he was forced to go for the doctor; madame was so good.
The truth flashed upon me: “Piero, how much did the count give you to stay away last night?”
A gleam of humor twinkled in his black eyes, but it was speedily quenched: “I do not understand what madame wishes to say.”
It happened that a friend and country-woman at our hotel was taken ill with typhoid fever, and amid the anxieties of her sick room the incipient love-affair was almost forgotten. I no longer spent the evenings in the parlor. One day Miss St. Clair showed me a tiny satin bag beautifully embroidered, with a soft silken chain to pass around the neck. “What can it be for?” she asked.
“Why, Helen, it is an amulet. Where did you get it?”
“The count gave it to me. He had the loveliest set of Byzantine mosaics and pearls which he wished to give me; and when I would not accept them he seemed so hurt that I did not like to refuse this trifle. What do you suppose is in it.”
“A relic of some saint, without doubt. He thinks it will protect you from fever perhaps.”
Like most Americans, we were desirous of seeing the pope, and Count Alvala obtained for us the necessary permission. We were to be received on a Saturday at eleven. We went in the prescribed costume, black silk, with the picturesque Roman veil thrown over the head. From the foot of the Scala Regia, (Royal Staircase) one of the papal guard, in a motley suit which seemed one glare of black and yellow, escorted us to the door of a long corridor, known as the Loggia of Raphael, where we were received by a higher official in rich array of crimson velvet. About seventy persons were seated in rows, facing each other, along this gallery, nearly all laden with rosaries to be blessed by the Holy Father. We waited till my neck ached with looking up at the exquisite frescoes, fresh and tender in coloring as if new from the hand of the master, when the pope appeared, attended by a cardinal on each hand. We fell on our knees instantly, but not till I had seen an old man’s face so sweet and venerable as to make this act of etiquette a spontaneous homage. He passed slowly down the line, saying a word or two to each, and extending his hand, white and soft like a woman’s, to be kissed.
Pausing by the young count, who was kneeling beside me, he said impressively, “Courage and faith have always been attributes of the house of Alvala. Your fathers were good children of the Church, and you, my son, will not be wanting in any of the qualities of your race.”
When he had passed us we rose from our knees, and I could observe him more closely. He wore a close-fitting white cap on his finely-shaped head; a long robe of white woolen cloth buttoned up in front, with a small cape of the same material; a white sash, gold-embroidered at the end; a long gold chain around his neck, to which was attached a large golden cross; a seal ring on the third finger of his right hand; and red slippers. Soft snowy locks fell from under the white skull-cap over a noble forehead, which years and trials had left unwrinkled. Black eyebrows and the soft dark eyes made a pleasant contrast to the whiteness of hair and brow, and his smile was so sweet and winning that I scarcely wondered to see two Catholic ladies prostrate themselves and kiss his feet and the hem of his white garment with a rapture of devotion from which his attendants with difficulty rescued him. He lingered longest by a pretty boy four or five years old, and there was a pathos in the caressing, clinging touch of his hand as it rested on the child’s head that called to mind an old love-story of the handsome Count Mastai Ferretti when he wore the uniform of an officer of the guards, and had not yet thought of priestly robe or papal crown. I wonder if he remembers the fair English girl now?
Having completed the round, he made a brief address, the purport of which was that he was about to give us his blessing, and he wished that it might be diffused to all our families and friends, and be not for the present moment only, but extend through our whole lives and abide with us in the hour of death; “But remember,” said he with a kind of paternal benignity, “that the gates of paradise open rarely to any who are without the communion of the Holy Catholic Church. Sometimes perhaps—sometimes—but with great difficulty.” He extended his hands. We dropped on our knees and received the blessing of this benign old man, whom the larger part of Christendom revere as the earthly head of the Church. As we were making our way through the stately columns of the colonnade which forms the approach to the Vatican I saw the count glance at the amulet which Helen wore. “What is in it?” I asked.
“A relic of the blessed Saint Francis, my patron,” he replied.
“It will lose its efficacy on the neck of a little heretic like Miss St. Clair,” said I with a purpose.
“It will do her no harm,” said he coldly.
Monday I was at the table d’hote the first time for a week. I found the count seated next to Miss St. Clair. It was very simple, she explained to me afterward. A lady occupied his seat one day, and he came round to the only vacant one, which happened to be next hers. I am a very guileless person, but I think Vincenzo had an excellent reason for letting it happen. Helen was on my left hand as usual, and the Italian marquis on my right.
“I am sorry for that boy,” said he to me: “he is very unhappy.”
“The young count? What is the matter?”
“Don’t you see? He is madly in love with your bewitching little American. It is his first impression, and he takes it hard. Well, he will have to learn like the rest of us.”
“I hope you are mistaken;” and I glanced uneasily at my young neighbors, who were too much absorbed in their own conversation to heed that between the marquis and myself.
“That is impossible. He raves to me about her. It is very pretty too—a perfect idyl, all poetry and romance—eternal, unchangeable, and all that boyish nonsense. We older men know better. But monsignore will be here soon, and he will look after him.”
“Who is monsignore?”
“The archbishop of Toledo, his guardian. He has been here, but some diocesan matter called him home. He will be back anon, and then the count will dine at home. As to that, he does now, and delicious dinners they are, too. He only makes a pretence of eating here, just to have a chance to see his little divinity.”
“He was here when we came.”
“True, but only for a day or two while his house was put in order. The house is well worth seeing—one of the finest on the Corso. It is not open to strangers, but if you would like to see it—”
“Certainly not,” I interrupted, a little irritably, the more so from the consciousness of having been a somewhat careless chaperone. I was coming sharply up to the line of duty now, at all events.
“Helen,” said I when we rose from the dinner-table, “do not go into the parlor now. Come into my room a little while, please.—Well, Helen,” I resumed when we were seated by the pleasant window, “I have seen so little of you for a week past that you must have a great deal to tell me.”
“I do not know,” she replied. “I have been out every day with the Glenns, just as you arranged for me, and I have been in the parlor in the evenings, and sometimes I sang, and one night there was a French gentleman—”
“How about the young count? The Italian says he is very much in love with you. Do you know it?”
“He has told me so often enough, if that is knowing it,” with a quick, impatient toss of the small, graceful head.
“Oh, Helen!” I cried in real distress, “and what did you say to him?”
“Why, what could I say in that great parlor, with everybody looking on? I just hushed him up as well as I could. There is the tall English girl and that sharp-eyed Miss Donaldson, who are watching us the whole time. It is real mean in them,” excitedly. “And the count doesn’t mind letting everybody know how much he admires me. In fact, he is proud of it, like one of the old knights, who used to wear their ladies’ favors as openly and proudly as they bore their knightly banners.”
“This will never do, Helen. Don’t you see that this boy is not like the gay Frenchman that you danced with last winter? Rene Vergniaud was a man of the world: he could take care of himself. But this beautiful boy, with his intensity of feeling, his ideal passionate love—You must not play with him,” I exclaimed vehemently.
“I am not playing with him: I never do anything to make him like me. He comes and talks to me, and I just make myself as agreeable to him as I can, that is all.”
That is all, is it, you little mischief? thought I. As if that were not the very refinement of coquetry! But I prudently refrained from saying it, for a tempest of hot tears began to fall, and she sobbed, “Oh, Madame Fleming, I did not think I was going to forfeit your good opinion. What can I do? I can’t help his liking me. I like him too, and that makes me feel so badly.”
“Do you like him better than Mr. Denham?”
“Better than Fred?” in a tone of surprise. “Why no, of course not: I have known Fred always.”
“The best thing will be to tell him of Mr. Denham.”
“Oh no, I never can.”
“I will, then.”
“Don’t, I beseech you. We shall go away soon, and that will be the end of it. Promise me you will not. I would rather tell him myself if I ever have a chance.”
I looked in to see my invalid friend, and then descended to the parlor, where I found the young count almost alone. He looked up eagerly as I entered: “I thought Miss St. Clair was with you. I have been waiting for her all the evening.”
“Indeed!”
“I told her at table that I wished to see her particularly this evening.”
“Perhaps she did not understand you.”
“Oh yes, she did. You would not let her come?” with a sudden lighting up of the expressive face.
“I did not forbid her coming: I did not know that you were waiting for her.”
Then with sudden boyish candor and a happy smile on his animated countenance “I thought you might have observed that I come here so often because I like to talk with Miss St. Clair. But you never can know how dearly I love her.”
“I am sorry.”
“Why?” with a naive surprise.
“She is older than you.”
“How old is she?”
“She will be twenty in May.”
“And I am nineteen this very week. What is one poor little year?—not a year,” gleefully.
“But the difference in religion?”
“An obstacle, I grant, but not an insuperable one. My uncle married an English lady, a Protestant, and they have been very happy together.”
“But I think there is another man,” I stammered, surprised at finding my outposts carried so easily.
“You do not mean to say that she is compromised with any man?” almost fiercely.
“I do not know what meaning you attach to that word,” for the count’s imperfect French was not always intelligible. “There is a young man, the son of a neighbor, who has admired her a long time.”
“Oh, he admires her?” with a curl of the exquisite lips, as if to say, “Who does not?”
“But I think she may like him a little.”
“Why do you torture me so? Tell me at once that they are betrothed,” cried he, pale with concentrated anger.
He thought she had trifled with him, I knew instantly, but quietly said, “I cannot tell you exactly in what relation they stand to each other, but I think Miss St. Clair would if she found an opportunity to speak with you.”
“You do not know how I have tried to make opportunities. I go everywhere, hoping to see you, and I have never met you—not once. Won’t you ask her to come down to-night?” coaxingly, like a child.
“Not to-night: it is too late.”
“I must see Miss St. Clair to-night.”
“Impossible.”
“I must see Miss St. Clair. Find out for me when I can see her. I will go with you,” in a white heat of passion. (We had been alone for some little time.)
I took the arm which he held out, not a little agitated by the excess of emotion which thrilled and quivered through his youthful frame, as he hurried me up the broad stone staircase and along the wide corridors that led to our rooms. What business had I to meddle? How should an old fogy like me know anything of the love-affairs of this generation? The girl would have managed more wisely than I, I reflected, by no means jubilant over the result.
“Wait here;” and I walked on to Miss St. Clair’s door, opened it, and there sat Helen in her pretty white wrapper, bathed in the moonlight, serene as a star, as if there were no passionate young heart breaking in waves of anguish at her feet. “Helen, the count is in the corridor, and he will not go till I have told him when you will see him.”
“How can I? You must think for me.”
A hasty consultation. The count was standing where I had left him: “We shall be at the Sistine Chapel to-morrow at two o’clock.”
He bowed and was gone.
I did not sleep well that night. A pretty person I am to take charge of a young girl! I wonder what Mr. St. Clair would think if he knew I had made an appointment for his daughter to meet a young Spaniard? On the way, however, I admonished Helen, as if no misgiving of my own wisdom had ever crossed my mind: “You must be firm with him. Tell him so decidedly that he cannot doubt you really mean it.”
“Yes,” said she, “but I do dread it so. I can’t bear his thinking that I encouraged him.”
“Then you did?”
“I didn’t mean to, but I do like him; and I didn’t think of his taking it so to heart. Men are so strange! You think you have a charming friend, and then they will go on just so, boys and all, and you have to take them or lose them; and you can’t take them. It is too bad!”
We were at the door. The keeper opened it, and there stood the count waiting for us. It was not the first time we had been in the wonderful chapel. Fortunately, there were very few persons there on this afternoon—none that we knew. I sat down to look at the grand frescoes: Helen and the count walked on to the farthest corner. I looked at the Cumaean Sibyl, the impersonation of age and wisdom, and wished, as I glanced at the youthful figures talking so earnestly in the distance, but not a murmur of whose voices reached my ear, that she would impart to me her far-reaching vision of futurity. I gazed on the image of the Eternal Father sweeping in majestic flight through the air, bearing the angels on His floating garment as He divides the light from the darkness. I saw Adam, glad with new life, rising from the earth, because the outstretched finger of his Creator gave him a conscious strength. I looked at “The Last Judgment,” grown dim with years, till every figure started out in intensity of life, and it seemed as if the faces would haunt me for ever.
And yonder still progressed the old, ever-new drama of love and anguish, with its two actors, who seemed scarcely to have changed their position or taken their eyes from each other. At length they walked slowly toward me with more serenity of aspect than I had dared to hope.
“Shall we go into the picture-gallery?” asked the count.
“I think we may have time to walk through it,” I answered. “It is half-past three.”
“Is it possible that we have kept you waiting so long?” they asked simultaneously.
“An hour and a half is a short time in a place like the Sistine Chapel,” I remarked sententiously.
As soon as we were alone I drew Helen to the confessional: “Did you tell him about Mr. Denham?”
“Yes, everything, and he was so noble. I am so sorry. The tears stood in his eyes, and he said, ‘I suffer, but I am a man. I can bear it.’ Then he thanked me for dealing so openly with him. He never once hinted a reproach. And I deserved it,” she said with unwonted humility. “I never felt before how wicked it is to flirt just a little. He is not selfish, like some people that I know;” and my thought followed hers. “I don’t know but I am a little goose to let him go so. If he were only twenty-three years old, and I were free—”
The next day we saw nothing of the count, but early Thursday morning Vincenzo knocked at my door with a note, in which Count Alvala informed me that he was my son, and begged earnestly to see the beautiful Miss St. Clair once more: he would never trouble me again. It was the only day on which we could see the Palace of the Caesars, and would I be so good as to permit him to meet us there? I hastily penciled a few words: “I am waiting for Dr. Valery. I shall probably stay with my sick friend to-day, and Miss St. Clair will not go out without me,” and sent the line by Vincenzo, happy to be rid of the importunate boy for this time.
Two hours later, when the doctor had pronounced my friend better, and I had promised Helen a walk amid the ruins of the Palatine, which I did not like to leave Rome without seeing, I went down to the roll, coffee and eggs which constitute an Italian breakfast, and there sat the count as vigilant as a sentinel. “You will go?” said he with a smile.
“I think we may,” curtly.
“I shall perhaps meet you there.”
When we reached the Farnese gate he was waiting there, which made the “perhaps” superfluous. We had a long ramble over the lonely hill, stretching out like a green New England pasture, but where from time to time we came unexpectedly upon flights of steps which led to massive substructures of stone, foundations of ancient palaces, and to excavated halls paved with mosaics and lined with frescoes more beautiful than those of Pompeii. There were many statues, more or less mutilated, and stately brick arches laden with a wealth of flowering shrubs, and here and there thickets of tall dark cypress trees, harmonious with ruins. My young companions were rather silent, but I fancy their thoughts were not engrossed with old historic lore. I made a conscientious effort to force mine into the ruts of association which I had supposed to be inevitable in such a spot, but the bright sunshine, the delicate blue of the distant Campagna, the living gladness of earth and air were too strong for me, and I inwardly applauded a lively American girl who interrupted her droning guide with the incisive “I don’t care a snap for Caesar.”
On reaching the gate after our three hours’ ramble I consigned Miss St. Clair to some friends who were waiting for her, and stepped into the count’s carriage. He seemed to feel bound in honor not to speak of love to Miss St. Clair since the revelation of the Sistine Chapel, but he must have a little solace in talking to me about it. “It would be easy,” said he, “if she were not fiancee, but that makes it difficult—very difficult indeed. I am glad it is not going to be for three years: that is a long time, a very long time.” Then, with a sudden illumination of face and a delicious intonation of the musical voice, “Perhaps they will never marry: perhaps it will be another man—I.” (Blessed infatuation of youth, with its wonderful perhapses, which never come to maturer years!)
“One of these years I shall hope to hear that you are married to a beautiful lady of your own country and your own religion.”
“You never will.”
“Oh yes, you will be astonished to find how easy it is to forget.”
“I come of a constant race,” said he proudly. “My father loved my mother, and they sent him all over the world to forget her, but he came home in five years and married her.”
“Even if it were otherwise possible (which it is not), the difference in religion ought to prevent it. How could so good a Catholic as you distress your family by marrying a heretic?”
“Perhaps she would be a Catholic.” (I noticed that he did not say, “Perhaps I shall become a Protestant.”) “Don’t you think her father would let her marry a Catholic?”
“No,” I replied stoically.
He was silent and dejected.
“You must forget her,” said I kindly. “It is only a little while since you first saw her.”
“A little while! It is my whole life!” “Only a few weeks,” I continued. “We shall soon be across the ocean, and you will see other ladies.”
“There is only one Miss St. Clair.”
“I beg your pardon—there are three of them.” But the boy was too miserable to notice this poor little sally.
We were approaching the hotel. “I shall not see you again at present,” said he. “Monsignore will arrive this evening, and I must be at home to receive him. But I shall be in Paris by the middle of May, and I shall see you there: farewell till then.”
The next morning Miss St. Clair and I were on our way to Florence. A week later, on our return from the convent of San Marco, where we had seen the cell of Savonarola and many lovely but faded frescoes of Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo, whom should we find waiting for us in our temporary home on the Via Pandolfini but Count Alvala? I felt annoyed, and my face must have revealed it, for he said deprecatingly, “You ought to be glad to see your boy, Madame Fleming, for I have come this long journey only for a day, expressly to see you.”
“Well,” said I, “you took me so by surprise that I had not my welcome ready. I did not expect the pleasure of seeing you till after our arrival in Paris.”
“That is why I am here. I shall not be able to go to Paris. I am bitterly disappointed, but monsignore has made other plans for me. I am to go to Vienna to visit my aunt, whose husband is our ambassador there. The tour to Paris is postponed till the autumn.”
Evidently monsignore had heard of the little heretic maiden, and he was going to remove his ward from temptation. I was infinitely obliged to him.
A desultory conversation followed, carried on principally by the young people, and then the count said, “Miss St. Clair tells me that you have visited the Uffizi and Pitti galleries. May I not go with you somewhere to-morrow?—to La Certose or San Miniato, for instance?”
“Thank you,” I replied: “we are so exhausted with sight-seeing, Miss St. Clair and I, that we shall stay in all day to-morrow, and we shall be happy to see you once in the afternoon or evening, as may be most convenient for you.”
I did not like to be hard and cross to the dear boy whom my heart yearned over, but I felt as much bound to “make an effort” as if I had been a veritable Dombey.
The call lasted afternoon and evening: it was only the change of a particle. I could not reproduce the innocent talk, half gay, half sad, of this long interview, but before he went away the count drew me aside: “Will you give this to Miss St. Clair when I am gone?”
I unfolded the package: it contained a photograph of himself and a small painting which he had executed of the Coliseum on the night of the illumination. “Yes.”
“And will you send me her photograph from Paris? I will have it copied by the best miniature-painter in Rome and put in a locket set with diamonds,” said the boy enthusiastically.
“I cannot promise.”
“Do you think I could be of any use to her father? Not to win his favor, you understand, but I should be so happy to do anything to serve her or her friends. Can’t you tell me now?”
“No. Mr. St. Clair does not need assistance in any way that I know.”
In spite of the boy’s earnestness, the idea of his offering patronage to the mature and independent American struck me as irresistibly ludicrous.
“But you will tell him all about me.”
“Yes.”
“I shall learn to speak English—I have begun already—and in a year I shall be in America. Will you write your address for me on this card?”
I did so.
“If you ever come to Spain, remember that my house and all that is in it are yours.”
“I shall never go to Spain.”
“Perhaps you will one day to see Miss St. Clair,” looking up in my face with a bright smile of inextinguishable hope. “Good-bye for a year.”
A few more days in Florence, a week in Venice, a day or two in Milan, and we bade adieu to Italy. Land of beauty and mystery! when I recall thy many forms of loveliness, the glorious shapes of gods and heroes, serene and passionless in their white majesty of marble, the blessed sweetness of saints and Madonnas shining down into my soul, I seem to have been once in heaven and afterward shut out.
* * * * *
We were once more at home. Almost the first news that came to us from abroad was of the terrible war between France and Germany. During the protracted siege of Paris we were full of anxieties, but at its close we received long letters from Madame Le Fort, giving many details of the sufferings and privations of the siege, sorrowful enough for the most part, but enlivened here and there with touches of the gay French humor that nothing can subdue. There was a lively sketch of a Christmas dinner ingeniously got up of several courses of donkey-meat. At New Year’s the choicest gift that a gentleman could make a lady was a piece of wheaten bread. Afterward there was nothing in the house but rice and chocolate bonbons, which they chewed sparingly, a little at a time. But they kept up their courage—they were even gay. Hardships were nothing, but that Paris should be surrendered at last—that was a humiliation which nothing could compensate. Many of the gay dancers whom we had known had fallen in battle, among them, Rene Vergniaud. He was shot in the heart in an engagement with the Prussians in the environs of Paris.
I spent my next summer vacation with Miss St. Clair in Detroit.
“When is Mr. Denham coming home?” I asked one evening when we were alone together.
“I do not know: he does not speak of coming home. I am a little puzzled about Fred. He has written me a great deal lately about a certain Fraeulein Teresa, the daughter of one of his professors, who takes such excellent care of her younger brothers and sisters, and who is such a wonderfully economical, housewifely little body—just a new edition of Werther’s Charlotte. I do not think that he really likes her,” she continued after musing a little: “he just holds her up as a model for me to copy. I shouldn’t wonder if she was only imaginary, to make me feel how far I come short of his ideal. Fred says that he worships the very ground I tread on—slightly hyperbolical and very original, you perceive,” with a satirical curve of her pretty lips—“but he never seems half satisfied with me. He ought to know by this time that I must be just my own little self, and not a second-hand imitation of somebody else.”
The next day came a letter with a German postmark, which was so eloquent on the subject of Fraeulein Teresa that it elicited the following reply:
“DETROIT, August 5, 1871.
“DEAR FRED: I despair of emulating Fraeulein Teresa’s many excellencies. You know what a useless little thing I am. Happily, it is not too late to make another choice. Thinking it may please you, I hereby release you from all your promises to me. We may never be anything more to each other perhaps, but I hope that we shall always be dear friends. I shall never forget that we grew up together, and I wish you all possible happiness.
“Your little friend, HELEN.”
In due time this answer came:
“HEIDELBERG, August 27, 1871.
“MISS ST. CLAIR: Your somewhat singular letter of August 5th was duly received. If I believed that you had written it, or ever could or would do anything, with proper deliberation, I should accept your decision at once. But as I have good reason to know your habit of acting from sudden impulses which you afterward regret, I give you three months to reconsider this hasty step.
“I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
“F. A. DENHAM.”
Helen held to me the open sheet, with kindling eyes and glowing cheeks: “Three months! I don’t need three minutes: I wouldn’t change in three centuries. I am so glad to be free!” she cried, sobbing and laughing at the same moment. “He has worried me so—a poor little thing like me!”
The next morning I started on my return to Boston.
Early in October a servant handed me a card bearing the name Francisco Alvala. I had ceased to think of the boy, not having heard a word from him; but here he was, looking very manly, browned with the sun and sea, and beautiful as Endymion when Diana stooped to kiss him and all the green leaves in the white moonshine were tremulous with sympathy.
After the first greeting he asked, “How is Miss St. Clair? and when did you see her last?”
I told him of my recent visit.
“She is not married, then?”
“On the contrary, she is free. The engagement with Mr. Denham has been broken.”
“What did I tell you? Did I not say it would be I?” in a burst of triumph.
As a good Boston woman I am chagrined to record that Bunker Hill and all the local lions, which I was at some pains to impress on his memory, did not prove so attractive as the earliest Western train.
Why make a long story of what every one foresees? In the course of the autumn and winter the count made flying visits to Washington, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and even San Francisco, but it was noticeable that the way to all these places lay through Detroit. He spoke English marvelously well now, and so won upon the hearts of Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair that on the 23d of April, being his twenty-first birthday, the marriage of the conde de Alvala and Helen St. Clair was duly celebrated. I could not leave my school to be present at the wedding, but the young couple came to Boston to take leave of me before sailing for Europe. They were radiant with happiness, and I could hardly tell which I loved best, my boy or my girl; but if the Italian had been there to ask if I ever saw a more beautiful couple, I should have answered no with great emphasis.
I will copy Helen’s first letter in order to prove that a chateau en Espagne is not always a castle in the air:
“ALVALA, near Toledo, June 20, 1872.
“DEAR MADAME FLEMING: You have heard from mother of our voyage and safe arrival. We are now at home, Francisco and I, if I can ever learn to feel at home in such a grand place, where I can hardly find my way round. It is like one of the old palaces at Rome, the Borghese or Colonna, that we used to admire so much, with vast halls opening into one another, hangings of tapestry and Cordovan leather, marble statues and old paintings—family portraits by Titian and Velasquez, one or two Murillos, and—but I cannot write a catalogue. You must come to see us and the pictures. I am not sure which you will like the best. Francisco is very good to me, and so are all his friends. His sister and her husband were here to welcome us.
“One of the first things we did was to go down the rose-tree walk, along the banks of the Tagus, for more than a mile—white and delicate pink and deep-red roses blossoming above our heads and dropping their petals at our feet all the way. Francisco said he would make my life like that walk among the roses, all sweetness and beauty, but that he cannot tell.
“There is the old cathedral, with a wonderful head of Saint Francis and a whole forest of columns; and when you come we will bribe the sacristan not to lock you in, as they did at St. Roch. I shall never be a Roman Catholic, but I go to mass sometimes, for there is no Protestant service here, and one cannot be quite a heathen where everybody is so devout. What I dislike most is to have a chaplain in the house, walking about in his black petticoat, but of course I never say a word to Francisco.
“By and by we
are going to our house in Madrid. Our house in
Madrid! does not
that sound very strange? It all seems so unreal
that I am afraid of
waking up and finding it a dream.
“Do, dear Madame Fleming, give up slaving in that old school and come and live with Francisco and me. He says he wishes you would, and it would make everything seem more real if I had you here. Think of it, now. You will, won’t you? As ever, your dear child,
“HELEN ALVALA.”
This true story suggests a little sermon in two heads: 1st. To all possible and probable lovers: It was not the count’s rank or wealth, but the fervor and constancy of ideal love and his whole-souled, exclusive devotion, that won the heart of the American girl. 2d. To all sensible American parents: Do not permit your pretty young daughters to make a tour in Europe unless you are willing to leave them there.
MARY E. BLAIR.
In describing a Japanese marriage in high life we do not intend to soar too high. It is not for our alien pen to portray the splendors of such a marriage as that of the princess of Satsuma to Iyesada, the thirteenth Sho-gun of the Tokugawa dynasty, when all Yedo was festal and illuminated for a week. Neither shall we describe that of the imperial princess Kazu, the younger sister of the Mikado, who came up from Kioto to wed the young Sho-gun Iyemochi, and thus to unite the sacred blood of twenty-five centuries of imperial succession with that of the Tokugawas, the proud family that ruled Japan, and dictated even to her emperors, for two hundred and fifty years. We leave the description of those royal nuptials to other pens. Ours aspires only to describe a marriage such as has happened in old Yedo for the thousandth time in the samurai class—the gentry of Japan.
Were you with us in Tokio (the new name of the capital of Japan) we should take you, were you inclined to go, to the place where once stood the mansion of Yamashiro Kan, a high retainer of the prince of Echizen, and a lineal descendant of the great Iyeyasu, the founder of the dynasty of the Sho-guns. Were you to seek for Yamashiro’s mansion now, you would not find it, but instead several very vulgar evidences of the Western civilization which is now changing the Land of the Gods into a paradise of beef, bread, butter, milk and machinery. We walked past the old mansion-grounds a few days ago, and lo! we saw a milk-shop and dairy, a butcher’s stall, a sewing-machine store, a printing-office, a school in which Japanese boys were learning A, B, C’s, a photographer’s “studio,” a barber-shop with an English sign, and a score or more Japanese shops of all kinds. This is of to-day. Five years ago a long wall of diamond-shaped tiles laid in white cement extended round the spacious grounds of the homestead of the Yamashiro family. Inside were fish-ponds, mimic hills, miniature mountain-scenery, dense flower-bushes, dwarfed arboreal wonders, solemn shade trees and a garden laid out according to the very best Japanese style. The fine old yashiki of Yamashiro, with its porter’s lodge, stone path, entrance-porch, vestibule and the family homestead, was within. No wonder, then, that the aged man, who firmly believes that Japan is going to the dogs, the devil or the foreigners—he does not know which—shakes his head as he now passes by the milk-and butcher-shops, around which the lazy dogs sleep or wait for bones, and sighs as he remembers the grand old mansion.
About two miles farther north, in the great rus urba of Yedo, was another house of humbler pretensions, and yet one with a gate and garden of dimensions betokening the residence of a man of rank. It was the home of Nakayama, one of the eighty thousand hatamoto (vassals) of the Sho-gun, a studious gentleman whose greatest pride was in his two sons and his only daughter. The former were not only manly and expert in the use
Faithfully following Japanese etiquette, Kiku had been carefully kept from the company of any of the male sex since her eighth year. She never talked with any young man except her brothers. Occasionally at family parties she was addressed by her uncles or cousins. Sometimes, when gentlemen called to see her father, Kiku would bring tea to the guest, and was thus made the subject of compliments; but as to “receiving” male company, she never did it. Kiku never went out unless accompanied by her mother or the maid, who was like her shadow.
The gods of Japan meet together at the great temples in Ise during the eleventh month and tie all the nuptial knots for the following year. Kiku’s marriage-knot had been tied by the gods six months before she even suspected the strings had been crossed. How happened it?
In Japan only the people in the lower classes are acquainted with and see each other frequently before marriage. The business of selection, betrothal and marriage is attended to by the parents or friends of the pair, who carry on negotiations by means of a third factor, a middleman or go-between. Children are often betrothed at birth or when on their nurses’ backs (there are no cradles in Japan). Of course the natural results, mutual dislike and severance of the engagement at mature age, or love and happy marriage, or marriage, mutual dislike and subsequent divorce, happen, as the case may be. In general, when the parents make the betrothal of grown-up children, it is not probable that the feelings of son or daughter are outraged, or that marriages are forced against the consent of either, though this does sometimes take place. In Asiatic countries, where obedience to parents is the first and last duty, and in which no higher religion than filial obedience exists, the betrothal and marriage of children is not looked upon as anything strange. The prevalence of concubinage as a recognized institution in Japan makes it of no serious importance whether the husband loves his wife or not.
To tell an ordinary Japanese that in America people often marry against their parents’ consent is to puzzle him, and make him believe Carlyle’s saying about Americans without having heard it. If a man who marries against his parents’ wish is not a triple-dyed ingrate, he must be a downright fool. Beyond this idea the normal Japanese cannot go; and you might as well try to make a blind man understand that “celestial rosy red” was “Love’s proper hue” as to convince him that a good man ever marries against his parents’ wishes. Such ideas and practices are convincing evidences to him of the vast moral inferiority of Western nations when compared with that of the people descended from the gods.
Resuming our narrative, we must mention that Kiku’s father had once had an offer from one Matsui, a wealthy retainer of the Wakasa clan, through that young nobleman’s middleman or agent, which he refused, to the disgust of both middleman and suitor. The latter had seen Kiku walking with her mother while going to the temple at Shiba, and, being struck with her beauty, inquired who she was. Having come of age and wishing a wife, he had sued for Kiku to her father, who, for reasons of his own, refused the request, on the ground that Kiku was too young, being then but fifteen years old. The truth was, that the Wakasa samurai was a wild young fellow, and bore a reputation for riotous living that did not promise to make him a proper life-companion for Nakayama’s refined and cultured daughter. Between Nakayama, Kiku’s father, and Yamashiro, the retainer of the Echizen clan, whose home we spoke of in the opening of our sketch, had long existed a warm friendship and a mutual high regard. Yamashiro, though more fond of society and good living than Nakayama, was nevertheless, like him, a high-spirited and well-read man. He had four children, two sons and two daughters. The oldest son, named Taro, was now twenty years old, of manly figure, diligent in study, and had lately acted as a high page, attending daily upon the person of Hitotsu-bashi, the then reigning Sho-gun, and the last of his line that held or will hold regal power in Japan. Taro, being the oldest son of his father, was the heir to his house, office, rank and revenue. Taro wanted a wife. He wished to taste the sweets of love and wedded joy. He had long thought of Kiku. Of course he asked his father, and his father “was willing.” He told Taro to go to Nakayama’s house. Taro went. He talked to Nakayama, and hinted faint compliments of his daughter. It was enough. Nakayama was keen of scent, and he also “was willing.” Clapping his hands, the maid-servant appeared and falling down and bowing her head to the floor, listened: “Make some tea, and tell Miss Kiku to serve it.”
Had you been in the back rooms of that house, you would have seen Kiku blush as the maid told her who was in the front room and what her father had said. Her heart beat furiously, and the carnation of health upon her cheeks was lost in the hot blushes that mantled her face and beautiful neck when her mother, reproving her, said, “Why, dear child, don’t be excited: perhaps he has come only on some every-day business, after all. Be composed, and get ready to take in the tea.”
Nevertheless, Kiku took out her metal mirror while the maid made the tea, smoothed a pretended stray hair, powdered her neck slightly, drew her robe more tightly around her waist, adjusted her girdle, which did not need any adjusting, and then, taking up the tray, containing a tiny tea-pot, a half dozen upturned cups, and as many brass sockets for them, hastened into the front room, bowed with her face on her hands to the floor, and then handed cups of tea to her parent and his guest. This done, she returned to her mother. Whether Taro looked at Kiku’s cheeks or into her glittering black eyes we leave even a foreign reader to judge.
Let it not be thought, however, that a single word relating to marriage in the concrete passed between the two men: no such breach of etiquette was committed. The visit over, the two friends parted as friends, and nothing more, either in fact or in visible prospect.
But, to be brief, not long afterward, Taro, having selected a trusty friend, sent him as a go-between to ask of Nakayama the hand of his daughter in marriage. The proposal was accepted, and when the go-between came the second time to Kiku’s home it was in company with two servants bearing bundles. These, being opened, were found to contain a splendidly embroidered girdle, such as Japanese ladies wear, about twelve feet long and a foot wide when doubled; a robe of the finest white silk from the famous looms of Kanazawa; five or six pieces of silk not made up; several kegs of sake or rice-beer; dried fish, soy, etc. These were for the bride-elect. For her father was a sword with a richly mounted hilt and lacquered scabbard, hung with silken cords. The blade alone of the sword was worth (it isn’t polite to speak of the cost of presents, but we will let you into the secret, good reader) one hundred dollars, and had been made in Sagami from the finest native steel. Kiku’s mother was presented with a rich robe, which she recognized at once as being woven of the famous Derva silk. The ceremonious reception of these presents by the parents signified that the betrothal was solemnly ratified, and that the engagement could not be broken. Nakayama, the intended father-in-law, afterward sent to Taro a present of a jar of the finest tea from his own plantation in Shimosa, a pair of swords, and a piece of satin, such as that of which the hakama or trousers which indicate the rank of the samurai are made.
The betrothal was now published in both families, and in both houses there were festivities, rejoicing and congratulation. The marriage-day, a fortunate or good-omened one, was fixed upon as the twenty-seventh from the day of betrothal.
Was Kiku happy? Nay, you should ask, Can that word express her feelings? She had obeyed her parents: she could do nothing higher or more fraught with happiness. She was to be a wife—woman’s highest honor and a Japanese woman’s only aim. She was to marry a noble by name, nature and achievement, with health, family, wealth and honor. Kiku lived in a new world of anticipation and of vision, the gate of which the Japanese call iro, and we love. At times, as she tried on for the twentieth time her white silk robe and costly girdle, she fell into a reverie, half sad and half joyful. She thought of leaving her mother alone with no daughter, and then Kiku’s bright eyes dimmed and her bosom heaved. Then she thought of living in a new home, in a new house, with new faces. What if her mother-in-law should be severe or jealous? Kiku’s cheek paled. What if Taro should achieve some great exploit, and she share his joy as did the honorable women of old? What if his former position of beloved page to the Sho-gun should give her occasional access to the highest ladies in the land, the female courtiers of the castle? Her eyes flashed.
The wedding-night came, seeming to descend out of the starry heavens from the gods. Marriages rarely take place in the daytime in Japan. The solemn and joyful hour of evening, usually about nine o’clock, is the time for marriage—as it often is for burial—in Japan. In the starlight of a June evening the bride set forth on her journey to her intended husband’s home, as is the invariable custom. Her toilet finished, she stepped out of her childhood’s home to take her place in the norimono or palanquin which, borne on the shoulders of four men, was to convey her to her future home.
Just as Kiku stands in the vestibule of her father’s house let us photograph her for you. A slender maiden of seventeen, with cheeks of carnation; eyes that shine under lids not so broadly open as the Caucasian maiden’s, but black and sparkling; very small hands with tapering fingers, and very small feet encased in white mitten-socks; her black hair glossy as polished jet, dressed in the style betokening virginity, and decked with a garland of blossoms. Her robe of pure white silk folds over her bosom from right to left, and is bound at the waist by the gold-embroidered girdle, which is supported by a lesser band of scarlet silken crape, and is tied into huge loops behind. The skirt of the dress sweeps in a trail. Her under-dress is of the finest and softest white silk. In her hands she carries a half-moon-shaped cap or veil of floss silk. Its use we shall see hereafter. She salutes her cousin, who, clad in ceremonial dress with his ever-present two swords, is waiting to accompany her in addition to her family servants and bearers, and steps into the norimono.
The four bearers, the servants and the samurai pass down along the beautiful Kanda River, whose waters mirror the stars, and whose depths of shade re-echo to the gurgling of sculls, the rolling of ripples and the songs of revelers. The cortege enters one of the gate-towers of the old city-walls, passes beneath the shade of its ponderous copper-clad portals, and soon arrives at the main entrance of the Yamashiro yashiki. Here they find the street in front and the stone walk covered with matting, and a friend of Taro’s, in full dress, waiting to receive the cortege. Of course the gazers of the neighborhood are waiting respectfully in crowds to catch a glimpse of the coming bride.
The go-between and a few friends of the bridegroom come out to receive the bride and deliver her to her own servant and two of her own young maiden friends, who had gone before to the Yamashiro mansion. The room in which the families of the bride and groom and their immediate friends are waiting, though guiltless of “furniture,” as all Japanese rooms are, is yet resplendent with gilt-paper screens, bronzes, tiny lacquered tables and the Japanese nuptial emblems. On the wall hang three pictured scrolls of the gods of Long Life, of Wealth and of Happiness. On a little low table stands a dwarf pine tree, bifurcated, and beneath it are an old man and an old woman. Long life, a green old age, changeless constancy of love and the union of two hearts are symbolized by this evergreen. In the tokonoma (or large raised recess) of the room are the preparations for the feast, the wine-service consisting of kettles, decanters and cups. On two other tables are a pair of white storks and a fringed tortoise. All through the rooms gorgeously painted wax candles burn. The air of the apartment is heavy with perfume from the censer, a representation in bronze of an ancient hero riding upon a bullock. All the guests are seated a la Japonaise—upon the floor. Two or three young ladies, the bridesmaids, go out to meet the bride and lead her to her dressing-room. Here she finds her own property, which has been brought to her future home during the day. Toilet-stands and cabinets and the ceremonial towel-rack are prominently displayed. On a tall clothes-horse of gilt lacquer are hung her silk robes and the other articles of her wardrobe, which are bridal gifts. Over the doorway, in a gilt rack, glitters the long spear or halberd to the dexterous use of which all Japanese ladies of good family are trained. In a box of finest wood, shining with lacquer and adorned with her family crest, are the silk sleeping-dresses and coverlets, which are to be spread, as all Japanese beds are, on the floor. The articles above mentioned constitute the trousseau of a Japanese bride.
Here Kiku rearranges her dress, retouches her lower lip with golden paint and puts on her hood of floss silk. This is of a half-moon shape, completely covering her face. She does not lift it until she has drunk the sacramental marriage-cup. Many a Japanese maiden has seen her lord for the first time as she lifted her silken hood. Kiku is all ready, and she and the groom are led into the room where the ceremony is to be performed, and assigned their positions.
With a Japanese marriage neither religion nor the Church has anything to do. At the wedding no robed priest appears officially among the guests. The marriage is simply a civil and social contract. In place of our bans is the acceptance of the suitor’s presents by the family of the sought, the announced betrothal and intimation of the marriage to the police of the ward. In place of our answer, “Yes,” is the sacramental drinking of wine. We may say “wine,” because we are talking of high life, and must use high words. Sake, the universal spirituous beverage of Japan, is made from fermented rice, and hence is properly rice-beer. It looks like pale sherry, and has a taste which is peculiarly its own. Sweet sake is very delicious, and it may be bought in all the degrees of strength and of all flavors and prices. As the Japanese always drink their wine hot, a copper kettle for heating sake is a necessity in every household. On ceremonial occasions, such as marriages, the sake-kettles are of the costliest and handsomest kind, being beautifully lacquered. Bride and groom being ready, the wine-kettles, cups and two bottles are handed down. Two pretty servant-maids now bring in a hot kettle of wine and fill the bottles. To one bottle is fastened by a silken cord a male butterfly, and to the other a female. The two girls also are called “male” and “female” butterflies. The girl having the female butterfly pours out some sake in the kettle, into which the girl with the male butterfly also pours the contents of her bottle, so that the wine from both bottles thus flows together. Then the sake is poured again into another gilt-and-lacquered bottle of different shape.
Now the real ceremony begins. On a little stand three cups, each slightly concave and having an under-rest or foot about half an inch high, are set one upon another, like a pagoda. The stand with this three-storied arrangement is handed to the bride. Holding it in both hands while the sake is poured into it by the male butterfly, the bride lifts the cup, sips from it three times, and the tower of cups is then passed to the bridegroom and refilled. He likewise drinks three times, and puts the empty cup under the third. The bride again sips thrice from the upper cup. The groom does the same, and places the empty cup beneath the second. Again the bride sips three times, and the bridegroom does the same, and they are man and wife: they are married. This ceremony is called san-san-ku-do, or “three times three are nine.”
Like a wedding at once auspicious and distingue, the nuptials of Kiku and Taro passed off without one misstep or incident of ill omen. In the dressing-room and in the hall of ceremony Kiku’s self-possessed demeanor was admired by all. After drinking the sacramental wine she lifted her silken hood, not too swiftly or nervously, and smiled blushingly on her lord. The marriage ceremony over, both bride and groom retired to their respective dressing-rooms.
Now, having briefly described Kiku’s wedding, perhaps we should stop here. Although fairly married, however, Kiku was not through the ceremonies of the night. Before her own parents left the house she was taken by the attendant ladies before her parents-in-law, and with them drank cups of wine and exchanged gifts. All the bridal presents were displayed during the evening in her dressing-room, and the whole of her trousseau was open to the inspection of all the ladies present. Feasting and dancing were the order of the hours until midnight, and then Kiku’s parents bade her farewell, and she was left a bride in a new home.
“Where did the young couple go?” “What was the route of their bridal-tour?” “Perhaps they made a late wedding-journey?” “Of course Japan has many fine watering-places to which married couples resort?” These are American questions. The fashion of making bridal-tours is not Japanese. Many a lovely spot might serve for such a purpose in everywhere beautiful Japan. The lake and mountains of Hakone; the peerless scenery, trees, waterfalls and tombs of Nikko, where sleeps the mighty Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa line; the spas of Atami,—all these are spots which if in America would be thronged with bridal-parties. Caucasians in Japan even make Fusiyama’s summit the goal of their wedded steps, but our Kiku and Taro went nowhere.
“At home” for three days is the general rule in Japan. All their friends came to see them, and presents were showered on the happy pair. The great Sho-gun, remembering his former page, sent Taro a present of a flawless ball of pure rock-crystal five inches in diameter. Prince Echizen, his feudal lord, presented him with a splendid saddle with gilt flaps and a pair of steel stirrups inlaid with
Now, like the “goosie gander” of nursery memory, we must wander again into the lady’s chamber. Were you to wander to such a place after a Japanese maiden became a wife, you would see, as we have often seen, how the outward form of a Japanese maiden assumes that of a Japanese matron. First, then, the maiden wears a high coiffure that always serves as a sacred symbol of her virginity. It is not easy to describe its form, but even foreigners think it very beautiful, and will regret the day when the Japanese musume wears her hair like her sisters across the ocean. Indeed, it would be no strange thing were Queen Fashion to ordain that American maidens should adopt the style of dressing the hair now in universal vogue in Japan. The shimada or virginal coiffure, however, is changed after marriage, and Kiku, like the rest of her wedded friends, now wore the maru-mage, or half-moon-shaped chignon, which is wound round an ivory, tortoise-shell or coral-tipped bar, and is the distinguishing mark of a Japanese wife. So far, however, the transition from loveliness to ugliness has not been very startling: Kiku still looked pretty. The second process, however, robbed her of her eyebrows, and left her without those dark arches that had helped to make the radiant sun of her once maidenly beauty. With tweezers and razor the fell work, after many a wince, was done. With denuded brows and changed coiffure surely the Japanese Hymen demands no more sacrifices at his shrine? Surely Kiku can still keep the treasures of a set of teeth that seem like a casket of pearls with borders of coral? Not so. The fashion of all good society from remotest antiquity demands that the teeth of a wife must be dyed black. Kiku joyfully applied the galls and iron, and by patience and dint of polishing soon had a set of teeth as black as jet and as polished as the best Whitby. Not strange to tell to a Japanese, either, the smile of her husband Taro was a rich reward for her trouble and the surrender of her maiden charms. Japanese husbands never kiss their wives: kissing is an art unknown in Japan. It is even doubtful whether the language has a word signifying a kiss. No wonder Young Japan wishes to change his language for the English! Henceforth in public or private, alone or in company, Kiku’s personal and social safety was as secure as if clothed in armor of proof and attended by an army. The black teeth, maru-mage and shaven eyebrows constitute a talisman of safety in a land which foreigners so like to believe licentious and corrupt beyond the bounds of conception.
Now that we have Kiku married, we must leave her to glide into the cool, sequestered paths of a Japanese married lady’s life. Only one thing we regret, and that is that her marriage could not have happened in the year of our Lord 1874 and of “Enlightened Peace the seventh, and of the era of Jimmu, the first Mikado, the two thousand five hundred and thirty-fourth.” Had she been married during the present year, her coiffure would need no alteration, her eyebrows would still knit with care or arch with mirth, and her teeth would still keep their virgin whiteness, unsoiled by astringent galls or abhorred vitriol.
The leader of feminine fashion in Japan, the young empress Haruko, has set her subjects the example by for ever banishing the galls and iron, appearing even in public with her teeth as Nature made them. Kiku and Taro, though once proud to own allegiance to the Sho-gun, are now among the staunch supporters of the lord of the Sho-gun, the Mikado, the only true sovereign of the Sunrise Kingdom.
W.E. GRIFFIS.
She wandered off one dismal day;
No one was by to bid her stay:
The earth was white, the sky was gray,
When the poor little baby wandered away.
The sun went down with crimson crown
Behind the clouds and the tree-tops brown:
The cold road stared with a colder frown
When the poor little feet went wandering down.
Her mother lived up in the shining sky,
Thought poor little baby, wondering why,
As hours and days and weeks went by,
She never came down at her baby’s cry.
If the crimson wave in the west led true,
The skyward road she surely knew:
She heeded not that the sharp winds blew,
Or her cold little feet sore tired grew.
She hummed some broken baby song,
And talked to herself as she trudged along:
She feared no failure, recked no wrong,
But she thought that the way was lone and long.
Tired and cold, she lingered to rest
Under a snow-drift’s treacherous crest:
She cuddled herself in a tiny nest,
White and cold as her mother’s breast.
They found her there on the snowy ground,
Her silky hair with snowflakes crowned.
She made no sign, she breathed no sound,
But the skyward road she had surely found.
CLARA G. DOLLIVER.
BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF “A PRINCESS OF THULE.”
SOME OLD SONGS.
“Are you dreaming again, child?” said Mrs. Rosewarne to her daughter. “You are not a fit companion for a sick woman, who is herself dull enough. Why do you always look so sad when you look at the sea, Wenna?”
The wan-faced, beautiful-eyed woman lay on a sofa, a book beside her. She had been chatting in a bright, rapid, desultory fashion about the book and a dozen other things—amusing herself really by a continual stream of playful talk—until she perceived that the girl’s fancies were far away. Then she stopped suddenly, with this expression of petulant but good-natured disappointment.
“Oh, I beg your pardon, mother,” said Wenna, who was seated at an open window fronting the bay. “What did you say? Why does the sea make one sad? I don’t know. One feels less at home here than out on the rocks at Eglosilyan: perhaps that is it. Or the place is so beautiful that it almost makes you cry. I don’t know.”
And indeed Penzance Bay on this still, clear morning was beautiful enough to attract wistful eyes and call up vague and distant fancies. The cloudless sky was intensely dark in its blue: one had a notion that the unseen sun was overhead and shining vertically down. The still plain of water—so clear that the shingle could be seen through it a long way out—had no decisive color, but the fishing smacks lying out there were jet-black points in the bewildering glare. The sunlight did not seem to be in the sky, in the air or on the sea; but when you turned to the southern arm of the bay, where the low line of green hills ran out into the water, there you could see the strong clear light shining—shining on the green fields and on the sharp black lines of hedges, on that bit of gray old town with its cottage-gardens and its sea-wall, and on the line of dark rock that formed the point of the promontory. On the other side of the bay the eye followed the curve of the level shores until it caught sight of St. Michael’s Mount rising palely from the water, its sunlit grays and purple shadows softened by the cool distance. Then beyond that again, on the verge of the far horizon, lay the long and narrow line of the Lizard, half lost in a silver haze. For the rest, a cool wind went this way and that through Mrs. Rosewarne’s room, stirring the curtains. There was an odor of the sea in the air. It was a day for dreaming perhaps, but not for the gloom begotten of languor and an indolent pulse.
“Oh, mother! oh, mother!” Wenna cried suddenly, with a quick flush of color to her cheeks, “do you know who is coming along? Can you see? It is Mr. Trelyon, and he is looking at all the houses: I know he is looking for us.”
“Child! child!” said the mother. “How should Mr. Trelyon know we are here?”
“Because I told him,” Wenna said simply and hurriedly. “Mother, may I wave a handkerchief to him? Won’t you come and see him? he seems so much more manly in this strange place; and how brave and handsome he looks!”
“Wenna!” her mother said severely.
The girl did not wave a handkerchief, it is true, but she knelt down at the open bay-window, so that he must needs see her; and sure enough he did. Off went his hat in a minute, a bright look of recognition leapt to his eyes, and he crossed the street.
Then Wenna turned, all in a flutter of delight, and quite unconscious of the color in her face: “Are you vexed, mother? Mayn’t I be glad to see him? Why, when I know that he will brighten up your spirits better than a dozen doctors? One feels quite happy and hopeful whenever he comes into the room. Mother, you won’t have to complain of dullness if Mr. Trelyon comes to see you. And why doesn’t the girl send him up at once?”
Wenna was standing at the open door to receive him when he came up stairs: she had wholly forgotten the embarrassment of their last parting.
“I thought I should find you out,” he said when he came into the room, and it was clear that there was little embarrassment about him; “and I know how your mother likes to be teased and worried. You’ve got a nice place here, Mrs. Rosewarne; and what splendid weather you’ve brought with you!”
“Yes,” said Wenna, her whole face lit up with a shy gladness, “haven’t we? And did you ever see the bay looking more beautiful? It is enough to make you laugh and clap your hands out of mere delight to see everything so lovely and fresh.”
“A few minutes ago I thought you were nearly crying over it,” said the mother with a smile, but Miss Wenna took no heed of the reproof. She would have Mr. Trelyon help himself to a tumbler of claret and water. She fetched out from some mysterious lodging-house recess an ornamented tin can of biscuits. She accused herself of being the dullest companion in the world, and indirectly hinted that he might have pity on her mamma and stay to luncheon with them.
“Well, it’s very odd,” he said, telling a lie with great simplicity of purpose, “but I had arranged to drive to the Land’s End for luncheon—to the inn there, you know. I suppose it wouldn’t—Do you think, Mrs. Rosewarne—would it be convenient for you to come for a drive so far?”
“Oh, it would be the very best thing in the world for her—nothing could be better,” said Wenna; and then she added meekly, “if it is not giving you too much trouble, Mr. Trelyon.”
He laughed: “Trouble! I’m glad to be of use to anybody; and in this case I shall have all the pleasure on my side. Well, I’m off now to see about the horses. If I come for you in half an hour, will that do?”
As soon as he had left Mrs. Rosewarne turned to her daughter and said to her, gravely enough, “Wenna, one has seldom to talk to you about the proprieties, but really this seems just a little doubtful. Mr. Trelyon may make a friend of you—that is all very well, for you are going to marry a friend of his—but you ought not to expect him to associate with me.”
“Mother,” said Wenna with hot cheeks, “I wonder how you can suspect him of thinking of such foolish and wicked things. Why, he is the very last man in all the world to do anything that is mean and unkind, or to think about it.”
“My dear child, I suspect him of nothing,” Mrs. Rosewarne said; “but look at the simple facts of the case. Mr. Trelyon is a very rich gentleman; his family is an old one, greatly honored about here; and if he is so recklessly kind as to offer his acquaintanceship to persons who are altogether in a different sphere of life, we should take care not to abuse his kindness or to let people have occasion to wonder at him. Looking at your marriage and future station, it is perhaps more permissible with you; but as regards myself, I don’t very much care, Wenna, to have Mr. Trelyon coming about the house.”
“Why, mother, I—I am surprised at you!” Wenna said warmly. “You judge of him by the contemptible things that other people might say of him. Do you think he would care for that? Mr. Trelyon is a man, and like a man he has the courage to choose such friends as he likes; and it is no more to him what money they have or what their position is than the—than the shape of their pocket-handkerchiefs is. Perhaps that is his folly, recklessness—the recklessness of a young man. Perhaps it is. I am not old enough to know how people alter, but I hope I shall never see Mr. Trelyon alter in this respect—never, if he were to live for a hundred years. And—and I am surprised to hear you, of all people, mother, suggest such things of him. What has he done that you should think so meanly of him?”
Wenna was very indignant and hurt. She would have continued further, but that a tremulous movement of her under lip caused her to turn away her head.
“Well, Wenna, you needn’t cry about it,” her mother said gently. “It is of no great consequence. Of course every one must please himself in choosing his friends; and I quite admit that Mr. Trelyon is not likely to be hindered by anything that any person may say. Don’t take it so much to heart, child: go and get on your things, and get back some of the cheerfulness you had while he was here. I will say this for the young man, that he has an extraordinary power of raising your spirits.”
“You are a good mother, after all,” said Wenna penitently; “and if you come and let me dress you prettily, I shall promise not to scold you again—not till the next time you deserve it.”
By the time they drove away from Penzance the forenoon had softened into more beautiful colors. There was a paler blue in the sky and on the sea, and millions of yellow stars twinkled on the ripples. A faint haze had fallen over the bright green hills lying on the south of the bay.
“Life looks worth having on such a day as this,” Trelyon said: “doesn’t it, Miss Wenna?”
She certainly seemed pleased enough. She drank in the sweet fresh air; she called attention to the pure rare colors of the sea and the green uplands, the coolness of the woods through which they drove, the profuse abundance of wild flowers along the banks; all things around her seemed to have conspired to yield her delight, and a great happiness shone in her eyes. Mr. Trelyon talked mostly to Mrs. Rosewarne, but his eyes rarely wandered away for long from Wenna’s pleased and radiant face; and again and again he said to himself, “And if a simple drive on a spring morning can give this child so great a delight, it is not the last that she and I shall have together.”
“Mrs. Rosewarne,” said he, “I think your daughter has as much need of a holiday as anybody. I don’t believe there’s a woman or girl in the county works as hard as she does.”
“I don’t know whether she needs it,” said Miss Wenna of herself, “but I know that she enjoys it.”
“I know what you’d enjoy a good deal better than merely getting out of sight of your own door for a week or two,” said he. “Wouldn’t you like to get clear away from England for six months, and go wandering about in all sorts of fine places? Why, I could take such a trip in that time! I should like to see what you’d say to some of the old Dutch towns and their churches, and all that; then Cologne, you know, and a sail up the Rhine to Mainz; then you’d go on to Bale and Geneva, and we’d get you a fine big carriage, with the horses decorated with foxes’ and pheasants’ tails, to drive you to Chamounix. Then, when you had gone tremulously over the Mer de Glace, and kept your wits about you going down the Mauvais Pas, I don’t think you could do better than go on to the Italian lakes—you never saw anything like them, I’ll be bound—and Naples and Florence. Would you come back by the Tyrol, and have a turn at Zurich and Lucerne, with a long ramble through the Black Forest in a trap resembling a ramshackle landau?”
“Thank you,” said Wenna very cheerfully. “The sketch is delightful, but I am pretty comfortable where I am.”
“But this can’t last,” said he.
“And neither can my holidays,” she answered.
“Oh, but they ought to,” he retorted vehemently. “You have not half enough amusement in your life: that’s my opinion. You slave too much for all those folks about Eglosilyan and their dozens of children. Why, you don’t get anything out of life as you ought to. What have you to look forward to? Only the same ceaseless round of working for other people. Don’t you think you might let some one else have a turn at that useful but monotonous occupation?”
“But Wenna has something else to look forward to now,” her mother reminded him gently; and after that he did not speak for some while.
Fair and blue was the sea that shone all around the land when they got out on the rough moorland near the coast. They drove to the solitary little inn perched over the steep cliffs, and here the horses were put up and luncheon ordered. Would Mrs. Rosewarne venture down to the great rocks at the promontory? No, she would rather stay indoors till the young people returned; and so these two went along the grassy path themselves.
They clambered down the slopes, and went out among the huge blocks of weather-worn granite, many of which were brilliant with gray, green and orange lichens. There was a low and thunderous noise in the air: far below them, calm and fine as the day was, the summer sea dashed and roared into gigantic caverns, while the white foam floated out again on the troubled waves. Could anything have been more magical than the colors of the sea—its luminous greens, its rich purples, its brilliant blues, lying in long swaths on the apparently motionless surface? It was only the seething white beneath their feet and the hoarse thunder along the coast that told of the force of this summer-like sea; and for the rest the picture was light and calm and beautiful; but there the black rocks basked in the sunlight, the big skarts standing here and there on their ledges, not moving a feather. A small steamer was slowly making for the island farther out, where a lighthouse stood. And far away beyond these, on the remote horizon, the Scilly Isles lay like a low bank of yellow fog under the pale-blue skies.
They were very much by themselves out here at the end of the world, and yet they did not seem inclined to talk much. Wenna sat down on the warm grass; her companion perched himself on one of the blocks of granite; they watched the great undulations of the blue water come rolling on to the black rocks and then fall backward seething in foam.
“And what are you thinking about?” said Trelyon to her gently, so that she should not be startled.
“Of nothing at all: I am quite happy,” Wenna said frankly. Then she added, “I suppose the worst of a day like this is that a long time after you look back upon it, and it seems so beautiful and far away that it makes you miserable. You think how happy you were once. That is the unfortunate side of being happy.”
“Well,” said he, “I must say you don’t look forward to the future with any great hope if you think the recollection of one bright day will make you wretched.”
He came down from his perch and stood beside her. “Why, Wenna,” said he, “do you know what you really need? Some one to take you in hand thoroughly, and give you such an abundance of cheerful and pleasant days that you would never think of singling out any one of them. Why shouldn’t you have weeks and months of happy idling in bright weather, such as lots of people have who don’t deserve them a bit? There’s something wrong in your position. You want some one to become your master and compel you to make yourself happy. You won’t of yourself study your own comfort: some one else ought to make you.”
“And who do you think would care to take so much trouble about me?” she said with a smile, for she attached no serious meaning to this random talk.
Her companion’s face flushed somewhat—not with embarrassment, but with the courage of what he was going to say. “I would,” he said boldly. “You will say it is none of my business, but I tell you I would give twenty thousand pounds to-morrow if I were allowed to—to get you a whole summer of pleasant holidays.”
There was something about the plain-spoken honesty of this avowal that touched her keenly. Wild and impossible as the suggestion was, it told her at least what one person in the world thought of her. She said to him, with her eyes cast down, “I like to hear you speak like that—not for my own sake, but I know there is nothing generous and kindly that you wouldn’t do at a mere moment’s impulse. But I hope you don’t think I have been grumbling over my lot on such a day as this? Oh no: I see too much of other people’s way of living to complain of my own. I have every reason to be contented and happy.”
“Yes, you’re a deal too contented and happy,” said he with an impatient shrug. “You want somebody to alter all that, and see that you get more to be contented and happy about.”
She rose: he gave her his hand to help her up. But he did not surrender her hand then, for the path up the slope was a deep and difficult one, and she could fairly rely on his strength and sureness of foot.
“But you are not content, Mr. Trelyon,” she said. “I always notice that whenever you get to a dangerous place you are never satisfied unless you are putting your life in peril. Wouldn’t you like to ride your black horse down the face of this precipice? or wouldn’t you like to clamber down blindfold? Why does a man generally seem to be anxious to get rid of his life?”
“Perhaps it ain’t of much use to him,” he said coolly.
“You ought not to say that,” she answered in a low voice.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t mean to break my neck yet a while; but if I did, who would miss me? I suppose my mother would play half a dozen a day more operas or oratorios, or stuff of that sort, and there would be twenty parsons in the house for one there is at present. And some of the brats about the place would miss an occasional sixpence; which would be better for their health. And Dick—I suppose they’d sell him to some fool of a Londoner, who would pound his knees out in the Park—he would miss me too.”
“And these are all,” she said, “who would miss you? You are kind to your friends.”
“Why, would you?” he said with a stare of surprise; and then, seeing she would not speak, he continued with a laugh, “I like the notion of my making an object of general compassion of myself. Did the poor dear tumble off a rock into the sea? And where was its mother’s apron-string? I’m not going to break my neck yet a while, Miss Wenna; so don’t you think I’m going to let you off your promise to pay me back for those sewing-machines.”
“I have told you, Mr. Trelyon,” she said with some dignity, “that we shall pay you back every farthing of the price of them.”
He began to whistle in an impertinent manner. He clearly placed no great faith in the financial prospects of that sewing club.
They had some light luncheon in the remote little inn, and Mrs. Rosewarne was pleased to see her ordinarily demure and preoccupied daughter in such high and careless spirits. It was not a splendid banquet. The chamber was not a gorgeous one, for the absence of ornament and the enormous thickness of the walls told of the house being shut up in the winter months and abandoned to the fury of the western gales, when the wild sea came hurling up the face of these steep cliffs and blowing over the land. But they paid little attention to any lack of luxury. There was a beautiful blue sea shining in the distance. The sunlight was falling hotly on the green sward of the rocks outside, but all the same a fresh, cool breeze came blowing in at the open window. They let the time pass easily, with pleasant talk and laughter.
Then they drove leisurely back in the afternoon. They passed along the moorland ways, through rude little villages built of stone and by the outskirts of level and cheerless farms, until they got into the beautiful woods and avenues lying around Penzance. When they came in sight of the broad bay they found that the world had changed its colors since the morning. The sea was of a cold purplish gray, but all around it, on the eastern horizon, there was a band of pale pink in the sky. On the west again, behind Penzance, the warm hues of the sunset were shining behind the black stems of the trees. The broad thoroughfare was mostly in shadow, and the sea was so still that one could hear the footsteps and the voices of the people walking up and down the Parade.
“I suppose I must go now,” said the young gentleman when he had seen them safely seated in the small parlor overlooking the bay. But he did not seem anxious to go.
“But why?” Wenna said, rather timidly. “You have no engagement, Mr. Trelyon. Would you care to stay and have dinner with us—such a dinner as we can give you?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I should like it very much,” he said.
Mrs. Rosewarne, a little surprised, and yet glad to see Wenna enjoying herself, regarded the whole affair with a gentle resignation. Wenna had the gas lit and the blinds let down: then, as the evening was rather cool, she had soon a bright fire burning in the grate. She helped to lay the table. She produced such wines as they had. She made sundry visits to the kitchen, and at length the banquet was ready.
What ailed the young man? He seemed beside himself with careless and audacious mirth, and he made Mrs. Rosewarne laugh as she had not laughed for years. It was in vain that Wenna assumed airs to rebuke his rudeness. Nothing was sacred from his impertinence—not even the offended majesty of her face. And at last she gave in too, and could only revenge herself by saying things of him which, the more severe they were, the more he seemed to enjoy. But after dinner she went to the small piano, while her mother took a big easy-chair near the fire, and he sat by the table, looking over some books. There was no more reckless laughter then.
In ancient times—that is to say, in the half-forgotten days of our youth—a species of song existed which exists no more. It was not as the mournful ballads of these days, which seem to record the gloomy utterances of a strange young woman who has wandered into the magic scene in Der Freischuetz, and who mixes up the moanings of her passion with descriptions of the sights, and sounds she there finds around her. It was of quite another stamp. It dealt with a phraseology of sentiment peculiar to itself—a “patter,” as it were, which came to be universally recognized in drawing-rooms. It spoke of maidens plighting their troth, of Phyllis enchanting her lover with her varied moods, of marble halls in which true love
Wenna Rosewarne was singing “We met, ’twas in a crowd, and I thought he would shun me.” It is the song of a girl (must one explain so much in these later days?) who is in love with one man, and is induced to marry another: she meets the former, and her heart is filled with shame and anguish and remorse. As Wenna sang the song it seemed to this young man that there was an unusual pathos in her voice; and he was so carried away by the earnestness of her singing that his heart swelled and rose up within him, and he felt himself ready to declare that such should not be her fate. This man who was coming back to marry her—was there no one ready to meet him and challenge his atrocious claim? Then the song ended, and with a sudden disappointment Trelyon recollected that he at least had no business to interfere. What right had he to think of saving her?
He had been idly turning over some volumes on the table. At last he came to a Prayer-book of considerable size and elegance of binding. Carelessly looking at the fly-leaf, he saw that it was a present to Wenna Rosewarne, “with the very dearest love of her sister Mabyn.” He passed his hand over the leaves, not noticing what he was doing. Suddenly he saw something which did effectually startle him into attention.
It was a sheet of paper with two slits cut into it at top and bottom. In these a carefully-pressed piece of None-so-pretty had been placed, and just underneath the flower was written in pencil, “From H.T. to W.R., May 2, 18—.” He shut the book quickly, as if his fingers had been burned, and then he sat quite silent, with his heart beating fast.
So she had kept the flower he had put in the basket of primroses! It had carried its message, and she still remained his friend!
THE CUT DIRECT.
“Well, mother,” Miss Wenna said deliberately after he had gone, “I never did see you so thoroughly enjoy a whole day.”
“I was thinking the same about you, Wenna,” the mother answered with an amused look.
“That is true enough, mother,” the girl confessed in her simple way. “He is so good-natured, so full of spirits and careless, that one gets quite as careless and happy as himself. It is a great comfort, mother, to be with anybody who doesn’t watch the meaning of every expression you use: don’t you think so? And I hope I wasn’t rude: do you think I was rude?”
“Why, child, I don’t think you could be rude to a fox that was eating your chickens. You would ask him to take a chair and not hurry himself.”
“Well, I must write to Mabyn now,” Wenna said with a business-like air, “and thank her for posting me this Prayer-book. I suppose she didn’t know I had my small one with me.”
She took up the book, for she was sitting on the chair that Harry Trelyon had just vacated. She had no sooner done so than she caught sight of the sheet of paper with the dried flower and the inscription in Mabyn’s handwriting. She stared, with something of a look of fear on her face. “Mother,” she said in quite an altered voice, “did you notice if Mr. Trelyon was looking at this Prayer-book?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” Mrs. Rosewarne said. “I should think he went over every book on the table.”
The girl said nothing, but she took the book in her hand and carried it up to her own room. She stood for a moment irresolute: then she took the sheet of paper with the flowers on it, and tore it in a hundred pieces and threw them into the empty grate. Then she cried a little, as a girl must; and finally went down again and wrote a letter to Mabyn which rather astonished that young lady.
“MY DEAR MABYN” (so the letter ran): I am exceedingly angry with you. I did not think you were capable of such folly: I might call it by a worse name if I thought you really meant what you seem to mean. I have just torn up the worthless scrap of flower you so carefully preserved for me into a thousand pieces; but you will be glad to know that in all probability Mr. Trelyon saw it on the paper, and the initials too which you put there. I cannot tell you how pained and angry I am. If he did place that flower intentionally among thePage 60
primroses, it was most impertinent of him; but he is often impertinent in joking. What must he think of me that I should seem to have taken this seriously, and treasured up that miserable and horrid piece of weed, and put his initials below it, and the important date? You put thoughts into my head that cover me with shame. I should not be fit to live if I were what you take me to be. If I thought there was another human being in the world who could imagine or suspect what you apparently desire, I would resolve this moment never to see Mr. Trelyon again; and much harm that would do either him or me! But I am too proud to think that any one could imagine such a thing. Nor did I expect that to come from my own sister, who ought to know what my true relations are with regard to Mr. Trelyon. I like him very much, as I told him to his face two days before we left Eglosilyan; and that will show you what our relations are. I think he is a very frank, generous and good young man, and a clever and cheerful companion; and my mother has to-day to thank him for about the pleasantest little trip she has ever enjoyed. But as for your wishing me to preserve a flower that he sent, or that you think he sent to me, why, I feel my face burning at the thought of what you suggest. And what can I say to him now, supposing he has seen it? Can I tell him that my own sister thought such things of me? Perhaps, after all, the simplest way to set matters right will be for me to break off the acquaintance altogether; and that will show him whether I was likely to have treasured up a scrap of London pride in my Prayer-book.
“I am your loving sister,
“WENNA ROSEWARNE.”
Meanwhile, Harry Trelyon was walking up and down the almost empty thoroughfare by the side of the sea, the stars overhead shining clearly in the dark night, the dimly-seen waves falling monotonously on the shelving beach. “To keep a flower, that is nothing,” he was saying to himself. “All girls do that, no matter who gives it to them. I suppose she has lots more, all with the proper initials and date attached.”
It was not an agreeable reflection; he turned to other matters: “If she were to care for me a little bit, would it be mean of me to try to carry her off from that man? Is it possible that he has the same feeling for her that I have? In that case it would be mean. Now, when I think of her, the whole world seems filled with her presence somehow, and everything is changed. When I hear the sea in the morning I think of her, and wonder where she is; when I see a fine day I hope she is enjoying it somewhere; the whole of Penzance has become magical. It is no longer the same town. I used to come to it and never see it in the old days, when one was busy about stables and the pilchard fishing and the reports of the quarries. Now the whole of Penzance has got a sort of charm in it since Wenna Rosewarne has come to it. I look at the houses, and wonder if the people inside know anybody fit to compare with her; and one becomes grateful to the good weather for shining round about her and making her happy. I suppose the weather knows what she deserves.”
Then he began to argue the question as to whether it would be fair and honorable to seek to take away from another man the woman who had pledged herself to marry him; and of course an easy and definite decision is sure to be arrived at when counsel on both sides and jury and judges sitting in banco are all one person, who conducts and closes the case as it suits himself. He began by assuming such facts as suited his arguments, and ended by selecting and confirming such arguments as suited himself. Wenna Rosewarne cared nothing for Mr. Roscorla. She would be miserable if she married him: her own sister was continually hinting as much. Mr. Roscorla cared nothing for her except in so far as she might prove a pretty housewife for him. The selfishness that would sacrifice for its own purposes a girl’s happiness was of a peculiarly despicable sort which ought to be combated, and deserved no mercy. Therefore, and because of all these things, Harry Trelyon was justified in trying to win Wenna Rosewarne’s love.
One by one the people who had been strolling up and down the dark thoroughfare left it: he was almost alone now. He walked along to the house in which the Rosewarnes were. There was no light in any of the windows. But might she not be sitting up there by herself, looking out on the starlit heavens and listening to the waves? He wished to be able to say good-night to her once more.
How soon might she be up and out on the morrow? Early in the morning, when the young day was rising over the gray sea, and the sea-winds coming freshly in as if they were returning from the cold night? If he could but see her at daybreak, with all the world asleep around them, and with only themselves to watch the growing wonders of the dawn, might not he say something to her then that she would not be vexed to hear, and persuade her that a new sort of life lay before her if she would only enter it along with him? That was the notion that he continually dwelt on for self-justification when he happened to take the trouble to justify himself. The crisis of this girl’s life was approaching. Other errors might be retrieved—that one, once committed, never. If he could only see her now, this is what he would say: “We can only live but once, Wenna; and this for us two would be life—our only chance of it. Whatever else may happen, that is no matter: let us make sure of this one chance, and face the future together—you full of sweetness and trust, I having plenty of courage for both. We will treat objectors and objections as they may arise—afterward: perhaps they will be prudent and keep out of our way.” And indeed he convinced himself that this, and this only, was Wenna Rosewarne’s chance of securing happiness for her life, assuming, in a way, that he had love as well as courage sufficient for both.
He was early up next morning and down on the promenade, but the day was not likely to tempt Wenna to come out just then. A gray fog hung over land and sea, the sea itself being a dull, leaden plain. Trelyon walked about, however, talking to everybody, as was his custom; and everybody said the fog would clear and a fine day follow. This, in fact, happened, and still Wenna did not make her appearance. The fog over the sea seemed to separate itself into clouds: there was a dim, yellow light in the breaks. These breaks widened: there was a glimmer of blue. Then on the leaden plain a glare of white light fell, twinkling in innumerable stars on the water. Everything promised a clear, bright day.
As a last resource he thought he would go and get Juliott Penaluna, and persuade that young lady to come and be introduced to the Rosewarnes. At first Miss Penaluna refused point-blank. She asked him how he could expect her to do such a thing. But then her cousin Harry happened to be civil, and indeed kind, in his manner to her, and when he was in one of those moods there was nothing she could refuse him. She went and got ready with an air of resignation on her comely face.
“Mind, Harry, I am not responsible,” she said when she came back. “I am afraid I shall get into awful trouble about it.”
“And who will interfere?” said the young man, just as if he were looking about for some one anxious to be thrown from the top of the tower on St. Michael’s Mount.
“I shall be accused of conniving with you, you know; and I think I am very good-natured to do so much for you, Harry.”
“I think you are, Jue: you are a thoroughly good sort of girl when you like to be—that’s a fact. And now you will see whether what I have said about Miss Rosewarne is all gammon or not.”
“My poor boy, I wouldn’t say a word against her for the world. Do I want my head wrenched off? But if any one says anything to me about what I may do to-day, I shall have to tell the truth; and do you know what that is, Harry? I do really believe you are in love with that girl, past all argument; and there never was one of your family who would listen to reason. I know quite well what you will do. If she cares ever so little for you, you will marry her in spite of everybody, and probably against her own wish: if she doesn’t care for you, you will revenge yourself on the happy man of her choice, and probably murder him. Well, it isn’t my fault. I know what your mother will say.”
“Ah, you don’t know, Jue, what my mother thinks of her,” he said confidently.
“Oh yes, mothers think very well of a girl until they discover that she is going to marry their son.”
“Oh, stuff! why the inconsistency—”
“It is the privilege of women to be inconsistent, Harry. Your mother will detest that girl if you try to marry her.”
“I don’t care.”
“Of course not. No man of your family cares for anything that interferes with his own wishes. I suppose there’s no use in my trying to show you what a fearful amount of annoyance and trouble you are preparing for yourself?”
“None. I’ll take it as it comes: I’m not afraid.”
They got down to the promenade; the forenoon was now bright and cheerful; a good many folks had come out to enjoy the sunlight and the cool sea-breeze. Miss Juliott was not at all disinclined to walk there with her handsome cousin, though he had forgotten his gloves and was clearly not paying her very special attention.
“Jue,” he said suddenly, “I can see Miss Rosewarne right at the end of this road: can’t you?”
“I haven’t got the eyes of a hawk, you stupid boy!” his cousin said.
“Oh, but I can recognize her dress a dozen times as far away. These are her pet colors at present—a soft cream-color and black, with bits of dark red. Can you see now?”
“I never saw you pay the least attention before to a lady’s dress.”
“Because you don’t know how she dresses,” he said proudly.
She was coming along the Parade all alone.
“Well, it is a pretty dress,” Miss Juliott said, “and I like the look of her face, Harry. You can’t expect one girl to say any more than that of another girl, can you?”
“This is a very nice way of being able to introduce you,” he said. “I suppose you will be able to chaperon each other afterward, when her mother isn’t able to go out?”
Wenna was coming quietly along, apparently rather preoccupied. Sometimes she looked out, with her dark, earnest and yet wistful eyes, at the great plain of water quivering in the sunshine: she paid little heed to the people who went by. When at length she did see Harry Trelyon, she was quite near him, and she had just time to glance for a moment at his companion. The next moment—he could not tell how it all happened—she passed him with a slight bow of recognition, courteous enough, but nothing more. There was no especial look of friendliness in her eyes.
He stood there rather bewildered.
“That is about as good as the cut direct, Harry,” his cousin said. “Come along—don’t stand there.”
“Oh, but there’s some mistake, Jue,” he said.
“A girl never does a thing of that sort by mistake. Either she is vexed with you for walking with me—and that is improbable, for I doubt whether she saw me—or she thinks the ardor of your acquaintance should be moderated; and there I should agree with her. You don’t seem so vexed as one might have expected, Harry.”
“Vexed!” he said. “Why, can’t you tell by that girl’s face that she could do nothing capricious or unkind? Of course she has a reason; and I will find it out.”
NOT THE LAST WORD.
As soon as he could decently leave his cousin at home, he did; and then he walked hastily down to the house in which Mrs. Rosewarne had taken rooms. Miss Rosewarne was not at home, the small maid-servant said. Was Mrs. Rosewarne? Yes; so he would see her.
He went up stairs, never thinking how his deep trouble about so insignificant an incident would strike a third person.
“Mrs. Rosewarne,” he said right out, “I want you to tell me if Wenna wishes our acquaintance to end. Has she been speaking to you? Just now she passed me in the street as if she did not wish to see me again.”
“Probably,” said Mrs. Rosewarne, amused as well as surprised by the young man’s impetuosity, “she did not see you then. Wenna often passes people so. Most likely she was thinking about other things, for she had another letter from Jamaica just before she went out.”
“Oh, she has had another letter from Jamaica this morning?” Trelyon said, with an angry light appearing in his eyes. “That is it, is it?”
“I don’t understand you,” Mrs. Rosewarne was saying, when both of them heard Wenna enter below.
“Mrs. Rosewarne,” he said with a sudden entreaty in his voice, “would you mind letting me see Wenna alone for a couple of minutes? I want to ask her if she is offended with me: you won’t mind, will you?”
“Not in the least,” she said, good-naturedly; and then she added, at the door, “Mind, Mr. Trelyon, Wenna is easily hurt. You must speak gently to her.”
About a minute afterward Wenna, having laid her hat and shawl aside, came into the room. When she found Trelyon there alone, she almost shrank back, and her face paled somewhat: then she forced herself to go forward and shake hands with him, though her face still wore a frightened and constrained look.
“Wenna,” he said, “don’t go away: I want to speak to you for a minute. You are offended with me about something, and I want you to tell me why. If you wish our friendship to cease, say so, and I will obey you; but you must tell me why first.”
“I am not offended with you, Mr. Trelyon,” she said in a low and nervous voice. “Do not think that. But—but I think it will be better if you will let our friendship cease, as you say.”
“Oh no,” he said, “I will not in this fashion. You’ve got to tell me what is the matter first. Now remember this. Not very long ago you chose to quarrel with me about nothing—absolutely about nothing. You know quite well that I meant no harm to you by lending Mr. Roscorla that money, yet you must needs flare up and give it me as hot as you could, all for nothing. What could I do? Why, only wait until you saw what a mistake you had made.”
“It was very wrong of me,” she said: “I ask your forgiveness. But now it is quite different: I am not angry with you at all. I should like to remain your friend, and yet I think it better not. I—I cannot explain to you, Mr. Trelyon, and I am sure you won’t ask me when I say so.”
He looked at her for a moment, and then he said, gently and yet firmly, “Look here, Wenna. You think I am only a boy—that may or may not be—but I am going to talk reasonably to you for once. Come over to this chair by the window and sit down.”
She followed him in passive obedience. She took the one chair, he the other.
“Perhaps I am only a boy,” he said, “but I have knocked about a good deal, and I have kept my eyes as wide open as most folks. I suppose ill-natured people might say that as I had nothing to do at Eglosilyan, I wanted to have a flirtation with the only girl who was handy. I know better. Year after year I saw more and more of you, bit by bit, and that after I had been abroad or living in other places in England from time to time. I got to believe that I had never seen anywhere any girl or woman who was so honest as you are, and good in a dozen secret ways that needed a deal of discovering. I found out far more about you than you imagined. I heard of you in cottages that you never knew I was in; and everything I heard made me respect you more and more. Mind this, too. I had no sort of personal liking for the sort of thing you were doing. I don’t admire beastly little rooms and poverty and sick people as appealing to a fine sentiment. There never was anything of the parson or the benevolent old lady about me. I would rather give half a crown to an impertinent little boy who had just whopped another boy bigger than himself than give a halfpenny tract to a sickly child in its mother’s arms: that’s original sin in me, I suppose. But all that squalid sort of work you were in only made the jewel shine the more. I used to think I should like to marry a very grand woman, who could be presented at court without a tremor, who would come into a drawing-room as if she was conferring a favor on the world at large; and I certainly never thought I should find the best and finest woman I had ever seen in back kitchens sewing pinafores for children. And then when I found her there, wasn’t it natural I should put some store by her friendship? I suppose you didn’t know what I thought of you, Wenna, because I kept chaffing you and Mabyn? I have told you something of it now; and now I want you to say whether you have a right to shunt me off like this, without a word of explanation.”
She sat still, silent and nervous. The rude and impetuous eloquence of his speech, broken by many a hesitating stammer, had touched her. There was more thoughtfulness and tenderness in this wild lad than she had supposed.
“How can I explain?” she burst out suddenly. “I should cover myself with shame!”
“And what have you to be ashamed of?” he said with a stare. The distress she was obviously suffering was so great that he had almost a mind to take her at her word and leave the house without further ado.
Just at this moment, when he was considering what would be the most generous thing to do, she seemed to nerve herself to speak to him, and in a low and measured voice she said, “Yes, I will tell you. I have had a letter this morning from Mr. Roscorla. He asks me if it is true that you are paying me such attention that people notice it; and he asks me if that is how I keep my promise to him.”
Something like a quiver of rage passed through the young man at this moment, but his teeth were kept firmly together. She did not look up to his face.
“That is not all. I must tell you that I was deeply shocked and grieved by this letter; but on looking back over the past six weeks I think a suspicious person might have been justified in complaining to Mr. Roscorla. And—and—and, Mr. Trelyon, did you see that dried flower in my Prayer-book last night?”
Her resolution was fast ebbing away: he could see that her hands were clasped piteously together.
“Yes, I did,” he said boldly.
“And oh what could you have thought of me?” she cried in her distress. “Indeed, Mr. Trelyon, it was all a mistake. I did not keep the flower—I did not, indeed. And when I thought you had seen it I could have died for shame.”
“And why?” he said in a way that made her lift up her startled eyes to his face. There was a strange look there, as of a man who had suddenly resolved to dare his fate, and yet was imploringly anxious as to the result. “For you have been frank with me, and so will I be with you. Why should you not have kept that flower? Yes, I sent it to you, and with all the purpose that such a thing could carry. Yes, you may be as angry as you please; only listen, Wenna. You don’t love that man whom you are engaged to marry; you know in your heart that you do not believe in his love for you; and are you surprised that people should wish to have you break off an engagement that will only bring you misery?”
“Mr. Trelyon!”
“Wenna, one minute: you must hear me. Do with my offer what you like—only here it is: give me the power to break off this engagement, and I will. Give me the right to do that. Don’t mind me in the matter. It is true I love you—there, I will say it again: there is nothing I think of from morning till night but my love for you—and if you would say that some time I might ask you to be my wife, you would give me more happiness than you could dream of. But I don’t wish that now. I will remain your friend if you like, Wenna; only let me do this thing for you, and when you are free you can then say yes or no.”
She rose, not proud and indignant, but weeping bitterly. “I have deserved this,” she said, apparently overwhelmed with mortification and self-reproach. “I have earned this shame, and I must bear it. I do not blame you, Mr. Trelyon: it is I who have done this. How many weeks is it since the man left England to whom I promised to be faithful? and already—But this I can do, Mr. Trelyon: I will bid you good-bye now, and I will never see you again.”
Her face was quite pale. She held out her hand.
“No,” he said firmly. “We don’t part like that, Wenna. First, let me say that you have nothing to accuse yourself of. You have done nothing and said nothing of which any man, however mean and suspicious, could complain. Perhaps I was too hasty in speaking of my love for you. In that case I’ve got to pay for my folly.”
“And it is folly, Mr. Trelyon,” she said passionately, and yet with nothing but tenderness in her face. “How could you have thought of marrying me? Why, the future that ought to lie before you is far more than you can imagine yet; and you would go and hamper it by marrying an innkeeper’s daughter! It is folly indeed, and you will see that very soon. But—but I am very sorry all this has occurred: it is another grief to me that I have troubled you. I think I was born to bring grief to all my friends.”
He was anxiously debating what he should do; and he needed all his wits at that moment, for his own feelings were strong within him, and clamoring for expression. Should he insist? Should he bear down all opposition? Happily, quieter counsels prevailed, for there was no mistake as to the absolute truthfulness of what the girl had said.
“Well, Wenna,” he said, “I will do anything you like, only to remain your friend. Is that possible? Will you forgive all that I have said if I make you a promise not to repeat it, and never again to mention your engagement to Mr. Roscorla?”
“No, we must part now altogether,” she said slowly. Then by haphazard she glanced up at his face for a moment, and there was a great sadness in her eyes. “It is a hard thing to part. Perhaps it will not be necessary that you should never come to see me. But we must not be friends as we have been, for I have my duty to do toward him.”
“Then I may come to see you sometimes?”
She hesitated: “You may come to see my mother sometimes. And I will always think of you as a dear friend, whether I see you or not.”
He went outside, and drew a long breath. “I had to keep a tight grip on the reins that time,” he was thinking to himself—“a precious tight grip; but I did it.”
He thought of the look there was in her eyes when she finally bid him goodbye. His face grew the happier as he thought of it. He was clearly not at all down-hearted about his rejection: on the contrary, he went and told his cousin Juliott that the little affair of the morning had been quite satisfactorily arranged, that Miss Wenna and he were very good friends again, and that it was quite a mistake to imagine that she was already married to Mr. Roscorla.
“Harry,” said his cousin, “I strictly forbid you to mention that gentleman’s name.”
“Why, Jue?” he said.
“Because I will not listen to the bad language you invariably use whenever you speak of him; and you ought to remember that you are in a clergyman’s house. I wonder Miss Rosewarne is not ashamed to have your acquaintance, but I dare say you amend your ways when you are in her presence. She’ll have plenty to reform if ever she takes you for a husband.”
“That’s true enough, Jue,” the young man said penitently. “I believe I’m a bad lot, but then look at the brilliant contrast which the future will present. You know that my old grandmother is always saying to me, ’Harry, you were born with as many manners as most folks, and you’ve used none; so you’ll have a rare stock to come and go on when you begin.’”
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
At present all branches of Science possess an intrinsic interest for every intelligent man, but such elementary knowledge as enables its possessor to understand the explanations of the medical attendant has a double value. Over and over again I have heard the remark when some bold successful treatment was being discussed, “But you would not have dared to do that in private practice.” The days of medical mystification are not yet entirely passed, but year by year the profession is assuredly losing that peculiar virtue of office which it formerly possessed in so eminent a degree. The doctor is no longer a dignified personage with gold-headed cane and powdered wig, mounting the mansion steps with stately tread, but a busy man in various garb, hurrying from house to house, studying the multitudinous problems of disease, and applying the fruits of such study to the relief of individual cases. No longer able to awe his patients into obedience, he must rely upon his moral and intellectual powers in controlling them. To enable any one to understand the explanations of physicians, and to protect himself, by discovery, against the impudent assumptions of quacks, some knowledge of medical truths and of the drift of modern medical thought is necessary. Every successful physician, no matter how independent he may be by nature, is necessarily more or less cramped by the prejudices of patients—prejudices which often a little primary instruction would have done away with.
Of all the diseased processes fever is one of the most frequent and one of the most serious in their results. A discussion, therefore, of its nature, the method of its production and of its relief, will, it may be hoped, engage the attention of the general reader.
If the hand be laid upon the skin of a person in a high fever the attention is at once attracted by the great heat, and if the bulb of a thermometer be placed under the tongue or in the armpit of the patient the mercury may indicate a temperature of 107 deg., 108 deg., 109 deg., or even 110 deg. Fahrenheit, instead of 98 deg. to 99 deg. Fahrenheit, the normal temperature of the human body. It is a common belief that the skin in fever is always dry as well as hot, but this is a mistake, as intense fever may coexist with a reeking perspiration. During the fever the pulse is greatly increased in frequency, the head aches and throbs, and if the attack be very severe restlessness, sudden startings, irregular muscular twitchings, or even violent epileptiform convulsions and stupor, delirium or coma, indicate the disturbance of the nervous system.
These various symptoms are simply results of the excess of caloric, which excites universal irritation, and, if prolonged, destroys the tissues. This fact I have verified by three series of experiments, by the first of which it was shown that the general application of external heat so as to raise the bodily temperature produces all the phenomena of fever; by the second, that the local application of heat to the brain and to the heart causes the nervous and circulatory disturbances so universally seen in fever; and by the third that the abstraction of heat in fever is followed by immediate subsidence of the other symptoms.
If a small animal, such as a dog, cat or rabbit, be placed in a chamber heated by means of the sun’s rays falling upon a slanting glass roof or by some artificial method to a temperature of considerably over one hundred degrees, a very constant series of phenomena is developed. The breathing becomes hurried and the pulse greatly quickened, whilst the restless movements of the body indicate nervous distress. After a time, if the exposure be continued, the symptoms are intensified, and restlessness passes into the weakness of partial paralysis; then suddenly or gradually, with or without convulsions, stupor sets in, deepening into coma, and death from arrested respiration is the final result. If the temperature of the animal be tested from time to time during the exposure, it will be found to rise steadily, and the severity of the symptoms will be directly, and in any one species constantly, proportional to the intensity of the bodily heat.
The nervous system of man apparently resists the action of heat, but in reality it does not do so. Man, it is true, is the only animal that can thrive almost equally amidst arctic snows and in tropical jungles. This is not, however, because his nervous system lacks sensitiveness, but because he has the power of heating or cooling his body in such a manner that its temperature is comparatively unaffected by that of the surrounding air. Man might be well defined as the naked sweating animal. In the north he strips the bear and the fox of their coat to keep him warm; in the south his own skin acts as a refrigerator. The dog has a few sweat-glands about the mouth—man has two millions densely covering his body. In the horse exposed to heat the hair soon becomes wet and matted, interfering very greatly with evaporation; in man the bare skin offers an excellent surface, from which the perspiration passes off almost as fast as formed. Evaporation, conversion of a liquid into a vapor, means a steady conversion of sensible heat into what was formerly called latent heat, but what we now know to be repulsive force: the heat-energy of the body is lost in driving the particles of sweat asunder in the form of vapor.
It is possible, however, to have a temperature which even a Hindoo cannot resist. When a man is exposed to such a heat his bodily temperature rises, and as it rises the symptoms of fever develop precisely as they do in the lower animals—sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly—with disturbances of the respiration, circulation and innervation precisely similar to those already noticed as occurring in the dog, the cat and the rabbit. Sunstroke, or thermic fever, is generally believed to be instantaneous in its onset, but the wide experience of the English in India has shown that whilst in some cases it is thus sudden in its development, in others it is a slow process, and probably in almost all cases close observation would have revealed the existence of premonitions.
External heat, by producing an internal rise of temperature, may thus cause all the phenomena of fever. Of these phenomena the most prominent is disturbance of the nervous system and of the circulation. In order to determine whether the heat itself directly causes the nervous disturbance, or whether it produces it indirectly by causing changes in the blood, I applied caloric directly to the brains of animals. This was done by fitting a hog’s bladder like a bonnet over the head and allowing hot water to run through it. It was found that stupor, coma, convulsions, and finally death from arrest of the respiration, were produced, sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly, precisely as in the case of exposure of the animal in a hot chamber. Moreover, on opening the skull and plunging a thermometer into the cerebrum immediately after death or the supervention of unconsciousness, it was found that these phenomena were developed at the same brain-temperature when the heat was locally applied as when the animal was exposed in the hot box. Thus, if any given species in the hot box became unconscious when the temperature reached 110 deg. Fahrenheit, this species also became unconscious when the locally-heated brain attained a temperature of 110 deg.; or if death occurred by arrest of the respiration in the hot box at 114 deg., so did it when the locally-heated brain reached that point.
Dr. Lauder Brunton of England has performed a series of experiments upon the circulation parallel to those just narrated. Anaesthetizing animals and exposing the heart, he has found that the action of that organ is accelerated and weakened by the local application of heat, precisely as occurs in fever.
In order to test the effect of the withdrawal of heat, I have taken a rabbit out of the hot chamber, in which it lay upon its side totally unconscious, and plunged it into a bucket of cold water. The temperature of the water rose rapidly, whilst that of the rabbit fell even more rapidly. As soon as the bodily heat approached its normal intensity consciousness returned, and in a few moments the animal, which had just before been at the point of death, was running about the grass.
Some months since I had an opportunity of repeating this experiment upon a human being.
In acute inflammatory rheumatism it sometimes happens that the swelling and pain of the joints suddenly disappear, and the patient becomes comatose or wildly delirious. It has been customary to explain these symptoms as the result of the rheumatism leaving the joints and attacking the brain. Evidently, this being the case, the proper thing to do was to irritate the joints so as to draw the rheumatism back to them. This method was formerly practiced, and the almost invariable result was death in a few hours.
In most if not all of these frightful cases of sudden accession of severe nervous symptoms in rheumatism the temperature will be found, on testing it, to be exceedingly high—108 deg., 109 deg. or even 110 deg. Fahrenheit. If the views advocated in this paper be correct, it is not the rheumatism, but the intense bodily heat, which causes the severe symptoms, and finally death. The joints lose their sensitiveness, not because the disease has left them, but because the heat so overpowers the brain that it has lost its power of perception: the patient’s leg might be cut off without his feeling it. In such a case the proper treatment is to take away the heat by plunging the patient into a cold bath. But can there be anything more shocking to the universal belief and prejudices than to put a patient dying of acute rheumatism into an almost ice-cold bath?
Last spring there was in my ward in the Philadelphia Hospital a stout young Irishman who had passed through an acute attack of inflammatory rheumatism, and was suffering from a sharp relapse. Entering the ward one day, I saw at once that the man was unconscious, and turning to the resident physician asked, “What is the matter with James?” “Nothing,” was the reply: “I saw him an hour and a half ago, and he was doing very well, except that the fever was very high.” “He is dying now, at any rate,” was my rejoinder. On going to the bedside the patient was found perfectly unconscious, the skin dry and intensely hot, the affected joints pale and devoid of sensibility, the breathing irregular and jerking, the pulse 170 and scarcely perceptible, every muscle relaxed as in death, every power of perception abolished. A thermometer placed in the armpit registered 108-4/5 deg. Fahrenheit.
Believing that the symptoms were due simply to this excessive temperature, I ordered the man to be at once stripped and put in a full bath drawn from the cold-water spigot. The temperature of this bath was found to be 60 deg. Fahrenheit. In one minute and a half after the patient had been placed in the tub he recovered consciousness sufficiently to put out his tongue when told to do so in a loud, commanding tone. In three minutes he began to struggle to get out and to complain of the cold. In six minutes and a half he had become quite rational. He was now taken out, only partially wiped, laid upon an India-rubber blanket and covered with a single sheet, the temperature of the room being between 65 deg. and 70 deg. Three minutes after this the temperature in the armpit was 94 deg., in the mouth 105-3/5 deg.; five minutes later the mouth-thermometer marked 103 deg., and the pain and tenderness had reappeared in the affected joints. It would be out of place here to give further details as to his treatment. It is enough to state that, although owing to a misunderstanding of my orders, the man was left in a cool room for twelve hours upon the gum blanket, wet and covered only with a sheet—or possibly because he was so left—he recovered without a relapse or any bad symptoms.
The first case in which the cold-water treatment was practiced in the Philadelphia Hospital was that of a woman suffering from a desperate relapse of typhoid fever. She was semi-comatose, with a pulse of 150 and a temperature of 107 deg. Fahrenheit: death was seemingly inevitable and imminent. As the bath-tubs were not convenient, the order was given that the woman be laid upon an India-rubber cloth, and be wrapped simply in a sheet constantly wet with water at a temperature as near 32 deg. as practicable. The nurses, aghast, refused at first to carry out the order, but the physician’s power being despotic, obedience was enforced. About three pints of whisky were given in the twenty-four hours, besides drugs, the whole treatment being successful.
It has been shown that excessive bodily heat is capable of producing the various symptoms of fever, and that its withdrawal is followed by the immediate relief of these symptoms; and since excessive heat is always present in fever, it is a logical deduction that it is the cause of fever symptoms; or, in other words, that it is the essential part of fever.
It must be borne in mind, however, that the term fever is here used in an abstract sense, to express a general diseased process, a bodily condition. A fever is a very different thing from fever. We may have a fever, such as typhoid, without the existence of fever. In a fever, the fever—i.e., the elevation of temperature—is only part of the disease, and great judgment and experience are often required to decide how much of the general symptoms is caused by the fever, and how much by the disease which is the cause of the fever.
The importance of high temperature having been recognized, it becomes a matter of the gravest scientific and practical interest to determine the method in which it is produced.
There are only two systems which bind the body together—namely, the circulation and the nervous system. As fever is usually a universal phenomenon, occurring simultaneously in every part of the body, it must be produced either through the nervous system or by a poison in the blood acting simultaneously on every tissue. Every physician knows, however, that there are cases of fever in which there has been no introduction of a poison into the blood: hence it follows that at least sometimes fever must be produced by the nervous system.
This being so, the study of the influence of the nervous system upon animal heat is naturally the next step in our investigation. Before making this step it may be well to call to mind the fact that chemical processes are usually accompanied either by the giving out or the withdrawal of heat. Thus, the chemical actions which result when ice and salt are mixed cause a withdrawal of heat, and a “freezing mixture” is formed. When a candle is burnt, the oxidation of its constituents, a chemical process, evolves heat. Oxidation is the great source of artificial heat, and animal heat is chiefly generated by the same process; in other words, animal heat is always the product of the chemical movements of the body, and these movements are almost exclusively of the character of oxidation. In the animal tissues a lessened oxidation is equivalent to a lessened heat-production, and vise versa.
If a large nerve be exposed in one of the lower animals, and a galvanic current be sent through it for half a minute or more, the temperature of the animal falls very decidedly; and if the irritation be repeated several times at intervals, the diminution of the animal heat may amount to several degrees. Galvanization of a nerve affects very powerfully the circulation, and it has been believed that this derangement was the cause of the lessened chemical movements. But the alteration of the circulation is immediate, and ceases almost at once when the current is broken, whereas the fall of temperature comes on only after several minutes, then progressively increases, and persists for many minutes—it may be hours. The two phenomena being thus differently developed, it is impossible that they should have the relation of cause and effect, and the fall of temperature must be traced to a direct influence of the nervous system upon the chemical processes of the body.
This lowering of temperature under the influence of a powerful irritation of a nerve-trunk or of its minute branches, which everywhere pervade the tissues and spread out in the skin, is common to all species of mammals. If a rabbit be merely tied down tightly upon a table, the fall is perceptible, and if it be severely wounded, the temperature diminishes very greatly. It has long been known that severe burns are followed by a very great depression of the animal heat. Redard, a French physician, made during the late siege of Paris a most interesting series of observations upon the influence of severe gunshot wounds. He found that, entirely independent of any haemorrhage which might have occurred, the temperature fell enormously, and in direct proportion to the gravity of the wound; so that by the aid of the thermometer he was able to predict whether a fatal issue would or would not occur in the course of a few hours.
We have found that both in man and the lower animals the nervous system is able to check the chemical movements of the body, but before we can decide how it does so facts not yet noticed must be looked at.
If the spinal cord of an animal be cut just below the origin of the nerves of respiration, an immediate fall of temperature occurs, and, if the animal be left in a cool room, persists until death ensues. If, however, the victim be put in a warm place, after a time the temperature begins to rise, and finally a most intense fever is developed. Parallel phenomena follow division of the spinal cord in man. Indeed, Sir Benjamin Brodie was first led to experiment upon animals by observing in 1837 an excessive fever follow in a patient a wound of the spinal cord.
I have already explained, in a former number of this Magazine,[2] the nature of the so-called vaso-motor nerves, which preside over the little circular muscles that run round and round in the coats of the blood-vessels. When they are excited, these muscles contract and the size of the arteries is diminished: when they are paralyzed, the arterial inner muscles relax and the vessels dilate. The vaso-motor nerves have their governing centre in that upper portion of the spinal cord which is within the skull, the so-called medulla oblongata. When the spinal cord is divided, the vessels are cut off from the influence of this vaso-motor centre, and at once dilate, profoundly affecting the blood-current by doing so.
The first fall of temperature which follows division of the cord is believed by most physiologists to be due to this dilatation of the vessels. Very probably the blood-stream, flowing sluggishly, does not give the normal amount of stimulus to the tissues, so that at first their chemical actions are lessened, and consequently less caloric than usual is generated in the body. Further, the blood moving slowly through the dilated vessels of the lungs and of the surface of the body, is cooled more completely than it should be; hence, unless the body is protected by being surrounded with warm air, no excessive accumulation of heat in it can occur, and therefore no fever can appear.
Assuming that this explanation of the primary lowering of the temperature after division of the cord be correct—and no better one has as yet been offered—what is the cause of the fever which afterward develops itself? As it occurs only when the animal is exposed to a somewhat elevated temperature, it has been thought by some to be due to the absorption of this external heat. This, however, is certainly not true, as is shown, to omit less decisive proofs, by the experiments of Naunyn and Quincke, who exposed animals for two days to a temperature of 90 deg., and at the end of that time, their bodily temperature not having risen, cut their spinal cords, after which intense fever was developed in a few hours without any change of atmosphere.
Section of the cord must therefore give rise to an increased chemical movement and heat-production in the body. As already stated, this section affects very greatly the circulation, but the fever is independent of such action. The upper end of the medulla oblongata is continuous with a nervous mass which joins the two brain hemispheres together, and hence is known as the pons or bridge. If, instead of cutting the spinal cord, we separate the medulla oblongata from the pons, an immediate rise of temperature occurs, and continues until death, whether the operation be performed in a cold or heated room.[3]
Cutting the medulla at its junction with the pons causes, then, an immediate and direct elevation of temperature, without disturbance of the circulation. What can this mean? Evidently, only one thing—namely, that by the division of the medulla there has been separated from the general tissues of the body a repressive force—a something which normally controls their chemical activity and the production in them of animal heat.
The existence of nerves whose function is to repress action is no new discovery in physiology. Readers of Lippincott’s Magazine may remember my description of the pneumogastrics or brake-nerves of the heart, whose duty it is to control the action of that viscus. Nerves which repress or inhibit action are spoken of in modern physiology as inhibitory. The experiments which have been adduced prove that there are nerves whose function it is to control the general vital chemical actions, and that the governing centre of these nerves is situated above the medulla oblongata. To this centre, whose exact location is unknown, the name of the inhibitory heat-centre has been given.
The way in which galvanization of a nerve, violent injuries and excessive pain depress the temperature, independently of any action upon the circulation, is now evident. An impulse simply passes up the irritated or wounded nerve, and excites this inhibitory heat-centre to increased action, and the temperature falls because the chemical movements of the body are repressed.
The method in which fever is produced also becomes very evident when once the existence of an inhibitory heat-centre has been established. Any poison having the power to depress, and finally paralyze, this centre must, if it find entrance to the blood, produce fever. If the poison, from its inherent properties, or from its being in very small quantity, only diminishes the activity of the inhibitory heat-centre, the controlling influence is not entirely removed from the chemical movements of the body, and only slight fever results; but if the poison actually paralyzes the inhibitory nerves, a very great rise of temperature must rapidly follow the complete removal of the brake-power.
As an illustration we may consider the intense rheumatic fever, or the so-called “cerebral rheumatism,” such as affected the young Irishman whose case has been narrated in the present article. Without any apparent reason the poison of rheumatism habitually attacks one joint on one day, and another joint on another day, and with as little apparent reason it occasionally falls of a sudden upon the inhibitory heat-centre, and actually paralyzes it. In a few minutes intense fever is developed, and the bodily temperature rapidly approaches nearer and nearer that line on the other side of which is death.
In many cases of fever, however, there is no poison in the blood; thus, the local irritation of a boil or other inflammation may cause what is well termed “irritative fever.” The way in which this is produced is by an indirect, and not a direct, action upon the inhibitory heat-centre.
The casualties of the late war proved but too abundantly that a man may be wounded in one part of the body and suffer from paralysis of voluntary motion in another part. Thus, a soldier struck in the neck fell unconscious, and on awaking was astonished to find his right arm powerless at his side. This is the so-called “reflex paralysis.” Very commonly the irritation of a nerve will give rise to an impulse which will travel up the nerve to a motor-centre, and so excite it that it shall send in turn an impulse down a second nerve to a distant muscle, and a spasm result. Sometimes, however, the impulse which travels to the nerve-centre is of such a character that, instead of exciting it to action, it deprives it of the power of action. In the former instance reflex motion, in the latter reflex paralysis, results.
We have seen that galvanization of a nerve may excite the inhibitory centre to activity, and the peculiar persistent irritation of a local inflammation may deprive the same centre of its power of action: in the one instance a reflex inhibitory heat-centre spasm—i.e., lowering of temperature—is produced, and in the other a reflex inhibitory heat-centre paralysis—i.e., fever—results.
It would be going too far at present to assert that all fever is produced in the way spoken of. There are certain drugs which lower the temperature in the fever that follows division of the cord and consequent paralysis of the heat-centre, and which must therefore act either upon the blood, or universally upon the tissues so as to diminish their-chemical movements. It is most probable, although not yet absolutely proved, that there are other substances which act directly upon the blood and tissues in such a way as to increase their chemical activities, and thereby cause fever.
The practical considerations in regard to the treatment of disease which naturally flow from the recent investigations of fever are very important and very obvious. This is especially true since it has been shown in Germany that under the influence of a continuous high bodily temperature, not intense enough at any time to compromise life, all the muscular tissues of the body undergo a peculiar granular degeneration. Many a typhoid-fever patient has undoubtedly died from the heart-muscle having undergone this change, when, if by artificial cooling the temperature of the body had been kept down, the alteration of the heart-structure would have been prevented, and death averted. It is obvious, also, that the old plan of thwarting the intentions of Nature, and depriving the fever-patient of the free use of cooling drinks, was practically a baneful cruelty. As the body is burning up in fever, it is also evident that to deprive it of sustenance is to aid in the production of fatal exhaustion. The burning will go on, whether food is given or not, so long as the tissues can serve as fuel. Of course no more food should be taken than the patient can digest, but every grain of digested food is so much added to the resources of the system, which is engaged, it may be, in a close and doubtful conflict with disease.
If it were possible, of course the best treatment for fever would be that which lessened the production of heat. Fortunately, we have some drugs—notably, quinine and alcohol—which do exert a decided influence upon the vital chemical movements, but, unfortunately, their power is limited. As we are therefore often unable to control heat-production, the best we can do is to abstract the caloric from the body whenever it becomes so excessive as to threaten serious results. To do this, all that is necessary is to put the patient in a cold bath, or wrap him in a sheet wet with ice-cold water, or lay him upon an ice-mattress, or surround him with coils of tubing through which cold water runs, or use some similar efficacious device. I do not wish to be misunderstood. External cold is not to be lightly employed: it is a powerful two-edged weapon, capable of cutting both ways—a weapon as injurious and destructive in the hands of the ignorant and inexperienced as it is efficient in the hands of those to whom study and experience have taught its skillful use.
To illustrate what cold water may effect when employed by intelligent and skillful physicians, I may be permitted to cite a few hospital statistics from Germany and Switzerland, the only countries where the so-called antipyretic treatment of continued fever has been efficiently carried out on a large scale. From 1850 to 1861 there were treated without cold water, at the hospital at Kiel, 330 cases of typhoid fever, with 51 deaths—a mortality of about 15-1/2 per cent.; from 1863 to 1866, 160 cases were treated with cold baths, with 5 deaths—a mortality of only 3-1/10 per cent. In the hospital of Bale, from 1843 to 1864, there were 1718 cases without antipyretic treatment, with 469 deaths—a mortality of about 27-1/2 per cent; from September, 1866, to 1873, 1121 cases were treated antipyretically, with 92 deaths—a mortality of a little over 8 per cent. Assuredly, we may claim that this water-treatment in typhoid fever is one of the greatest gains of modern medicine since the discovery of anaesthesia.
Some of my readers may here say to themselves, “Why, this is hydropathy!” Not so. It is the legitimate, not the illegitimate, use of cold water. It is the use of it as a single weapon, not as the only weapon of the armory. It is the employment of it in a single affection, not as a cure for all diseases.
Perhaps, in concluding this essay, I may be pardoned one word of counsel to my lay audience. Any physician who proclaims himself a follower of any special doctrine, be he a hydropath, an electropath, an allopath, a homoeopath, or any other path, should be viewed with suspicion. Water, cold, heat, electricity, drugs, are all agents capable of being used advantageously in the treatment of disease. Above all men, the physician ought to have that teachable spirit which is the offspring of true humility. Knowing the grave responsibilities which he assumes, living almost beneath the shadow of that past whose life-imperiling mistakes are so plainly visible in the light of the present, he, of all men, should be ever seeking for new knowledge, gathering with equal zest the seeds of healing in the waste as well as in the cultivated places, amongst the lowest and most ignorant of the populace, as well as in far-famed schools of medicine.
H.C. WOOD, JR., M.D.
Young bride, that findest not a single star
Shining to-night with longed for prophecy,
Though snowy drifts are swelling near and far,
They need not chill thy happy hope and
thee.
If blue had overarched the earth all day,
And heaven were brilliant with its stars
to-night,
“A happy omen!” many a guest would say,
And think that Fortune blessed the sacred
rite.
Be superstition far from thee, sweet soul:
This snowy robe, in unison with thine,
Nature will doff to-morrow, and the whole
Of this white waste in spring-like freshness
shine.
If love be strong, then all adversity
Will melt like snow, and life the greener be.
CHARLOTTE F. BATES.
There are—or were—many at Florence whose recollections of Hiram Powers stretch over the best part of a quarter of a century; and there are few men of whom it could with equal truth and accuracy be said that such recollections are wholly pleasant in their character to the survivors and honorable to the subject of them. He was in truth universally respected by people of all classes, and by Americans and English, as well as Italians, in the city of his adoption, and personally liked and esteemed by all who had the good fortune to be among his friends. Recollections such as these are, I say, the property of very many at Florence. But there is no one in that city—there was during his life no one in that city, not even she who during a long life was a companion, friend, partner and helpmeet in every sense admirable for him—whose recollections went back to so early a period as mine did.
When I came to Florence with my mother in 1841, intending to make a home there for a few years, we found, with some surprise and much pleasure, Hiram Powers, with a wife and children, settled there as a sculptor. It was long since, in the course of the changes and chances of life, we had lost sight of him, but the meeting was none the less pleasurable to, I think I may say, both parties. It was at Cincinnati in 1829 that my mother and myself first knew him. My mother, who had long been an acquaintance of General La Fayette, became thus the intimate friend of his ward, Frances Wright. Fascinated by the talent, the brilliancy and the singular eloquence of that remarkable and highly-gifted woman, and at the same time anxious to find a career for one of her sons (not the well-known author of the present day, but another brother, long since dead), whose wishes and proclivities adapted him for a life of more activity and adventure than that of one of our home-abiding professions, my mother was persuaded by her to join her in a scheme which at that time was engaging all her singularly large powers of energy and enthusiasm, the object
He was at that time—I well remember the look of him—a tall, lanky, but remarkably handsome lad, somewhat awkward in person, but with a calm but at the same time intellectually expressive beauty of feature which marked him as one of Nature’s noblemen. His eyes were the most noticeable point about him. They were magnificent—large, clear, well-opened, and expressive of calm thought and the working of the intellect rather than of shrewdness or passion. His manner, I remember, was marked by an exceeding simpleness, and a sort of innocent and dignified straightforwardness which much impressed me. Altogether, my acquaintance with him was a contribution of a new sort to the education of my mind. I had passed eight years in the acquisition of those things which an English “gentleman’s education” is supposed to offer. These things (in the year 1829) consisted in a very fair knowledge of Latin and Greek. Unquestionably, the eight years which I had spent in learning those languages had brought with them other advantages and other teachings of an altogether priceless sort. But what they professedly had taught me, what I then considered as the net result of my eight years at school, was a competent knowledge of Latin and Greek, and nothing else. Now, here was a young man of my own age, or little more, about whose idiosyncrasy there was something especially simpatico to me, as the Italians say—who knew nothing whatever of the only things which I knew, but knew a whole world of things of which I was profoundly ignorant. I was (of course) full of prejudices also—ecclesiastical prejudices, class prejudices, political prejudices, caste prejudices—all of which were as unintelligible to my new friend as they would have been to a red Indian. He was singularly free from prejudice of any kind—a sort of original, blank-paper mind, on which nothing
When I reached Cincinnati I found him intimate with my brother, and a favorite with my mother, who had formed a high opinion both of his character and of his talents. The latter had already very markedly manifested themselves in that direction which finally decided his career in life. Yet there was little of that dreamy and enthusiastic worship for the abstract beautiful which is generally supposed to be the marking characteristic of the artistic temperament. But he had a wonderful faculty of executing with his hands whatever his mind had conceived, and a mind singularly active in invention and in devising means for the execution of a mechanical end. Had circumstances not made him a sculptor, he might have been—probably would have been—a successful inventor, mechanician or engineer. Throughout life he was an eminently and specially practical man—a man whose tendency was not to dream, but to do. That artistic temperament, as it is generally called, which so often manifests itself in exactly the opposite direction—in a tendency to dream rather than to do, and to allow the pleasures of the ideal to incapacitate those who indulge in them for real work—was so little his that I have never known a more industrious and conscientious worker with his hands. And there was nothing to which he could not turn them, and that with a degree of skill that would often put to shame the attempts of members of the craft which he might be essaying for the first time.
At that time Hiram Powers was, as the saying is, living upon his wits; and they, being such as I have described them, were not likely to fail in producing the wherewithal to do so. There was at that period a little Frenchman named Dorfeuille at Cincinnati—not a bad sort of little man, I believe, and with some amount of literary and other talent. But he also being engaged in the operation of living on his wits, or mainly so, and not finding them so abundantly sufficient for the purpose as those of my young friend, thought that he too might in part live on the wits of the latter; and during the time of my stay at Cincinnati he did so to the satisfaction of both parties. This Dorfeuille was the proprietor of a museum, the main and most attractive portion of which was a number of wax figures. But the Cincinnati public was not large enough in those days to supply a constant stream of fresh spectators, and, though there was little in the way of public amusement to compete with M. Dorfeuille’s museum, the Cincinnati people soon got tired of looking at the same show; and but for the happy chance which brought him into contact with Hiram Powers, M. Dorfeuille must have packed up his museum and sought “fresh woods and pastures new.” But with the advent of young Powers, and the contents of the museum given over to his creating brain and clever fingers, a period of halcyon days and new prosperity commenced for the little Frenchman and his show. With the materials at his disposition all things were possible to the young artist, to whom such a chance gave the first clear consciousness of his own powers. New combinations, new names, new costuming, alterations of figures, etc. etc. were adopted to produce fine effects and amuse the public with constant novelties. For the invention of these Powers often used to consult my mother, whose suggestions he never failed to carry into effect, to the great amusement of both parties. On one occasion an idea struck her, which, when she communicated it to him, fired the imagination of Powers and turned out a great success. This was nothing less than to give a representation of some of the more striking scenes of Dante’s Divina Commedia. The idea was a sufficiently audacious one. But “audaces Fortuna juvat.” Powers scouted the notion of difficulty. My mother was to draw up the programme, and he undertook, with the materials furnished him by the museum, and with the help of some of his own handiwork, to give scenic reality to her suggestions. The result, as I have said, was a brilliant success. I have a copy of the “bill” that was issued to the public inviting them to the exhibition in question, which is a curiosity in its way, and which I must give the reader. It is drawn up in high sensational style, with lines of different lengths and boldness, and printed in all the different sorts of capitals which the printer’s case afforded. I cannot occupy space with any imitation of these typographical magnificences, but will simply copy the language of the bill. It must have been my mother’s composition, and Powers had to work up to it, which he did to the letter:
“The World to come, as described by Dante, and comprising, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, will be exhibited in a room adjoining the Western Museum on the 4th of July, and days following. Admittance, twenty-five cents. In the centre is seen a grand colossal figure of Minos, the Judge of Hell. He is seated at the entrance of the INFERNAL REGIONS [enormous capitals]. His right hand is raised as in the act to pronounce sentence, his left holding a two-pronged sceptre. Above his head is a scroll on which are written the concluding words of Dante’s celebrated inscription, ’Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!’ To the right of this figure the foreground presents a frozen lake, on the surface of which are seen the heads of those who have been doomed to this species of punishment. Among these is the head of Ugolino, whom Dante describes as eternally gnawing the head of his enemy, who, after placing him and his three sons in the upper chamber of a strong tower near Florence, threw the key of it into the moat and left them to perish with hunger. Grinning in mockery of these ice-bound sufferers, A BLACK IMP [biggest extra black capitals] is seated on a rock, dandling a young monster. On the edge of the opposite side of the frozen lake stands a spirit, who is just about to endure the frozen torment; and his attitude and countenance express the agony of extreme cold. Behind him opens the fiery gulf, the reflection of whose lurid glare is seen on his half-frozen body. At his feet a female head, fixed in the ice, looks up to the flames, as longing for their warmth; while a little way within the lake of fire another head is seen gazing with longing eyes upon the ice. A brilliant fountain of flame is in the midst of the lake, and around it crowds of condemned spirits in all varieties of suffering. In one corner a fiend is proclaiming their infamy by the aid of a trumpet through all the depths of Hell. Birds and animals of hideous form and evil omen are fluttering over the heads and tormenting the sufferers. Large icicles hang from the rocks that form the Gate of Hell, and reflect on their bright surface the red glare of the fires within. On the left of Minos is seen a Skeleton ascending a column of Icicles and holding a standard bearing these lines:
“’To
this grim form our cherished limbs have come,
And
thus lie mouldering in their earthly home.
In
turf-bound hillock or in sculptured shrine
The
worms alike their cold caresses twine.
So
far we all are equal; but once left
Our
mortal weeds, of vital spark bereft,
Asunder
farther than the poles we’re driven—
Some
sunk to deepest Hell, some raised to highest Heaven.’
“Still farther on the left of Minos, and melting into distance behind him, is seen the shadowy region of Purgatory. Four bright stars—the Cardinal Virtues—give a delicate and cheering light amid the gloom. A group of figures loaded with the burthen of their sins are about to plunge into the lake of purgatorial waters, in the hope of depositing them there. A boat wafted by the wings of an Angel is bearing departed, souls toward Heaven; and near it is a column of pale light to direct its course. In the distance is the mountain that divides Purgatory from Heaven; and Beatrice, the departed mistress of Dante, is standing on its summit, encouraging him to proceed with her to Heaven, where his former guide, Virgil, cannot be admitted (being a Pagan). Groups of Pilgrims who have passed through Purgatory are ascending the mountain. Still farther to the left, and opening in unbroken splendor above the head of Beatrice, is seen the Heaven of Heavens. The golden light pours down on the heads of the Pilgrims, and angels are seen floating in the air and encouraging their efforts. The foreground of this part of the scene presents various objects to cheer the spirit of the Pilgrims in their passage through Purgatory. The entrance indeed is rocky, but shrubs and flowers adorn it, and the Dove, the bird of Hope, is bearing the olive-branch before them.”
If all that was packed into “a room adjoining the Western Museum,” the sight of it must, I think, be admitted to have been a cheap twenty-five cents’ worth. The Cincinnati world of hard upon half a century ago judged it to be so, and flocked to the exhibition in crowds. But very soon the versatile and indefatigable artist devised new means of still further stimulating the curiosity and excitement of his public. A bar ran across the exhibition-room, dividing the space allotted to the spectators from that occupied by the scenery and objects provided for their amusement. But since the available space was, as may easily be imagined, somewhat limited, it came to pass that the foremost spectators, being often of that class of persons who see with the ends of their fingers, would stretch out their arms and audaciously touch “the Black Imp,” or “the Skeleton,” or Minos himself, or any other of the dramatis personae they could reach, to the damage of those somewhat perishable properties. A notice was therefore placarded in the room, written in flame-colored letters and couched in the choicest bugaboo phraseology, warning all such indiscreet persons that the denizens of the Infernal Regions could not be touched by mortal hands with impunity, and that immediate punishment would visit transgressors. Of course it was foreseen that such threats would not avail to restrain, but would rather stimulate the curiosity of the disciples of Saint Thomas. But, sure enough, the threatened punishment, by no means “pede claudo” followed in every case—very accurately with the speed of lightning—on
In the long after years at Florence, Powers and I had many a laugh together over his reminiscences of the scenes that occurred in that exhibition-room, all of which he remembered as well as if the incidents had happened but a year before, and would chuckle over with as much enjoyment as he did at the time of their occurrence. My copy of the hand-bill which I have given above—doubtless the only one now in existence—was matter of much amusement to us, and served to recall every portion and every figure of the early work of his hands.
From the time I left America to go to Oxford, in the spring of 1829, till our meeting at Florence in 1841, I saw no more of Powers. But, as may be easily imagined, we lost no time in renewing our old friendship. He was then, and for many years afterward, living in the Via Romana, not far from the city gate of that name. The house stood back from the street, and was approached only by a passage through another tenement, from which it was divided by a little garden; a situation which, though not in all respects convenient, had at least the advantage of securing quietude. The young sculptor, with his already numerous and rapidly increasing family, occupied the first and second floors, while the ground floor was exclusively devoted to workshops and show-rooms. The premises were large and the accommodations ample. Already few Americans came to Florence without paying a visit to the “Studio Powers,” but they were in those days but few in comparison to the number which, partly as residents and partly as merely passing tourists, throng every winter the fair “City of Flowers.” Up to the revolution of 1848 the English at Florence were very far more numerous than the citizens of the other English-speaking nation. That unsuccessful movement drove many English, very unnecessarily, from their moorings. The English colony was very much reduced even after those who returned on the return of the grand duke had resumed their old places. And from that time forward I think that America has been more numerously represented on the banks of the Arno than England. Powers had at that time produced various successful busts, but had not as yet made himself known as an imaginative sculptor. Nevertheless, the former works had sufficed to give him an amount of reputation in the United States that ensured constant visits of his countrymen to the studio in the Via Romana.
Some twelve years had elapsed when I first saw Powers in Florence since the old days in Cincinnati. In such a space of time, especially at that period of life which turns a lad into a man, most men change much. But the change in Powers’s face was but small: I should have known him if I had met him in the street anywhere. But in person he was much changed: he had become stout and what is called personable, not fat—he never was that to the end of his life—but neither was he lanky, as he had been as a youth. He had filled out, as the phrase is, and might be considered in all respects a decidedly handsome man. There was something specially, and more than commonly, upright in the carriage of his person and of his head, which seemed the expression of the uprightness of the man’s moral and intellectual nature and character. He always looked straight at you with those large, placid and generally grave eyes of his under their large and bushy brows. They seemed to continue grave, or at least thoughtful, those eyes, even when there was a pleasant genial smile on the mouth. And there was this specialty about his smile—a specialty which may be often observed in subjective natures habituated to original thought and to live in the inner life: it seemed generally to be produced more by the movement of his own inward feelings and thoughts than by what was said by others. Like most dark-haired men, he began to become gray early in life, and for some few years before his death his appearance was venerable in no ordinary degree. He then wore his hair, which had become perfectly white, very long, and a shallow, very broad-brimmed white hat on the top of it. The latter, indeed, was, I think, at all times his universal wear. I do not think that I ever saw him in Florence in that detestable article of apparel called “a chimney-pot hat.” But this is anticipating.
Very shortly after our arrival in Florence and the renewal of our friendship with Powers—I think not more than a year—there arrived in Florence, bringing a letter of introduction to my mother, an English gentleman of fortune, Mr. Grant. He was a noted lover and patron of art, and my mother proposed to him a visit to the Studio Powers. The sculptor had then just completed his first imaginative work, the “Greek Slave,” which numerous replicas have since made so well known on both sides of the Atlantic. This work had greatly excited my mother’s admiration, and it was that he might have an opportunity of seeing the “Greek Slave” that my mother was desirous of taking Mr. Grant to the sculptor’s studio. But it was not altogether easy to induce Mr. Grant to accept the proposal. “If there is anything very good, that is the very reason why I must not go there. Lead me not into temptation! I have been spending all my money, and more than I meant to spend, on sculpture in Rome. Don’t show me any more statues, for I cannot buy any more.” But this confession of fearing temptation was calculated to produce a
The practice of the greatest sculptors as regards the degree in which it has seemed desirable to them to take part in that mechanical portion of the business of producing a statue which consists in the manipulation of the marble, has always been very different. Some have subjected the marble to the touching of their own hands more, some less. The work of reproducing a copy of the clay model in marble is a purely mechanical one, and may or may not be in the artist’s judgment best brought to perfection by the labor of his own hands. It will readily be believed, however, from what has been already said of the tendencies of Powers’s talent and idiosyncrasy, that he was among those who have contributed most of their personal labor to the perfecting of their works. Powers was one of those men whose hands have faculty in them. He was a master in the use of them, and accordingly he loved to use them. It was his practice to go over with his own hand the surface of the marble of every work which left his studio. But he was not contented to do this in the manner and with the tools which had been used by so many generations of sculptors before him. That decided bent of his genius to mechanical invention which has been mentioned at the beginning of this paper led him to perceive that an improvement might be made in this respect. For giving the last finish to the marble, for removing from the surface a quantity so small that no chisel could be trusted to do the work, it is obvious enough to suggest the use of a file. And no doubt files are used for the purpose, but they are liable to a special and very troublesome source of inefficiency. They become clogged with the excessively fine dust of the marble in a very few minutes to such an extent as to be rendered useless, especially as the file must be of an exceedingly fine description. Powers therefore set his mind to the problem of inventing some means or some instrument by which this source of trouble could be avoided; and after considerable vexation, not so much in perfecting his own conception of the thing needed as in getting careless and not very competent workmen to execute his orders, he perfected a file of the necessary fineness upon the principle of a nutmeg-grater. His studio was at all times full of little ingenious contrivances of all sorts—contrivances for readily and conveniently modifying the light in the exact degree desirable; contrivances for the due collocation and distribution of artificial light; contrivances for the more ready moving of marbles, etc. etc.
It is the fashion in Florence and in Rome for artists to open their studios to all visitors. It is a custom which adds much to the amusement of visitors who are really lovers of art; but it must bring with it, one would think, consequences which must sometimes be not a little trying to the painter’s or sculptor’s temper and patience. Criticism from those who have some little pretension to the right to criticise is not always pleasant when volunteered, but criticism from such Philistines of the Philistines as often haunt the studios must be hard indeed to bear with common courtesy. Powers invariably received such with the most perfect suavity and good-temper, but I have sometimes seen him, to my great amusement, inflict a punishment on the talkers of nonsense which made them wish they had held their tongues. This consisted simply of defending his own practice by entering on a lecture upon the principles which ought to regulate the matter in question. He was, I fancy, rather fond of lecturing, and would rather have liked the work of a professor of the fine arts. I have seen people writhe under his patient and lengthy expositions, which they were as capable of understanding as so many bullocks, and which they had brought down on themselves by some absolutely absurd remark on the work before them. I have seen such delinquents use every sort of effort to put a stop to or escape from the punishment they had brought upon themselves. In vain: the lecture would continue with a placid uninterruptibility which it was amusing to witness.
It was in 1854, I think, or thereabouts (for I have not at hand the means of verifying the date with accuracy, and it is of no consequence), that Mr. Hume, the since well-known medium, came to Florence. He came to my house on the pressing invitation of my mother, my then wife and myself. We had seen accounts of extraordinary things said to have taken place some months previously at the house of a Mr. Rymer, a solicitor living at Ealing near London, and our curiosity and interest had been so much excited that the hope of being able to witness some of these marvels was not the least among the motives of a journey that summer to England. We obtained an introduction to Mr. Rymer, were present at sundry seances at his house at Ealing, made acquaintance with Mr. Hume, and invited him to stay for a while in my house in Florence. He came accompanied by his friend, a son of Mr. Rymer; and both the young men were resident under my roof for about a month, leaving it to accept an invitation from Mr. Powers to make his house their home for a while. The manifestations of phenomena produced, or supposed to be produced, by what has become known to the world as “Spiritualism,” were then only beginning to attract in Europe the very general attention which they have since that time attracted. The thing was then new to most people. During the month that Mr. Hume and his friend were in my house we had seances almost every
I had many years previously lost a brother—the same whom I have already had occasion to mention in the earlier part of this letter. Now, at an early stage of the series of sittings that took place at my house it was intimated that the spirit of this brother was present and wishful or willing to communicate with me. He did, as was proposed, communicate very freely upon subjects of all sorts by means of raps under the table and the letters of the alphabet spread upon it—on all subjects save one. To the often-repeated question, where we had last met in life, I could get no reply. It was constantly promised to me that I should be answered this question at the next sitting. Now, it so happened that my wife had conceived, reasonably or unreasonably, doubts as to the medium’s honesty in the matter, and she determined to try him in the matter of this unanswered question. Talking one day with him in tete-a-tete, she turned the subject of maladies of the chest, of which they had been speaking, to the special case of her late brother-in-law, discussing the powerful influence of climate, and remarking that she feared Ostend had been a very bad place for him. And there she left the matter without any further remark, and without eliciting any answer from him. This occurred very shortly before the time when Mr. Hume left my house to accept the hospitality of Mr. Powers. The sittings continued with great frequency in the house of the latter, and my mother and myself were very frequently present at them. As before, the soi-disant spirit of my brother Henry announced his presence, and, as before, I repeated my often-asked question as to the place on earth where he and I had last met. On this occasion the answer rapped out consisted of the word “Ostend.” I smilingly replied, “Spirit, you know nothing about what you are talking of: you are wrong.” Mr. Hume became immediately very angry, and reproached me vehemently for “interrupting the spirit”—for not waiting for what he was probably going to say. It was likely enough, he added, that the spirit was about to say that Ostend was not the place. I said “Pshaw! In that way he might go through the whole Gazetteer.” Thereupon Mr. Hume declared that I was evidently not in a fit frame of mind to be a sitter at such meetings; that my presence would be likely to mar any results to be expected from them; and, in short, if only for the sake of those who wished to continue their experiences, it was necessary that I should withdraw from them. That was the last occasion on which I took part in a seance under Mr. Hume’s mediumship. My mother continued her sittings at the house of Mr. Powers, and it is fair to record that she there witnessed material phenomena—some of them closely allied to phenomena only explainable on Spiritualistic theories—of even a more extraordinary nature than any which had occurred at my house; in which neither she, nor Mr. Powers or any of his family, nor any of the others of the party, were able to detect
For some time after this Powers used to recount to me the marvels which were witnessed at his house. He was not pleased with the medium as an inmate in other respects: he did not form a favorable opinion of his moral character. I am speaking of matters now many years old, and I might not have considered it necessary to record these impressions of a very specially upright and honest man with regard to one who is still before the public were it not that they go to increase the value of Mr. Powers’s testimony to the genuineness of the phenomena which he witnessed, by showing that his judgment upon the subject was at least in no degree warped by any prejudice in favor of the miracle-worker.
Meantime, the sculptor, still in the modest tenement which he occupied for so many years in the Via Romana, was growing in fame and reputation from day to day. A visit to the Studio Powers—or Pousse, as the ciceroni and valets-de-place called it—was an obligatory part of the tourist’s regular work in “doing” Florence. A large family was, during those prosperous and laborious years, growing up around him—sons and daughters, most of whom he lived to see settled in life and to be justly proud of. Death did not altogether pass his threshold by, but he knocked there but once or twice in all that length of years. At last the time came when the successful artist felt that his position enabled and justified him in moving from his old quarters to more commodious and luxurious ones. He had been but a tenant in the Via Romana: he was now to inhabit a house of his own.
It was the time when Florence was for a few short years enjoying the fallacious and fatal honor of being the capital of Italy. There were some who from the first were fully convinced that that honor would be a transitory one. The greater number thought that the will of France and of her emperor, and the difficulties attending the simultaneous residence of the king of Italy and the pope within the walls of the same city, would avail to make Florence the capital of the new kingdom for at least as many years as human prudence could look forward to. The earthquake-like events which shook down the bases of all such calculations, and enabled Italy to realize her longing desire to see Rome the capital of the nation, are too well known to need even referring to. Florence suddenly ceased to be the metropolis of Italy, and the amount of financial ruin in the case of those who had invested money in building to
He did not move very far. His old lodging and studio were, as has been said, a little way within the Porta Romana, and the villa residence which he built is but two or three minutes’ walk on the outside of it. Immediately outside this Porta Romana, sloping off a little to the left from the road to Rome, is a magnificent avenue of ilex and cypress conducting to a grand-ducal villa called the “Poggio Imperiale.” To the left again of this avenue, which is perhaps a mile or somewhat more in length, and between it and the city wall, which in that part of its course encloses the Boboli Gardens attached to the Palazzo Pitti, is a large extent of hillside, rapidly rising to the heights crowned by the ancient and storied church of San Miniato, and by the suburban villages of Arcetri and Pian Guillari. This space was, and had been for time out of mind, occupied by fields and market-gardens. But when the new fortunes of the City of Flowers fallaciously seemed to be in the ascendant, it was at once seen that of all the spaces immediately around Florence which were available for that increase of the city which was expected to be urgently required, none was more desirable or more favorably circumstanced than this hillside. A really magnificent carriage-road, ornamented with gardens on either side of it, was led in well-arranged curves up to San Miniato, and down on the other side of the hill till it reaches the Arno at the village of Ricorboli. The entire course of this road commands a series of varied views of the city and the Vale of Arno than which nothing can be conceived more charming. It is in truth the finest city promenade and drive that I know in Europe. Rome has nothing comparable to it. The Bois de Boulogne and Hyde Park are, as far as natural beauty goes, tame and flat in comparison to it. The planning and the execution of it have been alike excellent. The whole of the space up which the road serpentines has been turned into ornamental gardens, and on either side of it, and among its lawns and shrubberies, a large number of villa-sites were reserved to be disposed of to purchasers. Of this singular opportunity Powers was one of the first to avail himself. He selected with admirable judgment three sites in the immediate neighborhood of each other—one for a residence for himself, one for that of his eldest son, a married man, established and doing well as a photographer, and one for that of his eldest daughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Ibbetson. The friends
In conformity with the convenient continental fashion of ladies naming one day in the week for the reception of visitors—a plan which enables them to escape from the interruption to their domestic pursuits on all other days, and which is very generally adopted by those who have large circles of acquaintance—Mrs. Powers used to open the drawing-rooms of her new house on every Saturday, and a considerable crowd was sure to be found there from two to six. But such recent arrivals on the banks of the Arno as paid their respects to Mrs. Powers in the hope and expectation of seeing the famous sculptor were almost, if not quite, invariably disappointed. None of the Florentine colony expected to find Powers in the drawing-room on such occasions. They knew better where to look for him—in his workshop. There he might be found by those who had brought letters of introduction to him, in his usual workman’s garb. Powers never made the slightest concession to the necessities of receiving “company” on such occasions. There he was, with his working cap on head, probably in a long light gray coat, not innocent of marble dust, but often in blouse and apron.
In the latter days, when, though we little thought it, the end was approaching, when the night of that long day of continuous activity and labor was at hand, he might as frequently have been found sauntering under the magnificent trees of the Poggio Imperiale avenue in the immediate vicinity of his own house. Upright in figure and in carriage as ever, and with his eye as bright as ever, it was difficult to suppose that the venerable and stalwart figure of the old sculptor was not destined still for years of life and activity. His malady was connected with the respiratory organs; and a specially painful circumstance of it for his friends was, that the loss of voice, which made the effort of talking injurious to him, rendered it a selfish and inconsiderate thing to visit him; for the activity of his mind was still such that in the contact with another mind he could not abstain from the old familiar intercourse which he had loved so well. Like the old camel of the Arabian tale, that, having been all its life accustomed to lead the caravan, died in the effort to keep his old place to the last, Powers, who had been always wont to have rather the lion’s share of conversation, could not resign himself to hear another talk, in silence. He would talk, and suffered for it afterward. The result was that his friends felt that they were showing the best consideration for him by staying away.
To look at him, I say, as he would stand in the sunshine at his own gate, it was difficult to imagine that aught of a very serious nature ailed him. But in the case of a man so habitually active his sauntering there was a bad sign. He was emphatically one of those men with whom life and work are the same thing—one whose sun was at the setting when he could work no more, and who would probably have cared little to survive his capacity for working.
T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.
To-day the woods are trembling through
and through
With shimmering forms, that
flash into my view,
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt
in blue.
The leaves that wave against
my cheek caress
Like women’s hands;
the embracing boughs express
A
subtlety of mighty tenderness;
The copse-depths into little noises start,
That sound anon like beatings of a heart,
Anon like talk ’twixt lips not far
apart.
The beech dreams balm, as
a dreamer hums a song,
Through whose vague sweet
float expirations strong
From lithe young hickories,
breathing deep and long
With stress and urgence bold of inward
spring,
And
ecstasy of burgeoning.
Now, since the dew-plashed
road of morn is dry,
Come daintier smells, linked
in soft company,
Like velvet-slippered ladies
pacing by.
Long
muscadines,
Like Jove’s locks curled round foreheads
of great pines,
Breathe out ambrosial passion from their
Dreaming of gods, men, nuns and brides,
between
Old companies of oaks that inward lean
To join their radiant amplitudes of green,
I slowly move, with ranging
looks that pass
Up from the matted miracles
of grass
Into yon veined complex of space,
Where sky and leafage interlace
So close the heaven of blue
is seen
Inwoven with a heaven of green.
I wander to the zigzag-cornered fence
Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles
dense,
Contests with stolid vehemence
The march of culture, setting
limb and thorn,
Like pikes, against the army
of the corn.
There, while I pause, before mine eyes,
Out of the silent corn-ranks, rise
Inward
dignities
And large benignities and insights wise,
Graces
and modest majesties.
Thus, without tilth, I house
a wondrous yield;
Thus, without theft, I reap
another’s field,
And store quintuple harvests
in my heart concealed.
See, out of line a single corn-stem stands
Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands,
And waves his blades upon
the very edge
And hottest thicket of the
battling hedge.
Thou lustrous stalk, that canst nor walk
nor talk,
Still dost thou type the poet-soul
sublime
That leads the vanward of
his timid time,
And sings up cowards with
commanding rhyme—
Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee,
to grow
By double increment, above, below;
Soul homely, as thou art,
yet rich in grace like thee,
Teaching the yeomen selfless
chivalry,
That moves in gentle curves
of courtesy;
Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness
tense,
By
every godlike sense
Transmuted from the four wild elements.
Toward
the empyrean
Thou reachest higher up than
mortal man,
Yet ever piercest downward in the mould,
And
keepest hold
Upon the reverend and steadfast
earth
That
gave thee birth.
Yea, standest smiling in thy very grave,
Serene
and brave,
With unremitting breath
Inhaling life from death,
Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent,
Thy
living self thy monument.
As
poets should,
Thou hast built up thy hardihood
With wondrous-varying food,
Drawn in select proportion
fair
From solid mould and vagrant
air;
From terrors of the dreadful night,
O steadfast dweller on the selfsame
spot
Where thou wast born, that still repinest not—
Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot!—
Deeply thy mild content rebukes the land
Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand
Of trade, for ever rise and fall
With alternation whimsical,
Enduring scarce a day,
Then swept away
By swift engulfments of incalculable tides
Whereon capricious Commerce rides.
Look, thou substantial spirit of content!
Across this little vale, thy continent,
To where, beyond the mouldering
mill,
Yon old deserted Georgian
hill
Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest
And
seamy breast,
By restless-hearted children
left to lie
Untended there beneath the
heedless sky,
As barbarous folk expose their
old to die.
Upon that generous swelling side,
Now
scarified
By keen neglect, and all unfurrowed
save
By gullies red as lash-marks
on a slave,
Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at
toil,
And dreamed himself a tiller of the soil.
Scorning the slow reward of
patient grain,
He sowed his soul with hopes
of swifter gain,
Then sat him down and waited
for the rain.
He sailed in borrowed ships of usury—
foolish Jason on a treacherous sea,
Seeking the Fleece and finding misery.
Lulled by smooth-rippling
loans, in idle trance
He lay, content that unthrift
Circumstance
Should plough for him the
stony field of Chance.
Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man
might tell,
He staked his life on a game of Buy-and-Sell,
And turned each field into a gambler’s
hell.
Aye, as each year began,
My farmer to the neighboring
city ran,
Passed with a mournful anxious face
Into the banker’s inner place;
Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer
grace,
Railed at the drought, the
Old hill! old hill! thou gashed and hairy
Lear
Whom the divine Cordelia of the year,
E’en pitying Spring, will vainly
strive to cheer—
King, but too poor for any
man to own,
Discrowned, undaughtered and
alone,
Yet shall the great God turn thy fate,
And bring thee back into thy monarch’s
state
And
majesty immaculate;
So, through hot waverings
of the August morn,
A vision of great treasuries
of corn
Thou bearest in thy vasty
sides forlorn,
For largesse to some future bolder heart
That manfully shall take thy part,
And
tend thee,
And
defend thee,
With antique sinew and with modern art.
SIDNEY LANIER.
GENTLEMAN DICK.
They had, all of them, nicknames themselves, for in a Colorado mining-community it was not difficult to acquire a title, and they called him Gentleman Dick. It was rather an odd name, to be sure, but it was very expressive, and conveyed much of the prevailing opinion and estimate of its owner. They laughed when he expressed a desire to join the party in Denver, and Old Platte looked at his long, delicate hands, so like a woman’s, with a smile of rough, good-humored pity, mingled, perhaps, with a shade of contempt for the habits and occupation that had engendered such apparent effeminacy. But he pleaded so earnestly and talked with such quiet energy and confidence of what he could and would do, and moreover had about
* * * * *
The forest of dark pines and firs that covered both sides of the valley of the Blue grew down to the bars of the river, which along its banks was thickly grown with wild gooseberry and raspberry bushes, and piled up here and there with great tangled heaps of driftwood which the spring floods brought down and left in masses of inextricable confusion along its sides. Back a little distance from one of these sandy flats, and nestled right in the shadow of the forest’s edge, they built a long rough cabin early in June. In summer-time the spot was a wild and picturesque one. Green and luxuriant vegetation made a soft and brilliant carpet at the feet of the stately old pines; huge boulder-like rocks, their edges softened and rounded in the grasp of one of Agassiz’ pre-Adamite glaciers that had ground its icy way down from the melting snow-caps above—rocks covered with bright lichens and tufts of moss—– lay piled on one another at the foot of the steep mountain-side; while gnarled cedars twisted around about them, their rough red roots twining here and there in search of
During the early part of the season they had prospected up along the river, finding gold all the way, but not in quantities sufficiently large to warrant working. At the place, however, which they subsequently named Chihuahua (pronounced in the vernacular Chee-waw-waw) the perspicacious Jones had given it as his opinion, formed after mature deliberation and a sapient examination of some two or three shovelsful of dirt, that there was a satisfactory “color in that ar bank.” Some hard work of about a week demonstrated that there were excellent diggings there, and then work was commenced upon it in good earnest. The cabin was built, Gentleman Dick’s choice of location being unanimously approved; two or three trips were made across the “Range” to the nearest settlement for materials and provisions; and then the real labor began. As they cut through the heavy bank of mould and gravel, gradually eating a long trench to the bed-rock, prospects grew better and better. At last, one day a narrow ledge of brittle, shaly rock came in view, covered with a coating of thick, heavy yellow mud, of which Old Platte gathered a panful and betook himself down to the river-side. A war-whoop from the direction in which he had disappeared came ringing through the gooseberry bushes to their ears, and with a responsive yell and a simultaneous dropping of shovels and picks they all dashed off to his side. He was discovered in a condition of great excitement, dancing wildly round the pan, in the bottom of which about half a teaspoonful of coarse yellow nuggets were shining among the black sand. It was a grand prospect, and with the exception of Gentleman Dick, whose exultation was of a very mild and reserved order, the proprietors of the Chihuahua Claim behaved in a very undignified and unseemly way; Thompson and Jones organizing an impromptu sparring-match, and Old Platte standing indecorously on his head in a neighboring clump of bushes. Sundry war-whoops and divers indications of activity showed that work of a very lively and energetic character was being prosecuted that afternoon on the bar; and when the sun sunk to rest behind the purple mountains, and the blue mists of evening rose in the valley, they had their sluice-boxes and “riffles” in order, and were ready to commence washing at sunrise.
It did not take very long to clean the ledge, and early in the afternoon the water was shut off. When it was found that the “riffles” yielded thirteen ounces of gold that would coin eighteen dollars and a half to the ounce, a firm conviction seemed to settle upon the camp that this was an occasion which it would be improper to pass over without a thorough and practical acknowledgment of its importance in the shape of a regular celebration. The gold was weighed and divided, all sitting in a circle in the middle of the cabin floor, while Old Platte officiated at the scales with all the gravity and dignity which the responsible position called for.
Mr. McNab’s grocery and post-office at Blue Bar was the scene of much excitement and noisy revelry that evening and all the next day while the gold lasted. Miners who had heard of the Chihuahua “streak” flocked up to Blue Bar to get the particulars, and naturally joined in the general feeling of exultation and hilarity that seemed to pervade that community. Old Platte got terribly drunk, and Thompson and Jones developed the strangest eccentricities of gait, manner and speech, and finally subsided into a deep slumber in the dust and sand of the main thoroughfare of the Bar. Gentleman Dick’s absence from the festivities was not noticed that evening, but the next day Thompson, who seemed to feel aggrieved on the subject, announced his intention of going up to Chihuahua to fetch him down. He left Mr. McNab’s on his charitable mission armed with a bottle of rum, and proceeded up the creek in a condition of moderate intoxication. That he was somewhat sobered on his arrival at the cabin was perhaps due to the fact that the cork was fixed very firmly in the neck of his bottle: at any rate, he did not ask his friend to drink when he found him.
Gentleman Dick had just directed and sealed a letter, and was about to start for the settlement of Gold Dirt, when Thompson loomed up unsteadily in the doorway, surveyed him inquiringly for a moment and asked undecidedly and apologetically, “Wass’ up? W’ere you goin’?”
Gentleman Dick, apparently overlooking his somewhat dubious condition, told him he had been writing a letter to some one who lived in the States: he was going to Gold Dirt to mail it, and a ring of Blue Creek gold was to accompany it to its destination. Thompson said no more, but stood there in the doorway with McNab’s rum under his arm. He did not stir, nor did he seem to notice the “good-bye” that came down the winding trail through the pines, but remained there stolid and immovable, gazing vacantly at the writing-paper on the rough table. Suddenly he straightened himself up to his full height, and taking the bottle from under his arm, held it out at arm’s length and apostrophized it in terms which Mr. McNab would have regarded as a personal insult, and which the community on the Blue might possibly have resented with a challenge to mortal combat. His next step, had they witnessed it, would certainly
* * * * *
Summer had melted imperceptibly into autumn; and the bright tints that glittered on the mountain-slopes and through the sturdy undergrowth of the forest told that it in its turn was soon to give way to winter. Chihuahua Bar was piled with great heaps of boulders and gravel, furrowed here and there with deep ditches and trenches, and otherwise gave ample evidence of the hard work that had been done. But, as Old Platte, remarked, “The luck was down on them,” and the partners had very little to show for their long months of toil. Gentleman Dick had worked as hard and earnestly as the others, and had never been known to utter a word of complaint through the many hardships and mishaps they endured. But a great change had come over him. No one who saw him when he joined the party in Denver would have ventured to call him strong or robust, but, delicate as he was then, he was now a mere shadow by comparison. The change had been more marked and rapid during the last few weeks. He had seemed to fade gradually away, growing daily weaker and weaker, until at last a knowledge of his increasing debility forced itself upon the not very observant faculties of his companions—coming rather as a sense of indefinable uneasiness on his behalf than any actual apprehension of his real condition. His great expressive eyes shone out with an unnatural brilliancy from his pale, sunken cheeks, and a deeper shade of melancholy seemed settling on his naturally thoughtful face. Thompson probably noticed it more than anybody else, but said nothing, while Old Platte and Jones exchanged ideas on the subject with a sort of puzzled anxiety, mingled, it might be, with some genuine alarm. They noticed that the work began to fatigue him more and more, and that he often had to pause in the middle of it weary and exhausted.
At last, one day, about the first of November, he remained in his bunk in the cabin, unable to come down to the claim. In their rough, uncouth way they pitied him, and would have given anything they could command to be able to relieve him. But they seemed instinctively to feel that his case was something out of their reach, and with the exception of a weak suggestion from Jones, that he should try some of “them ar antibilious pills as he had in his box,” no course of medical treatment was contemplated. Besides, was he not himself a doctor? and if he could do nothing, what should they be able to effect? The argument was sufficiently conclusive; at least, Jones accepted it as such, and retired in some confusion, comforting himself by the perusal of the label on his box of pills, which really seemed to justify the suggestion he had made. Twice after this, on days when the warm sunshine tempted him out of doors, he came down to the claim and sat by the wheel and watched them working; but he never did any more work. He did not tell them he could not do it, or complain that he was too weak: it was tacitly understood that his share of the season’s labor was over.
About the middle of November the winter stepped in in its sudden way and commenced to take possession of the valley of the Blue, and by the first of December the ice was so thick that the partners reluctantly stopped work. “Jones of Chihuahua” had expressed his determination of going south to Santa Fe, to stay until spring among the “Greasers,” but Old Platte and Thompson would stay on the Blue for the winter, and to that end had laid in such provisions as were deemed necessary. The settlement below on the Bar had been abandoned early in November; and it was doubtful if a white man besides themselves could be found by its waters any nearer than the end of the Great Canon of the Rio Colorado. But they cared very little for that, and looked forward to their voluntary hibernation without any feeling of apprehension on the score of loneliness. Both were hardy mountaineers. Thompson had been the first man that ever performed the feat of crossing the range at Grey’s Peak in the middle of winter, with the aid of a pair of snow-shoes; and he and Old Platte knew that if their provisions gave out they could readily reach some of the Clear Creek diggings in the same way. So Jones strapped his belt of gold-dust around his waist and prepared to depart. He shook hands with the partners, and when Gentleman Dick, with a forced cheeriness of manner and with wishes for a pleasant winter in New Mexico, remarked, “Next spring the boys will give you a third of my share, Jones,” he stoutly and earnestly repudiated the implied idea, but with a confusion and uncertainty of manner that indicated a serious doubt in the soundness of his own assertions.
Gentleman Dick released the big hand as he lay in his blankets, and said for the last time, “Good-bye, Jones.”
“Good-bye, old man.”
Jones strode away abruptly on his journey, and if the moisture about his eyes was in excess of what was required in their normal condition, it was probably due to the bracing and biting frostiness of the morning air.
And so they resigned themselves to their winter’s prison on the Blue—Old Platte stolidly and contentedly, Thompson uneasily and restlessly, and Gentleman Dick peacefully and calmly, knowing full well that spring would never bloom again for him. Thus the December days flew by, growing colder and colder, and the snow-line crept gradually down the slopes of the range until it reached the edge of the timber, where it seemed to pause for a few days in its advance. It had already snowed several times in the valley, and the afternoon sun had always melted it away; but they knew by experience that it would soon come down in good earnest and cover everything up for the winter in a mantle of snow some six or seven feet deep. And as the days sped on Gentleman Dick grew paler and paler, and his bright eyes shone with a brighter lustre, while he seemed to be gradually slipping away, losing little by little his hold upon life. He was a mystery to his companions, for he had no disease that could be detected, and why he should sink thus without any apparent cause was more than they could understand.
* * * * *
The wind came roaring down the canon in wild, fierce gusts; the dead, frost-hardened, brittle branches of the sturdy old pines rattled and cracked and broke as it swept by laden with glittering crystals, stolen from the range above, where it circled madly around the snowy peaks, and whirled away great winding-sheets of snow—fine, sleety snow, that filled the atmosphere with sharp prickly needles, that made their way inside Old Platte’s rough woolen shirt as he chopped away at the woodpile, and made him shiver as they melted down his back. Everything was frozen hard and fast; the Blue was silent in its bed; stones and sticks adhered to the ground as if part and parcel of it, and each piece of wood in the pile that Old Platte was working at stood stiffly and firmly in its place. The wind, just before a snow-storm, always comes down the canons in fierce premonitory gusts, and as it was desirable to get in a good stock of wood before the snow-drifts gathered around the cabin, Old Platte had been hacking manfully for some hours. The sun sunk low in the hollow of the hills to the westward while he was still working, and lit up with a cold yellow glare the snowy wastes and icy peaks of the mighty mountains that stood guard over the Blue. The whistling of the wind among the pines died gradually away, and the silence that seemed to fall with the deepening shadows was only broken by the ringing strokes of the axe and the crack of the splitting wood. When he ceased the valley had faded into darkness, and the range with its sharp outlines was only faintly discernible against the sombre gray pall that had overspread the sky.
He made a broad stack of logs by the fireplace and a larger one outside the door, and then stood by the threshold to take a look at the weather. A great soft feather of snow came sailing slowly down and nestled in his shaggy beard, and another fluttered on to the back of his hand. He looked up through the darkness and saw that it was already beginning to fall thickly, and then, with a self-satisfied glance of approval at his provident woodpile, went into the cabin and fastened the door.
Thompson had shot a fine argal or Rocky Mountain sheep that morning, and the broiled steaks were giving forth a most acceptable odor. He had tried to get Gentleman Dick to taste of a choice piece, but he shook his head wearily, as he had every time for some two weeks or more when proffered food. He could eat nothing, and lay there propped up on rough pillows, seeming scarcely conscious of their presence; his dreamy eyes, with lids half drooping, looking fixedly into the blazing fire. Even the coffee, civilized as it was by the addition of some patent condensed milk, and upon the manufacture of which Thompson had prided himself not a little, stood untouched by his bedside. Old Platte lit his pipe and dragged his three-legged stool into a corner of the wide chimney, and Thompson, after moving the things away to a corner, sat down opposite, mending his snow-shoes with a bundle of buckskin thongs. They did not talk much in that family of evenings: men of this class are not conversational in their habits, and a stranger who should look in would be apt to think them an unsocial set. Old Platte puffed steadily at his pipe, blinking and winking at the fire, which he poked occasionally with a stick or fed with a log of wood from the pile by his side. Thompson worked quietly with knife and awl at his dilapidated shoes, and the pale, patient face beyond still gazed dreamily into the fire. There were old scenes, doubtless, in among those burning logs—old familiar faces, dear memories of the past and weird fantastic visions pictured in the glowing coals. At last the eyes left the fire for a moment, resting on the two that sat by it, and he said, “Boys, it’s Christmas Eve.”
Thompson started, for he had not heard him speak with so much energy for weeks.
“Christmas Eve!” he repeated absently. “Christmas Eve, and to-morrow will be Christmas Day. Last Christmas was not like this: all was bright and fair, and she—”
The rest of the sentence was lost as he muttered it uneasily to himself and resumed his watching of the fire. Christmas Eve! So it was, but they had not thought of it. Christmas Eve! The name seemed out of place among those rocky fastnesses. What could the pines and the solitude, the snow and the ice, have in common with Christmas? Christmas Eve down in that desolate valley, in the quiet depths of the forest, away, miles away, from human habitation of any kind? Christmas Eve! It seemed absurd, but Christmas Eve it was nevertheless, there as everywhere else.
Old Platte took his blackened old pipe from between his lips and mechanically repeated the words. “Christmas Eve!” he half growled, as if some perplexing ideas had been called into existence by the suggestion, and his pipe went out as he listlessly shoved some stray coals back into the fire with his foot. But his meditations, to judge from his countenance, were neither interesting nor profitable. Probably his Christmases had never been passed in a way that was calculated to make them pleasingly conspicuous in the background of his life. Most of his early recollections were associated with a villainous roadside groggery in Pike county, Missouri, of which his father was the proprietor. Any questions relating to this parent and home he had been known to invariably evade, and whenever conversation tended in that direction he strenuously discouraged it. Why he did so never very clearly appeared. Some people who pretended to know used to say that the old gentleman had been doing a lively trade in horseflesh without going through the customary formalities of finance, and that some people with whom his dealings had been unsatisfactory, in consequence of this unbusinesslike habit of his, had called at his house one evening and invited him to walk out with them. The invitation was one he would have liked to decline, but extra inducements in the shape of the cold muzzle of a revolver pressed against his forehead and a low but determined “Dry up and come along!” caused him to put on his hat and step out. He was found next morning hanging from a branch of a neighboring tree with a brief but expressive obituary written in pencil on a scrap of paper and pinned on his coat: “Horse-thief! Jerry Moon and Scotty, take notice.” Inasmuch as one of the latter individuals was the chief authority for the story, and had expedited his departure from Pike county in consequence of the intimation contained in the lines on the same bit of paper, it may be safely inferred that there was some foundation for the numerous stories of a similar nature that were in circulation. So Christmas spent as his had been had no particular interest for Old Platte, and was pretty much the same as any other kind of day upon which there would be an equally good excuse for stopping work and getting venomously drunk. At any rate, the memories that clung around that Pike county whisky-shop were none of the pleasantest or most gratifying; and with a grunt of general dissatisfaction he rekindled his pipe, put a couple of sticks on the fire and allowed his mind to slide off into a more congenial train of reflection.
To Thompson, Gentleman Dick’s words had come as a sort of revelation. He knew well enough that Christmas came in December, and also upon what day of that month it fell, but of late the days had gone by so monotonously, and had so little to distinguish them one from another, that he had kept no account of them, and had no idea that it was so near. Some indefinable influence that he could not account
Old Platte lay curled up in his bearskins and blankets fast asleep, but the other still sat by the fire in the same position—still dreamily thinking. How long he had sat there he did not know. The fire had sunk into a glowing heap of coals, fast changing into soft white ashes, on which now and then a melting snow-flake that had stolen down through the chimney would fall and disappear with a short angry sizz, and the shadows in the cabin were deep and dark. Suddenly it seemed to him in his dreaming that a voice called him by name, and he awoke from his reverie with a chill and a shudder and a sense of indefinable dread creeping over him—a dread of what, he could not tell. A handful of chips blazed up brightly and lit up the cabin with their flickering light as he turned nervously toward the patient, quiet face behind him. The eyes, shaded by the long black eyelashes, were still on the fire, and while he was confident that he had not been called, he was dimly conscious of a great change that had taken place. As he still looked anxiously at the faded features, the eyes left their long watching of the embers and were raised to meet his. He felt he was wanted, and was by his side in a moment: “How d’yer feel, old man?”
Gentleman Dick smiled as he laid his wasted fingers across the sturdy brown hand that leaned on the edge of his bunk, and turning with difficulty on his pillow, he said in a voice scarce above a whisper, “Thompson, old fellow, you and Platte have been kind, very kind, to me. I won’t trouble you much more now. I’m going to say—good-bye to you; and—Thompson—I want you to do one little thing for me—when spring comes.” He reached into a chink among the logs by his side and drew forth an envelope containing a few letters, a photograph of a woman’s face, fair and tender, and a gold ring.
Thompson took it with a hand that shook as his rarely did.
“Send it soon—it’s addressed and all—send it to her. Maybe she will be glad to know I am—gone—at last—out of her path—out of the way—and the world. She sent it back to me—would not have it—or me. Now—” Then his mind seemed to wander, and he rambled incoherently, repeating over and over again a name that sounded like that on the envelope. “You will do it, won’t you, Thompson?” said he, rallying suddenly.
Thompson’s voice was husky and thick as he answered impressively, “Damn me ef I don’t!” adding mentally, as he glanced at the package, “Damn her skin, whoever she is! She’s at the bottom of all this here business, you bet.”
Gentleman Dick’s lips moved as if he were speaking, and as Thompson leaned over him he could hear, in a broken whisper, “Gold—in old boot—under bed—Old Platte half.”
He heard no more. The pressure of the wasted fingers relaxed, the weary head sunk slowly back on the pillow, and the tired eyelids drooped over the glazing eyes.
“Dick!” said Thompson—“Dick, old man!”
Too late. Away through the softly-falling snow, from the Blue with its stillness and solitude, from its heartaches and sorrows and troubles, the weary spirit had fled, and Gentleman Dick was at rest.
* * * * *
Spring had come again; the snow had melted from the valleys; the grass and the ferns and the green grass and bright lichens once more peeped out among the gray boulders and about the feet of the stately pines; and the Blue, freed from its wintry prison, sang merrily over the gravelly reaches. And as the miners flocked down that spring from over the range, they saw near by the Chihuahua Claim and the deserted cabin, in a square formed by four gigantic pines, a neatly-built cairn of boulders. One big gray boulder rested securely on top of all, and on it was hacked, in rough and simple letters, GENTLEMAN DICK.
W. MACKAY LAFFAN.
Almost as far back as I can remember three brothers, Italians named Noele, were intimates and occasionally inmates of our home. The youngest brother, Eugenio, had been imprisoned during the political disturbances of his country, but had escaped and made his way to England. Here, at a lecture given by Mazzini in London under the auspices of the liberal Italians and those who espoused their cause, Eugenio, who to handsome features and aristocratic appearance added a modulated voice and persuasive manner, rose during the course of the evening, and in words that held the audience spellbound narrated his own sufferings and those of some of his friends under the yoke of Austria. As he concluded with the utterance of the sentiment, “Liberta! Equalita! Fraternita!” a storm of applause burst from the assembly, and many were the high personages who at the close of the meeting requested an introduction to the fascinating young orator. My father was
His principles were such as the promptings of self-love, a violent temper, pride and ambition could without difficulty overcome. As he rose higher in the social scale the reflection that he had owed the impetus to others was a constant source of annoyance to him. Our house was now but rarely visited by him, unless when some legal difficulties had arisen on which he wished to consult my father or some important papers required translating. Then the air of pride would yield to one of deferential affection, and in silvery tones he would discourse on such topics as he imagined were the most pleasing to us. My father would be termed “Signor Padre” and my mother “Signora Madre.”
At about this time he sent to Italy for his brother Rugiero to assist him in his affairs. Rugiero became as intimate at our house as Eugenio had been. There were singularly contradictory elements in this brother’s character. At one time the history of a destitute family would move him to tears, and his purse would be freely emptied for their benefit: at another time he would spend half an hour in searching for a lost farthing, and if not successful his countenance would betray lines of anxiety for hours afterward. If he made me the gift of a paper horn or box of sweets, his heart for the rest of the day would seem to be expanded with the most joyous emotions, and for weeks after I was liable to be asked whether I remembered the day when I was so pleased with his little gift; and then he would request permission to examine the pictures painted thereon, and call my attention to their merits. He was ordinarily slow to understand the point of a witticism, but when he had by deep pondering discovered it, nothing could exceed his enjoyment: bending his head and clasping the bridge of his handsomely shaped nose, he would laugh till the tears were ready to start. On the other hand, he was extremely sensitive, jealous and suspicious. No one knew how soon the pleasant smile and kindly word would give place to angry passions as ungovernable as they were disagreeable to witness. A smile passing from one person to another without his being acquainted with the cause, was sufficient provocation for him to rise, make his respects in a frigidly polite tone and take his leave, to return a few moments after with
A third brother, Giuseppe, was added to the group, of whom vacillation was the distinguishing characteristic. Giuseppe, in the innumerable discussions that arose between Rugiero and Eugenio, would acquiesce with first one and then the other in whatever exaggerated sentiments their enraged frame of mind might prompt them to utter, with the view of keeping on good terms with both; but the only result was that when the flag of truce had been raised, grievances passed over and differences adjusted, he would have the mortification of finding the whole of the blame laid on his shoulders, and himself stigmatized as “a feather-head,” “a meddler” and “a spy.”
As the years rolled on I grew into womanhood, and became the unwitting source of constant ill-feeling between the brothers. Eugenio was handsome, but I distrusted him; Rugiero was nearly as handsome, but I regarded him as I would have regarded an uncle; Giuseppe was also handsome, but unstable and entirely wanting in force. Time passed, and the brothers had separated. Eugenio had married a woman in every way his inferior. Rugiero had been drawn into a like union that surprised all those who knew his refined tastes and sensitiveness to the social amenities. Though a man of honor, his circumstances had become embarrassed. In his emergencies he had recourse to his old friends, whose aid was not withheld, but, a crisis arriving, he was declared bankrupt. Eugenio, instead of assisting his brother, upbraided with being a disgrace to his own respectability, publicly disowned him, and, with the view of forcing him to abandon the country, spread injurious reports concerning him amongst many of the merchants who would otherwise have been willing to extend a helping hand.
Soon after this Eugenio made a journey to Italy on business. Here he visited his native place with an equipage designed to astonish the simple peasants and suggest to them the immensity of his wealth. Never had the village on the outskirts of which dwelt his widowed sister seen such magnificence or experienced such munificence. His name was on all tongues; ovations were made to him; he was almost a king in their eyes. His sister, Lucretia Mortera, had borne to her husband a large family, of whom but three survived—a youth named after his uncle Eugenio, and then being educated for the priesthood; Celestino, a boy of eleven years; and Virginia, a girl of eight.
One evening my mother and I were surprised by a call from Rugiero. His face was pale and his eyes were wild. He sank into an easy-chair, and after a long silence broke into the most terrible invectives against his brother Eugenio, who had dragged the widow and orphans from a peaceful home to cast them adrift.
“What widow? what orphans?”
“Simply, Madama Melville, my poor sister Lucretia, whom he induced to accompany him to London, with her family, on the pretence of providing for them all, is now with those children at my house, without means, without even a change of clothing. Yes, my sister Lucretia, who was a mother to him when his own mother died; and yet he prospers!”
“But, Rugiero, what was the cause of his treating them thus?”
“When they had arrived at my brother’s house the wife, who had not expected them, took an aversion to them, and no sooner did she learn that they were strict Roman Catholics than she believed them to be capable of every crime. Celestino, who is in a decline, was treated with the greatest neglect. Every occasion of showing disrespect toward her sister-in-law before her children or the servants was eagerly sought by my brother’s wife, whilst in the presence of her husband she was all amiability. The sickness of one of her own children was made the occasion of accusing Lucretia of an attempt to poison it, and the wily woman so worked on my brother’s parental feelings that he had not returned home an hour ere he commanded his ’infamous sister’—’quel assassinatrice!’—to leave his house with her children on the instant! The door was closed upon them, and the outer apparel that had served them for their journey was thrown to them from the window by the servants. Amazed and full of grief, they directed their steps toward the house of the good priest whose chapel they had once or twice attended. Here they procured my address, and soon after came to my house, where they now are in the extremest affliction. You, madama, may well imagine that I can scarcely maintain my own family at this juncture, and that I am therefore unable to do for my sister and her children what my heart dictates. After a sleepless night I came to the conclusion that you, Madama Melville, whose goodness of heart has so often been put sorely to the test, would be able to suggest some plan by which to mitigate the sufferings of my unfortunate sister or bring Eugenio to reason.”
“My dear Rugiero, I feel certain that my husband would think as I do—that for the present they had better stay here with us. We can turn one floor into sleeping apartments for them, and have one sitting-room in which your sister can receive callers or remain when she wishes to be alone. You know that I have so often heard you speak of your sister Lucretia that I can take the privilege of giving her an invitation to come and make us a long visit; and so you must tell her.”
“God bless you, dear madama, as you deserve to be blessed! This is indeed a weight off my heart and mind.”
The result of this conversation was that on the next morning Rugiero returned, bringing with him his sister and her children. Signora Lucretia responded to the welcome of my parents with expressions of fervent gratitude, calling them the saviors of her family. She was a short, slender woman, in whose dark eyes, long, finely-cut features, and pale, thin face one could discern the spirit of asceticism and the traces of past afflictions. Of the children she had buried, all had reached their tenth year in apparent health and remarkable for their physical and moral beauty, but from that age they had rapidly trodden the pathway to the tomb. None of her children had resembled their father but Eugenio, who was a well-made youth of wiry constitution, and gave every promise of attaining the ordinary age allotted to man. Celestino was destined soon to rejoin the children gone before. How can I describe the thrill I felt when I saw that child’s face as he entered the room? Never had I seen in picture or in dream a countenance so lovely. But what can I say of those soul-speaking eyes, the large, dark-brown iris surrounded by the brilliant azure-white and shaded by long dark lashes? Finely chiseled features were added to a rounded face of a clear pale olive, except where a flush like the pink lining of a shell played upon it. Virginia greatly resembled her brother Celestino, but was in full health, and in spirits that would have been lively but for the constant and harassing admonitions of her mother, who in every free and graceful movement saw a tendency to levity that must be repressed. The poor child was doomed to a perpetual entanglement of the lower limbs, owing to her garments being made as long as those of a grown person. If, forgetting decorum, she chanced to skip or jump, Signora Lucretia would exclaim, “Va scompostaccia! sta piu composta” ("Go to, most discomposed one! be more composed"), and seating her by her side would supply her with needlework or knitting until my mother would intercede, assuring Signora Lucretia that the child could never attain healthy womanhood unless allowed the full play of her muscles and the expansion of her lungs by singing and laughter.
“Ah, madama, you know not how I fear lest the natural gayety of her disposition should cause the loss of her soul.”
“Oh, my dear lady, such ideas are born of the troubles through which you have passed, and not of your native good sense. God has implanted this gayety in your child’s heart to enable her to enter with zest into those amusements so necessary to her development.”
One day my mother (by permission) had a tuck taken up in Virginia’s dress, and, directing me to take her for a walk, she privately commissioned me to purchase for her such attire as was suitable to a child of her years. I began with her head, and secured the jauntiest little hat with feathers that I could find, not without a misgiving that it would ultimately be consigned to the flames. Amongst other articles that I procured was a wax doll, at the sight of which Virginia screamed with delight. It was her first doll. Even Signora Lucretia’s face was lit by a smile of undisguised admiration at the improvement in the child’s toilette, but it soon gave place to a sigh at her own “vanity of spirit,” and she held the little hat as Eve might have held the apple offered to her by the serpent.
Signora Lucretia and her children spent some hours every morning before breakfast in reciting litanies and other prayers, and on retiring to rest the same forms were repeated. During the day, whenever the clock struck the hour, the whole family, leaving whatever might be the occupation of the moment, knelt on their chairs and made a short prayer or meditation on the flight of time.
At the time of their arrival my cousin Oswald was staying with us, and on the first evening he retired early to give them an opportunity of conversing more freely on the melancholy topics that filled their minds. After bidding good-night to my mother and kissing her, he paid me the same tokens of regard. This incident had not escaped the notice of the young Eugenio, for when directed by his mother to retire to rest also, he advanced toward me, shook hands, and (although, seeing his intention, I drew back) succeeded in imprinting a kiss on my cheek. Signora Lucretia turned as pale as death. My mother, to avoid a scene, turned with a playful laugh to Eugenio, who by this time was scarlet with shame, and said, “My dear boy, in this country such salutations are only permitted from near relations or very intimate friends, but I am not surprised that Mr. Oswald’s thoughtlessness before you should have misled you into doing the same. So I am sure that your good mother will not be displeased with you.”
“Oh, madama,” exclaimed Signora Lucretia, bursting into tears as soon as the door had closed upon him, “to think that my son should have been tempted by the Evil One so far as to forget what is due to the holy vocation for which he is to fit himself! In Italy never had he even been in the same room with any woman but myself and the priest’s old housekeeper. This is the first time that his lips have been so desecrated.” (Here my mother and I interchanged smiles.) “Unhappy mother that I am! by what sufferings can I atone for his sin? What shall I impose upon him to mortify the spirit that has arisen within him?”
The next morning Eugenio came down looking pale and sad, and I felt sure that he had been reprimanded in no measured terms. I gave him a pitying glance, which fell like dew on the thirsting earth.
At every breakfast the children were taught to say good-morning to each person separately. The elder son would commence, “Good-morning and good appetite, Mr. Melville! good-morning and good appetite, Madama Melville! good-morning and good appetite, Signora Felicia!” and so on. Then Celestino would go through the same ceremony, and finally Virginia, and a grace was uttered, during which the breakfast was liable to become cool, and Rugiero’s temper (if he were present) not so. “Andiamo! I am sure that Signor Melville and madama do not insist upon so many compliments; and you, Eugenio, should have more gallantry than to keep the Signora Felicia waiting whilst her toast becomes cold.” That he should connect the word gallantry with Eugenio was an imprudence, to say the least. But the offence was more serious when once at dinner he favored us with some reminiscences of his own gallantries: “I remember that when I was in the army the wife of our colonel had a sister, a splendid-looking creature, with eyes like stars, who (to tell the truth) was head over ears in—But my sister Lucretia, who is frowning at me, is right. One would say that she must have had an enlarged experience in such matters, seeing how sensitive she is to the danger of discussing them.” (Here Signora Lucretia, with blushing cheeks, glanced from Rugiero to her son, who with downcast eyes appeared to be absorbed with the roast chicken on his plate.) “Without entering into details that would appear ill-timed to my dear sister” (here his eyes twinkled with roguishness and his lips parted in laughter), “suffice it merely to say that I acted as any other man under the circumstances would have acted, and kissed her not once or twice, but—”
“Go to thy room, Eugenio, most audacious!” panted Signora Lucretia, for he had raised his head, and, meeting his uncle’s laughing gaze, had faintly smiled—“Go to thy room” (and here she struck him on the face), “and recite the Litany of the Blessed Virgin three times, and pray for thy uncle, that he may be converted.”
Eugenio with flaming cheeks and ears rose submissively from the table, and without a word or look ascended to his room to do her bidding.
“What!” exclaimed Rugiero, rising from his seat, “would you dare to insult me by desiring my own nephew to pray for me? It seems to me that I dream! Per Bacco!”
Here my father observed that he must own he saw nothing very outrageous in what Rugiero had narrated, yet, as Signora Mortera had her own peculiar views on the matter, he considered that her brother was bound to respect them. Rugiero then admitted that he had been too hasty, and a reconciliation was effected, but he never met his nephew’s eye thereafter without the same roguish smile, at which the poor youth would blush painfully and lower his gaze.
During this scene at the dinner-table Celestino breathed quickly, but never moved his eyes from the table-cloth, while Virginia looked at each one of the speakers in open-mouthed astonishment and curiosity.
One day I accompanied Signora Lucretia and her children to a Roman Catholic chapel in the neighborhood. I could not be unconscious of the odd and incongruous appearance of the two sons—Eugenio in a suit like that of a stage grandfather, snuff-colored, and with collar that raised the lobes of his ears; and dear little Celestino with a similarly cut coat in bottle green, with large gilt buttons, making him look like a man in miniature. Such had been the style pronounced by the village tailor to be in the height of Parisian fashion, but being a novelty to the London “gamins,” it attracted more notice from them than we could have wished. After Signora Mortera and her children had attended the confessional she seemed to be much easier in her mind, and was so amiable as to tell my mother on our return home that it was edifying to behold the signorina walking like a Roman matron, in contrast to those who were giggling and turning their heads first one way and then the other, like so many pulcinelle. Notwithstanding this compliment, however, I perceived that she was uneasy concerning Eugenio and myself. It was evidently a satisfaction to her that I should load Celestino with caresses and endearing epithets, but that Eugenio should sit near me, speak to me, or even be in the same room with me (whether alone or in company), was the signal for demonstrations of the extremest vigilance. On one evening my cousin had brought home some gifts, consisting of a silver pencil-case with gold pen for Eugenio, a traveling writing-case with his name on it for Celestino, and a small traveling work-bag similarly marked for Virginia. These were highly appreciated. Celestino seemed unwilling to have his desk out of his sight for a single moment, and when his bed-time came wanted to take it up with him. His mother, unwilling to leave Eugenio in my society without her watchful presence, directed him to carry his brother up.
“Signora madre,” said Celestino, “I am not tired to-night.”
“Well, then, Eugenio can carry up thy writing-case for thee.”
“Signora madre, it is not heavy, and I would like to carry it myself.”
So Signora Lucretia went up with him herself, and, leaving my mother to entertain Eugenio, I went immediately into another room. I felt too deeply for the misfortunes of the unsophisticated Eugenio ever to have willingly trifled with the nascent susceptibilities of his heart.
One little incident, however, occurred to interrupt the orthodox reserve of our demeanor. An old friend of ours, Captain Stuart, had sent Virginia a bank-note with which to procure some keepsake. One evening the old gentleman called, and was shown into the drawing-room, where my mother received him. The rest of us were in the dining-room below. On my mentioning Captain Stuart’s name to Signora Lucretia, she exclaimed, “Let us go, my children, and thank this good man for his kind present to our Virginia.”
It was dark, but the hall-lamp had not been lit, so I took a wax taper from the writing-table and, lighting it, proceeded to escort them up the staircase. Some spirit of mischief prompted me by a sudden movement to let the light be blown out. In an instant the hand of Eugenio met mine, and thus hand in hand, swinging to and fro, we came to the drawing-room door, and a flood of light bursting upon us discovered to Signora Lucretia my face flushed with suppressed laughter, and Eugenio’s eyes no longer timid, but sparkling with joy. From this time he would spend whole nights in writing verses, which he would show to his mother. She, noting the classical allusions, and having a great respect for literary talents, did not repress his efforts, but on the contrary appeared desirous that he should show his verses to my mother and to me. Mingled with expressions of grief and despair at the inconstancy of fortune and the decrees of fate were allegorical fancies in which I could perceive that I held a place, but I never allowed him to think that I noticed this; and indeed after the escapade of the staircase I became more distant than before.
However, one day when Celestino was feeling more weak and tired than usual, and I was propping him up on the sofa, I observed with some trepidation that Eugenio, who had been reading at the window, changed his seat to one near the head of the sofa. His mother and mine were busy sewing at a window in the next room, from whence they could see us through the folding doors. His eyes were full of tears, and, suddenly bending over his brother and rearranging a cushion, he seized my hand and covered it with silent kisses. In a moment I had disengaged my hand, full of fear for the result to Eugenio should Signora Lucretia’s attention be directed toward us. The same evening, on returning from a visit, I learned that my mother and Signora Mortera had gone out under the escort of Oswald to attend vespers at a church some distance off. We young people passed the evening alone together. The crimson curtains were closely drawn, and the cosy room was lighted by a blazing fire. Reclining in an easy-chair, I held Celestino’s fragile form in my arms, the wonderful eyes gazing into mine as I watched with emotions too deep for words their ever-varying expression. Eugenio sat on an ottoman at my feet, alternately reading aloud from Dante and pausing to observe me, while Virginia was on the hearth-rug, happy in adorning her doll with pieces of silk, beads and flowers.
Suddenly Eugenio said, “Does the signora remember in the narrative of Dives and Lazarus how Lazarus was thankful for the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table?”
I understood him, and hiding my face in Celestino’s tendril-like curls, I replied, “Yes, but I wonder whether he would have been hungry enough to eat crumbs that he knew to be poisoned?”
He made no reply.
“Eugenio,” I continued, “what are your plans for the future? Is it your own desire to become a priest?”
This last word made him tremble. “I once desired it,” he answered, “thinking it the most honorable position to which I could aspire, and also my natural vocation. But now—God knows whether it be a sin or not—I would pass through any affliction He might send rather than become one. But my mother’s heart is fixed upon it more than ever, and soon my family will be wholly dependent upon me. Ah! young as I am, I have suffered and still suffer. Far happier is that child in your arms, dying slowly though it may be, than the unfortunate Eugenio.”
“Have a care,” I said, “lest, entering the state of priesthood, you bear with you a heart fixed on the things of this world. Do not yield to the impulses of a strong imagination, but endeavor to forget whatever might prove a hindrance to you hereafter.”
“Ah, Felicia, my heart is too full ever to forget. Celestino, my brother, thou art indeed happy. Dost thou know it?”
“Yes, Eugenio, I feel even too happy.”
“God bless thee, Celestino! I love thee more than ever;” and, stealing his brother’s hand from mine, he gently kissed it, whilst Celestino smiled on us with a heavenly smile.
It was arranged that I should accompany my father to the counting-house of Eugenio Noele and strive to obtain some redress for the widow and orphans, for I had always been a favorite with him, and my mother imagined that my influence would have more power than her own. But the only result of this interview was that Eugenio promised, for my sake, to furnish his sister and her family with sufficient funds to enable them to return to their own country: he also told my father that he should send one of his clerks to accompany them and see that they did go there.
On our way home we called on Dr. Newcastle, our old friend and physician, and after describing the circumstances of the Mortera family, asked him to call and see Celestino in the evening. The doctor was a fine-looking man, with a profusion of silvery white hair and beard, a deep thinker, blunt and sincere of speech, and full of dry wit that made every one laugh but himself. His footman (a colored man) was once overheard to say, “Berry strange man, my massa! berry sing’lar man! I say to him, ’I can’t walk fast in dese yere boots, sar—dey’s too short.’ ‘Oh,’ he says, ’’tis but the cutting off a piece of your toes, Caesar, and de boots will fit well enuff.’ Him berry sing’lar man. One day I hear, through de open window of a lady’s house, him say to her, ‘For what did you send after me, madam?’ and she say, ’I feel a leetle ‘stericky again dis morning, doctor: what can you pescribe for me?’ ‘Pescribe!’ says my massa with a sort of short laugh: ’why, dat you go to de top of de house wid a brush and dustpan and sweep de stairs all de way down, and make all de beds, and leave off drinking strong coffee;’ and a berry fashionable lady too, as dey tell me after. When de doctor get into him carriage he talk to himself, and give him short laugh.”
After an introduction to Signora Mortera, the doctor turned his attention to Celestino, who lay on the sofa pale and agitated: “Bless my heart! what a handsome lad! what splendid eyes! Ah! hm! hm! poor fellow! hm!” and he cleared his throat. “Let me feel your pulse.”
As Celestino turned and gazed on him with mute surprise the doctor proceeded with his examination in complete silence, and then began discoursing about the weather and politics.
“But, doctor,” said my mother, “you have told us nothing about the boy? What is your opinion? what shall we do for him? what do you prescribe?”
“Whirr! whirr! how many questions! I prescribe for him a course of early rising, accompanied by long prayer and fasting. If he shows an inclination for exercise, give him a rosary. Take away juvenile books, and give him the Lives of the Saints and Martyrs. Let him remember the days of fasting and abstinence. Why, bless me! the boy is nothing but heart and brain. He must be kept cheerful and well-nourished. Let him be in the open air when it is pleasant. I will prescribe a little something for him, but his case is beyond all medicine.”
“Oh, doctor, do you really mean to say that he will die?”
“Die?” and the doctor laughed his little cynical laugh. “Why, we shall all die some day, shall we not?”
“Now, doctor, do be serious. Is there no hope for him?”
“I don’t see that there is;” and he continued to gaze at the boy’s face as if it had some fascination for him.
Eugenio Noele failed not a week later to send his clerk to make arrangements for the departure of the Morteras. As the time drew nearer Celestino failed rapidly. He would lie for hours without speaking except with his eloquent eyes. Frequently he would kiss a little ring that I had given him, and a few days before his departure I gave him a trinket consisting of a turquoise heart, with a cross set with crystals over red stones, emblematical of the blood and water that flowed from the side of our Redeemer. This he received with great emotion, and as I tied it to his neck with a ribbon he said, “I will wear it as long as I have life.”
“Does Celestino fear to die?”
“No, signora, not whilst you are near me; and by dying I shall see my brothers and sisters in heaven, and can come and watch over you all.”
“Sweetest child! It will break my heart to lose thee.”
“Ah, do not weep;” and the boy’s lips paled and his eyelids closed. I gave him water, and called to his mother to come and speak to him.
“Ah, this child of my bosom! my poor Celestino! must he leave me too?”
“Dear signora, he goes to a world free from such sorrows or cares as yours have been. He is like an angel even now.”
“Celestino, kiss thy poor afflicted mother.” Without a word, but with trembling lips, he stretched forth his arms to embrace her, and I stole away, leaving to her sacred sorrow the poor woman who for the moment, forgetting her self-imposed ascetic restraint, was yielding to every impulse of demonstrative tenderness.
The night before their departure Eugenio wrote an ode addressed to me, and placed it in my hands. I did not then read it through: I felt too dispirited and preoccupied. The next morning his eyes met mine with a questioning expression that I did not comprehend. When the hour for parting had arrived tears and broken exclamations were mingled. Eugenio lingered to kiss me, with a look first of inquiry, then of deep despair. I found afterward that the poem he had presented to me contained a protestation of humble and devoted love, which he entreated me not to neglect with scorn, and thereby add to the cruelties of his situation.
What a sense of loneliness we experienced! I felt restless and unhappy: I was pursued by the imploring face of Eugenio and haunted by the eyes of Celestino. It was long ere our household recovered its old equilibrium. Letters full of gratitude came from the Morteras. They were re-established in their old home; Eugenio had resumed his studies; Virginia was not so well; Celestino was dying. Soon after I received a letter in Eugenio’s handwriting informing me that the trinket he enclosed would be to me an evidence that his beloved brother Celestino was dead. He had died with a smile on his lips, and Eugenio with his own hands had unfastened the jewel from his neck. In a letter written some time after to my mother Eugenio implored her by all she loved to rescue him from a position which he felt to be daily more unendurable, by procuring for him some engagement, in however humble a capacity, that would enable him to support himself and assist his family. A priest he could not, would not be. My parents had scarcely time to discuss the matter ere another letter came from Eugenio, telling them that his mother had discovered the subject of his correspondence, and that she and their good old priest had succeeded in convincing him of his wickedness in attempting to relinquish the holy vocation of priest—that it had been a snare of the devil; and he implored Signor and Madama Melville to forgive him for the scandal he had caused concerning his holy religion by such unworthy backslidings, which he now deeply repented.
One day Oswald came in exclaiming, “Aunt, who do you think has failed and left the country?”
“Who?”
“Why, your friend, Eugenio Noele! As I passed the house I saw men carrying away the pictures and things. I could not help stopping to inquire into the matter. One of the workmen, who seemed to know a great deal about it, said that a confidential clerk was at the bottom of it all, and had run off before the great smash came.”
The last news we heard of this singular family was that Rugiero, who had gone to Italy with his family, was retrieving his position, that Giuseppe was with him, and that Eugenio was a priest, and beloved by all for his noble qualities and extended usefulness.
CLELIA LEGA WEEKS.
THE MATCHLESS ONE: A TALE OF AMERICAN SOCIETY, IN FOUR CHAPTERS.
PROLOGUE.
Ah, the misfortune of being wealthy, the misery of being handsome, the disadvantage of a divine moustache and a dimple in the chin, the affliction of having wavy hair and dark eyes, the forlorn condition of a man who is very clever, who never makes a bad joke, who is such “good company,” such a “jolly dog,” such a “happy creature” and “fortunate fellow”! Oh the calamity of possessing a romantic country-seat and fine horses!—the ill-starred luck of a person who is always finding a moon that shines beautifully, a sun that is never too hot, long walks that cannot be too long, and drives that are “so delightful”!
I am the unhappy victim of a fate which in spiteful mood gifted me beyond my fellow-men. I might have had my share of enjoyment in the world, as mediocre people have, but my perfections are in my way at every turn, continually marring my prospects. A superficial observer might think that these advantages would have the contrary effect—that I should be more fortunate than others—but my story will prove my assertion. Take, for example, my difficulties as a “marrying man.” I will relate my experience during the past three years, and you can judge for yourself.
My good mother (may Heaven reward her!) often advised me to marry betimes. “Marry early in life, my dear Charles,” she would say, “but marry a woman worthy of you.”
In her solicitude my mother foresaw the difficulty of the task she had set before me. She had known and admired me from childhood, and of course appreciated my worth. I remember her sad but affectionate gaze as she spoke, and I, unconscious of the future, smiled to reassure her. With the simplicity inseparable from great natures, I did not value the treasures I possessed. I was as the poet before he has touched his lyre—as the sculptor ere he has found his marble. Since then the years have brought knowledge. My eyes have been opened by the actions of those around me—by the admiration I excite whenever I appear; by the respect with which I am listened to when I speak; by the warmth with which I am welcomed wherever I visit. I could produce many examples to illustrate my gradual awakening, but they would be irrelevant to my subject.
I earnestly desired to fulfill my mother’s wishes, and as soon as it seemed proper after her decease I set out on my quest as on a pilgrimage. The task which requires from most men some six weeks’ or three months’ time, perhaps a few moments snatched from business or a few evenings of ball-room devotion, has cost me three years’ labor, and it is not yet accomplished. But I suppose it is easier for other men to find some one worthy of them.
I had read the poets: I had conceived an ideal of a faultless creature, and with the enthusiasm of youth I sought for a woman to worship as a star—one whom I should adore—one far above me, from whom it would be honor to win a smile, and—and all that sort of thing. Alas! I found they smiled before I could make my first bow at an introduction. At first I blamed the poets—thought they had been mistaken—had not studied human nature; but the truth gradually dawned upon me. The fault was mine! The imagination of man had not been able to create a hero of fiction like myself: in fact, had authorship attained such a triumph, the most fastidious maiden would have been obliged to fall in love at first sight, thereby spoiling many a fine three-volumed romance and heroic cantos innumerable. How ruinous would the possession of perfection such as mine have been to the chivalry of the Middle Ages!
I do not think any less of the ladies for the ease of my conquests: I know how impossible it is for the poor dears to resist my charms; but oh the happiness of mediocrity!
I was occupied for a whole season searching for the being whom I called my star. My fancy was so pleased with the idea of basking in her radiance, I had so fully persuaded myself to be guided by her light to all things great and high, I had learned to think of her with so much devotion, that I could not give up my hope of finding her somewhere. I went to all the popular summer-resorts in turn, meeting only disappointment. The star type of girls did not seem to be the mode that season: I could see no trace of her I came to find. Though saddened, I was too young to despair: in my usual clear and sensible manner I thought the matter over. After all, I reflected, I suppose I can find a woman worthy of me who is not a star. I doubt not the poets were sincere in their civility to persons of the other sex. The exaggeration arose from the absence of any really superior man with whom to compare them. They seemed stars in contrast with the existing male species: I had not yet appeared.
Another summer found me renewing my search with unabated vigor, but this time on a different basis, having determined to lay romance aside—to seek for nothing above me—to be content with an equal. If with her I should not be ecstatically happy—if our menage would not quite rival that of Adam and Eve in the garden of Paradise—yet a certain amount of modern bliss might be extracted from the companionship of an agreeable woman who could appreciate and sympathize with my tastes and be my friend through life.
I employed my second summer in looking for a sympathetic woman, with the intention of making her my wife. May I never see such a hard-working, distracting season again! Not that such women were hard to find—they were only too plenty: at one time I had six who were devoted to me. One sympathized with my love of music; we sang duets together in the evening; it was delightful, for I need hardly say that I sing as I do everything else—remarkably well. Another sympathized with my sketching propensities. We rambled in the woods together with boxes and colors. I found it charming. “Nothing amateurish” about my style, Miss Pinklake said. A third sympathized with my taste for horses: my restive Nero was the “sweetest pet” she ever saw. (My groom says, “He’s the divvil hisself, Muster Charley.”) With her I rode in the afternoon. She told me—Miss Vernon, you know her? brunette, deuced pretty—she said one day, when we were taking a canter together, “I can believe those wonderful stories of the Centaurs when I see you ride, Mr. Highrank.” She had a pleasant voice, and such a figure! I had almost decided to propose to her one day, and was even thinking of the words I should use, when the pale Miss Anabel Lee came walking along the road by us, looking like a fairy, her hat hanging on her arm filled with wild flowers, and her dress looped with ferns. As she passed she raised her beautiful blue eyes to mine, and at the same time—it might have been chance—she pressed a bunch of forget-me-nots to her lips. I remembered I had an engagement to walk with Miss Lee on the beach that night: there was a lovely moon—we talked poetry. It was Miss Annie Darling who said I “waltzed divinely.” Miss Annie laid her hand on one’s sleeve when she talked to one, mutilated her fan with various tappings on a fellow’s shoulder for being naughty, as she called it ("naughty” meant giving her a kiss in a dark corner of the verandah), said saucy things to the snobs, and used her eyes. She walked with the Grecian bend. When I had a serious fit there was young Miss Carenaught, who was plain and read the reviews, spoke sharply against fashion, and knew a man of my education “must despise the butterfly existence of the surrounding throng.” Sometimes she would invite me to go with her to catch beetles and queer insects—“not that she needed my help,” she would say, “but my intellectual society was indeed a treat in this crowded desert.”
All this was very agreeable, but also very perplexing. At the end of the season I found myself as far from making a choice as ever. If I indulged one taste at the expense of the others, I should become a less perfect man; nor could I decide in which of my pursuits I needed sympathy the most—music, painting, dancing, riding, reading. Alas! could I find one woman congenial in all my moods I would marry her immediately. Wearied by the attentions of so many, I yet feared an imperfect life spent with but one. I saw that I had made another mistake, and retired to my country-seat, “The Beauties,” to recruit.
I know there is a modern idea that women are the equals of men (the poets, you remember, thought them superior), and many may consider it odd that I did not find it so. I do not wish to offend. To those who hold that opinion I modestly suggest my unfortunate superiority as the probable cause of my failure. I do not blame the ladies, be it understood.
Again I sat down to plan and reflect. I looked mournfully on the past and less hopefully on the future. The obstacles were beginning to dishearten me, but even after a second failure I dared not relinquish my quest: my mother’s wishes must be fulfilled. A woman worthy of me: behold the difficulty! What course of action should I now pursue?
At last I had a flash of brain-light on the subject. I would look for the purely good, rejecting the intellectual entirely. I would plunge into the country and seek a bride fresh from the hands of Nature, a wild flower without fashion, guile or brains—one who in leaving me free to follow my own pursuits would yet adorn my life with charms of the heart—a heart that had known no love but mine.
It was in the most beautiful month of autumn that I made this resolve, which I lost no time in putting into execution. I wrote to my old college friend, Dick Hearty, that I would spend a month with him: he had often invited me to visit him in the country. I counted on doing enough love-making in that time to win my wild rose, and at my return I would bring home my bride. I reasoned that in those unsophisticated regions, in the shadow of the virgin forest, the trammels of long courtship and other fashionable follies are unknown: heart meets heart as the pure woodland streams meet each other and become one.
Before I set out I gave a dinner-party at The Beauties to announce to my gentleman friends the joyful event. At the dessert I rose and proposed the health of my future bride.
“And may it be years before she arrives at The Beauties!” mumbled Percy Flyaway when they had drunk the toast.
“I hope you will all welcome her at a grand reception here in—about a month or six weeks.” I remembered just in time that I had best not fix a date, as something might intervene.
A storm of questions, exclamations and remarks ensued.
“Lovely?”
“As fair as poet’s dreaming.”
“Die Vernon?”
“Not for Joe!”
“The Soprano?”
A shake of my head.
“Anabel?”
“No.”
“Who is she?”
“Let us drink her health again,” said one, getting thirsty, and fearing in the excitement the bottle would not be passed.
“Tell us all about her,” cried another.
“Gentlemen,” said I seriously when the noise had slightly abated, “you know I am a deuced good fellow.”
“Hear! hear!” they cried.
“That you are!” said Percy.
“Well, I am going to get a deuced good wife.”
“Congratulate you, old fellow!”
“Do you think of going up in a balloon for a wedding-trip?”
They all came around me, clinked their glasses with mine, shook hands with me, and drank my health, her health, the health of my mother-in-law, and any other toast that would serve as an excuse for emptying a glass.
“I say, will she cut rough on us chaps?” asked Percy in a plaintive voice as the hubbub subsided.
“Gentlemen,” cried I, waving my hand, “my wife that is to be is an angel.”
“Wish she would stay in heaven!” muttered Percy.
“What I mean by an angel is a perfect woman.”
“Worse still,” said the irrepressible Perce. (By the by, the wits had nicknamed him “Perce sans purse,” because he was poor, you know, but he was a good fellow, quite.)
“Gentlemen, let me explain.”
“Hear! hear!”
“I have been looking for a wife for the past year: I have thought much on the subject, for I think it an important one.”
“Solomon!” said Perce out of his wine-glass.
“Now, a good wife must be a refined, gentle, kind, loving, beautiful woman, with no nonsense about her.”
“Amen to the last clause!” cried Bear de Witt.
“You have found her?” asked Percy, absently watching the sparkling bubbles rise one after the other in his glass.
“Ah—aw—I will bring her home,” I answered, evading the question—“my love, my bliss, my delight!”
“He is awful spoony on her,” said Bear in a disgusted tone.
“He is tipsy,” whispered Percy as I sat down with a tremor in my voice and wiped my eyes with a napkin.
Then Perce began to lecture me in an injured tone: “I say, it is really too bad of you. I should not have believed it if you had not told us yourself. To go and get married like any fool of a fella’ that hasn’t forty thou’ a year, like any common man—it’s too rough.”
“I know it, Perce,” I replied, “but we superior people must set an example—the world expects it of us. The only question is, how to make a proper choice.”
I remember very little after, except that the lights shone dimmer through the cigar-smoke, that there was much noise from popping corks, and occasionally a breakage of glass, and I think I made another speech. Next morning I awoke with a very robust and well-defined head-ache.
A few days later I started for the back-woods, with Wordsworth packed in my trunk, he being the writer most congenial to my present state of mind. Once seated in the cars, I looked with pleasure on each pastoral scene as it came into view, and gazed at the milkmaids while thinking romantically of my love. I took a nap, and awoke respectfully pressing the handle of my portmanteau and murmuring a proposal to my wild flower.
It was late when I arrived at the little village near which my friend resided, and I resolved to spend the night at the modest inn of the place. The gay singing of birds, mingled with the ringing of Sunday bells, caused my drowsy eyes to open on the morrow. A happy thought came to me as I lay enjoying the delightful freshness of all around me: “I will go to church: my little Innocence will be there. I know she is pious. As unconscious as the birds, and with as sweet a voice, she will, like them, be praising her Maker this bright morning.”
I began to dress, looking each moment from the window with the hope that she might pass by. The street was quiet—no one to be seen. Presently, from a house near, tripped two pretty girls, and I eagerly came forward to see them. “If it is not my rose herself,” I thought, “it maybe some relation—cousin, sister, friend: I am interested in the whole town since she lives here.” The girls came nearer. They walked without affectation: you could imagine that the spirit of Modesty herself had taught them that quiet demeanor. Suddenly they looked up and saw me. Am I Mephistopheles, to produce such a dire effect? They looked down, they simpered, they laughed a laugh that was not natural: their voices grew louder.
“Did you see him?” said one.
“So perfectly lovely!” said the other.
“I wonder who he is?” remarked the first.
“My fate,” I muttered as I turned away.
After breakfast I sallied forth, humming “Pure as the Snow.” Taking a reconnoissance of the town, I came to a pretty house with woodbine-covered porch, and a slender figure at the window.
“I will not startle her with a rude glance,” thought I, for I could see without appearing to look. As my step resounded the figure turned.
“Oh, do come here, Jessie! Who can he be?” said the slender figure to some one inside.
I raised my eyes slowly, and my hat. “Could you tell me the way to Mr. Hearty’s?” I asked, not thinking of any other excuse for speaking to her.
Blushing, she told me.
“And might I ask you,” looking beseechingly at her as a person who might be my future wife—“might I ask you to give me one of your roses?”
“Take as many as you like,” she said courteously.
“I would rather you gave me one,” with a smile.
She hesitated for an instant, then quickly plucked a bud from the side of the open window, threw it to me and ran away.
“I shall find my Rose later,” sighed I.
I sauntered on to church, a pretty little building of mossy gray stone, and seated myself on a shady bench under the elms to watch the people assembling.
Ye gods! could it be? Here were last summer’s styles, airs and grimaces, served up as it were cold. I could pick out bad copies of each girl I had flirted with the past season. You remember Florence Rich at The Resort?—here was her portrait in caricature. Florence was the vainest girl I ever knew, and showed it too. But she was vain of herself. This country Florence was vain of a new silk that I would have taken the odds she was wearing for the first time. She looked as if she were saying with every rustle, “Admire me!” though of course she wasn’t, you know. She was constantly arranging her bracelet or smoothing her glove, and looking on this side and that to see if any one was observing her. By this means she gave her admirers the benefit of her full face, showing both earrings; then of her profile, showing one earring and her curls; and then of the back of her head, showing her fall bonnet. Her little black veil ended just where her nose needed a shade. It is needless to mention that she looked at me as she passed and gave me a smile a la profile, which was ostensibly aimed at a pale young man near the church-door.
On they came, looking like the remnants of my summer’s feast—the supper after my season’s dinner—stale and repelling to my satiated palate. On entering I saw the ghost of “the Soprano” at the head of the choir, with less voice and more affectation. The same glances of envy that had been shot from angry eyes at The Resort I now saw passing between angry eyes here. The church was full of imitations of this kind, or were they only inferior originals of the same type?
I learned afterward that the girls of the town were divided into two classes—the followers of Miss Loude, who was fast and flashy, and the imitators of Miss Weighty, who affected the quiet style, did not visit indiscriminately, and was considered “stuck up” by the townspeople, being the daughter of a retired grocer. During the service they all looked at me. Some who were of the Loude school did it openly: those after the Weighty pattern peeped clandestinely over their prayer-books, through their fans, or between their fingers when praying. The more clever would use strategy, shivering as if in a draught of air, and looking around in my direction to see if a window were open, while the mammas eyed me steadily through spectacles.
“I might have known it,” I thought, exasperated: “’tis the same everywhere, unless I should go to a country where the people are blind.”
Dick Hearty, who was there with his sisters, came up after the service and spoke to me. “Looking well, old fellow!” he said, as if I was not sick of looking well. “Let me introduce you to my sisters.”
His sisters were of the fast and flashy school. Both of them fell in love with me before I left, though I tried hard to make myself disagreeable, not thinking it right to disappoint them, being a friend of the brother, and all that. But unless I wear a mask I cannot prevent such accidents. I hope they will get over it in time. They were deuced nice girls too, but more like peonies than wild roses.
Well, as I was saying, Dick introduced me, and insisted on taking me home with him at once. I already began to fear for the success of my object, but could not turn back at the very beginning of the promised land; so I went with him.
It would be tiresome to tell of all the flirtations and adventures I had while there, or of all the girls who devoted themselves to me. Like skillful leaders, Miss Loude and Miss Weighty set the example to their imitators—an example which none were slow to follow. Indeed, it seemed as if the struggle consisted in seeing who should be first at my feet. I averaged half a dozen conquests daily: Dick’s house was overwhelmed with lady visitors, and it was usually love at first sight with them all. A second interview was sufficient to win the most intractable. Not that I cared to win: I was fatigued with victory—my laurels oppressed me. I began to wish, like that nobby old emperor, Au—I used to know his name—that all womankind had but one heart, that I might finish it with a look, and then turn my attention to more important matters.
Once I thought I had found her. At one of the picnics given in my honor I saw a sober, pretty little thing, with rosy cheeks and chestnut hair, who looked intensely rural. I fancied I should like to talk to her alone for a while, and took her to a spring that was just in sight of the dancing platform, thinking she would be too timid to go far away from the others. I found her very sweet and bashful: I could desire nothing more so. She blushed at each word she said, and made some very innocent remarks, unfettered by the grammatic rules that restrain less ingenuous people. Hoping to put her at her ease, I talked about the country, the beautiful views, and all that.
“If you like lovely views,” she said shyly, “I can show you one.”
“I shall be most happy to see it,” I replied.
To tell you of the walk that the treacherous innocent took me, of the rocks we climbed and the marshy brooks we crossed, and the two hours she kept me at the work! Her stock of conversation was exhausted in the first ten minutes, and I was too angry to be civil. Two hours of such silent torture man never underwent before, and yet when we returned tired, with the perspiration rolling down our faces, I actually overheard her tell one of her companions that it had been “a delightful walk, I was so agreeable.” Just my luck! And that walk made her a belle! After it all the country beaux flocked around to pay her attention, and she looked upon them as Cinderella might have viewed her other suitors after the prince had danced with her at the ball. Disgusting!
Dick came to me after a while and said, “Charley, you are so stunning in that velvet coat that all the girls are in love with you.”
“I know it, Dick,” I said in a complaining voice—“I know it. It always happens just so. Think it’s the coat? I would take it off in a minute if I thought it was.” Then I added with a burst of confidence, “Dick, ’tis the same with everything I wear: the fascination is in myself. I would do anything to lessen it, but I can’t.”
“You are a jolly joker,” replied Dick with a tremendous slap on my back, as if I had said something very funny. I am often witty when I don’t mean to be.
But why continue a history which was the same thing day after day? I stayed in the country more than three weeks. Though doubting, I was conscientious, and left nothing undone to gain my end. The task bored me far more than my sympathizers did in the summer. Indeed, any of those friends were bewitching in contrast to the girls I now met, and had one of them dropped in on me during that tiresome period I think I should have forgotten nice distinctions and made serious love to her, sure of finding more pleasure in having a single taste in common than in having none at all.
I believe country-people are even more egotistic than the dwellers in cities. I sometimes found myself at the most isolated farm-houses looking for my Rose. The men I met there invariably thought they knew all about the weather and religion, politics and farming; the women were convinced they had every kind of knowledge worth having, and that what they did not know was “new-fangled” and not worth a pin; and their daughters believed that they were beauties, or would be if they had fine clothes to dress in. How people can be so mistaken as to their capacity is a mystery to me.
During my stay I came to the conclusion that I would rather press a soft hand than a hard one; that I would rather see a tasty toilette than beauty unadorned; that shy manners are anything but graceful; that the useful and the beautiful are not likely to be found in the same person; and that girls, like articles de luxe, should be carefully kept. I like to recall that well-bred, unconscious air of Miss Haughton; I remember Miss Darling as a model of deportment: why, she could do the naughtiest things in a less objectionable manner than that of these girls when acting propriety.
I discovered some facts regarding wild roses. Their petals are few and faded, and their thorns many and sharp. Their scanty green foliage will always remind me of a calico gown. Take my word for it, and don’t ever go to the trouble of seeking one. Give me a full-blown damask rose. What care I if it was nursed in a hot-house or if its beauty is due to the gardener’s care? I thank the gardener and take the rose. Or give me a half-open sulphira, with suggestive odors and soft curving leaves, passion-pale in tint, or a gorgeous amaryllis produced by artful development, clothed like a queen in state, bearing erect her magic beauty. No more wild roses for me!
I had been at Breezy Brook, that beautiful summer resort which you all know, about a month: it was now July, and nothing had happened worth relating since my arrival. During the past winter I had not been idle—attending parties, balls and operas without number, but without success. This summer I made up my mind to be tranquil and to let events take their course, for, as Fortune had given me every other good, she would no doubt in time provide me with a good wife. I had therefore every reason to be patient.
I was in an unsociable mood one afternoon; so, taking a cigar and book, I sauntered up the mountain. There is an arbor halfway to its top, and I have a lounging-place near by, where the roots of an old tree make a comfortable nest just above a steep precipice, and the place is hidden from intruders by rocks and foliage. ’Tis a discovery of mine I pride myself upon, and I go there when I want to collect my thoughts and enjoy my own company.
Hardly had I made myself comfortable in my retreat when I heard voices in the arbor below. It was Mrs. Fluffy and her sister, Mrs. J.K.B. Stunner. I knew them in a moment, though they were not visible. Panting for breath, Mrs. F. invited the other to take a seat: she was very stout and soon tired. The sisters were examples of opposite schools of art. Mrs. Stunner, dark, hard and sharp-faced, was a widow with all her daughters “well settled” in life—i.e., married to wealthy husbands—and was considered “fortunate” among the matrons. Mrs. Fluffy was soft and florid, without an angular point, physically or mentally: much younger and prettier than her sister, she was always spoken of as “poor Mrs. Fluffy,” though she was not badly off that I could see. She had two daughters “out” this season, and a third casting longing looks in the same direction.
Thinking they would move on shortly, as the arbor was only a halting-place for people walking to the summit, I lay snug and waited. Presently the widow, among other commonplaces, began to discuss the young ladies at The Brook.
“By the by, Sarah,” she said, “I don’t see that your girls are doing much this season: I really must say you do not seem to manage well at all. You may be playing a very deep game, but I can discover no signs of it, and there is little that escapes me in such matters.”
“Oh, Jane!” panted Mrs. F., “if you only knew the trouble of having two daughters ‘out’ at once!”
“As if I didn’t know!” snuffed Mrs. Stunner.
“True, true,” replied Sarah in a conciliatory tone. “But you seemed to have so little anxiety.”
“Seemed!” echoed the Stunner contemptuously. “Of course I seemed, and the difficulty it required to seem! Do you think I was so witless as to let my manoeuvres be seen? I wonder at you, Sarah!”
“Well, well,” said the other, yielding the point, “I know you have a talent for such things, and can manage well, but I don’t know what to do.”
“I—should—think—you—did—not,” replied her sister, tapping the ground slowly with her foot.
“What have I done that you should speak like that, Jane?” asked the meek Sarah, bridling up.
“Tell me,” answered Jane after an ominous silence that was quite thrilling, “where is Eva at this moment?”
“Oh,”, replied Sarah with a sigh of relief, “she is walking with Mr. Hardcash. You introduced him at the last ball.”
“I introduced him to dance with, not to walk with,” said Jane severely.
“Goodness me, sister! what’s the difference?”
“She asks me ‘What’s the difference?’ Are you a child? Why, just the difference between dancing and walking.”
From the pause that followed I knew that Mrs. F. was looking with both her round eyes, intent on seeing it. I suppose she did not succeed, as her sister continued, emphasizing each word clearly, “Mr. Hardcash has not a penny,” as if that at once explained the knotty question.
“Why did you introduce him if you don’t approve of him?” asked Mrs. Fluffy, with a feeble attempt to throw the blame on her sister.
“Have I not told you? In a ball-room girls need plenty of partners—plenty of men about them. It makes them look popular and fascinating, and if the gentlemen are handsome and stylish-looking, so much the better. Mr. Hardcash is just the size to waltz well with Eva—he shows her off to advantage—but he is not a man to encourage afterward. She should not be seen walking or talking intimately with a gentleman who has less than ten thousand a year.” Mrs. Stunner delivered this ultimatum with the tone of a just judge who will hear of no appeal.
“How can I know how much the gentlemen are worth?” said Sarah pettishly.
“It is your duty as a mother to discover it,” replied the virtuous widow.
“But how?”
“The visitors’ book will tell where a man is from; you can easily get acquainted with some old lady or gentleman from the same place; and—”
“What! and ask about them!”
“Nonsense! Speak of them, praise them if you wish, and let the others talk: you have only to be an interested listener” (here I could imagine Mrs. S. smiling grimly), “and you can soon hear enough. For instance, commence in this way: ’Fine fellow, Mr. T. from your part of the country.’ As a general rule the old gentleman will then give you his whole history. Another time you may say, ’What a pleasant young man that Mr. B. is! but rather inclined to be wild, eh?’ If he is you will soon know it. You can also cross-question the man himself. Speak of a little girl he has at home: if he blushes he is netted already, and lures are useless. See how he eats his dinner: that is a good test to judge his position by; not that a few gaucheries will matter if he is very wealthy—for a judicious mother-in-law can soon correct them—but for every impropriety he should have a thousand added to his income. Such things are so intolerable in a poor man!”
“I don’t think Eva would obey me if I did interfere in her affairs,” objected Mrs. Fluffy.
“Her affairs, indeed! It is your affair. Of course you want a son-in-law who can keep a comfortable house for you to live in. You have brought up Eva badly, Sarah, and there is one thing I must tell you about her—she is entirely too familiar and sisterly with gentlemen.”
“She has a great many beaux,” interrupted Mrs. F.
“It is one of her worst faults,” continued Jane, not listening to her. “If a girl gets into those sisterly habits with a man, it will never come into his head to marry her. She may be his chief confidante; he will talk of his lady-love to her, and she may end by being first bridesmaid at his wedding, but nothing nearer. I don’t approve of it. One of my maxims is, that a man ought not be well acquainted with the girl he is to marry until the ceremony is performed.”
“Well, you cannot disapprove of Laura,” said Mrs. Fluffy, trying to turn the conversation. “I left her in her room reading.”
“‘Disapprove’ of her? The word is not strong enough for my feelings. Neither of your girls has the least bit of common sense; but I don’t wonder, with such a mother! A girl who gets a reputation for being learned and saying brilliant things might just as well give up matrimony altogether. Men are either afraid of them or detest them: gentlemen don’t like to puzzle their brains over a witticism, nor do they admire chaffing that is beyond their comprehension. Courtship should be made easy. My Jane was clever, and vexed me a great deal in consequence, daughters of that kind are so unmanageable: give me the most stupid in preference. It is pleasant to a husband to feel his superiority, to look down on his wife. The mediocre is the girl I take most delight in. There are so many mediocre men that they are sure to get suited without giving you much anxiety.”
“Jane,” exclaimed Mrs. Fluffy with a burst of admiration, “you are so clever I wonder you ever were married. Did Mr. Stunner appreciate that kind of women?”
“La! no. I had the sense to conceal my talents. Take my word for it, superior people as a class are never liked, unless they do as I did—conceal it, conceal it.”
“I am glad I was not born talented: I fear I could not succeed in hiding it as you do.” Mrs. F. was too stupid for sarcasm, else I should have thought—
“Now be frank with me, Sarah,” broke in Mrs. Stunner, scattering my thoughts: “who is paying attention to Eva now?”
“Well,” replied the other, appearing to recollect, “there is Mr. Rich: he asked her to ride with him.”
“More than once?”
“No, not more, but it was only day before yesterday.”
“Ah! he may ask her again: once means nothing. A gentleman may ask her for pastime, or to make some one else jealous, or out of good-nature, but to a girl properly brought up once is a chance—it is a good start.” (Mrs. S.’s late husband was fond of racing.) “It rests entirely with her to make the once twice, the twice thrice, and so on; for if she is amusing and don’t talk love, he will be sure to ask her again.”
“‘Don’t talk love’? Why, Jane, you surprise me! I thought that was the proper thing to do.”
“Just where people mistake. The most stupid man can talk love if he feels love. Let girls be agreeable, sweet and charming, but without especial effort to appear so, and when gentlemen are captivated they will do their own love-making.”
“Dear me!” was the reply.
“Yes, I protest against young ladies throwing themselves at the head of every marriageable gentleman they see. They should think of the effect it will have.”
“But they are so unworldly that they don’t think of effect,” said Mrs. Fluffy.
“Humph!” ejaculated the widow in a tone of incredulity.
“You seem to have a very poor opinion of women, Jane.”
“They want to marry, all of them: you admit that, don’t you?” asked Mrs. Stunner severely.
“I think not,” objected Mrs. F. in a feeble voice. “There is Miss Furnaval: they say she has refused—”
“Then,” interrupted her sister, not heeding her, “if they want to marry, why not take the proper means? It is inconceivable to me how women, after thinking about it all their lives, blunder into it in the end, just as if it was an entirely unforeseen event. A little good sense is requisite in everything, I think.”
“They are not all anxious to marry,” reiterated Mrs. Fluffy, gaining courage: “there’s Miss Furnaval—”
“A great example to give one!” remarked her sister contemptuously. “She is making a fool of herself as fast as she can. Among all the young ladies who marry badly, the fascinating ones prosper the worst. No girl can refuse a good offer with impunity: a day of reckoning will come. Society has its laws, which must be obeyed: if not, gare! Mark my words,” continued Mrs. Stunner solemnly: “Miss Furnaval has some outlandish un-society principles, and practically they will not work. Why, she is quite as well contented talking to a poor man as to a rich one, and she is always encouraging worthless, amusing, handsome fellows—talented men, instead of men whose position dispenses with the necessity of their having brains. Those fellows she has about her are the pests of society. If you hear of a runaway match, you may be sure it is with one of them; if a daughter is obstinate, you may be sure some ineligible jackanapes has prompted her to it. Blanche will end badly. She will fall in love with one of them some day, and finish by marrying him.”
“If Miss Furnaval loves one of that kind of gentlemen, I don’t see why she might not be happy with him.”
“You don’t see anything, Sarah. You don’t see the nose on your face, though I see ’tis a very big one. I will make it evident to you. He will be poor, Blanche is rich: if she gives him her money, he will spend it. Never having had any of his own, he won’t know how to take care of it. If, on the other hand, she don’t give it to him, he will think she does not care for him—will get jealous, likely take to drink: your clever man always does. They will quarrel; then her clever husband will use his clever tongue to tease her, and his clever brain to thwart and provoke her—which a stupid man would never think of doing—and, worse than all, she will never get the least chance to have her own way in anything.”
“Poor Blanche! I pity her,” sighed Mrs. Fluffy.
“I don’t, in the least,” snapped the other. “Such an example will serve to make other girls more sensible. Only you take it as a warning to your own Eva.”
After quite a long silence, in which I suppose Mrs. Fluffy was considering, she said pathetically, “I wish you would tell me what to do with Eva.”
“Marry her as soon as possible,” was the prompt and decided reply. “It is her second summer ‘out,’ and she should at least be engaged.”
“I can do nothing. What do you advise, Jane?”
“In the first place, stop her being with such gentlemen as Mr. Hardcash.”
“Eva is so high-spirited,” groaned Mrs. Fluffy, “I fear she would not listen to me.”
“You mean obstinate, Sarah. Tell her seriously that she has had two very gay seasons—that you can’t afford another—that she must make up her mind now. Then think over all the most eligible gentlemen you know, and cultivate their acquaintance.”
“Couldn’t you help me, Jane?” asked the other timidly. “I shall not know what to do.”
“Let me see,” continued Mrs. S. in a musing tone. “If you had a country-house you could manage better. Elderly gentlemen are usually pleased with domestic attractions, and there are many little attentions that you and Eva could show them which in any other position would look like courting them. Then there would be no danger of competition. Indeed, if a pretty girl has a gentleman all to herself for a week or two at a romantic country-house, a wedding is sure to follow. But there must be no jarring, fretting, bad cooking or any household ill whatever—no talk of poor servants or dishonest grooms: everything must be couleur de rose.”
“Jane, it appears to me you are talking very silly,” said Mrs. Fluffy, glad of a chance to attack her superior sister. “You know I have no country-house, and I can’t buy one just to marry Eva and Laura from.”
“I merely said if you had. I thought you might be pleased to hear my theory,” replied Mrs. Stunner stiffly, “The next best thing for you is to have a parlor here, get up picnics and drives, make card-parties with suppers—gentlemen so like to eat!—and do not spare expense when you have a good investment in view. You can limit the invitations to two or three gentlemen who are especially eligible: make these some little compliment, such as ’You will come of course—our little party would not be complete without you.’ Contrive that they take care of the girls, and you can entertain the others. Occasionally include some young ladies in your evenings, so that the world may not say you are afraid of them, but don’t let them become intimate.”—Here Mrs. Stunner paused for breath.
“It sounds easy enough,” said poor Mrs. F. dolefully.
“It is not easy at all,” sharply replied her sister, “but if we manage well we sha’n’t have to go through with it more than one summer.”
“Then you will help me?”
“I suppose I must sacrifice myself for the good of the family,” said the Stunner in an heroic tone, “but you must let me have my own way entirely.”
“Oh yes, Jane—certainly. I am so much obliged!” replied Mrs. Fluffy with effusion.
“Then it is not necessary to explain my plans further: I shall be there and will manage.”
“But whom do you think we should invite, Jane dear?” asked Mrs. F. anxiously.
“You spoke of Mr. Rich. I approve of him: I know he has twenty thousand a year. Yes, he shall be one.”
“I am afraid Eva won’t like him,” Mrs. Fluffy timidly remarked.
“Eva shall not interfere with my plans, and don’t you commence with such nonsense as liking and disliking; I won’t have it,” retorted Mrs. S. in a louder voice than she would have used had she known I was so near.
“But there might be some nicer gentleman just as wealthy, might there not?” suggested the weak sister.
“There is David Todd, with thirty thousand a year: I wonder if he would suit the dainty Eva?” said Mrs. Jane, sneering.
“I think she would like Mr. Highrank to be invited,” observed pink Mrs. Fluffy, waiving the question.
I sat up and listened attentively when I heard my own name mentioned, not forgetful of the adage that listeners hear no good of themselves, but of course I had nothing to fear.
“More sensible than I thought Eva could be,” the Stunner rejoined. “Forty thousand a year and entailed, so that he can’t get through with it. I have observed him a good deal for several seasons, and I find that though he is such a fool, the sharpest girls can do nothing with him. When so many are after him I suppose no single one can have a fair chance. Yes, we will invite him, but I hope Eva will not think of falling in love with him unless he should propose. Indeed, I think a modest girl ought never to fall in love. It seems to me indecorous, at least before marriage—after, they can do as they like about it. You must warn Eva on the subject. If any other gentleman should ask for her, she must not refuse, because we could not count on Highrank making up his mind: I have an idea that he is too weak to form a resolution of any kind.”
I thought the old woman must be bilious. “Me a fool!”—a philosopher rather. But I have always known that exalted worth is a fault in the estimation of narrow-minded people, who can’t appreciate it. Little Eva has more sense—would like me to visit her: of course the poor child is in love with me. I wish I could tease that ridiculous old lady in some way. I have a confounded mind to run off with Eva. No, that, I fear, would please Aunt Stunner. But I am missing all her trash: better listen. It is really not worth getting heated over.
“The others I will see about,” continued Aunt Jane. “It is very little consequence who they are. Only one thing: I won’t have that Hardcash about: he and Eva have been entirely too much together.”
“She is rough on Ned,” thought I in ambush.
“I am afraid you won’t be able to manage Eva, my dear Jane.”
“Don’t worry. When I have a duty to perform I go through with it. Let us walk on to the summit.”
“Just as you like: I am sufficiently rested, and we can talk as we go.”
There was a rustling of silk and a crunching of gravel, and all was quiet.
I lay there thinking for a long while: I wonder if my poor mother, were she living, would take as much trouble to procure me a wife as Mrs. Stunner is going to take to provide Eva with a husband. I wonder mothers don’t help their sons to marry, and let their daughters help themselves. Girls are so much sharper about such things than men are. Everything is against us. I suppose women think they deceive us for our good, but they should continue to do so after marriage. ’Pon honor! I have seen the sweetest, most amiable girl turn as sour as could be a few months after the ceremony. The dressiest ones often get dowdy, the most musical can’t abide music, the most talkative have the dumps. A man has no chance of judging how they are going to turn out. He is duped by the daughters, inveigled by their mothers, and, what is worse still, as soon as he is married they both undeceive him. It would not matter if a fellow was cheated if he never knew it, but that’s where it hurts.
I shouldn’t wonder if that pair of old plotters would catch me yet if I don’t take care. I will tease them a bit, any way: I’ll pay a deuced lot of attention to Eva, and keep the other fellows away. No man would try to win her if he thought I was serious.
Blanche Furnaval is an odd girl, I went on musing. They said she would end badly—hope she won’t, though. Bewitching girl, but she don’t seem to care if people admire her or not. I never can quite understand her. Once I wrote a few verses and gave them to her—compared her to an ice-covered stream, quiet on the surface, but all motion and tumult below. Well, she never even thanked me for them, though she said she liked that simile, it was so new. There was another couplet about her name—Blanche and snow and cold: when she read it she laughed and said, “Though my name means white, it does not mean cold. You know there are some white things that are very warm, Mr. Highrank—my ermine muff, for instance.” But I made a clever answer. I said, “The muff looks cold, and so does Miss Blanche, but if I could be so fortunate as to touch the heart of either I might find warmth.” “My muff has no heart,” she answered, looking at me as if she did not understand. “And is its owner in the same condition?” I asked tenderly. (I make it a rule to speak tenderly to all girls, it is so sad for them to love me when I cannot return it.) “In a poetical sense I believe she is,” she replied, “but for all practical purposes she has one that serves very well.”
Sometimes she would be invisible for two or three days together: no one would see her, either at meals or at the evening ball. When asked what she had been doing, she would smile that sweet smile of hers and say she had been enjoying herself. She was very talented, but not a bit ostentatious. To give you an example: It was rumored that she had a wonderful voice, and though we had been begging her to sing for at least a month, she steadily refused to gratify us. One day there was a queer old Italian chap came to The Brook for his health. He looked like an organ-grinder, and had been once actually on the stage. Well, do you know she allowed him to be introduced to her, and talked to him with as much deference as if he had been a prince, when she ought not have spoken to him at all, you know; and in that gibberish, too, that no one can understand. One evening, after entertaining him for about an hour, she walked with him the whole length of the room, not noticing any one, though every eye was upon her. He sat down at the piano which stood in a corner, struck a few chords, and then, with no coaxing whatever, she sang; and such a song! Her gray eyes grew dark, and her voice quivered, deepened, expanded into a melody that made you think the heavens had suddenly opened. Every other sound ceased; the doors and windows were filled with eager faces; the dancers ended in the middle of a quadrille, and the band came in a body to listen. I saw one fat Dutchman holding his fiddle in one hand while he wiped the tears from his eyes with the other. When the song was ended the old Italian took both her hands in his and kissed them, talking at the same time with impossible rapidity; and she smiled and looked as happy as if she had won a prize, turning her back on every one else who wished to congratulate her. It showed how very odd she was. The next evening I asked her to sing, and she flatly refused without the least excuse, saying, “No: a refusal will be a pleasant novelty in your life, Mr. Highrank.”
ITA ANIOL PROKOP.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
“Paris,” once said Victor Hugo to me, “is the hostess of all the nations. There all the world is at home. It is the second best place with all foreigners—the fatherland first, and afterward Paris.”
There was a great deal of truth in the observation, and especially is it true as regards Americans. By our natural sociability and versatility of temperament, by our love of all bright and pleasant surroundings, by our taste for pleasure and amusement, we assimilate more closely in our superficial characteristics to the French nation than we do to any other. Our Britannic cousins are too cold, too unsociable, too heavy for our fraternization, and mighty barriers of dissimilarity of language, of tastes, of customs and manners divide us from the European nation which
We love Paris, we Americans abroad, and we like the Parisians. One side of our affection grows and strengthens and sends forth new shoots with every passing day. The longer one lives in Paris the better one loves it. Its beauty becomes part and parcel of one’s daily life. The mighty sweep of palace and arcade and museum and church, the plash of sunlit fountains, the rustle and the shimmer of resplendent foliage, the grace of statue, the grandeur of monument, the far-stretching splendor of brilliant boulevard and bustling street,—all these make up a picture whose lines are engraven on our heart of hearts. Often, passing along the street, some far-off vista, some effect of light and color, some single point of view, strikes on the sense with new and startling beauty, and we pause to gaze and to admire, and to exclaim for the thousandth time, How fair is Paris!
And she is so prodigal of her treasures, this goodly city! She lavishes them on all comers without fee or favor. All day long her princely art-galleries stand open to welcome the passing visitor. One comes and goes unhindered and unquestioned in church or museum, and even the service of guides and boats and cars to the sewers, and of official guides to the Catacombs, is given without compensation—nay more, all fees are strictly; forbidden. There is no city on earth that receives its guests with such splendid and lavish hospitality. Apart from one’s board and lodging, it is possible for a stranger to come to Paris and to visit all its principal sights without the expenditure of a single sou. And for the persons who, prolonging their stay, wish in some sort to take up their permanent residence in Paris, things are smoothed and ironed and the knots picked out in the most wonderful way. Your board is dainty and your bed soft. Velvet-footed and fairy-handed beings minister to your wants. You are clothed as if by magic in garments of marvelous beauty. The very rustle of your letter of credit is as an open sesame to treasure-chambers to which Ali Baba’s cavern was but a shabby cellar. And if, on the contrary, your means are limited and your wants but few, the science of living has been so exactly conned and is so perfectly understood that your franc-piece will buy you as many necessaries as ever your fifty-cent greenback did home, and that, too, in face of the fact that all provisions are now, owing to the war and the taxes, as dear, if not dearer than they are in Philadelphia. If a stranger comes to Paris and wishes to live comfortably and economically, there are plenty of respectable, well-situated establishments in the best section of the city where he can obtain a comfortable, well-furnished room and well-cooked, well-served meals, for eight to ten francs a day—such accommodations as five dollars would scarcely avail to purchase in Philadelphia or New York.
The whole secret of the matter is, that in France everybody understands the art of making the most out of everything. No scrap of food is wasted, no morsel cast aside, till every particle of nourishment it can yield is carefully extracted. The portions given to the guests at the minor hotels, where one lives en pension at so much per diem, are carefully measured for individual consumption. The slice of steak, the tiny omelette, the minute moulded morsels of butter, even the roll of bread and little sucrier and cream-jug placed before each person, have each been carefully gauged as to the usual dimensions of an ordinary appetite. Nothing is squandered and nothing is wasted. When one recalls the aspect of our hotel tables at home—the bread-plates left with their piles of cold, uneatable corn-bread, and heavy, chilled muffins and sodden toast uneaten, uncared-for and wasted; the huge steak, with its scrap of tenderloin carefully scolloped out, and the rest left to be thrown away;
The fact is, that we citizens of the United States live more luxuriously than any other people on the face of the earth. On an average we dress better, fare better, sleep softer, and combat the cold in winter and the heat in summer with more scientific persistency, than do any of the so-called luxurious nations of Europe. Take, for instance, the matter of heating and lighting. A few of the leading hotels in Paris, and a small minority among the most expensive suites of private apartments, have gas introduced into all the rooms, but as a general thing it is confined to the public rooms, and the unfortunate wight who longs to see beyond the end of his nose is forced to wrestle with dripping candles and unclean lamps, known only by tradition in our native land. The gaslight, which is a common necessary in the simplest private dwelling in an American city, is here a luxury scarcely attainable save by the very wealthiest. And we do not know how precious our gaslight is till we have lost it. To sit in a dim parlor where four lighted candles struggle vainly to disperse the gloom, to dress for opera or ball by the uncertain glimmer of those greasy delusions, is enough to make one forswear all the luxuries of Paris, and flee homeward forthwith.
Then in winter comes the question of warmth. What is more delicious than to plunge from the iced-champagne atmosphere of a sparkling winter’s day in America into the nest-like, all-pervading warmth of an American home? Here such comfort is wholly unknown. The cold, though less severe than with us, is damp, raw and insidious, and creeps under wraps with a treacherous persistency that nothing can shut out. The ill-fitting windows, opening in the old door-like fashion, let in every breath of the chill outer air. A fire is a handful of sticks or half a dozen lumps of coal. The calorifere, a poor substitute for our powerful furnaces, is a luxury for the very rich—an innovation grudgingly granted to the whims of the occupants of the most costly and fashionable of private apartments. Warmth, our cosy, all-pervading warmth, is a winter luxury that we leave behind us with the cheerful light of our universal gas-burners.
In summer we sorely miss the cold, pure ice-water of our native land, and we long for it with a thirst which vin ordinaire and Bavarian beer are powerless to assuage. The ill-tasting limestone-tainted water of Paris is a poor substitute for our sparkling draughts of Schuylkill or Croton. Ice-pitchers, water-coolers and refrigerators are unknown quantities in the sum-total of Parisian luxuries. The “cup of cold water,” which the traveler in our country finds gratuitously supplied in every waiting-room and railway-station, every steamboat, every car and every hotel, is here something that must be specially sought for, and paid for at an exorbitant price. Ice can be purchased only in small quantities for immediate consumption. Ten cents for a few lumps swimming in water on a tepid plate is the usual tariff for this our American necessity, this rare Parisian luxury.
The scant supply of water for ablution is another annoyance to the American traveler accustomed to the hot-and cold-water faucets introduced into private bed-rooms and hotel apartments, and the capacious bath-tubs and unlimited control of water in his native land. To be sure, one can get a bath in Paris, as well as anywhere else, by ordering it and waiting for it and paying for it; but the free use of water and its gratuitous supply in hotels, so entirely a matter of course with us, is here unheard of. As with ice-water, the bath is an American necessity, a Parisian luxury. However, the latest erected dwelling-houses here have had water-pipes and bath-tubs introduced. Wealth can command its bath here as well as its gaslight and its supplies of ice, but wealth only. The humblest abode of a Philadelphia mechanic contains comforts and conveniences which are wellnigh unattainable luxuries in all but the most splendid apartments of the most luxurious city of Europe.
Nor do all the delicate artifices of French cookery suffice wholly to replace for an American palate the dainties of his native land. The buckwheat cakes and waffles, the large, delicate-flavored, luscious oysters, the canvas-back ducks, the Philadelphia croquettes and terrapin, find no substitutes on this side of the water. The delicious shad and Spanish mackerel have no gastronomic rivals in these waters, and the sole must be accepted in their stead. We miss, too, our profusion and variety of vegetables, our stewed and stuffed tomatoes, green corn, oyster-plants and sweet potatoes. As for fruits, the smaller varieties are far more abundant and much finer here than they are with us. Strawberries, cherries, raspberries, gooseberries, apricots—all of great size and exquisite flavor—tempt and enchant the palate. But our rich profusion of tropical fruits, such as bananas and pineapples, is wholly unknown. Peaches are poor in flavor and exorbitant in price. As for meats, poultry is dearer in Paris than at home, a small chicken for fricasseeing costing six francs ($1.20 in gold), and
Rents, though somewhat lowered from their former proportions, are still very high, a really elegant unfurnished suite of apartments costing from five thousand to ten thousand francs a year, according to location; and if furnished, nearly as much more. Two thousand francs is the lowest rent which economy, desirous of two or three bed-rooms, in addition to the parlor, kitchen and dining-room of an ordinary suite, can accomplish. There are now in process of construction in the suburbs of Paris several rows of houses built on the American plan, and it is hardly possible to tell how comfortable and home-like the neat separate abodes look to one who has been journeying round amid a series of “floors,” each so like the others. To the casual visitor there is a despairing amount of sameness in the fitting-up of all French furnished apartments. The scarlet coverings on the furniture, the red curtains, the light moquette carpet with white ground and gay flowers, the white and gold of the woodwork, the gilt bronze clock and candelabra, the tables and cabinets in marquetry and buhl, are all precisely alike in each, and all wear the same hotel-like look and lack of individuality. Nobody here seems to care anything for home or home belongings. A suite of apartments, even if occupied by the proprietor, is not the shrine for any household gods or tender ideas: it is a place to rent out at so much per month should the owner desire to go on a journey. No weak sentimental ideas about keeping one’s personal belongings from the touch and the usage of strangers ever troubles anybody’s mind. Tables and chairs and carpets and curtains are just so many chattels that will bring in, if rented, just so much more income: around them gleams no vestige of the tender halo that surrounds the appurtenances of an American home.
The servant question is one that is just now of special interest to the American housekeeper in Paris. I have elsewhere spoken of some of the trials inflicted by these accomplished but often unprincipled domestics on their masters and mistresses, so will not expatiate further on the subject. I will merely specify as a special grievance the law that forces the employer who discharges a servant to inscribe on his or her character-book a good character: should
Among the other drawbacks of a residence abroad to an American woman is an absence of the kindly deference to which, by virtue of her womanhood alone, she is accustomed at home. The much-vaunted politeness of the French nation is the thinnest possible varnish over real impertinence or actual rudeness. None of the true, heartfelt, genuine courtesy that is so freely accorded to our sex in our own favored land is to be met with here. “A woman is weak and defenceless,” argue, apparently, a large class of Parisians, “therefore we will stare her out of countenance, we will mutter impudent speeches in her ear, we will elbow her off the sidewalk, we will thrust her aside if we want to enter a public conveyance. Politeness is a thing of hat-lifting, of bowing and scraping, of ‘Pardon!’ and ‘Merci!’ It is an article to be worn, like a dress-coat and a white tie, in a drawing-room and among our acquaintances. We have the right article for that occasion—very sweet, very refined, very graceful, very charming indeed. But as for everyday use—nenni!” That deep, true and chivalrous courtesy that respects and protects a woman merely because she is a woman, and as such needs the guardianship of the stronger sex, is something of which they have never heard and which they do not understand. They will hand Madame la duchesse de la Haute Volee or Mademoiselle Trois-Etoiles into her carriage with incomparable grace, but they will push Mrs. Brown into the gutter, and will whisper in poor blushing Miss Brown’s ear that she is “une fillette charmante.”
And when a Frenchman is rude, his impoliteness is worse than that of other nations, because he knows better: he is rude with malice prepense. The lower classes have especially lost much of their courtesy since the Commune. I have seen a French workingman thrust a lady violently aside on a crowded sidewalk, with a scowl and a muttered curse that lent significance to the act. And the graceful, suave courtesy of the shopkeepers—how swiftly it flies out of the window when their hope of profit in the shape of the departing shopper walks out of the door!
Shortly before quitting the United States I went into one of our large public libraries to consult a voluminous work of reference. In the remote recess where the books were kept sat a gentleman intent on the perusal of a volume, his chair tipped back as far as it could be with safety inclined, and his feet resting on the table. “Horrid fellow!” I said to myself, glancing at the obtrusive members, and going forward to the bookcase in search of the work I wanted. It proved to be of somewhat ponderous dimensions, and higher than I could conveniently reach, so I stood on tiptoe and tugged vainly at it for a moment. My friend of the feet saw my dilemma, and down went his book, and he sprang to my assistance in an instant, “Allow me,” he said; and in a moment the heavy tome was brought down, dusted by a few turns of his pocket-handkerchief and laid on the table for my accommodation. If he had but known it, there was mingled with my thanks a world of unuttered but heartfelt apologies for my former hard thoughts respecting his attitude. And therein lay the difference between the two nationalities. A Frenchman would have died rather than have made a library-table a resting-place for his feet, but he would have let a woman he did not know break a blood-vessel by her exertions before he would have rendered her the slightest assistance.
American women are too apt to accept all the courtesies offered them by strangers at home as their right, even neglecting to render the poor meed of thanks in return. But let them when in Paris try to get into an omnibus on a wet day, and being thrust aside by a strong-armed Frenchman they will remorsefully remember the seats accorded to them in crowded cars, and accepted thanklessly and as a matter of course. And when the lounger on the boulevards dogs their steps or whispers his insulting compliments in their shuddering ear, they will remember how they were guarded at home not by one protector, but by all right-minded mankind, and will thank Heaven that their brothers, their sons, their husbands “are not even as these are.”
LUCY H. HOOPER.
GYPSY MUSIC IN HUNGARY.
We have all, at some time or other, felt our curiosity and interest excited by the bands of wandering gypsies whom we may sometimes have come upon in their encampments pitched in some remote or sequestered wood or dell—wild-looking men and women and dark, ragged children grouped about fires over which hang kettles suspended from stakes arranged in a triangle; mongrel curs which seem to share their masters’ instinctive distrust of strangers; and donkeys browsing near the tilted carts which convey the tribe from one place to another. We feel a sort of traditional repulsion for these people, almost amounting to dread, for stories of children stolen by gypsies, and of their dark, mysterious ways, have taken root in our infant minds along with those of ghosts and goblins, robbers and Indians. There are, it is true, romantic associations connected with them, and we try to fancy a Meg Merrilies in the swarthy old woman who examines the lines of our hand and tells us the past, present and future—sometimes with a startling consistency and probability. But few of us would have supposed that this race of vagabonds and outcasts had ever risen much above their traditional occupation of tinkering, far less that any portion of it had displayed original artistic genius. We have, however, from Robert Franz the composer a most interesting account of the wonderful music of the Hungarian gypsies or Tziganys, which he had several opportunities of hearing during a visit to a friend in Hungary. He had been much impressed in his youth by the wandering apparitions of these people in the streets of Kiev, and by the strange, wild dances of their women, whose outlandish garb was rendered still more effective by the pieces of red stuff cut into hearts and sewed all over their skirts. “These caravans of strange beings, who preserve under every sky their dreamy laziness, their rebellion against the yoke, their love of solitude,” had always possessed an irresistible charm for him, and he had never understood the scorn and disgust of which they were the object.
Being informed of the arrival of a gypsy band within eight or ten miles of his friend’s chateau, he took his immediate departure for the forest where they had made their temporary home. The sun was going down when he reached the camp. It was in an open glade, where the ground was trampled down, in some places blackened by fire, and covered with fragments of coarse pottery, wooden bowls, bones, parings, etc. The gypsies were there pell-mell—men, women and children, horses, dogs and wagons. The men, lounging about in various attitudes, were smoking: all had a look of careless nobility about them, an air of melancholy, and eyes which burned with slumbering passion. Old women were cowering about the fires, surrounded by children whose meagre limbs were frankly displayed to view. Tall girls, with Oriental eyes, firm and polished cheeks, and vigorous forms, stood facing the horizon, and were distinctly defined
Franz had expressed his wish to hear their music, but for a while all was silent. Suddenly a strange, prolonged note vibrated through the air like a sigh from the supernatural world; another followed; then after a pause a majestic but sombre melody was developed. The sounds swelled like an immense choral, with incomparable purity and nobleness, fraught with memories of ruins and tombs, of lost liberty and love. Another pause, and some strophes of unbridled gayety burst forth; then again the principal phrase, detaching itself like a flower from its stem, among myriads of winged notes, clusters of vaporous sounds, long spirals of transparent fioritures. Still the violins grew bolder and more impetuous. Franz rose from his seat while watching these men standing with their violins pressed against their breasts, as if they were pouring their life’s blood into them: he felt oppressed with anguish, when, by an ingenious inversion, the gloomy theme was transformed into a graceful, poetic melody. The sounds passed away rapidily like sparks, then were extinguished for a moment. A ferocious violence animated the last measures, and the gypsies laid down their bows. But, divining a sympathetic listener, they recommenced and played on till the night was far advanced. At length they ceased, and Franz left the camp, carrying with him the revelation of a hitherto unknown art.
Three principal features (he tells us) determine the character of Tzigany music—its intervals, not used in European harmony, its peculiar rhythms, and its Oriental fioritures or grace-notes. In the minor scale the Tziganys take the fourth augmented, the sixth diminished and the seventh augmented. It is by the frequent augmentation of the fourth that the harmony acquires a wonderfully audacious and disquieting character. The educated musician at first thinks he hears false notes, but the law of their harmonies is to have no law. Their abundance is incalculable, and the solemn and intoxicating effects resulting from the rapid and beautiful transitions cannot be imagined. As for the grace-notes, they give to the ear a pleasure like that which Moorish architecture gives to the
When Franz again heard Tzigany music it was under very different circumstances. A fete was given by a Hungarian gentleman, of which this music was to be one of the attractions, the most distinguished performers being Farkas Miska and Remenyi Ede. The arrival of the latter on the morning after the first evening concert (the fete seems to have lasted some days) was announced to M. Franz by a great noise, a banging of doors and windows and moving of furniture in the room next his own. It at length ceased, and he was just getting to sleep again when some one knocked at his door, and a pretty, fair-haired boy entered, who announced himself as Ptolemyi Nandor, the fervent disciple of Remenyi Ede, who, he said, had just arrived and was about to take possession of the adjoining apartment.
“Well, sir, is it to inform me of your name and your fervor that you have come to prevent me from sleeping?”
“No,” said the boy decidedly: “it is to ask you to dress yourself and go out for a walk.”
To the astonished exclamation of M. Franz he replied that his master wished to practice, beginning early, and that it annoyed him to have any one hear him.
“Go to the devil, you and your master!” naturally shouted our composer.
The boy became purple. “What!” he said, “send him to the devil?—him, the great violinist, the successor of Czemak, of Bihary!”
“Is your master a gypsy?”
“No, but he is the only living violinist who possesses the authentic tradition of gypsy music.”
“I love this music; therefore I will get up and go down to the garden.”
“Oh no, sir: go into the fields. See!” and he opened the window, “every one has left the castle.” And actually the master of the house and his guests were all defiling through the garden-gate, having had only three hours’ sleep. M. Franz soon joined them, and heard from them the story of Remenyi.
At the age of seventeen he had been attached to the person of Goergey during the Hungarian war. Leaving his country with the emigration, he had shared the exile of Count Teleki, Sandor and others; then passed some time at Guernsey, where he knew Victor Hugo. He had afterward performed with brilliant success in London, Hamburg, etc., and his renown, after his return to Hungary, went on increasing. He traveled about the country in every direction, astonishing nobles and peasants, and playing with the same enthusiasm and poetry in barns as in palaces. On hearing this our author slipped back to the garden, where he hid himself to listen to Remenyi, who, to his great disgust, was playing a concerto of Bach’s.
At breakfast, Remenyi appeared, a very commonplace-looking man, full of his own praises, and always speaking himself in the third person. “Remenyi practiced well this morning,” said he.
“Yes, a concerto of Bach’s!” Franz.
Thereupon Remenyi asked for his violin, and they heard a marvelous specimen of real Tzigany inspiration. Vanity disappeared—passion, nerve and sentiment took its place. He had all the qualities demanded by science, together with those of imagination. It was the passionate inspiration of genius. After his performance was over, he went gravely to the mantelpiece, stopped the clock, and said to the master of the house, “Let this hand mark for ever the hour when Remenyi played at your house.”
M. Franz taking no pains to disguise; his admiration, Remenyi, gratified by it, invited him to accompany him home. Wherever he went he received a perfect ovation. At one place he ordered a pair of boots, which were sent home, paid for by the municipality. Art is a national glory in Hungary, especially that of the gypsies, which has taken root in the very heart of the soil.
Remenyi’s house at Rakos-Palota, near Pesth, is a long, rambling building, the courtyard of which is given up to chickens, ducks and pigs. M. Franz says the poplars before the door look like exclamation-marks, and he thinks they are planted there to serve as such. There are heaps of rare and precious objects of every imaginable description—all gifts—but the ones which the owner shows with most pride are his Hungarian sabre and a pair of boots which Liszt wore when a child.
The question is often discussed in Hungary whether the national Hungarian music is the production of Tzigany genius, or whether the gypsies are only the exponents of what properly belongs to Hungary itself. The gypsies are proved to have been in Hungary as early as the thirteenth century, and their musicians were celebrated in the sixteenth, some of their names still living in the memory of the people. What has been preserved of genuine old Hungarian music (some melodies of Timody Stephens) has no charm save its antiquity. These and other facts—but, above all, the impression produced on him by the music itself—have convinced M. Franz that the gypsy faculty is one not only of execution, but creation. Gypsy art proceeds from the sentiment, the genius, of the Tzigany race. It is too strange, its elements are too wild, to be the exclusive product of a thoughtful, wise, believing, practical and civilized people; but the Hungarians have understood this art—they have surrounded it with love and respect. Gaining new life, warmth and vigor from the welcoming applause of Hungary, it belongs to her by virtue of her admiration and sympathetic tears.
E.C.R.
We all know that the second of November is All Souls’ Day, and that it is the day dedicated in the Roman calendar to the commemoration of all those who have departed “in the faith.” And few who have traveled on the continent of Europe are not aware that the day is observed in all Southern countries with a degree of devotion which the greater part of the communities in question are not in the habit of according to any other of the ordinances of the Church. But to observe the manifestation of this devotion in its most striking forms, to seize all the more picturesque developments and presentations of it, the “Giorno dei Morti” must be passed at Rome.
It is a curious fact—one of the many of a similar order which illustrate the moral specialties of the Latin populations—that hundreds of thousands of people of both sexes, who neither believe, nor affect to believe, the doctrines of the orthodox Church, and who are in the habit of utterly disregarding all her prescriptions and teaching, should nevertheless, as often as this sad anniversary comes round, behave as if they were to all intents and purposes good Catholics. It will be said, perhaps, that the feelings to which the special character of the commemoration appeals are so common to all human hearts that the manifestation of them on any customary occasion is in no degree to be wondered at. But I do not think that this will suffice to explain the phenomenon—at least as it may be witnessed here in Italy. Other church ordinances might be pointed out of which the same thing might be said, but which are not similarly observed. The real cause of the phenomenon I take to be that this population is—as it was of old, and as it always has been through all outward changes—pagan. I put it crudely for the sake of putting it shortly, for this is not the place to trouble the readers of a few paragraphs of “Gossip” with a dissertation in support of the assertion. The innate paganism of these people, born of the beauty of the climate and of all external Nature, and of the sensuous proclivity to live and breathe and have their being in the present and the visible which results therefrom, first forcibly shaped their early Christianity into moulds which assimilated it to pagan observances and modes of thought, and still remains ready to resume more and more of its old empire as the authority of Church beliefs waxes feeble. The very striking and singular scene which was to be witnessed in the great Roman cemetery outside the Porta di San Lorenzo on the second day of November was to all intents and purposes pagan in its spirit and meaning. And it is curious to observe in this, as in so many other instances, how the use of words supplies illustrations of national peculiarities and specialties of character. The Church has dedicated the day in question to the commemoration “omnium animarum"—of all souls. And we others, people of a Teutonic race, have taken and used the phrase in its proper Christian sense: we talk of “All Souls’ Day.” But with the peoples of the Latin stock all thought or question of “souls” is very speedily lost sight of. With them the day is simply the “Giorno dei Morti”—the day of the dead. And their observance of it is to all intents and purposes what it might have been two thousand years ago.
The very ancient church of San Lorenzo, one of the four extramural basilicas, is situated some ten minutes’ walk outside the gate of the same name on the road to Tivoli; and around and behind this church is the vast cemetery to which all the Roman dead are carried. It was first used as an extramural cemetery at the time of the first French occupation, but has been very greatly extended since that time. Clergy, nobles and monks were at first, and as long as Papal rule lasted, exempted from the decree which forbade interment within the city. Now all must be taken to San Lorenzo, and the greatly increased population of the city has already very thickly filled an immense area. The first thing that strikes the visitor to this huge necropolis is the very marked division between the poor and the rich quarters of this city of the dead. The fashionable districts are quite as unmistakably divided and separated from those occupied by “the lower classes” as they are in any city of the living; as is perhaps but right and natural in the case of a population among which it is held that the condition and prospects of the dead may be very materially influenced by a quantum sufficit of masses said for them, and where these can be purchased in any quantity for cash. A very large parallelogram, for the most part surrounded by cloisters, is first entered from the gates which open on the road. But this has been but little used as yet. Beyond it, to the right, is the vast space occupied by the graves of the multitude. Let the reader picture to himself a huge flat space extending as far as the eye can see, thickly planted with little black wooden crosses, with inscriptions on them in white letters. The sameness of all these fragile memorials produces a strange and depressing effect. The undistinguished thousands of them make all the space seem black spotted with white. They are ugly; and the poverty of these bits of painted stick, incapable of resisting the effects of the weather, seems sordid in the extreme. In the graves of this part of the cemetery all are in truth equal. To the left of the vast cloister-surrounded square which has been mentioned the scene is a very different one. There, immediately behind the eastern end of the basilica, the soil rises in a very steep bank to a height greater than that of the church. To the space on the top of this bank a handsome and garden-decorated flight of step leads; and there the “Upper Ten” take their dignified rest, and their dust is perfectly safe from all danger of being mingled with that of less distinguished mortality. This higher ground is called the Pincetto—as who should say the “Little Pincian”—a name adapted from that of the celebrated promenade of the gay and fortunate in life, with a suggestion of meaning so satirical that it might seem to have been given to the “fashionable” quarter of the dead city by the united sneers of all the ghosts who haunt the undistinguished graves below. In
The cemetery had been visited by great numbers of persons, bringing chaplets and flowers, during the day, both in the aristocratic and the plebeian quarters, but it was at night that the crowd was greatest and the scene most striking. The night, as it so chanced, was a dark one, which did not make the scene by any means less strange and weird-looking. The greater number of visitors, especially in the poor quarter of the dead city, were women. Such is always the case, whether it be that the female mind is more generally accessible to gentle thoughts of and yearnings over their lost ones, or whether the explanation be simply that, as is especially the case here, women, having less to occupy their leisure either in the way of business or amusement, are more eager to seek any emotion or occasion which may serve to break the flat monotony of their lives.
Certainly the scene in the cemetery on the evening of the “Day of the Dead” was one calculated to make an impression not to be readily forgotten by any mere looker-on who witnessed it. Nor was that presented by the road from the gate to the cemetery less remarkable in its way. It is an ugly, disagreeable bit of road, between high walls, deep with mud in wet, and with dust in dry weather, as was the case on the present occasion, and without the smallest vestige of a pathway for foot-passengers; so that the motley crowd, with their lights and chaplets and flowers, had to make their way amid a cloud of dust and among the carriages of those bound for the “Pincetto” as best they might. But it was the general apparent mood and temper of mind in which these pilgrims, bound on so sad an errand, seemed to be performing their self-imposed task that was especially noteworthy. It might be supposed that a certain degree of reverential self-concentration, or at least of quietude, would have been the characteristic of a crowd bound on such an errand. There was not the smallest symptom
Within the cemetery “distance lent enchantment to the view.” As seen from the cloister which surrounds the great square, as has been mentioned, the outlook over the “poor quarter” of the vast burial-ground was very striking. Amid the wilderness of black crosses, which extends farther than eye could see, numerous figures were flitting hither and thither, many of them with lights in their hands. In the farther distance, where the figures were invisible, the lights could still be seen mysteriously, as it seemed, moving over the closely-ranged graves like corpse-candles, as the old superstition termed the phosphoric lights which may in certain states
The scene which was meantime being enacted on the Pincetto, where the wholly separated resting-places of the “Upper Ten” protest so successfully against the leveling notion that in death all are equal, I might have suggested many a mordant epigram to the cynically-minded visitor. I fear that there is often something provocative of cynicism in sundry of the aspects of fashionable devotion, but on such an occasion as the present it could hardly be otherwise. Rachels in Parisian bonnets and sweeping silk skirts, muttering over their rosaries for their children on splendid cushions borne in due state by attendant plush-clothed ministers, were contrasted in these realms of the universal Leveler somewhat too strongly with the scene one had just left in the (physically and socially) lower regions of the cemetery. Of course hearts that beat beneath silken bodices may be wrung as bitterly as those that serge covers. I am speaking only of those outward manifestations which contributed to complete the strangeness of the general spectacle which I had come out to see. The better tending of the aristocratic portion of the cemetery, and the greater space between the graves and their monuments, made it of course easier and less disagreeable to pass among them and to note the bearing of individual mourners. If the former scene had presented much that was indecorously formal, here all was decorously formal. The routine, cut-and-dry nature of the duty being performed exercised in either case its property of numbing natural feeling, or at least the appearance of it.
On the whole, the experience offered by a visit to the great Roman cemetery on the evening of the “Giorno dei Morti” is a singular and curious one, as will be admitted, I think, by any one who may be tempted by my example to go and see it.
T.A.T.
The publication of the late Mr. John Mill’s Theism (writes a correspondent from England) has again brought forward its author and his peculiarities as subjects of general conversation. Not content with having talked these matters pretty well over some months ago, people are at this moment discussing them with not a whit less of interest than if they were brand-new. But it is what Mr. Mill has omitted to tell us in his Autobiography, quite as much as what he has there told us, that excites popular curiosity about him. How came it that a man whose admiration of his wife was hardly distinguishable from idolatry should never once mention his mother? Thousands have asked, and have asked in vain, who she was, and whether she could have been so entirely insignificant as to deserve being passed over, without even so much as an allusion to her, by her very philosophic son. These questions, and others connected with them, I might answer at length. However, the few facts I shall here state will perhaps be no less welcome than a long detail. The wife of James Mill, and mother of John Mill, was a Miss Burrows, daughter of a Dr. Burrows who superintended an asylum for the insane at Islington. She died in London about twenty years ago, having outlived her husband not quite that period. Her children were nine in number, of whom four daughters are still living—two in England and two in France. She was not what would be reckoned a conspicuously intellectual woman, and yet she by no means deserved the heartless slight which was put on her memory by her son. Indeed, such a slight could have its justification in little short of utter worthlessness; and Mrs. James Mill was not only esteemed, but beloved, by a large circle of friends. On the appearance of the Autobiography her daughters were, naturally enough, not a little indignant at finding their mother as much ignored in it as if she had never existed, and were inclined, at first, to supplement, publicly, their brother’s account of himself by certain disclosures not exactly of a character to exalt him in the estimation of the world. Suffice it to say here that for many years before his death he had been estranged from his family; and this estrangement was attributed, by those who had the best opportunities of judging, to the sinister influence of his wife. This is all that I am disposed to communicate at present, but I should not be at all surprised if we were to know, by and by, much more of the private life of John Mill than we as yet know.
There has recently emerged into notice, from her hiding-place in one of the outskirts of London, an ancient woman whose surroundings forcibly illustrate the persevering vitality of even the insanest forms of religious belief. Joanna Southcott and her fanaticisms we are apt to associate with Dr. Faustus, alchemy, and persons and things of that kind, as belonging to an age with which we have no personal concern. Yet this is a mistake. The followers of the fatidical Joanna may still be counted by thousands in Great Britain, particularly in its metropolis; and their acknowledged head, in strict accordance with the fitness of things, is a woman. She is a very old woman, too, her age symbolizing, perhaps, the longevity to which her crazy superstition is destined. Elizabeth Peacock is the name of this relic of the past. For many years she itinerated as a preacher, and at the great age of one hundred and three her health is still vigorous. Modern priestesses, however, not unlike the prophets of antiquity, are subject to be scanted of due honor, or, at all events, of what is more essential than this as contributing to keep soul and body from parting company prematurely. The fact of her being in a state of destitution was notified not long ago to the magistrate of the Lambeth police-court, and that unappreciative functionary, while consenting to subscribe, with others, for her relief, openly expressed his conviction that she would be best off in the workhouse. Altogether, the old creature is a bit of a curiosity. She has had three husbands, and the last of them, whom she married in 1852, killed himself only the other day, possibly from finding the twofold burden of domestic predication and a helpmeet of five score too much for his nerves. If sane, the ungrateful fellow ought, in all reason, to have had the grace to survive her; for when he undertook matrimony, as he had nothing to turn his hand to, she instructed him herself in the art and mystery of cooperage. At that time, so robust a specimen of anility was she, she could pitch an empty cask across the street, and her credulity is as strong at this moment as her arm was of yore. We conclude, from her story, that the proper stuff for making prophetesses of the baser sort has, even in our day, only to be looked for to be discovered.
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Our countrymen have lately learned to admire, in its Western transformation, the extremely clever Rubaiyat of Omer Khayyam. And they are certainly much in the right in so doing. The sterling merits of the Persian original are preserved with striking fidelity in the English version of the poem, which, for the rest, has gone far to prove that the acceptableness among us of Oriental poetry may depend very largely on the skill with which it is transplanted into our language. The translator of the Rubaiyat is Mr. Edward FitzGerald, of Woodbridge in Suffolk. Mr. FitzGerald’s ancient family one may learn
The French Humorists from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth
Century.
By Walter Besant, M.A.
Boston: Roberts Brothers.
Had Mr. Besant given us definitions of “humor” and “humorist,” we might possibly not have been satisfied with them, but they would at least have enabled us to understand what sense he attaches to the words, and what principle determined him in selecting the writers embraced in his category. In the first page of his book he speaks of humor as “a branch” of satire; in the second he identifies French satire as the “esprit gaulois;” in the third he tells us that “the French type for satire and humor has preserved one uniform character from generation to generation;” and in his last page he claims superiority for the French over the English humorists, on the ground that “Rabelais has a finer wit than Swift,” that “we have no political satire so good as the Satyre Menipee,” “no English humor comparable for a moment with that of the fabliaux,” “no
These mysteries are not the only ones in Mr. Besant’s volume to which we have to confess our inability to discover a key. In closing his remarks on Montaigne he touches with undissembled irony the question whether he was a Christian, and, after contrasting the tone and sentiments of the Essais with those of the Gospels, bids us “remember that we are not in the nineteenth century, but in the sixteenth, that Montaigne died in the act of adoration, and cease to ask whether the man was a Christian;” adding, “Christian? There was no better Christian than Montaigne in all his century.” It appears, therefore, that the sixteenth century, instead of being, as we had supposed, one in which the Reformation had brought with it a revival of religious earnestness and a reaction against religious formalism, and in which on the battle-field, in the dungeon and at the stake, as well as through voluntary exile and the relinquishment of property, thousands in every country testified to the fervor and sincerity of their religious convictions, was in truth, like the eighteenth century,
It appears from another passage that Mr. Besant has an easy method of arriving at a judgment in regard to the character or general aspect of an historical epoch. From the details in regard to food, dress and furniture which he finds in the works of Eustache Deschamps, a satirical poet of the fourteenth century, he infers that the bourgeois life of that period was “comfortable, abundant and cheery.” “History,” he says, “paints this as the worst and most disastrous period that Europe had ever seen; yet here, in the most real poet of the century, we see how life, as a whole, went on in the usual way. For when a great pestilence strikes a country, it slays its thousands and goes away. Time quickly heals the wounds of grief, and the world goes on as before. Then come the English to sack and destroy. Nature heals their wounds, too, by the recurring seasons, and the world goes on as before. I am inclined to think that life, on the whole, was generally pleasant for a well-to-do Frenchman of the period.” Mr. Besant, it will be seen, concedes that evils are evils while they last, that war and pestilence are not pleasant things to the victims, and that the comfortable and cheery life of the fourteenth century suffered some interruptions from these causes. But then it was still, he insists, an agreeable life “on the whole,” since “the recurring seasons” healed the wounds and the grief, and left the survivors to enjoy existence “in the usual way.” This, it must be owned, is a very comfortable and cheery philosophy—for those who preach it. We do not see that they need ever complain of “bad times,” since they can always be sure that the recurring seasons will bring alleviation to the survivors. It may also be admitted that, as there is no age in which the recurring seasons do not bring relief, so there has been none when war and pestilence and similar evils did not interrupt the usual course of life. There is, however, this difference, that in some ages these evils last longer than in others, the wounds are deeper, the victims more numerous, the intermissions less frequent, the relief tardier, the survivors fewer. Such an age in France was the period of the English invasions, comprising a great portion of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. That life was then, “on the whole,” anything but comfortable and cheery is attested by records and evidence of all kinds, against which the mention of weddings and christenings, of gold-embroidered
Mr. Besant, it will be perceived, is one of those writers who indulge in haphazard assertions without troubling their heads with the facts that conflict with them. A glaring instance of his tendency to exaggeration and wild speculation will be found in his estimate of Rabelais, whom he first vaunts as “a great moral teacher,” “a teacher the like of whom Europe had not yet seen,” and then denounces as having “destroyed effectually, perhaps for centuries yet to come, earnestness in France,” declaring that “no writer who ever lived has inflicted such lasting injury on his country,” and that “it would have been better for France if his book, tied to a millstone, had been hurled into the sea.” These opinions are contradictory of each other, since it is impossible that a writer who so perverted men’s minds should also have been, in any proper sense of the term, a great moral teacher; they are inconsistent with Mr. Besant’s account of the “unbroken lines of writers,” of whom Rabelais was one, but not the first, all having the same characteristics, all “irreverent,” having “no strong convictions,” “like children for mockery, mischief and lightness of heart;” and finally, they are so improbable in themselves, and so unsusceptible of proof, that, uttered as they are with the solemnity of communications from an unseen world, they produce much the same impression on us as the disclosures with which Mr. Robert Dale Owen is favored by his “materialized” visitants.
We might cite other examples to prove that Mr. Besant is not a safe guide either in his general speculations or in his critical judgments. He is an agreeable narrator, showing a close familiarity with the topics he handles, and an enthusiasm which, if it sometimes degenerates into mere fume, adds on the whole to the liveliness of his writing. His translations in verse are remarkable for their ease and finish. The book may be read with pleasure, but not, we fear, with equal profit. The chapters that deal with the least known works and writers are the most satisfactory. On Montaigne and Moliere Mr. Besant has nothing to say which is likely to incite the reader to a fresh study of their works, which ought to be the effect of every fresh discourse on a great author.
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Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland A.D. 1803.
By Dorothy Wordsworth.
Edited by J.C. Shairp, LL.D.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons.
The special charm of this book lies in the fact that it is not a book—that there was no thought in the writer’s mind of printer’s ink, no vision of publicity or fame, no solicitude to propitiate critics or win the sympathy of the “gentle reader.” Or one might say it was a book of the primitive kind, written on the bark of trees by some shy dryad, unconcious translator into speech of the rustlings and whisperings of the woodland. It is, as the editor observes, an “effortless narrative,” with “no attempt at fine or sensational writing, ... at that modern artifice which they call word-painting,” but recording with “vivid exactness” what was seen and felt by the writer and her companions on a journey through regions then little frequented by tourists and unsmirched by the eloquence of guide-books. That the travelers were William and Dorothy Wordsworth and (for a part of the way) S.T. Coleridge, that scenes and incidents here first sketched in the sister’s sober prose were afterward memorialized and moralized in the brother’s verse, and that many of the spots described were about to become famous with and through Scott—a meeting with whom formed the fitting close to the tour,—these are circumstances that of course invest the journal with a deeper interest and have called wider attention to its unobtrusive beauty. But its chief attractiveness lies in the Doric simplicity not only of the style but of the matter. An outlandish Irish car was the conveyance; the appearance of the party was not such as to attract notice unless by the quaintness of their garb or their awkward management of the horse, “now gibbing and backing over a bank, now reduced to a walk, with one of the poets leading him by the head;” and they themselves were in search of nothing more notable than such wayside objects as might serve to feed contemplation. On one occasion, having turned aside to visit the duke of Hamilton’s picture-gallery, they were told by the porter, after he had scanned them over, that they ought not to have come to the front door, and were directed to an obscure entrance at the corner of the house, where they seated themselves humbly on a bench while waiting for admittance, which was finally refused. They were mortified, but had a deeper pang in the grounds around Bothwell Castle, for here they were “hurt to see that flower-borders had taken place of the natural overgrowings of the ruins, the scattered stones and wild plants.” Sometimes at an inn they were made to perceive how little consideration they were entitled to by being lodged in inferior rooms while better ones were vacant; but to compensate for this, in the wilder parts of the country they were greeted with the hospitality which their mere condition as strangers was still sufficient to call forth. The descriptions given of the people have at least an equal interest with those of the scenery. We have a succession of pictures in which, as Principal Shairp remarks, “man is seen against a great background of Nature and solitude.” The book is one not to be read and laid away, but to be kept near at hand, and made a frequent companion and familiar friend.
Books Received.
Sophisms of Protection.
By the late M. Frederic Bastiat.
Translated from the Paris edition of 1863,
with Preface by Horace White.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons.
Select Notes on the International Sabbath School Lessons
for 1875.
By a New England Pastor.
Boston: Henry Hoyt.
Notes in England and Italy.
By Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Illustrated Edition.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons.
William Prince of Orange; or, The King and his Hostage.
By Rev. T.M. Merriman, A.M.
Boston: Henry Hoyt.
Report of the Commissioner of Education for the year
1873.
Washington: Government Printing Office.
Among the Trees.
By William Cullen Bryant.
Illustrated.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons.
Early English History.
By John P. Yeatman.
London: Longmans, Green & Co.
Poems.
By Stuart Sterne.
(Published for the Author.)
New York: F.B. Patterson.
The Frozen Deep.
By Wilkie Collins.
Boston: William F. Gill & Co.
A Lecture on the Protestant Faith.
By Dwight H. Olmstead.
New York.
[1] Travel and Art-Study in Italy, by C.E. NORTON.
[2] December, 1874, art. “Physical Effects of Emotion on the Heart.”
[3] I have several times performed this experiment, and by a method, the explanation of which would require a separate article, have proved that the vaso-motor centre, as well as the respiratory centre, is situated in the medulla oblongata, and that paralysis of neither respiration nor of the vaso-motor nerves follows the operation.