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THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.
DEVOTED TO
Literature and National Policy.
VOL. III.
JANUARY-JUNE, 1863.
New York:
JOHN F. TROW, 50 GREENE STREET,
(FOR THE PROPRIETORS.)
1863.
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by
JOHN F. TROW,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.
JOHN F. TROW,
PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND ELECTROTYPER,
48 & 50 Greene Street,
New York.
* * * * *
THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY. DEVOTED TO Literature and National Policy.
JANUARY, 1863.
NEW YORK: JOHN F. TROW 50 GREENE STREET (FOR THE PROPRIETORS).
HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY. WASHINGTON, D. C.: FRANCK TAYLOR.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.--No. XIII.
Huguenots of New Rochelle. Hon. G. P. Disosway, 1
Maccaroni and Canvas. No. 10. Henry P. Leland, 7
Thought, 23
Consequences of the Rebellion. Hon. F. P. Stanton, 26
"I;" or, Summer in the City, 40
The Ivy. Charles Godfrey Leland, 47
The Mishaps of Miss Hobbs. William L. Williams, 54
The Union. No. 4. New York and Virginia Compared,
&c. Hon. Robert J. Walker, 68
Promise. Edward S. Rand, Jr., 78
American Destiny. John Stahl Patterson, 79
Was He Successful? Richard B. Kimball, 98
The Physical Survey of New York Harbor and its
Approaches. Henry Mitchell, Assistant U. S. Coast
Survey, 105
An Englishman in South Carolina. (Concluded), 110
Pen, Pallet, and Piano, 117
Literary Notices, 122
Editor's Table, 126
* * * * *
The article in the present number entitled "American Destiny," will be
found worthy of very attentive perusal. It is the production of a
Private attached to the 20th Battery of Ohio Volunteer Artillery. What
country but ours supplies _such_ material to the ranks of its common
soldiery?
* * * * *
The continuation of "A Merchant's Story," by the author of "Among the
Pines," is unavoidably delayed till the succeeding number.
Our February Number will contain a Review of our Finances and Mr.
Chase's Report. By Hon. R. J. Walker.
* * * * *
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by JAMES R.
GILMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.
John F. Trow, Printer
* * * * *
THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY: DEVOTED TO LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
VOL. III.-JANUARY, 1863.--No. I.
THE HUGUENOTS OF NEW ROCHELLE.
It is worthy of record that Westchester County, New York, was settled by
emigrants from New England and France, and both seeking homes from
religious persecutions. As early as 1642, John Throcmorton, with
thirty-five associates, made the first settlement in this section, with
the approbation of the Dutch authorities. With Roger Williams, driven
away from New England by the violence of Hugh Peters, they came here,
and called the region _Viedeland or Land of Peace_--a beautiful name for
the region of those seeking rest of conscience from wicked and violent
men. But even here the Puritan did not find the desired quiet and
safety; for several of his band perished in the Indian massacre that
sorely visited New Netherland on the 6th of October, 1643.
The next settlement of Westchester was commenced in the year 1654, also
by some Puritans from Connecticut, who adopted its present name, and the
Rev. Ezekiel Fogge was their first 'independent minister;' and in 1684 a
Mr. Warham Mather was called 'for one whole year, and that he shall have
sixty pounds, in country produce, at money price, for his salary, and
that he shall be paid every quarter.' Governor Fletcher, however,
declined inducting the Presbyterian into that living, 'as it was
altogether impossible,' he said, 'it being wholly repugnant to the laws
of England to compel the subject to pay for the maintenance of any
minister who was not of the national Church.' The Episcopal Governor,
however, proposes 'a medium in that matter.' Some French emigrants had
already found their way to this region, and M. Boudet, a French
Protestant minister of Boston, who was in orders from the Bishop of
London, could preach in French and English, and the people called him to
the living, the parish being large enough for two clergymen. M. Boudet
was accordingly sent for, hoping, as the English Governor writes, 'to
bring the congregation over to the Church;' but, 'when he came, they
refused to call him.' The Yankee Puritans were evidently not to be
outmanaged by the English churchman. Westchester then numbered 'two or
three hundred English and Dissenters; a few Dutch.'
On the 20th September, 1689, Jacob Leisler, of New York, purchased of
Mr. Pell 6,000 acres of land in Westchester, a portion of the manor of
Pelham, obtained from the Indians in 1640-'49. The grantor, heirs, and
assigns, as an acknowledgment, were to pay Mr. Pell 'one fatted calf on
every fourth and twentieth day of June, yearly, and every year, forever,
if demanded.' It is a well known fact that every Huguenot, on the
festival of St. John, pays his proportion toward the purchase of the fat
calf whenever claimed.
During the year 1690, Leisler leased to the banished Huguenots these
lands, purchased for them, as they came directly here from England, and
were a portion of the 50,000 who found safety in that glorious
Protestant kingdom four years before the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. At the revocation itself, not less than half a million escaped
from bigoted France to Holland, Germany, and England; and to those in
the latter country, Charles II., then on the British throne, granted
letters of denization under the great seal, and Parliament relieved them
from 'importation duties and passport fees.' During this same year,
many, flying from France, were aided in their escape by English vessels
off the island of Rhe, opposite brave _La Rochelle_. According to
tradition, some of these were transported to this region, naming their
new settlement in honor of their
'Own Rochelle, the fair Rochelle,
Proud city of the waters.'
In the Documentary History of New York, vol. iii., p. 926, we find a
petition to Colonel Fletcher, Governor of the colony, signed by Thanet,
and Elei Cothouneau, in behalf of above twenty of these French refugees.
'Your petitioners,' they state, 'having been forced, by the late
persecutions in France, to forsake their country and estates, and flye
to ye Protestant princes * * *, wherefore they were invited to come and
buy lands in this province, and they might by their labour help the
necessityes of their families, and did spend all their small store with
the aid of their friends, whereof they did borrow great sums of money
[MS. torn]. They had lost their country and their estates, but saved
their good principles and a pure faith; and, in a strange land,
petitioned his Excellency 'to take their case in serious consideration,
and out of charity and pity to grant them for some years what help and
privileges your Excellency shall think convenient.' This is one of the
earliest authentic records (1681) we have met with concerning the New
Rochelle French refugees.
Pell, the lord of the manor, besides the 6,000 acres already obtained,
also granted 100 additional, 'for the sake of the French church, erected
or about to be erected, by the inhabitants of the said tract of land.'
This Huguenot church in New Rochelle was built about 1692-'93, of wood,
and stood in the rear of the present mansion house. It was destroyed
soon after the Revolutionary war. Louis Bougeaud, about the same time,
donated a piece of land forty paces square, for a churchyard to bury
their dead; and, subsequently, a house with three acres of land was
given by the town to the Huguenot church forever.
The Rev. DAVID BOUREPOS was the first minister of the New Rochelle
Huguenots; he had likewise served his French brethren on Staten Island.
The Governor requesting him to nominate 'some persons for the vacant
offices of justices of the peace,' he replies that 'he could not comply,
as none of his colonists at New Rochelle had a knowledge of the English
tongue.' Nothing now is known of Bourepos' ministry or history. From his
title of D.D., he must have been a man of learning; and we can learn
something about the time when he died from the date of his will.
'Letters of administration were granted to Martha Bourepos, wife of
David Bourepos, 25th of October, 1711' (New York Surrogates' Office). He
probably resigned his pastoral charge in 1694.
Rev. DANIEL BOUDET, A. M., was the next minister of the French
Protestant church at New Rochelle, a native of France; and he
accompanied the French refugees, who reached Boston in the summer of
1686. About the year 1695, M. Boudet came to New Rochelle, and at first
used the French prayers, according to the Protestant churches of France,
and subsequently, every third Sunday, the Liturgy of the English Church.
In 1709 the French church at New Rochelle determined to follow the
example of some of their Reformed brethren in England, and conform to
the English Church. All the members except _two_ agreed to adopt the
Liturgy and Rites of the Church of England, as established by law. Some
thirty names appear on the document, requesting this important
ecclesiastical change; and for the information especially of the
genealogical reader, we note some of them: Michael Houdin, Jacob
Bleecker, David Lispenard, Isaac Guion, Peter Bertain, John Soulice,
Paul Lecord, Jean Abby, Jos. Antuny, Peter Bonnet, Peter Parquot, Benj.
Seacord, Judith Leconet, Allida Guion, Josiah Le Conte, Elizabeth
Lispenard, Moses de St. Croix, Deborah Foulon, Marie Neufville, Mary
Stouppe, Jean Nicolle, John Bryan, Oliver Besley, Frederick King,
Susanna Landrin, Anne Danielson, Rutger Bleecker, Mary Rodman, Agnes
Donaldson, Esther Angeoine, Thomas Steel, Jane Contine, Jane Maraux,
James Pine. 'The petitioners are members of the French Church at New
Rochelle' (1793), and 'principally descendants from French Protestants,
who fled from the religious persecutions in France, in the year one
thousand six hundred and eighty-one.' Their fathers settled at New
Rochelle, 1689, nearly a century before the date of this document. Few
lists of family names are more imposing than this; and to this day,
their descendants in Westchester County, increased to thousands, rank
with our most useful and respectable citizens in wealth, good works, and
piety. We are no great sticklers for genealogical _trees_ or _Doomsday
Books_, yet we believe in pride of family to a proper extent. There was
a time once, in this republican land of ours, when many gloried in
ignoring the fact that they came from distinguished stocks, as the
spirit of our democratic institutions opposed the notion of family
histories. We were all born of an honest, industrious race, for several
generations back, and that is enough; and so it may be. Still, a man,
when asked if he had a grandfather, would logically infer he had one,
but he could not historically, unless there was some record of the fact.
This indifference is happily passing way, and an interest of late is
manifesting itself in such researches. No American, in whose veins runs
Huguenot blood, need be ashamed of his origin. His ancestral history is
most honorable, brave, and proud.
In 1705, Colonel Heathcote thus speaks of M. Boudet, the Huguenot
preacher at New Rochelle: 'A good man, and preaches very intelligibly in
English, which he does every third Sunday in his French congregation,
when he uses the Liturgy of the Church. He has done a great deal of
service since his first coming into this country. * * * He has thirty
pounds a year settled on him out of the public revenue here, as the
French minister in York hath; but that is paid with so much uncertainty
that he starves, for the use of it.' During the year 1710, Governor
Hunter permitted his congregation to build a new church of England, as
by law established, and the 'Venerable Propagation Society' presented
the new church with 'one hundred French prayer books of the small sort,
and twenty of a larger impression; and in consideration of the great
learning and piety of Monsieur Boudet, and his long and faithful
discharge of his office, they augmented his salary from L30 to L50 per
annum.' At this period we find the following excellent record of this
excellent French minister: 'M. Boudet is a good old man, near sixty
years of age, sober, just, and religious.' One hundred more French
prayer books were sent to his church, 'for the edification of the French
youth who have learned so much of that language as to join with him
therein.' During the year 1714, M. Boudet took the spiritual charge of
the Mohegan or River Indians, at which period he is called 'minister of
the French colonistic congregation at New Rochelle.' In 1714 he reports
fifty communicants in his church, and asks for an English Bible, with a
small quantity of English Common Prayers, because 'our young people, or
some of them, have sufficiently learned to read English for to join in
the public service, when read in English.'
M. Boudet died in September, 1722, aged sixty-nine years, nearly
twenty-seven of which he had been the minister of the New Rochelle
church. He was eminently useful in keeping his congregation together
amidst its adverse circumstances, and was greatly beloved. He was
interred beneath the chancel floor of the old church; and for whose use
he bequeathed his library.
The Rev. PIERRE STOUPPE, A. M., succeeded M. Boudet. He was also a
native of France, and said to be a son or nearly related to the Rev. M.
Stouppe, pastor of the French Protestant church in London, who was sent
to Geneva, in 1654, by Oliver Cromwell, to negotiate there in the
affairs of the French Protestants. He was born 1690, studied divinity at
Geneva, and accepted a call to the Huguenot church at Charleston, S. C.
Here he continued to preach until 1723, when, resigning the charge, he
conformed to the Church of England, crossing the Atlantic for
ordination. He was admitted to holy orders in 1723, and licensed to
officiate as a missionary in the colony of New York, and to the French
Protestants of New Rochelle, with a salary of L50 per annum. To this
latter flock he proved very acceptable, from his ability to preach in
French, the only language which most of them understood. His elders, or
_anciens_, as sometimes called, were then Isaac Quantein and Isaac
Guion. The new Huguenot pastor soon found trouble, as his predecessor
had, with the dissatisfied M. Moulinais and his followers. Still he was
useful: in 1726 he writes that he 'baptized six grown negroes and seven
negro children, fitted eight young people for the sacrament of the
Lord's Supper, to which they have been accordingly admitted,' and 'the
number of communicants at Easter was thirty-three.'
In a letter of December 11, 1727, he presents some important information
concerning the early settlement of New Rochelle: 'The present number of
inhabitants amounts to very near four hundred persons. There is a dozen
of houses near the church, standing pretty close to one another, which
makes the place a sort of a town; the remainder of the houses and
settlements are dispersed up and down, as far as the above 6,000 acres
of land could bear. Nay, besides these, there were several other French
families, members of New Rochelle, settled without its bounds.' Such was
the commencement of the present picturesque and beautiful village of New
Rochelle. More than a century and a half has passed away since its
founders, the French refugees, emigrated to the spot; but their noble
and holy principles have left good, undying influences, now seen in the
refinement, morals, and religion of their descendants, in this entire
region.
M. Stouppe further states that there were in the settlement two Quaker
families, three Dutch ones, four Lutherans. 'The first never assist on
assemblies; the Dutch and Lutheran, on the contrary, constantly assist
when divine service is performed in English, so that they may understand
it; and their children, likewise, have all been baptized by ministers of
the church. Only the French Dissenters have deserted it, upon M.
Moulinais, formerly one of the French ministers of New York, coming and
settling, now a year ago, among us; and it is also by his means and
inducement that they have built a wooden meeting-house within the time
they were unprovided for, that is, from my predecessor's death to my
arrival here. * * *
'There is no schoolmaster as yet in New Rochelle: the parents take care
to instruct their own children, and that they do generally pretty well,
besides what instructions are given them in the church during summer by
the minister. * * * The number of slaves within New Rochelle is
seventy-eight: part of them constantly attend divine service, and have
had some instruction in the Christian faith by the care and assistance
of their respective masters and mistresses, so that my predecessor did
not scruple to baptize some, and even admit them to the communion of the
Lord's Supper; and I myself have, for the same consideration, baptized
fifteen of them within these three years, some children and some grown
persons, without the least prejudice to the rest of my flock.' It would
be well, in our boasted day of zeal and philanthropy, if all ministers
of the blessed gospel manifested the same commendable interest for the
spiritual welfare of the negroes, as this Huguenot pastor.
About the period of the French war, he writes, June 5, 1758, 'that since
the war broke out, there have been great alterations in his
congregations, which have lost many of their members by removals, and by
enlisting in the king's service, and by death; nevertheless, the number
of his communicants is seventy-four, and he has baptized, within the
present half year, fifteen white and five black children.'
The ministry of this faithful Huguenot terminated on the earth, by his
death in July, 1760. His biographer esteemed him a 'simple-minded,
conscientious man, who for thirty-seven years continued faithfully to
discharge the duties of his mission.' His communicants had increased
from thirty-eight to eighty, and he was greatly beloved by his
congregation. His remains were interred under the chancel of the old
French church at New Rochelle, where so long he had watched over the
little flock of his Master. M. Stouppe was succeeded by the
Rev. MICHAEL HOUDIN, A.M. He was born in France, 1705, educated a
Franciscan friar, and, on Easter day, 1730, ordained a priest by the
Archbishop of Treves, and subsequently preferred to the post of superior
in the convent of the Recollects at Montreal. But, disgusted with
monastic life, M. Houdin, at the commencement of the French war, left
Canada and retired to the city of New York. Here, on Easter day, 1747,
he made a public renunciation of Popery, and joined the Church of
England. Attaining great proficiency in the English language, in June,
1750, he was invited by the people of Trenton, N.J., to officiate as a
missionary in that State.
When he first reached New York with his wife, in June, 1744, Governor
Clinton, suspicious of all Frenchmen at that moment, confined them to
their lodgings, guarded by two sentinels. The following day he was
examined by his Excellency, and learned that 'the French intended to
attack Oswego with eight hundred men, the French having a great desire
of being masters of that place.' Then M. Houdin was ordered to reside at
Jamaica, Long Island, where he complained that his circumstances were
'very low,' and 'can do nothing to get a living;' that 'his wife and
himself must soon come to want, unless his Excellency will be pleased to
take him into consideration.' After this appeal, the authorities advised
his return to the city, on his taking the oath of allegiance.
For some years, M. Houdin officiated at Trenton and the neighboring
places as an 'itinerant missionary;' and in 1759 his services were
required, as a guide, for General Wolfe, in his well-known expedition
against Quebec. Before marching, he preached to the Provincial troops
destined for Canada, in St. Peter's church, Westchester, from St.
Matthew, ch. x. 28: 'Fear not them which kill the body.' And the French
chaplain escaped the dangers of the war; but his brave General, at the
very moment of victory, fell mortally wounded, on the Heights of
Abraham, September 13, 1759. After the reduction of Quebec, he asked
leave to join his mission again; but General Murray would not consent,
as there was no other person who could be depended on for intelligence
of the French movements. While M. Houdin was stationed at Quebec, an
attempt was made by the Vicar-General of all Canada to seduce him from
English allegiance, with an offer of great preferment in the Romish
Church. This pressing invitation found its way into the hands of
Generals Murray and Gage, when they sent a guard to arrest the
Vicar-General.
M. Houdin, returning to New York, in 1761, was appointed 'itinerant
missionary' to New Rochelle, by the 'Venerable Society' of England, 'he
being a Frenchman by birth, and capable of doing his duty to them, both
in the French and English languages.' During his incumbency, Trinity
church, New Rochelle, received its first charter from George III., which
the present corporation still enjoys with all its trusts and powers. It
is dated in 1762, and was exemplified by his Excellency George Clinton
in 1793. In 1763 he writes, complaining that the Calvinists used
unlawful methods to obtain possession of the church glebe. These were
the few old French Protestant families who had not conformed to the
Church of England; and Houdin says of them: 'Seeing the Calvinists will
not agree upon any terms of peace proposed to them by our church, * * *
we are in hopes the strong bleeding of their purse will bring them to an
agreement after New York court.'
The French Protestant preacher continued his pious labors at New
Rochelle until October, 1766, when he departed this life. He was a man
of considerable learning, irreproachable character, and esteemed a
worthy Christian missionary. His remains, which were the last of the
Huguenot pastors, were interred beneath the chancel of the old French
church at New Rochelle, and by the side of his predecessors, Boudet and
Stouppe. Since the removal of this sacred edifice, the ashes of these
earliest Protestant French missionaries to our land repose beneath the
public highway, and not a stone tells where they lie, or commemorates
their usefulness, excellences, or piety. Their silent graves ought not
thus to remain neglected and unhonored: some monumental record should
mark the spot where these early Huguenot preachers in America were
entombed.
Boudet, Stouppe, and Houdin were the last of the Huguenot preachers in
our land of whose histories we can find anything, and as they never can
be fully written, we have made a more full record of these fragments
concerning their memories, than otherwise would have been written.
Especially let the children of the French Protestants in Westchester
venerate these men, who were consecrated to sacred offices in the days
of their pious ancestors, and, like Moses, led them from oppression and
bondage to the land of Canaan in this Western World.
We might mention many who deserve the honor, among the descendants of
the New Rochelle Huguenots; but the name of one will suit our
purpose--JOHN JAY. He was born in New York, from a family originally of
La Guienne, France; and he was sent, by his fellow citizens to the
General Congress which assembled at the commencement of the conflict
between the colonies and England. In 1774 he signed the act of
association to suspend the importation of British merchandise; in 1779
he was honored with the presidency of Congress. At the expiration of
this important post, Mr. Jay was commissioned to represent his country
at the court of Louis XVI., and he was one of the four commissioners
who signed, on the 30th November, 1782, the treaty of Versailles, by
which Great Britain recognized our NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE. A Huguenot,
ELIAS BOUDINOT, was the first president of the great national
institution, the American Bible Society; and at his death, bequeathed to
it a noble benefaction. The French Protestants were always ardent lovers
of the BIBLE, and John Jay succeeded Mr. Boudinot in his important
office of president to that noble institution. 'No one in America,' says
the eminent Dr. Baird, 'need blush at having one of these respectable
Huguenots among his ancestors;' and Bancroft, the historian of our land,
recognizes in them that moral elevation of which they gave so many
proofs in every country where they settled; and he adds: 'The children
of the French Calvinists have certainly good reason to hold the memory
of their fathers in great honor.' (Vol. ii, p. 183.) So think we.
MACCARONI AND CANVAS.
X.
A WALK AROUND SEGNI.
There are three quiet old places on the Continent that Caper always
remembers with solemn pleasure--Breda in Holland, Segni in Italy,
Neufchatel in Switzerland. He reposed in Breda, rested in Segni, was
severely tranquil in Neufchatel: the real charm of travelling is best
appreciated when one is able to pause in one's headlong career in some
such place and meditate over it. Caper paused for many months at Segni.
SEGNI, or Signia, a Latium city of the Volscians, was, after its
colonization by the Romans, always faithful to the Republic. Strabo,
Pliny, Plautus, Martial, Juvenal, Silius, Italicus, Dionysius
Halicarnassus, and Livy, all make mention, in one way or another, of
this city. Little is known of its history, from the fact that it was
burned to the ground by the order of the Duke of Alva, viceroy of
Naples, on the 14th of August, 1557; and in the fire all records of the
city were destroyed. Its polygonal or Cyclopean walls, of Pelasgic
origin, still remain in many parts as perfect as they ever were:
consisting of gigantic blocks of hewn limestone, they are fitted one
into another with admirable precision; no mortar was used in laying
them, and there they stand, these well-named Cyclopean walls, for some
of the stones are 12 feet long by 5 feet wide, firmly as if centuries on
centuries had not sent a myriad of storms to try their strength. There
are several gates in these walls, noted among which is one called the
Saracen's Gate; it is known in architecture from its indicating by its
form one of the first attempts toward the pointed arch.
In walking through the town, you find here and there bits of middle-age
architecture, which have escaped ruin; here a door, there a window, of
graceful design, built around with the rough masonwork for which Segni
is noted in later days; but the greater number of the houses are
constructed in the rudest manner, indicating the poverty and ignorance
of the majority of the inhabitants. It is, however, a decent poverty,
for, to the credit of the town be it spoken, there was not, when Caper
was there, a professional beggar, excepting the friars, in or around it.
Taking the first street--if a rough road winding around the top of the
mountain, and but four or five feet wide, may be called so--Caper saw at
the doors of the houses, standing chatting to each other, many old
women, their white hair flying in every direction, who, as they talked,
knitted stockings; or, with distaff in hand, twirled the spindle, making
flax into thread for spinning, or wool into woof and web for weaving.
Hearing a shuttle, he looked in at an open door, and found a young girl
busily weaving a heavy blue cloth at a queer old loom; not far from her,
an elderly woman was weaving flax thread into coarse, heavy linen goods.
Passing along, he heard the whir of millstones, and, entering a house,
saw a girl working one of the handmills of the country; on a stand,
where there was a stone basin, the girl turned in the wheat; another
stone, fitting exactly in the basin, was attached to the ceiling by a
long pole; catching hold of this, she gave the stone a rotary motion,
grinding the wheat very fairly.
Suddenly Caper saw in the back part of the room a woman, holding what
seemed a large, red-headed caterpillar, without any fuzz on it; she was
evidently nourishing it in the way represented in that famous painting
'The Roman Daughter,' thus proving that it was a baby. Its resemblance
to the caterpillar arose from the way it was swathed: around all the
Segnian infants they wind a strip of knit or woven cloth, about eight
feet long and four inches wide, fairly mummifying them; then, to crown
the work, they put on their little bullet heads, a scarlet cap with
brilliant flowers and ribbons, making the poor babies resemble anything
but Christian productions. In a neighboring town they hang their babies
up in a wicker basket, resembling the birch-bark contrivances for our
Indian papooses.
Continuing his walk, our artist next came to where they were building a
house; and its future occupant, who was a man of some enterprise and
action, told Caper, with a long face, that he almost despaired of seeing
it completed: the harvest came, and almost every workman went off to the
wheat fields, leaving the house unfinished until they were ready to
recommence work on it, well knowing that there were no other ones in the
town able to do their labor; however, those who mixed mortar, carried
tiles, and stone, and plaster, were hard at work. These laborers were
girls of from twelve to sixteen years old, and one or two of them, spite
of dirt and hard labor, were really handsome, with bright, intelligent
countenances. They earned one paul (ten cents) each a day, and seemed
contented and happy, joking with each other and laughing heartily nearly
all the time. Probably our Chippewa Indians would think twice before
they set the young women of their tribe to hod-carrying as a livelihood;
but then the Chippewas are savages. The hods carried by these girls on
their heads were flat, wooden trays, square at each end: once poised on
the head, they balanced themselves, and were carried around without a
fall. This carrying on the head, by the women, from an eight-gallon
barrel of wine down to a sickle or pocket handkerchief, helps to give
them their straight forms and fine carriage of head, neck, and
shoulders.
Napoleon the First, in breaking down most of the feudal customs of the
Papal States, should be regarded by the poor inhabitants as one of their
greatest benefactors; still, many a remnant of the middle ages remains
firmly marked in the habits of the country people. Even now the
inhabitants of the Campagna live, not in isolated houses, but in small
towns built around the once protecting castle or powerful monastery,
where, in times past, they fled, when attacked in the fields by the
followers of some house inimical to the one under whose protection they
lived. Follow the entire Campagna, from Rome to Naples, by way of
Frosinone, and you will see the ruins of watch towers, built to warn the
workmen in the fields of the approaching enemy. Thus, in Segni, although
the fields cultured by the inhabitants, lay miles away at the foot of
the mountain, yet every day seven eighths of the 5,000 inhabitants
walked from four to six miles or more down the mountains to the scene of
their daily labors, returning the same distance at sunset. Often and
often Caper saw the mother, unable to leave the infant at home, carry it
in a basket on her head to the far-away fields, bringing it back at
night with the additional burden of corn shelled or wheat garnered in
the field. Trotting along gayly at her side, you may be sure, was the
ever-present black pig, with a long string wound around his body, by
which he is attached to some tree or stone as soon as he reaches the
fields, and thus prevented from rooting where he should not root. The
day's labor of his mistress finished, she unties him, wraps the string
around his body, and he follows her up to the town with the docility of
a well-trained dog.
It is the women, too, who daily walk four or five miles up the mountain
for their supply of firewood. Arriving at the forest of the commune,
they collect split wood and fagots, tying them into round bundles, a
yard long, and two or three feet in diameter, and return to Segni,
carrying this small woodpile all the way on their heads. It is the
women, too, who bring water from the fountains for their household use,
in A copper vessels (_conche_) holding from two to three gallons: these
are placed on the head, and carried self-balancing sometimes for long
distances. At a fair held at Frosinone, Caper once saw several women,
each one carrying on her head two of these conche filled with water, one
balanced on the other; and this for half a mile up a steep road, from
the fountain at the foot of the mountain, to the town above.
The women, too, do their fair share of harvesting; they cut the wheat
with sickles; then, after it is cut, separate the grains from the stalk
by rubbing a handful of stalks with a small piece of wood in which a
series of iron rings are placed, making a rude rasp; collecting the
grains, they then carry them from the fields, sifting them at their
leisure in a large round sieve, suspended from a triangle of long poles;
then, on a breezy day, you may see them standing over a large cloth,
holding a double handful of wheat high above their heads, and letting it
fall: the wind blows away the chaff, and the clean grain falls on the
outspread cloth.
In the autumn, when the men are employed in the vintage, comes the
chestnut season; and then the women, who are not busy in the vineyard,
and who regard it as a frolic, go for miles up in the mountains,
collecting the nuts, large as our horse chestnuts. They form no small
part of the winter stock of food for the mountaineers, while the refuse
nuts are used to fatten the pet pig. We can have but small conception of
the primeval look these chestnut woods wear, the trees growing to an
enormous size, many a one being ten to twelve feet in diameter. The
weather is glorious during this season: clear, bright, and buoyantly
refreshing, blow the autumn winds; and as Caper, day after day, wandered
among the old trees, now helping an old woman to fill a sack with the
brown nuts, now clubbing the chestnuts from the trees for a young girl,
he, too, voted chestnut gathering a rare good time. Far off, and now
near, the girls were singing their quaint wild songs. Thus heard, the
_rondinella_ sounds well: it is of the woods and deserts; strange,
barbaric, oriental, bacchantic, what you please, save dawdling
drawing-room and piano-ic.
To resume the walk around the town: Caper, after leaving the man who was
employing the sylphide hod-carriers, called in at the shop were cigars
were sold, and outside of which was a tin sign, on which was painted the
papal coat-of-arms, and the usual words, indicating that the government
monopolies, salt and tobacco, were for sale. Having bought some cigars,
he entered into conversation with the man who kept the store. He
learned, what he already knew, that everything in the town was done by
hand, weaving, spinning, thrashing, grinding wheat and corn, &c.
'Do you know,' said Caper, 'that in some countries all these labors are
done by steam?'
It is dangerous to tell great truths; and after our artist had spoken,
he saw, by the expression of the man's face, that he had placed himself
in danger; but suddenly the cigar-seller's face was illuminated with
intelligence, as he exclaimed:
'Oh, you mean that infernal thing that goes _boo-hoo-hoo_? I saw it when
I was in Rome, last week: it's going to drag cars to Civita Vecchia on
the iron road.'
'That's it,' answered Caper, greatly relieved.
'_Benissimo!_ we never had anything of the kind; and what is more, WE
DON'T WANT ONE!'
Caper walked out, determined to write to New York, and beg some of the
good people there to save a few missionaries from death among the
Fejees, and send them to Segni, where there was a wide field open for
the dissemination of knowledge.
Passing along, he next came to the small square in front of the church,
where once every week a market was held: here he found a man, who had
just arrived with fresh fish from Terracina--the Terracina of the opera
of 'Fra Diavolo.' Among the small fish, sardines, &c., which were
brought to town that day, in time for Friday's dinner, when every one
kept _vigilia_, was one large fish, which our artist determined to buy
and present to his landlord at the inn. He asked its price.
'That fish,' said the fishman, 'is for the dinner of the Illustrissimo
and Reverendissimo Monsignore the Bishop; and if you were to turn every
scale in its body into baioccho, _and give them all to me_, you couldn't
have it.'
Caper was sorely tempted to turn the scales in his own favor, for he
knew, if he were to pay well, he could bear off the fish triumphantly,
spite of the seller's declaration; but a thought of the sore affliction
he would bring into the mind of the fat old gentleman in purple, with a
gold chain around his neck, who rejoiced in the name of bishop, deterred
him from his heretical proceeding, and he walked away in deep
meditation.
The patron saint of Segni is San Bruno; and, to do him honor, every
other male baby born in the town is called Bruno; so our artist, in his
walks around town, heard this name howled, cried, screamed, shrieked,
called, and appealed to, on an average once in five minutes, through the
hours when the male inhabitants were about and awake. This similarity in
names was, by no means, accompanied by similarity in appearance, for
there were more light-haired and blue-eyed men by this name in the place
than any one, having the popular idea of what an Italian looks like,
would believe could be found in a town of the same size in America.
Trying to account for the Norse look of many of the Segnians, and the
Oriental look of many others, Caper climbed up to the top of the
mountain above the town, and seating himself in the shadow of the old
Cyclopean wall, looked down the mountain side to the broad valley below
him.
'As all roads lead to Rome,'soliloquized he, 'it's no wonder that those
two famous old ways down there in the valley, the Via Trajana and the
Via Latina, should have once been passed over by white-haired, blue-eyed
Goths, and, seeing the old town perched up here, they should have
climbed up, having strong legs. Once here, they put all the men to the
sword, made love to the girls, plundered all that was plunderable; drank
up all the liquor, Sambuca, Rosoglio, 'Rhum di Giamaica,' and Acqua
viva, they could put their paws on; then, having a call further on, left
the girls, small babes, and other _impedimenta_ (baggage!), rushing onto
Rome to settle accounts with their bankers there, like hon-o-rable men.
_So_ you find many flaxen-haired, sky-eyed people up here, and they are
rough and bold and independent.
Years and years after them, clambering over the mountains from the
seacoast, came the Saracens--oh, you were the boys!--and they, being a
refined and elegantly educated circle, compared with the Goths, of
course did the same amount of slaughtering and love-making, only more
refinedly and elegantly; cutting off heads instead of knocking them in;
and with the gold spoons and other instruments that they found in the
church, instead of making sword hilts and helmets, they at once worked
them into graceful, crescent-shaped earrings, and curious rings, chains,
and brooches, giving them to the girls and winning their hearts in the
old-fashioned style. The girls, for their part, declared to each other
that when these odious Moors went away, they would give all the earrings
and brooches back to the church. But they forgot to; which accounts for
their wearing them, or those of similar pattern, to this day.
The gentle Saracens, moreover, wishing to introduce their own school of
music, taught the girls to sing; proof of which is the horrible songs
the contadini still have, resembling in no wise pious Christian hymns,
but rather a cross between a growl to Odin and a yell to Allah! A growl
to Odin, for the girls could not forget the Goths, albeit they only knew
them through reports of their foremothers.
Then the Saracens turned their attention to crockery ware, pots, pans,
and water jars; forming like fruits and flowers the yielding clay, and
establishing models that are every hour to be seen around one in this
old nest. Clothes, too, they thought, should be made as they saw 'fit;'
and, accordingly, head-dresses and dresses, under garments, &c., _a la
Saracenesca_, were all the rage; and as the colors were in no wise
sombre or melancholy to behold, the girls took kindly to them, and,
slightly modified, wear them still. When you see the _pane_, the white
cloth worn on the women's heads, remember it was once an Oriental
_yashmak_, falling around and concealing the face of the Italian lady
love of a Saracen; but when the Saracens departed, they rolled up the
veil and disclosed to delighted Christians the features of Rita or
Maria, who figured for a time as Zoe or Fatima.
With their religion, the Saracens were not so successful--they could not
make it popular; so they waived this point, contented with having set
the fashions, and introduced their own style of music, crockery, and
jewelry.
Thus reflecting, Caper stopped short, regarded his watch, found it was
near dinner time--the pastoral hour of noon-day--and then turned to walk
down to the inn. On his way he passed a store having French calicoes in
the window, and mourned in his heart to think how short a time it would
be before these became popular, and the homemade picturesque dresses of
the female Segnians would be discarded. The time, too, was fast
coming--with the railroad from Rome to Naples--when travellers will
overrun these mountain towns, and the price of board shoot up from forty
cents to a dollar or two: then the inhabitants will learn geography and
become mercenary, and will learn arithmetic and blaspheme (in their way)
at _forestieri Inglese_, _Americani_, _Francese_, or _Tedeschi_, and
cheat them. Then the peace of the Volscians will have departed, never,
oh, never more to return.
Then the women will wear--bonnets! and cheap French goods; will no
longer look like moving woodyards, bringing fagots on their heads down
mountain sides; no longer bear aloft the graceful _conche_ filled with
sweet water from the fountain, for hydraulic rams will do their
business; no longer lead the sportive pig to pastures new, but pen him
up, and feed him when the neighbors are not looking on! These days will
sorely try the men: now they labor in the fields in shirts and drawers,
never thinking of putting on their pantaloons until they return to the
very gates of the town, where, at sunset, you may see them, ten or
twelve deep, thus employed before entering the city; but in the future
they will have to observe _les convenances_ and make their toilette in
the fields. This they will do with great grumbling, returning homeward,
and they will sing _rondinelle_ bearing severely on the _forestieri_ who
have ruined the good old pod-augur days when they made _vendetta_
without trouble: thus reflecting, the donkeys they ride, while their
wives walk and carry a load, will receive many virulent punches intended
for other objects.
'Signor Giacomo, dinner is served,' said the landlord, as Caper entered
the old inn.
Cool wine, roast lamb, wild pigeons, crisp salad, with a broiled
partridge; great bunches of luscious grapes, figs freshly picked, _and_
maccaroni a la Milanese. Such was our artist's dinner that day.
Patriarchally simple of a necessity; but, then, what can you expect in a
town where the British Lion has never yet growled for a bushel of raw
beef when he is fed, or swore at the landlord for not having a pint of
hay boiled in hot water (tea?) for breakfast, when he is nervous?
FIVE FAIRS AND FESTIVALS.
Do not believe, in spite of all you hear about the benighted Papal
States, that the people spend their holidays groaning and begging to
depart from this vale of tears: on the contrary, the ignorant wretches
believe in enjoying every moment of life; and, to judge by the Segnians,
who are by no means dyspeptical, they do so with all their might. They
know, if they fall sick, good Doctor Matteucci attends them carefully
and well, without any charge, for he receives a salary from the commune.
They know, if they have good health and do their work, they will be
rewarded every now and then with a holiday, in which religion is so
tempered with lottery tickets, wine drinking, fireworks, horse races,
and trading, that, shorn lambs as they are, paying to the church three
cents for every twenty-five pounds of corn they may grind, and as large
a portion of their crops for the rent of the lands they till, they still
have jolly good times at the fairs and festivals in their own and
neighboring towns.
Every town has its patron saint, and it is in honor of his day that they
hold one grand festival each year. To accommodate temporal affairs, a
fair is also held on the same day, so that the country people of the
neighborhood may purchase not only the necessaries, but the simple
luxuries they need or long for.
Besides the only principal festival and fair in Segni to San Bruno,
already described, they had three minor celebrations of minor saints,
substitutes, as Rocjean declared, for Pomona, Bacchus, and Ceres:
certainly, the saints' days fell very curiously about the same time
their predecessors were worshipped.
It is, however, of five festivals and fairs held in five neighboring
towns, that the present chapter treats; so let the drums beat while our
three artists proceed to enjoy on paper the days they celebrated.
One evening, the vetturino, Francesco, came to the trio and told them
that on the next day but one, Sunday, there would be a fair and _festa_
at Frosinone, a town about twenty-three miles from Segni, and that if
they wished to go, he had three seats to hire in his _vettura_. Having
heard that the costumes to be seen there were highly picturesque, and
anxious to study the habits of the people in holiday guise, our artists
determined to go. At daybreak on the appointed morning, having
breakfasted and filled their flasks with wine, they started with a guide
to walk down to Casa Bianca, a small _osteria_, distant, as the guide
assured them, about two miles; three miles, as Francesco swore to; four
miles, as Gaetano, the landlord declared; and six miles as Caper and
Rocjean were ready to affirm to. Down the mountain road they scrambled,
only losing their patience when they found they had to wade a small
marsh, where their tempers and polished boots were sorely tried. Once
over, they reached Casa Bianca, and found the vettura there, having
arrived an hour before from Rome, thirty odd (and peculiar) miles
distant; and now with the same horses they had to make twenty-three
miles more before ten A. M., according to agreement. Rocjean and Caper
sat outside the carriage, while Dexter sat inside, and conversed with
two other passengers, cheerful and good-natured people, who did all in
their power to make everybody around them contented and jolly.
The road went through the fertile Sacco valley; right and left rich
pasture grounds, or wheat and corn fields; the mountains on either side
rising in grandeur in the early sunlight, their tops wreathed with veils
of rising mist. They soon passed Castelaccio (the termination _accio_ is
one, according to Don Boschi, of vilification; consequently, the name
may be translated Bigbad Castle): this castle belongs to Prince
Torlonia, apropos of which prince it is rather singular that all his
money cannot buy good Latin; for any one may read at Frascati, staring
you in the face as it does, as you wind up the villa, engraved on a
large marble tablet, an inscription touching
TORLONIA ET UXSOR EJUS, ETC.
UXSOR may be Latin, but it is the kind that is paid for, and not the
spontaneous gift of classic Italy.
The carriage next passed through Ferentino, _Ferentinum_ of the
Volscians, where it stopped for a time to let Rocjean see the stone
called _La Fata_, whereon is inscribed the noble generosity of
Quintilius Priscus, who gave _crustula_ and _mulsum_ (cakes and mead) to
the old people; _sportulae_ (cold victuals?) to the decurions, and _nucum
sparsiones_ (a sprinkling of nuts) for the small children.
After which antiquarian research, and a drink of wine at the _Hotel des
Etrangeres_, the trio called loudly on Francesco to drive on; for the
name of the inn suggested similar signboards, Hotel d'Angleterre, Hotel
Vitoria, Hotel des Isles Brittaniques, at all of which one or other of
our travellers had been savagely fleeced.
The carriage at last arrived at the tavern, at the foot of the mountain
on which Frosinone stands, and our artists found that the ascent must be
made on foot: this, in the face of the broiling sun, was equal to two
hot baths at least. However, they determined to take it easily, and
accordingly tarried for a while by an old bridge crossing a small
stream, running bright and clear, where cattle were drinking; then they
stopped at the neighboring fountain, where the girls were filling copper
water jars, and dusty contadini were washing themselves in order to
present a clean face at the fair; and listened with pleasure to the
hearty laughter and holiday jests bandied about with profusion. Thus in
refreshed spirits they commenced the ascent.
On the brow of the mountain, in front rank of the houses of the city,
arose the walls of what they thought at first glance was a very large
factory; they subsequently learned it was a male-factory or prison;
this, with the governor's palace and other lofty buildings, gives
Frosinone a stately air, only lost on entering the place and finding
the streets narrow, steep, and not particularly clean. On entering the
street leading to the main gate of entrance, their ears were saluted by
the squealing and grunting of many hogs collected together in small
droves, on both sides the way, for sale or barter. Here stood a bronzed
peasant, dressed only in shirt and drawers, with boots up to his knees;
a steeple crowned straw hat, with a large carnation pink in it, shading
his closely shaved face, on which no hair was seen save two long curls
pendent in front of his ears, while the back part of his head was shaved
nearly as smooth as his face. This man held in his arms a small pig in a
violent state of squeals. Mixed up among the pigs were many women
dressed in lively colored costumes, looking graceful and pretty, and
gaining added effect from the dark tones of the old gray houses around
them. Advancing upward, at times at angles of forty-five degrees and
more, through narrow streets crowded with picturesque houses (if they
did threaten to tumble down), they at last reached the Piazza: here the
squeeze commenced, crockery, garlic, hardware, clothing, rosaries and
pictures of the saints, flowers; while donkeys, gensdarmes, jackasses,
and shovel hats, strangers, and pretty girls were all pressing with
might and main--they did not seem to know where--probably to the nearest
wine shops, which were driving a brisk trade.
Reaching an inn, our artists ordered dinner, and amused themselves,
while it was being prepared, looking out of the window at the crowds in
the street beneath. On the opposite side of the way were two open
windows, evidently 'behind the scenes' of the main church, since many of
the principal actors in the ceremonies were here attiring themselves in
curious robes prior to their appearing in public. A tallow-faced looking
youth, with no hair on the extreme crown of his head, while swinging a
long wax candle around, struck a fat old gentleman, with a black silk
gown and white lace bertha over it, in the back; whereupon, I regret to
write it, the fat old gentleman struck the tallow-faced youth the
severest kind of a blow below the belt, entirely contrary to the rules
of the P. R. Dexter, having watched the performance, at its conclusion
shouted for very joy; whereupon the stout man, raising his eyes, saw in
the opposite windows the three _forestieri_, and I do assure you that
such a look of malevolence as crossed his face for a moment contained
all the Borgias ever knew of poisons and assassinations. Luckily, the
artists did not have to go to confession to that man.
Dinner finished, Rocjean proposed a walk. They first went to the old
church, but found its interior ruined with whitewash and tawdry
decorations. The music, however, was excellent, but the crowd of
worshippers intense; so they repaired to the cattle market, in the
piazza in front of the prison. They had been there but a short time,
before the procession in honor of the patron saint of Frosinone, whose
full-length seated effigy was carried by bearers, passed them. Along
with other emblems borne by priests or laymen was a cross, apparently of
solid wood, the upright piece fully twelve feet long, and as large round
at the base as your thigh; the transverse piece of the cross was
proportionately large; this was borne with ease by a moderate-sized man.
Caper was at a loss to account for the facility with which the bearer
handled pieces of timber as large as small joists of a house; so he
asked a good-natured looking citizen standing near him, if that wooden
cross was not very heavy?
'Eh! that heavy? Why, it's not wood; it's made of stove-pipes!'
The citizen also told Caper that the seated effigy of the patron saint
had had a hard time of it some years ago, for the country around
Frosinone suffering from a long drought, the inhabitants had in vain
prayed, begged, and supplicated the aforementioned saint to send them
rain; but he remained obdurate, until at last, seeing him so stubborn,
they seized him, in spite of the priests, carried him down to the
bridge, neck and heels, and threatened him, by all his brother and
sister saints, to put him to bed--bed of the stream (it was nearly
dry)--unless he speedily gave them a good supply of rain. In a couple of
days, sure enough, the rain came down, and in such torrents, that there
was a grand rush of the country people from the vicinity, begging the
saint to hold up. Since that time he has behaved very decently, and just
now is in high favor.
There were some fine cattle at the fair; and Dexter, noticing a peculiar
and becoming headdress to several of the long-horned oxen, made of the
skin of some animal, ornamented with bright-colored strips of woollen
with tassels at the end, tried to purchase a pair, but found the owners
generally unwilling to sell them: however, one man at last agreed to
sell a pair made of wolf-skin, with bright red, yellow, and green strips
and tassels, for a fair price, and Dexter at once bought them--as a
study, and also as an ornament for his studio.
The tombola in the Piazza Tosti drew together a large crowd; and then it
was that Rocjean was in his element, Caper delighted, and Dexter
rejoiced in the study of costumes and motives for paintings. The straw
hats worn here looked more picturesque than the black felt conical hats
of the other end of the valley, but the 'soaplocks' of the men were
villanous. The women were brilliant in holiday attire, among their
dresses showing that half-modern Greek, half Neapolitan style, uniting
the classic with the middle age. The _ciociare_, as those who wear
_ciocie_ or sandals are called, were there in full force: one of these
men, with whom Rocjean had a long conversation, told our artist that the
price paid for enough leather for a pair was forty cents. Each sandal is
made of a square piece of sole leather, about twelve inches long by five
inches wide, and is attached to the foot by strings crossing from one
side to the other, and bending the leather into the rough resemblance of
a shoe. The leather is sold by weight, and the _ciociara_ declared that
sandals were far better than shoes.
'But, when it rains, your feet are wet,' suggested Rocjean.
'_Seguro_' (certainly), answered _ciociara_.
'And when it snows, they are wet; and when it is muddy, they won't keep
the mud out; and when it's dusty, where is the dust?'
'Down there in the Campagna!' answered the man. 'But you seem to forget
that we wrap cloths over our feet and legs, as high as the knee, and tie
them all on with strings; or else our women knit brown woollen leggings,
which cover our feet and legs. Well, good or bad, they are better for
_us_ (_noi oltri_) than shoes.'
Fireworks and a ball at the Governor's palace closed that saint's day;
and the next afternoon our artists left the town to return to Segni; but
as toward midnight they began to ascend the long, steep road leading to
the town, they were overtaken by a thunderstorm, which for grandeur
equalled anything that Caper at least had ever seen. The lightning was
nearly incessant, at one flash revealing the valley below them, and
distant mountain peaks after peaks trembling in white light, then all
black as black could be; patches of road in front of the old carriage,
silver one second, sable another; while the thunder cracked and roared,
echoing and reechoing from rock to rock, ringing away up the wild gorge
around which the road wound. The rain fell in torrents, and pebbles and
stones loosened from the mountain sides came falling around them.
Francesco, the driver, on foot, urged the tired horses onward with
blows and the most powerful language he could bring to bear; he accused
the off-horse of being a pickpocket and an _arciprete_, and a robber of
a small family, of which Francesco assured him he knew he was the
father. Then the mare Filomena came in for her share of vilifications,
being called a '_giovinastra_ (naughty girl), a _vecchierellaccia_ (vile
old hag), a--' Here the rain, pebbles, lightning, and thunder
interrupted the driver, and Rocjean told him to take breath and a pull
at his flask, which was filled with _Sambuca_. Thus refreshed, although
soaked to the skin, Francesco livened up, and from despondency passed to
hope, then to joy, finally landing the old carriage near the gate of
Segni, in time for the artists to see far below them the clouds rolling
rapidly away, and hear the thunder grumbling far off, over some other
town, some other benighted travellers.
VALMONTONE was the next town visited, and the festival in honor of its
patron saint, Luigi Gonzago, was a decided success; the singing in the
church operatically excellent; a good-sized tombola; a funny dinner in
the back room of a grocery store, one half of the floor of which was
covered with shelled corn, while the other half was occupied by the
united legs of two tables, a dozen chairs, four dogs, one cat, six male
and three female country people. There was a lamb roasted whole, a small
barrel of wine, plenty of bread, find-your-own-knives-and-be-happy
dinner. Coming out of this small den, and passing a fine large house,
opposite the grand palace of the Prince of Valmontone, behold an Italian
acquaintance of Caper's standing in a balcony with a very handsome
woman; another moment, and Caper was invited in, and passed from poverty
to wealth in the twinkling of an eye. Rooms full of guests, tables
covered with damask linen, silver, flowers, crystal glasses, delicate
food (too late!), good wine (just in time!), charming ladies.
'_Condessa_, permit me to present Signor' Cahpeer, Americano.'
A rich, full, musical voice, lovely eyes, a brilliant toilette--is it
any wonder the heart of our artist beat _con animo_, when the beautiful
woman welcomed him to Valmontone, and hoped it would not be his last
visit. Other introductions, other glasses of sparkling wine--then off
for the street, excitement, music, coffee, and a cigar; pretty girls
with tender eyes; the prince's stables, with hawks nailed to the doors,
and blood horses in their stalls; contadini, cowbells, jackasses; ride
home on horseback by moonlight; head swimming, love coming in, fun
coming out. Exit festival the second.
GAVIGNANO was the scene of the third festival; it is a small town, lying
at the foot of Segni. Caper went there on horseback, and, after a
regular break-neck ride down the mountain, the path winding round like a
string on an apple, arrived there in time to escape a pouring rain, and
find himself in a large hall with three beautiful sisters, the Roses of
Montelanico, numerous contadini friends, and the wine bottles going
round in a very lively and exhilarating manner. The rain ceasing, Caper
walked out to see the town, when his arm was suddenly seized, and,
turning round, who should it be but Pepe the rash, Pepe the
personification of Figaro: a character impossible for northern people to
place outside of a madhouse, yet daily to be found in southern Europe.
Rash, headstrong, full of deviltry, splendid appetite, and not much
conscience--volatile, mocking, irrepressible.
Pepe seized Caper by the arm with a loud laugh, and, only saying,
'_Evviva_, Signor' Giacomo, come along!' without giving him breathing
time, rushed him up narrow streets, down dirty alleys, through a crowd
of mules, mud, and mankind, until they both caught a glimpse of a small
church with green garlands over the door. Hauling Caper inside, he
dragged him through a long aisle crowded with kneeling worshippers,
smashed him down on a bench in front of the main altar, tearing half a
yard of crimson damask and nearly upsetting the priest officiating; and
then, while Caper (red in the face, and totally unfit to hear the fine
chorus of voices, among which Mustafa's, the soprano, came ringing out)
was composing himself to listen, Pepe grabbed him with a 'Music's over;
_andiamo_ (let's go). Did you hear Mustafa? _Bella voce_, tra-la-leeeee!
Mustafa's a contadino; I know his pa and ma; they changed him when only
five years old. Thought he was a Turk, didn't you? He sings in the
Sistine chapel. Pretty man, fat; positively not a sign of a beard.'
Struggling to escape, Caper was rushed out of church, and into a _caffe_
to have a tumblerful of boiling coffee poured down his throat, and again
be expressed up hill at a break-neck rate, catching sights of
tumble-down old houses, mud, water, flowers, peasants, costumes,
donkeys, until he was landed in the Gran' Piazza. Whew!
'Must see the hall where the concert is to-night. Beautiful girl,
_bellisima, pfisp!_ (imitating kiss) girl from Rome; sings three pieces,
Ernani, Norma, _pfisp!_ Come along!
Smack, bang! into the hall, where the silence and presence of a select
few, including Monsignore and the Governatore in council assembled,
commanded silence: Pepe wouldn't hear of it anywheres, so again they
were in the open air; the band was playing good music in the square, the
tombola was about to commence, and contadini were busy with pencils and
tickets, ready to win the eighty scudi put up.
Tombola commenced, and Pepe at once supervised all the tickets within
reach. 'Bravo, twenty-seven! you've got it, Tonio; scratch it, my
lamb.--You haven't, Santi, _poverino mio_.--It's _non c'e_,
Angeluccio.--Ah, Bruno, always lucky.--Fifty-four, _Santa Maria_, who
would have thought it?--_Caro_ Bernardo, _only_ one more number to win
the terno!'
Somebody won the tombola at last, and Pepe told Caper he should wait for
the fireworks and the concert. 'Beautiful girl, ah, _bella_, sings three
pieces;' here he burst out with that song
_'Ninella mia di zucchero,
Prende 'sto core, ed abbraccialo;_'
not waiting for the end of which, Caper interrupted him by saying that
he should not wait for the evening, as he intended returning to Segni at
once.
'Will you?' asked Pepe. 'Oh, _bravo!_ good idea. Concert room will be
crowded to suffocation; get hot, perspire, catch cold. Fireworks
nothing. I'll go with you; great fools to wait. Here is a wine-shop; let
us refresh!'
In they went, and finished a quart, after which Pepe proposed visiting
another wine-shop, where they had some frascati, good and sweet. So he
hurried Caper along so fast through mud and narrow streets, all the way
down hill, that his feet could not begin to hold on the slippery stones,
and both went ahead on the plan of not being able to stop; at last they
reached a landing place, where the wine was sold; hastening in, they
nearly fell over a tall, splendid-looking girl, who was standing in the
hall.
'_Iddio!_ it's my _cara_ Giulia, lovely as ever. Come with us and finish
a bottle; this is our friend Giacomo, Americano, brave youth,
_allegro_!'
'It pleases me well to make the acquaintance of the Signor; I have often
seen him in Segni--'
'And _now_ you'll fall in love with him,
_E tu non pienz' a mi_,''
sang Pepe. 'This comes of my headlong hurry introducing pretty girls to
interesting strangers. Ah, _bella_, Giulia!
'_Zitto!_ Pepe, and pour me out a glass of wine.'
Pepe poured out the wine, one glass after another. Suddenly springing
from his seat, he said, 'Wait here a minute. I see Gaetano: will be back
again _prestissimo!_'
He went, and Caper and Giulia were left seated, talking merrily over the
wine. There were stars shining when Giulia bid good night to Caper, yet
Pepe did not return; he had seized some new idea, may-be the pretty
Roman who sang at the concert. Then Caper saddled his horse and rode out
into the night--glad that he had met black-eyed Giulia.
The night rides up the mountain! Here's romance, real and beautiful. Are
you not treading an old Roman road, over which the legions have marched
to victory, war chariots rattled? Up the mountains, on the old road once
leading over the mountains to Terracina, the _Tarracina_ of the Romans,
who made it one of their naval stations; up that road you go, trusting
solely to your horse, one slip of whose foot would send you into
eternity _via_ a ravine some hundred feet sheer down. Here, bright light
from a _casina_ where the contadini are loading mules with grapes to be
pressed in the city up there near the stars! High above you, nothing but
a wall of black rock, up, up, so high! Stars gleaming down, the comet
tailing from side to side of the ravine, while the path in the ragged,
jagged, storm-gullied rock is so dark you see nothing: your horse stops,
his hind feet slip--no! he clings, his hoofs are planted firm; up he
goes, and there, in the hands of Providence, you are tossed and pitched,
as he winds up and plunges down. The merry ringing, jingling bells of
mules ahead, and the voices of their drivers: turn a corner, and the
bright light of torches flashes in your eyes. Look again and earnestly
at the beautiful scene: mules, drivers, black rocks, olive trees above,
all flamboyant in the ruddy light, appearing and disappearing; a weird,
wild scene. Up, up, long is the way; past the fountain where the stars
are flashing in the splashing waters; past gardens; past the mountain
path at last. _Ecco_, the inn of Gaetano.
ANAGNI held its festival in honor of San Magno (_Prottetore della
Citta_) on the 19th day of August. Gaetano, the landlord, invited Caper
to attend it, putting his famous white horse at the disposal of the
artist, accompanying him on a small bay beast that was extremely fond of
showing his heels to the surrounding objects. Leaving Segni about ten
o'clock in the morning, they had hardly reached a bridle path down the
mountain, nothing more in fact than a gully, when they were joined by a
cavalcade of four other Segnians. One of them, the 'funny fellow' of the
party, was mounted on a very meek-looking donkey, and enlivened the hot
ride across the valley of the Sacco by spasmodic attempts to lead the
cavalcade and come in ahead of the others. He had a lively time as they
approached the city, and a joke with every foot passenger on the way;
but Gaetano, whose reserve was one of his strong points, and who was
anxious to enter Anagni under favorable auspices, gave the word to
Caper, and in a few minutes they left cavalcade and donkey-rider far
behind.
Anagni, the ancient _Anagnia_, was the capital of the Hernici. The
favorite residence, in the middle ages, of several of the popes, it
still shows in its building marks of the wealth it once enjoyed. Having
stabled their horses with a friend of Gaetano's, who insisted on their
finishing the best part of a _bottiglia_ of red wine with him, the
artist, under the landlord's guidance, set out to see the town. They
climbed up street to the cathedral, a fine old pile trembling with music
and filled with worshippers, paintings of saints in extremis, flowers,
wax candles, votary offerings, and heat; then coming out, and feeling
wolfish, looked round for a place where they could find dinner! Here it
was! a scene that would have cheered Teniers: a very large room, its
walls brown with smoke; long wooden tables, destitute of cloth, but
crowded with country people eating, drinking, talking, enjoying
themselves to the utmost extent. Forks were invisible, but every man had
his own knife, and Caper, similarly provided, whipped out his long
pocket weapon and commenced an attack on roast lamb and bread, as if
time were indeed precious. Wine was provided at Fair price; and, with
fruit, he managed to cry at last, 'Hold, enough!'
Gaetano, having a message for a young priest in the seminary there,
asked Caper how he would like to see the interior of the building, and
the way the _prete_ lived? Caper assenting, they entered a fine large
establishment with broad walls and high ceilings, and mounting to the
second story and knocking at the door of a chamber, they were admitted
by a tall, thin, sallow young man, about eighteen years old, evidently
the worse for want of exercise, and none the stronger minded for his
narrow course of education and instruction.
Gaetano introduced Caper to the young priest, and the artist, who, a
moment before entering the room, was as lively as the Infant Bacchus, at
once became melancholy as the Infant Samuel, and a feeling of such pity
seized him, that, endeavoring not to show it, he turned it into a
sentiment of interest in the young priest and his surroundings, admiring
the beautiful view from the window, and, turning inward to a poor wreath
of paper flowers hanging over a holy-water fount attached to the wall,
praised for their resemblance to natural flowers. (Was that untruth
unforgiven?)
'I made them,' said the young priest; 'but they are nothing to the ones
I have made for our church in Montelanico. I will show those to you.'
Opening a large paper box, he showed Caper wreaths and festoons of paper
flowers. 'I have spent weeks on weeks over them,' he continued, 'and
they will decorate the church at the next _festa_. I spend all my
leisure hours making artificial flowers.'
In answer to a question from Caper of the dress he then wore was the
usual one worn by the seminarists on important occasions, the young
priest answered him that it was not, and at once produced the full
dress, putting on the upper garment, a species of cassock, in order to
show him how it looked. He next called his attention to a curious old
work, full of engravings illustrating the different costumes of the
different orders of priests, and was in full discourse to describe them
all, when Gaetano told him that he was sorry, but that he had to go, as
he had some matters to attend to at the fair. So Caper bid the young
priest good-by, saying he regretted that he had not time to further
study the ecclesiastical costumes. A feeling of relief seized him when
he was once more in the open air--thoughts of gunning, fishing,
fighting, anything, so long as it was not the making paper flowers by
that poor, pale-faced boy: it was terrible!
There are several resident families in Anagni having titles; these are
known as the _stelle d'Anagni_ (stars of Anagni), and number among the
ladies many beautiful faces, if those pointed out to him were the true
stars. But it was, while smoking a cigar over a cup of coffee, that he
saw enter the cafe without exception one of the loveliest and most
attractive women he met in Italy. The word _simpatica_, so often used by
Italians, expressing, as it does, so much in so short a space, exactly
applied to the charming woman who passed him, as she entered the room
where he was seated. She was accompanied by several gentlemen, one of
whom, on whose arm she leaned, having the most character of all the
others in his face, and the finest-looking man in figure and carriage,
Caper selected as her husband--and he was right.
Gaetano, having finished his business, soon entered the cafe in company
with a dashing, handsome-looking man, in half ecclesiastical costume;
for though he wore a shovel hat and long-tailed black frock coat, yet
his other clothes, though black, had the air of being made by an _a la
mode_ tailor. His manner was cordial, frank, hearty. He proposed a walk
around the town, to see what was going on among the _villani_. Caper
calling his attention to the lady mentioned above, the ecclesiastic,
making his excuses for his sudden leave, at once hurried over to salute
her, and was evidently very cordially received. He returned in a few
minutes to Caper.
'It is the _Principessa ----_, and she insists on having an introduction
to the American. She is making the _villegiatura_ among these mountain
towns for a frolic. She will be in Segni, with her husband, the Signor
----, and it will be pleasant for you to know them while there.'
'Introduce me by all means. She is the most beautiful woman I have seen
in Italy.'
The introduction was made, and our artist surpassed himself in
conversing intelligibly, much to the delight of the fair Italian and her
friends, who declared they were prepared to converse with him solely by
signs. Promising that when they came to Segni he should not fail to call
upon them, and give them a long account of the savage life he lived
among his Indian brethren in America, he laughingly bid them good day.
The dashing priest now went with Caper and Gaetano through the crowded
streets, pointing out objects of interest, architectural and human; past
booths where all kinds of merchandise was exposed for sale, out to see
the ancient massive walls of travertine, where divers stunning objects
were carved, inscriptions, &c. Then they found a wine shop, where it was
cool and tolerably quiet, and smoked and drank until sunset, having much
sport conversing with the amiable _villane_, who were as comfortably
tipsy as their circumstances would permit. At sunset, the Piazza Grande
was brilliant with hangings, crimson and gold, and colored tapestry hung
from the windows of the surrounding houses. Here the tombola was held,
and here the crowd was excited as usual; the lucky ones bearing off the
prizes were in such rapturous state of bliss--'one might have stuck pins
into them without their feeling it.'
About sunset, Gaetano and Caper saddled their horses, and left the city,
striking over the valley to Segni, passing on the road country people
mounted on donkeys, or travelling along on foot, nine tenths of whom
were vigorously canvassing--the life of Saint Magno?--no, indeed, but
the chances of the lottery!
There was to have been the next day, at Anagni, a curious chase of
buffaloes, in accordance with some passage in the life of San Magno, as
the people said; but, according to Rocjean, more probably some neglected
ceremony of the ancient heathens, which the party in power, finding they
could not abolish, gracefully tacked on to the back of the protector of
the city. These kind of things are done to an alarming extent around
Rome; and the Sieur de Rocjean, when he lost his calendar containing the
dates of all the festivals, said it was of no importance--he had and
excellent Lempriere!
The fifth festival--if you have patience to read about it--was held at
GENAZZANO, and was decidedly the most celebrated one of the season. It
came off on the 8th of September, and for costumes, picturesqueness, and
general effect, might have been called, to copy from piano literature,
_Le Songe d'un Artiste_.
The town itself looks as if it had just been kicked out of a theatre.
Round towers at entrance gates, streets narrow and all up hill, the
tiles on the houses running down to see what is going on in the gutter,
quaint old houses, gray with time, with latticed windows, queer old
doors, a grand old castle in ruins. It is one of the scenes you long so
much to see before you come abroad, and which you so seldom find along
the Grande Route. Spend a summer in the mountain towns of Italy! among
the Volscian mountains or hills--and have your eyes opened.
As Caper entered the gate, the first objects meeting his sight were: a
procession of genuine pilgrims, dressed precisely as you see them in
Robert le Diable, or Linda di Chamouni, or on the stage generally--long
gray robes down to their feet, cocked hats with cockle shells, long
wands; some barefoot, some with sandals: on they passed, singing
religious songs. Then came the peasantry, all in perfect theatrical
harmony, costumes rigidly correct _a la Sonnambula_. German artists
dressed in Sunday clothes _a la Der Freyschutz_. A cafe with festoons of
lemon-peel hung from window to window--they are not up to this idea in
_Fra Diavolo_. Pretty girls in latticed windows, with red boddices,
white sleeves, flowers in their hair--_legitimate Italian drama_.
Crockery-ware in piles--_low comedy_. A man with a table, Sambuca and
Acqua-vita bottles on it, and wee glasses, one cent a drink:
_melodrama_. Fresh oranges and figs, pumpkin-seed and pine cones; a
house with mushrooms strung on thread, hanging from window to
window--this was not for festival display, but is the common way of the
country. Notices of the _festa_, containing programme of the day,
including amusements, ecclesiastical and secular, hung up alongside the
stands where they were selling lottery tickets--_tragedy_. Fountains,
with groups of peasantry drinking, or watering horses and
donkeys--_pantomime_. Priests, in crow-black raiment, and canal-boat or
shovel hats--_mystery_. Strangers from Rome, in the negro-minstrel style
of costume, if young men; or in the rotund-paunch and black-raiment
dress, if elderly men; or in the _chiffonee_ style, if Roman women
attempting the last Parisian fashion--_farce_.
Here are the booths with rosaries, crucifixes, Virgin Mary's holy-water
holders, medals of Pio Nono, or jewelry; gold crescent earrings,
_spadine_ (long silver hair pins); silver hearts, legs, arms, for votive
offerings, and crosses without number.
Caper entered the church; it was filled, and stifling with heat and
frankincense, and contadini, and wax lights burning before the shrine,
on which the sun shone. There were beautiful faces among the _pajine_
(people in fine raiment), showing what can be made from the _contadine_
(people in coarse clothes) by not overworking them.
Once more our artist was in the pure air, and, walking up the main
street, came to a house with a beautifully carved stone window, half
Byzantine, half Gothic, while a house on the opposite side of the street
boasted of two other windows finely carved. While looking at them, Caper
was hailed by name, and a stout, fresh-colored English artist, named
Wardor, whom he had known in Rome, came over and welcomed him to
Genazzano. Wardor, it turned out, was spending the summer there, as he
had done the year before; consequently, there was not a nook or corner
in the old town he did not know; and if he had not been so lazy, he
could have filled his sketch book with a hundred picturesque studies.
But no; with the keenest appreciation of every bit of color, every
graceful pose of a human figure, every beautiful face, every fine effect
of light or shadow--he made no sign. _His_ legitimate function was
friendly guide to the stranger, and in this office he carried Caper all
over the old castle, out to the long shady walk on the esplanade behind
it, pointed out beautiful views over the valley; finally, showing Caper
his studio, which, as it was a large room, and his _padrona_ could
impose on his good nature, was fairly glittering with copper pans, hung
on the walls when not in use in the kitchen. On an easel was a painting,
to be called The King of the Campagna; all that was apparent was the
head and horns of the king. Wardor had thus actually spent three mouths
painting on a space not so large as your fist, while the canvas was at
least three feet by two feet and a half. But the king, a buffalo, would
be a regal figure, for the head was life itself.
Caper proposed finishing a bottle of wine with Wardor, in honor of the
day; so the latter piloted him up street and then down a flight of steps
to a quiet wine-shop, where, sitting on a shady terrace, they could
calmly enjoy the lovely landscape spread below them, and look over the
town, over the valley, to far-away Segni high up in the Volscians. The
landlord's wife, a buxom, comely woman, in full holiday costume, brought
them a flask of cool wine and glasses, presenting them at the same time
with a couple of very large sweet apples, the largest of which was
thirteen inches in circumference by actual measurement. So you see they
have apples as well as oranges in Italy; only, apples are practical, so
they are generally omitted in the poetical descriptions of the
blue-skyed land.
Caper and Wardor dined together in a very crowded inn, where the
maccaroni must have been cooked by the ton, to judge of the sized dish
the two artists were presented with--and which they finished! Chickens,
lamb chops, salad, and two flasks of wine at last satisfied them. When
they left the table, Wardor proposed their calling on a Roman family,
who were spending the summer in the town. They found the house they
occupied crowded with guests, who, having finished dinner, were busily
employed dancing to the music of two guitars and a flute; that is, the
younger part of them, while the elders applauded vociferously, entering
into the amusement with a reckless spirit of fun and good nature, which
people who have to keep shady nine tenths of the year for fear of their
rulers, are very apt to indulge in the remaining tenth.
Elisa, the daughter of the Roman family, received Caper with hearty
welcome, chiding him for having been all summer at Segni, and yet not
coming near them, and entreating him to come to Genazzano and make them
a long visit. She introduced him at once to her affianced husband, a
handsome young doctor of the town, a man of sterling ability and sound
common sense, who very soon made Caper at home, insisted on his dancing
the _Tarantella_ and _Saltarella Napolitana_ with a lively, lithe young
lady, who cut our artist's heart to fiddlestrings before they had danced
five minutes together a polka--for let the truth be told, Caper never
could dance the Tarantella.
Wardor, in the meantime, had been led off in triumph to a side-table,
and was making a very hearty second dinner; he not having force of mind
enough to do like Caper and refuse a good offer! Caper had to drink a
few tumblers (not wine-glasses) of wine, and found it beneficial in
dancing. It may be as well to repeat here, in order to calm all
apprehensions of our artist being a hard drinker, that all these wines
around Rome, with few exceptions, are little stronger than mild sweet
cider, and that satiety will generally arrive before inebriety. Ask any
sober and rigorously correct traveller, who has ever been there, if this
is not so. If he speaks from experience, he will say: 'Certainly!' 'Of
course!' 'To be sure!' And again: 'Why not?'
It is not asserted here that the Romans of the city or surrounding
country never get tipsy; but that it is only occasionally they have
change enough to do so; consequently, a beautiful state of sobriety is
observed by those travellers who--never observe anything.
The moon was shining over the old gate-towers of Genazzano when Caper
mounted his horse, and, in company with two Segnians, rode forth from
the fifth _festa_, and over the hills through Cavi, and over the valley
past Valmontone, and then up the steep road to his summer home;
wondering if in far-away America they were dreaming of a man who was
going through a course of weekly Fourth-of-July's, and how long it would
be before the world came to an end if such a state of things existed in
any country where people had liberty to study geography, and were ruled
by politicians instead of priests?
* * * * *
'May I ask your candid opinion of the great moral effect of so many
holidays on an uneducated population?' inquired Caper one day of
Rocjean, while speaking of the festivals of the Papal States.
'Certainly you may! My opinion is that the head of the state, carrying
out the gigantic policy of his predecessors, believes: 'That that
government governs best that gives the greatest amount of fiddling to
the greatest amount of its children.''
'But,' objected Caper, 'I don't see where the fiddling comes in.'
'In the churches!' sententiously remarked the Sieur de Rocjean.
'Oh,' quoth Caper, 'I was thinking of festivals.'
Reader, do you think likewise, when you are with the Romans.
THOUGHT.
Life is but an outer wall
Round the realm of thought unseen;
Ah! to let the drawbridge fall
Leading to that magic hall!
Ah! to let creation in.
Kings that with the world contended,
What remains of all the splendid
Misery their hands have wrought?
Hushed and silent now the thunder
They have made the world rock under;
But the ages bow in wonder
To a thought.
Ah! the many tragic parts
That are played by human hearts
In that golden drama, fame.
These are minor actors truly,
That should not be seen unduly,
Letting idle recollection
Trifle with the play's perfection,
Letting an unwritten anguish
Make the brilliant pageant languish.
Alas for every hero's story,
That the woes which chiefly make it
Must surge from the heart, or break it,
And show the stuff that fashions glory.
Pyramids and templed wonders
At the best are wise men's blunders;
The subtle spell of thought and fancy,
It is Nature's necromancy.
In that land where all things real
Blossom into the ideal,
In that realm of hidden powers
Moving this gross world of ours,
He that would inherit fame,
Let him on the magic wall
Of some bright, ideal hall
Write his name;
He and glory then shall be
Comrades through eternity.
While the deeds of mighty kings
Sleep the sleep of meaner things,
Thoughts enclosed in words of granite
Revolutionize our planet.
And, itself a new creation,
Many an enchanted tune,
As of nightingale's in June,
Comes floating down in long vibration,
To the chorus of the hours
Lending its harmonial powers,
Or through Time's resounding arches
Playing Nature's solemn marches,
To whose beat the marshalled nations
Pass in steady generations.
But deem not the thoughts unspoken,
Silent despots of the brain,
Build their airy halls in vain,
Die and leave behind no token.
As the stars upon the ether
Play their golden monody,
Flashing on dusk-featured night
The soft miracle of light;
So upon a finer ether,
A spiritual emanation
From the whole mind of creation,
Plays the brain incessantly;
And each thought is a vibration,
Running like a poet's rhyme
Down the endless chords of time,
And on each responsive brain
Dropping in a silver rain
Of divinest inspiration.
When the whirlwind rush of war
Passes, and is heard no more,
Voices crushed beneath its din
Rise and their long reign begin;
Thoughts like burning arrows hurled
At the tyrants of the world,
Thoughts that rend like battle axes
Till wrong's giant hand relaxes,
Thoughts that open prison gates
And strike the chains of prostrate limb,
That turn the current of the fates,
Like God's commissioned cherubim
With divine authority
To proclaim creation free,
And plant in human hearts the seeds
That shall grow to noble deeds.
Ha! when genius climbs the throne
Sacred to oppression grown,
And from his seat plucks tyranny;
When, with thoughts that pierce like flame,
Songs, and every word a fame,
She crowns imperial Liberty,
Then shall the usurper, glory,
End his foul and brutal story,
And manhood evermore shall be
A synonym of liberty.
'IT STILL MOVES.'
It still goes on. The driving rain
May chill, but light will gleam again,
It still goes on. Truth's enemy
Wins a defeat with victory.
It still goes on. Cold winter's snow
Comes that the grass may greener grow;
And Freedom's sun, whate'er befall,
Shines warm and bright behind it all.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE REBELLION.
Among all the subjects of human cognizance, the least understood, and
therefore the most difficult of anticipation, are those which concern
the acts of men, as individuals or in society. Presumptuous, indeed,
would be that man who should undertake to foretell the exact results of
pending political or military operations, complicated as they must be by
innumerable unknown and undiscoverable contingencies, which lie hidden
in the circumstances of the actual situation. The difficulty of this
investigation does not arise, however, from the absence of fixed laws
controlling such events, but solely from our ignorance of those laws,
and the extreme complexity of the conditions in which they act. The
issue of existing causes is as certain as this moment, as it will be
after it shall have become unalterable in history. No accident can
disturb or thwart it; for, in truth, there can be no such thing as
accident, except in our imaginations, and by reason of our incapacity to
trace the continuous thread of inevitable sequence, or causation, which
connects together all events whatever, in their inception, through their
continuance, and to their end. All enlightened thinkers of the present
age have recognized this great truth; and yet none have been able to
apply to social and political affairs the sole admitted test of genuine
philosophy, the prediction of future results from known antecedents.
Indeed, the wisest and most competent of political observers have always
been the most cautious in their indulgence of the prophetic spirit, and
the most ready to acknowledge their ignorance of what the future will
bring forth in the great field of political and social affairs.
Gasparin, in his late admirable book, 'America before Europe' (according
to his American translator), has this very modest passage on this
subject:
'Not feeling any vocation for the character of prophet, I shall
take care not to recount here, in advance, events that are about to
happen. I marvel at people who are so sure of their facts. The
future has not the least obscurity for them; it has much for me. I
confine myself to protesting against the positive assertions which
have contributed but too greatly to mislead the opinion of Europe.
My humbles theory is this: the defeat of the South is _probable_;
the return of the conquered South to the Union is _possible_.'
But while 'political or military vaticination' is proverbially unsafe,
and therefore to be carefully avoided by all judicious inquirers, and
especially by practical statesmen, it must at the same time be admitted
that some of the general laws controlling such events are well
understood; and whenever all the facts of a case are known and
appreciated, and the laws applicable fully comprehended, then it is
possible to anticipate the results of that particular combination with
absolute certainty. Other causes may interfere, and modify these
results--may accelerate of postpone them, or entirely absorb and conceal
them in the general issue of complicated affairs. Yet the particular
results themselves are not, and cannot be defeated or annulled. They are
merely transformed by a sort of 'composition and resolution' of social
and political causes, exactly similar to that which takes place in
mechanics, when two or more forces not concurrent in direction, impel a
body in a line altogether different from that in which either of the
forces may have acted. Every physical impulse, it is said, which is
initiated anywhere on the earth, is felt to the extremities of our solar
system--every motion of the smallest particle of matter communicating
its effect, however inappreciable, to the most distant planet, and as
far beyond as the power of gravitation may extend. It is precisely so
with all social events, even those of the most insignificant character.
Every one of them has its appropriate influence, which is
indestructible; and they all combine to make up the great whole of human
action, the results of which at any specific period are only the
necessary and inevitable consequences of all antecedent facts.
It was the opinion of that most accomplished political philosopher,
Burke, that 'politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings, but
to human nature, of which reason is but a part, and by no means the
greatest part,'--the meaning of which is, simply, that the reasonings do
not comprehend, as premises, all the complicated facts which enter into
any important political problem, and hence the conclusion in such cases
cannot be absolutely certain, and ought not to be implicitly received.
It would be extremely difficult to explain how politics could be
adjusted to human nature without the exercise of reason, which alone can
regulate the process of adjustment. But we may certainly claim that, in
the lapse of nearly a century since Burke wrote, the reason has been
considerably enlightened, and something more has been learned of human
nature itself, its apparently capricious and irregular phenomena having
been ascertained to be the subjects of systematic order, as complete as
that which prevails in all other departments of nature. The laws of
social existence and development have been to some extent discovered,
and recognized as being uniform in their operation, so that the natural
and necessary course of human events may be anticipated, though as yet
in a dim and imperfect way. The present age is fruitful of many wonders;
but the greatest of them all is this important truth, which has just
begun fairly to dawn upon mankind. It is already so firmly established,
that no intelligent man who is fully up with the knowledge of his epoch,
can admit the least doubt that all events, however complicated, whether
social, political, military, or of any other kind, are controlled by
general laws, as uniform and certain in their operation as the laws of
astronomy, of physics, or of chemistry. The complexity of conditions
under which they operate, makes these laws extremely difficult of
discovery and of application. But the infinite combinations of
influences which press on minds of individual members of society, and
make the acts of each one of them apparently uncertain and arbitrary,
exhibit a truly wonderful degree of uniformity, when considered in their
operation on the whole mass of a nation. It is by the investigation of
these wide and general effects, that the great laws of human action and
development are ascertained. Their actual existence is absolutely
certain. But after all, in the present state of our knowledge, with all
the light afforded by such history as we have of the past, and with all
the experience of the present generation, the sum and substance of what
we can claim is no more than this: that some influences of a social and
political nature may be traced to their certain results, though, from
the intricacy of all social facts, their vast extent in a great nation,
and especially when international interests are concerned, and from our
necessarily imperfect acquaintance with all these varied, multiplex, and
powerful conditions, we cannot always foresee what conflicting causes
will intervene to counteract, modify, and control the actual issue. It
is therefore only in the most general way that anything can be said with
reference to the future in social or political affairs.
In two former articles contributed to THE CONTINENTAL, we have
endeavored to point out 'the causes of the rebellion,' finding them in
events and conditions contemporaneous with the birth of our
institutions, and in the necessary antagonism of social and political
principles naturally developed in the progress of our country, and
embodied in appropriate but conflicting forms. If we have been
successful in designating the real causes, and tracing their operation
through successive stages, down to the tremendous and calamitous events
of the present day, we may hope to follow these causes, to some extent,
in their further development, and in their necessary action on the
destiny of the nation. We can at least mark the direction of the stream
of affairs as it rolls grandly before us; and while we may not know
precisely through what regions it will take its course, or by what
rapids and over what cataracts it will be hurried and precipitated with
furious and destructive force, we can nevertheless pronounce with
confidence that it will finally make its way, in spite of all
obstructions, to the broad and peaceful ocean of amelioration, into
which all the currents of human action, however turbid, and filled with
wrecks of human work and genius, eventually pour their inevitable
tribute. We can even look through the mists of time which limit mortal
vision, and catch some glimpses of the bloody current, observing where
it disappears in gloom and shadow, only to come forth again in the
distance as a shining river, glistening in the sunlight of peace and
prosperity, and bearing on its bosom the full-freighted ark of a mighty
nation, resting from war, reunited, and reawakened to the animating
sense of a glorious destiny. Though the present generation should be
compelled to struggle and labor, through its whole term of existence,
with immense sacrifice and suffering, such are the elements involved in
the contest, that nothing but good to the nation, which is surely
destined to survive, can come out of it in the end.
The whole history of our country, its origin, the peculiar organization
of our institutions, and their gradual growth and development down to
the present day, seem to have been arranged and ordered for the very
purpose of engendering this contest between slavery and freedom. If this
statement be too strong, we may at least assert that no better
conditions for that purpose could have been devised, by human wisdom at
all events, than those which existed at every stage of our progress,
from the beginning of our existence as a people, to the culmination of
this long-smouldering strife. The germs of freedom and slavery, which we
know were planted in the infancy of our republic, found in the
circumstances surrounding them the most favorable conditions for their
respective growth and expansion. Each found ample opportunity to
flourish according to its nature and necessities, modified, it may be,
but not destroyed, by the unfavorable institutions which coexisted with
it. The organization of separate colonies, and afterward of separate
States, measurably independent, afforded these two irreconcilable
systems full opportunity for complete development, and rendered it
possible for them to maintain, each, a distinct existence in different
localities, and to unfold their respective natures and tendencies, with
comparatively little interference of the one with the other. Thus
slavery soon became extinct in Massachusetts, and died out rather more
slowly in the other Free States of the original thirteen. It flourished
in Maryland and Virginia, and later, from peculiar circumstances, it
grew rank, with unexampled fecundity, in the Carolinas and Georgia. Had
the Government of the United States been consolidated, the conditions of
slavery and free labor would have been wholly different; and it is
reasonable to infer that the course of development of the respective
systems would have been materially modified, if not altogether changed.
We may pronounce with certainty that the institution would not have
become extinct in the whole country as soon as it did in Massachusetts,
or, indeed, in any one of the present Free States; but we cannot assert
that the converse of this proposition would have been true, and that the
Government, as a centralized power, would have abolished slavery more
certainly, and sooner, than the most backward of the separate States may
now be expected to do, under the complex forms of our present
Constitution. In a consolidated government, the power of the majority
would have been competent to effect fundamental and universal changes,
even to the extent of abolishing slavery; but without the existence of
separate States, with their independent local legislation and
administrations, the gradual undermining and destruction of the old
system would have been a process of extreme procrastination and
difficulty. It would have been a gigantic undertaking, convulsing the
whole nation whenever attempted, and yet demanding the exercise of its
united authority for its accomplishment. We should not have had the
effective antagonism of the Free against the Slave States, nor the
demonstration which results from the striking contrasts between the two
systems in their effects on civilization, in all its forms of
intelligence, enterprise, wealth, and improvement. Contiguous States,
with separate jurisdictions, admitted a divergence of customs, laws, and
institutions, remarkable in its character, and fraught with momentous
consequences to the whole sisterhood. Nothing like this could have
occurred under the consolidated form. It is true, according to the
principles we have heretofore enounced as having been established by
universal history and experience, slavery must have disappeared
eventually, alike in a consolidated or a federal form of government; for
it is now well understood by all enlightened thinkers, that different
forms of polity may either facilitate or embarrass the natural
development of society, but cannot actually create or altogether destroy
the tendency to improvement. This tendency is innate in man, and
independent of all forms of government, though not wholly unaffected by
them. But in our vast country, under a centralized system, however
democratic, it would have been far more difficult to initiate the work
of emancipation, on account of the magnitude and unity of the power to
be moved, and for want of those _points d'appui_ afforded by the local
organization and independent authority of the states in a confederacy.
Our own experience, and the recent example of Russia, may serve to
convince us that a consolidated representative republic would probably
have been less favorable to the abolition of slavery than an imperial
and despotic government. The serf-owners of Russia, had the question
been submitted to them, would have been as little disposed to vote for
the destruction of their system, as the slave-holders of America have
shown themselves inclined to submit to the voice of the majority under
our republican institutions.
Thus, it was characteristic of our peculiar political forms, that they
gave opportunity for the complete trial of each of the two plans of
social organization which grew out of the early introduction of African
slaves into the colonies. For while it seems to be clear that the
federal system was most favorable to the disappearance of slavery from
those localities where circumstances made emancipation easy and
advantageous, it is equally plain that it afforded full scope to the
growth and influence of the system of servile labor, wherever, from
climatic conditions, it was peculiarly profitable, and otherwise adapted
to the productions of the region, and to the prevailing sentiments of
the people. The confederated form of government, therefore, almost of
necessity originated the antagonism of Free States against Slave States;
while, at the same time, and from the same cause, it enabled the
opposite sections to give infinitely greater force and effect to this
antagonism, than would have been possible under any other
constitutional conditions. Rebellion might possibly have been initiated
within the bosom of a consolidated republic, and such a government might
well have been broken into two or more fragments; but this would have
been far less likely to happen in that case than in existing
circumstances. At all events, there would have been no room for the
dangerous doctrine of secession, and that plausible pretext would have
been wanting to the incipient rebellion; nor would there have been
anything equivalent to the State organizations which unfortunately
afforded the ready means of immediate and most effective combination.
The inestimable advantages of our complex political system in avoiding
the necessary despotism of consolidated government, by establishing
local legislation and administration in a number of partially
independent States, were in some measure counterbalanced by a natural
tendency to discord among the parts, and a capacity for independent
action in support and perpetuation of dangerous divergencies of opinion
and policy. If some States could repudiate slave labor, and gradually
build the fabric of their prosperity on the safer basis of universal
education, others could, with equal disregard of everything but their
own will and fancied interests, cherish and encourage the original
system of servile subordination and compulsory ignorance of the laboring
class, with which all the States started into their career of
independence at the commencement of the Revolution. And, unhappily, both
parties to this discordant social action were unrestrained by any
constitutional obligation, or by any common authority whatever, in the
indulgence, within their respective limits, of mutual hatred and
vituperation, with all those numberless and exasperating injuries which
no law can either notice or redress. These conflicting capabilities,
with their attendant dangers, lurked in the body of our political
organization from the very beginning. They were born with it; they grew
with its growth, and strengthened with its strength, until the fatal
hour when rebellion undertook the wicked work of its destruction.
Whatever may be the actual issue of the struggle--whether the attempted
dismemberment shall prove a success or a disastrous failure--the effect
of the civil war on the character of our institutions must be
commensurate with the organic character of the causes out of which it
arose. So profound a disturbance of the existing social order, so vast
an upheaval of the very foundations of the whole political fabric, must
either rend it into fragments, and make necessary a complete
reconstruction, or must cause it to settle down upon a basis firmer and
more lasting than that on which it has hitherto rested. We think it
almost absolutely certain that the latter result will be brought out in
the end. It cannot be possible that our system will be utterly
destroyed; and if, against all human probabilities, it should be
momentarily overthrown, it will rise again hereafter in greater splendor
and power, by reason of the very calamity through which it will have
passed.
The federative system, on this continent, will never be abandoned; it
will be far more likely to be extended much beyond its present limits,
even including that immense territory which has been the theatre of its
origin and glorious progress down to the present day. Its superiority
over any system of consolidated power on a large scale, is beyond all
doubt, inasmuch as it provides effectually for the perfect freedom of
local legislation and administration, and for the full participation of
all the parts in the government of the whole, as to those questions
which concern the general interests. But in this very distribution of
powers always consisted the greatest difficulty and the most threatening
peril; for nothing but actual experience, long continued, could adjust
to each other with perfect accuracy the nicely balanced parts of this
complicated political machinery. The principle of local independence is
naturally liable to exaggeration and abuse. The State authorities have
ever shown a tendency to claim absolute sovereignty, and to array their
will against the authority of the Federal Government. This troublesome
question, forever recurring in the important exigencies of our national
life, has never been definitely settled, and perhaps it could not be,
except under the pressure of a great and critical emergency like the
present. One of the most important consequences of the rebellion will
therefore be to dispose of this question forever--to settle the
boundaries of the local and general authorities, and to fix them
permanently and unalterably. This might possibly have been accomplished
in the appointed way, by conventions and explanatory amendments to the
Constitution. But such proceedings would have been subject to all the
uncertain contingencies and delays involved in partisan struggles and
popular elections, and to all the imperfections of halfway measures and
expedients of compromise, born amid angry contentions, and bartered for
by ambitious aspirants to place and power. By no other means could a
complete and adequate arrangement of the difficulty be brought about so
effectually as by the terrible lessons of this lamentable civil war.
Nothing else would have been so well calculated to clear the eyes of the
people of all illusions, and to give them an accurate insight into the
character and demands of the crisis. Great disasters, which destroy the
fortunes of men, and disturb the prosperity of nations, never fail to
awaken the human soul, and impart to it some new and important truths.
The sufferings and calamities of the war are indeed great and
overwhelming; yet there will be some compensation for them all, in the
sad experience we shall gain, and in the stability which will result to
our sorely tried institutions in the future. Even if, against all
apparent possibilities, the rebellious States should finally conquer
their independence, not only the old Government, but even the new one
itself, or the batch of new ones that will spring up, will have learned
the most salutary lessons from the whole course of this sanguinary
struggle. No sundering of such ties as have always heretofore existed
among these States can ever take place peaceably. Both we and our
enemies will have been taught the never-to-be-forgotten truth that
secession is civil war. And we should probably have reason thereafter to
add to this sad lesson the still more solemn and portentous one, that
permanent separation of these States is nothing more or less than
perpetual war, with the accompaniments of large standing armies, vast
public debts, oppressive taxes, loss of liberty, and progressive decline
of civilization. This state of things would, however, eventually cure
itself. What is called the balance of power in Europe has been brought
to its present condition of imperfect stability only through centuries
of war. What bloody commotions should we experience before the
conditions of stable equilibrium could be attained by the warring States
of our broken Union? Each petty fragment of the discordant mass would
contain within itself the germs of precisely such a struggle as we are
now passing through. For though the Confederate Government may have
ostensibly recognized the actual sovereignty of the separate States
composing it, and thereby pretended to establish the principle of
secession as a right, the war will not have reached its termination
before that doctrine will be practically and effectually destroyed in
the very contest for its assertion. At the moment of its apparent
triumph, secession itself would expire; for so strong a government will
be indispensable to this achievement, and to the maintenance of the new
power, that the very principle which presided at its birth will be
suspended and destroyed by the paramount necessities of its existence
and condition. Any one of the deluded States which might in that case
attempt to assert this right, would soon find, in renewed calamities,
the folly and danger of the theory on which it is founded.
Nothing but the hope of foreign intervention has sustained the cause of
the rebellion until the present time; and the realization of that hope
can alone keep up its vitality, and give it success in the future. The
disparity of strength and numbers in the two sections is decisive of the
whole case, if they be left to conclude the fight themselves. The
question is one of means and men, of resources and endurance; and when
we consider the effects of the blockade, and of the probably action of
the slaves under the policy of the President, or even under the ordinary
progress of the war, no great length of time can be required to bring
the contest to an issue, even if the armies of the Union should not at
once succeed in overwhelming the enemy and taking possession of his
country. In spite of discouraging delays and military blunders, and of
all the waste of life and means which have hitherto marked the conduct
of the war, the great struggle is still progressing rapidly, though
silently, in other fields than those of battle, and with other weapons
than bayonets and artillery. The sinews of war are gradually becoming
shrivelled in the arm of the rebellion. Every bale of cotton locked up
in the ports of the South, or hidden in its thickets and ravines, or
given to the flames by ruthless hands of the guerillas, is so much
strength withheld from the enemy, and, in the vast aggregate, will
eventually be equivalent to the overthrow of his armies and the capture
of his cities. The large number of slaves rushing to our lines, and the
still greater number rendered restless under restraint, and preparing to
escape, may be expected, in any other year, to make even his supply of
bread precarious, and still further to paralyze his strength and destroy
his means of resistance. But in addition to these accumulating
difficulties and misfortunes, our armies are everywhere moving down upon
him apparently with irresistible force, and threaten to anticipate the
slower, but not less certain work of physical exhaustion. He is hard
pressed in Virginia, where his pretended capital is again menaced; he is
driven out of Kentucky and Missouri, and is fast receding before our
victorious forces in Tennessee. We have penetrated into Mississippi, and
await only the swelling of the waters to capture its last stronghold,
Vicksburg, when the great valley from Cairo to New Orleans will be in
our possession, and the rebel confederacy will be sundered through its
very spine. We hold important points on the Atlantic coast and in the
Gulf, including the great metropolis of the South, New Orleans, and the
whole coast of Texas.
By her own energies alone, these losses can never be recovered by the
South. Without aid from abroad, there is not the remotest possibility of
prolonging the contest for another year, much less of establishing the
Confederate Government on any permanent basis. And even with such
interference, supposing it to be successful, the career of the new power
would be brief, and full of trouble. It would merely exchange its
position of equality in the old Union, for one of degrading dependence
and subserviency to some one of the great European Governments. The
system of slavery could not be preserved. The demoralization has already
gone too far; and no French sovereign or English administration could
safely venture to interfere in our quarrel for the purpose of upholding
that institution. In the midst of a dissolving social organization, this
exhausted and fragmentary American power, galvanized into temporary
vitality by the sinister aid of foreign arms, would be compelled to
undertake the task of determining its boundaries, defending its
frontiers, and reorganizing its chaotic society. All this would have to
be accomplished in the presence of a still powerful adversary, jealous
of her own rights, and ever ready to assert them, as opportunity would
permit, in the face of all opposition. European affairs are not yet so
thoroughly adjusted, and the peace of that continent established on so
firm a basis, that complications may not be anticipated at almost any
moment, which would at once free America from the disgraceful trammels
of foreign intervention. It is doubtful whether such a movement from
Europe could be successful, even under all the deplorable difficulties
which now beset our country. Let any one of those Governments lay its
hand on the United States, and revolution would probably hasten to rear
its awful head, and so arouse the people of the continent as to shake
and endanger the very thrones which now seem to be most firmly
established. The unfriendly blow aimed at us might possibly react upon
its authors, and transfer to them the misfortunes and disorders which
now afflict this country. So just a retribution is not beyond the
probabilities of the present situation in Europe, whether intervention
should come from the English aristocracy or from the French emperor. The
instincts of the people, everywhere, are on our side; their strong arms
may not be slow to vindicate the judgment they pronounce, and to follow
the sentiments and sympathies which animate their generous hearts.
But in spite of all difficulties and discouragements, at home or abroad,
we firmly believe our righteous cause will eventually prevail, and the
Union be restored to even more than its former glory. The overthrow of
the power of the rebellion, the utter exhaustion of all its resources,
and the frightful derangement of its entire social economy, will leave
the people of the South in a condition of helplessness which will render
further resistance impracticable. An immediate resumption of hostilities
will be effectually prevented by the military force which will
necessarily be maintained for some time after the close of the final
campaign of the war; and before the strength of the rebellious States
can be recruited for another similar contest, new ideas will be
engendered, and new sentiments of attachment to the Union may be
expected to grow up and take the place of that unnatural bitterness
which has exasperated the war and prolonged its horrors. An inevitable
change of institutions in the South, with moderate and conciliatory
measures on the part of the North, will serve gradually to heal the
dangerous wound, self-inflicted, which has so nearly destroyed the very
existence of the fairest and most favored part of our country. In the
end, a homogeneous society will extend over the whole Union, and new
vigor will be infused into our political organization, by reason of its
recovery from the terrible disease by which it has been attacked and for
a time utterly prostrated. The alterative effects of this critical
danger overcome, and of the treatment rendered necessary, will doubtless
be one of the most important consequences of the rebellion.
The dogma of secession, as applied to our complex government, is
inconsistent with reason, and has often been effectually refuted by
argument. But sophistry, stimulated by ambition, was ever ready to renew
the controversy, and to perpetuate it in all the forms of vicious logic
and plausible ratiocination. The appeal to force, however, has done
something more than refute an argument; it has already discomfited the
whole theory, and it will not end short of the utter annihilation of the
very idea of secession as a right, and as a remedy for any evils,
fancied or real, which may be suffered or imagined under our Government.
After the close of the war, when men look back to its bloody fields and
its awful sacrifices, they will be amazed at the insane folly which
permitted them to consider the great American Union, with its honorable
history, its wonderful progress, its immense power, and its proud
standing among the nations, as a mere league among petty states, to be
dissolved at pleasure--as a thing to be broken into fragments, and to be
divided among ambitious aspirants, to be made the sport of domestic
faction, or of foreign rapacity and domination, changing its form and
proportions with every change of popular feeling and every restless
movement of popular discontent. These fatal delusions will be made to
disappear forever, and in their place there will remain in the minds of
men the image of a majestic Government, tried in the furnace of civil
war, made solid and immovable by its grand and successful efforts to
resist the threatened overthrow of its power, and becoming paternal by
the recovery of its wonted strength, which will permit and require the
exercise of magnanimous forbearance even toward those misguided citizens
who have raised their traitorous hands against it. Thus, with the awe
and fear which will be inspired by the tremendous energy put forth to
conquer the rebellion--an energy which will appear only so much the
greater and more imposing in proportion to the difficulties and dangers
met and overcome--there will be mingled the better sentiments of love
and veneration for a Government which re-establishes order, secures
protection to all civil rights, and restores, unimpaired, the liberties
which have been disregarded for a time, in order that they might be
permanently saved. To the people of the United States, the Union will be
what it never was before, and what it never could have been without the
sad experience it is undergoing now. Not that any change of form need be
effected, or any violence done to the principles on which our system is
founded. The change will be solely in the spirit in which our
institutions will be administered, arising from the altered sentiments
and feelings of the whole people. They will see their Government in a
new light--a light thrown on it by the grand events of the rebellion,
revealing capabilities and powers not hitherto known to exist, and
exhibiting it as the sole refuge in times of commotion and danger,
standing unmoved amidst the storm, impregnable to all its violence. In
the public recognition, by universal acquiescence, it will be considered
stronger than before; and this transformation will be as much a change
in the minds of the people as in the character and functions of the
Government itself.
There is, however, no good reason why the central power should acquire
inordinate strength, and absorb any part of the legitimate functions of
the local governments. A more liberal interpretation of the Constitution
will somewhat extend the federal powers, and there will necessarily be
greater intensity in the exercise of acknowledged authority;
nevertheless, consolidation need not be the subject of serious
apprehension. At the beginning of the war, when the Union was sorely
beset with the most imminent dangers, the executive power was extended
far beyond its ordinary limits; and perhaps this excess of action has
been in some cases too long continued, and has been made to embrace
objects not legitimately within the emergency which originally justified
the departure. But even under present circumstances, there can be no
just cause for alarm. There can be no real danger, until the people
shall have become either overawed and silenced by terror, or careless
and indifferent to the encroachments on liberty. Such is evidently very
far from being the case now. The recent elections have shown how
entirely free is the expression of opinion, and how completely
untrammelled the political action of the people, who, in this instance,
have been charged with following their leaders even beyond the bounds
of just opposition, into the dangerous position of giving encouragement
to the enemy. Both parties, however, place their own peculiar
construction on these popular decisions, and it is difficult to
determine, with any accuracy, what is their actual import. We only know
that so extensive a change, affecting the position of many of the
largest States, indicates a serious dissatisfaction of some kind; though
it is by no means probable that the people have intended to sanction the
extreme and mischievous views of some of the candidates, who, here and
there, have secured their election. Factious divisions in the loyal
States, at this critical period, would be ruinous to the cause of the
Union. They would distract the public mind and weaken the arm of the
Government, so as to endanger its success in the war. There is no
indication of any such intention on the part of the people, whatever may
be the designs of some of those who have been successful leaders of this
threatening opposition. And the only effect which ought to follow the
recent popular demonstration is to admonish the Government, and check it
in those errors which are only too natural in the mighty contest in
which it is now engaged. The necessity for decision, vigor, and courage,
is indeed apparent; and the temptation to go beyond the limits even of
proper martial energy, is perhaps a sufficient excuse for those in
power, whose deep sense of responsibility and honest zeal in a holy
cause may sometimes lead them astray. It is not always given to men in
high position to remain cool and calm in great emergencies, and to take
comprehensive views of the requirements of so tremendous a contest, as
its aspects vary from time to time. The necessary exercise of military
authority for the preservation of the Government, however harsh and
severe it may be, will be everywhere justified, and even applauded. But
there are limits which even military license ought to respect; and when
the executive authorities go beyond the bounds of reason and necessity,
they ought themselves to be grateful to those who may have the courage
to throw themselves into the breach and sternly resist the violation of
right. The men in power ought to reflect that they are always liable to
be surrounded by subservient partisans, whose fears or selfish purposes
may induce them to applaud, when they ought to condemn and reprove.
Unfortunately, when such parasites are listened to and rewarded, there
is little hope of just and patriotic action; and this state of things
leaves no channel of escape, through which the public discontent can be
manifested, except that of partisan opposition, which, in the existing
crisis, is perhaps more dangerous even than the evil it pretends to
condemn and cure. While party divisions, in the midst of dangers such as
now threaten us, are greatly to be deplored, we can, nevertheless,
derive some satisfaction from results which otherwise we cannot
altogether approve. All the essential principles of freedom still
remain, through this great trial, undestroyed and unsuppressed by
terrorism; and the popular patriotism and sound common sense, though
liable to be misled at first, will eventually pronounce a just and
enlightened judgment. Parasites and flatterers may shrink from the task
of dissent; but the great heart of the people will find some means of
expression; and happy will be our country if their honest warnings,
given upon 'the sober second thought,' shall be noticed and duly heeded.
There will then be no danger of any serious invasions of liberty, or of
any permanent absorption of the proper constitutional functions of the
States by the Federal Government. Doubtless the central power will be,
and ought to be strengthened. Its standing army will necessarily be
larger than before the rebellion; the public debt will be greatly
increased; the taxes will be heavier; and the revenue and disbursements
larger. Though its functions will remain essentially the same in nature,
they will have a broader sweep and a greater power. This enlargement of
its ordinary action will naturally invest it with all the means and
capacities necessary for its own protection, and without any change of
the Constitution, it will be recognized as the true embodiment of our
permanent nationality, forever paramount in its appointed sphere and
appropriate functions to those of the individual States composing it.
The sum and substance of the change will be merely that the centripetal
and centrifugal forces of the system will have become so completely
adjusted to each other, that from this time forward the eternal
equilibrium of the whole will be secured. The States will not be shorn
of any power rightfully theirs, and necessary for their safety and
progress; but they will be fixed in definite orbits, with the limits of
their authority distinctly circumscribed and established.
All social changes, sooner or later, produce their appropriate effects
on political institutions; and no results of the rebellion will be more
prominent and important than those which will follow the inevitable
disappearance of slavery. A new system of labor will be inaugurated in
the border States, as well as in those now in rebellion. The great act
of emancipation may not be immediate; nor is it by any means desirable
it should be. So radical a change in the condition of millions of
uneducated men would be quite as inconvenient, and, indeed, disastrous
to themselves, for the time being, as to their present owners. Society
itself would be thrown into the utmost confusion, and all the resources
of both parties would be temporarily much diminished, if not nearly
destroyed. But, whether suddenly or gradually, this fundamental change
must take place; for it is self-evident that slavery cannot survive the
present struggle. The proclamation of the President, which is to take
effect on the 1st of January next, will make emancipation more complete
and speedy; but the same result would have followed the stubborn
resistance of the rebels, even without that momentous act. It would be a
mischievous error to believe that emancipation was originally the aim
and object of the war on the part of the Union, and that the liberation
of slaves, which was sure to follow its progress, is the direct act of
our authorities, and not the proper consequence of the rebellion itself.
A war waged for and on account of slavery--for its increase and
perpetuation--necessarily, by its own nature, puts that institution at
stake, and risks it on the contingency of failure. Compelled, in defence
of the national unity, to carry the war into the heart of the Southern
States, the world acquiesces in that sound and necessary policy, which
releases the slaves, and sets them free forever, as fast as they come
within the protection of our armies. The proclamation is a measure of
the same nature, intended to destroy the resources of the enemy, and to
wound him in his most vulnerable point. But it can accomplish little
more than the previous policy; for the slumbering hopes of the slaves
were aroused by the first gun fired at Charleston in the beginning of
the struggle. Every movement of armies, and every bloody battle, which
has since taken place, has only served to inflame their desire for
freedom, and to fix their determination to obtain it. They have received
and gladly welcomed the obscure idea, that, in some way, this sanguinary
conflict was initiated for their benefit, and will not end without their
complete emancipation. In this they are not mistaken. The final
suppression of the rebellion by military force will be the perfect
consummation of that end, accomplished through the treason and wicked
folly of the South herself. If she persevere in her stubborn resistance
to the authority of the Union, the great measure of liberation will be
the result of her own blind and wilful acts of madness, and this as well
through their natural and necessary consequences as by the terms and
import of the President's proclamation. Let slavery destroy itself. It
is a just and righteous judgment that, in its atrocious effort to
destroy the nation, it should accomplish chiefly, if not solely, its own
violent and bloody death. Such retribution often attends the commission
of great crimes; but it seldom happens that effects so momentous for
good flow from the infliction which seems intended only for punishment.
Under all circumstances, with or without the proclamation, slavery must
disappear soon after the suppression of the rebellion. From that time,
the States will become more and more homogeneous in their social
organization. This will tend to promote unanimity among them all, and
therefore, by an obvious process, to strengthen the rightful power of
the Federal Government. The vast extent of our country, comprising so
many varieties of condition and climate, and such diversities of
production, rising through every grade of elevation, from the Atlantic
seacoast to the central mountains, and thence again descending to the
shores of the Pacific, with mighty rivers running through nearly twenty
parallels of latitude--this magnificent seat of republican power affords
the most unbounded resources for industry in all its employments, and
for commercial interchange of productions on the most gigantic scale.
With free labor prevailing everywhere throughout this vast and splendid
region of the temperate zone, no limits can be assigned to the national
progress. The population, wealth, activity, and intelligence of the most
favored among the Free States at the present day, can alone offer the
measure and example of what the whole will be in the full maturity of
the new system. No European complexities of inter-state relations, no
oppressive restrictions on domestic commerce, no fatal divergencies of
opinion and feeling, no important differences of language and
literature--none of these obstructions to harmony and progress will
interfere with the continental development and glorious destiny of our
Federal Union. All that the earth yields from her teeming surface, or
from her deep-embowelled mines; all that enterprise can accomplish with
exhaustless means, the best facilities, and the most stupendous objects;
and all that genius can create, when stimulated by the richest rewards
and the freest opportunities for untrammelled exertion, will supply us
with the means and materials for an almost infinite variety of pursuits
and occupations; but, at the same time, the essential unity of our
complex institutions will be maintained, and their power extended and
exalted by the homogeneity and uniformity of social conditions which
will prevail more and more with the lapse of years and the succession of
generations. The blood of all kindred races will be mingled with
advantage in the veins of the cosmopolitan American; religions will be
harmonized and unified by the most fraternal liberality and unbounded
toleration; and the common enlightenment of the whole people by means of
universal education will exalt them to a condition of unexampled power
and prosperity. Just as dissensions among the States tend to weaken the
central power, their uniform and cordial cooeperation will give immense
strength to the whole. Nor will this increase of power be at all
dangerous, because it will be only the legitimate consequence of the
greater progress and prosperity of the States themselves. To whatever
height the greatness of the Union may attain, it will be determined
exactly by that of the States which compose it--the pyramid of its power
being made up of theirs, which are but the enduring blocks of which the
mighty structure is built.
If social unity and political strength will be promoted by the
suppression of the rebellion and the disappearance of slavery, the ties
of our Union will be made stronger also by other causes. Emerging from
the war victorious, not only without being seriously injured, but with
eventual and speedy increase of power, the Union will command the
respect of foreign nations in a higher degree than ever before. Those
European nations, or rather their rulers and nobles, who now in their
malignant envy hope for the permanent dismemberment of America, will
then hail her resuscitation with a zeal which will be none the less
advantageous to us for being forced from them in spite of their present
hate and detraction. If the division of our country would destroy its
influence abroad, and subject the parts to constant intrigues and
interference from foreign powers, the restoration of the Union with even
more than its former glory will give us unexampled weight in the
counsels of mankind. Our unexpected and astounding exhibition of
military power, our thorough command of the American continent, and its
immense resources, hardly yet begun to be developed, and the unlimited
prosperity which the future will assuredly bring us, cannot fail to
strike the minds of European thinkers, and to awaken deep interest among
the European people. The stream of immigration, interrupted by the war,
will be renewed with at least its former fulness, and will keep pace
with the demands of our country for labor and population. The South may
then be expected to receive her full share of this increase by people
from abroad, and will then commence that process of condensing and
permanently fixing her population, without which she can never attain
any high position in the scale of civilization.
The large public debt destined to be incurred, may be expected to have
some influence in preventing immigration and improvement; but unless the
war shall unfortunately linger far beyond the period at which its end is
now anticipated, the liabilities of the Government will not be so great
as to prevent the speedy return of our usual prosperity. A different and
far better system of taxation will be required--one more favorable to
commerce and at the same time equally productive, or at least
sufficiently so to meet all our liabilities and provide for the
extinguishment of the debt within a reasonable time. One of the
advantages attending this great debt and modifying its certain evils and
burdens, will be the necessity of devising a stable revenue system,
intended solely to provide means for sustaining the Government and
meeting the public obligations. Periodical changes, often depending on
party ascendency and popular elections, have hitherto marked the
financial policy of our Government. So long as the sources of revenue
were superabundant and the demands of the Treasury very moderate, we
could well afford to make experiments, and even to depart from the true
principles of taxation, or at least to do so without any very serious or
ruinous consequences. Now, however, when the public expenditure is about
to be vastly increased, and when it will be for the first time really
felt by the people, it will become the first duty of our rulers to study
the extent and true character of our resources, and to adjust the
burdens of taxation, with all practicable fairness, to the respective
capacities of all classes and interests. We may expect to have a system
stable and permanent in its principles, if not in its details; and the
basis of this system will be a wise arrangement of duties on imports,
which must, from various reasons, ever form the great bulk of our taxes.
It is not an American maxim that a great public debt is a public
blessing; nor is it likely that an educated and eminently practical
people like ours will ever accept that mischievous paradox. Yet if it
be desirable that our large public debt should be widely scattered among
the people, so that every man may be directly interested in maintaining
the public credit and the stability of the Government, the present
system, now but imperfectly adapted to that object, might easily be made
to accomplish it fully. If the Treasury notes recently issued were the
only paper circulation in the country--that is to say, if the banks were
prohibited, by taxation or otherwise, from making any issues of their
own--the Government might increase their amount to at least five hundred
millions, with even less than the present depreciation, and would thus
enjoy the benefit of a loan to that amount without the payment of any
interest. As it is now, the banks get the advantage of a great part of
this extensive loan, and at the same time perform a function which
properly belongs to the Government--that of furnishing a currency for
the people. By the proposed system, the entire community would be
interested in this part of the public debt, and would doubtless find the
circulating medium much safer and better than that now manufactured by
the numberless banks chartered by the States. The issue of these notes
by State institutions was always an evasion of that clause of the
Constitution which prohibits the States from issuing bills of credit,
and is plainly against the spirit and intention of the instrument. If
our public debt should, in this way, eventually drive all bank notes out
of circulation and banish them forever, it will have accomplished a
valuable work in restoring the true construction of the Constitution,
and, in this particular at least, will have proved a public blessing. It
will be very easy, in the course of time, to redeem the Treasury notes,
and gradually to substitute for them a species of national paper based
on actual deposits, which will afford all the conveniences with none of
the dangers of the present system, by which the local banks virtually
establish the currency of the country, flooding it with all varieties of
paper, without uniformity of value, with no adequate control or
regulation of its quantity, thus producing periodical convulsions and
robbing the people of their hard-earned savings.
If the rebellion, by the burdens which it leaves behind, shall bring
about these two results--the adoption of a wise and permanent system of
revenue, and the establishment of a sound currency by the prohibition of
all bank circulation--it will have accomplished ends only inferior in
importance to the two primary consequences, the overthrow of the
principle of secession and the destruction of slavery. Thus, this
tremendous convulsion would bring out of the chaos a new order in the
political world, by annihilating secession, and by perpetuating the
Union and banishing all fear of its dissolution; in the social, by
substituting free men for slaves; in the financial, by a permanent
adjustment of tariffs and taxation; and in the commercial, by the
prohibition of bank paper and the substitution of a safe and uniform
currency.
'I;' OR, SUMMER IN THE CITY.'
'I love the sweet security of streets.'--CHARLES LAMB.
'I,' my charming friend, do not fully sympathize with the late Mr.
Lamb's statement, as quoted above; which statement I always have
believed partially owed its origin to its very tempting alliterative
robe.
For myself, I do _not_ particularly like the 'sweet security of
streets,' but vastly prefer 'a boundless contiguity of shade,'
especially during the present month--August--or
'A life on the ocean wave.'
I do not mean a permanent residence there--that would be liable to be
damp and unhealthy, and altogether too insecure to be 'sweet;'--but when
I say a 'life on the ocean wave,' it is merely my poetical license for a
cottage at Newport. (I wish, indeed, that I had any _but_ a poetical one
for such a possession!)
But what folly for me to talk of a cottage there! when my limited income
does not even admit of a cot in the cheapest of seaside inns.
Gentle reader! shrink not from me when, in addition to this melancholy
confidence, I also announce to you that I live in town--in 'Boston
town,' to be accurate--during August! I belong to the 'lower orders of
society;' and my only Newport is the Public Garden, or a walk to
Longwood, and, when I am _very_ affluent, a horse-car drive to Savin
hill, where a teaspoonful of sea view is administered to the humble
wayfarer.
Yes! I positively did exist in the city, not only through the month of
August, but all the summer days of all the summer months. I mention
_August_ in the city, because I know that has a peculiarly God-forgotten
and forsaken sound.
I should soon cease to exist anywhere, I fancy, if I did _not_ stay in
town, for (horror No. 2!) I work at a trade in order to earn my daily
bread and coffee! What my particular trade is, I am not going to
divulge--that shall remain a delicious mystery (the only delicious thing
about it); only this much I will confide: I do not, _a la_ Mr. Frederick
Altamont, 'sweep the crossing.' Unhappy Altamont! he did not appreciate
the sweet security of streets.
'Poor thing!' you exclaim, 'work at a trade?'
Rest tranquil, fair one; the phrase doubtless sounds harshly to your
delicate, aristocratic ears. (Oh, what lovely earrings!) Be tranquil! I
do not work _very_ hard; my hands are perhaps so audacious as to be as
small, as white, and as soft as your own.
But I have to 'work reg'lar,' every week day of all the months of every
year; and when the time arrives for me to go into the country, I shall
not return again to Boston; for I shall go to a land from whence no
traveller returns. _Apropos_ of this rather dismal topic: A queer cousin
of mine, 'Sans Souci,' who has a taste for 'morbid anatomy,' was the
other day enjoying himself with Mr. Smith, the cheerful sexton of the
King's Chapel. These two were 'down among the dead men,' under the
church, when Mr. Smith apologized for leaving my cousin, on the plea
that he had a previous engagement to take a young gentleman into the
country--a delicate way of stating that he was about to convey a body
out to Mount Auburn!
Some fine day, I too shall take a drive with some Mr. Smith--not, of
course, _the_ S. C. Smith, for, as I have mentioned, 'I' belong to the
'lower orders.'
Now let me tell you of _my_ Newport, and of what mitigations there are
for the poor wretches who pass their summer in the city, to whom the
joys of Sharon, Saratoga, the Hudson, and of Lake George are as
impossible as though these delightful resorts were in other planets.
Perhaps, like Mr. T. A.'s 'good Americans,' they have a vague hope that
when they die they can visit these famous places! For myself, I long ago
made out my 'visiting list.' Oh, bless you! as soon as I shall be 'out
of the body,' I shall start on the most delightful tour (no bother about
the luggage, checks, or couriers!); it will be years and years before I
fairly 'settle down' in that
'bright particular star'
I have selected for my permanent residence. Yes! you horrible madame!
oh, you horrible madame, who express your fears that I shall 'never be
settled,' speaking of me as if I were the coffee in your
coffee-pot--(only, of course, such a well-regulated dame's coffee is
never anything but _quite_ clear and settled)--yes, to relieve your
poor, narrow mind, I can bid you hope that in another and pleasanter
world I fully expect to be--'settled.' I tell you this beforehand, for I
am very sure that you won't go to the same planet, and therefore will
never have the satisfaction of knowing the fact from personal
observation.
But what am I about? Building castles in the skies! Mr. Editor Leland,
as usual, protests against my sad lack of con-cen-tra-tion! Let us
concentrate, therefore, my beloved hearers! With or without sugar? Oh, I
was beginning to tell you about Newport--_my_ Newport, the Public Garden
of Boston, _alias_ Hub-opolis--which you, poor things! belonging to the
'higher orders' and living on Arlington, Berkely, Clarendon, and the
Duke of Devonshire streets, never have a chance to see in its Augustan
pomp and glory. In fact, till this summer, its 'pomp and glory' were
quite concealed by dust and ashes; but now, thanks to the 'City
Fathers,' it is
'Ye land of flowers.'
Let me describe it to you; for though your dwellings are directly
opposite, yet, custom compelling you to leave them before the flower
season begins, you in reality know less of it than I do, living in a
street whose name must not be mentioned to ears polite. 'Tis far from
the Beacon 'haunts of men,' far from the Garden, and uncommonly far from
the Common. I rise betimes on these summer mornings, and, before I go to
my work, shaking off the dust of my obscure street, I enter your sacred
precincts, oh, F. F. B.'s! Bless you, it can do you no harm, for even
your boudoirs do not look out at me; their eyes are shuttered to all
such vulgar sights. It was impertinent, but this morning I pitied you
(_you!_) that you could not see the wondrous beauty of the--_city in
August!_
The morning was gloriously beautiful: it might have been the sister to
that one born so long ago, on which its Creator looked, and said that it
was 'good.' I actually forgot that I had no position; I imagined I had,
for the very brightest beauty filled my soul--I saw angels ascending and
descending (not Beacon street, as in the winter season) the charmed air
around me. 'Ye land of flowers,' indeed! All of them mine--mine, though
I must not pluck the humblest one. In truth, I had no desire to do so.
Why should I take the lovely creatures from their beautiful home, to the
close, dull room where I must sit all the bright day? Let me rather
think of them fresh, free, and happy there, as I often think of a
golden-haired child in heaven; one so dear to my heart of hearts, I
bless God that I _can_ think of her there with the angels who stand
nearest the Throne--and far, far away the weary paths that I must tread
to the end. But if heaven had not wanted another cherub, and she had
been left to be the flower of my life, think you I could have seen her
beauty wither in the dull room to which I must hasten in an hour? No! a
thousand times no! I should leave her with her sisters in the garden
here, with her cousins, the birds and butterflies, while I worked for
both. Lilies must neither 'toil nor spin.' How idly I am dreaming! She
is far away from this worky-day world; I shall never see her again, but
in dreams, as now! Little sister! with starry eyes, and soft curls
clustering around the sweet infant face; so many nights the same bright
vision--with the same wreath which I myself placed on her head, of May's
pale flowers, and she the palest. Only lilies of the valley, I remember,
seemed fitting for my darling's brow, or to grow on
ANNIE'S GRAVE.
Bright Roses, wither on the spray!
Your sweetness mocks the doom
Of her whose cheeks, so pale to-day,
Were rivals of your bloom.
Sweet Violets, I charge ye, fade!
Wear not those robes of blue,
For eyes are closed which Nature made
Of a more lovely hue.
Pale Lilies, sad and drooping low,
With perfume like her breath,
On Annie's grave alone shall grow,
_Fair flower, plucked by Death_.
* * * * *
Call it an affectation, if you will, but I
never take a flower from its home without
a slight twinge of pain. I _know_ it
suffers! However, I have no scruples in
accepting flowers after they are plucked
by others. So pray do not hesitate
about sending me that superb bouquet,
which you intended to send me _to-morrow_!
Have you never observed the
brutal habit which 'some persons'
have, of recklessly attacking shrubs
and flowers, as though they were rank
weeds (or secessionists), and, without
in the least enjoying their spoils, tossing
their quivering, trembling victims
aside, before they are dead or even
withered? Such are not worthy of
flowers, excepting French flowers,
which are not supposed to suffer. Oh,
my countrywomen! would that they
_did_ suffer a little from our neglect.
Do you know who Lacoontola is?
I have made her acquaintance this
summer, and find it one of the compensations
for passing the summer in
town.
She is to be found at the City
Library--'Lacoontola, or, The Fatal
Ring,' translated from the Sanscrit.
Go there for her, I pray you, and you
will admire with me the exquisite description
of her tenderness to these
'flower people,' as Mrs. Mann calls them.
But, pardon! You who belong to the
'highest orders' must be already intimate
with Mlle. Lacoontola, for she is
highly connected: her papa was a king
(quite equal in position to Mr. Abe
Lincoln); her mamma, I regret to
state, though a very charming person,
was an actress or goddess, or something
in that line. Lacoontola, however, in
spite of her papa's indiscretion, married
a prince, and was, in fact, perfectly
genteel and quite religious. Before
her marriage, she appears to have
'lived in the woods' the year round;
her wardrobe being 'turu-lural.' She
used to wear the 'dearest' little zouave
of the 'tender bark' of the 'Aurora
tree.'
'Rich and rare were the gems she wore,'
for her bracelets were the 'long perfumed stems of the waterlilies!' and
in her hair the lotus flower, in place of a lace _barbe_!
There is a very beautiful description of Lacoontola's love and tender
treatment of all the flowers and shrubs--her companions--and of all
_dumb_ animals. (_On dit_ that the prince was henpecked by _Mrs._ L.!)
This wild girl had a human love for the forest flowers; she says to
thee, Madhari Creeper: 'Oh, most radiant of twining plants, receive my
embraces, and return them with thy flexible arms: from this day, though
at a distance, I shall forever be thine.' How unconventional! I fancy
Mlle. L. must have inherited this style of conversation from her mamma;
all very well, when confined to flowers and 'creeping' things; but one
day, as she was out walking, she met 'by chance--the usual way,' Prince
Dashuranti, and our young lady said pretty much the same sort of thing
to him as to the 'Creeper,' falling violently in love with him at first
sight. It struck H. R. H. as a little peculiar--rather extraordinary in
a well-bred miss; but as it was leap year, and learning that she was the
only child, and would inherit all of papa's immense fortune, he married
her 'off-hand;'--well, that very afternoon at four o'clock--by the
sundial. You see it didn't take so long 'in those days,' to get the
trousseau, and all 'the things' in readiness. Papa raised his
sceptre-wand, and mumbled some infernal gibberish--and, lo! all the
trees and shrubs blossomed instanter, with the 'sweetest loves' of
things trimmed with 'real point;'--well, with something just as
delicious to the soul of a young (or middle-aged) maiden on the eve of
matrimony. There was no necessity, either, for an order to Bigelow
Bros., Boston--since, if Dushuranti wished to present her with a pair of
bracelets on her wedding day, he had but to 'push out' on the pond, and
get some waterlilies!
The 'gibberish' in which the old gentleman is said to have invoked the
backwoods 'Chandlers' and 'Hoveys,' I will obligingly translate for you,
as possibly you may not be able to read it in the original Sanscrit! Oh!
don't tell _me_ that you 'won't trouble me,' and all that. I _will_ bore
you, and nobody can save you!
'Hear, O ye trees of this hallowed forest, hear and proclaim that
Lacoontola is going to the palace of her wedded lord. She who drank not,
though thirsty, before you were watered; she who cropped not, through
affection for you, one of your fresh leaves, though she would have been
pleased with such an ornament for her locks; she whose chief delight was
in the season when your branches are sprayed with flowers,' &c., &c.
Should you like a photograph of this charming person, Lacoontola, taken
by Black & Batchelder, at the time of her marriage, 'Williams & Everett'
can oblige you. You will perceive, from her picture, that she is not too
fond of dress, or a 'slave to fashion.'
'Rappacini's daughter' (one of Hawthorne's Mosses) was a morbid
'Lacoontola.' She loved her flowers,--'not wisely, but too well!' She
became a sort of exterminatrix--a strychninus young person! From the
poisonous _arsenic_ embraces of her garden loves, she acquired, you
remember, her fatal, glowing beauty--beauty altogether 'too rich for
use, for earth too dear,' since it consigned the 'party' ensnared by it
to the silent tomb!
'Rappacini's daughter,' indeed! Lovely girl-woman, seated at yonder bay
window (to be accurate, the 'Back Bay window'!), playing with your ten
cherub children; your tropical 'midsummer-night's-dream' beauty recalls
Beatrice (Hawthorne's Beatrice I mean). How many have _you_ slain, my
love? And Madame Grundy echoes: 'Their name is legion!' 'A quick
brunette, well moulded, falcon-eyed'! As in the description of Beatrice,
one is reminded 'of all rich and intense colors'--the purple-black hair,
the crimson cheek, the scarlet lips. And the eyes? ah! gazing into those
wonderful eyes, one forgets the color they wear, in trying to interpret
their language! 'Cleopatra!' who would not be an Antony for thee? _I
would not!_
I have unconsciously interrupted a lady in her morning bath!--the 'stone
lady' of the fountain. She seems to be looking for her Turkish towel,
judging from her anxious expression! Rather a good-looking person--quite
pretty, if only she would go to Summer street and purchase a black silk.
Dress, I fancy, would improve 'her style of beauty.' Poor thing! it's
rather a long walk to take, _a la_ 'Lacoontola'! I must lend her my
waterproof, only she appears already to be water-proved! How she _must_
envy the coloring and the clothes of my beautiful dame of the window!
But my hour is passing away! '_Resurgam_'--as the sun incorrectly
remarked this morning--and go on my way, rejoicing to say 'bon jour' to
all my dear flower friends. And first, the 'Asters'--they always were
rich, you know, from 'John Jacob' down; but this summer, _malgre_ taxes
and curtailment of incomes and go-comes, the family appear in
unprecedented splendor. What gorgeous Organdies! all quilled in the
fashion--but not by Madame Peinot: her cunning right hand, with all its
cunning, ne'er quilled so exquisitely. Those graceful, fragile Petunias
(what a family of sisters!), in their delicate _glaze_ silks (ratherish
_decollete!_), and the Superbia, Empress 'Gladiolus,' in brocade of such
daring hues, may call the Asters 'stiff and prudish' in their quilled
muslins; but, what say the Asters in return? Ah! what do they _not_ say?
The Verbenas seem fairly delirious this morning, as though the
consciousness of their own beauty made them run wildly from their beds
into the paths, to say to the passers-by, with their bright little
faces:
'See! am I not charming?'
Well, you _are_ pretty--_very_ pretty; but I care not for you as for
your plainer stepsister, the 'sweet-scented Verbena.' She has a pale,
sad face; but she has a _soul_, which you have not, poor things! for
perfume is the soul of 'flower people.'
But, who wants gold? Lives there a man with purse so full who does _not_
want it? Well, then, snatch that heap of sunshine, that dazzling
Coreopsis, and be off before the policeman turns into this path. Ah, ye
Daylilies! You break my heart with your moonlight faces. Standing apart
from the world-flowers, like novices in their white veils, who offer the
incense of their beauty to Heaven--oh! give a little of your perfume to
a poor un-otto-of-rosed mortal--breathe on me, and I can laugh at the
costly 'Wood Violet,' 'Eglantine,' and 'Rose,' with which Harris &
Chapman scent their patronesses--to be dollared in return!
Daylilies, your perfume is too subtle, too vague, to be coined or
'cabined, cribbed, confined' in scent bottles.
Ah! the flowering Mosses; they seem to be having one eternal picnic with
the Myrtles and Verbenas, playing forever that dear-to-children game of
'Tag'! Some are arrayed in Solferino velvets, rather heavy for this warm
day! Prettier these, in soft rose-colored robes, and this, in a
'Oh! call me fair, not pale'--
well, _almost_ pale robe, the very climax of delicacy: the faintest
thought of rose color alone prevents one from calling it lily-white. I
am reminded of you, O flower-named friend! Vision of loveliness! which
has in a few never-to-be-forgotten days oasised my Sahara life. Now I
have reached the pond--_my_ Lake George! It is fresh and breezy this
morning, after last night's thunder-shower, and the mimic waves are
impatiently breaking over the thus-far-shalt-thou-go stone. I cannot
blame them for rushing over that green sward to give a morning kiss to
the blushing 'Forget-me-nots,' and just say to them, 'Remember _me_!'
Yes; I have a few crumbs of time left to sit in the rustic arbor and
give one lingering look behind, that I may carry a picture with me when
I go to my work.
How fortunate it is for one that these flowers are Londoners in their
habits, and pass August in the city! I can go to their receptions daily,
if I choose; they are always at home to the poorest, the most
unfashionable; they keep no 'visiting book' in their hall.
Hark! the bell rings seven o'clock. There is a 'knocking at the gate'
of my fairy land; it warns me that I must be on my Washington-street
way, to earn my bread.
_Bien!_ my first meal of to-day has been satisfactory. Heaven hath sent
me all manner of manna for breakfast--and for lunch? a banana. Yes; on
my way 'down town' I shall pass the Studio Building, where the B.'s
live; I will buy one of them, but shall also steal--many glances at the
Hamburg grapes, those peachiest of peaches, bombastic blackberries, and,
O Pomona! _such_ pears.
I escape! purse uninjured, only bananared. I reach Winter street, where
I must turn my back on the Common pleasures of Boston life--but yet, one
glance at that seductive window of the corner store, which, indeed, is
nearly all window. Flowers are there, of course,--flowers from January
to January; any poor devil can have a temporary conservatory at that
window, 'all for nothing;' I ought to pay a yearly tax for the pleasure
I steal in that way. The woman who carries my portmonnaie, only permits
me to open it for the 'necessaries' of life: the luxuries of hot-house
grapes and flowers ever wear for me that fatal label: 'Touch not, taste
not.' Bread and cologne are, of course, the first necessities of life;
in rolls and religion I am a Parkerite; in cologne, I swear by 'Mrs.
Taylor'! Beacon street, I beg that you won't faint at this horrible
disclosure!
Who _is_ 'Mrs. Taylor'? and echo answers, 'We haven't the faintest odor
of an idea!' None know her but to praise, wherever she may be. With
Sancho Panza we say, 'Blessings on the man who invented Mrs. Taylor at
seventy-five cents _per_--the hock bottle. I catch a glimpse of her long
neck, stretching up among the roses and Geraniums: my cologne nature
can't resist that sight! I obey the syren's call, though it will leave
me a beggar, but with Mrs. T. in my chaste-embrace.
'The man I work for' treats me, for some reason, with 'distinguished
consideration.' Though I may sometimes be a little after the required
hour, it's all right; and though he's a Yankee, no questions are asked!
I still have a precious quarter remaining--not of a dollar, but of time.
I have in my purse one postage stamp; but that will warrant a visit to
Loring's! One must have books as well as bread and cologne. O LORING!
what an institution art thou! Name dear to all classes, from Madame
----, who steps from her carriage, to the pretty shop-girl, who always
wants Mrs. Southworth's last--and worst--novel.
Who, indeed, 'so poor' as not 'to do _him_ reverence,' and find two
cents _per_ day, when for that sublimely small sum one can get a
companion for any and every mood,
'Grave to gay, from lively to severe?'
But will 'LORING'S' be open at this early dawn? 'Open,' indeed! one does
not catch _him_ napping; yes, open and so inviting! A literary public
garden so fresh and clean, as
'Just washed in a shower.'
In the rear, behind the desk, one is always sure of finding at least
_two roses_, and _on_ the desk a vase of flowers is certainly to be
seen--the offering of some one of the hundreds of admirers who go to
Loring's, nominally for some entertaining book--and they always find
one!
'What book did you say, miss?' asks Fleur de Marie. ('Where _does_ she
get those lilies and roses? I saw none like them in the garden this
morning. Ah! many of the dames who enter here from their carriages would
also like to ask my question--since they do not seem to find them even
at Newport!) 'If you please, _what_ book?' again inquire the Roses.
'Oh!' I answer, 'I was looking, and forgot what I came for; is 'Out of
his Head' _in_ yet?'
The fair librarian evidently thinks I am out of mine. Ah! would that I
were, and out of my whole body; but no! ingrate that I am, to-day I
should be content--simply _to be_; even a cabbage ought to be happy in
such perfect summer weather. T. B. Aldrich _is_ in--as much as he ever
is supposed to be; but I recall now that I read his sketchy book the
other night, while I was brushing my hair, giving it a sort of 'good
time generally,' letting it run wild a little before going to sleep. I
read 'Pierre Antoine's Date Tree' quite through, and liked--the _last
part_ very much indeed. There are some people whom I am always very glad
to have visit me, because I feel so 'dreadful glad' when they go away.
So, also, it compensates one to read certain books for the sake of the
delicious sensation one experiences on finishing them! What a pile of
'_Les Miserables_,' Fantine? _C'est assez miserable._ The 'Hunchback' is
the least deformed of Hugo's offspring; but I read _that_ last Sunday
morn--no; I mean last Saturday evening; for I went to church on Tremont
street, last Sunday. What's this? it looks as tempting as a banana, and
is not unlike one in color. 'Melibaeus in London,' in the summer, too:
good! I'll take that, it shall 'assist' the banana at my lunch. I hurry
out of this 'little heaven,' murmuring, as I depart: 'LORING, live
forever!'
Lady Macbeth undoubtedly alluded to you when she says:
'We _fail_? there's no such word as fail!'
I believe the Macbeths, and, in fact, everybody but Loring, has failed
during the war times. McClellan certainly has--not succeeded.
The police (those gentlemen of elegant leisure) do not even suspect how
much I have stolen, and what treasures I am carrying off before nine
o'clock A. M.! All the splendors of the early morning are mine; they
will gild the dull grey of my working hours. What a stock of perfumes
stolen from the garden! they will sweeten the 'business air' of
Washington street. The fountain's glistening spray will sprinkle the
dusty walk to 'the shop.'
I have not yet told you of the kisses taken--not from Fera's, but from
the cherry-ripe lips of two lovely children, with whom I formed an
intimacy in the garden by the pond; they were 'sailing' their mimic
boats there. I almost wished
'I were a boy again,'
and had a boat to sail! These children had such a brave and haughty
beauty, and their dress being of purple and fine linen, I supposed their
name must be Berkeley or Clarendon, but was grieved to learn from the
artless darlings that it was Muggins! However, their kisses were
unexceptionable, whatever their origin may have been.
But what a 'heap' of Beauty I stole in my return walk through
Beaconstreet mall! No wonder those magnificent elms are in love with
each other, and embrace over the people's heads! When I come into my
fortune, I intend, early the next morning, before breakfast, to make the
first use of my 'funds' in purchasing Mr. George Ticknor's house. (Of
course, he will not object.) I shall then laugh at the mill-dam
principalities and powers when I look from my library windows down that
long vista of noble trees. Come and see me when I am settled there! You
shall have a warm welcome in winter, and a cool one in summer. And now,
fare thee well, whoever thou art, who hast kindly walked with me to the
door of--my 'place of business.' I will not ask you to enter there. I
can worry through the day: unseen companions go with me to soothe and
cheer; so do not pity me that I am what I am--'nobody,' living
'nowhere.' You have seen that the Angel of Beauty disdains not to appear
in my humble path--and sometimes hovers so near, I can almost touch her
wings!
And so God be w'ye! Little joys to you are great joys to me. There be
those above you, 'kinges and princes and greate emperours,' to whom your
luxuries and badges would seem as little as mine are to you. When you
are beautiful, you adorn my street; when you are unlovely, I--pass you
by. _Bon jour la compagnie!_
THE IVY.
'Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.
So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
Gently entwist,--the female Ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
Oh, how I love thee; how I dote on thee!'
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iv., scene 1.
'The bearers of the thyrsus (bound with Ivy) are many, but the
Bacchantae are few.'--_Orphic saying._
If, among plants, the Rose is unmistakably feminine, from the delicate
complexion of its flower, the Ivy is not less so from the tender
sentiment of attachment expressed by its whole form and life. In her
infinite array of poetic symbols, Nature has given us nothing so
exquisitely typical of all that is best in woman, as that which may be
found in the graceful curves and in the firm strength of this vine. In
youth and beauty, she clings to the husband tree or parental wall for
support, and, like a wife or daughter, conceals defects, and imparts a
softer shadowing and contour to the support, without which she herself
had never risen to light and life. Time passes on. The oak grows old,
the wall is shattered by lightning; but the Ivy, now strong and firm,
shelters the limbs or binds together the tottering walls with greater
care than before, and covers decay and rifts with fresh care--aided by
the younger daughter-vines.
This simile has occurred to poets in all lands, in all ages. In an old
Chinese poem (JOLOWICZ, _der Poetische Orient_, s. 7) we are told that
'in the south there lives a tree, the Ivy _Ko_ clings and winds around
it, bringing the most excellent of joys and happiness in excess.' Owing
to this natural and most palpable resemblance, the ancient Greeks caused
the officiating priest in the temple to present to a bridal pair, on
entering, a twig of Ivy, 'as a symbolical wish that their love, like it,
might ever continue fresh.' It was a beautiful thought, and one which
was not lost sight of in the ecclesiastical and architectural symbolism
of the middle ages. 'It is,' says FRIEDREICH (_Symbolik und Mythologie
der Natur_, Sec. 103), 'as an ever-greening plant, a type of life, of love,
and of marriage.' It is, therefore, with both truth and propriety that
the modern floral lexicons give the _vitis hedera_, or Ivy, as
expressing 'Female affection--I have found one true heart.'
As with all plants, or, indeed, with all natural objects known to the
ancients, the Ivy was the subject of a myth or religious allegory, and
in investigating this myth, we find ourselves in a labyrinth of strange
mystery. The ordinary works on mythology, indeed, inform the reader that
it was the plant sacred to Bacchus, the god of wine, because, as Loudon
states, 'this wine is found at Nyssa, the reputed birthplace of Bacchus,
and in no other part of India.' 'It is related,' he continues, 'that
when Alexander's army, after their conquest of Babylon, arrived at this
mountain, and found it covered with laurel and Ivy, they were so
transported with joy (especially when they recognized the latter plant,
which is a native of Thebes), that they tore up the Ivy by the roots,
and, twining it around their heads, burst forth into hymns to Bacchus,
and prayers for their native country.'
But there is a deeper significance to the Ivy, even as there is a deeper
and more solemn mystery and might around the primeval Bacchus. To us he
is merely the wine-god, but to the ancient Initiated in the orgies and
mysteries he was--as were each of the gods in their turn--the central
divinity, the lord of light, and the giver of life. For, as it was
concisely said in the spirit of pantheistic abstraction: 'Nothing can be
imagined which is not an image of God;' so it was not possible to
conceive a divinity who was not in himself all the other divinities.
Thus we find that Bacchus was male, female, and at the same time an
absolute ONE without regard to sex; or, in other words, he was the
ancient trinity.
'Tibi enim inconsumpta juventus.
Tu puer aeternus, tu formosissimus alto
Conspiceris coelo, tibi, cum sine cornibus adstas
Virgineum caput est.'
OVID, _Met._ l. 4.
For, as the great mystery of all religion, or of all being, is _life_,
and as life, like blood, is most aptly typified by reviving and
inspiring wine, it was not wonderful that renewed strength, generation,
and birth should gather around the incarnation of the vine, and that the
_cup_ should become the holiest of symbols. Like the ark, the chest or
coffer, the egg, and a thousand other receptive or _containing_ objects,
the cup appeared to the ancient Initiated as a womb, or as the earth,
taking in and giving forth life. It was in this spirit that NONNUS, in
the fifth century, wrote The Dyonisiacs, a vast poem on Bacchus, in
forty-eight books; 'a magnificent assemblage of the emblematical legends
of Egypt,' and in which modern criticism has discovered a creative
grandeur, a beautiful wildness of fancy, and a romantic spirit, such as
were combined in no other one poem of antiquity.
Bacchus was thus the lord of life, and that in a vividly _real_
sense--the sense of intoxication, of keenly thrilling pleasure, of wild
delight, and headlong rushing joy. He was fabled to have given men the
grape and wine--but to the Initiated of the mystery and orgie there was
higher and more intoxicating wine than that of the grape--the wine of
wild inspiration, drawn from the keenest relish of beauty, of nature, of
knowledge, and of love. Drunk with this wine of the soul, the Moenad
and Bacchante rushed forth into lonely forests, amid rocks, by silent
lake, and streamlet lone, and cried in frantic joy, bewildered with
passion, to the Great Parent, or shouted in praise: 'Bacche, Evoe,
Bacche!'
'Then chaunted rose
The song of Bacchic women: all the band
Of shaggy Satyrs howled with mystic voice,
Preluding to the Phrygian minstrelsy
Of nightly orgies. Earth around them laughed;
The rocks reechoed; shouts of revelling joy
Shrilled from the Naiads, and the river nymphs
Sent echoes from their whirlpool-circled tides,
Flowing in silence; and beneath the rocks
Chanted Sicilian songs, like preludes sweet,
That through the warbling throats of Syren nymphs,
Most musical drop of honey from their tongues.'
NONNUS.
For all this wild joy, all this exquisite union of all the pleasures
known to man, whether in the mad embraces of passionate nymphs, in
draining wine, in tasting the fresh honeycomb, in wild dances under
green leaves, in feasting, or in song, Bacchus was the centre, and the
Cup the symbol. And this cup--the absolutely _feminine_ type--the _Iona_
which forms the nucleus of so great and so curious a family of words in
the Indo-Germanic and Shemitic languages--was fabled to have been formed
from the wood of Ivy. Let the reader hear this double sex of Bacchus in
mind; he will find it recurring again in the myth of Ivy. 'We must,'
says CREUZER (_Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Voelker_), 'think of ALL
things, if we would not see the Bacchic genii in their mysterious rites,
from a one-sided point of view. Not only Bacchus himself, but his male
and female companions must each, like their lord on earth, appear in
_different_ forms. For the mysteries loved the antique, the
pregnant-with-meaning, _i. e._ that which has a really symbolical
fulness, and supplies full food for thought.' And again: 'It would have
been very strange if the Man-Woman had not also appeared in this
mysterious array of forms. In his origin, Bacchus is an Indian god, and
to the Hindus the world was bi-sexed.' Thus we find in the Ivy, as his
sacred plant, a curious and beautiful symbol, in whose trailing embraces
the ancient East and West are bound together.
If the Ivy cup was held to typify female nature, so too were the leaves
of that plant emblematical of the receptive sex. The thyrsus, the
distinctive object borne by the worshippers of Bacchus, was a phallic or
male symbol, the characteristic portion of which was wreathed and buried
in Ivy leaves; signifying the union of the sexes. It is curious to
observe that this regarding the Ivy as characteristic of the feminine
principle, found its way among the Druids, and was transmitted from them
to the Christian and Christmas ceremonies of the middle ages. In these
we always find that the thorned holly is spoken of as male, and the Ivy
as female. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1779, a correspondent
relates a ceremony, which is still preserved in some parts of England.
'The girls, from five or six to eighteen years old, were assembled in a
crowd, burning an uncouth effigy, which they called a _holly-boy_, and
which they had stolen from the boys; while in another part of the
village, the boys were burning what they called an _Ivy-girl_, which
they had stolen from the girls. The ceremony of each burning was
attended with huzzas and other acclamations, according to the receipt of
custom in all such cases.'[1]
There is but one legend in all the legends of the gods; but one
solution, though the enigmas be thousandfold; and the myth of the Ivy is
only a repetition of that of Bacchus and of all the immortals--the
endless allegory of birth and death, male and female, winter and spring.
_Kissos_--the Greek word for Ivy--was a young faun beloved by Bacchus,
who accompanied the god of the Cup and of life, in all his strange
adventures. Mad with wine, Kissos once at an orgie danced until he fell
dead. Then his lord, grieving bitterly, raised the beloved form in his
arms, and, changing it to Ivy, wreathed it around his brow. It is the
old story of death and revival.
But we may expect to find of course a feminine goddess, or demi-goddess,
whose name includes the same root as Kissos--and she appears in
_Kiseis_, one of the nymphs to whom Bacchus gave the infant Bacchus to
be brought up. For her reward, she was placed by Bacchus among the
stars--in the constellation of the weeping Hyades--that she might have a
place in heaven. Apropos of which we may quote the words of the quaint
old Jesuit GALTRUCHIUS, saying that 'Bacchus was brought up with the
Nymphs, which teacheth us that we must mix Water with our Wine.'[2]
We also find that _Kisaea_, was, at Epidaurus, one of the names of
Minerva. Notwithstanding the apparent dissimilarity between the wild god
of wine and the goddess of calm wisdom, it was still taught in the
mysteries that they had an affinity in more than one lower form, and, of
course, an _identity_ in their highest. 'The temple of Bacchus,' says
Galtruchius, 'was next to _Minerva's_, to express how useful Wine is to
revive the Spirits, and enable our Fancy to Invent.'[3] In the older
worship, Minerva was one with Venus, Diana, Proserpine--the generating
female principle of love and of beauty being of course predominant. 'In
this _unity_ or identity of barbarian divinities,' says Creuzer
(_Symbolik_, IV. _Theil_), ('to speak like the Greeks') 'we must,
however, seek for the source of that _variety_ which made the Greeks so
rich in gods; and what had in Hellas been separated into so many,
remained by the 'barbarians' single and undivided. Therefore the older a
Greek local worship might be, so much the more did it in this resemble
the barbarian. * * So we have truly learned in Argos, Laconia, Dodona,
and Sicily, * * that Proserpine was one and the same with Venus and
Diana, and the identity with Minerva may also be proved.' For the proof
I refer the reader to his work. With Venus, however, Bacchus had amours,
begetting Priapus. Certain it is that the Ivy _Kissos_ appears in both
male and female names.
But as the Ivy formed the cup--_kissubion_--into which life entered, and
from which it was drained as wine; so, too, from its wood was made the
sacred _chest_ (_kiste_) in which, in the Dyonisiac mysteries, the same
secret was preserved under the form of a serpent, while in the
Eleusinian it hid the dread pomegranate which Persephone had tasted. For
they were all one and the same, this wine and serpent and
pomegranate--the type of life and of knowledge--of human birth, and
human intellect--of the world's generation and of eternal wisdom. The
fruit of which Adam ate, the bread and wine of the holy supper of the
mysteries of all lands in all ages, the pomegranate, whose seeds, once
eaten, kept the soul in another life beyond death, all have _one_
meaning--and this meaning was that of infinite revival, endless
begetting, the renewal of nature--and with this the _knowledge_ of the
great mystery which sets the soul free. '_Eritis sicut Deus._'
It was no small honor for a single plant to have furnished the wreath of
Bacchus, the wood of his cup, emblematic of the human body containing
his life-blood, and the material for the chest of the great
mysteries--meaning also the body and the world. I think, however, that
its philological root may also be possibly found in the Greek noun
_kissa_, and the verb _kissao_, implying strange and excessive
passionate longing. Such yearning would well become the Bacchantae, the
wild children of desire and of Nature. It is longing or _desire_ which
leads to renewing life, which constitutes love, which flashes like fire
and light through the beautiful, and pours forth the wine, and breaks
the bread, and causes the rose-blush to bloom, and the nymphs to cry
amid the mountains, _Evoe Bacche!_
Coming down from the pagan mysteries into lower and more literal forms,
the Ivy preserved two meanings. It was already the vine of life, and the
early Christians laid it in the coffins of their departed, as the emblem
of a new life in Christ.[4] It had hung upon the limbs of naked nymphs,
convulsed in passionate orgies, as a type of vitality renewed by
pleasure--it was now wreathed at Christmas-tide over quaint columns and
tracery-laden Gothic windows and arches, as a sign--they knew not
exactly of what--but guessed, naturally enough, and rightly, that it
typified as an undying winter-plant the resurrection. And they sang its
praises in many a brave carol:
IVY, chief of trees it is,
_Veni coronaberis_.
The most worthy she is in town,--
He who says other says amiss;
Worthy is she to bear the crown;
_Veni coronaberis_.
IVY is soft and meek of speech,
Against all woe she bringeth bliss;
Happy is he that may her reach:
_Veni coronaberis_.
IVY is green, of color bright,
Of all trees the chief she is;
And that I prove will now be right:
_Veni coronaberis_.
IVY, she beareth berries black;
God grant to all of us his bliss,
For then we shall nothing lack:
_Veni coronaberis_.
Very quaint is the following fragment:
Holly and Ivy made a great party,
Who should have the mastery
In lands where they go.
Then spake Holly, 'I am fierce and jolly,
I will have the mastery
In lands where we go.'
Then spake Ivy, 'I am loud and proud,
And I will have the mastery
In lands where we go.'
Then spake Holly, and bent him down on his knee,
'I pray thee, gentle Ivy,
Essay me no villany
In lands where we go.'
_Old Christmas Carol._
'Good wine needs no bush,' says an old proverb; but is it generally
known that the 'bush' in question, used as a sign for wine, was a bunch
of Ivy? The custom went from Greece to Italy, from Italy to Germany, and
so on westward. Very different is this use of the evergreen vine in
taverns, from that of adorning churches--the one meaning a mere
invitation to drink, while the other reminds the believer that, as the
Ivy lives through the bitter winter, so shall our souls endure through
cold death and live again in Christ, even as He passed through the grave
to live in 'eternal bloom.' Yet to those who have mastered the legend of
Bacchus, there is no absolute difference between the two, when studied
with regard to their origin. It is worth remarking that among the
ancients the impression prevailed that the Ivy was the plant of
joyousness, of triumphant strength, and of _life_, even as Bacchus was
the lord of joy. And at a later day, long after the association with
genial Bacchus was forgotten, the Ivy in popular lay and legend, and
quaint custom and holiday rite, still by some inexplicable association
always seemed to the multitude to be sweet and gentle, noble and dear.
It is such a feeling of love, derived from old traditions and old
worships, long forgotten, which makes the stork and the house-cricket
and the robin and dragon-fly and swallow so dear to children and grown
people in many parts of Europe. The rose is gone, but the perfume still
lingers in the old leaves of the manuscript. And the reader who
comprehends this may also comprehend the tender affection for the Ivy
expressed in the old Christmas carols which I have quoted, and which,
without such comprehension, seem absurd enough; while _with_ it, they
appear truly beautiful and touching.
As the symbol of a joyous faith, the Ivy seems to have been especially
repugnant to the Hebrews, whose stern monotheism admitted few attributes
to the Deity save those of tremendous power, vengeance, and gloom. So we
find (_Maccabees_, book ii., c. 6., v. 7) that it was regarded by them
as most horrible that, 'in the day of the king's birth, every month,
they were brought, by bitter constraint, to eat of the sacrifices; and,
when the feast of Bacchus was kept, the Jews were compelled to go in
procession to Bacchus, carrying Ivy.' A dislike to this emblem of
heathen joy seems, however, to have clung to them through all changes of
faith--a fact apparently well known to Ptolemy Philopater, king of
Egypt, who ordered that all the Jewish renegades who had abjured their
religion should be branded with an Ivy-leaf.
When the reader who may be interested in the architecture of the middle
ages meets in its tracery, as he often must, the Ivy-leaf, let him
recall that here is a symbol which was not used unthinkingly by the Free
Masons, who seldom lost an opportunity to bring forward their orientally
derived Nature-lore. In fact, the whole mass and body of mediaeval
architectural emblems presents nothing less than a protest of Nature and
life, independence and intelligence, knowledge and joyousness, against
the gloomy prison of form and tyranny which held Truth in chains. The
stone Ivy-leaf carved on the capitals of old cathedrals was as reviving
a symbol to the heart of the Initiated as was the living Ivy on the
walls without, green and beautiful among mid-winter's snow. It has been
well conjectured by a German writer (STIEGLITZ, _Archaeologie der
Baukunst der Griechen und Roemer_, Weimar, 1801, I _Theil_, Sec. 268), that
the relation of the Ivy to Bacchus was probably the cause why it was so
frequently introduced by the Greeks among the architectural ornaments of
their temples; a very natural conjecture, when we remember that it was a
firm conviction in the early faith, even of India, that where the Ivy
was found, the god had literally been. The same bold spirit of tradition
which brought into the very bosom of the church so much genial, latent
heresy and heathen daring, kept the Ivy alive--for Nature and Truth
_will_ live, and man will have his guardian angels, who will hope for
him and for the dawn, though buried in the deepest night and lost among
horrible dreams and ghastly incubi. A French writer on mediaeval art[5]
has declared that an excellent work might be written on the foliage of
Christian architecture, but regrets that the relations of the leaves as
employed--or, in fact, the law guiding their employment--should be
unintelligible. Let them be studied according to their symbolical and
antique meaning, and they will seem clear as legible letters; and to
those who can read them, the gloomy Gothic piles will ray forth a
strange and beautiful light--the sympathetic light of congenial minds
long passed away, yet who did not vanish ere they had breathed out to
those who were to come after them, in leaf or other character, their
hatred of _the tyrant_, and their unfailing conviction of the Great
Truth. GOD bless them all! I have studied for hours their solemn
symbols--each a cry for freedom and a prayer for light; and when I
thought of the gloom and cruelty and devilishness of the foul age which
pressed around them, I wondered that they, knowing what they did, could
have lived--ay, lived and sung and given a soul to art. And,
understanding them in spirit and in truth, every Ivy-leaf carved by them
seemed the whole Prometheus bound and unbound--yes, all poems of truth,
all myths, all religion.
And as it is the leaf of life, so is it by that very fact the leaf of
_death_; for death is only the water of life. And in this sense we find
a rare beauty in the poem by Mrs. Hemans, though she saw its truth, not
through the dim glass of tradition, but by direct communion with Nature.
TO THE IVY.
OCCASIONED BY RECEIVING A LEAF GATHERED
IN THE CASTLE OF RHEINFELS.
Oh! how could fancy crown with thee,
In ancient days, the god of wine,
And bid thee at the banquet be,
Companion of the vine?
Thy home, wild plant, is where each sound
Of revelry hath long been o'er;
Where song's full notes once peal'd around,
But now are heard no more.
The Roman, on his battle plains,
Where kings before his eagles bent,
Entwined thee, with exulting strains,
Around the victor's tent;
Yet there, though fresh in glossy green,
Triumphantly thy boughs might wave--
Better thou lov'st the silent scene
Around the victor's grave.
Where sleep the sons of ages flown,
The bards and heroes of the past,
Where through the halls of glory gone,
Murmurs the wintry blast;
Where years are hastening to efface
Each record of the grand and fair--
Thou, in thy solitary grace,
Wreath of the tomb! art there.
Oh! many a temple, once sublime
Beneath a blue Italian sky,
Hath nought of beauty left by time,
Save thy wild tapestry.
And, reared 'midst crags and clouds, 'tis thine
To wave where banners waved of yore,
O'er towers that crest the noble Rhine,
Along his rocky shore.
High from the fields of air look down
Those eyries of a vanished race,
Homes of the mighty, whose renown
Hath passed and left no trace.
But thou art there--thy foliage bright,
Unchanged, the mountain storm can brave--
Thou that wilt climb the loftiest height,
And deck the humblest grave.
The breathing forms of Parian stone,
That rise round grandeur's marble halls;
The vivid hues by painting thrown
Rich o'er the glowing walls;
Th' acanthus on Corinthian fanes,
In sculptured beauty waving fair--
These perished all--and what remains?
--Thou, thou alone art there.
'Tis still the same--where'er we tread,
The wrecks of human power we see,
The marvel of all ages fled,
Left to decay and thee.
And still let man his fabrics rear,
August in beauty, grace, and strength,--
Days pass, thou 'Ivy never sere,'[6]
And all is thine at length.
There was a strange old belief that Ivy leaves worn as a garland
prevented intoxication, that wine was less exciting when drunk from a
cup of its wood, and that these cups had finally the singular property
of separating water from wine by filtration, when the two were
mingled--or, as it is expressed by MIZALDUS MONLUCIANUS in his
delightfully absurd 'Centuries,'[7] 'a cup of Ivy, called _cissybius_,
is especially fitted for two reasons, for feasts: firstly, because Ivy
is said to banish drunkenness; and secondly, because by it the frauds of
tavern keepers, who mix wine with water, are detected.' It is worth
remarking, in connection with this, that, according to LOUDON(_Arboretum
et Fruticetum Brittanicum_, c. 59), the wood of the Ivy is, when newly
cut, really useful as a filter, though it is highly improbable that
anything like a complete analysis of mingled water and wine can be
effected by it.
It may interest the literary critic, should he be ignorant of the fact,
to know that the golden-berried Ivy--worn by Apollo ere he adopted the
Daphnean laurel--is the plant consecrated to his calling. Witness Pope:
'Immortal Vida, on whose honored brow
The poet's bays and critic's Ivy grow.'
Perhaps it is given to the critics to remind them that they should be
kindly sheltering and warmly protecting to poor poets and others, who
may be greatly cheered by a little kindness. For there is an old legend
that the Druids decorated dwelling places with Ivy and holly during the
winter, 'that the sylvan spirits might repair to them, and remain
unnipped with frost and cold winds, until a milder season had renewed
the foliage of their darling abodes. (DR. CHANDLER, _Travels in
Greece_.) Think of this when ye ink your pens for the onslaught!
It is worth noting that in two or three 'Dream Books' the Ivy is set
down as indicating 'long-continued health, and new friendships'--an
explanation quite in keeping with its ancient symbolism, and still more
with its most literal and apparent meaning of _attachment_. This latter
sense has given poet and artist many a fine figure and image. 'Nothing,'
says ST. PIERRE in his _Studies of Nature_, 'can separate the Ivy from
the tree which it has once embraced: it clothes it with its own leaves
in that inclement season when its dark boughs are covered with hoar
frost. The faithful companion of its destiny, it falls when the tree is
cut down: death itself does not relax its grasp; and it continues to
adorn with its verdure the dry trunk that once supported it.'
And of the golden-berried Ivy, Spenser sings:
'Emongst the rest, the clamb'ring Ivy grew,
Knitting his wanton arms with grasping hold,
Lest that the poplar happely should rew
Her brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold
With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew
And paint with pallid green her buds of gold.'
Madame DE GENLIS tells us of a true-hearted friend, who clung to a
fallen minister of state, through good and ill fortune, and followed him
into exile, that he adopted for a 'device' a fallen oak tree thickly
wound with Ivy, and with the motto: 'His fall cannot free me from him.'
An 'emblem' of the later middle age expresses undying conjugal love in a
like manner, by a fallen tree wound around with Ivy, beneath which, is
the inscription in Spanish: '_Se no la vida porque la muerte._'
(RADOWITZ, _Gesammelte Schriften_.) A not uncommon seal gives us the Ivy
with the motto; 'I die where I attach myself;' while yet another of the
ivied fallen trees declares that 'Even ruin cannot separate us.'
Ivy is the badge of the clan Gordon, and of all who bear that name. In
conclusion, lest my readers should object that the subject, though
eminently suggestive, has been treated entirely without a jest, I will
cite a quaint repartee, shockingly destructive of the sentiment just
cited:
'Woman,' said a lovelorn youth, 'is like Ivy--the more you are ruined,
the closer she clings to you.'
'And the closer she clings to you, the sooner you are ruined,' replied
an old cynic of a bachelor.
Poor man! He had never realized the truth of the French saying, that to
enjoy life, there is nothing like being ruined a little.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _New Curiosities of Literature, and Book of the Months._ BY GEORGE
SOANE, B.A. London, 1849, Vol. i., p. 57.
[2] _The Poetical History._ By P. GALTRUCHIUS. London 1678.
[3] Galtruchuis, c. 7.
[4] 'Hedera quo que vel laurus et hujusmodi, quae semper servant virorem,
in sarcophago corpori substernantur, ad significandum, quod qui
moriuntur in Christo, vivere non desinant; nam licet mundo moriantur
secundum corpus, tamen secundum animam vivunt et reviviscunt in
Deo.'--DURANDUS, _Ration. Div. Offic._, lib. vii., cap 35.
[5] BERTY, _Dictionnaire de l'Architecture du Moyen Age_. Paris, 1845.
[6] 'Ye myrtles brown, and ivy never sere.' MILTON'S _Lycidas_.
[7] 'Poculum ex hedera, cissybium dictum, ratione duplici conviviis
summe est accomodum: imprimis, quod hedera vini temulantiam, arcere
fertur: deinde quod cauponum fraudes, qui vinum aqua miscent, eo poculo
deprehenduntur.'--_Memorabilium, Utilium ac Jucundorum Centuriae Novem,
&c._ Paris, 1566.
THE MISHAPS OF MISS HOBBS.
'New beauties push her from the stage;
She trembles at the approach of age;
And starts, to view the altered face
That wrinkles at her in her glass.'
TRUMBULL'S _Progress of Dulness_.
CHAPTER I.
Ann Harriet Hobbs was getting cured of her youth. 'She was going
backward,' as the French say of people when Time is running forward, and
they themselves are being forwarded a little too rapidly by his Express.
All the ladies said so of her; all the gentlemen said so; and, worse
than all, even the mirror made similar reflections a little--the only
difference being that the ladies and gentlemen said so behind her back,
but the mirror expressed it before her face. One by one her sisters and
companions ripened and were plucked by the admiring crowd, but Ann
Harriet remained untouched. No one even pinched her to see if she were
good. And finally, as the throng were rapidly passing on, it became her
settled conviction that she must shake herself into some one's hands, or
she would be left to wither forsaken on the ancestral tree.
Ann Harriet, like some patent medicines, was not bad to take. True,
children did not cry for her as they did for the famous cough lozenges
of old; but the fact was, that in Peonytown most of the people were
homoeopathists, and preferred small doses; therefore Ann Harriet, who
was popularly reported to weigh three hundred and one pounds--_vires
acquirit eundo_--was altogether too large a dose for any gentleman of
the homoeopathic persuasion. Possibly, if Ann Harriet could have been
divided into twin sisters of about one hundred and fifty pounds each,
her matrimonial chances would have greatly increased; for however it may
have been in years past, this putting two volumes into one is not at all
popular at the present _duo_-decimal time.
Business, too, was dull in Peonytown, and the men could not afford to
marry a wife who would require twenty-five yards for a dress, when they
could get one that ten yards would cover up.
Miss Hobbs's twenty-sixth birthday was approaching. She could see it in
the dim distance, and she knew too well that the twenty-seventh was
ready to follow it up; and that Time stepped heavier than he used
to--the clumsy fellow; for, 'handsome' as she was, she could see the
marks of his feet on her face.
Ann Harriet had an uncle residing in Boston, whom she had never seen,
but had often heard him favorably spoken of by her mother, whose only
brother he was. Ann therefore determined that she would write to her
Uncle Farnsworth, and ask him if it would be agreeable should she visit
him for a few weeks.
Her letter met with a cordial response from the old gentleman, who
expressed himself 'highly gratified at the prospect' of seeing his
sister's daughter; named the day for her to come, and said that Gregory,
his son, would meet her at the railroad station in Boston, when the
train arrived.
Ann Harriet had never been in Boston, and the thoughts of a journey
thither animated her 'to a degree.' Her wardrobe was renovated; a
bran-new bonnet was purchased; and as all Peonytown was informed that it
was to be deprived of her presence for several weeks, the
'meeting-house' was of course filled on the following Sunday to hear
Parson Bulger preach about it; for he was one of the new-fashioned
ministers, who considered the Bible as a wornout book, and generally
preached from a newspaper text, or the last exciting piece of news.
Alas! they were disappointed; for the sermon was on Barnum's Baby Show.
The appointed day came, and Ann Harriet paid Seth Bullard, the butcher's
boy, a quarter of a dollar to 'carry' her and her luggage over to the
Yellowfield depot, where she was to take the cars for Boston. She bore
in her hand a rhubarb pie, nicely tied up in a copy of the _Peonytown
Clarion_, which was intended as a gift for her Aunt Farnsworth. It was a
pie she made with her own hands, and would have taken a prize for size
at any cattle show.
After asking engineer, brakeman, and conductor which they thought the
safest car, and getting a different answer from each, she finally
ensconced herself in the third car from the engine. Opening the window,
her attention was attracted by a neat tin sign, on which was painted,
'_Look out for Pickpockets!_'
'Now, that is kind,' said she, 'to give people notice. I forgot all
about pickpockets. I would really like to see some, and will certainly
look out for them.''
She accordingly thrust her head and neck out of the car window, and
looked sharply at the bystanders. While engaged in this detective
service, the signal was given, and the cars started, when Miss Hobbs,
thinking it was needless to keep up a longer lookout, reentered, and was
surprised to find a nice-looking young man by her side. He wore a heavy
yellow watchguard, yellow kid gloves, and a moustache to match,
patent-leather boots, a poll-parrot scarf, and a brilliant breast-pin.
Ann Harriet was delighted to have such a companion; and her wish that he
would enter into conversation was soon gratified.
'Travelling far?' asked the 'city-looking chap.'
'Yes, sir; I am going to my uncle's, in Boston,' replied Ann Harriet.
'Taking a vacation, I suppose?' continued he of the yellow kids.
['How delightful!' thought Miss Hobbs; 'he takes me for a
boarding-school girl.']
'For a few weeks,' replied she, with a bland smile; and dropping her
black lace veil to improve her really fine complexion, knowing, as well
as Shakspeare, that
'Beauty, blemished once, is ever lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pains, and cost.'
'Is not this Miss Hobbs, of Peonytown?' suddenly asked the proprietor of
the patent leathers, after a few minutes' conversation.
'Why! yes; how _did_ you know?' was Ann Harriet's reply.
'Oh, I had a friend as went to the academy in Peonytown, and he always
kept me posted up on the pretty girls; and he talked about you so often,
I knew it _must_ be Miss Hobbs,' was the flattering answer.
'How strange!' thought Ann Harriet. 'Well, it proves that I am not
wholly overlooked by the young men of my native village.' She did not
remember that she carried a little satchel, on which the stranger had
read, 'ANN HARRIET HOBBS, _Peonytown_.'
At this time a boy entered the car with a supply of ice water for
thirsty passengers. In handing a glassful to Miss Hobbs, he spilled a
part on the floor.
'What a waste!' remarked he.
Ann Harriet blushed deep crimson--fat folks are always sensitive--and,
with a grave, fat, solemn air, she said:
'I think you are quite rude, sir.'
'I'd like to know how?' inquired he, with a look of surprise.
'By making remarks on my waist, sir. No gentleman would be guilty of
such an offence,' replied the indignant lady.
Fortunately, the train at this juncture stopped at a way station, and
the yellow moustache, poll-parrot scarf, and kid gloves got out, first
bowing very politely to their late companion. Ann Harriet was a little
sorry to have their inmate go, but consoled herself with the thought
that he was altogether too familiar.
About fifteen miles farther on, an orange boy made his appearance; and
Ann, thinking an orange would moisten her throat, felt for her
portemonnaie, and found it not; for, while she was so intently looking
_out_ for pickpockets at Yellowfield, her agreeable companion had
appropriated her cash, by looking _in_ her pocket.
'_There!_ that dandy villain has robbed me of my wallet, with fifteen
dollars in it, and the receipt for Sally Lunn cake I was going to give
Aunt Farnsworth!' exclaimed she, placidly. Stout folks bear disasters
calmly. Luckily, she had two or three dollars in her satchel, which she
had received from the ticket master when she purchased her ticket, so
she was not entirely bankrupt. Some of the passengers attempted to
sympathize with her, but they found it a thankless task, and soon
desisted.
Ann Harriet, her griefs digested, drew herself into as compact a compass
as possible, and in a few minutes was fast asleep.
The cars rolled, in due time, into the noisy station at Boston, and our
traveller, after much exertion and trepidation, safely reached the
platform, with her rhubarb pie unharmed. She looked anxiously around for
her cousin Gregory, whom she had never seen, save in his _carte de
visite_, and by that she found him in a few minutes. Gregory was a
handsome man, quite young, and dressed in a neat suit of light clothes,
donned that afternoon for the first time. He had never seen his cousin,
and was therefore not a little surprised when the corpulent beauty
introduced herself as Miss Ann Harriet Hobbs, of Peonytown. Gregory had
come down to the station with a light buggy, in which he intended to
convey his fair relative home, but at the first glance saw that it would
be disastrous both to the buggy and Ann Harriet to attempt any such
feat. He therefore escorted her to a hack, and left her a moment. While
he was gone, Ann Harriet, who had forgotten all her troubles in the
contemplation of riding home with her handsome cousin, laid the rhubarb
pie on the opposite seat of the carriage, reserving the place by her
side for Gregory. But this gentleman, not feeling sure that he would
find room by the side of his massive cousin, when he entered the
carriage, sat hastily down opposite her. _Crash_ went the _Peonytown
Clarion_, and 'sqush' went the juicy rhubarb, completely saturating
Gregory's new garments. Ann Harriet gave a loud shriek, exclaiming: 'Oh!
you have spoilt that nice pie that I made for Aunt Priscilla, from Mrs.
Wilkins's receipt.'
'Hang Mrs. Wilkins's receipt!' exclaimed Gregory, who was imperturbable.
'I think I shall have to get some one to reseat my pantaloons.'
There was nothing to be done but to drive home as quickly as possible.
The hackman was paid for the damage to his vehicle, and Gregory hastened
up stairs to resume the old suit which only a few hours before he had
thrown aside disdainfully.
Ann Harriet found her uncle's family all that she expected. They found
her a little more than they expected. Everything was done to make her
comfortable. Aunt Farnsworth condoled with her niece on the loss of her
money, and the receipt for Sally Lunn cake. They brought a fan to cool
her, and placed a footstool for her feet. Her cousin Miranda exhibited a
photograph album containing all the family likenesses, besides a number
they had purchased to fill up the book, such as the Prince of Wales,
McClellan, Stonewall Jackson, Beauregard, and Butler. All this comforted
her greatly, and Ann Harriet was much interested, but was obliged to
inquire which were fighting for the North, and which for the South--'she
had heard something about it, but was not thoroughly informed,'--for, to
tell the truth, the only medium for news in Peonytown was the _Clarion_,
and the only portion of even that which Ann Harriet attended to was the
deaths, marriages, and dry goods.
The remainder of the day passed quietly, and the hour for retiring
approached. Before Ann Harriet's arrival, it had been arranged that she
should share Miranda's bed; but it was now very evident that Ann would
get very much more than her share, and it was therefore decided to give
her a bed to herself. A lamp was brought, and Aunt Farnsworth escorted
her to her room, and bade her good night. Ann Harriet had the usual
share of curiosity which all females--even plump ones--possess; and
wishing to know how a Boston street appeared in the evening, she hoisted
the curtain with a vigorous jerk, and looked forth: it was not a very
beautiful scene; long rows of brick houses stretched away on either
side, relieved at intervals by the street lamps and loafers, which, as
they appeared at a distance, reminded her of a torchlight procession she
had witnessed once in Peonytown, when the Hickory Club turned out with
twenty torches and a colored lantern. Having satisfied her eyes with the
view, she attempted to draw down the curtain, and found that it would
not move. She had pulled it up so vigorously that the cord had slipped
from the wheel, and rendered the curtain immovable. By stepping on a
chair she could, indeed, reach and adjust it; but the only chairs in the
room were cane-seated, and seemed altogether too fragile for such a
weighty lady as Ann Harriet. To add to her perplexity, the dwelling
directly opposite was a boarding house, full of young men; and she
noticed that one or two of them had already discovered her, and that the
news was probably being communicated to all their fellow boarders, for
in a very few minutes every window had two or more spectators at it,
armed with opera or eye glasses, while one saucy fellow had a telescope
three feet long. What to do she did not know: there was but one window
in the room, and no recess into which her portly beauty could retreat.
Once more she tried the curtain, giving it a forcible twitch, and this
time it came down--but the whole fixture came with it, and, after
striking her on the head, slid out of the window into the street, much
to the amusement of the spectators opposite.
Here was a dilemma--and what would her aunt say? She had to give up all
hope of excluding the gaze of her impudent neighbors. Poor damsel! She
would have asked assistance of some of the family, but they had all been
asleep some time, and she disliked to disturb them. Finally, she decided
to extinguish her light and undress in bed--a difficult undertaking,
which was, however, accomplished, with the loss of sundry strings and
buttons; and Ann Harriet laid her wearied head on the pillow, and
thought her troubles for that day were over. But Sleep forsakes the
wretched, and her eyes would not 'stay shut.' While coaxing them to
'stay down,' she was startled by a flash of light on the wall and an
explosion, then another, and then a third, accompanied by a shower of
gravelly substance in her face and eyes. Miss Hobbs, as we have seen,
was
'A woman naturally born to fears,'
and this sudden and inexplicable exhibition of fireworks in her chamber
almost burst the strings of her night cap, by causing her curly black
hair to stand on end.
The mischievous young men opposite had procured a _sarbacane_--vulgarly
known as a 'bean-blower,'--and were shooting torpedoes into Ann
Harriet's chamber. Not daring to rise to shut the window, she was wholly
at their mercy; but fortunately their stock of ammunition was limited to
half a dozen pellets, and in a few minutes the bombardment ceased.
About midnight Ann Harriet fell into a deep slumber, and when she awoke
the broad sunshine was illuminating her chamber, while the rattling of
teams along the paved streets reminded her that she was in the great
metropolis of New England. She missed the green foliage and healthy
perfume and bird songs of her pleasant country home: all she could see
was a combination of bricks, slate, and stone; and not a green thing was
visible in the street, save a few Irish servants, who were washing off
the doorsteps and sidewalks. In the middle of the cobble stones lay the
curtain which had fallen during the scene of the previous evening, muddy
and torn, its sticks broken by the heavy wagons which had passed over
it. A glance at the hostile boarding-house assured her that all was
quiet there; so, after arranging her dress with studied nicety, and
disposing her hair in the most enchanting style--and Ann Harriet was
really neat and winsome--she descended to the breakfast room. Her cousin
Gregory was the only person present--he sat by the window, reading.
After the customary greeting, Ann Harriet inquired what interested him.
'I have been glancing over an article called 'Ludicrous Exaggerations,'
in Leigh Hunt's _Indicator_,' replied Gregory, with a mischievous
twinkle in his eyes.
Ann Harriet did not notice any point to this remark, but said: 'I do not
remember having seen that book.'
'What have _you_ been reading lately?' pursued Gregory.
'Oh! I have begun a splendid book that Mrs. Orrin Pendergast lent me; I
have forgotten who wrote it, but its name is 'The Bloody Butcher's
Bride; or, The Demon of Dandelion Dell.'
Here Gregory was so impolite as to burst into a loud laugh, much to the
discomfiture of Ann Harriet, who was on the point of describing a
thrilling scene in the story.
'I see nothing to laugh at,' remarked she, solemnly; 'it is a _very_
nice book, Cousin Gregory. Why, some parts of it were so powerful that
it made me tremble all over.'
'It _must_ have been powerful,' said Gregory, drily.
'You're a saucy fellow,' said his cousin. 'But, by the way, where is
that new suit that was damaged yesterday? You do not look so stylish
this morning.'
'Stylish? I hope not. I hate that word; it is only fit to be applied to
pigs; they always look sty-lish,' replied Gregory.
The door opened, and the rest of the family appeared, much to Ann
Harriet's discomfort, for she liked her cousin, and was just thinking
how she could make an impression upon him. The surest way would have
been to sit in his lap.
They seated themselves at the table, when the customary question came
from Aunt Farnsworth:
'How did you rest last night, Ann Harriet?'
This, of course, called forth the history of the mishaps she had
experienced, and the indignation of her uncle and aunt was great when
they heard how the occupants of the boarding house had behaved.
'Those young men over there are Boarder Ruffians,' remarked Gregory.
'Mercy!' exclaimed his fat cousin; 'if I had known that, I shouldn't
have slept a wink all night. I have heard Miss Pendergast tell about
those awful men: she had a sister out in Kansas, and a parcel of Border
Ruffians came to her house one Sabbath day and ate up everything she
had, and then carried off her cow and five pullets.'
'What cow-ardly and chicken-hearted fellows, to rob a poor woman in that
manner!' remarked Gregory, grimly.
'Oh yes,' said Ann Harriet; 'and they spit tobacco juice all over her
clean floor, and whittled all over the hearth, and told her it was lucky
for her that she was a widow, for if she hadn't been, they would have
made her one. I should think you would feel dreadfully to have a whole
houseful right opposite.'
'We do feel pretty dreadfully,' replied Gregory; 'often.'
'Miranda, you must have a little company while your cousin is here, and
make her acquainted with some of the ladies and gentlemen of the city,'
said Aunt Farnsworth.
'I should like to, very much, mother; and if you are willing, I will set
about it immediately after breakfast; and perhaps I can arrange things
so as to have it to-morrow night,' was Miranda's reply.
This suggestion was eagerly seconded by Gregory, who always enjoyed the
social parties that his sister had a peculiar knack in getting up at
short notice.
Their pleasant anticipations of the _soiree_ were suddenly checked by
quite a melancholy mishap to the solid Ann Harriet. In reaching forward
to receive a cup of coffee from her aunt, she was obliged to rise a
little from her seat. Now, the chair in which she was sitting had been
broken the day before and was glued together, strong enough for any
ordinary usage, but wholly inadequate to sustain such a weight as now
taxed it; so when Ann 'set back' into the furniture, the already
strained joints came apart, and she felt herself descending to the
floor; to save herself, she clung to the edge of the table, but, of
course, that was no support; on the contrary, it tilted up and launched
its whole contents over the prostrate form of the unfortunate Ann
Harriet. There she lay, pinned to the floor by the heavy table, while
her face and neck and dress were covered with butter, gooseberry pie,
hot coffee, broken eggs, and slices of fried ham. The carpet was in a
similar condition, and the Old Dominion coffee-pot was found expiring
under the sofa.
Mr. Farnsworth, in an attempt to save the table from going over, lost
his own balance, and fell flounder-flat on the floor, where he lay
shuddering, with his hair in a dish of Shaker apple-sauce: the rest of
the family escaped unscathed, but were sadly astonished at the sudden
turn things had taken.
Mr. Farnsworth and Gregory raised the fallen table to its former
position, and Miranda set about collecting the scattered dishes.
'I knew that we were going to breakfast, but I did not think we should
break so fast as that,' remarked Gregory, ruefully.
Ann Harriet, up to this time, had retained her consciousness, when it
suddenly occurred to her that, in the stories she had read, the heroines
always fainted when anything unusual happened; so she shut up her eyes
and began to gasp, just as her uncle and cousin were about to assist her
to her feet.
'She is faint; get some water, quick!' exclaimed Miranda.
Gregory seized the 'Old Dominion,' and dashed what coffee there was left
in it on Ann's face, then threw on all the cream in the pitcher, and
wound up his frightful orgie by emptying over her locks a lot of brown
sugar from a bowl which stood near. The effect was that the faint damsel
'came to' very fast, and requested to be helped up. Her aspect was
remarkably ludicrous; the moistened sugar, clinging to her hair and
plastering up her eyes, caused so much mirth on Gregory's part that he
could hardly restrain it within the bounds of politeness.
'Oh, _do_ help me up!' implored Ann Harriet.
Easier said than done. Mr. Farnsworth took hold of one arm, and Gregory
the other, but their united effort was not sufficient. Mr. Farnsworth
had but recently recovered from an attack of the rheumatism--and apple
sauce--and was by no means strong enough for such work; while Gregory
was so full of laughter that it deprived him of half his strength. After
one or two futile attempts, Miranda had a happy thought: she ran into
the parlor and brought out half a dozen thick volumes of music; then
Gregory and his father lifted Ann Harriet as far as they could at one
effort, while Miranda pushed a book under; at the next lift, a second
book was inserted, and this movement was repeated until Ann was
seated--_alto_ and _allegro_--on a pile of six large music books. Aunt
Farnsworth then brought a basin of water, and carefully bathed her
niece's face, removing all traces of the catastrophe, in which she was
assisted by a copious flood of tears from Ann's eyes--so copious,
indeed, that Gregory guessed there would be a rainbow when she ceased.
In about twenty minutes 'things were put as near to rights as possible,'
but their appetites, like the breakfast, were thoroughly spoilt; so
Miranda and her cousin went up stairs to make their plans for the
entertainment, which was to be given in honor of the fair Peonytowner.
This kept them busy all day; for there was shopping to be done, pastry
and cake to be made, dresses to be 'fixed,' and other arrangements, 'too
numerous to mention.'
Ann Harriet's thoughts dwelt incessantly on the appointed evening; the
iron would then be hot, and she knew that she must strike, or lose a
golden opportunity for exchanging the desolate monotony of a heavy
single life for the sparkling, honorable, enviable title of wedded wife.
Surely, Ann Harriet, he who leads thee to the altar will possess a brave
and stout heart--one on whom you, although fat, can lean, and of whose
home you, though heavy, will be the light. You will so fill his heart
that there will be no room for discontent, melancholy, or any evil or
mischievous visitor. Whoever the fortunate man may be, you can rest
assured that you will exceed his greatest expectations, and he will not
attempt to exaggerate your charms and attractions.