"I was for keeping the country undivided, but I have the kindest feeling
for the Southern people, and will see that they are protected in all
their rights. Perhaps if I were to go among them in person, it might
have a good effect. What do you think?"
I looked at him keenly as I made some suitable reply, but could see
nothing in his expression but simple sincerity. He seemed to feel that
he was indeed the father of his people. George Washington himself could
not have adopted a more paternal tone.
Walking along the street behind the Emperor one day, my curiosity was a
little excited by seeing him thrust his hand into the hip-pocket of his
blue trousers with sudden energy. The hip-pocket, by the way, is a
modern American stupidity, associated in the popular mind with rowdyism,
pistol shooting, and murder. Hip-pockets should be abolished wherever
there are courts of law and civilized men and women. But what was the
Emperor after? Withdrawing his hand just as I overtook him, the mystery
was revealed--it grasped a thick Bologna sausage, which he began to eat
with unroyal relish. It gave me a shock, but he was not the first royal
personage who has exhibited low tastes and carnal hankerings.
He was seldom made sport of or treated rudely. I saw him on one occasion
when a couple of passing hoodlums jeered at him. He turned and gave them
a look so full of mingled dignity, pain, and surprise, that the low
fellows were abashed, and uttering a forced laugh, with averted faces
they hurried on. The presence that can bring shame to a San Francisco
hoodlum must indeed be kingly, or in some way impressive. In that genus
the beastliness and devilishness of American city-life reach their
lowest denomination when the brutality of the savage and the lowest
forms of civilized vice are combined, human nature touches bottom.
The Emperor never spoke of his early life. The veil of mystery on this
point increased the popular curiosity concerning him, and invested him
with something of a romantic interest. There was one thing that excited
his disgust and indignation. The Bohemians of the San Francisco press
got into the practice of attaching his name to their satires and hits at
current follies, knowing that the well-known "Norton I." at the end
would insure a reading. This abuse of the liberty of the press he
denounced with dignified severity, threatening extreme measures unless
it were stopped. But nowhere on earth did the press exhibit more
audacity, or take a wider range, and it would have required a sterner
heart and a stronger hand than that of Norton I. to put a hook into its
jaws.
The end of all human grandeur, real or imaginary, comes at last. The
Emperor became thinner and more stooped as the years passed. The humor
of his hallucination retired more and more into the background, and its
pathetic side came out more strongly. His step was slow and feeble, and
there was that look in his eyes so often seen in the old and sometimes
in the young, just before the great change comes--a rapt, far-away
look, suggesting that the invisible is coming into view, the shadows
vanishing and the realities appearing. The familiar face and form were
missed on the streets, and it was known that he was dead. He had gone to
his lonely lodging, and quietly lain down and died. The newspapers spoke
of him with pity and respect, and all San Francisco took time, in the
midst of its roar-and-rush fever of perpetual excitement, to give a kind
thought to the dead man who had passed over to the life where all
delusions are laid aside, where the mystery of life shall be revealed,
and where we shall see that through all its tangled web ran the golden
thread of mercy. His life was an illusion, and the thousands who sleep
with him in Lone Mountain waiting the judgment-day were his brothers.
Camilla Cain.
She was from Baltimore, and had the fair face and gentle voice peculiar
to most Baltimore women. Her organization was delicate but elastic--one
of the sort that bends easily, but is hard to break. In her eyes was
that look of wistful sadness so often seen in holy women of her type.
Timid as a fawn, in the class-meeting she spoke of her love to Jesus and
delight in his service in a voice low and a little hesitating, but with
strangely thrilling effect. The meetings were sometimes held in her own
little parlor in the cottage on Dupont street, and then we always felt
that we had met where the Master himself was a constant and welcome
guest. She was put into the crucible. For more than fifteen years she
suffered unceasing and intense bodily pain. Imprisoned in her sick
chamber, she fought her long, hard battle. The pain-distorted limbs lost
their use, the patient face waxed more wan, and the traces of agony were
on it always; the soft, loving eyes were often tear washed. The fires
were hot, and they burned on through the long, long years without
respite. The mystery of it all was too deep for me; it was too deep for
her. But somehow it does seem that the highest suffer most:
The sign of rank in Nature Is capacity for pain, And the anguish of the
singer Makes the sweetness of the strain.
The victory of her faith was complete. If the inevitable why? sometimes
was in her thought, no shadow of distrust ever fell upon her heart. Her
sick-room was the quietest, brightest spot in all the city. How often
did I go thither weary and faint with the roughness of the way, and
leave feeling that I had heard the voices and inhaled the odors of
paradise! A little talk, a psalm, and then a prayer, during which the
room seemed to be filled with angel-presences; after which the thin,
pale face was radiant with the light reflected from our Immanuel's face.
I often went to see her, not so much to convey as to get a blessing. Her
heart was kept fresh as a rose of Sharon in the dew of the morning. The
children loved to be near her; and the pathetic face of the dear
crippled boy, the pet of the family, was always brighter in her
presence. Thrice death came into the home-circle with its shock and
mighty wrenchings of the heart, but the victory was not his, but hers.
Neither death nor life could separate her from the love of her Lord. She
was one of the elect. The elect are those who know, having the witness
in themselves. She was conqueror of both--life with its pain and its
weariness, death with its terror and its tragedy. She did not endure
merely, she triumphed. Borne on the wings of a mighty faith, her soul
was at times lifted above all sin, and temptation, and pain, and the
sweet, abiding peace swelled into an ecstasy of sacred joy. Her swimming
eyes and rapt look told the unutterable secret. She has crossed over the
narrow stream on whose margin she lingered so long; and there was joy on
the other side when the gentle, patient, holy Camilla Cain joined the
glorified throng.
O though oft depressed and lonely, All my fears are laid aside, If I but
remember only Such as these have lived and died!
Lone Mountain.
The sea-wind sweeps over the spot at times in gusts like the frenzy of
hopeless grief, and at times in sighs as gentle as those heaved by aged
sorrow in sight of eternal rest. The voices of the great city come
faintly over the sand-hills, with subdued murmur like a lullaby to the
pale sleepers that are here lying low. When the winds are quiet, which
is not often, the moan of the mighty Pacific can be heard day or night,
as if it voiced in muffled tones the unceasing woe of a world under the
reign of death. Westward, on the summit of a higher hill, a huge cross
stretches its arms as if embracing the living and the dead-the first
object that catches the eye of the weary voyager as he nears the Golden
Gate, the last that meets his lingering gaze as he goes forth upon the
great waters. O sacred emblem of the faith with which we launch upon
life's stormy main--of the hope that assures that we shall reach the
port when the night and the tempest are past! When the winds are high,
the booming of the breakers on the cliff sounds as if nature were
impatient of the long, long delay, and had anticipated the last thunders
that wake the sleeping dead. On a clear day, the blue Pacific,
stretching away beyond the snowy surf-line, symbolizes the shoreless sea
that rolls through eternity. The Cliff House road that runs hard by is
the chief drive of the pleasure-seekers of San Francisco. Gayety, and
laughter, and heart-break, and tears, meet on the drive; the wail of
agony and the laugh of gladness mingle as the gay crowds dash by the
slow-moving procession on its way to the grave. How often have I made
that slow, sad journey to Lone Mountain--a Via Doloroso to many who
have never been the same after they had gone thither, and coming back
found the light quenched and the music bushed in their homes! Thither
the dead Senator was borne, followed by the tramping thousands, rank on
rank, amid the booming of minute-guns, the tolling of bells, the
measured tread of plumed soldiers, and the roll of drums. Thither was
carried, in his rude coffin, the "unknown man" found dead in the
streets, to be buried in potter's-field. Thither was borne the hard and
grasping idolater of riches, who clung to his coin, and clutched for
more, until he was dragged away by the one hand that was colder and
stronger than his own. Here was brought the little child, out of whose
narrow grave there blossomed the beginnings of a new life to the father
and mother, who in the better life to come will be found among the
blessed company of those whose only path to paradise lay through the
valley of tears. Here were brought the many wanderers, whose last
earthly wish was to go back home, on the other side of the mountains, to
die, but were denied by the stern messenger who never waits nor spares.
And here was brought the mortal part of the aged disciple of Jesus, in
whose dying-chamber the two worlds met, and whose death-throes were
demonstrably the birth of a child of God into the life of glory.
The first time I ever visited the place was to attend the funeral of a
suicide. The dead man I had known in Virginia, when I was a boy. He was
a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, and when I first knew him
he was the captain of a famous volunteer company. He was as handsome as
a picture--the admiration of the girls, and the envy of the young men
of his native town. He was among the first who rushed to California on
the discovery of gold, and of all the heroic men who gave early
California its best bias none was knightlier than this handsome
Virginian; none won stronger friends, or had brighter hopes. He was the
first State Senator from San Francisco. He had the magnetism that won
and the nobility that retained the love of men. Some men push themselves
forward by force of intellect or of will--this man was pushed upward by
his friends because he had their hearts. He married a beautiful woman,
whom he loved literally unto death. I shall not recite the whole story.
God only knows it fully, and he will judge righteously. There was
trouble, rage, and tears, passionate partings and penitent reunions--the
old story of love dying a lingering yet violent death. On the fatal
morning I met him on Washington street. I noticed his manner was hurried
and his look peculiar, as I gave him the usual salutation and a hearty
grasp of the hand. As be moved away, I looked after him with mingled
admiration and pity, until his faultless figure turned the corner and
disappeared.
Ten minutes afterward he lay on the floor of his room dead, with a
bullet through his brain, his hair dabbled in blood. At the
funeral-service, in the little church on Pine street, strong men bowed
their heads and sobbed. His wife sat on a front seat, pale as marble and
as motionless, her lips compressed as with inward pain; but I saw no
tears on the beautiful face. At the grave the body had been lowered to
its resting-place, and all being ready, the attendants standing with
uncovered heads, I was just about to begin the reading of the solemn
words of the burial service, when a tall, blue-eyed man with gray
side-whiskers pushed his way to the head of the grave, and in a voice
choked with passion, exclaimed:
"There lies as noble a gentleman as ever breathed, and he owes his death
to that fiend!" pointing his finger at the wife, who stood pale and
silent looking down into the grave.
She gave him a look that I shall never forget, and the large steely-blue
eyes flashed fire, but she spoke no word. I spoke:
"Whatever maybe your feelings, or whatever the occasion for them, you
degrade yourself by such an exhibition of them here."
"That is so, sir; excuse me, my feelings overcame me," he said, and
retiring a few steps, he leaned upon a branch of a scrub-oak and sobbed
like a child.
The farce and the tragedy of real life were here exhibited on another
occasion. Among my acquaintances in the city were a man and his wife who
were singularly mismatched. He was a plain, unlettered, devout man, who
in a prayer-meeting or class-meeting talked with a simple-hearted
earnestness that always produced a happy effect.
She was a cultured woman, ambitious and worldly, and so fine-looking
that in her youth she must have been a beauty and a belle. They lived in
different worlds, and grew wider apart as time passed by--he giving
himself to religion, she giving herself to the world. In the gay city
circles in which she moved she was a little ashamed of the quiet, humble
old man, and he did not feel at home among them. There was no formal
separation, but it was known to the friends of the family that for
months at a time they never lived together. The fashionable daughters
went with their mother. The good old man, after a short sickness, died
in great peace. I was sent for to officiate at the funeral-service.
There was a large gathering of people, and a brave parade of all the
externals of grief, but it was mostly dry-eyed grief, so far as I could
see. At the grave, just as the sun that was sinking in the ocean threw
his last rays upon the spot, and the first shovelful of earth fell upon
the coffin that had been gently lowered to its resting-place, there was
a piercing shriek from one of the carriages, followed by the
exclamation:
"What shall I do? How can I live? I have lost my all! O! O! O!"
It was the dead man's wife. Significant glances and smiles were
interchanged by the bystanders. Approaching the carriage in which the
woman was sitting, I laid my hand upon her arm, looked her in the face,
and said:
"Hush!"
She understood me, and not another sound did she utter. Poor woman! She
was not perhaps as heartless as they thought she was. There was at least
a little remorse in those forced exclamations, when she thought of the
dead man in the coffin; but her eyes were dry, and she stopped very
short.
Another incident recurs to me that points in a different direction. One
day the most noted gambler in San Francisco called on me with the
request that I should attend the funeral of one of his friends, who had
died the night before. A splendid-looking fellow was this knight of the
faro-table. More than six feet in height, with deep chest and perfectly
rounded limbs, jet black hair, brilliant black eyes, clear olive
complexion, and easy manners, he might have been taken for an Italian
nobleman or a Spanish Don. He had a tinge of Cherokee blood in his
veins. I have noticed that this cross of the white and Cherokee blood
often results in producing this magnificent physical development. I have
known a number of women of this lineage, who were very queens in their
beauty and carriage. But this noted gambler was illiterate. The only
book of which he knew or cared much was one that had fifty-two pages,
with twelve pictures. If he had been educated, he might have handled the
reins of government, instead of presiding over a nocturnal banking
institution.
"Parson, can you come to number--, on Kearney street, tomorrow at ten
o'clock, and give us a few words and a prayer over a friend of mine, who
died last night?"