So! I have climbed high, and my reward is small. Here I stand with
wearied knees—earth, indeed, at a dizzy depth below, but heaven far,
far beyond me still. Oh that I could soar up into the very zenith,
where man never breathed nor eagle ever flew, and where the ethereal
azure melts away from the eye and appears only a deepened shade of
nothingness! And yet I shiver at that cold and solitary thought. What
clouds are gathering in the golden west with direful intent against the
brightness and the warmth of this summer afternoon? They are ponderous
air-ships, black as death and freighted with the tempest, and at
intervals their thunder—the signal-guns of that unearthly
squadron—rolls distant along the deep of heaven. These nearer heaps of
fleecy vapor—methinks I could roll and toss upon them the whole day
long—seem scattered here and there for the repose of tired pilgrims
through the sky. Perhaps—for who can tell?—beautiful spirits are
disporting themselves there, and will bless my mortal eye with the
brief appearance of their curly locks of golden light and laughing
faces fair and faint as the people of a rosy dream. Or where the
floating mass so imperfectly obstructs the color of the firmament a
slender foot and fairy limb resting too heavily upon the frail support
may be thrust through and suddenly withdrawn, while longing fancy
follows them in vain. Yonder, again, is an airy archipelago where the
sunbeams love to linger in their journeyings through space. Every one
of those little clouds has been dipped and steeped in radiance which
the slightest pressure might disengage in silvery profusion like water
wrung from a sea-maid’s hair. Bright they are as a young man’s visions,
and, like them, would be realized in dullness, obscurity and tears. I
will look on them no more.
In three parts of the visible circle whose centre is this spire I
discern cultivated fields, villages, white country-seats, the waving
lines of rivulets, little placid lakes, and here and there a rising
ground that would fain be termed a hill. On the fourth side is the sea,
stretching away toward a viewless boundary, blue and calm except where
the passing anger of a shadow flits across its surface and is gone.
Hitherward a broad inlet penetrates far into the land; on the verge of
the harbor formed by its extremity is a town, and over it am I, a
watchman, all-heeding and unheeded. Oh that the multitude of chimneys
could speak, like those of Madrid, and betray in smoky whispers the
secrets of all who since their first foundation have assembled at the
hearths within! Oh that the Limping Devil of Le Sage would perch beside
me here, extend his wand over this contiguity of roofs, uncover every
chamber and make me familiar with their inhabitants! The most desirable
mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized Paul Pry hovering
invisible round man and woman, witnessing their deeds, searching into
their hearts, borrowing brightness from their felicity and shade from
their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar to himself. But none of
these things are possible; and if I would know the interior of brick
walls or the mystery of human bosoms, I can but guess.
Yonder is a fair street extending north and south. The stately mansions
are placed each on its carpet of verdant grass, and a long flight of
steps descends from every door to the pavement. Ornamental trees—the
broadleafed horse-chestnut, the elm so lofty and bending, the graceful
but infrequent willow, and others whereof I know not the names—grow
thrivingly among brick and stone. The oblique rays of the sun are
intercepted by these green citizens and by the houses, so that one side
of the street is a shaded and pleasant walk. On its whole extent there
is now but a single passenger, advancing from the upper end, and he,
unless distance and the medium of a pocket spyglass do him more than
justice, is a fine young man of twenty. He saunters slowly forward,
slapping his left hand with his folded gloves, bending his eyes upon
the pavement, and sometimes raising them to throw a glance before him.
Certainly he has a pensive air. Is he in doubt or in debt? Is he—if the
question be allowable—in love? Does he strive to be melancholy and
gentlemanlike, or is he merely overcome by the heat? But I bid him
farewell for the present. The door of one of the houses—an aristocratic
edifice with curtains of purple and gold waving from the windows—is now
opened, and down the steps come two ladies swinging their parasols and
lightly arrayed for a summer ramble. Both are young, both are pretty;
but methinks the left-hand lass is the fairer of the twain, and, though
she be so serious at this moment, I could swear that there is a
treasure of gentle fun within her. They stand talking a little while
upon the steps, and finally proceed up the street. Meantime, as their
faces are now turned from me, I may look elsewhere.
Upon that wharf and down the corresponding street is a busy contrast to
the quiet scene which I have just noticed. Business evidently has its
centre there, and many a man is wasting the summer afternoon in labor
and anxiety, in losing riches or in gaining them, when he would be
wiser to flee away to some pleasant country village or shaded lake in
the forest or wild and cool sea-beach. I see vessels unlading at the
wharf and precious merchandise strown upon the ground abundantly as at
the bottom of the sea—that market whence no goods return, and where
there is no captain nor supercargo to render an account of sales. Here
the clerks are diligent with their paper and pencils and sailors ply
the block and tackle that hang over the hold, accompanying their toil
with cries long-drawn and roughly melodious till the bales and
puncheons ascend to upper air. At a little distance a group of
gentlemen are assembled round the door of a warehouse. Grave seniors be
they, and I would wager—if it were safe, in these times, to be
responsible for any one—that the least eminent among them might vie
with old Vincentio, that incomparable trafficker of Pisa. I can even
select the wealthiest of the company. It is the elderly personage in
somewhat rusty black, with powdered hair the superfluous whiteness of
which is visible upon the cape of his coat. His twenty ships are wafted
on some of their many courses by every breeze that blows, and his name,
I will venture to say, though I know it not, is a familiar sound among
the far-separated merchants of Europe and the Indies.
But I bestow too much of my attention in this quarter. On looking again
to the long and shady walk I perceive that the two fair girls have
encountered the young man. After a sort of shyness in the recognition,
he turns back with them. Moreover, he has sanctioned my taste in regard
to his companions by placing himself on the inner side of the pavement,
nearest the Venus to whom I, enacting on a steeple-top the part of
Paris on the top of Ida, adjudged the golden apple.
In two streets converging at right angles toward my watch-tower I
distinguish three different processions. One is a proud array of
voluntary soldiers in bright uniform, resembling, from the height
whence I look down, the painted veterans that garrison the windows of a
toy-shop. And yet it stirs my heart. Their regular advance, their
nodding plumes, the sun-flash on their bayonets and musket-barrels, the
roll of their drums ascending past me, and the fife ever and anon
piercing through,—these things have wakened a warlike fire, peaceful
though I be. Close to their rear marches a battalion of schoolboys
ranged in crooked and irregular platoons, shouldering sticks, thumping
a harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument of tin and ridiculously
aping the intricate manoeuvres of the foremost band. Nevertheless, as
slight differences are scarcely perceptible from a church-spire, one
might be tempted to ask, “Which are the boys?” or, rather, “Which the
men?” But, leaving these, let us turn to the third procession, which,
though sadder in outward show, may excite identical reflections in the
thoughtful mind. It is a funeral—a hearse drawn by a black and bony
steed and covered by a dusty pall, two or three coaches rumbling over
the stones, their drivers half asleep, a dozen couple of careless
mourners in their every-day attire. Such was not the fashion of our
fathers when they carried a friend to his grave. There is now no
doleful clang of the bell to proclaim sorrow to the town. Was the King
of Terrors more awful in those days than in our own, that wisdom and
philosophy have been able to produce this change? Not so. Here is a
proof that he retains his proper majesty. The military men and the
military boys are wheeling round the corner, and meet the funeral full
in the face. Immediately the drum is silent, all but the tap that
regulates each simultaneous footfall. The soldiers yield the path to
the dusty hearse and unpretending train, and the children quit their
ranks and cluster on the sidewalks with timorous and instinctive
curiosity. The mourners enter the churchyard at the base of the steeple
and pause by an open grave among the burial-stones; the lightning
glimmers on them as they lower down the coffin, and the thunder rattles
heavily while they throw the earth upon its lid. Verily, the shower is
near, and I tremble for the young man and the girls, who have now
disappeared from the long and shady street.
How various are the situations of the people covered by the roofs
beneath me, and how diversified are the events at this moment befalling
them! The new-born, the aged, the dying, the strong in life and the
recent dead are in the chambers of these many mansions. The full of
hope, the happy, the miserable and the desperate dwell together within
the circle of my glance. In some of the houses over which my eyes roam
so coldly guilt is entering into hearts that are still tenanted by a
debased and trodden virtue; guilt is on the very edge of commission,
and the impending deed might be averted; guilt is done, and the
criminal wonders if it be irrevocable. There are broad thoughts
struggling in my mind, and, were I able to give them distinctness, they
would make their way in eloquence. Lo! the raindrops are descending.
The clouds within a little time have gathered over all the sky, hanging
heavily, as if about to drop in one unbroken mass upon the earth. At
intervals the lightning flashes from their brooding hearts, quivers,
disappears, and then comes the thunder, travelling slowly after its
twin-born flame. A strong wind has sprung up, howls through the
darkened streets, and raises the dust in dense bodies to rebel against
the approaching storm. The disbanded soldiers fly, the funeral has
already vanished like its dead, and all people hurry homeward—all that
have a home—while a few lounge by the corners or trudge on desperately
at their leisure. In a narrow lane which communicates with the shady
street I discern the rich old merchant putting himself to the top of
his speed lest the rain should convert his hair-powder to a paste.
Unhappy gentleman! By the slow vehemence and painful moderation
wherewith he journeys, it is but too evident that Podagra has left its
thrilling tenderness in his great toe. But yonder, at a far more rapid
pace, come three other of my acquaintance, the two pretty girls and the
young man unseasonably interrupted in their walk. Their footsteps are
supported by the risen dust, the wind lends them its velocity, they fly
like three sea-birds driven landward by the tempestuous breeze. The
ladies would not thus rival Atalanta if they but knew that any one were
at leisure to observe them. Ah! as they hasten onward, laughing in the
angry face of nature, a sudden catastrophe has chanced. At the corner
where the narrow lane enters into the street they come plump against
the old merchant, whose tortoise-motion has just brought him to that
point. He likes not the sweet encounter; the darkness of the whole air
gathers speedily upon his visage, and there is a pause on both sides.
Finally he thrusts aside the youth with little courtesy, seizes an arm
of each of the two girls, and plods onward like a magician with a prize
of captive fairies. All this is easy to be understood. How disconsolate
the poor lover stands, regardless of the rain that threatens an
exceeding damage to his well-fashioned habiliments, till he catches a
backward glance of mirth from a bright eye, and turns away with
whatever comfort it conveys!
The old man and his daughters are safely housed, and now the storm lets
loose its fury. In every dwelling I perceive the faces of the
chambermaids as they shut down the windows, excluding the impetuous
shower and shrinking away from the quick fiery glare. The large drops
descend with force upon the slated roofs and rise again in smoke. There
is a rush and roar as of a river through the air, and muddy streams
bubble majestically along the pavement, whirl their dusky foam into the
kennel, and disappear beneath iron grates. Thus did Arethusa sink. I
love not my station here aloft in the midst of the tumult which I am
powerless to direct or quell, with the blue lightning wrinkling on my
brow and the thunder muttering its first awful syllables in my ear. I
will descend. Yet let me give another glance to the sea, where the foam
breaks out in long white lines upon a broad expanse of blackness or
boils up in far-distant points like snowy mountain-tops in the eddies
of a flood; and let me look once more at the green plain and little
hills of the country, over which the giant of the storm is striding in
robes of mist, and at the town whose obscured and desolate streets
might beseem a city of the dead; and, turning a single moment to the
sky, now gloomy as an author’s prospects, I prepare to resume my
station on lower earth. But stay! A little speck of azure has widened
in the western heavens; the sunbeams find a passage and go rejoicing
through the tempest, and on yonder darkest cloud, born like hallowed
hopes of the glory of another world and the trouble and tears of this,
brightens forth the rainbow.