August 2d.--Mr. ------ has urged me very much to go with his father and
family to see the launch of a great ship which has been built for their
house, and afterwards to partake of a picnic; so, on Tuesday morning I
presented myself at the landing-stage, and met the party, to take passage
for Chester. It was a showery morning, and looked wofully like a rainy
day; but nothing better is to be expected in England; and, after all,
there is seldom such a day that you cannot glide about pretty securely
between the drops of rain. This, however, did not turn out one of those
tolerable days, but grew darker and darker, and worse and worse; and was
worst of all when we had passed about six miles beyond Chester, and were
just on the borders of Wales, on the hither side of the river Dee, where
the ship was to be launched. Here the train stopped, and absolutely
deposited our whole party of excursionists, under a heavy shower, in the
midst of a muddy potato-field, whence we were to wade through mud and
mire to the ship-yard, almost half a mile off. Some kind Christian, I
know not whom, gave me half of his umbrella, and half of his cloak, and
thereby I got to a shed near the ship, without being entirely soaked
through.
The ship had been built on the banks of the Dee, at a spot where it is
too narrow for her to be launched directly across, and so she lay
lengthwise of the river, and was so arranged as to take the water
parallel with the stream. She is, for aught I know, the largest ship in
the world; at any rate, longer than the Great Britain,--an iron-screw
steamer,--and looked immense and magnificent, and was gorgeously dressed
out in flags. Had it been a pleasant day, all Chester and half Wales
would have been there to see the launch; and, in spite of the rain, there
were a good many people on the opposite shore, as well as on our side;
and one or two booths, and many of the characteristics of a fair,--that
is to say, men and women getting intoxicated without any great noise and
confusion.
The ship was expected to go off at about twelve o'clock, and at that
juncture all Mr. ------'s friends assembled under the bows of the ship,
where we were a little sheltered from the rain by the projection of that
part of the vessel over our heads. The bottle of port-wine with which
she was to be christened was suspended from the bows to the platform
where we stood by a blue ribbon; and the ceremony was to be performed by
Mrs. ------, who, I could see, was very nervous in anticipation of the
ceremony. Mr. ------ kept giving her instructions in a whisper, and
showing her how to throw the bottle; and as the critical moment
approached, he took hold of it along with her. All this time we were
waiting in momentary expectation of the ship going off, everything being
ready, and only the touch of a spring, as it were, needed to make her
slide into the water. But the chief manager kept delaying a little
longer, and a little longer; though the pilot on board sent to tell him
that it was time she was off. "Yes, yes; but I want as much water as I
can get," answered the manager; and so he held on till, I suppose, the
tide had raised the river Dee to its very acme of height. At last the
word was given; the ship began slowly to move; Mrs. ------ threw the
bottle against the bow with a spasmodic effort that dashed it into a
thousand pieces, and diffused the fragrance of the old port all around,
where it lingered several minutes. I did not think that there could have
been such a breathless moment in an affair of this kind.
The ship moved majestically down toward the river; and unless it were
Niagara, I never saw anything grander and more impressive than the motion
of this mighty mass as she departed from us. We on the platform, and
everybody along both shores of the Dee, took off our hats in the rain,
waved handkerchiefs, cheered, shouted,--"Beautiful!" "What a noble
launch!" "Never was so fair a sight!"--and, really, it was so grand,
that calm, majestic movement, that I felt the tears come into my eyes.
The wooden pathway adown which she was gliding began to smoke with the
friction; when all at once, when we expected to see her plunge into the
Dee, she came to a full stop. Mr. ------, the father of my friend, a
gentleman with white hair, a dark, expressive face, bright eyes, and an
Oriental cast of features, immediately took the alarm. A moment before
his countenance had been kindled with triumph; but now he turned pale as
death, and seemed to grow ten years older while I was looking at him.
Well he might, for his noble ship was stuck fast in the land of the Dee,
and without deepening the bed of the river, I do not see how her vast
iron hulk is ever to be got out.
[This steamer was afterwards successfully floated off on the 29th of the
same month.]
There was no help for it. A steamboat was hitched on to the stranded
vessel, but broke two or three cables without stirring her an inch. So,
after waiting long after we had given up all hope, we went to the office
of the ship-yard, and there took a lunch; and still the rain was pouring,
pouring, pouring, and I never experienced a blacker affair in all my
days. Then we had to wait a great while for a train to take us back, so
that it was almost five o'clock before we arrived at Chester, where I
spent an hour in rambling about the old town, under the Rows; and on the
walls, looking down on the treetops, directly under my feet, and through
their thick branches at the canal, which creeps at the base, and at the
cathedral; walking under the dark intertwining arches of the cloisters,
and looking up at the great cathedral tower, so wasted away externally by
time and weather that it looks, save for the difference of color between
white snow and red freestone, like a structure of snow, half dissolved by
several warm days.
At the lunch I met with a graduate of Cambridge (England), tutor of a
grandson of Percival, with his pupil (Percival, the assassinated
minister, I mean). I should not like this position of tutor to a young
Englishman; it certainly has an ugly twang of upper servitude. I
observed that the tutor gave his pupil the best seat in the railway
carriage, and in all respects provided for his comfort before thinking of
his own; and this, not as a father does for his child, out of love, but
from a sense of place and duty, which I did not quite see how a gentleman
could consent to feel. And yet this Mr. C------ was evidently a
gentleman, and a quiet, intelligent, agreeable, and, no doubt, learned
man. K------ being mentioned, Mr. C------ observed that he had known him
well at college, having been his contemporary there. He did not like
him, however,--thought him a "dangerous man," as well as I could gather;
he thinks there is some radical defect in K------'s moral nature, a lack
of sincerity; and, furthermore, he believes him to be a sensualist in his
disposition, in support of which view he said Mr. K------ had made
drawings, such as no pure man could have made, or could allow himself to
show or look at. This was the only fact which Mr. C------ adduced,
bearing on his opinion of K------; otherwise, it seemed to be one of
those early impressions which a collegian gets of his fellow-students,
and which he never gets rid of, whatever the character of the person may
turn out to be in after years. I have judged several persons in this
way, and still judge them so, though the world has cone to very different
conclusions. Which is right?--the world, which has the man's whole
mature life on its side; or his early companion, who has nothing for it
but some idle passages of his youth?
Mr. M------ remarked of newspaper reporters, that they may be known at
all celebrations, and of any public occasion, by the enormous quantity of
luncheon they eat.
August 12th.--Mr. B------ dined with us at the Rock Ferry Hotel the day
before yesterday. Speaking of Helvellyn, and the death of Charles Cough,
about whom Wordsworth and Scott have both sung, Mr. B------ mentioned a
version of that story which rather detracts from the character of the
faithful dog.
But somehow it lowers one's opinion of human nature itself, to be
compelled so to lower one's standard of a dog's nature. I don't intend
to believe the disparaging story, but it reminds me of the story of the
New-Zealander who was asked whether he loved a missionary who had been
laboring for his soul and those of his countrymen. "To be sure I loved
him. Why, I ate a piece of him for my breakfast this morning!"
For the last week or two I have passed my time between the hotel and the
Consulate, and a weary life it is, and one that leaves little of profit
behind it. I am sick to death of my office,--brutal captains and brutal
sailors; continual complaints of mutual wrong, which I have no power to
set right, and which, indeed, seem to have no right on either side; calls
of idleness or ceremony from my travelling countrymen, who seldom know
what they are in search of at the commencement of their tour, and never
have attained any desirable end at the close of it; beggars, cheats,
simpletons, unfortunates, so mixed up that it is impossible to
distinguish one from another, and so, in self-defence, the Consul
distrusts them all. . . .
At the hotel, yesterday, there was a large company of factory people from
Preston, who marched up from the pier with a band of military music
playing before them. They spent the day in the gardens and ball-room of
the hotel, dancing and otherwise merry-making; but I saw little of them,
being at the Consulate. Towards evening it drizzled, and the assemblage
melted away gradually; and when the band marched down to the pier, there
were few to follow, although one man went dancing before the musicians,
flinging out his arms, and footing it with great energy and
gesticulation. Some young women along the road likewise began to
dance as the music approached.
Thackeray has a dread of servants, insomuch that he hates to address
them, or to ask them for anything. His morbid sensibility, in this
regard, has perhaps led him to study and muse upon them, so that he may
be presumed to have a more intimate knowledge of this class than any
other man.
Carlyle dresses so badly, and wears such a rough outside, that the
flunkies are rude to him at gentlemen's doors.
In the afternoon J----- and I took a walk towards Tranmere Hall, and
beyond, as far as Oxton. This part of the country, being so near
Liverpool and Birkenhead, is all sprinkled over with what they call
"Terraces," "Bellevues," and other pretty names for semi-detached villas
("Recluse Cottage" was one) for a somewhat higher class. But the old,
whitewashed stone cottage is still frequent, with its roof of slate or
thatch, which perhaps is green with weeds or grass. Through its open
door, you see that it has a pavement of flagstones, or perhaps of red
freestone; and hogs and donkeys are familiar with the threshold. The
door always opens directly into the kitchen, without any vestibule; and,
glimpsing in, you see that a cottager's life must be the very plainest
and homeliest that ever was lived by men and women. Yet the flowers
about the door often indicate a native capacity for the beautiful; but
often there is only a pavement of round stones or of flagstones, like
those within. At one point where there was a little bay, as it were, in
the hedge fence, we saw something like a small tent or wigwam,--an arch
of canvas three or four feet high, and open in front, under which sat a
dark-complexioned woman and some children. The woman was sewing, and I
took them for gypsies.
August 17th.--Yesterday afternoon J----- and I went to Birkenhead Park,
which I have already described. . . . It so happened that there was a
large school spending its holiday there; a school of girls of the lower
classes, to the number of a hundred and fifty, who disported themselves
on the green, under the direction of the schoolmistresses and of an old
gentleman. It struck me, as it always has, to observe how the lower
orders of this country indicate their birth and station by their aspect
and features. In America there would be a good deal of grace and beauty
among a hundred and fifty children and budding girls, belonging to
whatever rank of life. But here they had universally a most plebeian
look,--stubbed, sturdy figures, round, coarse faces, snub-noses,--the
most evident specimens of the brown bread of human nature. They looked
wholesome and good enough, and fit to sustain their rough share of life;
but it would have been impossible to make a lady out of any one of them.
Climate, no doubt, has most to do with diffusing a slender elegance over
American young-womanhood; but something, perhaps, is also due to the
circumstance of classes not being kept apart there as they are here: they
interfuse, amid the continual ups and downs of our social life; and so,
in the lowest stations of life, you may see the refining influence of
gentle blood. At all events, it is only necessary to look at such an
assemblage of children as I saw yesterday, to be convinced that birth and
blood do produce certain characteristics. To be sure, I have seen no
similar evidence in England or elsewhere of old gentility refining and
elevating the race.
These girls were all dressed in black gowns, with white aprons and
neckerchiefs, and white linen caps on their heads,--a very dowdyish
attire, and well suited to their figures. I saw only two of their
games,--in one, they stood in a circle, while two of their number chased
one another within and without the ring of girls, which opened to let the
fugitive pass, but closed again to impede the passage of the pursuer.
The other was blind-man's-buff on a new plan: several of the girls,
sometimes as many as twenty, being blinded at once, and pursuing a single
one, who rang a hand-bell to indicate her whereabouts. This was very
funny; the bell-girl keeping just beyond their reach, and drawing them
after her in a huddled group, so that they sometimes tumbled over one
another and lay sprawling. I think I have read of this game in Strutt's
"English Sports and Pastimes."
We walked from the Park home to Rock Ferry, a distance of three or four
miles,--a part of which was made delightful by a foot-path, leading us
through fields where the grass had just been mown, and others where the
wheat harvest was commenced. The path led us into the very midst of the
rural labor that was going forward; and the laborers rested a moment to
look at us; in fact, they seemed to be more willing to rest than American
laborers would have been. Children were loitering along this path or
sitting down beside it; and we met one little maid, passing from village
to village, intent on some errand. Reaching Tranmere, I went into an
alehouse, nearly opposite the Hall, and called for a glass of ale. The
doorstep before the house, and the flagstone floor of the entry and
tap-room, were chalked all over in corkscrew lines,--an adornment that
gave an impression of care and neatness, the chalked lines being
evidently freshly made. It was a low, old-fashioned room ornamented with
a couple of sea-shells, and an earthen-ware figure on the mantel-piece;
also with advertisements of Allsop's ale, and other drinks, and with a
pasteboard handbill of "The Ancient Order of Foresters"; any member of
which, paying sixpence weekly, is entitled to ten shillings per week, and
the attendance of a first-rate physician in sickness, and twelve pounds
to be paid to his friends in case of death. Any member of this order,
when travelling, is sure (says the handbill) to meet with a brother
member to lend him a helping hand, there being nearly three thousand
districts of this order, and more than a hundred and nine thousand
members in Great Britain, whence it has extended to Australia, America,
and other countries.
Looking up at the gateway of Tranmere Hall, I discovered an inscription
on the red freestone lintel, and, though much time-worn, I succeeded in
reading it. "Labor omnia vincit. 1614." There were likewise some
initials which I could not satisfactorily make out. The sense of this
motto would rather befit the present agricultural occupants of the house
than the idle gentlefolks who built and formerly inhabited it.