A stranger in London on Saturday night and without a copper! What
hospitalities may such an one expect? What shall I do with myself this
weary night? My landlady won’t receive me in her parlour. I owe her
money. She looks like flint on me. So in this monstrous rabblement must
I crawl about till, say, ten o’clock, and then slink home to my
unlighted bed.
The case was this: The week following my inglorious expulsion from the
transatlantic temple, I had packed up my trunks and damaged character,
and repaired to the paternal, loving town of Philadelphia. There chance
threw into my way an interesting young orphan lady and her aunt-duenna;
the lady rich as Cleopatra, but not as beautiful; the duenna lovely as
Charmian, but not so young. For the lady’s health, prolonged travel had
been prescribed. Maternally connected in old England, the lady chose
London for her primal port. But ere securing their passage, the two were
looking around for some young physician, whose disengagement from
pressing business might induce him to accept, on a moderate salary, the
post of private Esculapius and knightly companion to the otherwise
unprotected pair. The more necessary was this, as not only the voyage to
England was intended, but an extensive European tour to follow.
Enough. I came; I saw; I was made the happy man. We sailed. We landed on
the other side; when, after two weeks of agonised attendance on the
vacillations of the lady, I was very cavalierly dismissed, on the score
that the lady’s maternal relations had persuaded her to try, through the
winter, the salubrious climate of the foggy Isle of Wight, in preference
to the fabulous blue atmosphere of the Ionian Isles. So much for
national prejudice. _Nota Bene._--The lady was in a sad decline.
Having ere sailing been obliged to anticipate nearly a quarter’s pay to
foot my outfit bills, I was dismally cut adrift in Fleet Street without
a solitary shilling. By disposing, at certain pawnbrokers, of some of my
less indispensable apparel, I had managed to stave off the more
slaughterous onsets of my landlady, while diligently looking about for
any business that might providentially appear.
So on I drifted amid those indescribable crowds which every seventh
night pour and roar through each main artery, and block the by-veins of
great London, the Leviathan. Saturday night it was; and the markets and
the shops, and every stall and counter were crushed with the one
unceasing tide. A whole Sunday’s victualling for three millions of human
bodies, was going on. Few of them equally hungry with my own, as through
my spent lassitude, the unscrupulous human whirlpools eddied me aside at
corners, as any straw is eddied in the Norway Maelstrom. What dire
suckings into oblivion must such swirling billows know! Better perish
’mid myriad sharks in mid Atlantic, than die a penniless stranger in
Babylonian London. Forlorn, outcast, without a friend, I staggered on
through three millions of my own human kind. The fiendish gas-lights
shooting their Tartarean rays across the muddy, sticky streets, lit up
the pitiless and pitiable scene.
Well, well, if this were but Sunday now, I might conciliate some kind
female pew-opener, and rest me in some inn-like chapel upon some
stranger’s outside bench. But it is Saturday night. The end of the weary
week, and all but the end of weary me.
Disentangling myself at last from those skeins of Pandemonian lanes
which snarl one part of the metropolis between Fleet Street and Holborn,
I found myself at last in a wide and far less noisy street, a short and
shopless one, leading up from the Strand, and terminating at its
junction with a crosswise avenue. The comparative quietude of the place
was inexpressively soothing. It was like emerging upon the green
enclosure surrounding some cathedral church, where sanctity makes all
things still. Two lofty brilliant lights attracted me in this tranquil
street. Thinking it might prove some moral or religious meeting, I
hurried toward the spot; but was surprised to see two tall placards
announcing the appearance that night, of the stately Macready in the
part of Cardinal Richelieu. Very few loiterers hung about the place, the
hour being rather late, and the play-bill hawkers mostly departed, or
keeping entirely quiet. This theatre indeed, as I afterwards discovered,
was not only one of the best in point of acting, but likewise one of the
most decorous in its general management, inside and out. In truth, the
whole neighbourhood, as it seemed to me--issuing from the jam and uproar
of those turbulent tides against which, or borne on irresistibly by
which, I had so long been swimming--the whole neighbourhood, I say, of
this pleasing street seemed in good keeping with the character imputed
to its theatre.
Glad to find one blessed oasis of tranquillity, I stood leaning against
a column of the porch, and striving to lose my sadness in running over
one of the huge placards. No one molested me. A tattered little girl, to
be sure, approached with a hand-bill extended, but marking me more
narrowly, retreated; her strange skill in physiognomy at once enabling
her to determine that I was penniless. As I read, and read--for the
placard, of enormous dimensions, contained minute particulars of each
successive scene in the enacted play--gradually a strong desire to
witness this celebrated Macready in this his celebrated part stole over
me. By one act, I might rest my jaded limbs, and more than jaded
spirits. Where else could I go for rest, unless I crawled into my cold
and lonely bed far up in an attic of Craven Street, looking down upon
the muddy Phlegethon of the Thames. Besides, what I wanted was not
merely rest, but cheer; the making one of many pleased and pleasing
human faces; the getting into a genial humane assembly of my kind; such
as, at its best and highest, is to be found in the unified multitude of
a devout congregation. But no such assemblies were accessible that
night, even if my unbefriended and rather shabby air would overcome the
scruples of those fastidious gentry with red gowns and long gilded
staves, who guard the portals of the first-class London tabernacles from
all profanation of a poor, forlorn, and fainting wanderer like me. Not
inns, but ecclesiastical hotels, where the pews are the rented chambers.
No use to ponder, thought I, at last; it is Saturday night, not Sunday;
and so, a theatre only can receive me. So powerfully in the end did the
longing to get into the edifice come over me, that I almost began to
think of pawning my overcoat for admittance. But from this last
infatuation I was providentially withheld by a sudden cheery summons, in
a voice unmistakably benevolent. I turned, and saw a man who seemed to
be some sort of a working man.
‘Take it,’ said he, holding a plain red ticket toward me, full in the
gas-light. ‘You want to go in; I know you do. Take it. I am suddenly
called home. There--hope you’ll enjoy yourself. Good-bye.’
Blankly and mechanically I had suffered the ticket to be thrust into my
hand, and now stood quite astonished, bewildered, and for the time,
ashamed. The plain fact was, I had received charity; and for the first
time in my life. Often in the course of my strange wanderings I had
needed charity, but never had asked it, and certainly never, ere this
blessed night, had been offered it. And a stranger, and in the very maw
of the roaring London, too! Next moment my sense of foolish shame
departed, and I felt a queer feeling in my left eye, which, as sometimes
is the case with people, was the weaker one; probably from being on the
same side with the heart.
I glanced round eagerly. But the kind giver was no longer in sight. I
looked upon the ticket. I understood. It was one of those checks given
to persons inside a theatre when for any cause they desire to step out a
moment. Its presentation ensures unquestioned readmittance.
‘Shall I use it?’ mused I--‘what? It’s charity. But if it be gloriously
right to do a charitable deed, can it be ingloriously wrong to receive
its benefit? No one knows you; go boldly in. Charity. Why these
unvanquishable scruples? All your life, naught but charity sustains you,
and all others in the world. Maternal charity nursed you as a babe;
paternal charity fed you as a child; friendly charity got you your
profession; and to the charity of every man you meet this night in
London, are you indebted for your unattempted life. Any knife, any hand
of all the millions of knives and hands in London, has you this night at
its mercy. You, and all mortals, live but by sufferance of your
charitable kind; charitable by omission, not performance. Slush for your
self-upbraidings, and pitiful, poor, shabby pride, you friendless man
without a purse. Go in.’
Debate was over. Marking the direction from which the stranger had
accosted me, I stepped that way; and soon saw a low-vaulted,
inferior-looking door on one side of the edifice. Entering, I wandered
on and up, and up and on again, through various doubling stairs and
wedge-like, ill-lit passages, whose bare boards much reminded me of my
ascent of the Gothic tower on the ocean’s far other side. At last I
gained a lofty platform, and saw a fixed human countenance facing me
from a mysterious window of a sort of sentry-box or closet. Like some
saint in a shrine, the countenance was illuminated by two smoky candles.
I divined the man. I exhibited my diploma, and he nodded me to a little
door beyond; while a sudden burst of orchestral music admonished me. I
was now very near my destination, and also revived the memory of the
organ anthems I had heard while on the ladder of the tower at home.
Next moment, the wire-woven gauzy screen of the ventilating window in
that same tower seemed enchantedly reproduced before me. The same hot
blast of stifling air once more rushed into my lungs. From the same
dizzy altitude, through the same fine-spun, vapoury, crapey air; far,
far down upon just such a packed mass of silent human beings; listening
to just such grand harmonies; I stood within the topmost gallery of the
temple. But hardly alone and silently as before. This time I had
company. Not of the first circles, and certainly not of the
dress-circle; but most acceptable, right welcome, cheery company, to
otherwise uncompanioned me. Quiet, well-pleased working men, and their
glad wives and sisters, with here and there an aproned urchin, with
all-absorbed, bright face, vermilioned by the excitement and the heated
air, hovering like a painted cherub over the vast human firmament below.
The height of the gallery was in truth appalling. The rail was low. I
thought of deep-sea-leads, and the mariner in the vessel’s chains,
drawing up the line, with his long-drawn musical accompaniment. And like
beds of glittering coral, through the deep sea of azure smoke, there,
far down, I saw the jewelled necks and white sparkling arms of crowds of
ladies in the semicirque. But, in the interval of two acts, again the
orchestra was heard; some inspiring anthem now was played. As the
volumed sound came undulating up, and broke in showery spray and foam of
melody against our gallery rail, my head involuntarily was bowed, my
hand instinctively sought my pocket. Only by a second thought did I
check my momentary lunacy, and remind myself that this time I had no
small morocco book with me, and that this was not the house of prayer.
Quickly was my wandering mind--preternaturally affected by the sudden
translation from the desolate street to this bewildering and blazing
spectacle--arrested in its wanderings, by feeling at my elbow a meaning
nudge; when turning suddenly, I saw a sort of coffee-pot and pewter mug
hospitably presented to me by a ragged, but good-natured-looking boy.
‘Thank you,’ said I, ‘I won’t take any coffee, I guess.’
‘Coffee?--I guess?--ain’t you a Yankee?’
‘Ay, boy; true blue.’
‘Well, dad’s gone to Yankee-land, a-seekin’ of his fortin; so take a
penny mug of ale, do, Yankee, for poor dad’s sake.’
Out from the tilted coffee-pot-looking can came a coffee-coloured
stream, and a small mug of humming ale was in my hand.
‘I don’t want it, boy. The fact is, my boy, I have no penny by me. I
happened to leave my purse at my lodgings.’
‘Never do you mind, Yankee; drink to honest dad.’
‘With all my heart, you generous boy; here’s immortal life to him!’
He stared at my strange burst, smiled merrily, and left me, offering his
coffee-pot in all directions, and not in vain.
’Tis not always poverty to be poor, mused I; one may fare well without a
penny. A ragged boy may be a prince-like benefactor.
That unpurchased pennyworth of ale revived my drooping spirits
strangely. Stuff was in that barley malt; a most sweet bitterness in
those blessed hops. God bless the glorious boy!
The more I looked about me in this lofty gallery, the more was I
delighted with its occupants. It was not spacious. It was, if anything,
rather contracted, being the very cheapest portion of the house, where
very limited attendance was expected; embracing merely the very crown of
the topmost semicircle; and so commanding, with a sovereign outlook, and
imperial downlook, the whole theatre, with the expanded stage directly
opposite, though some hundred feet below. As at the tower, peeping into
the transatlantic temple, so stood I here, at the very mainmast-head of
all the interior edifice.
Such was the decorum of this special theatre, that nothing objectionable
was admitted within its walls. With an unhurt eye of perfect love, I sat
serenely in the gallery, gazing upon the pleasing scene, around me and
below. Neither did it abate from my satisfaction to remember that Mr.
Macready, the chief actor of the night, was an amiable gentleman,
combining the finest qualities of social and Christian respectability
with the highest excellence in his particular profession; for which last
he had conscientiously done much, in many ways, to refine, elevate, and
chasten.
But now the curtain rises, and the robed Cardinal advances. How
marvellous this personal resemblance! He looks every inch to be the
self-same stately priest I saw irradiated by the glow-worm dyes of the
pictured windows from my high tower-pew. And shining as he does, in the
rosy reflexes of these stained walls and gorgeous galleries, the mimic
priest down there; he, too, seems lit by Gothic blazonings.--Hark! The
same measured, courtly, noble tone. See! the same imposing attitude.
Excellent actor is this Richelieu!
He disappears behind the scenes. He slips, no doubt, into the Green
Room. He reappears somewhat changed in his habiliments. Do I dream, or
is it genuine memory that recalls some similar thing seen through the
woven wires?
The curtain falls. Starting to their feet, the enraptured thousands
sound their responses deafeningly, unmistakably sincere. Right from the
undoubted heart. I have no duplicate in my memory of this. In
earnestness of response, this second temple stands unmatched. And hath
mere mimicry done this? What is it then to act a part?
But now the music surges up again, and borne by that rolling billow, I,
and all the gladdened crowd, are harmoniously attended to the street.
I went home to my lonely lodging and slept not much that night, for
thinking of the First Temple and the Second Temple; and how that, at
home in my own land, I was thrust out from the one, and, a stranger in a
strange land, found sterling charity in the other.
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