A VISIT TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
Wall, we went to the British Museum.
To give any idee of what we see in that museum would take more time,
and foolscap paper, and eyesight, or wind and ears than I spoze I will
ever be able to command.
It is seven acres of land full of everything rich and rare and
beautiful from our time back to the year one, and further, for
all I know. The marbles, engravin’s, picters, coins, manuscripts,
curosities--if I had the wealth of ’em in money--if I could have the
worth of jest one article out of the innumerable multitude of ’em, I
could jest buy out the hull town of Lyme, and live on the interest of
my money.
The museum holds everything and more too. And the library, why, it
is most too much to believe what we see there. Now, I’ve always had
a Bible and a New Testament, and have never gin much thought whether
there wuz any other different ones; but I see with my own eyes
seventeen hundred different kinds of Bibles.
And good land! everything else accordin’--everything else a-swingin’
out jest as regardless of cost and space. The Egyptian Gallery wuz a
sight to see, and statutes and slabs older than the hills. Who writ
them words on ’em? Did the heads ache, and hearts, jest as they do now?
I spoze so.
Roman, Grecian, Assyrian galleries, galleries of all sorts, birds and
beasts and fishes enough to stock the world, it seemed to me.
But most of all the relicks; some on ’em filled my tired-out brain with
or and wonder and admiration.
Milton’s contract with his publishers for “Paradise Lost” (he got five
pounds down, and wuz goin’ to git five dollars more when the first
edition wuz sold, and so on).
They took the advantage on him; you know he wuz blind, and couldn’t
skirmish round and look into things; so Paradise or not, they got the
better of him.
And then his widder; why didn’t they try to do as they ort to by Miss
Milton? She sold out root and branch for eight dollars--the idee! Why,
how many copies have been sold of that book? Enough to build up a
mountain as high as the Catskills.
8 pounds for ’em--what a shame!
The publishers are dead, I spoze; yes, I spoze Samuel Symon passed
away years ago, but he left quite a big family, and they all seem to
foller the old gentleman’s plans, and are doin’ first-rate and layin’
up money real fast.
And I see Hogarth’s receipts for some of his picters. And there wuz the
very prayer-book used by Lady Jane Grey on the scaffold.
“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place for all generations,” and
“though I walk through the valley and the shadow of death” I will be
with thee. I wonder if she heard the words when the shadders lay so
dark on her pretty head?
Then there wuz letters writ in their own hands from Martin Luther,
Oliver Cromwell, Mary Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth, Peter the Great,
Dudley, Leicester, Francis Bacon. And there wuzn’t a word in Francises
letter, so fur as I see, as to whether he wuz Shakespeare or not, or
whether Shakespeare wuz him.
I wish I knew how it wuz!
And there wuz papers and letters from all the kings and emperors, and
George Washington right amongst ’em--it kinder tickled my pride to see
George there, but he deserved it.
Then there wuz the old bull that gin Henry the VIII. the name of
Defender of the Faith. What kind of faith did he act out--the faith
that he could marry more wimmen and chop their heads off than any
other old creeter this side of Blue Beard.
I should have been ashamed if I wuz him. If he had been a woman
a-marryin’ and a-killin’ and a-marryin’, and etc., etc., etc., they
wouldn’t have stood it half so long--they would have broke it up; it
wouldn’t have been any worse in a female for anything I know.
And then there wuz the message from Julius Cæsar a-sayin’ that he had
“Veni, vidi, vici.”
I spoze Thomas Jefferson would know jest what that meant. Josiah
thought it wuz sunthin’ about some wimmen--Nancy somebody, but I
d’no--I wouldn’t ask.
And then there wuz letters from good riz up creeters, sech as John
Knox, Sir Isaac Newton, Cardinal Wolsey, Cranmer, Erasmus, etc., etc.,
etc., etc., etc., etc., and so forth.
Josiah wuz perfectly beat out when we got home that night, and so wuz I.
But we found letters from home, and they seemed to refresh us and take
our minds offen our four legs and our two dizzy and tired-out heads.
Babe, sweet little creeter, she writ that she prayed for me every
night, and for her grandpapa, too. I wonder if that is one reason why
our legs didn’t give out completely that day, as they threatened to
time and agin?
Thomas J. and Tirzah Ann writ affectionate letters--Thomas J. a-tellin’
us to be careful and not overdo, and Tirzah Ann sent a heart full of
love, and a request to git a yard and a half of lace with deep pints
on’t to trim a summer waist.
Ury and Philury wanted to know when we wuz a-comin’ home, and whether,
with deep respects, they should take up the parlor carpet, that seemed
threatened with carpet bugs, and whether it wuz best to break up the
8-acre lot.
Oh, sweet and tender missives, how near they seemed to bring the old
home to us--drag it right along over the glassy bridge of the Atlantic
and land it at our feet!
Wall, Martin sed he wouldn’t fail to see Madame Tussaud’s wax figgers.
He sed undoubtedly he would be asked if he’d seen ’em. And Adrian wuz
anxious to go, thinkin’ it wuz sunthin’ like a circus.
But we found it wuz a sight, a sight to see how nateral they wuz.
Why, some of the figgers almost breathed, and you can see ’em--some
machinery rigged up inside, I spoze. And then we see kings, and
queens, and princes, and warriors, and everybody else--we got fairly
light-headed a-seein’ ’em all, and I spoze Josiah got kinder excited
and wrought up, or he wouldn’t have done as he did.
There wuz a old man a-holdin’ a programme in his hand, and every little
while he would lift up his head and look round. He favored Deacon Henzy
quite a good deal, and Josiah sez to me--
“I believe that is Deacon Henzy’s cousin; you know he sed he had one
here in London. Don’t you see he has got the real Henzy nose? I believe
I’ll be neighborly and scrape acquaintance with him.”
“Wall,” sez I, “he duz favor the Henzys, but,” sez I, “don’t be too
forred; the Henzys are big feelin’.”
“Big feelin’!” sez Josiah; “don’t you spoze he will be glad to see
a neighbor of his own blood relation?” Sez he, “He will be glad to
neighbor with me.”
I felt dubersome, but he advanced onwards, and sez he in his most
polite axents--
“Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?”
[Illustration: “Be you any kin of Bildad Henzy, of Jonesville?”]
The old man never moved, but read away, and occasionally lifted his
head and looked round, and Josiah spoke agin a little louder--
“Be you any relative of Bildad Henzy?”
He never noticed my pardner any more’n as if he wuz dirt under his
feet, and my pardner got his dander up, and he fairly yelled in the old
man’s ears--
“Be you a Henzy?” And bein’ mad, he added, “Dum you! I believe you can
hear if you want to.” And he put his hand on the old man’s shoulder to
draw his attention to him. And for all the world! if that man wuzn’t
wax! Josiah looked meachin’ for as much as four minutes, and I sez--
“I told you to look ahead.”
“You didn’t, nuther,” he snapped out.
“Wall,” sez I, “it wuz words to that effect, and I wouldn’t try to be
neighborly agin to-day.”
Sez he, “If I see a man afire I wouldn’t tell him on’t.”
“Wall,” sez I, “he would probble find it out himself; but now,” sez I,
“you’d better keep right by me.”
Wall, as I said, we see every noted woman from Queen Victoria back to
Eve, I guess; and from the Prince of Wales and his wife and children
back to little Cain and Abel--or I presoom Adam’s little boys wuz
there, though I don’t remember of seein’ ’em. But there wuz Knights,
Barons, Crusaders, Kings, and Emperors, all dressed up in royal robes;
the Black Prince, as good a lookin’ young man as I want to see, and
Kings Edward and Richard and Henry, and Queens Mary and Elizabeth,
and Mary, Queen of Scots, all ready to have her head cut off; and her
rosary, on which she had told her prayers those dretful days, slipped
through her fingers as much as to say, I am goin’ into a country where
I sha’n’t want you any more. And there wuz Marie Antonette--poor
creeter! and Anne Boleyn, poor thing! she’d better not married a
widdower. And Joan of Arc, noble creeter! I felt real riz up a-lookin’
at her--I always liked her.
And I wuz dretful interested in the Napoleon rooms, full of the relicks
of the great kingmaker.
There he lay, jest as nateral as life, on a bed, with his cloak wropped
round him--the very cloak he wore at the battle of Marengo, and which
he wropped round his body some like a pall when that heart had stopped
its ambitious throbbin’s; and the world breathed freer.
Then there wuz his coronation robe--and if you’ll believe it, the
coronation robe of poor Empress Josephine right by.
I’d a-gin ten cents cheerfully if I could have got a little piece of
both on ’em for my crazy quilt. But I didn’t spoze they’d be willin’ to
have me cut ’em off, so I didn’t tackle the guide about it.
And mebby it wuz jest as well, I d’no as I could have slept much
under them two robes and meditated on what they had covered up. Love,
triumph, doubt, jealousy, heartaches, despair would permeate the
Josephine crazy block, and wild passions, and burnin’ ambition, and
cold, remorseless neglect, and desertion would most likely surround the
Napoleon crazed block.
I d’no but I should have the nightmair every time I tried to sleep
under it.
Then there wuz his watch, stopped the minute he died, his ring,
camp knife and fork, coffee-pot, snuff-box--if I hadn’t seen it, I
wouldn’t believed he used snuff, the idee is somehow so incongrous of
the hero of the Nile, the conqueror of Europe a-takin’ snuff. Why,
all Jonesville kinder looks down on old Miss Moody because she takes
snuff--black snuff, too, scented high with bergamot.
[Illustration: Napoleon’s tooth.]
Wall, one of the most life-like relicks wuz one of his teeth; that wuz
a part of the great emperor, or wuz once, before it wuz pulled out.
I spoze it ached jest like anybody’s tooth, and I presoom he wuz hard
to git along with, and talked rough, jest as any ordinary man duz,
durin’ its worst twinges.
I presoom he sed “Dum it!” repeatedly before he made up his mind to
have it out.
I jedge him by Josiah, and I spoze that is a good way to jedge men.
Yes, I spoze you ketch any one man and study him clost, and you have a
good idee of the hull male race.
And then there wuz a lock of hair, took right from his scalp, so I
spoze. Oh, what burnin’ thoughts and plans and ambitions once permeated
the spot on which that grew!
My emotions wuz a perfect sight as I looked at it.
And we see clothes and relicks of every other great man, it seems to
me, that ever lived--Lord Nelson, Henry of Navarre, etc., etc., etc.
And we see figgers--lookin’ jest as nateral as if they could walk up
and shake hands with you, if they wuz a-mind to--of Shakespeare and
Macaulay and Scott and Byron, Calvin and Knox and Luther, Lincoln’s
homely, good face, and Grant, Henry Ward Beecher, etc., etc., etc.
I wouldn’t give a cent to see all the figgers of criminals and
murderers, but Martin thought it advisable to walk through it, so he
could say he’d been there, I spoze.
And there wuz one thing among everything else that gin me more than
seventy emotions, and that wuz the very axe, the very old guillotine
that cut off the heads of twenty-two thousand folks durin’ the Rain of
Terror in Paris.
I looked at the piece of iron with feelin’s, as I say, beyend
description.
And I wondered out loud if the iron wuz now dug out of the sile that
would make jest sech a horrible instrument for America.
I groaned deep as I wondered it.
And Josiah sez, “You talk like a fool, Samantha!”
And I sez, “I hope I do, Josiah--I hope so!
“But what hammered this piece of iron out to its terrible use wuz the
fiery hammers of jealousy, and fury, and hunger, and want, and the gay
multitude went on in its gayety and extravagancies, and didn’t heed
the sullen hammerin’s onto that iron, and laughed at ’em that called
attention to it--jest as you are a-doin’ now, Josiah Allen.”
Sez he, “You can talk about my extravagancies if you want to, Samantha
Allen, but I hain’t half the clothes you have, and they hain’t trimmed
off anywhere nigh as high as yourn are.”
But I went on, not heedin’ his triflin’ words.
Sez I, “The same furies are loose in the streets of our American
cities to-day--foolish suspicion driv by mistaken zeal, jealousy,
heartburnin’, honest want, and need on one side; injestice, wrong,
oppressions, extravagance, indifference, anger, contempt, etc., etc.,
etc., on the other side, all a-flamin’ up and a-holdin’ up a light
for jest sech a axe to be ground out. How long will I hear the sullen
thunderin’ of the silent hammerin’s on the forge of ignorant malice and
hatred and jest anger--how long?” And I sithed deep and heavey.
And Josiah sez, “What you hear is the thud of folks a-walkin’ through
the Chamber of Horrows.”
And sez he agin, “You talk like a fool! America is good to the poor.
Look at So-and-so, and So-and-so, and So-and-so,” sez he, a-bringin’
my attention to some of the most shinin’ lights in the field of
philanthropy and jestice.
Sez I, a-drawin’ his attention to the good philanthropic works in
France--sez I, “Paris had also her So-and-so, and So-and-so, and
So-and-so before the Rain of Terror.”
And agin I gin several sithes and a few groans.
But my pardner looked cross as a bear, and dog tired.
So, as allegorin’ and eppisodin’ must yield to the powers of affection,
I mekanically follered him in silence through the halls, Martin and the
children bein’ in another part of the buildin’ and Al Faizi somewhere
a-lookin’ or a-takin’ notes in a noble way--I hain’t a doubt of it.
But we all rejoined each other, and sot off home to dinner amid
Josiah’s great rejoicin’.
Wall, Martin took us to the Zoological Garden, where we see all the
dumb creeters that ever wuz made, it seemed to me; and all used so
first-rate that it wuz a comfort to me to see ’em. Great big cages,
where they could roam round some and enjoy themselves.
[Illustration: Josiah at the London “Zoo.”]
And wuzn’t it a pleasure to see all the beautiful birds, of every color
and plume, from every country from Eden down, a-playin round in the
trees and in the ambient air? The cages as big as a door-yard, with
trees in ’em, where they can fly round in the branches. And water birds
with their own ponds to float in; and sea birds with real sea-shores
fixed up for ’em.
And so it wuz with every animal from a elephant down, wild or tame. And
I should have took a sight of comfort here if I had had a pair of iron
ear pans, or even gutty-perchy. But bein’ but flesh and blood, them
pans ached with the fearful noise the animals made.
Josiah wanted the worst way to go to the Parliament of Cogers, which
wuz established over two hundred years ago, and still meets in Fleet
Street.
Sez Josiah, “A public man in America naterly depends on cogers and sech
for his election.”
“Yes,” sez I; “Heaven knows that is so. Saloon-keepers and whiskey and
beer and cider manafacturers, and whiskey drinkers, and the raw foreign
element, and other cogers, elect more politicians to office, specially
in our big towns, than any other element; and pure men and Christian
wimmen have to stand back and be ruled by ’em.”
“Yes,” sez he, blandly; “and so it stands anybody in hand who has
political aspirations and wants to be popular with the masses to
ingrashiate himself with all the cogers he can. I would love to see
what means these men take to endear themselves to the cogers, besides
buyin’ ’em, and makin’ ’em drunk, and sech other ways as I’m familar
with.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you’ll go alone for all of me; I see cogers enough in
my own country without huntin’ ’em up here, and I’d advise you to keep
away from ’em.” Sez I, “Your head hain’t strong enough, Josiah, to
hold only jest so much, and I’d advise you to fill it up with the noble
and grand objects we see here on every side, and let cogers alone.”
“But,” sez he, “my futer depends on ’em; I must keep up with other
statesmen if I’m ever to amount to anything.”
But I wouldn’t listen to any more of his arguments, and waved off the
subject almost hautily.
But I found out afterwards that the Parliament wuzn’t cogers as
Josiah looked on ’em, and they wuz particular to be called _co_gers,
with the emphasis on the _co_. I found they wuz a sort of mock
debates--patronized by lawyers, political men, newspaper men, clerks,
etc., where they debate on every subject, and drink beer and smoke
pipes and talk, talk, talk.
Daniel O’Connell and Curran and John Wilkes and many others eminent in
debate wuz members of this club.
I had always pictered the Tower of London as a tall tower a-shootin’
up, some like a steeple, only more of a size all the way up; more,
mebby, like a very tall pillow. But, anyway, I’d always depictered it
in my mind as steeple or pillow shaped.
But, to my surprise, I found that what is called the Tower of London
is a hull lot of buildin’s that cover nigh upon fourteen acres of
ground, though there are, of course, a number of towers throwed
in--thirteen of ’em in all--Bloody Tower, Bell Tower, Jewel Tower,
etc., etc. They date back to the time of Cæsar.
There wuz a Roman fortress on this spot when the Romans held London.
One tower is called Cæsar’s Tower now. William the Conqueror founded
the Tower of London as we see it. When he wuz alive it wuz a great
palace, with thick walls for safety or defence; it wuz used as a prison
for prisoners of state mostly, and now it is used as an arsenal. Piles
of rifles and cannons are kep’ here in some of the buildin’s.
The principal entrance is the Lion’s Gate, but there are three other
gates. The Traitor’s Gate wuz the one through which prisoners wuz took
into the Tower. I don’t spoze they recognized the way they wuz took
out. Then there is the Water Gate and the Iron Gate.
One of the most interestin’ sights there wuz the guards who had charge
of the place. They had on velvet hats, with a kind of a wreath on ’em,
some like Tirzah Ann’s last winter’s hat, and a deep ruffle round their
necks, and a blue sort of a polenay or overskirt, with a belt all
embroidered with roses and thistles and shamrocks and crowns, and,
etc., and short pantoloons, with stockin’s comin’ up to the knee, and
rosettes on their knees and rosettes on their shues.
Josiah sez to me, “Never before sence I wuz born have I seen a man
dressed up as he ort to be to carry out my idees. You can see for
yourself, Samantha, jest how perfectly beautiful, and how dressy and
stylish a man can be if he sets out; why,” sez he, “a dress like that
would take twenty years offen my age, and I d’no but twenty-one, and
I’m bound to have one jest exactly like it if I ever live to git home.
What a sensation it will create in Jonesville!” sez he dreamily.
I gin a deep sithe, but before I could reply the company started
on their rounds of observation, led by one of them gay-dressed
individuals. They go the rounds every half hour.
Wall, we got some guide-books, and payed our sixpence apiece for our
tickets, some as if we wuz goin’ into a menagerie, and follered the
guide over the moat bridge into the different towers.
Martin and Josiah wuz dretful interested in the place where the weepons
wuz kep’, bayonets and swords and rifles and pistols enough to equip
all the armies of the earth, it seemed to me.
But I wuz more interested, a dretful heart-sickenin’ interest in the
place where the wretched captives wuz imprisoned and wore the long
hours away (jest as long hours as we have now) in vain dreams of the
happy and brilliant past. A-lookin’ forred to the sure approach of a
awful death, or, perhaps, in ellusive hopes of escape and flight to
other shores.
But the shores they reached, poor things! wuz up a steep the livin’ has
never climbed.
We see on the walls of these prisons words they carved in the hours
they waited execution. Arthur Poole, who tried to help Mary up onto the
English throne, left these words--
“I. H. S. A passage perillus makethe a port pleasant--1568.--A. Poole.”
I wonder jest how he felt when he writ them words--jest what a
heartache and heartbreak spoke through ’em. I dare presoom to say he
thought too much of Mary, but I can’t help that now; it’s three hundred
years too late.
There wuz elaborate carvin’s of flowers, leaves, figgers, etc., and
the names of their unhappy designers, who seemin’ly tried to light up
their captivity by formin’ the shapes of the flowers they would never
see a-growin’ in freedom agin--poseys without perfume, cold stun rosys,
indeed.
And then in one room wuz jest that one word:
“Jane.”
That touched me more’n the more elaborate ones. That wuz spozed to mean
Lady Jane Grey, and wuz carved by her pardner, Lord Dudley. It seemed
as if Love wuz a-callin’ out to her--“Jane!” jest that one cry acrost
the silences of death and eternity.
Then there wuz the autograph of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who had
his head cut off in 1572 for wantin’ to marry Mary Queen of Scots.
What a havock that woman did make amongst the men!
Then in the White Tower we see the place where Essex wuz killed and the
rooms occupied by Sir Walter Raleigh, and in the Brick Tower we see
the prison where Walter spent the last days of his life. I wondered if
through the long, dreary hours them real good words of hisen wuz any
comfort to him:
“Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staffe of faith to walk upon;
My scrip of joye--immortal diet--
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;
--And thus I take my pilgrimage.
“Blood must be my body’s balmer,
While my soul, like peaceful palmer,
Travelleth toward the land of Heaven.
* * * * *
“There will I kiss
The bowle of blisse,
And drink mine everlasting fill
Upon every milken-hill;
My soul will be a-dry before;
But after that will thirst no more.”
Them lines ort to have been a comfort to him--mebby they wuz. But lines
writ in a pleasant room to home, with the door shet up, don’t mebby
sound jest the same on the scaffold or to the stake--dretful echoes
sound all round ’em, loud voices that mebby drown out the words.
I spoze he thought sometimes durin’ them long days of his friends
Shakespeare and Bacon. Mebby if there wuz any secrets between them two
about the plays, he knew it. I wish I knew what it wuz--I’d give fifty
cents freely if it could be made known to me.
I wonder what he thought of Elizabeth in them days. I wonder if he wuz
sorry he throwed his cloak down for her to walk over. He tried to keep
her from jest dampenin’ her feet a little, and she willin’ to cut his
head off.
I’ll bet if he’d had his way them last ten days here, he would have let
her sloshed right through the mud, and not offered to throw his cloak
down for her.
Poor, capricious, jealous creeter, Lib wuz; but I believe that big
collar she always wore choked her and kinder rasped her neck, and made
her ugly. It would make me cross as a bear, it seems to me.
But I d’no what his feelin’s wuz, nor what hern wuz, when she knew the
man who wuz once her lover, and beloved by her, wuz spendin’ the long
days alone with despair and death.