of Ottawa, till we gained a very good idea of its external appearance.
It has numerous fine churches, and its town hall, post office and all
the municipal buildings are substantially and massively built in an
attractive and fanciful style of architecture. As for the rest of
the city, it is in a perfectly unfinished state; it is as yet only a
thing of promise, though it has the making of a very fine town in the
future; but however fast it marches, it will have to keep growing,
and work hard too for another century at least, before it reaches the
level of its magnificent Parliament buildings. The streets are wide
and long, stretching away out of sight; they are cobble-stoned and
roughly wood-paved for the most part. After passing the principal
lines of shops in Sparkes Street, the houses seem to have been built
for temporary convenience only, and crop up here and there in a direct
line, leaving wide spaces of waste land between, as though they were
in a hurry to see which should reach the end of the long street first,
the end that seems to be creeping back to the primeval forest, which
civilization and time have left far behind.
Ottawa itself is neither picturesque nor attractive, being built on
perfectly flat ground. It looks like a timber yard and smells of
sawdust. The Ottawa River has as many long thin arms as an octopus, and
they run meandering inland by a hundred different ways; here they meet
in a vast tumbling mass, falling over huge boulders and broken stony
ground till they are dignified by the name of the “Chaudière Falls”;
lower down their headlong course is stopped, and they are utilized and
made to turn a huge saw-mill where a thousand steel teeth are biting
through the grand old trees, tearing them into chips, digesting and
disgorging them on the other side; in vain the water foams and groans,
crashing its rebellious waves together--man is its master and will
have his way.
Rideau Hall, the home of our Princess, lies on the outskirts of the
town, and is by no means a regal-looking mansion; it is a long low
building of gray stone, standing on rather elevated ground, and has a
pleasant view of the town and river from the lawn and flower garden,
which encloses two sides of it; the approach is through tolerably
well timbered grounds, not of sufficient importance to be called a
“park.” The Governor and Princess Louise were away, and the house
was undergoing repair--it looked as though it needed it. There was
nothing to distinguish this from any second or third-rate country
house at home, except the one solitary and rather seedy looking
sentinel who paraded before the door. The people of Ottawa speak most
enthusiastically of our Princess; every one has some kind memory or
pleasant anecdote to tell of her. It is said that when Her Royal
Highness held her first reception, she appeared in a plain high
dress, expecting, perhaps, to find fashion “out of joint” in this
far-away place; but the Canadian ladies came trooping “_en grand
toilette_,” with fans and diamonds, trains and laces, like living
importations from Worth himself. At the next reception matters changed,
and the royal lady appeared in all the splendour of the British Court.
MOUNT VERNON
ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN
Every patriotic American who visits Washington makes a pious pilgrimage
to the home and tomb of the Father of his Country. There are two ways
of reaching _Mount Vernon_, one by trolley and one by river. The road
passes through a flat, uninteresting and somewhat desolate country;
and a loud-voiced _cicerone_ indicates the points of interest on
the way. The journey is usually broken either going or returning at
Alexandria, a quaint, old, sleepy, dilapidated, little town. Visitors
stroll through its grass-grown streets, marvel at its rotting wharf,
drop in at the Carlyle House, where the ill-fated Braddock made
his headquarters; and then take a look at old Christ Church where
Washington worshipped.
The pleasantest and most picturesque route, however, is by river. A
delightful sail down the Potomac for about an hour brings one to the
landing-stage at the foot of the grounds. The approach to the house is
very fine. _Mount Vernon_ stands on a wooded eminence commanding
a beautiful view of the reaches of the river and the opposite shores.
From the river, the house with its broad pillared colonnade has an
impressive air.
The estate of _Mount Vernon_ in Washington’s day was an extensive
one of two thousand broad acres. Its owner was very fond and proud of
it. He himself wrote: “No estate in United America is more pleasantly
situated. In a high and healthy country, in a latitude between the
extremes of heat and cold, on one of the finest rivers in the world,
a river well stocked with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the
year, and in the spring with shad, herring, bass, carp, sturgeon, etc.,
in great abundance. The borders of the estate are washed by more than
ten miles of tide-water: several valuable fisheries appertain to it.
The whole shore in fact, is one vast fishery.” Washington was also
proud of his trees. To increase their numbers and varieties was the
constant occupation of his home life. Every season of the year found
him providing for them. The grounds still owe much of their charm
to his care. They glisten and bloom with shade trees, evergreens,
flowering shrubs and fruit trees:--box, holly, tulip, poplar,
sweet-gum, sassafras, dogwood, oak, mulberry, aspen, ash, locust and
fringe-tree are plentiful, the deciduous trees in this list being
natives of Fairfax County. Washington’s diary shows his interest in
forestry and gardening. He notes when the white-thorn is in berry, when
he clears the undergrowth of a clump of pines, when he plants hemlock
and sows holly berries, when he plants acorns and buckeye nuts brought
from the battleground of Monongahela, and horse-chestnuts from his old
home in Westmoreland.
[Illustration:
Copyrighted by Soule Photo. Co.
MOUNT VERNON, VIRGINIA]
_Mount Vernon_ was originally built by George’s elder half-brother,
Lawrence Washington, who laid out the grounds and named the place in
honour of Admiral Vernon, under whom he had seen distinguished service
at the siege of Cartagena. When George came into possession soon
after his generous brother’s death in 1752, _Mount Vernon_ was a modest
and unpretending Virginia dwelling. The new owner improved and enlarged
it on several occasions, and frequently added to the out-buildings.
At some little distance from the driveway facing the east front, the
road led through a patch of flowering shrubbery and passed between
porters’ lodges built of sun-dried bricks to the gateway familiar to
every tourist. This approach opened to view a plain two-story house
with peaked roof and cupola, and out-buildings connected with the main
structure by an open arcade, in the usual Virginia style. These covered
ways are a great protection in cold or inclement weather to those
bringing in hot food from the kitchen, which, here as elsewhere, is
separate from the house.
The only striking architectural feature of the building was the
colonnade, a broad flagged piazza on the side facing the river,
supporting by slender wooden columns the eaves of the roof, and
affording a shady and cool retreat for family and visitors. The lawns
slope away down to the river, and many a pleasant afternoon tea has
been enjoyed under those columns.
Leaving the landing-stage we take a short walk up the hill and reach
the building where lie the mortal remains of the great liberator and
first President of the United States. Considering the memories that
cluster around it, the structure is insignificant and unworthy. It
is more like an ordinary spring-house than a mausoleum, and when we
remember what has been expended on Grant’s tomb and others whose memory
the nation delights to honour, we cannot help marvelling at the sordid
simplicity of Washington’s last resting-place. The graves of many
members of the family lie around it; and in the vault at the back of
the mausoleum are the remains of many more. Who they were, however, we
have no means of ascertaining because there are no records or tablets
to assist us. For more than half a century, this tomb suffered from
worse than neglect, for the pious pilgrims and the ordinary curiosity
hunters who visited the tomb of the Father of his Country carried
away as mementos chips of masonry, pebbles, flowers, ferns, twigs,
branches of trees and bushes, and generally devastated the place. These
depredations have now ceased, however; and the tomb is now protected by
lock and key against vandalism.
The work of protection and preservation is now in the hands of the
Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union which was the first
patriotic organization of women in the United States. It was started
in 1853, and received a charter from the Virginia legislature in 1856.
After long correspondence Mr. John Augustine Washington consented to
surrender the mausoleum, house and 200 acres of grounds for $200,000.
The money was soon raised and _Mount Vernon_ now belongs to Virginia,
and is under the charge of regents appointed one for each state of
the Union. These in turn are under a president. The regents meet at
_Mount Vernon_ every year. The house and grounds are under the direct
charge of a resident superintendent, who is as courteous and obliging
as he is an able administrator. Many of the rooms are under the special
patronage of separate states, and there is in consequence a good deal
of competition among the regents to supply furniture of Washington’s
day, when it is not possible to recover genuine Washington relics. It
has been said that Washington snuff-boxes are as plentiful as Mayflower
furniture; but now every precaution is taken against labelling anything
that is not undeniably authentic.
The house has two important fronts, presenting one to the river and
another to the beautiful sweep of turf between it and the road. The
gardens, with their greenhouses and thick box hedges, are beautiful at
all seasons of the year.
_Mount Vernon_ is by no means a palatial mansion: perhaps the
visitor’s first feeling is one of disappointment. The hall with
its winding staircase is roomy enough, but the rooms--the bedrooms
especially--are undeniably small. However the house is cosy enough, and
was ample for the needs of Washington and his small family.
By donation and purchase, the regents have managed to collect quite a
respectable number of George Washington’s personal belongings. There is
the great carpet specially manufactured for him and presented by Louis
XVI.; then we note his parlour mirror, bookcase, travelling trunk,
dressing-table, shaving glass and various wearing apparel, besides many
chairs, tables, beds and Miss Custis’s harpsichord. Before the ladies
took charge, the furniture, panelling, etc., suffered terribly from the
depredations of conscienceless relic-hunters,--but now it is protected
from goths and vandals by gates.
_Mount Vernon_ during Washington’s lifetime was furnished with
comfort and elegance. It may be interesting to the reader to go through
some of the rooms with the guidance of the inventory taken after George
Washington’s death.
The rooms then were not named as they are now, but they can be readily
identified. The “New Room” was evidently used as a dining-room, since
it was furnished with two dining-tables, two sideboards, on which
stood six mahogany knife-cases, China images and a China flower
pot, twenty-seven mahogany chairs, two large looking-glasses, two
candle-stands, two fire-screens, two stools, two elegant lustres, two
silver-plated lamps and six China jars on the mantelpiece. The hearth
was supplied with andirons, dogs, shovel, tongs and bellows; the floor
was covered with a good mat; the windows were draped with valuable
curtains; and pictures worth nearly a thousand dollars adorned the
walls.
The “Front Parlour” contained an expensive sofa, eleven mahogany
chairs, a tea-table, a rich looking-glass, three lamps, two of which
had mirrors, five China flower-pots, chimney furniture, a handsome
carpet and window curtains. Many pictures hung on the walls.
The “Little Parlour” was furnished with a settee, tea-table, ten
Windsor chairs, looking-glass, fender and hearth furniture, carpet,
window curtains and pictures.
In the “Study” we find a bureau, a tambour secretary, a walnut table,
two pine writing-tables, writing-desk and apparatus, circular chair,
armchair, dressing-table, oval looking-glass, eleven spy-glasses,
a case of surveying instruments, a globe, two brass candlesticks,
seven swords and blades, four canes, seven guns, 45 lbs. of silver
plate valued at $900, other plate worth $424, and many other articles.
This was evidently the General’s sanctum, where he attended to his
correspondence and other business.
When the number of guests did not require the use of the “New Room,”
the family gathered in the “Dining Room.” Here were two dining tables
and a tea-table, a mahogany sideboard, two knife cases and a large
spirits case, ten mahogany chairs, a carpet, hearth furniture, window
curtains and pictures.
The “Bedroom” contained a bed, bedstead and mattress, looking-glass,
small table, four walnut chairs, window curtains and blinds, a carpet,
andirons, etc., and one large picture.
All along the staircase were hung a great number of prints, and a
looking-glass was in the passage on the second floor. In the lower
“Passage” were fourteen mahogany chairs, a spy-glass, a thermometer
and pictures. The “Closet” contained a fire-screen and a machine to
scrape shoes on. There were thirty Windsor chairs on the Piazza:--ample
provision surely for callers!
The walls of the “Front Room” were decorated with prints. It was cosy
with window curtains, fireplace and carpet. The rest of the furniture
comprised a bed and bedstead with curtains, a dressing table, a large
looking-glass, a wash-basin and pitcher and six mahogany chairs.
The “Second Room” was similarly furnished, except for the chairs, of
which there were only five, including an armchair. A portrait of
General Lafayette hung on one wall, he having occupied this room.
The “Third Room” was furnished exactly like the “Front Room” except for
a chest of drawers in addition. Prints ornamented the walls here also.
The “Fourth Room” contained bed, bedstead and curtains, carpet and
window curtains, andirons, prints, five mahogany chairs, pine dressing
table and large looking-glass, a close chair, wash-basin and pitcher.
The “Small Room” was furnished with bed, bedstead, dressing table,
dressing-glass, washstand and three Windsor chairs.
The “Room which Mrs. Washington now keeps” was almost as desolate as
her short widowhood. She seldom left it during the short time she
survived her husband. It contained only a bed, bedstead and mattress,
table, three chairs, oval looking-glass, carpet, fender and andirons.
This is quite bare in comparison with “Mrs. Washington’s Old Room,”
which contained a bed, bedstead and curtains, a glass, dressing table,
writing-table and writing chair, an easy chair, two mahogany chairs, a
chest of drawers, a clock, carpet, window curtains, fender, andirons
and pictures.
The kitchen, still in its old condition, was thoroughly equipped for
the hospitality demanded of the master of _Mount Vernon_.
The total value of the furniture was nearly $3,500; that of the 139
chairs alone was $658; and of the pictures and prints, $2,000.
THE OLD MANSE, CONCORD
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Between two tall gateposts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself having
fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch), we beheld the grey
front of the old parsonage terminating the vista of an avenue of black
ashtrees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral procession of the
venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant had turned from that gateway
towards the village burying ground. The wheel-track leading to the
door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was almost overgrown
with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or three vagrant cows
and an old white horse who had his own living to pick up along the
roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half asleep between the door
of the house and the public highway were a kind of spiritual medium,
seen through which the edifice had not quite the aspect of belonging
to the material world. Certainly it had little in common with those
ordinary abodes which stand so imminent upon the road that every
passer-by can thrust his head, as it were, into the domestic circle.
From these quiet windows the figures of passing travellers looked too
remote and dim to disturb the sense of privacy. In its near retirement
and accessible seclusion it was the very spot for the residence of a
clergyman--a man not estranged from human life, yet enveloped in the
midst of it with a veil woven of intermingled gloom and brightness. It
was worthy to have been one of the time-honoured parsonages of England,
in which, through many generations, a succession of holy occupants pass
from youth to age, and bequeath each an inheritance of sanctity to
pervade the house and hover over it as with an atmosphere.
Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse ever been profaned by a lay occupant
until that memorable summer afternoon when I entered it as my home.
A priest had built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly
men from time to time had dwelt in it; and children born in its
chambers had grown up to assume the priestly character. It was awful
to recollect how many sermons must have been written there. The latest
inhabitant alone--he by whose translation to paradise the dwelling was
left vacant--had penned nearly three thousand discourses, besides the
better, if not the greater number that gushed living from his lips. How
often, no doubt, had he paced to and fro along the avenue, attuning
his meditations to the sighs and gentle murmurs, and deep and solemn
peals of the wind among the lofty tops of the trees! In that variety
of natural utterances he could find something accordant with every
passage of his sermon, were it of tenderness or reverential fear. The
boughs over my head seemed shadowy with solemn thoughts as well as
with rustling leaves. I took shame to myself for having been so long a
writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope that wisdom would descend
upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue, and that I should light
upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well worth those hoards
of long hidden gold which people seek for in moss-grown houses.
Profound treatises of morality; a layman’s unprofessional and therefore
unprejudiced views of religion; histories (such as Bancroft might have
written had he taken up his abode here as he once purposed), bright
with picture gleaming over a depth of philosophic thought,--these were
the works that might fitly have flowed from such a retirement. In the
humblest event, I resolved at least to achieve a novel that should
evolve some deep lesson and should possess substance enough to stand
alone.
[Illustration: THE OLD MANSE, CONCORD, MASS.]
In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave me no pretext for not
fulfilling it, there was in the rear of the house the most delightful
little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a
scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an
inhabitant of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyrian dawn and
Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill.
When I first saw the room its walls were blackened with the smoke of
unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan
ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad
angels, or at least like men who had wrestled so continually and so
sternly with the devil that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been
imparted to their own visages. They had all vanished now; a cheerful
coat of paint and golden-tinted paper-hangings lighted up the small
apartment; while the shadow of a willow-tree that swept against the
overhanging eaves attempered the cheery western sunshine. In place
of the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely head of one of
Raphael’s Madonnas and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of
Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always
fresh, and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books (few, and
by no means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as chance had
thrown in my way) stood in order about the room, seldom to be disturbed.
The study had three windows, set with little, old-fashioned panes
of glass, each with a crack across it. The two on the western side
looked, or rather peeped, between the willow branches down into the
orchard, with glimpses of the river through the trees. The third,
facing northward, commanded a broader view of the river at a spot where
its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of history.
It was at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in the Manse
stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle between two
nations; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther
side of the river and the glittering line of the British on the hither
bank. He awaited in an agony of suspense the rattle of the musketry.
It came, and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle smoke
around this quiet house.
I never grew quite acquainted with my habitation till a long spell of
sulky rain had confined me beneath its roof. There could not be a more
sombre aspect of external nature than as then seen from the windows
of my study. The great willow-tree had caught and retained among its
leaves a whole cataract of water, to be shaken down at intervals by the
frequent gusts of wind. All day long, and for a week together, the
rain was drip--drip--dripping and splash--splash--splashing from the
eaves, and bubbling and foaming into the tubs beneath the spouts. The
old unpainted shingles of the house and out-buildings were black with
moisture; and the mosses of ancient growth upon the walls looked green
and fresh, as if they were the newest things and afterthought of Time.
The usually mirrored surface of the river was blurred by an infinity
of raindrops; the whole landscape had a completely water-soaked
appearance, conveying the impression that the earth was wet through
like a sponge; while the summit of a wooded hill, about a mile distant,
was enveloped in a dense mist, where the demon of the tempest seemed to
have his abiding-place and to be plotting still direr inclemencies.
Happy the man who in a rainy day can betake himself to a huge garret,
stored, like that of the Manse, with lumber that each generation has
left behind it from a period before the Revolution. Our garret was an
arched hall, dimly illuminated through small and dusty windows; it was
but a twilight at the best; and there were nooks, or rather caverns,
of deep obscurity, the secrets of which I never learned, being too
reverent of their dust and cobwebs. The beams and rafters, roughly
hewn and with strips of bark still on them, and the rude masonry of
the chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized,--an aspect
unlike what was seen elsewhere in the quiet and decorous old house.
But on one side there was a little whitewashed apartment which bore
the traditionary title of the Saint’s Chamber, because holy men in
their youth had slept and studied and prayed there. With its elevated
retirement, its one window, its small fireplace, and its closet,
convenient for an oratory, it was the very spot where a young man might
inspire himself with solemn enthusiasm and cherish saintly dreams. The
occupants, at various epochs, had left brief records and ejaculations
inscribed upon the walls. There, too, hung a tattered and shrivelled
roll of canvas, which on inspection proved to be the forcibly wrought
picture of a clergyman in wig, band and gown, holding a Bible in his
hand. As I turned his face towards the light he eyed me with an air
of authority such as men of his profession seldom assume in our days.
The original had been pastor of the parish more than a century ago, a
friend of Whitefield, and almost his equal in fervid eloquence. I bowed
before the effigy of the dignified divine, and felt as if I had now met
face to face with the ghost by whom, as there was reason to apprehend,
the Manse was haunted.