bands, and dressed in vapory white muslin. She sang her own words to
her harp, and they commonly insinuated that she was alone in the
world,--that she suffered some inexpressible and mysterious heart-pangs,
the lot of all finer geniuses,--that though she lived and moved in the
world she was not of it, that she was of a consumptive tendency and
might look for a premature interment. She even had fixed on the spot
where she should lie: the violets grew there, she said, the river went
moaning by; the gray willow whispered sadly over her head, and her heart
pined to be at rest. “Mother,” she would say, turning to her parent,
“promise me--promise me to lay me in that spot when the parting hour has
come!” At which Madame de Schlippenschlopp would shriek, and grasp her
in her arms; and at which, I confess, I would myself blubber like a
child. She had six darling friends at school, and every courier from
Kalbsbraten carried off whole reams of her letter-paper.
In Kalbsbraten, as in every other German town, there are a vast number
of literary characters, of whom our young friend quickly became the
chief. They set up a literary journal, which appeared once a week, upon
light-blue or primrose paper, and which, in compliment to the lovely
Ottilia's maternal name, was called the Kartoffelnkranz. Here are a
couple of her ballads extracted from the Kranz, and by far the most
cheerful specimen of her style. For in her songs she never would
willingly let off the heroines without a suicide or a consumption.
She never would hear of such a thing as a happy marriage, and had an
appetite for grief quite amazing in so young a person. As for her dying
and desiring to be buried under the willow-tree, of which the first
ballad is the subject, though I believed the story then, I have at
present some doubts about it. For, since the publication of my Memoirs,
I have been thrown much into the society of literary persons (who admire
my style hugely), and egad! though some of them are dismal enough in
their works, I find them in their persons the least sentimental class
that ever a gentleman fell in with.
“THE WILLOW-TREE.
“Know ye the willow-tree
Whose gray leaves quiver,
Whispering gloomily
To yon pale river?
Lady, at even-tide
Wander not near it,
They say its branches hide
A sad, lost spirit!
“Once to the willow-tree
A maid came fearful,
Pale seemed her cheek to be,
Her blue eye tearful;
Soon as she saw the tree,
Her step moved fleeter,
No one was there--ah me!
No one to meet her!
“Quick beat her heart to hear
The far bell's chime
Toll from the chapel-tower
The trysting time:
But the red sun went down
In golden flame,
And though she looked round,
Yet no one came!
“Presently came the night,
Sadly to greet her,--
Moon in her silver light,
Stars in their glitter.
Then sank the moon away
Under the billow,
Still wept the maid alone--
There by the willow!
“Through the long darkness,
By the stream rolling,
Hour after hour went on
Tolling and tolling.
Long was the darkness,
Lonely and stilly;
Shrill came the night-wind,
Piercing and chilly.
“Shrill blew the morning breeze,
Biting and cold,
Bleak peers the gray dawn
Over the wold.
Bleak over moor and stream
Looks the grey dawn,
Gray, with dishevelled hair,
Still stands the willow there--
THE MAID IS GONE!
“Domine, Domine!
Sing we a litany,--
Sing for poor maiden-hearts broken and
weary;
Domine, Domine!
Sing we a litany,
Wail we and weep we a wild Miserere!”
One of the chief beauties of this ballad (for the translation of which I
received some well-merited compliments) is the delicate way in which the
suicide of the poor young woman under the willow-tree is hinted at; for
that she threw herself into the water and became one among the lilies
of the stream, is as clear as a pikestaff. Her suicide is committed some
time in the darkness, when the slow hours move on tolling and tolling,
and is hinted at darkly as befits the time and the deed.
But that unromantic brute, Van Cutsem, the Dutch Charge-d'Affaires, sent
to the Kartoffelnkranz of the week after a conclusion of the ballad,
which shows what a poor creature he must be. His pretext for writing it
was, he said, because he could not bear such melancholy endings to poems
and young women, and therefore he submitted the following lines:--
I.
“Long by the willow-trees
Vainly they sought her,
Wild rang the mother's screams
O'er the gray water:
'Where is my lovely one?
Where is my daughter?
II.
“'Rouse thee, sir constable--
Rouse thee and look;
Fisherman, bring your net,
Boatman your hook.
Beat in the lily-beds,
Dive in the brook!'
III.
“Vainly the constable
Shouted and called her;
Vainly the fisherman
Beat the green alder;
Vainly he flung the net,
Never it hauled her!
IV.
“Mother beside the fire
Sat, her nightcap in;
Father, in easy chair,
Gloomily napping;
When at the window-sill
Came a light tapping!
V.
“And a pale countenance
Looked through the casement.
Loud beat the mother's heart,
Sick with amazement,
And at the vision which
Came to surprise her,
Shrieked in an agony--
'Lor! it's Elizar!'
VI
“Yes, 'twas Elizabeth--
Yes, 'twas their girl;
Pale was her cheek, and her
Hair out of curl.
'Mother!' the loving one,
Blushing, exclaimed,
'Let not your innocent
Lizzy be blamed.
VII.
“'Yesterday, going to aunt
Jones's to tea,
Mother, dear mother, I
FORGOT THE DOOR-KEY!
And as the night was cold,
And the way steep,
Mrs. Jones kept me to
Breakfast and sleep.'
VIII.
“Whether her Pa and Ma
Fully believed her,
That we shall never know,
Stern they received her;
And for the work of that
Cruel, though short, night,
Sent her to bed without
Tea for a fortnight.
IX.
“MORAL
“Hey diddle diddlety,
Cat and the Fiddlety,
Maidens of England take caution by she!
Let love and suicide
Never tempt you aside,
And always remember to take the door-key!”
Some people laughed at this parody, and even preferred it to the
original; but for myself I have no patience with the individual who
can turn the finest sentiments of our nature into ridicule, and make
everything sacred a subject of scorn. The next ballad is less gloomy
than that of the willow-tree, and in it the lovely writer expresses her
longing for what has charmed us all, and, as it were, squeezes the whole
spirit of the fairy tale into a few stanzas:--
“FAIRY DAYS.
“Beside the old hall-fire--upon my nurse's knee,
Of happy fairy days--what tales were told to me!
I thought the world was once--all peopled with princesses,
And my heart would beat to hear--their loves and their distresses;
And many a quiet night,--in slumber sweet and deep,
The pretty fairy people--would visit me in sleep.
“I saw them in my dreams--come flying east and west,
With wondrous fairy gifts--the new-born babe they bless'd;
One has brought a jewel--and one a crown of gold,
And one has brought a curse--but she is wrinkled and old.
The gentle queen turns pale--to hear those words of sin,
But the king he only laughs--and bids the dance begin.
“The babe has grown to be--the fairest of the land
And rides the forest green--a hawk upon her hand.
An ambling palfrey white--a golden robe and crown;
I've seen her in my dreams--riding up and down;
And heard the ogre laugh--as she fell into his snare,
At the little tender creature--who wept and tore her hair!
“But ever when it seemed--her need was at the sorest
A prince in shining mail--comes prancing through the forest.
A waving ostrich-plume--a buckler burnished bright;
I've seen him in my dreams--good sooth! a gallant knight.
His lips are coral red--beneath a dark moustache;
See how he waves his hand--and how his blue eyes flash!
“'Come forth, thou Paynim knight!'--he shouts in accents clear.
The giant and the maid--both tremble his voice to hear.
Saint Mary guard him well!--he draws his falchion keen,
The giant and the knight--are fighting on the green.
I see them in my dreams--his blade gives stroke on stroke,
The giant pants and reels--and tumbles like an oak!
“With what a blushing grace--he falls upon his knee
And takes the lady's hand--and whispers, 'You are free!'
Ah! happy childish tales--of knight and faerie!
I waken from my dreams--but there's ne'er a knight for me;
I waken from my dreams--and wish that I could be
A child by the old hall-fire--upon my nurse's knee.”
Indeed, Ottilia looked like a fairy herself: pale, small, slim, and
airy. You could not see her face, as it were, for her eyes, which were
so wild, and so tender, and shone so that they would have dazzled an
eagle, much more a poor goose of a Fitz-Boodle. In the theatre, when she
sat on the opposite side of the house, those big eyes used to pursue me
as I sat pretending to listen to the “Zauberflote,” or to “Don Carlos,”
or “Egmont,” and at the tender passages, especially, they would have
such a winning, weeping, imploring look with them as flesh and blood
could not bear.
Shall I tell how I became a poet for the dear girl's sake? 'Tis surely
unnecessary after the reader has perused the above versions of her
poems. Shall I tell what wild follies I committed in prose as well as
in verse? how I used to watch under her window of icy evenings, and with
chilblainy fingers sing serenades to her on the guitar? Shall I tell
how, in a sledging-party, I had the happiness to drive her, and of
the delightful privilege which is, on these occasions, accorded to the
driver?
Any reader who has spent a winter in Germany perhaps knows it. A large
party of a score or more of sledges is formed. Away they go to some
pleasure-house that has been previously fixed upon, where a ball and
collation are prepared, and where each man, as his partner descends, has
the delicious privilege of saluting her. O heavens and earth! I may grow
to be a thousand years old, but I can never forget the rapture of that
salute.
“The keen air has given me an appetite,” said the dear angel, as we
entered the supper-room; and to say the truth, fairy as she was, she
made a remarkably good meal--consuming a couple of basins of white
soup, several kinds of German sausages, some Westphalia ham, some white
puddings, an anchovy-salad made with cornichons and onions, sweets
innumerable, and a considerable quantity of old Steinwein and rum-punch
afterwards. Then she got up and danced as brisk as a fairy; in which
operation I of course did not follow her, but had the honor, at the
close of the evening's amusement, once more to have her by my side in
the sledge, as we swept in the moonlight over the snow.
Kalbsbraten is a very hospitable place as far as tea-parties are
concerned, but I never was in one where dinners were so scarce. At the
palace they occurred twice or thrice in a month; but on these occasions
spinsters were not invited, and I seldom had the opportunity of seeing
my Ottilia except at evening-parties.
Nor are these, if the truth must be told, very much to my taste. Dancing
I have forsworn, whist is too severe a study for me, and I do not like
to play ecarte with old ladies, who are sure to cheat you in the course
of an evening's play.
But to have an occasional glance at Ottilia was enough; and many and
many a napoleon did I lose to her mamma, Madame de Schlippenschlopp, for
the blest privilege of looking at her daughter. Many is the tea-party
I went to, shivering into cold clothes after dinner (which is my
abomination) in order to have one little look at the lady of my soul.
At these parties there were generally refreshments of a nature more
substantial than mere tea punch, both milk and rum, hot wine, consomme,
and a peculiar and exceedingly disagreeable sandwich made of a mixture
of cold white puddings and garlic, of which I have forgotten the name,
and always detested the savor.
Gradually a conviction came upon me that Ottilia ATE A GREAT DEAL.
I do not dislike to see a woman eat comfortably. I even think that an
agreeable woman ought to be friande, and should love certain little
dishes and knick-knacks. I know that though at dinner they commonly take
nothing, they have had roast-mutton with the children at two, and laugh
at their pretensions to starvation.
No! a woman who eats a grain of rice, like Amina in the “Arabian
Nights,” is absurd and unnatural; but there is a modus in rebus: there
is no reason why she should be a ghoul, a monster, an ogress, a horrid
gormandizeress--faugh!
It was, then, with a rage amounting almost to agony, that I found
Ottilia ate too much at every meal. She was always eating, and always
eating too much. If I went there in the morning, there was the horrid
familiar odor of those oniony sandwiches; if in the afternoon, dinner
had been just removed, and I was choked by reeking reminiscences of
roast-meat. Tea we have spoken of. She gobbled up more cakes than any
six people present; then came the supper and the sandwiches again, and
the egg-flip and the horrible rum-punch.
She was as thin as ever--paler if possible than ever:--but, by heavens!
HER NOSE BEGAN TO GROW RED!
Mon Dieu! how I used to watch and watch it! Some days it was purple,
some days had more of the vermilion--I could take an affidavit that
after a heavy night's supper it was more swollen, more red than before.
I recollect one night when we were playing a round game (I had been
looking at her nose very eagerly and sadly for some time), she of
herself brought up the conversation about eating, and confessed that she
had five meals a day.
“THAT ACCOUNTS FOR IT!” says I, flinging down the cards, and springing
up and rushing like a madman out of the room. I rushed away into the
night, and wrestled with my passion. “What! Marry,” said I, “a woman who
eats meat twenty-one times in a week, besides breakfast and tea? Marry a
sarcophagus, a cannibal, a butcher's shop?--Away!” I strove and strove.
I drank, I groaned, I wrestled and fought with my love--but it overcame
me: one look of those eyes brought me to her feet again. I yielded
myself up like a slave; I fawned and whined for her; I thought her nose
was not so VERY red.
Things came to this pitch that I sounded his Highness's Minister to know
whether he would give me service in the Duchy; I thought of purchasing
an estate there. I was given to understand that I should get a
chamberlain's key and some post of honor did I choose to remain, and
I even wrote home to my brother Tom in England, hinting a change in my
condition.
At this juncture the town of Hamburg sent his Highness the Grand Duke
(apropos of a commercial union which was pending between the two States)
a singular present: no less than a certain number of barrels of oysters,
which are considered extreme luxuries in Germany, especially in the
inland parts of the country, where they are almost unknown.
In honor of the oysters and the new commercial treaty (which arrived
in fourgons despatched for the purpose), his Highness announced a grand
supper and ball, and invited all the quality of all the principalities
round about. It was a splendid affair: the grand saloon brilliant with
hundreds of uniforms and brilliant toilettes--not the least beautiful
among them, I need not say, was Ottilia.
At midnight the supper-rooms were thrown open and we formed into little
parties of six, each having a table, nobly served with plate, a lackey
in attendance, and a gratifying ice-pail or two of champagne to egayer
the supper. It was no small cost to serve five hundred people on silver,
and the repast was certainly a princely and magnificent one.
I had, of course, arranged with Mademoiselle de Schlippenschlopp.
Captains Frumpel and Fridelberger of the Duke's Guard, Mesdames de
Butterbrod and Bopp, formed our little party.
The first course, of course, consisted of THE OYSTERS. Ottilia's eyes
gleamed with double brilliancy as the lackey opened them. There were
nine apiece for us--how well I recollect the number!
I never was much of an oyster-eater, nor can I relish them in
naturalibus as some do, but require a quantity of sauces, lemons,
cayenne peppers, bread and butter, and so forth, to render them
palatable.
By the time I had made my preparations, Ottilia, the Captains, and the
two ladies, had wellnigh finished theirs. Indeed Ottilia had gobbled up
all hers, and there were only my nine in the dish.
I took one--IT WAS BAD. The scent of it was enough,--they were all bad.
Ottilia had eaten nine bad oysters.
I put down the horrid shell. Her eyes glistened more and more; she could
not take them off the tray.
“Dear Herr George,” she said, “WILL YOU GIVE ME YOUR OYSTERS?”
*****
She had them all down--before--I could say--Jack--Robinson!
I left Kalbsbraten that night, and have never been there since.
FITZ-BOODLE'S PROFESSIONS.
BEING APPEALS TO THE UNEMPLOYED YOUNGER SONS OF THE NOBILITY.
FIRST PROFESSION.
The fair and honest proposition in which I offered to communicate
privately with parents and guardians, relative to two new and lucrative
professions which I had discovered, has, I find from the publisher,
elicited not one single inquiry from those personages, who I can't but
think are very little careful of their children's welfare to allow
such a chance to be thrown away. It is not for myself I speak, as my
conscience proudly tells me; for though I actually gave up Ascot in
order to be in the way should any father of a family be inclined to
treat with me regarding my discoveries, yet I am grieved, not on my own
account, but on theirs, and for the wretched penny-wise policy that has
held them back.
That they must feel an interest in my announcement is unquestionable.
Look at the way in which the public prints of all parties have noticed
my appearance in the character of a literary man! Putting aside my
personal narrative, look at the offer I made to the nation,--a choice
of no less than two new professions! Suppose I had invented as many new
kinds of butcher's meat; does any one pretend that the world, tired as
it is of the perpetual recurrence of beef, mutton, veal, cold beef, cold
veal, cold mutton, hashed ditto, would not have jumped eagerly at the
delightful intelligence that their old, stale, stupid meals were about
to be varied at last?
Of course people would have come forward. I should have had deputations
from Mr. Gibletts and the fashionable butchers of this world; petitions
would have poured in from Whitechapel salesmen; the speculators panting
to know the discovery; the cautious with stock in hand eager to bribe me
to silence and prevent the certain depreciation of the goods which
they already possessed. I should have dealt with them, not greedily or
rapaciously, but on honest principles of fair barter. “Gentlemen,” I
should have said, or rather, “Gents”--which affectionate diminutive
is, I am given to understand, at present much in use among commercial
persons--“Gents, my researches, my genius, or my good fortune, have
brought me to the valuable discovery about which you are come to treat.
Will you purchase it outright, or will you give the discoverer an honest
share of the profits resulting from your speculation? My position in the
world puts ME out of the power of executing the vast plan I have formed,
but 'twill be a certain fortune to him who engages in it; and why should
not I, too, participate in that fortune?”
Such would have been my manner of dealing with the world, too, with
regard to my discovery of the new professions. Does not the world want
new professions? Are there not thousands of well-educated men panting,
struggling, pushing, starving, in the old ones? Grim tenants of
chambers looking out for attorneys who never come?--wretched physicians
practising the stale joke of being called out of church until people no
longer think fit even to laugh or to pity? Are there not hoary-headed
midshipmen, antique ensigns growing mouldy upon fifty years' half-pay?
Nay, are there not men who would pay anything to be employed rather
than remain idle? But such is the glut of professionals, the horrible
cut-throat competition among them, that there is no chance for one in a
thousand, be he ever so willing, or brave, or clever: in the great ocean
of life he makes a few strokes, and puffs, and sputters, and sinks, and
the innumerable waves overwhelm him and he is heard of no more.
Walking to my banker's t'other day--and I pledge my sacred honor this
story is true--I met a young fellow whom I had known attache to an
embassy abroad, a young man of tolerable parts, unwearied patience, with
some fortune too, and, moreover, allied to a noble Whig family, whose
interest had procured him his appointment to the legation at Krahwinkel,
where I knew him. He remained for ten years a diplomatic character;
he was the working-man of the legation; he sent over the most diffuse
translations of the German papers for the use of the Foreign Secretary;
he signed passports with most astonishing ardor; he exiled himself
for ten long years in a wretched German town, dancing attendance at
court-balls and paying no end of money for uniforms. And what for? At
the end of the ten years--during which period of labor he never received
a single shilling from the Government which employed him (rascally
spendthrift of a Government, va!),--he was offered the paid attacheship
to the court of H. M. the King of the Mosquito Islands, and refused that
appointment a week before the Whig Ministry retired. Then he knew that
there was no further chance for him, and incontinently quitted the
diplomatic service for ever, and I have no doubt will sell his uniform
a bargain. The Government had HIM a bargain certainly; nor is he by any
means the first person who has been sold at that price.
Well, my worthy friend met me in the street and informed me of these
facts with a smiling countenance,--which I thought a masterpiece of
diplomacy. Fortune had been belaboring and kicking him for ten whole
years, and here he was grinning in my face: could Monsieur de Talleyrand
have acted better? “I have given up diplomacy,” said Protocol, quite
simply and good-humoredly, “for between you and me, my good fellow, it's
a very slow profession; sure, perhaps, but slow. But though I gained
no actual pecuniary remuneration in the service, I have learned all
the languages in Europe, which will be invaluable to me in my new
profession--the mercantile one--in which directly I looked out for a
post I found one.”
“What! and a good pay?” said I.
“Why, no; that's absurd, you know. No young men, strangers to business,
are paid much to speak of. Besides, I don't look to a paltry clerk's
pay. Some day, when thoroughly acquainted with the business (I shall
learn it in about seven years), I shall go into a good house with my
capital and become junior partner.”
“And meanwhile?”
“Meanwhile I conduct the foreign correspondence of the eminent house of
Jam, Ram, and Johnson; and very heavy it is, I can tell you. From nine
till six every day, except foreign post days, and then from nine till
eleven. Dirty dark court to sit in; snobs to talk to,--great change, as
you may fancy.”
“And you do all this for nothing?”
“I do it to learn the business.” And so saying Protocol gave me a
knowing nod and went his way.
Good heavens! I thought, and is this a true story? Are there hundreds
of young men in a similar situation at the present day, giving away the
best years of their youth for the sake of a mere windy hope of something
in old age, and dying before they come to the goal? In seven years he
hopes to have a business, and then to have the pleasure of risking his
money? He will be admitted into some great house as a particular favor,
and three months after the house will fail. Has it not happened to a
thousand of our acquaintance? I thought I would run after him and tell
him about the new professions that I have invented.
“Oh! ay! those you wrote about in Fraser's Magazine. Egad! George,
Necessity makes strange fellows of us all. Who would ever have thought
of you SPELLING, much more writing?”
“Never mind that. Will you, if I tell you of a new profession that, with
a little cleverness and instruction from me, you may bring to a most
successful end--will you, I say, make me a fair return?”
“My dear creature,” replied young Protocol, “what nonsense you talk!
I saw that very humbug in the Magazine. You say you have made a great
discovery--very good; you puff your discovery--very right; you ask money
for it--nothing can be more reasonable; and then you say that you intend
to make your discovery public in the next number of the Magazine. Do you
think I will be such a fool as to give you money for a thing which I can
have next month for nothing? Good-by, George my boy; the NEXT discovery
you make I'll tell you how to get a better price for it.” And with this
the fellow walked off, looking supremely knowing and clever.