The loom consisted of a simple frame-work, oblong in shape, and erected

almost always in a perpendicular position, so that the weaver stood to

perform her task. The warp was arranged in vertical threads between the

upper and lower cross-bars of the frame; and the alternate threads were

separated by a thin stick or cane, so as to form two sets or layers,

between which the threads of the woof were introduced. This passing of

the woof-thread was effected either with or without the shuttle; of

course, always by hand. When the thread of the woof had been passed

between the two layers of the warp, it is plain that these layers must

change places in order firmly to inclose the introduced thread; _i. e._

the anterior layer must become posterior, and _vice versa_. This end was

effected by inclosing each separate thread of the warp in a loop, and

fastening all the loops of each layer to a separate stick, so that the

person weaving could, by drawing one such stick toward her, cause all

the corresponding threads of one layer to start from those of the other

layer. By this means, after passing one thread of the woof, the

posterior layer of the warp was drawn forward so as firmly to inclose

it, and into the space between the layers a new thread of woof was again

introduced. The layers of the warp were, of course, decussated in this

manner on every successive introduction of a thread of the woof. The

woof-thread, when passed, was firmly pressed between the layers of the

warp, either by the comb or by the “spatha,” a large, flat wooden

instrument, much like an enlarged paper-knife. In simple weaving, the

repetition of the process described was all that was requisite to form

the material; and striped patterns were easily produced, merely by

alternately inserting bands of differently-colored woof. A check

resulted when both warp and woof were thus alternately varied in hue.

But to form more complicated patterns, an intricate arrangement of the

leashes, or sets of loops above described, was necessary.

The warp-threads were always firmer and closer in substance than those

of the woof--a necessary consequence of their having to bear the brunt

of the whole operation without breaking, which, of course, was an

inconvenient hindrance. A thick, soft woof was used to produce the nap

required for warm blankets or winter shawls. Any rich material

introduced, as Tyrian purple or golden thread, was always used as woof.

The colors in Greek and Roman fabrics was always wool-dyed. Dimities,

twills, and damasks were all woven by their looms. But the profusion of

tapestries, carpets, shawls, and scarfs, of splendid hues and elaborate

patterns, were all imported from the East--from Persia, Babylonia,

Phœnicia, Egypt, Lydia, and Phrygia; nor were silken fabrics ever a

domestic manufacture in Greece or Rome.

Much might be said, did our space permit, of the fulling and dressing of

woollen cloths after manufacture. The processes employed were very

similar to those in modern use: various kinds of fullers’ earth were

used, and alkaline liquids were employed for cleansing; but soap was not

known to the ancients.

The art of felting is said to be of greater antiquity even than that of

weaving. It was employed among the Greeks and Romans chiefly in the

production of coverings for the head, which were worn by people

traveling. Among the Greeks caps were more common than among the Romans,

who were used to supply their place by drawing a fold of the toga over

their heads.

The coverings for the feet were very various in form: some mere sandals,

in which the sole was fixed to the foot by bands; others resembled our

modern shoes in shape, and covered the foot wholly; whilst a third kind

reached up the leg. The tanning and dyeing of leather employed a great

number of hands, and the colors chosen were often gay.

VII. _Public Architecture._

Quitting the in-door life of the Roman, let us turn our attention to

other monuments of labor and art, which are no less remarkable. Foremost

among these stand the sewers and aqueducts of Rome. So thoroughly was

the drainage of the city provided for, that the ground was tunneled

through and through with arched passages; and Pliny’s expression, “the

hanging city,” is literally correct. The most important of the sewers

was built under the rule of the elder Tarquin, and planned in a spirit

prophetic of future greatness. It is composed of three concentric

arches, forming a channel of fourteen feet in diameter, and proportional

height. This was the main trunk, into which was discharged the drainage

flowing through a multitude of subterranean channels, together with the

vast surplus quantity of water from the aqueducts used to cleanse the

net-work of drains. A cart loaded with hay could be driven down the main

passages, and Agrippa is said to have performed a sanitary voyage in a

boat through the main sewers, when superintending their repair.

More attractive, though not more useful, monuments of labor and care for

the public health, remain in the aqueducts, by which a plentiful supply

of water was always insured to the city of the seven hills--the mere

dilapidated remains of which still suffice for her present use. A mere

glance at the proportions of some of these noble works, which conveyed

the purifying and health-giving element, through hills and across

valleys, from sources varying in distance from sixty miles downward, may

well raise a blush at the scant and meagre substitutes which we can show

in the nineteenth century. Well may Frontinus, in an exulting tone,

compare the useful splendor of the nine aqueducts, which in his time

supplied the city, with the useless, slave-grown bulk of the pyramids,

or the merely decorative works of Grecian towns.

The most remarkable of the nine aqueducts were the Anio Vetus, the Aqua

Marcia, the Aqua Claudia, and the Anio Novus. The Anio Vetus brought a

supply from the river Anio, a distance of forty miles. It was built B.

C. 273, and consisted of a stone water-course, the channel of which was

coated with cement. A still longer one was the Aqua Marcia, extending

along a distance of fifty-four miles, six and a half miles being above

ground, and chiefly supported on arches. So lofty was the level of the

terminal reservoir, that the highest parts of the Capitoline Mount could

be supplied from it. This aqueduct united toward its termination with

two others, in the same pile of masonry, so as to form one range of

building, in which the three water-courses occupied different levels,

one above the other, and finally discharged their streams into the same

reservoir. At the same period that this aqueduct was constructed, 700

wells, 150 springs, and 130 subordinate reservoirs, were added to the

former sources of supply. The Marcian Aqueduct was remarkable for the

vastness and solidity of its proportions and construction.

Augustus caused an aqueduct to be built specially for the purpose of

supplying the vast basin in which he exhibited sham naval fights to the

citizens: but the Anio Novus, one of two new aqueducts built by the

Emperor Claudius, was the most striking of all in its architectural

effect. For six miles before its entrance into the city the water flowed

along a channel supported by arches, some of which reached the height of

109 feet, and constituted a range of great beauty.

When an aqueduct was to be constructed, the first step consisted in

forming a large basin at the source of the supply. In this the liquid

rested to deposit its impurities, and for a similar purpose the channel

was expanded into other reservoirs at various intervals along its

course. The channel in which the water flowed was formed of stone or

brick, covered with a layer of cement. The slope of the water-course,

according to Pliny, was only one quarter of an inch in every hundred

feet, but Vitruvius makes it six inches in the same distance. It

probably varied with circumstances. An arched covering excluded the sun,

and vent-holes in the sides or top provided for a free circulation of

air. From the castella or reservoirs lying along the course of the

channel, adjacent lands were sometimes irrigated. From the terminal

reservoir the water was conveyed to its various destinations through

pipes of metal or earthenware. These terminal reservoirs were works of

great size and solidity. One such at Cuma is 200 feet long by 130 wide,

and is covered in by a vaulted roof resting on four rows of pillars. At

Rome there were 247 subordinate basins, in which the water from the

terminal reservoirs of the various aqueducts was collected, previously

to passing to the baths and houses. A staff of officers and a body of

laborers were specially provided to keep the aqueducts in repair.

In their mining operations and in the formation of some aqueducts, we

have seen that the ancients were obliged to tunnel. But their most

remarkable works of this kind are the subterranean passages, by which

the Romans drained many large lakes. One such channel, through which the

lake Fucino discharged its water, is still nearly perfect. It is more

than three miles long, one mile of the distance being carried through

the hardest rock, under a mountain 1000 feet in height. Perpendicular

and lateral shafts were sunk into the tunnel for the convenience of

working, and 30,000 men were employed on the spot at the same time.

Where the tunnel passes through earth it in vaulted with brick.

After the aqueducts the baths follow in a natural order. The great

fondness of the Greeks and Romans for ablution, which the warmth of

their climate rendered a great luxury, early led to ample provision for

bathing, both public and private. Both people were familiar with the use

of the hot-air bath, which was especially employed by the Spartans; but

the warm-water bath, succeeded often by the cold douche, or plunging

bath, was most usual. All the appliances that could minister to comfort

and luxury in this department were not only known but common; and to

such a degree did the splendor of the public baths at Rome attain, that

it was not unusual for emperors themselves to bathe amid a throng of

meaner citizens. Lofty, vaulted rooms, lighted by glass, with

temperatures artificially contrived to suit the different states of the

bather; spacious basins, lined with marble, and fitted with marble,

bronze, or even silver benches, were plentifully supplied with water,

hot, cold, pure, or scented with the most precious perfumes and

essences. Porticoes and vestibules adorned with finished works of art,

where the bather took his exercise listening to the recitations of

poets, the declamation of orators, or the subtle disputes of philosophy;

or perhaps reclined in luxurious ease amid the pleasant murmur of

adjacent fountains; cool avenues for the promenaders at mid-day, lawns,

terraces, and all the best efforts of their ornamental gardening, were

united in the Roman Thermæ, or great public establishments for bathing

and recreation, planned and executed in the imperial city and provincial

towns. One of these, the Thermæ of Caracalla, was more than a mile in

circuit.

The water for the baths was heated in brick furnaces, consisting of two

rows of cells arranged over the fire, with which the lower row was in

contact, while the upper row received the water from the branch of the

aqueduct furnishing the supply. Pipes from the lower cells led into the

baths, and these pipes were surrounded by flues, in order that the water

should not cool in its transit. The party-walls between the cells of the

furnace were also traversed by flues, in order to economize fuel as much

as possible. Private baths, on a smaller scale, were attached to every

house of consequence; and were favorite places for the display of the

owner’s wealth.

The theatres of both nations were constructed with great skill, and

especial adaptation to the ends of sight and hearing. They were

generally built on the side of a hill, and sometimes, in Greece,

literally hewn out of the solid rock. Some were of vast size; the ruins

of one at Argos, semi-circular in form, inclose an area 450 feet in

diameter. The seats for spectators were arranged in ascending stages,

and the outer wall of the structure, behind the topmost row of

spectators, was surmounted by a kind of portico, in order to throw back

the sound of the actor’s voice. The semi-circular included space was the

“orchestra,” where the chorus danced on a boarded floor. The stage, of

course, closed the opening of the semi-circle, and was approached from

the orchestra by steps. The back of the stage was bounded by a lofty

screen, which in the theatre built of wood during the ædileship of M.

Æmil. Scaurus was composed of three different substances--the bottom of

white marble, the centre of glass, and the highest of gilt wood. The

early theatres of Rome were built of wood, but after the time of Pompey

stone was universally employed. The art of scene-painting was well

understood, and various machines were employed on the stage for

instantly changing the scene, or for introducing the actors flying in

mid-air.

The amphitheatres of Rome, so called from being as it were double

theatres, formed a complete circle, or rather an ellipse. They, too,

like theatres, were built of wood, until the time of Augustus, from

which period they gradually increased in size and splendor, until

Vespasian and Titus caused the crowning work of the kind--the

Colisæum--to be erected for the convenience of the immense crowds of

sight-seers flocking to the public games. This most celebrated remain of

Roman architectural art covers five acres of ground; the longer diameter

being 615 feet, and the shorter 510. Four orders of columns, the first

pure Doric, the second Ionic, the third Corinthian, and the fourth,

Corinthian pilasters, rise one above the other till they attain the

great elevation of 160 feet. These columns have one-fourth of their

thickness buried in the face of the wall which they ornament. There are

eighty columns in each tier, and from their summits spring arches

supporting the tier above. There were, therefore, four tiers of seats

for the accommodation of spectators, and this sufficiently explains how

the building could contain the immense number of 87,000. The numbers

contained by these buildings of antiquity were very large; the Attic

theatre held 50,000, and the wooden theatre of Scaurus,

before-mentioned, could accommodate 80,000.

We have mentioned that the perfect arch was not known to the Greeks;

indeed, they have no word for it in their language. But the frequent use

of the arch by the Romans, even in walls, where plain masonry would have

sufficed, shows it to have been a favorite form of construction, and the

triumphal arches built to commemorate victories are among their most

splendid remains. Those erected by Drusus, Titus, Septimius Severus,

Gallienus, and Constantine, still remain, and with the bas-reliefs

commemorative of the events which they were designed to perpetuate still

attest the great amount of Roman skill, and the extent of Roman

conquests.

Another class of buildings--the basilicæ, exchanges or law courts, are

highly interesting from the fact that they were afterward converted into

Christian churches. One such edifice was always placed in the forum for

the convenience of traders. It was generally of oblong shape, the length

being from two to three times greater than the breadth. The earlier

edifices of the kind were mere peristyles, or open spaces inclosed by

columns, but subsequently the open space was defended by walls--the

columns still remaining for ornament. Small private chambers were cut

off from one end, for the use of the law officers and merchants; the

main area was divided into a nave and two side-aisles. At one extremity

of the central nave was placed the tribunal of the judge, which stood

within the oblong area so long as the original use of the building

merely as a law-court continued; but afterward, when the same edifice

was used as an exchange, a semi-circular space was thrown out at one

end, and the tribunal placed within this, in order that the seat of

justice might not be disturbed by the noise of traffic. The advocates

and jurors occupied the space within the semi-circle, while persons

interested in the cause were accommodated with side-seats. The columns

of the side-aisles supported a gallery, from which rose other columns

sustaining a roof usually flat in the centre, and arched down to the

supports so as to resemble the shell of the tortoise.

It may, perhaps, seem strange, that in our notice of so many ancient

buildings we have not once alluded to temples. The reason for this

course is, that no description could be given of such structures without

necessitating an account of orders, styles, and proportion, into which

our subject does not strictly enter. But the peculiar use of marble in

constructing the roofs of temples may be well alluded to in this place.

Slabs of this material were employed and fixed, much in the same manner

as earthen tiles; descending in parallel rows from the ridge of the roof

to the eaves. Bronze, afterward gilt, was also used for the same

purpose.

The Greek and Roman towns were generally irregular in plan; their

streets narrow and mean, even in Rome, till the great fire in Nero’s

reign; after which the city was rebuilt with great regularity. The

increasing value of land led to the erection of many-storied houses in

the main streets; but the houses of the wealthy were always chiefly

composed of ground-floor apartments, wherever space permitted. This

subject, and the house-carpentry generally of the ancients, is involved

in some obscurity.

VIII. _Traveling._

It remains for us to say a few words regarding the facilities for

traveling in those ancient times. The great enterprise displayed by the

Romans in undertaking and constructing their road-ways, as well domestic

as in foreign countries, is familiar to all of us. There are few who

have not seen a long, straight, undeviating road, never turning aside to

avoid natural obstacles, but pressing right on to its mark, still

denoting by its traditional name the track along which the legions

marched to victory. The more perfectly constructed of these ways, after

the introduction of paving, were among the most durable monuments of

Roman skill in art.

The road was first marked out, then the loose earth was excavated down

to a solid foundation, on which the lowest course of stones, about six

inches in diameter, was laid. On these was placed a mass of rough stones

cemented by mortar, forming a kind of rubble work. Then followed a layer

of bricks and pottery broken small, and analogous to the burnt earth

frequently now employed in our own railways. This coat was also united

into a mass by mortar, and upon it was laid the permanent roadway,

consisting of large polygons of flinty pavement or basaltic lava, the

edges of which were trimmed and fitted with the greatest care. We must

certainly yield the palm to the Romans in the art of paving. They

combined strength and finish to a degree that may well put our own

efforts out of sight. Where the road lay over rocks, the two lower

layers were dispensed with as unnecessary; and in carrying it across a

swampy country they employed foundations of piles. A raised pathway laid

with gravel, mounting blocks for equestrians, and mile-stones to mark

the distances, completed the appurtenances of a Roman road. The general

direction of road repairs and works was assigned to a class of officers

and workmen. Numerous military roads intersected the Roman empire, and

this facility of internal communication was a main cause of its

duration. It would exceed our limits to give even the names of the

principal.

In the construction of bridges, especially such as were of a temporary

nature, the Romans were very skillful. Carpentry must have been well

understood, in order to form such structures as the bridge thrown across

the Rhine by Cæsar in the short space of ten days. Many stone bridges,

some of them distinguished for elegance, connected the opposite banks of

the Tiber; but the triumph of Roman art in this department, is seen in

the bridge, partly of stone and partly of wood, built by Trajan across

the Danube. The whole length of this structure was 3010 feet. There were

twenty-two wooden arches supported on stone piers, each arch having a

span of about 130 feet. Coffer-dams were used in constructing the

foundations of piers.

The carriages used by Greeks and Romans were of various kinds, but

though they expended large sums on the more splendid, yet in point of

comfort their productions never approached the vehicles of modern

coach-builders. The want of springs was an inconvenience, which they

attempted to remedy by a luxurious array of feather cushions and down

pillows. The carriages were either four-wheeled or two-wheeled; the

former being mostly used in journeys. A pair of mules or horses were

driven, and sometimes four. There is but little peculiarity in the

manufacture of these carriages, but the shapes were elegant, and the

poles or other parts were often elaborately carved, while the body of

the car was perhaps tastefully inlaid. Traveling carriages in the later

times were usually furnished with curtains to exclude the sun and air.

Covered litters borne by slaves were also in common use among the

wealthy for traveling short distances.

The early history of the inventions by which men came to plough the

watery deep, and to convert the element of seeming separation into one

vast pathway for the mutual intercourse of nations, belongs to another

province. Our space will only permit a brief account of the vessels used

by the Greeks and Romans in the times of their more perfect nautical

skill. The main division of these was into ships of war and ships of

commerce. The former were long and narrow, propelled by rowers, and

furnished generally with three ranks of oars, rising obliquely one above

the other. But the numbers of these ranks varied much, and in one

leviathan galley, built by Ptolemus Philopator, there were even forty

ranks of rowers. The average number of the crew engaged in a ship of war

was two hundred; and these vessels usually performed their voyages in

short times, as the propelling power was independent of the wind. They

were furnished with a pointed beak, singly or doubly cleft, and usually

situated below the water-level, in order more effectually to run down

the adversary.

Ships of burden, on the contrary, were chiefly propelled by sails: their

form was clumsy and heavy; of course they did not need the beak, and the

number of their crews--the rowers especially--was small in comparison

with the complements of men-of-war. With regard to the methods of

propulsion, we may mention that sails and rigging were both very simple,

as compared with the contrivances of our own days. There was usually

only one sail--a large square-sail attached to the mainmast. But

sometimes four were present, though even then all were not commonly

employed together. The oars were of different lengths, in order to

provide for the different heights of the rowers above the water-level.

The ancient vessel was usually steered by two rudders or stern-oars, one

being placed on either side of the stern. Swift, light galleys, with a

large complement of rowers, were in use for performing expeditious

voyages.

In the construction of their vessels considerable skill was displayed:

the planks were united by iron or copper nails, and the seams stopped

with rushes or tow. An outer coating of wax and rosin was commonly

overlaid; in some cases black pitch, while in others sheet-lead was

added, secured by copper nails.

Harbors were constructed, defended by artificial break-waters; with

quays for unlading; porticoes and a temple for the votive offerings of

the prosperous voyager; warehouses for goods; the usual apparatus of

rings and posts for mooring vessels, and a sloping bank on which to haul

them up, if a stay were contemplated. Colossal statues and lighthouses

were erected at their entrance. Dry docks for building or repairing,

rope-walks, magazines for stores, and other necessary conveniences,

completed the portal arrangements.

We have thus passed in review many of the most striking results of the

useful arts of Greece and Rome. We have seen these results often

rivaling, sometimes even superior to those of our own industry.

And now let us pause for one moment, to regard the crowning development

of the useful arts of the old world. We see the polished Roman dwelling

amidst all the appliances for luxury, splendor, and utility which art,

the minister of man, and the adapter of nature, could then gather around

him. The marble palaces, the elaborate tissues of the loom, the polished

masterpieces of the artificer, the paintings, the sculptures, the

mouldings, and the rare devices of the engraver were one and all to him

so perfect, that he doubted not they would remain forever the

unsurpassed ornaments of the Queen of Nations. A few centuries, and how

changed the scene! The iron bond that held together the civilized world

in one vast whole has been torn asunder, and we see a rude barbarian

spurning with his foot the delicate masterpieces of finished art. Or

still later, perhaps, a half-naked savage wanders above the ruins of the

buried cities, without a thought of the rich treasures of human industry

hidden in the earth beneath him. The new birth of Freedom is for a time

the death of Industry. But new life is following close on this death--a

stronger, healthier vitality, more mighty in its development, and

crowned by yet higher results. Amid the blackest night of anarchy and

rapine, man--“the minister and interpreter of nature”--is busy kindling

torches to scatter the darkness.

Some imperishable monuments of antiquity were powerful agents in

preserving the useful arts to man. As the aqueducts of ancient Rome,

conquering the attacks of Time, and the destroying hand of the

barbarian, still continued to lead pure streams to the seven-hilled

city, so did a knowledge of the useful arts flow in manifold channels

from the old world to the new, and Italy became to the moderns what

Greece had been to the ancients--the nursing-mother of the arts, and the

refiner of nations.

It was long, doubtless, before the rude barbarians borrowed the

refinements and arts of a conquered people, whose very civilization they

regarded as a badge of slavery. “The ancient inhabitants of Italy,” says

Muratori, “were so enervated, and were cast down to such a pitch of

poverty, that no power or force of example remained by which to allure

the conquerors to a more refined and elegant manner of living. For this

reason the Lombards long retained their primitive ferocity and rudeness,

and the barbaric style of look and dress, till the more genial sky of

Italy, and the neighboring examples of the Greeks and Romans gradually

led them, first to some cultivation of manners, and then to refinement.”

And what this eminent antiquarian alleges in this particular case was,

doubtless, true of all those barbarian hordes that overran the once

fertile plains of the South. It was this fierce and savage independence

that rendered the rude conqueror insensible, not only to the sight of

his slave’s refinement, but even to the influence of the habitual view

and contact of those innumerable and beautiful products of art which

surrounded him on every side. Nothing less than the development of one

strong passion--the passion for freedom--could have quelled those native

instincts in the mind, which lead man so powerfully to embrace the

inventions of others, and, in fault of these, to invent for himself.

Doubtless, the constant succession of the waves of desolation was

another main cause of their effacing power. Each succeeding invasion

found a still decreasing civilization: the traces of arts and refinement

grew ever fainter and fainter, till finally they were almost lost to

view.

-----

[2] Boeckh, “Economy of Athens.”

[3] Smith’s “Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.”

* * * * *

=SONNETS.=

=BY MRS. ESTELLE ANNA LEWIS.=

I.--THE OASIS.

Think not that I am hapless, ye who read

The pensive numbers of my fervent lyre:

That in the heart is sown some upas-seed,

Is not to prove all healthful germs expire;

That in a garden are some withered bowers,

Crisped buds and yellow leaves bestrew the ground,

Is not to prove it hath nor herbs nor flowers.

Think not because I’ve stood on every round

Of Fortune’s ladder, that no oasis

Amid the desert of my heart upglows

Above the sands and sallow cypresses,

Cheering the weary pilgrim as he goes;

Not all the fires that rend volcanic wombs

Can kill this one green spot that ’mid my heart-waste blooms.

II.--JOYS OF INTELLECTUAL EMPLOYMENT.

’Tis true, I’m poor in what the world calls bliss;

’Tis true, I have known many wounds of pride,

With which a weaker nature might have died.

’Tis true, I’ve passed the fearful Charybdis,

Yet ’mid the maelstrom thrilled with happiness.

We should not murmur ’gainst an earthly trial--

It throws a stronger sunlight on Life’s dial,

Awakes the spirit in its chrysalis,

And plumes it i’ to the broad, bright heavens to soar.

And oh! if I could sing the bliss I’ve known,

While sitting in this study-room alone,

Listing the soul waves wash the eternal shore--

If I could ring it out in one loud song,

’Twould shake the throne of Grief and banish Wrong.

* * * * *

=THE LOVES OF AN APOTHECARY.=

As John Godwin entered Christ’s Hospital so he left it, with no other

friends than an uncle, who was a Kentish miller, and an understanding

which, _if_ it was impermeable to much learning, retained and fostered

whatever at any time it received. A stolid, quiet, precocious boy, with

a generous and simple heart, in which strong self-will was seated at

depths seldom disturbed, with an original imagination, of which he was

always unconscious, with a new suit of clothes, a tall hat, and six

shillings in a clothes-box, he was articled to an apothecary. This suit

being worn out, another supplied its place; when this in its turn got

threadbare, the process of renewal, not without ceremony, was repeated;

and, with the best intentions to the contrary, that is as much as the

most partial biographer could write of John Godwin’s life for some

years. It is true that, in like manner, new notions and ideas, what may

be called the provisional phases of manhood, were rapidly worn out and

replaced; for every year between fifteen and twenty is itself a distinct

era. It is also true, by the bye, that at seventeen he fell in love,

desperately and sincerely, with a lady thirteen years his senior, whose

great recommendation consisted not so much in an imposing, handsome

person as in a baby.

This lady, neither married nor a widow, was somehow connected with the

family of his master, and came often to the little parlor behind the

shop, whence John, peeping over the muslin curtain, used to throw

bashful glances on her as she sat silent and abstracted by the

fire-side--silent, and with much sorrow in her great brown eyes. Indeed,

she lived and moved in an atmosphere of sorrow; it seemed to encompass

her in palpable clouds, so that one even felt her presence at the door

before she entered in. A tearless Niobe, deserted and betrayed--a

victim, so the little bird said, of a too intense devotion for a student

in medicine--John wept for her, pitied her, loved her. When at church,

it was the _story_ of the Magdalen, that beautiful story, which kept his

eyes on the Book all service-time. Putting the shutters up at night, he

took long solitary walks, that, alone with Nature in suburban squares,

he might dwell upon _his_ Magdalen; or hastily retiring to bed, there,

on the extreme verge of the bedstead, his arms extended into vacancy and

night, he would send forth his imagination to feed like a ghoul on the

quivering carcases of Susan’s joys. “Now,” he would exclaim, and strike

his head emphatically upon the pillow--“_Now_,” in her sleeping

apartment, at 17 Jemima street, Pentonville, _she_ is tossing wildly on

her bed, tearful, passionate, delirious, while Grief wrestles with

Sleep!--“_Now!_” And looking through darkness and the intricacy of

streets, he contemplated this picture of 17 Jemima street, until it

faded into another, in which, having succeeded in reviving the

confidence of Susan in the love and honor of man, he was represented as

taking unto himself that crushed flower, fostering it into renewed

radiance and fragrance, more lasting and more grateful, if more subdued.

John never told his love, for pecuniary reasons. Indeed, it lasted but

six weeks, though, considering the instability of sentiment at

seventeen, even that period was an age for such fervor to endure. As the

lady’s melancholy, however, began visibly to subside, John’s fervor,

subsided also; and collapsed altogether when, at the expiration of three

months or so, she went on a pleasure excursion to Brighton with another

student of medicine, and remained there with a distant and hitherto

unknown relation.

The young apothecary soon learned to laugh supremely at this piece of

extravagance, palliating his shame by repeating that, to the young, love

and folly are constant companions; that a heart like his must always

have some object of adoration, whether foolish or otherwise. His own

experience entirely warranted the dictum at any rate; for he had had a

sweetheart as soon as he was consummately breeched--a sweetheart who

almost broke his heart by dividing an orange in his presence with a

little boy who had the advantage over him in wearing large frilled

collars. Again, in tenderest boyhood, he became possessed with an

intense affection for the very tall daughter of a police-sergeant; but

she despised him for his stockings. Rising thereat in indignant pride,

he resolved at once to make himself renowned, that when Fame should so

bruit his merits in the general ear that even the daughter of the

policeman should hear the blast, she might learn painfully, and, alas!

too late, that genius is not to be judged by its stockings. In pursuit

of this end, he forthwith indited some affecting “Lines to E----n,”

which were declined with thanks by the editor of the “Gentleman’s

Magazine,” mainly in consequence of their being inscribed on paper with

an ornamental border, and embellished with original designs, curiously

colored. This failure disgusted him with the Muses, especially as he

himself half suspected a lack of the poetical leaven. So he determined

to turn the current of his ambition into channels better suited to it;

and thus, begun out of desire to assuage the wounds his pride had

received through the medium of his stockings, and continued afterward

for its own sake and by natural bias, he managed to pursue the science

of chemistry to very great lengths.

Boyhood, however, with all the follies and crudities of the outer boy,

and much of the keen feeling, the trust, the ever misconstrued

delicacies of the inner, has now gone by with the young apothecary. He

puts all his youth behind him to-day, and advances into steady manhood;

for to-morrow he is to be married. That fact fills his shop, and every

nook of every chamber thereto pertaining; but particularly in the

kitchen, where the fat fingers of the little maid are busy with the

promising skeleton of a new cap and many yards of white and blue ribbon,

and in the shop parlor, where John sits communing with his soul, the

circumambient air is prophetic of it. This shop, it should be said,

expensively furnished with such means as his careful mother beguiled her

years of widowhood in accumulating for some such purpose, John had

entered upon only a few months since. His customers, hitherto, were

discouragingly few, perhaps in consequence of his having chosen Doctors’

Commons as the probable Tom Tidler’s ground of his future fortunes; not

eligible ground for an apothecary. So he resolved on getting married. He

had observed, he said, that “things frequently took a turn” upon such

events; and this was the reason he assigned to himself for taking the

step at this time. But there were many others.

John sits communing with his soul. It had surprised him, it had struck

him more than once with a kind of superstitious suspicion, that even up

to the very eve of his marriage some evil or perhaps good influence--he

thought about it, but still doubted--seemed always to withdraw his mind

from the subject. But bidding his boy--who, lost under a desk, his hands

buried anxiously in his hair, had forgotten even the dignity due to his

new livery in the perusal of a novel--bidding his boy attend carefully

to the shop, and calling his handmaid from below to light the lamp and

trim the fire, he now sat down to “have a good serious think.”

To think, and think hard on all things, was common to the bridegroom;

and, seated in his easy chair, all quiet, he began to inquire within

himself--how long it would be before the last button of his boy’s jacket

would be gambled away with a leaden “nicker!” “Good heavens!” he

exclaimed, suddenly arresting the panorama, alarmed at the puerility of

the thing at such a moment; and, rising, he extinguished the light, drew

his chair closer to the fire again, to try if the dusk would not soothe

him to soberness. Half an hour later, when the buttoned Mercury emerged

from beneath the shadow of the desk, breathing hard and looking

stealthily into all dark corners where any cloaked bravo, such as he had

just parted company with, might possibly be lurking, at length,

reassured, peered through the window to discover what the governor was

about, he found the governor thoughtfully posed indeed. His tall figure,

clad in sad-colored raiment, disposed carelessly in the cushioned chair,

his countenance, handsome but rough-cast, bent full upon the ruddy

firelight, while he lazily balanced the burnished poker on his

forefinger, he looked a very real if not a very conventional image of

abstraction.

A well-regulated memory has been likened to the best-regulated

household--a bee-hive. It is said to contain a myriad of little cells,

in which are carefully stored away all our treasures, all the sweetness

we have gathered in bright days and hours, to be drawn forth thence on

drowsy evenings or wakeful nights--enjoyed, and restored. In the memory

of our young bridegroom a hundred little chambers at once now gave up

their precious things. From remotest and darkest nooks, from the very

dungeons of the hive, where they had been stored because they were so

precious as to be painful to look on, they now came pouring pell-mell in

bountiful confusion: and in all a beautiful young face, lit up with

gold-brown eyes, and shaded by gold-brown hair, came and went in a

wonderful fragmentary way. For now a massy curl, drooping over his

shoulder as together they bend to read from one book; and now her eyes,

with a sudden illumination of love and mirth, railing at him; and now

her lips closed to reproach him in silence, or half-parted and

half-pouted to receive his greeting kiss--alone filled the entire

picture. In vain he endeavored to bring steadily before his eyes the

integrate sweetness of that face, where a morning radiance rested all

day long. Once and again, indeed, he seemed almost to accomplish his

desire; and he glanced shyly at the portrait looming dimly on his

vision, lest by gazing too earnestly he should disperse it. And, in a

moment, the features were all rubbed out: again only a curl drooped on

his shoulder, or two eyes smiled up to him, with various and

fitfully-remembered meaning, out of blank darkness.

In equal hurry and confusion, the remembrance of past scenes, and

groupings, and events, where still the one fair face looked grave or

gay, whirled through the dreamer’s mind. Meetings and partings, the last

and the first--summer lanes and winter hearths--morning and evening, all

rendered up their souvenirs in sad chronological order, regardless of

the unities of the pastoral to which they belonged. An old gabled house

in the northern suburbs, some ten miles from St. Paul’s was, however,

the chief scene of his wedding-eve reminiscences. A snug old house,

stuck full of little square dull-eyed casements, it was nursed and

shaded in its declining age in shrubby lawns and flower-beds--in rows of

elm and straggly sycamore, with fragrant lilac and the golden abundance

of laburnum-trees. House and garden, it was a very place of leaves.

Except a small paddock in the rear, where an old gray horse used to

stand reflectively by the hour, as still as the horse of wood over the

neighboring inn, every where were dusty leaves or spruce flowers. On the

walls, peeping in at the windows--clinging round one chimney-pot and

drooping from another--lying in wait at doors, overhanging paths,

toppling the mossy garden-wall, and stealing under the great, shabby

wooden carriage-gate, where carriage never deigned to enter--box and

briar and creeping plants abounded. But it was beneath the parlor

windows that, like well-fed Babes in the Wood, the flowering plants

clustered and prospered: nowhere beyond, except in the windows of the

chambers above. In one especially. It was at the west side of the house,

high up (doesn’t John Godwin remember it?) and looked down the road

leading from the city, smiling radiantly. Balsams and old-fashioned

scarlet-flowered geraniums, a hot, martial-looking cactus, specimens of

that perfect type of blooming English womanhood, the rose, and some

novelty with a lengthy Latin name, were gathered there in bright

companionship--all the brighter when fanned by the snowy curtain as it

flapped pleasantly above in the early morning breeze.

And if this little window high up in the old house smiled radiantly upon

all the dusty wanderers who came out of London so far in search of “a

mouthful of air,” the elect bridegroom, still balancing the poker there,

could tell you with what special radiance it looked all down the road on

him. That part of the story is what he is now recalling. How in summer

mornings, sunny and still, he used to rise with the lark; how, hours

before he could display the advantages of those operations, he got

himself starched and pomatumed one or two degrees beyond good taste,

perhaps, as he doubts now; but then some anticipation was to be made for

the damages of a two hour’s walk. How at the earliest moment, almost

breakfastless--for his heart by this time had overrun his stomach--he

started off to spend the blessed day of rest with Jessy, to take Jessy

to church. Jessy owned the bright brown eyes and the locks of bright

brown hair: a compact little goddess of eighteen--a laughing, blooming,

deep-hearted and very sensible little goddess, whom to worship were

honor; and she used sometimes to peep through the branches of the

geraniums on such Sunday mornings, to see whether her “dear boy” were

coming; for the little window was the window of her chamber. Jessy

innocently imagined that her dear boy had never caught her peeping; she

was mistaken; and the bridegroom smiles very grimly, _for_ a bridegroom,

as he remembers that fact. And how, having walked his last mile

leisurely--for, from a foolish pride, he wished Jessy to believe that

the coach had conveyed him to the end of the road, and therefore

endeavored to make his appearance as cool as possible--how, having

walked his last mile leisurely, and flaunted the dust from his clothes,

he suddenly turned an angle, and coming at once in sight, distinguished

at the distance of a quarter-mile whether she looked for his coming. If

so, though pretending not to see her, all the graces of which he was

master were at once put in requisition, up to the last opportunity in a

graceful rat-tat-tat at the door.

There was not such a moment in any week as that which elapsed between

this rapping at the door and the opening of it. A world of tumult, and

impatience, and hesitation were compressed in that small instant: ’twas

precisely such a hurly-burly of feeling as that which caused his fingers

to tremble over the unbroken seal of the first letter he received from

her: and loving-kindness always followed the opening of the door as it

had followed the opening of the seal. Even dreaming these scenes into

renewed life, Godwin hastened thus to arrive at the porch; for on the

threshold he will meet, not the good old servant, she knows well enough

how impertinent it would be to answer such a knock as that; but,

listening, he hears light swift feet come pit-a-pat, pat-a-pat down the

stairs, with just a little jump to finish, the door is flung wide open,

and there stands the flower-goddess smiling and shaking her curls, her

face irradiate with a positive glory of happiness, only softened by the

faintest and least shame-faced of blushes. They say nothing at present;

but while with one hand she closes the door, the other is placed upon

his shoulder, and, a-tiptoe, she bestows a sharp, uncertain little kiss

upon his cheek; whereupon they find themselves in the parlor.

When that sturdy old Viking, Jessy’s papa, makes his appearance, they

all go to church; but this the sturdy old Viking does not till the

latest moment, defeating his object therein by storming the room-door

just, maybe, as Godwin insists upon tying the strings of Jessy’s bonnet,

and while, laughing and blushing, she uplifts the white round chin in a

naughty, ambiguous way, to assist (or confuse) the operation. For

halfpay-captain Burton, a man of war when grog, bluster, and the cat

were national bulwarks--brown, boisterous, and the most tarry of

tars--was at the same time the most bashful person concerned in the love

between his daughter and John Godwin, principally or remotely. When full

twelve months had elapsed since the evening that, restlessly pondering

the matter upon stepping into bed, he had confirmed his suspicions in a

nervous conversation with his wife that John was a-wearing up to our

Jess, that nervousness still continued. Not a word in reference to the

subject had he ever uttered to his daughter, or to any one after that

dreadful evening; for, with a vasty sigh, he then felt himself compelled

to avow that he had no reason to say nay if Jess said yea, which her

mother communicated to her by-and-by, when Jessy sought her confidence,

and which the affectionate little flower-goddess revealed to her dear

boy one anxious dusky evening with all her delicacy. And so the matter

settled itself; but Captain Burton at once took to the thoughtful and

uncongenial pursuit of angling, and so enthusiastically, that, though

quite unsuccessful, he did not meet his daughter at breakfast for an

entire fortnight. With the countenance of a cheerful martyr, he went up

and down into all the chambers of the house, whistling or humming notes

that had no pretence to cohesion, or harmony, or to any thing but

doleful monotony, and in a thousand other ways displayed the

wretchedness of his mind.

And long after the lovers--from frequent communion and from other causes

well wotted of by old and young--had outgrown the restraints of

bashfulness, and were become sister and brother in manner and wedded in

heart, the old sea-captain still felt qualmish on the approach of John’s

visits. So it was that on Sunday mornings he usually delayed his

greeting to the last moment, when, his grisly hair brushed no way in

particular, and tucked under the brim of a very rakish and

curley-looking hat, he was prepared to accompany them to church. Along

the dusty, pebbly footpath, with here a church-going worshiper from the

cottage, and there a church-going worshiper from the hall, the

school-children defiling irregularly and dustily in the road. Across the

common--down the long lane shadowed, almost darkened, by trees that

overhung from high and weedy banks on either side, where birds chattered

and sung, and the church-bells rang with softened resonance; at the end

the sunshine gloriously outspread, with the tumble-down old church and

the tumble-down old gravestones drowsing in the midst: and all like a

picture framed in the foliage of the lane. Pleasant enough in reality

and destitute of association, that walk was beautiful indeed as

remembered by the apothecary. Cool summer airs floated past his face,

the freshness of morning moistened on his lips, in his eyes was light,

in his heart all happiness, as the recollection rose in fullness before

the dreaming bridegroom, and passed gently away. Again as they entered

the porch together, in the shadow of a real and earnest thoughtfulness;

again as together they knelt down; again as organ and children intoned

an old meandering psalm, that ever found an easy path from earth to

heaven--the memory came with a shock like electricity and left him

confusedly trembling. And the loose afternoon rambles while papa dozed,

the botanical excursions into all the shady, shrubby nooks of the

garden, where Jessy gathered her hair under that wonderful muslin

scarf--pleasant converse or pleasanter silence by open windows, when

rain-drops drummed among the leaves--cozy evenings when, determined to

be happy (for at heart he was almost as proud of Godwin’s frank

openheartedness and sound intelligence as his daughter,) the old captain

brought forth a tobacco-pouch that might also have served for a

carpet-bag, mixed a pint of grog in a half-gallon bowl, and sat down to

talk morals and politics over the table with his guest, while at the

same time, beneath the shadow of the table, the joined hands of Jessy

and the happy guest talked love--and ceremonial suppers, for parting had

to follow--parting itself, when Jessy and her father accompanied him

into the porch, and her father wandered uneasily somewhere out of it,

and Jessy shook hands with her dear boy where the shadow was deepest,

returned his salute with modest fervor, and accompanied her final “God

bless you” by a glance lingering and tremulous--and that was the end.

That was the end. The hollow fire broke down sullenly in ruins, and the

bridegroom rose slowly to his feet much troubled. But meeting the

reflection of his face full in the chimney-glass, he sat down again

still more troubled; for the emotion he saw there spoke accusingly. Many

months these recollections had lain nearly dormant in his mind: he had

thrown them off uneasily from time to time; and to-night, when, more

than all days and nights in the past year, he ought least to indulge

them, least to be troubled by them or yearn to them, what right had they

to swarm all the avenues of thought in this way? Jessy Burton was a dead

name, the old house a mere haunted house, so far as he was now

concerned. Had they not quarreled and parted long ago? And whose fault

was that but Jessy’s? True, his part in the quarrel had been the most

active, and she might, perhaps, accuse him of caprice, or something of

that sort; but then she had been very passive, and seemed to care very

little--he had never seen her cry, or look reproachful, even when

matters had come to a crisis; she had very quietly received back all her

notes (quite a little heap they were, square and three-cornered, scented

and unscented, neatly-written notes and some with words sprawling all

about the paper, still “in haste--Yours,” and one with some dead leaves

in it)--and did not return his letters in reply. From which, of course,

any one could only assume that they had mutually--got----

Well, suppose we think no more about it. Jessy could not work such a

pair of slippers as that; and Godwin planted his feet, slippers and all,

on each side of the fire-place. Nor could she embroider such

chair-covers, or work such curtains, or cut such lamp-screens, or finger

the piano so rapidly as Sybilla--nothing like it: he became acquainted

with Sybilla two whole months before he parted with Jessy, and therefore

he had opportunities of immediate comparison, and ought to know. Sybilla

was a handsome, brilliant girl, with a fine high spirit, and excessively

fond of him--no doubt of it. He was a pretty fellow to sit dreaming away

in that sentimental style, when to-morrow he was to marry such a woman

as that, and become the proudest husband to-morrow would shine on! Jessy

was well enough in her way, a nice, amiable, pretty girl; but, dear

me!--and John made up his mouth to whistle an air, and did not whistle

it.

Well! John thought he had better go to bed. The fire was out--no wonder

he felt so miserable!--and there was the boy peeping hard through the

curtain again; for he was getting hungry and wanted to shut up. The fat

fingers of the little maid below had ceased from their labors--the cap

was finished, and looked beautiful; and she sat at the fire with her

chin on her hands and her elbows on her knees, brooding matrimony in an

earnest and lively spirit. In half an hour the buttons ate himself to

sleep, Polly found sleep in the realms of speculation, and John, become

more comfortable over a renewed fire and a glass of weak toddy, went

really whistling up to bed shortly after. “Good night, John,” said he,

as he rolled himself up like a chrysalis; “good night, young man! Good

night, Sybilla!” And a moment after, with tenderness and an ominous sort

of resignation, “Good night, Jessy!”

An hour after dawn, the little bird whose cage hung in the chamber

window, trilling, quavering, rattling out his earliest fantasia, roused

the bridegroom from sleep. About an hour after dawn, rattling,

quavering, trilling _his_ morning song, the little bird (brother to the

above) whose cage hung in Jessy’s chamber window, roused her also from

sleep. In morning toilette, and bright as any Diana from the bath, Jessy

soon put her bloomy face in comparison with her flowers, as, admiring

here, plucking a dead leaf there, she busied herself with her bow-pots.

Presently she went with a serious air to a battered old trunk in a

corner, and carefully took thence a small ivory box. It contained

various minute packages of flower-seeds; and the serious expression of

her face deepened into a sadness that seemed at home there, as she came

to one carefully sealed paper at the bottom of the box. Jessy opened it,

and half-a-dozen balsam-seeds fell into a slightly trembling hand:

small, dusty, withered-looking seeds--smaller, more dusty and

withered-looking than balsam-seeds usually are, and more precious.

Three summers agone, the plant from which they were derived was the best

and most promising in Jessy’s little conservatory. Every body admired

it--Godwin with an enthusiasm which might have been mistaken for playful

sarcasm in any but a doubting lover. This, too, was when the plant was

still in its youth, and its beauties mainly prospective; but John Godwin

one day brought its mistress a small phial, containing a bright,

volatile fluid, prepared at the expense of a night’s rest and as much

money as would have bought almost an entire stand at a flower-show,

which he said would cause her flower to grow like a banyan, and blow

like a whole forest of acacias. The bottle was labeled in regular

order--“Miss Burton’s patient: two drops to be taken night and morning

in a gill of rain-water.”

The effect of its application to the roots of the flower proved almost

marvelous. Large and high the balsam grew, with heavy branches round

about it; and never were blossoms so huge, or so many, or so novel in

color on balsam before. True, they fell off as soon as they were fully

blown, but then they were reproduced elsewhere as constantly; and

Jessy’s grief was great when, one morning, she found her pet altogether

broken down and faded--suddenly as with blight, beyond hope of

resuscitation. Seeds, however, had been preserved, and the following

spring were committed to the earth, hopefully; but they woke to a by no

means joyful resurrection. Wiry and puny, these poor step-children of

Nature languished through the summer in sunniest corners, putting forth

numerous pale little blossoms, and looking as miserably gay as a faded

beauty in a faded ball-dress. The next generation was still more

deplorable; but ere the latest lingerer had abandoned all effort to

appear cheerful in cheerful companionship, Hope and Love had closed

their outer doors against Jessy Burton, and she turned at once to that

miserable lingerer, which seemed to have lingered on purpose to offer

her the consolation of fellowship in affliction.

In the best hearts, the simplest and the strongest, a vein of romantic

superstition will always be found--a hidden spring, surrounded by

wholesome verdure: where it is not, there is sickness. And though it was

very sentimental and very absurd, it really did Jessy good to compare

her fortunes and the fortunes of her nurselings, with feelings that went

beyond mere wonder at a coincidence. The hope and joy that erst-time put

forth blossom all day long, she woke one morning to find altogether

broken down and faded--suddenly, as with blight, beyond hope of

resuscitation. She remembered what unwise abandonment to excess of a new

happiness had rendered this blight so sudden and complete, and was

self-reproved; but looking on her invalided balsam, she saw that it

still grew in a humble, hopeful kind of way--still persevered in

blooming with as little dreariness as possible, and always, to

appearance, with a cheerful prospect of doing better next time; and she

took the lesson to heart along with the reproof. Pondering much both

lesson and reproof, Jessy gradually came to hold faith in more than was

simply coincidental in so direct a coincidence. It preached to her, by

application, most excellent doctrine; and she at last believed it to be

one of those small things which (now that revelation, and miracle, and

prophecy are no more) are disposed by a _very_ extraordinary Chance, to

work good in those who, having eyes, shut them not, and having ears,

hear. Furthermore, the simple girl grown wise through grief, vaguely

assumed a connection in the future between her floral oracles and

herself. Again she sows them on this bridal morning. Perhaps they will

recover lost strength and beauty, and bloom as in past time; and

then--who knows? Or perhaps they will die right out, be sickly and

sorrowful no more, and give place to healthier if less cherished ones.

Well, either way--whether the foolish pride of that dear bad boy allow

him to seek forgiveness of the caprice she _knows_ he bitterly repents,

or whether the anxious unquiet that still besets her go finally to

rest--will be happiness.

How unconscious was Jessy, at the moment she closed the mould over her

treasures, that that dear bad boy of hers was closing over his breast a

waistcoat which, innocent as it looked, would as effectually keep her

curls from ever tumbling themselves there as bars of triple steel! How

unconscious of more than the existence of the handsome and really

graceful woman who, an hour or two later, was arraying herself in

garlands and much muslin, a more unemotional sacrifice than the most

Roman beeve that ever went lowing to the altar.

Bride Sybilla’s countenance was beautiful and commanding beyond that of

most women; her figure graceful and dignified as that of most queens.

Tall, pale, yet with a paleness as bright and healthy as the paleness of

May-blossom--her head set slightly but boldly forward from her

throat--with brilliant teeth, dark brows of gracefulest curve, and dark

eyes that could express every thing, but languishing and passion better

than all--she would have been an indisputable belle of the season, some

time or other, had she made her original and vulgar _debut_ within the

circle of courtly existence. In very fact, she was so obviously fitted

by nature for vegetation in the conservatory of Fashion: she had so

elegant a mind; her shawls draped her so elegantly; she looked so much

at home in a carriage--especially an open one, as every body remarked on

occasions of pic-nic excursions; she would have adorned an opera-box so

thoroughly, and blazed with such magnificence in family jewels--that, at

length, it became plain even to herself that she had been born into a

false position. Not that she ever expressed such a consciousness, or

allowed herself to brood over it; her personal superiority was

justifiably regarded as a natural fact, and the fact was worn like an

old robe.

But though, by some mistake, Sybilla wasted her radiance in the wrong

firmament, it is only fair to say that she was, at any rate, highly

respectable. Her father, Mr. Charles Frederick Lee, or as old letters,

thrown carelessly on mantelpieces, or stuck indifferently in card-racks

and the frame of the chimney-glass--suggested, Charles Frederick Lee,

Esq., was, indeed, an eminent example of respectability. A Government

_employée_--clerk at the Custom-house, that is to say--his position was

very respectable to start with; and this quality permeated all his

relations in life, hovered benignantly about his hearth-rug, and

saturated even his umbrella. This he carried with an air sufficient of

itself to stamp his respectability; and it is highly probable that the

appearance alone of Mr. Lee, as--quitting his residence at

Grandison-place punctually to a minute--he walked into the City on fine

mornings, with his umbrella at a peculiar angle under his arm, had a

greater effect on the public than all the “Hints on Etiquette” that were

ever published--price six-pence.

At his residence, Grandison-place, the principle so well exemplified in

the person of Mr. Lee was adequately supported in the knocker, (brass,)

in the carpetings and hangings, by a classic lamp in the passage, and

two very respectable-looking canaries of a subdued color, that hung in

burnished cages (done about, of course, with yellow gauze) in the parlor

windows, by life-size portraits of the family, an amplitude of

light-colored upholstery, and marmalade for breakfast. Much wholesome

goodness, however, was diffused throughout the household--cool, serene

content, subduing all things equably beneath its shadow--gentleness,

affection, peace, and decorous plenty. But thus surrounded, and with

such a father, Sybilla was certainly its leading member and brightest

ornament. The school-teaching obtained for her by paternity, with two

hundred and fifty pounds a-year of income, and a position to support,

did not, of course, comprise all the elements of a polite education; but

what _was_ taught at the Clarendon-House Academy for Young Ladies,

Sybilla made the most of. She danced well, played the piano-forte with

considerable brilliancy, wrote with orthodox angularity, and spelt

comparatively few words with two _t_’s that should be spelled with one;

she painted fruit and flowers charmingly, as a rather bulky portfolio of

such subjects as “Grapes, Roses and Peach,” “A Peach, Roses and bunch of

Grapes,” “Roses, Peach, etc.,” evidenced; and as for French, not one of

her compeers could pronounce her _u_’s with so unpuckered a lip, or

mould her _ll_’s with such Italian sweetness; and she really could do

more than inquire how you did, Monsieur, and whether you had the bread

or the butter.

Such, so far as circumstances could model her, such, and no more, to the

common eye, was Godwin’s second love. But Sybilla was one of those who

are to a great degree independent of circumstances; and divested of her

worldly advantages--with any old lion of a knocker, a passage in

primeval night, and a vulgar linnet capable only of drawing water in a

thimble from airy depths, she would always have exhibited a certain air

of superiority.

Bride Sybilla was naturally impassioned and impressible to an eminent

degree. In all the fine oval of her face, not one feature but was

skilled in the interpretation of these qualities; and bore their badge

unmasked, always accompanied, however, by pride. But, generally, the

more powerful such attributes are, the more also are they vacillating

and uncertain, being frequently aroused by trifles, and dormant on

occasions of comparative excitement. It was so with Sybilla: and thus is

explained the fact that, through all the etceteras of the courtship

which terminated to-day, she had abruptly migrated between indifference

on the one hand and ardent affection on the other; and thus the Dead Sea

of commonplace which now encompassed even the toilette-table of the

bride might have been accounted for. Elsewhere, all was cheerfulness,

bustle, sentiment and perspiration. Somebody was always knocking and

ringing--in obedience to the request inscribed on the door--and somebody

was always responding to the appeal; doors banged here and there

saucily, or mysteriously and inexorably as the doors of Downing-Street:

pleasant voices called from room to room the prettiest names, whose

owners--all bridesmaids, of course, the whole half-dozen of

them--distracted the breakfast-table by the incoherently earnest manner

in which they came fluctuating about it, sipping and flitting at the

same moment, like busy bees inclined to jollity or butterflies on

business; so that never was breakfast broken into such little bits.

Delicate silk gowns, the superabundance tucked through the pocket-holes,

rustled gaily through the house like all the leaves of Vallombrosa;

brilliant eyes and glowing faces, and perfect bouquets of bonnets

ascended the stairs like rising suns, and made high noon wherever they

appeared. The whisper of consultation on matters culinary and millinery,

the noise of females in conclave buzzed from half-open doors, little

rivulets of laughter trilled over the banisters and down the passages,

while everywhere and in the midst of all mamma bustled, red and

important. In short, animation and subdued delight filled every corner

of the house, not excepting even that darkest and dirtiest one, where

Godwin’s boy--who, with a few other select articles, had been borrowed,

buttons and all, for the occasion--was arduously engaged in taking off

the edges of some two or three dozen knives, under pretence of cleaning

them. The uncertain temperament of Sybilla, however, excepted her not

alone from the general fuss. Mr. Lee and Mrs. Finch each evinced

coolness, of different degrees and from different causes. Mr. Lee was a

person of correct ideas; but, as he would sometimes deprecatingly

confess, he was human, and had his moments of weakness like other

mortals. Armies of these moments, in battalions of sixty, had assailed

him since he woke this morning. Descending upon him with barbarian

irregularity, they unfurled all sorts of prophetical banners,

descriptive generally of domestic incident--of a house fragrant with

candle and warm linen, haunted by bland mediciners and mysterious women

with accusing in their eyes, while a nervous husband and a nervous

father, keeping grim silence in the parlor, trembled together on the

borders of a new relationship, which ever and anon, climaxed by a

distant bleating, heard on the opening of a door, put him to total

confusion. Recollecting, however, that a well-bred man displays no

emotion, he gradually overcame the weakness that had absolutely led him

in one fit of aberration to fill his cup from the milk-jug and flavor

with a drop or two of coffee, and perused his newspaper with an

indifferent lounge, or chatted easily with one or two gentleman arrivals

while the important preparations were going on.

This, however, was but indifference: Mrs. Finch’s feeling was one of

undisguised sorrow. She was the charwoman, had come to help; and seemed

to think it her duty to express in her countenance what her experience

of marital existence had been; and as it was pretty generally known that

the late Mr. Finch used to get drunk at frequent intervals, and chastise

his wife with a light poker, it was only necessary to shake her head and

sigh now and then to express all the meaning she intended. Mrs. Finch,

however, was a person to whom trouble was so natural and the rule, that

her experience went for nothing. If in the course of any week Johnny did

not fall down an area, or omitted to be sent to the station-house for

breaking a window, Billy was pretty sure to take the measles or

something of that sort, Sarah Jane lose herself for a day or two to be

restored in tears by the police, or the chimney catch fire. If it

rained, Mrs. Finch’s clogs were broken; if it didn’t, Gracious knew how

soon it would, and her shoes leaked; but however circumstances smiled

upon her generally, she had at least a few weeks’ rent to make up with

the “broker’s man” looming in the distance. Poor Mrs. Finch! A thousand

such as she grow lean-visaged by multiplicity of such very ludicrous and

very real troubles, and their experience also goes for nothing.

If any one, in disregard of the inscription before noticed, forgot that

morning to knock while he rang or neglected to ring while he knocked,

the omission was amply compensated by the driver of the vehicle which

conveyed Godwin and his “best friend” to Grandison-place. Hired drivers

usually appear to possess a vivid appreciation of the importance of

their “fares” until dismissed by them; and the Jehu in question

thundered at the door, pealed at the bell, and otherwise conducted

himself on Mrs. Lee’s white door-step with as much impudence as if he

had been coachman to a title. Horace (the foot-page) opened to his

master with an approving smile, and with the information--which gained

by a certain jerking of his chin what emphasis it lost in being

deferentially whispered--that there was such a swag of tarts and that

down stairs--curran and rarsbry, and--oh! Affluence of feeling and the

appearance of Mr. Lee from the parlor to greet his future son prevented

further expatiation; and so, throwing up his eyes with consummate

meaning, Horace precipitated himself across the banisters and slid into

his den below. A second vehicle followed close upon the first, another

and another. They remained a short time in rank before the knocker,

making very thread-bare endeavors to look as much like private carriages

as possible, despite the derogatory appearance of the coachmen’s hats,

which Mr. Lee protested were the flabbiest he had ever seen, even upon

such heads; and then a preparatory silence which reigned in all the

chambers of the house, as if everybody had been taking breath, was

broken by a universal rustling on the stairs; and the whole galaxy of

beauty and millinery descended into the parlor headed by mamma, who

certainly enjoyed most of the millinery, whoever claimed pre-eminence in

the other attribute. It must, however, have been evident to the meanest

capacity--it was evident enough to that of Horace, who, prompted by

desire to see how the governor looked among all them gals, brought up

the knives at this moment, zealously offering to place them in Mrs.

Lee’s own hands--that if everybody _had_ been taking breath in the

silence, nobody was much benefited by the effort; unless, indeed, as

appearances seemed more pointedly to indicate, bride and bridegroom,

father and mother, man, woman and maid, were endeavoring to get in a

reserve-supply for impending emergencies.

Bride Sybilla’s immobility thawed rapidly away as she descended from the

business of dressing. Regal and pale no longer, she frankly advanced

toward Godwin directly she entered the room, and showed by the trembling

hand she placed in his, and the tremulous eyes she raised to his, how

completely her heart was turned from winter to the sun. John, who at the

same hour of the morning, at the same moment when Jessy was engaged with

her foolish balsam-seeds and still more foolish speculations, had to

reprove himself for entertaining such thoughts as made his approaching

happiness appear rather the work of destiny than love, and _still_ had

to reprove, cast away the last rag of doubt as he took Sybilla’s hand,

and then found it expedient to turn caressingly to one of the

respectable canaries. A few remarks fell stone dead, here and there,

from unwilling lips, and silence, like a pall, covered them; when at

length some one referred to a watch, and providentially observed that

the carriages were waiting, and that a good many boys were assembled

about them, and swinging on the railings; had they not better--?

Immediate acquiescence, profound diplomacy in pairing of on the part of

a couple of young ladies, by which each secured the companionship of the

dearest fellow in the world--very pretty skipping down the path and into

the carriages on the part of all the young ladies except Sybilla, who

walked by her father’s side as if each flag-stone were a

feather-bed--four men pulling at the brims of four bad hats, at the

doors of four “flies”--and then, as one of the dearest fellows in the

world found breath to remark to one of the happiest girls in the world,

they were off.

The prospect of matrimony, viewed at the distance of a day or two, is

sufficiently distressing; but to stand on the utmost verge of the gulf,

to oscillate within its jaws in a vestry-room, while an easy,

calculating clerk looms before you, the last landmark on the boundaries

of the world, is terrible indeed. In Dante’s “Divina Comedia” men stand

transfixed by the eyes of serpents--serpents lie along the ground

transfixed by the eyes of men: gradually the bodies of the snakes sprout

limbs--they grow erect, and harden into men; gradually the features of

the men fall away, their limbs shrink into them, and, with a writhe,

they are become snakes--still with set eyes, set ready to renew at once

the transformation, according to their doom. If this, as it appears to

be, is the most terrible thing either in fact or imagination, it is so

only because of its eternal repetition; otherwise, it would have to make

room beside it for the equal horror of waiting in a vestry-room for the

parson of your nuptials. But, practically, time is a fiction to all but

clock-makers, and one may taste eternity in ten minutes under favoring

circumstances; in such a case, at least, this comparison of horrors

holds good to those who have to endure the latter, as Godwin and a young

man similarly fated--who, seated at opposite extremes of the room,

endeavored to rival each other in nonchalance--could have attested.

Eternity in their particular case expired only at the quarter chime,

when the priest entered apologetically. Prayers were read--responses

meek and mild were given in doubt that they might prove groans, or

worse, on obtaining utterance, and in a few minutes they were married.

_Sic transit gloria mundi!_

With faces so flushed with happiness, and shame, and pride, that now and

then it really seemed as if little flames of light were flickering over

them, Sybilla and her husband walked up the matted aisle. Books and

papers to sign--in an easy, off-hand style, resulting in illegibility. A

congratulatory parson and a congratulatory clerk in the vestry, a

congratulatory pew-opener at the door, and two congratulatory neighbors

of hers in the church-porch--all to be rewarded for their

congratulation, to say nothing of lawful charges; which rewards and

charges were given with real cheerfulness. Home! John paused upon the

last step at the church-gate, twirling in his fingers the last remaining

sixpence of the coin he had placed at one end of his purse for such

bestowal before starting, (impulse not being trustworthy with him in

such cases, but quite the contrary,) and looked about for a recipient. A

pale-faced little boy, with a good deal of inquisitive, apprehensive

wonder in his gray eyes, stood leaning by the railings, in a white

pinafore: it would have been difficult, however, to realize his

existence _without_ a white pinafore. A bloodless little fellow, with a

subdued quiet in his face, he seemed forever under injunction not to

wake the baby, and a look of passive experience in his eyes, his whole

appearance, from his collar to his boots, which had been inked round the

lace-holes because they got brown there, imparted indescribable

suggestions of bread-and-butter and nothing else; with, perhaps, a

patient going to bed without that, now and then. Godwin looked painfully

at the child as the child looked wonderingly at Sybilla, and, diving

into his pocket, he took a shilling between his fingers, thought again,

and substituted half-a-crown. This he gave the boy into one hand, and

placed the sixpence in the other palm for _himself_. It was perfectly

understood between them that the half-crown was for mother, who had

inked the boots, and who could not afford to have the baby woke. Still,

and though upon being bashfully thanked Godwin patted the

bread-and-butter cheek as kindly and softly as any woman’s hand could

have done it, the poor child could scarcely trust in the reality of his

fortune, and went slowly sidling up by the church-yard rails, his eyes

turned to the gay party, half in expectation of being called back; and

it was not till he had watched them out of sight that he turned the

corner and ran. Congratulatory parson, clerk, pew-opener and

pew-opener’s neighbors--in the profoundest deeps of all and every their

hearts there existed not a centillionth of the blessing and good-wishes

that overflowed in that of the mother as she heard how her little son

got the half-crown. It came to her in time of extremest need, and all

day long she pondered the matter with unusual thankfulness; for, like a

woman, she believed the giver had guessed her necessity by intuitive

goodness. As for the sixpence, it was put aside in an old china cup--was

to be saved to buy a spelling-book; but it finally went for

bread-and-butter.

Now Godwin first grew perfectly happy. This, at any rate, was right--no

future could overturn the propriety of it; and the wheels rattling in

orthodox haste, he speedily passed from happiness into hilarity. To

Sybilla, however, the rattling of the wheels only served to recall a

little grievance, big enough, however, to constitute an important

drawback to her nuptial satisfaction. _She_ thought there ought to have

been a tour. Her respectability demanded a tour--to Tunbridge Wells and

back, at least: indeed, it had always been to her the most prominent

feature of the prospect while matrimony was yet prospective. Miss

Johnson, who was positively nobody, and a shocking dumpy bride beside,

she was taken direct to Margate, and stayed there a week. Fortunately,

however, Sybilla here recalled to mind, as she looked in John’s face,

where new humor and new meaning scintillated every moment, threatening

to blaze right out, that Miss Johnson didn’t bring back from Margate

such a husband as hers. This consideration, and another which, to do her

justice, she had pretty constantly in view, reconciled her to her fate;

the other consideration comprehended a bequest of three or four hundred

pounds, which a maiden aunt of Godwin’s (who, rejoicing through life in

single blessedness, seemed anxious to avert the bliss from some other

one) had made him, on condition of marriage: otherwise, it was to be

applied in dowry of three of the most deserving young women in her

native town. This latter consideration, also, besides that “things

frequently took a turn on such events,” had its under-current influence

on Godwin’s resolution of matrimony in the unpromising condition of his

affairs; though, of course, he acknowledged it not, and scarce thought

of it.

On turning a corner near Grandison-place, the ears of the bridal-party,

but more especially those of the bride’s papa, were appalled at hearing

several rounds of cheering, or rather a succession of those nondescript

roars with which the boy-population is given to express either

dissatisfaction or amusement. In this case it was an amused roar; and

nervously thrusting his head out of the carriage-window, Mr. Lee

perceived with horror that it was emitted by a knot of youths of from

twelve to sixteen, and that it seemed to result from observation of what

was going on in the kitchen of his own residence. Fact was, that Horace

was performing to a company which, originally consisting only of the

green-grocer’s boy and the boy of the butcher, had increased in numbers

and enthusiasm beyond his expectations. Standing on a chair by the

window, innocent of the near approach of his master, he was passing

before the eyes of the delighted assembly all the various items of the

wedding-feast; while, still more to the popular delight, poor Mrs. Finch

danced frantically round him, endeavoring, in fits of indignant or

beseeching eloquence, to arouse the foot-page to a clearer sense of

decorum. “These, gen’lemen,” persevered he, elevating several in a line

with his head, “is the weddin’ taters as that gen’leman in the blue

apern was just kind enough to bring us--kidney uns--biles like balls o’

flour. And this here,” dropping the roots and catching up a pasty, “is

the weddin’ goosbry pie, and a werry stunnin’ pie it is, too;” smelling

it, he expressed his further opinion in his countenance. Mrs. Finch, far

gone in the depths of despairing resignation, passively received the

tart from the hands of Horace, enabling him to proceed without delay to

the exhibition of fish, flesh and fowl, in like manner and with similar

comments; until, having exhausted even all the table appurtenances, the

cost of which he appeared to be cognizant of, he concluded the

exposition with the bellows; which he averred the governor and himself

were going to kneel to alternately as long as any thing remained

uncooked. It was while an appreciative public were demanding a

rehearsal--rather to the alarm of Horace, whose original intention had

merely been to display to the two friends above designated the good

things he fondly hoped to have a share of “pitching into”--that the

noise of wheels came rolling down the road. Dismounting from the chair,

Horace retreated rapidly into his den, and solemnly recommenced

polishing a tea-urn, leaving the miserable Lee, whose respectability

fluttered in rags about him as he did so, to disperse his friends. This,

with the help of one of the dearest fellows in the world, who, having a

large pair of whiskers, liked to exhibit them in situations of peril and

command, was accomplished with greater success than might have been

expected; though it was emphatically required of the gentleman in

whiskers that he should “get out of that hat,” meaning the glossy

chapeau he had purchased only the night before, and notwithstanding

that, in reference to the other dearest fellow in the world, who was

very young and had no whiskers at all, a young lady was anxiously

advised “not to let that little boy eat too much vegetables,” as he

didn’t look very well as matters already stood; while the blushing

grocer’s boy, holding his forefinger in his mouth, leaned fondly on the

arm of the butcher as they passed down the street, in obvious imitation

of the bride.

With such exceptions, the hours glided past, accompanied by much the

same incident as attends all wedding-days when there is not a “tour.” At

the feast, every one sat down inspired with the intention to expound the

latest traditions of the usages of fashionable society; and, in the

course of the hour, Miss Baker did herself the pleasure of reproving

Miss Clark, who had crossed her knife and fork upon her plate, by

ostentatiously placing _hers_ at a gentle angle: while a gentleman

performed a similar kindness for another, who had got his salt in a

vulgar and improper position upon his plate: this reprover also seemed

better after the administration of his reproof. Mr. Lightowler, brother

of Mrs. Lee, and a toyman, with Mrs. Lightowler, were, however,

lamentable exceptions. Exclusively devoted to each other, they sat

together, mutually fat and hot, and helped each other from any portion

of the table within arm’s length, drinking from one glass, laughing one

huge laugh whenever they felt inclined, but particularly at their own

jokes, which they didn’t seem to care about any one else appreciating,

and all utterly untouched, because utterly unconscious, by the vexation

of their host and the undisguised disgust of the most respectable of the

company. Partly from this very fact, but principally from the downright

simplicity, the good-humor and genial oddity of the man, Godwin

resolutely fraternized with the toyman the moment the speeches were all

over. An unfathomable Etna of whim, of grotesque humor, was always

simmering in the mind of the bridegroom, breaking out at rare intervals

in sudden eruption, and with such grim vehemence of delivery that people

would pause in their laughter, and scan him for a moment, with serious,

half-frightened glances. Elated with the “excellent, light dinner-wine,”

and a bottle of “a full fruity port,” he made the hours spin round the

clock with quip and crank and story; while Mr. Lightowler sat on the

floor at sober intervals and sang comic songs with a whistling refrain,

till he whistled even Mr. Lee out of his annoyance at such an exhibition

of vulgarity in his brother-in-law, and Mrs. Lightowler into such an

admiration of her husband that she at last sat down on the rug beside

him and whistled too. And as the moments passed, and evening fell,

bright eyes grew brighter with the stars, glowing cheeks more rosy, warm

hearts warmer, and everybody and every thing happier and better. Bride

and bridegroom happy and proud. Music, and dancing, and sparkling

laughter--sentiment, love, flirtation, and a general return to boyhood

and girlhood. More love and a little less flirtation--declaration of

fond reciprocity between two young men and two young maidens (one

declaration in the kitchen by the mangle, and one under the tank in the

garden,) an admission of perfect disengagement (and of a trifle more) on

the part of another young maiden. More lights, more music, more dancing,

more sentiment, more comic songs on the hearth-rug, more full-bodied

port for the general company, and more half-and-half for Mr. Lightowler.

No mamma any where in the house! no Sybilla! And papa looking awkward.

Almost one o’clock, you see.

One by one the bouquets of bonnets re-appeared immediately upon this

discovery, looking very much as if they--their owners, that is to

say--knew all about it and enjoyed the _ruse_. Then followed a general

leave-taking, a serious affair in Lightowler’s case, though elsewhere

with merriment, and here and there with a kiss. Cabs rolled leisurely

from the gate--in the last Godwin and papa: and the house was again as

dark and still as those “earthly tabernacles” were doomed soon to be,

upon whose front the light of youth, and love, and laughter, shone

resplendently but now.

It is a sober business, riding at midnight in a musty-smelling cab; and

the reactionary seriousness that oppressed both gentlemen on turning

from the deserted house, seemed to increase with the odor of the straw.

Very few words, upon very indifferent subjects, passed between them, as

John went really _home_ for the first time; and as, on arriving there

mamma was just ready to return, Mr. Lee did not alight, but drove back

with his wife to their bereaved hearth, after a simple “good-night” had

passed among them.

* * * * *

In Jessy’s early girlhood, the mother of the poor little

bread-and-butter boy was a servant in her father’s house. Since the

death of the woman’s husband, which was but recent, Jessy had proved her

best friend--coming with cheerful gossip and “something for the baby”

whenever she had an errand into town. Which she had to-day; and had

hardly been seated half an hour when she became acquainted with the

story of the half-crown, what the gentleman was like and who the lady,

and which way they went. The boy had heard the name of the gentleman, as

some one called to him, but did not perfectly recollect it: it began

with a G, at any rate, and sounded like Godwin.

To the sum of sublunary happiness go many fictions--pretty figments,

which, though constantly and forever disproved, are never the less

believed in. Even in the contemplation of objects the most beautiful in

art and nature fiction is seldom absent; and when the sun sets in clouds

of purple and fine gold, it is not enough that they _are_ clouds,

however gorgeous; but we must at once set about making woods, and seas,

and islands of the blest, of them.

We have sought it in heaven, (an instance is meant,) but with equal

propriety and success we might seek it in--matrimony. For what but a

sugared fallacy is that Honeymoon so universally accepted as consequent

on every marriage--as being a mingling of the sweetness of Hybla with

all the soft suffusion of love which lapped Endymion on the hill of

Latmos, to be enjoyed in all cases and without limit during the space of

one calendar month--for twenty-eight days at least; except in leap-year.

At which time, even February days are twenty-nine. A fond conceit! It is

wrong to argue everyday life from the privileges of the aristocracy; and

only in connection with marriages strictly of convenience does the

honeymoon roll through its successive phases with propriety, going out

as the monthly bills come in. Careful computation of the laws of

accident prove the full average honeymoon to subsist about four days and

a half, except in cases where youth, fortune, and fine weather combine

with affection, when the average may possibly be doubled. So that wife

Sybilla ought to have been much more content than in fact she was, that

her matrimonial orb waned not before the expiration of a week;

considering that though they were rich enough in youth, they possessed

neither fortune nor particularly fine weather. It was, however, this

very consideration of lack of fortune, in the sense of money, that

caused Sybilla first to descend from out the luxuriant solitudes of love

in which, hand in hand, they had sauntered all the week, bringing her

husband quickly after her. The initiatory cause of the declension was a

nightcap; for after a protracted evening sitting at an open window,

Sybilla woke the next morning to find, not the locks of Hyperion

straying over the pillow beside her, as before, but a tall, tasseled,

miserable white cap, which, encroaching over Godwin’s eyes, elongated

his cheeks and exaggerated his nose to a most unhandsome degree. The

unconscious sleeper, experiencing symptoms of cold in the head the night

before, had ventured, in the dark, to assume that wretchedest of all

habiliments, the male nightcap.

When the blossom is ripest, the softest breath may waft it from the

bough; in the nodding of that green tassel moved a cruel blast

sufficient to scatter the full-blown poetry of any week-grown honeymoon.

Accordingly, before breakfast was fairly over, Sybilla remembered that

very little business had occurred to interrupt their happiness--before

dinner, that Mr. Godwin had paid several bills with undisguisable

uneasiness; and, as the result of such souvenirs, not only she but

Godwin also sat down at supper that night to a diluted cup,

broken-winged and very near the earth. Every day nearer and nearer the

earth, for things did not take a turn, but grew worse; and though they

had the certainty of aunt’s legacy before them, Godwin soon began to

fear almost as much as his wife that if, according to the doggrel of

Keats,

“Love in a cot, with water and a crust,

Is--Love forgive us!--cinders, ashes, dust,”

it was not much more agreeable in an apothecary’s shop. Not that it had

quite come to that yet; he still contrived to maintain the marmalade for

breakfast; but not many weeks elapsed ere Sybilla became plainly

suspicious that though he might be rich enough in drugs, the

money-capital of her husband was well-nigh exhausted. Indeed, she

assured herself of the fact by just looking into his desk one morning,

privately and with a guilty face.

Now the legacy lay vested in his uncle, the Kentish miller; and as a few

months before, in a letter which came hoping that John was in good

health, as it left him (the miller) at present, he had received much

earnest advice against early marriage, John wished to postpone the

demand as late as possible. But the darkening horizon, and a few

comfortless hints thrown out by the partner of his cares, precipitated

intentions; and so he started one bright morning to receive his little

fortune, planning its expenditure very solemnly by the way.

Drearily, Sybilla threw herself open a sofa as her husband passed out at

the door, and, half extended, employed an hour in usefully painting a

piece of velvet, and uselessly pondering past, present and future.

Drearily, she put aside the daubed stuff, and taking up a newspaper some

weeks old, concluded each listlessly-perused paragraph with a yawn, till

she came to “Important from India,” and read of a bloody engagement

there. How in the cold gray dawn a company of the gallant 292d, and a

strong detachment of the gallant 293d, marched to reduce the

contumacious Bungumshah. How, when the cold dawn kindled into blazing,

blasting noon, and long-enduring men fell here and there, suddenly shot

dead from the sun, it was deemed expedient to march over them against

the contumacious Bungumshah. How, having mistaken the position of that

Indian, they came not up with him by nightfall, for all their marching,

and very gladly encamped--the greater portion on the plain, but a small

detachment of some hundred men or so in a hollow at a little distance,

under Ensign Hope. How, in the night sentinels were struck secretly, the

camp penetrated by Indian shadows rather than Indian men, the commander

killed in sleep--encampment torn from end to end, encampment channeled

from end to end with tumult and blood. Ensign Hope listens in the

distant hollow, rises up with his hundred men or so, bears down to the

verge of the scene swift and silent, goes blazing into it like an Indian

storm, and settles the matter. To the right is a ravine; and as the

enemy fly, panic-struck, Ensign Hope, with consummate skill, (so the

newspaper calls it,) contrives to push the main body to the edge of

it--pushes a few over into it, in order to furnish argument of prompt

surrender to the rest. Which is profited by; and by the time the camp is

thoroughly roused from its hideous nightmare, every soldier with his

head still on may place two or three prisoners at the end of his

bayonet. As for the Bungumshah, he is disarmed by Ensign Hope himself,

with as much grace of manner as a conqueror with one boot on (had no

time to advantage by both) might be supposed capable of. Official

thanks, loud newspaper laudations, honors present and prospective to

Ensign Hope.

Trembling, Sybilla glanced thus rapidly through the narrative, and then,

after a moment’s breathless reflection, perused it minutely from first

to last, her eyes lingering long about the lines in which the hero’s

name happened to be printed, and on the praises and the recital of

rewards bestowed upon him. And again she sat entranced, with parted lips

and dilated eyes. Ensign Hope! muttered her wonder-bound tongue; Parson

Hope, as he used to be called, from his solemn length and inclination to

white neckcloths; the blundering boy cadet whose addresses she merrily

rejected for those same peculiarities a few years ago! Who could have

supposed so much heroism in _him_?

Only a daughter of Eve, we may pardon Sybilla that she took glory to

herself in answering the question. Plainly, love for her was at the

foundation of all this heroism; it was to add force and grace to his

overtures--to render himself more worthy of her, that he had coveted the

reward and reputation consequent on such achievements; and, indeed, none

but the brave deserve the fair. Only the wife of an apothecary, as well

as merely a daughter of Eve, we might also pardon the dreams she

thereupon indulged, in which, as the lady of Captain, of Colonel, very

possibly of Lieut. General Sir Victor Hope--for Clive became a peer--she

shone enjeweled in her natural sphere, the admired of men, the envy of

women. But the bitterness with which she dwelt upon it after a while, as

a now impossible career, was altogether unpardonable. Not that she

cared, Sybilla said within herself; she was happy enough--never happier;

but it was strange that her anticipations of one day becoming a “lady”

should be so nearly verified; strange that this news should arrive just

when it was too late and of no avail, even if she _had_ cared; very

strange that she whom it most concerned, to whom she was sure it was

mainly addressed, should be kept in total ignorance for weeks after all

the rest of the world had become aware of it! So Sybilla said within

herself; but being conscious of some heart-burning, she interpreted her

reflections into the mildest language capable: thus the word “strange”

really had in it some of the meaning of the word “vexatious.” And,

assured of her primal conclusions, Wife Sybilla went on to consider how

grievous a thing it was that disappointment in the secret end of his

endeavors should embitter to the ears of Victor Hope the very plaudits

of his countrymen. Assuredly he was to be pitied, at any rate. And

Sybilla went on dreaming and thinking.

Meanwhile Godwin had arrived at the mill of his uncle, who received him

in blank silence, took him into a little room, where books and papers

were ominously displayed, and talked with him privately. On which Godwin

learned that when at the utmost verge of ruin, as the books and papers

proved, his uncle had appropriated the moneys which had been confided to

him irresponsibly, in justifiable hope (as the papers also proved) of

immediate restitution; that to refund, as affairs then stood, would be

as certain ruin, without benefit to any one; but the prospect was

opening, and if John would only accept twenty pounds or so, and kindly

wait a single year, said the old man, fairly crying, why every thing

would be made right. So what could John do but quietly button his pocket

over the twenty pounds or so--quietly button his coat over a fallen

heart, and go home again?

It was a brilliant afternoon when the disappointed man came to the end

of his dreary journey, resolved, after much painful deliberation, to

confide the whole truth of the case to his wife. Young, and with a

knowledge of many things, he was not without hope after all. He had

hitherto made no exertion of the talents he was conscious of possessing;

and who could say that good might not come out of this evil, at last, in

necessitating their vigorous exercise? So, already ashamed of past

inaction, and with some show of cheerful resignation to misfortune, he

laid the twenty-pound instalment on the table before Sybilla on arriving

home, and began the story; which, however, he had occasion to conclude

with less and less cheerfulness. Naturally, perhaps, from fore-described

circumstances, the contrast between a flushed and victorious soldier in

uniform, and a weary druggist in nothing describable, struck Sybilla

acutely as her husband entered the door; as, also, distance lends

enchantment to the view, the contrast was so much the more prejudicial

to the latter. And, unluckily for her, before she had time fairly to

extinguish a comparison, which some kind instinct told her was injurious

and wrong, Godwin had declared himself not only a weary, unornamental

druggist, but a beggared one. His quick eye, rapid in the interpretation

of every symptom of thought, was not slow to perceive, however, the

change that passed over Sybilla’s handsome countenance--returning over

it again and again, spite of all her really laudable endeavors at

banishment--ere half the recital was ended; and grief poured into his

heart like water into a stricken ship. To dissolve without discontent

the day-dreams she had been indulging all day long--dreams long

cherished, but never approaching reality till she had abandoned for ever

the power of fixing them--would of itself, Sybilla felt, have been a

task; but this bitter fact, failing in the very midst of her prideful

fancies, thoroughly overcame her. She burst into a flood of tears too

plainly rebellious and indignant, and, saying not a word, went up into

her chamber. Spirit of the Sublime Respectable! thou dapper doorkeeper

to all littleness, thou aider and fosterer of vanity, and selfishness,

and hardness of heart--it is to be feared that since when you first put

the (then infantine) soul of this woman into a corslet, with apparatus

of tight-lacing, its growth has not been good.

At first opening of the flood-gates, Sybilla’s tears were merely the

outporings of disappointment; but the more she wept upstairs alone, the

more she brooded and brooded, her sobs grew fewer, her tears hotter, and

at length deliberately angry. She felt herself deceived--ill used; and

her spirit chafed within her so willfully that even the loud, quick song

of Godwin’s canary-bird wrought her to extreme irritation. Poor fellow!

Had he been brought up like the light-colored canaries at home,

surrounded by respectability and yellow gauze, he might have known

himself (and Sybilla’s sorrows) better. As it was, however, he abandoned

himself to his own emotions, and, thinking perhaps of the leafy old

house in the northern suburbs, poured out his melodies like summer

rain--faster and louder as Sybilla grew more irritated. He positively

disobeyed her command to be still; the epithet “beast” he passed

contemptuously over; she stamped her feet in vain. Hopping from perch to

perch all the more readily and saucily as it had no tail worth

mentioning, still the bird went on with liveliest rattle. At length, in

a ferment of passion, Sybilla approached the cage, trembling steadily,

as a spear thrown from the hand of a strong man trembles in the earth,

seized the head of the guileless little songster, and it sang about the

leafy old house no more.

Godwin uttered no remark upon the discovery of this wickedness; but when

he retired that evening, anger and grief contending within him--fire

with flood--he placed his dead bird on a chair by the bedside, and lay

all night with his face toward it. It was the last remaining of all the

little meaningful gifts which, after the manner of lovers, Jessy had

rendered him in exchange for others. One by one they had departed from

him--got lost somehow--as if he were no more worthy of them; and there

it lay--the last and most precious, for it had a real, vocal,

interpretable language of some sort--dead enough, certainly: with

nothing interpretable about it but its dumbness now.

* * * * *

That day set its seal upon the whole eternal future. So completely

fateful, so fatefully complete were the events of that day, that though

no officer of evil could desire a single addition, still one omission

would have raveled toils which not an entire afterlife could break

through. And yet how weak were those circumstances in themselves! What

mere gossamer-threads were they until strengthened by vanity and

temper--even those small vices--into bonds stronger than the seven green

withes that bound the limbs of Samson! What petty impediments they were

either to happiness or fortune, easy to be overleapt or smiled away by a

firm foot or a cheerful heart, such as ought to have belonged, and in

one case did belong, to this young woman and man! But in the morning

when they woke, a strong wall was found built up of these petty

impediments, breast high, between them: breast high, so that their

hearts could no longer beat together, nor their feet be mutually upheld,

in all the dreary vista of years through which they must yet keep

consort--a hard unreflecting face only on each side the wall forever.

For Godwin had far-away ideas of perfection in woman--thanks to Jessy

Burton; and so keenly did he feel the bitterness displayed by Sybilla,

so gross did the selfishness, the violence, the cruelty of her behaviour

appear to him, viewed apart from any unkindness displayed through it

toward himself, that whole months of repentance and affection would

hardly have restored to him his olden happiness and love. The shock was

sudden and complete; and the fact of _Jessy’s_ bird being victimized in

the shock, pointed his reflections in a direction not easily diverted,

even if there had been any prospect of diversion. But, unhappily, the

same principle which leads women to excuse and even champion the faults

of those they love most, led Sybilla to justify her feelings and their

results--to strengthen the belief that she was wronged, deceived,

unfortunate: for she loved _herself_ the most. Willful and impassioned,

the new-made wife now boldly brought before her eyes the comparison

which yesterday she glanced at with nervous obliquity, and taking a

comprehensive view of her own merits, her lady-like habits, manners,

deportment, and education, her queenly face and form, she fled from the

consciousness of wrong-doing in the reflection that she was a

“sacrifice”--that these her virtues were pearls cast before some lost

apothecary, while a hero, a future Lieutenant-General Sir Victor, was

hurrying from fields of glory in the vain hope of crowning his laurels

with such precious gems. It is easy to see how thus a pardonable

weakness might deepen even into guilt.

But a dreary lesson _it_ would be to follow these two through all the

shadows which henceforth, deepening and deepening one by one, fell upon

them, till it was day no more, nor ever could be day. Sad to mark the

daily-hardening indifference of John Godwin, who, having fallen at once

from all his hopes, looked not up again, nor strove to regain the

pinnacle, but went plodding along alone, dull and sullen, like the last

man in a plague-stricken city, plunging anon over head and ears into

some occupation or enterprise, from sheer necessity of _doing_

something, and abandoning it at the very moment of success, from naught

but idle despairing--“What was the use?” Sad to mark the daily-growing

discontent of Sybilla Godwin, whose willful, passionate nature could

resign itself to nothing which interfered with her happiness--a nature

which if it could not break through imprisoning bars would beat itself

to death against them. Unlike Godwin, however, in whose horizon of

unvaried gray no sun was ever visible at all, bright, warm snatches of

sunshine would now and then intervene through tempest; but they were so

uncertain, so evanescent, so much more allied to the principles that

made Sybilla beautiful than to those that ought to have made her good,

that they soon became wholly disregarded, and went finally out. So in a

thousand ways was fuel added to flame, in a thousand miserable

grievances and aggravations, and things that were neither one nor the

other but tortured into both; in trifles brooded over and made hideous

by exaggeration, till--in a few months--it became questionable whether

more misery could be found anywhere in London.

Preserved from a knowledge of all his heart may contain or may be

capable of, let no man credit himself with just so much virtue, _by no

means_ debit himself with just so much vice as circumstances may

hitherto have elicited thence. With fair winds the leaky ship is as safe

as the sound; and to thousands who lift their polluted eyebrows in

horror over the crimes recorded in the news-sheet the writer of this

sketch would say--It is all very much according to the weather. Besides,

we arrive abruptly at a climax in the case of other men’s vices; we do

not go through all the circumstances and gradations which push on to

them, nor know how many of them inevitably sprang from small and almost

blameless beginnings as we do in the case of our own vices. Furthermore,

it is melancholy to observe how unconsciously men are beguiled through

these gradations while to return is possible, and only arouse to a sense

of error by a sudden clapping to of the gates which open on the homeward

path no more.

Beating fretfully against imprisoning bars, Sybilla now yearned as much

for love and gaiety as for marble halls. Her loss in respectability had

not proved so signal as she had feared; and, in default, neglect,

indifference, wasted youth, a cheerless, heartless existence now

supplied the necessities of life to her misery. She forgot, wretched

woman as she was, who had rendered her husband the silent, unemotional

man he had become; a man without love and without anger--a barren rock,

where rich and wholesome verdure used to grow. But, unfortunately, her

ignorance detracted nothing from her wretchedness. Again and again,

totally incapable either of reconciling herself to her lot or of mending

it, she wept bitterly at the thought that it could only change with

death; and naturally followed the question, by and by, which of them was

likely to outlive the other? It was terrible to think that _she_ should

spend all her days in such wretchedness--should die in the midst of it;

but, independent of that consideration, Godwin had grown very pale and

lean lately; he ate little; and--though he complained not--frequently

took medicine. He was not naturally of a strong constitution, and, taken

altogether, Sybilla thought she should outlive him. This is the hard

fact; the bone and substance of her frequent cogitations; but what

pauses lay between, what twinges of self-repugnance now and then broke

mercifully in upon them, cannot be written down--enough to say, that

they grew daily fainter and fainter. What harm was there in “supposing?”

And then, after a decent interval, during which Godwin got neither paler

nor thinner, came the consideration--But how long first? And when

Sybilla was forced to admit, that a young man like Godwin, however

ailing, might well vegetate through a long series of years, she found by

the feeling of dissatisfaction which crept involuntarily into her breast

how much she had secretly cherished the “supposition.” Nor even after

self-detection could she avoid the gracious thought that, if he lived

for twenty years, he might as well live forever; but if, now, any thing

should happen in--say two years (and a great many things did happen in

two years) why, let us see--She would then be not quite six-and-twenty!

Well, not _more_ than two years; a year-and-a-half, say; for there would

be a year for mourning, which would otherwise bring her over

seven-and-twenty, which would be too old. And so Sybilla rehearsed her

husband’s death and burial, and her own widowhood and restoration to

happiness, and--a little, trembling, guilty thought peeped in to

say--to, by that time, Lieutenant-General Sir Victor. True, she often

checked these speculations--she felt they were wrong; but, time by time,

with less success, until at last what is often expressed after one’s

decease became with Sybilla a fixed idea before the event, that “it

would be a happy release.”

Meanwhile, John kept on the weary tenor of his way, prematurely old in

feature and heart--got leaner and paler; finally got into a slow fever,

brought on through his own carelessness, about the time that his wife

came to the above conclusion. And now it would afford strange melancholy

to lift the veil from that woman’s mind as she tended by his

sick-bed--terrible to watch the sudden terror which now inspired her

lest her husband _should_ die; for she felt as if her injured conscience

had fled up to heaven, had impeached her thoughts, and that this was the

result; that devils had power to fulfill her desire, that her soul might

be damned to her desire. Strange, and more melancholy still, that when

the first few days of Godwin’s illness wore away, this terror was, not

supplanted, but accompanied by other feelings of a totally opposite

nature! After all, was not this a providential arrangement for the

happiness of both parties--a release to each from a yoke which had

proved too heavy to bear--an answer to all her tears and sufferings? Of

course, her thoughts were not arrayed in words so matter-of-fact as

these, but it came to quite the same thing. And now these feelings

reigned alternately. As Godwin grew worse, the terror increased; yet as

soon as a symptom of amendment appeared, the contrary sentiment

immediately assumed sway. But as time wore on, and Sybilla became

accustomed to the _danger_, no doubt remained as to which was most

powerful; and when Godwin at length recovered, and all the illness and

dying, if any, had to be done over again, Sybilla felt like one

betrayed.

Alas! she was now wholly in the toils of the fowler. The violence of her

feelings increased day by day; and no longer to attempt description of

mysteries impossible to be understood, she returned one evening from an

accidental and momentary interview with Captain Hope, who was in England

on leave, wrought into a determination to do that herself which it had

terrified her should be done by nature on her behalf. So Godwin fell

into another fever, and its accompanying symptoms were so new that,

though they were less violent than previously, they alarmed him much

more. He, however, was not perhaps so easy a subject for experiment as a

Suffolk laborer; and whether from one cause or another--whether from

observation of the symptomatic nature of his fever, or observation in

the cup from which he was drinking at the time, he suddenly fell back

upon his pillows one morning, shot through with the conviction that his

beautiful wife was poisoning him.

The stricken man lay staring out at the window with fixed eyes awhile,

but neither in anger nor horror; for presently he turned his face upon

his bed and wept with all his heart. The unkindness, the ingratitude of

this woman, each carried in it a sting more venomous than the sting of

death; but, like the sting of death, they subdued rather than infuriated

him. That she who lay in his bed and sat at his board, whom at any rate

he trusted so far, whom at least he jealously protected and cared for,

should drain his life from him at her leisure--to-day, to-morrow, any

day, as soon as the milk came to make porridge with--smote him more with

its treachery than its cruelty. Oh, what seas of anguish broke over him

in that hour--casting him to and fro, a helpless waif, utterly abandoned

and broken up, in perhaps the lowest deeps of agony that ever man

entered upon and lived. His soul shook as in an ague; his spirit seemed

oozing from him, until, like a dwindled, half-spent breath, it flickered

within him on weak, unfeathered wings, impatient of their own impotence.

But soon--for in such extremities men sometimes live through the changes

of years in an hour--a sudden access of firmness, of sternness stole

upon this fainting spirit, which momentarily grew calmer and more stern,

till it was cold and hard as steel. Again his eyes became fixed and

staring, but now with an expression enough alone, in its frozen and

freezing terror, to have brought Sybilla down upon her knees had she

encountered it. And when, half an hour after, the sick man again turned

his face wearily upon his pillow, in hope of sleep, he had resolved to

let Sybilla _do it_!

O wretched woman! Little guessed she, when she came presently to look

upon this sleeper, the pallor of his face already reflected upon her

shrunken heart, how completely the power had passed out of her

hands--how terrible, how _eternal_ the punishment she herself should

assist him in signalizing. Little knew she that if her soul were now for

a time abandoned of all warning, of all saving voices, it was abandoned

to the power of her husband, in the hollow of whose hand it lay. To open

his hand before her eyes, calmly, mercifully to thrust an index-finger

into the spots which already festered so deep in this soul, to put aside

the cup not so much from his lips as her own, and hold up to her eyes,

day by day, the chalice of repentance--all this was within the compass

of his will. But he willed it not; he folded up his will and put it

aside; he would rather yield his inclinations to hers, and passively

close his fingers while he yielded. Why, what devil was in this man

also?

* * * * *

From that day Godwin refused to see any physician, prescribing for

himself from a private medicine-chest; and from that day he grew rapidly

worse and worse. The olden terrors of Sybilla returned upon her as her

husband sank so palpably; she slackened her hand, withheld it altogether

in a paroxysm of mortal dread which passed very well for conjugal

affection, but still from that day he grew rapidly worse and worse. Till

in the noon of a certain night, while she was vainly endeavoring to

sleep, in an adjoining chamber, the husband called hurriedly to the

wife. The wife then rose, hastened to the door in nervous stupor, and

stood rigidly looking in from the threshold. The calm, every-day

appearance of the patient, as he sat up in his bed, restored her,

however, to confidence; and, loosening her clenched hands, she advanced

to the foot of the bed.

“Come nearer, Sybilla,” said Godwin. There was something new in the

expression of his voice, and she went to his side like one walking on a

lake. The sick man placed one arm round her.

“My wife,” he said, and the words fell whispering from his lips, soft as

the sound of falling leaves. “My wife, this fever is coming to an end.”

Sybilla shook from head to foot.

“Place your finger on this place,” he said. She touched his wrist, and

thought she recognized the difference between a pulse that beats with

blood and a pulse that beats with poison. Again Sybilla shook from head

to foot.

“And now do look into my eyes, Sybilla”--still he spoke with the same

soft voice--“I think they are growing dim.”

She glanced upward for the first time; and his eyes were not dim at all.

They were blazing at her; and before she could withdraw her glance he

uttered, “Sybilla, I shall be dead in an hour!” and so fixed her eyes

upon his face.