(_Rosalind reading a paper_.)
From the east to western Ind,
No jewel is like Rosalind,
Her worth being mounted on the wind,
Through all the world bears Rosalind,
All the pictures fairest lined,
Are but black to Rosalind,
Let no face be kept in mind,
But the face of Rosalind.
_Touchstone_.--I'll rhyme you so, eight years together; dinners and
suppers, and sleeping hours excepted; it is the right butter-woman's
rank to market.
As You Like It.
Whenever L'Isle took holiday from his military duties, he was pretty
sure to take it out of his regiment, the next day. On parade, next
morning, he inspected the ranks, bent on detecting some defect in
bearing or equipment, and peered into the faces of the men, as if
hunting out the culprits in the latest breach of discipline. Men and
officers looked for a three hours' drill, to improve their wind, and
put them in condition. But, to their great comfort, he soon let them
off, and hastened back to his quarters. Arrived there, he called to
his man for his portfolio, and at once sat down to write as if he had
a world of correspondence before him. But it was plain to this man,
who had occasion to come often into the room, that his master did not
get through his work with his usual facility. He found him, not so
often writing, as leaning on the table in laborious cogitation, or
biting the feather end of his quill, or rapping his forehead with his
knuckles, to stimulate the action of the organs within, or else
striding up and down the room, in a brown study, over sundry
half-written and discarded sheets of paper, scattered on the floor.
L'Isle's servant wished to speak to him, but was too wise to disturb
him in the midst of those throes of mental labor. But, when pausing
suddenly in his walk, he pressed his forefinger on his temple, and
exclaimed, "I had it last night, and now I have lost it!" his
confidential man thought it time to speak. "What is it, sir, shall I
look for it?"
L'Isle stared at him, as if just roused from a reverie, and bursting
into a hearty laugh, bid him go down stairs until he called for him.
Down stairs he went, and told his two companions that their master was
at work on the toughest despatch or report, or something of that sort,
he had ever had to make in his life, adding, "I would not be surprised
if something came of it."
"I have not a doubt," answered Tom, the groom, in a confident tone,
"that the colonel has found out some new way to jockey the French, and
is about to lay it before Sir Rowland Hill, or, perhaps my Lord
Wellington himself."
Being men of leisure, they were still busy discussing their master's
affairs, and had begun to wonder if he had forgotten that it was time
to go to dinner, when L'Isle called for his man; but it was only to
bid him send the groom up to him.
With an obedient start, Tom hastened up stairs. In a few minutes, he
came down with an exceedingly neatly folded despatch in his hand. He
seemed to have gained in that short interval no little accession of
importance. He had quite sunk the groom, and strode into the room with
the air of an ambassador.
"Now, my lads, without even stopping to wet my whistle," said he, "I
will but sharpen my spurs, saddle my horse, and then--"
"What then?" asked his comrades.
"I will ride off on my important mission."
"Were you right?" asked L'Isle's gentleman. "Is that for Sir Rowland
Hill?"
"Sir Rowland," answered Tom, carelessly, "is not the most considerable
personage with whom master may correspond. And as the army post goes
every day to _Coria_, he would hardly send me thither."
"Can it be for the commander-in-chief?" suggested the footman. "That
is farther off still."
"You are but half-right," said Tom, contemptuously; "for it is not so
far," and, holding up the letter, he pretended to read the direction:
"'To his excellency, Lieutenant-General Sir Mabel Stewart,
commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces in these parts.' If you had
not been blockheads, you might have known it, from the extraordinary
neatness of the rose-colored envelope, with its figured green border."
"I wonder where he got it?" said the footman.
"He brought them out with him from home," said Tom, as if he were in
all his master's secrets, "for his love-letters to the Portuguese
ladies--but never met with any worth writing love-letters to. And,
now, my lads, hinder me no longer, I must ride and run till this be
delivered to my lady, and your mistress, that is to be." He was soon
in the saddle, and when there, rode as if carrying the news, that a
French division, having surprised the dreamy Spaniards in Badajoz, was
already fording the Cayo, without meeting even Goring's handful of
dragoons, to check its advance.
L'Isle now hastened to the regimental mess, and, after dining,
loitered there longer than usual, with a convivial set, until it was
late enough to visit Lady Mabel.
He found her alone, in her drawing-room; her father being still at
table, with some companions, the murmur of whose voices and laughter
now and then reached L'Isle's ears.
"Lieutenant Goring, who is down stairs," said Lady Mabel, "has been
amusing us at dinner with his version of our adventure at the ford of
the Cayo; and a very good story he makes of it, giving some rich
samples of Captain Hatton's polyglot eloquence. He, alone, seems not
to have been in the dark; and saw all, and more than all, that
occurred--nor does he forget you in the picture. But, papa cannot see
the wit of it at all."
"_Burlas de manos, burlas de villanos_. There seldom is wit in
practical jokes," said L'Isle; "but there was certainly more wit than
wisdom in this."
"By-the-bye," said Lady Mabel, "our excursion yesterday has procured
me a new correspondent. You will be astonished to hear who he is, and
at the style in which he writes."
"Indeed!" said L'Isle, with heightening color. "I hope he writes on an
agreeable topic, and in a suitable style?"
"You shall judge for yourself," said Lady Mabel. "But the
grandiloquence of the epistle, worthy of Captain Don Alonzo Melendez
himself, calls not for reading, but recitation. Do you sit here as
critic, while I take my stand in the middle of the room, and give it
utterance with all the elocution and pathos I can muster. You must
know that this epistle I hold in my hand, is addressed to me by no
less a personage than the river-god of the Guadiana, who, contrary to
all my notions of mythology, proves to be a gentleman, and not a
lady." And, in a slightly mock-heroic tone, she began to recite it:
Maiden, the sunshine of thine eye,
Flashing my joyous waves along,
The magic of thy soul-lit smile,
Have waked my murmuring voice to song.
Winding through Hispania's mountains,
Watering her sunburnt plains,
I, from earliest time, have gladdened
Dwellers on these wide domains.
I have watched succeeding races,
Peopling my fertile strand,
Marked each varying lovely model,
Moulded by Nature's plastic hand.
Striving still to reach perfection,
Ruthless, she broke each beauteous mould;
Some blemish still deformed her creature,
Some alloy still defiled her gold.
The Iberian girl has often bathed,
Her limbs in my delighted flood,
And no Acteon came to startle
This very Dian of the wood.
The stately Roman maid has loitered,
Pensive, upon my flowering shore,
Shedding some pearly drops to think,
Italia she may see no more.
While gazing on my placid face,
She meditates her distant home;
And rears, as upon Tiber's banks,
The towers of imperial Rome.
The blue-eyed daughter of the Goth,
Fresh from her northern forest-home,
In rude nobility of race,
Foreshadowed her who now has come.
The loveliest offspring of the Moor
Beside my moon-lit current sat;
And, sighing, sung her hopeless love,
In strains, that I remember yet.
The Christian knight, in captive chains,
The conqueror of her heart has proved;
His own, in far Castilian bower,
He bears her blandishments unmoved.
Thus Nature tried her 'prentice hand,
Become, at last, an artist true;
In inspiration's happiest mood,
She tried again, and moulded you.
Maiden, from my crystal surface,
May thy image never fade;
Longing, longing, to embrace thee,
I, alas! embrace a shade.
Fainter glows each beauteous image,
Thy beauty vanishing before;
I will clasp thy lovely shadow,
Fate will grant to me no more.
If the verses were not very good, L'Isle was ready to acknowledge it;
but, in fact, he had not the fear of criticism before his eyes; for
when did lady ever criticise verses made in her praise? But he had
reckoned without his host. Though Lady Mabel recited them exceedingly
well, in a way that showed that she must have read them over many
times, and dwelt upon them, there was an under-current of ridicule
running through her tones and action--for she had personified the
river-god--and when she was done, she criticised them with merciless
irony.
"This is no timid rhymster," she exclaimed, "but a true poet of the
Spanish school: No figure is too bold for him. A mere versifier would
have likened a lady's eyes to earthly diamonds or heavenly stars; the
blessed sun itself is not too bright for our poet's purpose.--My timid
fancy dared not follow his soaring wing; to me at the first glance,
the 'stately Roman maid' was building her mimic Rome on the banks of
the Guadiana with solid stone and tough cement, and I saddened at the
sight of her labors. To come down to the mechanism of the verse," she
continued, "besides a false rhyme or two, the measure halts a
little.--But we must not forget that the river-god is taking a
poetical stroll in the shackles of a foreign tongue. In this case we
have good assurance that the poet has never been out of his own
country, and to the _eye_ of a foreigner 'flood' and 'wood' and 'home'
and 'come' are perfect rhymes. We must deal gently with the poet while
'trying his 'prentice hand,' hoping better things when he shall
'become an artist true;' and when we remember that to the national
taste sublimity is represented by bombast, artifice takes the place of
nature, and sense is sacrificed to sound, the love of the _ore
rotundo_ demanding mouth-filling words at any price, we cannot fail to
discover the genuine Spanish beauties of the piece. I only wonder that
in his chronological picture of the races he should omit to display
the Phoenician, Jewish and Gipsy maidens to our admiring eyes."
"Heyday!" exclaimed Colonel Bradshawe, who now came in with Major
Warren, while she was still standing in the middle of the floor, with
the paper raised in her hand, "Is this a rehearsal? Are we to have
private theatricals, with Lady Mabel for first and sole actress? With
songs interspersed for her as _prima donna_? Pray let me come in as
one of the _dramatis personæ_."
"It is no play!" said Lady Mabel, much confused. "I have just been
throwing away my powers of elocution in an attempt to make Colonel
L'Isle perceive the beauties of a piece of model poetry, moulded in
the purest Spanish taste. I thought him gifted with some poetic
feeling, but he shows not the slightest sense of its peculiar merits."
L'Isle, though much out of countenance, had kept his seat through the
recitation, but now got up looking little pleased with it.
"Try me," said Major Warren. "You may be more successful in finding a
critic."
"I never suspected you of any critical acumen," said Lady Mabel; "and
so could not be disappointed."
"Do not overlook me," said Bradshawe. "Poetry is the expression of
natural feeling, in a state of exaltation. Now, I am always in an
exalted state of feeling in your company, and may be just now a very
capable judge."
"No; one failure is enough for me," said Lady Mabel. "I am not in the
humor to repeat it."
"Let me read it then," said Bradshawe, offering to take the paper from
her hand.
Lady Mabel declined, and L'Isle tried to divert his attention. But
Bradshawe's curiosity was strongly excited, and he made more than one
playful attempt to get possession of the verses. Upon this, Lady Mabel
went to the table near which L'Isle was standing, and pretended to
hide them between the pages of one of the books there. L'Isle, anxious
that they should be kept from every eye but hers, watched her
closely. Could he believe his eyes? As she stooped over the table, she
actually, unobserved, as she thought, slipped the verses into her
bosom. Bradshawe pertinaciously began to search the volumes; on which,
Lady Mabel took up the largest of them, and with a grave face carried
it out of the room, leaving L'Isle so well satisfied with her care for
his epistle, that, by the time she came back, he was ready to bear,
without flinching, any severity of criticism.
The rest of the company below being gone, Lord Strathern now entered
the room. "Ah, L'Isle, I am glad to find you here; I was just about to
send after you. I have this moment received a dispatch from Sir
Rowland. He needs you for a special service, and this letter contains
his instructions."
"Is it in verse, Papa?" asked Lady Mabel, coming close up beside her
father.
"In verse, child? What are you dreaming of? Sir Rowland is a sane man,
and never writes verses?"
"I thought it might be a growing custom to correspond in verse. The
last letter I received was in regular stanzas."
"Who from?" asked Lord Strathern.
"A Spaniard--a genuine Spaniard, of the purest water," said Lady
Mabel. "And, strange to tell, I never saw him but once in my life."
"The impudent rascal!" exclaimed his lordship. "I will have him
horsewhipped by way of answer, a stripe for every line."
"Nay," said Lady Mabel, "a stripe for every bad line will be cutting
criticism enough."
"Who is this fellow? Is it the Don Alonso Melendez you were telling me
of?"
"Never mind his name, Papa. I am afraid you might have him flayed
alive, while the poor fellow deserves nothing but laughter for his
doggerel." And while this doggerel was secretly pressed by her bosom,
she stole a look at L'Isle, and was surprised to see how little galled
he seemed to be by her ridicule.
"What is the burden of Sir Rowland's verses?" she asked, addressing
him.
"Very true!" exclaimed L'Isle; "I had forgotten to read it." And
breaking the seal, he ran his eye hastily over the letter. "I must
leave Elvas at once, and be away some days," he said, with a look of
dissatisfaction.
"Sir Rowland is very fond of sending you on his errands," remarked
Lord Strathern. "And, hitherto you seemed to like the extra work he
gave you."
"I would be gladly excused from it just now," answered L'Isle, and in
spite of himself, his eye wandered toward Lady Mabel. Lord Strathern
did not observe this, but said, jestingly: "I believe you have
contrived to convince Sir Rowland that none of us can do any thing so
well as you can," but there was a little tone of pique in the way this
was said.
"I have made no attempt to do so," L'Isle answered. "But he has given
me some thing to do now, and I must set about it at once." Taking
leave of Lady Mabel, he held a short private conference with his
lordship, and, when he went out to mount his horse, found Colonel
Bradshawe already in the saddle, waiting for him. This annoyed him,
for he instinctively knew Bradshawe's object, and looked to be
ingeniously cross-questioned as to the verses which Lady Mabel had
recited, and then criticised so unsparingly. Unwilling to let
Bradshawe stretch him on the rack for his amusement, L'Isle assumed
the offensive, and at once broached another matter which he had much
at heart.
"I wonder when we will leave Elvas," he exclaimed, abruptly. "If we
stay here much longer, we will be at war with the people around us. I
never knew my lord so negligent of discipline. It evidently grows upon
him."
"The old gentleman," said Bradshawe, carelessly, "certainly holds the
reins with a slack hand."
"He is content with preserving order in Elvas," said L'Isle; "but
turns a deaf ear to almost every complaint the peasantry make against
our people."
"Many of them are lies," said Bradshawe, coolly.
"And many of them are too well founded," answered L'Isle. "You are the
senior officer in the brigade, and a man of no little tact. Could you
not stir my lord up to looking more closely into this matter."
"I will think of it," said Bradshawe, anxious to open a more
interesting subject.
"Pray think of it speedily," said L'Isle. "There is no time to be
lost, and I must lose no time now. The sun has set, and I must be in
Olivenca by midnight."
"What will you do there?" asked Bradshawe.
"Bait my horses on my way into Andalusia," answered L'Isle, riding off
at full gallop, leaving Bradshawe much provoked at his slipping out of
his hands before he could put him to the question.