Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be!
* * * * *
'Then die, that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee--
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and rare.'
In connection with youth, freshness, and blushes, the rose became,
naturally enough, a type of reality and of natural truth. So in Hafiz:
'Can cheeks where living roses blow,
Where nature spreads her richest dyes,
Require the borrowed gloss of Art?'
The deepest and most solemn mystery which the Nature-love of the
earliest times attached to every object, was that it reflected its very
opposite, and must always be regarded as identified with it in a
primitive origin, in which both existed undeveloped. So we have seen
that the rose, while female as the _expanding_ flower, was yet male as
the _contracted_ bud. As a symbol of joyousness, youth, light, beauty,
and the blushing dawn, it was eminently the floral type of _life_--a
simile which has been employed by the poets of every land, Spenser among
others:
'The whiles some one did chant this lovely lay:
Ah see, who so fair thing dost fain to see,
In springing flower the image of thy day;
All see thy virgin ROSE, how sweetly she
Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty,
That fairer seems the less you see her may;
Lo! see soon after, how more bold and free
Her bared bosom she doth broad display;
Lo! see soon after, how she fades and falls away.
'So passeth, in the passing of a day
Of mortal life, the leaf, the bud, the flower,
Nor more doth flourish after first decay,
That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower
Of many a lady, many a paramour:
Gather the rose of love while yet in time,
Whilst loving thou may'st loved be with equal crime.'
But, as implying Life, the Rose also reflected Death, and this seemed to
ray from the cruel thorns, which, as the German couplet says, remain
after the leaves have vanished:
'The rose falls away,
But the thorns ever stay.'
And a far older Hindu proverb solemnly exclaims: 'Hast thou obtained thy
wish; exult not: canst thou not see how the thorn pierces the finger at
the same instant when the rose is gathered?'
Birth and Death, as typified in the Rose, and their mutual production,
are beautifully expressed by Ausonius in the remainder of the poem
already cited:
'I saw a moment's interval divide
The rose that blossomed from the rose that died.
_This_ with its cap of tufted moss looked green;
_That_, tipped with reddening purple, peeped between;
One reared its obelisk with opening swell,
The bud unsheathed its crimson pinnacle;
Another, gathering every purpled fold,
Its foliage multiplied; its blooms unrolled,
The teeming chives shot forth; the petals spread;
The bow-pot's glory reared its smiling head;
While this, that ere the passing moment flew
Flamed forth one blaze of scarlet on the view,
Now shook from withering stalk the waste perfume,
Its verdure stript, and pale its faded bloom,
I marvelled at the spoiling flight of time,
That roses thus grew old in earliest prime.
E'en while I speak, the crimson leaves drop round,
And a red brightness veils the blushing ground.
These forms, these births, these changes, bloom, decay,
Appear and vanish in the self-same day.
The flower's brief grace, O Nature! moves my sighs,
Thy gifts, just shown, are ravished from our eyes.
One day the rose's age; and while it blows
In dawn of youth, it withers to its close.
The rose the glittering sun beheld at morn,
Spread to the light its blossoms newly born,
When in his round he looks from evening skies
Already droops in age, and fades, and dies.
Yet blest that, soon to fade, the numerous flower
Succeeds herself, and still prolongs her hour.
O virgins! roses cull, while yet ye may;
So bloom your hours, and so shall haste away.'
A Jewish legend declares that a famed cabalist was vainly pursued by
Death through many forms. But at last the grim enemy changed himself
into the perfume of a rose, which the magician--his suspicion lulled for
the instant--inhaled, and died. In many German cities--Hildesheim,
Bremen, and Lübeck among others--it is said that the death of a prebend
is heralded by the discovery of a white rose under his seat in the
cathedral. 'And,' as J. B. Friederich states (_Symbolik und Mythologie
der Natur_, p. 225), 'in the Tyrol the rose has a _deathly_ meaning,
since it is there believed that whoever wears an Alpine rose in his hat
during a thunderstorm will be struck by the lightning; for which reason
it is called the thunder-rose--a name probably derived from the
consecration of that flower to Donar, the god of thunder.'
The fantastic symbolism of the middle ages twined the Rose into
innumerable capricious forms, few of which, however, have any direct
derivation from _Nature_. Thus the Rose, from being typical of literal
love, became that of Christ; from symbolizing the light of Aurora, it
was made significant as the rose-window bearing the cross. The
five-leaved rose indicated the love of GOD for Man, as set
forth by His five wounds; while the eight-leaved typified that of the
believer for the Lord. The Rose also emblemed the Virgin Mary, and from
her was reflected through countless works of art and many legends, all
of which are 'tenderly beautiful,' and, it may be added, generally
rather silly--as, for instance, that of the holy friar Josbert of Doel,
who sang daily five hymns in honor of the Virgin; in reward of which,
immediately after his death, there grew from his mouth, ears, and
nostrils, five roses, each marked with the words of a hymn. It has been
usual to say much, of late years, of the 'child-like and earnest,'
'tender and trusting' spirit which inspired these saintly legends, and
to praise with them the morbid delicacy of a Fra Angelico. Believe me,
reader, when I say that no vigorous and healthy mind ever passed through
a period of adoration for and cultivation of mediæval Roman Catholic
Art, who did not eventually see that this _naïve_ and innocent
art-expression of the foulest, darkest, and most oppressive stage of
history, had precisely the same foundation in truth as the love of the
French court during the days of the Regency for a shepherd's life and
child-like rural pleasures. A wicked and degraded age seeks for relief
in contemplating its opposite; a healthy one--like the Greek--glories in
itself, and strives to raise self to the highest standard of truth and
beauty. None of the symbolisms of the middle ages grew directly from
_Nature_--it was based on second-hand reveries, and on emblems from
which all juice and life had been drained ages before in the East.
Yes--look at the beautiful Rose, radiant with dewdrops, ruddy in the
morning light, or dreamily lovely, with the moonbeams melting through
her moon-shaped petals. Unchanged since that primeval age when she was a
living idol--a visible and blest presence of the Great Goddess of beauty
and love--whether as Astarte or Ma Nerf Baaltis, Ashtaroth or Venus. Let
her breathe in her fragrance of the far times when millions in a strange
and busy age now forgotten thronged rose-garlanded to the temples; when,
bearing roses, they gathered to wild worship at the Feast of the New
Moon, under shady groves or in picturesque high places among the ancient
rocks. Rose-breathing, rose-perfumed, amid sweetest music and black
Assyrian eyes, in the gliding dance under thousands of brazen serpent
lamps, or far in dusky fragrant forests, they adored the Rose Queen--the
very visible spirit and incarnation of nature in her loveliest form.
Over many a shining sea passed the barks, rose-wreathed, to the far
isles of the South: she--the Rose--was there! From many a steep crag
looked out on the blue ocean the temple of the Star Queen, the Heaven
and Sea-born sister of the Rose: and she was there. Through beautiful
temples the lover strayed to meet his love, and, taking the rose from
her brow, won her in worship of the Serpent-light of Loveliness: for
she, the Rose--the Mystery of all Rapture--was ever there! On coin and
jewel, in prayer and song they bore the Rose-Venus to every land in a
living, ever-thrilling romaunt--far goldener, more thrilling with poetry
than was in later times the dull lay of De Loris and Clopinel: for
wherever man found joy and beauty in life, feast, and song, she--the
Rose Incarnate--was there. In the Rose was the twin sister of all the
mysteries: we may read them as clearly in her, if we will, as ever did
rapt Sidonian, or priest, or daughter of the Aryan, or whatever the
early unknown burning race may have been, which built fire-towers in
melting Lesbos, and names Cor-on, the crowned Corinthos, ere yet a
syllable of Greek had ever rung on earth. She is the Cup; her calyx and
dew reflect the goblet of life, and the nectar-wine of life, typical in
early times of endless generation, in later days of _re_-generation.
Born of the sea, she recalls the Cor-olla Cup-Ark in which
Hercules--Arech El Es--crossed the sea between the rosy dawn and ruddy
sundown, 'strength upborne by love and life.' She is the Morning Star
which hovered over Aphrodite when the Queen rose from the sea, since
each was either in that Trinity; as in later days the star shone on him
who rose from Maria the sea, accompanied by _Iona_, the dove. She is the
Shell and the Ark of so many ancient legends--that Ark into which life
enters, and from which it is born--the Ark of Earth, in which Adon and
the flowers sleep till Spring--the Ark of maternal Being, from which man
is born--the exquisite and beautiful Rose. She is the Door or Gate of
the Transition or Passing Through from death to life: wherever man
enters, _there_ is the Rose, and with her all the twin-symbols;--and
when, bearing a rose, you chance to pass through some antique rock-gap,
far inland, near a running stream, start not, reader, should a strange
thrill, as of a solemn vanished life, sweep over you; for so surely as
you live, know that in ancient days the footsteps of the rose-bearing
worshipper went before you through that narrow pass, performing, by so
doing, the rite typical of new birth, revival, and the Covenant. She is
the cavern, the secret lair of life and the casket in which that one
great arcanum and impenetrable secret of motherhood is forever
concealed--forever and forever. They found it hidden--those priests of
old--in Woman and in the Rose, in fruits, and in all that lives or
grows; they traced the mystery up to godhood; they found it reflected in
every object of reception and transit--in the temple, and house, and
vase, and moon-like horns; they saw it in the woodland path, winding
away in darkness among the trees; it lurked in seeds and nuts: man could
crush the grape and burn the flower, but he could _not_ solve the
inscrutable mystery of generation and life; and so he hallowed it. Hail
to thee, thou, its fairest earthly form, O Rose of sunlight and luxury
and love!
In a 'Floral Dictionary' at hand, I find the rose means, 'genteel,
pretty.' In another, twenty-four very different interpretations are
ascribed to as many varieties of this flower. It is almost needless to
say that the modern 'Language of Flowers' is, for the greater part,
merely the arbitrary invention of writers entirely ignorant of the
signification anciently attached to natural objects. The primary meaning
of the rose is _love_; and it is a rose-garland, and not a tulip, which
should stand for a 'declaration of passion,' and, at the same time, for
a pledge of secrecy. Many of these modern fancies are, however, very
beautiful; as, for instance, in that German lyric in which the Angel of
the Flowers confers a fresh grace on the rose by veiling it in moss:
'And, robed in Nature's simplest weed,
Could there a flower that rose exceed?'
But our task is to investigate those antique meanings of flowers, that
secret language of life and love consecrated to them for thousands of
years, and now buried under forgotten lays, legends, and strange relics
of art.
MACCARONI AND CANVAS.
IX.
ROMAN FIRESIDES.
It was a warm day in October when Caper engaged rooms in the Babuino;
the sun shone cheerfully, and he took no heed of the cold weather to
come: in fact he entertained the popular idea that the land half-way
between the tropics and paradise, called Italy, stood in no need of
pokers and coal hods: he was mistaken. Awaking one morning to the fact
that it was cold, he began an examination of his rooms for a fireplace:
there was none. He searched for a chimney--in vain. He went to see his
landlady about it: she was standing on a balcony, superintending the
engineering of a bucket in its downward search for water. The house was
five stories high, and from each story what appeared to be a lightning
rod ran down into what seemed to be a well, in a small garden. Up and
down these rods, tin buckets, fastened to ropes, were continually
running, rattling, clanking down, or being drawn splashing, dripping up;
and as they were worked assiduously, it made lively music for those
dwelling in the back part of the house.
Having mentioned to the landlady that he wanted a fire, the good woman
reflected a moment, and then directed the servant to haul out a sheet
iron vessel mounted on legs: this was next filled with charcoal, on
which was thrown live coals, and the entire arrangement being placed
outside the door on the balcony, the servant bent over and fanned it
with a turkey feather fan. Caper looked on in astonishment.
'Are you going to embark in the roast chestnut trade?' he asked.
'_Ma che!_' answered madame; 'that is your fire.'
'It will bring on asphyxia.'
'We are never asphyxied in Rome with it. You see, the girl fans all the
venom out of it; and when she takes it into your room it will be just as
harmless as--let me see--as a baby without teeth.'
This comparison settled the question, for it proved it wouldn't bite.
Caper managed to worry through the cold weather with this poor consoler:
it gave him headaches, but it kept his head otherwise cool, and his feet
warm; and, as he lived mostly in his studio, where he had a good wood
stove, he was no great loser.
'But,' said he, descanting on this subject to Rocjean, 'how can the
Romans fight for their firesides, when they haven't any?'
'They will fight for their _scaldine_, especially the old women and the
young women,' answered Rocjean, 'to the last gasp. There is nothing they
stick to like these: even their husbands and lovers are not so near and
dear to them.'
'What are they? and, how much do they cost?' asked Caper, artistically.
'Crockery baskets with handles; ten _baiocchi_,' replied Rocjean, 'You
must have noticed them; why, look out of that window: do you see that
girl in the house opposite. She has one on the window sill, under her
nose, while her hands are both held over the charcoal fire that is
burning in it. If there were any proof needed that the idea of a future
punishment by fire did not originate in Rome, the best reply would be
the bitter hatred the Romans have of cold. I can fancy the income of the
church twice as large if they had only thought to have filled purgatory
with icebergs and a corresponding state of the thermometer. A Roman, in
winter time, would pay twice as many _baiocchi_ for prayers to get a
deceased friend out of the cold, as he could otherwise be induced to.
The English and other foreigners have, little by little, induced hotel
and boarding house keepers to introduce grates and stoves, with good
coal and wood fires, wherever they may hire lodgings; but the old Romans
still stand by braseras and scaldinas.'
'I caught a bad cold yesterday, thanks to this barbarous custom,' said
Caper. 'I was in the Vatican, looking at a pretty girl copying a head of
Raphael's, and depending on imagination and charcoal to warm me: the
results were chills and the snuffles.'
'Let that be a warning to you against entering art galleries during cold
weather. To visit the Borghese collection with the thermometer below
freezing point, and see all those semi-nude paintings, whether of saints
or sinners, chills the heart; not only that they have no clothes, but
that the artists who made the pictures were so radically vulgar--because
they were affected!'
'But,' spoke Caper,'they probably painted them in the merry spring time,
when they had forgotten all about frozen fountains and oranges iced; or,
it may be, in their day wood was cheaper than it is now, and money
plentier.'
'Yes, in the days when three million pilgrims visited Rome in a year.
But would you believe it? within thirty miles of this city I have seen
enough timber lying rotting on the ground, to half warm the Eternal
City? The country people, in the commune where I lived one summer, had
the privilege of gathering wood in the forest that crowns the range of
mountains backing up from the sea, and separating the Pontine Marshes
from the higher lands of the Campagna: but the trunks of the hewn trees,
after such light branches as the women could hack off were carried away,
were left to rot; for there was no way to get them to Rome--an hour's
distance by railroad. Cold? The Romans are numbed to the heart: wait
until they are warmed up; wait until they have a chance to make
money--there will be no poets like Casti in those days--Casti, who wrote
two hundred sonnets against a man who dunned him for--thirty cents! Talk
about knowing enough to go into the house when it rains! Why the Roman
shopkeepers of the poorer class don't know enough to shut their shop
doors when they are starved with cold: you will find this to be the
fact. Look, too, at the poor little children! do they ever think of
playing fire engine, and thus warming themselves in a wholesome manner?
No! One day I was painting away, when I heard a poor, thin little voice,
as of a small dinner bell with a croup, and hoping at last I might see
the little ones having a good frolic, I went to the window and looked
out. What did I see? A small boy with a large, tallow-colored head,
carrying a large black cross in the pit of his stomach; another small
boy ringing a bell; and five others following along, in a crushed,
despondent manner--inviting other boys to hear the catechism explained
in the parish church. Meat for babes! I don't wonder the Roman women all
want to be men, when I see the men without half the spirit of the women,
and, such as they are, loafing away the winter evenings for warmth in
wine shops or cafes. Poor Roman women, huddled together in your dark
rooms, feebly lighted with a poor lamp, and hugging _scaldine_ for
better comfort! Would that the American woman could see her Italian
sister, and bless her stars that she did not live under the cap and
cross keys.'
'The cold has one good effect,' interrupted Caper; 'the forcible
gesticulation of the Italians, which we all admire so much, arises from
the necessity they have to do so--in order to keep warm. I have,
however, an idea to better the condition of the wood sawyers in the
Papal States, by introducing a saw buck or saw horse: as it is, they
hold the wood in their hands, putting the saw between their knees, and
then fairly rubbing the wood through the saw, instead of the saw through
the wood. How, too, the Romans manage to cut wood with such axes as they
have is passing strange. It would be well to introduce an American axe
here, handle and all.'
'We have an old, old saying in France,' spoke Rocjean:
'_Jamais cheval n'y homme
S'amenda pour aller a Rome._'
'Never horse or man mended, that unto Rome wended.' Your American axe is
useless without American energy, and would not, if introduced here, mend
the present shiftless style of wood chopping: evidently the people will
one day take it up and try it--when their minds and arms are free. As it
is, the genuine Romans live through their winters without wood in a
merry kind of humor; taking the charcoal sent them by chance for cooking
with great good nature; and, without words, blessing GOD for
giving them vigorous frames and sturdy bodies to withstand cold and
heat. After all, the want of fixed firesides by no manner of means
annoys the buxom Roman woman of the people: she picks up her moving
stove, the _scaldina_, and trots out to see her nearest gossip, knowing
that her reception will be warm, for she brings warmth with her. There
is a copy of Galignani, a round of bull beef, and a dirty coal fire,
even in Rome, for every Englishman who will pay for them; but why, oh
why! forever hoist the banner of the Blues over the gay gardens of every
earthly paradise? Why hide Psyche under a hogshead?'
'Are you asking me those hard questions? For if you are,' said Caper, 'I
will answer you thus: A fishwoman passing along a street in
Philadelphia one day, heard from an open window the silver-voiced
Brignoli practising an aria, possibly from the Traviata: 'That voice,'
quoth she, 'would be a fortune for a woman in shad time!''
THE VIOLETS OF THE VILLA BORGHESE.
'It is well to be off with the old love
Before you are on with the new:'
hummed James Caper, as he sauntered, one morning early, through the dewy
grass of the Villa Borghese, with his uncle, Bill Browne, leisurely
picking a little bouquet of violets--'dim, but sweeter than the lids of
Juno's eyes, or Cytherea's breath.'--and pleasantly thinking of the
pretty face of his last love, the blonde Rose, who was at that moment
smiling on somebody else in Naples.
'There is nothing keeps a man out of mischief so well as the little
portrait a pair of lovely eyes photographs on his heart; is there now,
Uncle Bill?'
'No, Jim, you are 'bout right there: if you want to keep the devil out
of your heart, you must keep an angel in it. If you can't find a
permanent resident, why you must take up with transient customers. First
and last, I've had the pictures of half the pretty girls in Saint Louis
hanging up in my gallery: as one grows dim I take up another, and that's
the way I preserve my youth. If it hadn't been for business, I should
have been a married man long ago; and my advice to you, Jim, is to stop
off being a bachelor the instant you are home again.'
'I think I shall, the instant I find one with the beauty of an Italian,
the grace of a French girl, the truth and tenderness of a German, the
health of an Englishwoman, and--'
'Draw it mild, my boy,' broke in Uncle Bill: 'here she comes!'
Caper and his uncle were standing, as the latter spoke, under the group
of stone pines, from whose feet there was a lovely view of the Albanian
snow-capped mountains, and they saw coming toward them two ladies. There
was the freshness of the morning in their cheeks, and though one was
older than the other, joy-bringing years had passed so kindly with her,
that if Caper had not known she was the mother of the younger lady--they
would have passed for sisters. When he first saw them, the latter was
gathering a few violets; when she rose, he saw the face of all others he
most longed to see.
He had first seen her the life of a gay party at Interlachen; then alone
in Florence, with her mother for companion, patiently copying the Bella
di Tiziano in the Pitti palace; then in Venice, one sparkling morning,
as he stepped from his gondola on the marble steps of a church, he met
her again: this time he had rendered himself of assistance to the mother
and daughter, in procuring admittance for them to the church, which was
closed to the public for repairs, and could only be seen by an especial
permit, which Caper fortunately had obtained. They were grateful for his
attention, and when, a few days afterward, he met them in company with
other of his American friends, and received a formal introduction, the
acquaintance proved one of the most delightful he had made in Europe,
rendering his stay in Venice marked by the rose-colored light of a new
love, warming each scene that passed before his dreamy gaze. But other
cities, other faces: memory slept to awake again with renewed strength
at the first flash of light from the eyes of Ida Buren, there, over the
spring violets of the Villa Borghese.
The meeting between Mrs. Buren, her daughter, and Caper, was marked, on
the part of the ladies, with that cordiality which the truly well bred
show instinctively to those who merit it--to those who, brave and loyal,
prove, by word and look, that theirs is the right to stand within the
circle of true politeness and courtesy.
'And so,' Mrs. Buren concluded her greeting, 'we are here in Rome,
picking violets with the dew on them, and waiting for the nightingales
to sing before we leave for Naples.'
'And forget,' said Caper, among the violets of Pæstum, the poor flowers
of the Borghese? I protest against it, and beg to add this little
bouquet to yours, that their united perfume may cause you to remember
them.'
'I accept them for you, mother,' spoke Ida; 'and that they may not be
forgotten, I will make a sketch at once of that fountain under the ilex
trees, and Mr. Caper in classic costume, making floral offerings to
Bacchus--of violets.'
'And why not to Flora?'
'I have yet to learn that Flora has a shrine at--Monte Testaccio! where
the Signore Caper, if report speaks true, often goes and worships.'
'That shrine is abandoned hereafter: where shall my new one be?'
'In the Piazza di Spagna, No.----,' said Mrs. Buren, smiling at Caper's
mournful tone of voice. 'While the violets bloom we shall be there. Good
morning!'
The ladies continued their walk, and although, as they turned away, Ida
dropped a tiny bunch of violets, hidden among two leaves, Caper, when he
picked it up, did not return it to her, but kept it many a day as a
souvenir of his fair countrywoman.
'They are,' said Uncle Bill, slowly and solemnly, 'two of the finest
specimens of Englishwomen I ever saw, upon me word, be gad!'
'They are,' said Caper, 'two of the handsomest Americans I ever met.'
'Americans?' asked Uncle Bill, emphatically.
'Americans!' answered Caper, triumphantly.
'Shut up your paint shop, James, my son, call in the auctioneer, stick
up a bill 'TO LET.' Let us return at once to the land of our
birth. No such attractions exist in this turkey-trodden,
maccaroni-eating, picture-peddling, stone-cutting, mass-singing land of
donkeys. Let us go. Americans!'
'Yes, Americans--Bostonians,'
'Farewell, seventy-five niggers--good-by, my speculations in Lewsianny
cotton planting--depart from behind me, sugar crops on Bayou Fooshe! I
am of those who want a Mrs. Browne, a duplicate of the elderly lady who
has just departed, at any price. James, my son, this morning shalt thou
breakfast with me at Nazzari's; and if thou hast not a bully old
breakfast, it's because the dimes ain't in me--and I know they are.
Nothing short of cream de Boozy frappayed, paddy frog grass pie, fill it
of beef, and myonhays of pullits, with all kinds of saucy sons and so
forth, will do for us. We have been among angels--shall we not eat like
the elect? Forward!'
During breakfast, Caper discoursed at length with his uncle of the two
ladies they met in the villa.
Mrs. Buren, left a widow years since, with a large fortune, had educated
her only child, Ida, systematically, solidly, and healthily. The child's
mind, vine-like, clings for support to something already firm and
established, that it may climb upward in a healthy, natural growth,
avoiding the earth; so the daughter had found in her mother a guide
toward the clear air where there is health and purity. Ida Buren, with
clear brown eyes, high spirits, rosy cheeks, and full perfected form, at
one glance revealed the attributes that Uncle Bill had claimed for her
so quickly. With all the beauty of an Italian, she had her perceptions
of color and harmony in the violets she gathered; the truth and
tenderness of a German, to appreciate their sentiment; the health of an
Englishwoman, to tramp through the dewy grass to pick them; the grace of
a Frenchwoman, to accept them from Nature with a _merci, madame_!
Caper had now a lovely painting to hang up in his heart, one in unison
with the purity and beauty of the violets of the Villa Borghese.
THE CARNIVAL.
There is lightness and brightness, music, laughter, merry jests, masks,
bouquets, flying flowers, and _confetti_ around you; you are in the
Corso, no longer the sober street of a solemn old city, but the
brilliant scene of a pageant, rivalling your dreams of Fairy land,
excelling them; for it is fresh, sparkling, real before your eyes. From
windows and balconies wave in the wind all-colored tapestries, flutter
red, white, and golden draperies; laugh out in festal garments gay
revellers; fly through the golden sunlight showers of perfumed flowers;
beam down on you glances from wild, loving eyes, sparkling with fun,
gleaming with excitement, thrilling with witching life.
Hurrah for to-day! _Fiori, fiori, ecco fiori_! Baskets of flowers,
bunches of flowers, bouquets of flowers, flowers natural and flowers
artificial, flowers tied up and flowers loose. _Confetti, confetti, ecco
confetti_! Sugar plums white, sugar plums blue, bullets and buckshot of
lime water and flour. Whiz! down comes the Carnival shower: '_Bella,
donzella_, this bouquet for thee!' Up go the white camellias and blue
violets: 'down comes a rosebud for me.' What wealth of loveliness and
beauty in thousands of balconies and windows; what sheen of brilliance
in the vivid colors of the varied costumes!
The Carnival has come!
Right and left fly flowers; and here and there dart in between wheels
and under horses' legs, dirty, daring Roman boys, grasping the falling
flowers or _confetti_. From a balcony, some wealthy _forestiero_ ('Ugh!
how rich they are!' grumbles the coachman) scatters _baiocchi_
broadcast, and down in the dirt and mud roll and tumble the little
ragamuffins, who never have muffins, and always have rags--and 'spang!'
down comes a double handful of hard _confetti_ on Caper's head, as he
rides by in an open carriage. He bombards the window with a double
handful of white buckshot; but a woman in full Albano costume, crimson
and white, aims directly at him a beautiful bouquet. Not to be outdone,
Caper throws her a still larger one, which she catches and keeps--never
throwing him the one she aimed! He is sold! But 'whiz, whir!' right and
left fly flowers and _confetti_; and--oh, joy unspeakable!--an
Englishman's chimney-pot hat is knocked from his head by a strong
bouquet; and we know
'There is a noun in Hebrew means 'I am,'
The English always use to govern d----n,'
and that he is using it severely, and don't see the fun, you know--of
_throwing things_! Who cares? _Avanti!_
Caper had filled the carriage with loose flowers, small bouquets, a
basket of _confetti_, legal and illegal size, for the Carnival. Edict
strictly prohibited persons from throwing large-sized bouquets and
_confetti_; consequently, everybody considered themselves compelled to
_dis_obey the command. Rocjean, who was in the carriage with Caper,
delighted the Romans with his ingenuity in attaching bouquets to the end
of a long fish pole, and thus gently engineering them to ladies in
windows or balconies. The crowd in the Corso grows larger and
larger--the scene in this long street resembles a theatre in open air,
with decorations and actors, assisted by a large supply of infantry and
cavalry soldiers to keep order and attend to the scenes. The prosaic
shops are no longer shops, but opera boxes, filled with actors and
actresses instead of spectators, wearing all varieties of costume; the
Italian ones predominant, gay, bright, and beautifully adapted to rich,
peach-like complexions. Why call them olive complexions? For all the
olives ever seen are of the color of a sick green pumpkin, or a too, too
ripe purple plum; and who has ever yet seen a beautiful Italian maiden
of either of these morbid colors?
The windows and balconies of the Corso are opera boxes. 'Whiz!' The
flying bouquets and white pills show plainly that the _prime donne_ are
making their positively first appearances for the season. Look at that
French soldier in company with another, who is passing under a balcony,
when a tiny bunch of flowers falls, or is thrown at him: he stoops to
grasp it: too late, _mon brave_, a Roman boy is ahead of you: no use
swearing; so he grasps his comrade by the arm, and points to the
balcony, which is not more than six feet above his head.
'_Mon Dieu, qu'elle est gentille!_'
And there stands the beauty, a thorough soldier's girl; weighs her
hundred and seventy pounds, has cheeks like new-cut beefsteaks, hair
black as charcoal, eyes bright as fire, and an arm capable of cooking
for a regiment. She is dressed in full Albanian costume, has the dew of
the fields in her air, and oh, when she smiles, she shows such splendid
teeth!--the _contadine_ have them, and don't ruin them by continual
eating! The soldier stops, 'Oh lord, she is neat!' He wants to return
her flowery compliment with a similar one; but, _Tu bleu!_ one can't buy
bouquets on four sous a day income--even in Rome: so he looks around for
a waif, and spies on the pavement something green; he gallantly throws
it up, and with a smile and, wave of the hand like a Chevalier Bayard on
a bender, he bids adieu to the fair maiden. He threw up half a head of
lettuce.
'_Ach mein Gott! wollen sie nur?_' and in return for a double handful of
_confetti_ flung into a carriage full of German artists ahead of him,
'bang!' comes into Caper's vehicle a shower of lime pills and other
stunners--not including the language--and he is in for it. A minute, and
the whole Corso rains, hails, and pelts flowers and white pills; nothing
else is visible: up there laugh down at them whole balconies, filled
with delirious men and women, throwing on their devoted heads, American,
French, German, rattling, tumbling, fistfuls of _confetti_ and wild
flowers:--even that half head of lettuce was among the things flying!
English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Germans, Italians, Americans, and those
wild northern bloods--all grit and game--the Russians, are down on them
like a thousand of bricks. Hurrah! the carriages move on--they are safe.
Hurrah for a new fight with fresh faces! _Avanti!_
Comes a carriage load of wild Rustians. Ivan, the _mondjik_, fresh from
the Nevskoi Prospekt, now drives for the first time in the Corso--_Dam
na vodka, Sabakoutchelovek_, thinks he. Yes, my sweet son of a dog, thou
shalt have _vodka_ to drink after all this scrimmage is over. So he
holds in his horses with one hand, crowds down his fur hat with the
other, so that his eyes will be safe; and then bravely faces the
stinging shower of _confetti_ his lord and master draws down on him. Up
on the back seat of this carriage, all life and fire, stands the Russian
prince, with headpiece of mail and red surtout, a Carnival Circassian,
'down on' the slow-plodding Italians, and throwing himself away with
flowers and fun. Isn't he a picture? how his blue eyes gleam, how his
long, wavy moustache curls with the play of features! how the flowers
fly--how the rubles fly for them! Look at the other Russians--there are
beards for you! beards grown where brandy freezes! but, they are thawed
out now. Look at these men: hear their wild northern tongue, how it
rolls out the sounds that frighten Italians back to sleepy sonnets and
voluptuous songs. Hurrah, my Russians! look fate in the face. _Your_
road is--onward!
'Ah, yes; and really, my dear'--here a handful of white pills and lime
dust breaks the sentence--'really my dear, hadn't we better'--'bang!'
comes a tough bouquet, and hits milady on that bonnet--'better go to the
hotel?'
'Indeed, now,' milady continues, 'they don't respect persons, these low
Italians. They haven't the faintest idea of dignity.'
These 'low Italians' were more than probably fellow countrymen and women
of the speaker; but they may have been 'low' all the same in her social
barometer, for they pitched and flung, hurled and threw all the missiles
they could lay hands on into the carriage of their unmistakable
compatriots, with hearty delight; since the gentleman, who was not
gentle, sat upright as a church steeple, never moving a muscle, and
looking angry and worried at being flung at; and the milady also sat _a
la mode de_ church steeple--throwing nothing but angry looks. They
_went_ to the hotel. Sorrow go with them!
Caper and Rocjean now began to throw desperately, for they had a large
supply of flowers and _confetti_ on hand, which they were anxious to
dispose of suddenly--since in ten minutes the horses would run, and then
the carriages must leave the Corso. It was the last day of Carnival, and
to-morrow--sackcloth and ashes. How the masks crowd around them; how the
beautiful faces, unmasked, are smiling! Look at them well, stamp them on
your heart, for many and many one shall we see never again. Another
Carnival will bring them again, like song birds in summer; but a long,
long winter will be between, and we will be far, far away.
The Corso is cleared, the infantry half keeps the crowd within bounds, a
charge of cavalry sweeps the street, and then come rattling, clattering,
rushing on the bare-backed horses, urged on by cries, shouts, yells; and
frightened thus to top speed, while the Dutch metal, tied to their sides
increases their alarm--whir! they are past us, and--the bay horse is
ahead.
Again the carriages are in the Corso; here and there a few bouquets are
thrown, floral farewells to the merry season: then as dusk comes on, and
red and golden behind San Angelo flames the funeral pyre of the sun, and
through the blue night twinkles the evening star, see down the Corso a
faint light gleaming. Another and another light shines from balcony and
window, flashes from rolling carriage, and flames out from along the
dusky walls, till, _presto!_ you turn your head, and up the Corso, and
down the Corso, there is one burst of trembling light, and ten thousand
tapers are brightly gleaming, madly waving, brilliantly swaying to and
fro.
_Moccoli! ecco, moccoli!_
Along roll carriages; high in air gleam tapers, upheld by those within;
from every balcony and window shine out the swaying tapers. Hurrah!
here, there, hand to hand are contests to put out these shining lights,
and SENZA MOCCOLI! 'Out with the tapers!' rings forth in
trumpet tones, in gay, laughing tones, in merry tones, the length of the
whole glorious Corso.
Daring beauty, wild, lovely bacchante, with black, beaming eyes, tempt
us not with that bright flame to destruction! Look at her, as she stands
so proudly and erectly on the highest seat in the carriage, her arms
thrown up, her wild eyes gleaming from under jet black, dishevelled
locks, while the night breeze flutters in wavy folds the drapery of her
classic dress. _Senza moccoli!_ she sends the challenge ringing down
through fifteen centuries. He braves all; the carriage is climbed, the
taper is within his reach.
'To-morrow I leave!'
She flings the burning taper away from her.
'Then take this kiss!'
'SENZA MOCCOLI!' black, witching eyes--farewell!
'Boom!' rings out the closing bell; fast fades the light, 'Out with the
tapers!' the shout swells up, up, up, then slowly dies, as die an
organ's tones--and Carnival is ended.
A handful of beautiful flowers, found among gray, crumbling ruins; a few
notes of wild, stirring music, suddenly heard, then quickly dying away
in the lone watches of the night: these are the hours of the Roman
Carnival.
'Played is the comedy, deserted now the scene.'
THE VERMILION MIRACLE.
Miracles are no longer performed in Rome. As soon as the police are
officially informed, they prevent their being worked even in the
Campagna:--official information, however, always travels much faster
when the spurs of heretical incredulity are applied--otherwise it lags;
and the performances of miracle-mongers insure crowded houses, sometimes
for years.
Among Caper's artist friends was a certain Blaise Monet, French by
nature, Parisian by birth, artist or writer according to circumstances.
Circumstances--that is to say, two thousand francs left him by a
deceased relation--created him a temporary artist in Rome.
'When the money is gone,' said he, 'I shall endow some barber
with my goat's hair brushes, and resume the stylus: the first
have attractions--capillary--for me; the latter has the
attraction--gravitation of francs--still more interesting--that is to
say, more stylish.'
Blaise Monet with the May breezes fled to a small town on top of a high
mountain, in order to enjoy them until autumn: with the rains of October
he descended on Rome.
'How did you enjoy yourself up in that hawk's nest?' Caper asked him,
when he first saw him after his return to the city.
'Like the king D'Yvétot. My house was a castle, my drink good wine, my
food solid--the cheese a little too much so, and a little too much of
it: no matter--the views made up for it. Gr-r-rand, magnificent,
splendid--in fact, paradise for twenty baiocchi a day, all told.'
'And as for affairs of the heart?'
'My friend, mourn with me: that hole was--so to speak in regard to that
matter--a monastery, without doors, windows, or holes; and a wall around
it, so high, it shut out--hope! I wish you could have seen the camel who
was my monastic jailer.'
'That is, when you say camel, you mean jackass?'
'Precisely! Well, my friend, his name was Father Cipriano; though why
they call a man father who has no legal children, I can't conceive,
though probably many of his flock do. He prejudiced the minds of the
maidens against me, and made an attempt to injure my reputation among
the young men and elders--in vain. The man who could paint a scorpion on
the wall so naturally as even to delude Father Ciprian into beating it
for ten minutes with that bundle of sticks they call a broom; the man
who could win three races on a bare-backed horse, treat all hands to
wine, and even bestow segars on a few of the elders; win a _terno_ at
the Timbola, and give it back to the poor of the town; catch hold of the
rope and help pull by the horns, all over town, the ox, thus
preparatorily made tender before it was slaughtered: such a man could
not have the ill will of the men.
'Believe me, I did all my possible to touch the hearts of the maidens. I
serenaded them, learning fearful _rondinelle_, so as to be popular; I
gathered flowers for them; I volunteered to help them pick chestnuts and
cut firewood; I helped to make fireworks and fire balloons for the
festivals; I drew their portraits in charcoal on a white wall, along the
main street; and when they passed, with copper water jars on their
heads, filled with water from the fountain, they exclaimed:
''_Ecco!_ that is Elisa, that is Maricuccia, that is Francesca.'
'But I threw my little favors away: there was a black cloud over all, in
a long black robe, called Padre Cipriano; and their hearts were
untouched.
'I made one good friend, a widow lady, the Signora Margarita Baccio: she
was about thirty-three years of age, and was mourning for a second
husband--who did not come; the first one having departed for _Cielo_ a
few months past, as she told me. The widow having a small farm to hoe
and dig, and about twelve miles to walk daily, I had but limited
opportunities to study her character; but I believe, if I had, I should
not have discovered much, since she had very little: she was deplorably
ignorant, and excessively superstitious--but good natured and
hopeful--looking out for husband No. 2. She it was that informed me that
Padre Cipriano had set the faces of the maidens against me, and for this
I determined to be revenged.
'A short time before I left the town, my oil colors were about used up.
I had made nearly a hundred sketches, and not caring to send to Rome for
more paints, I used my time making pencil sketches. Among the tubes of
oil colors left, of course there was the vermilion, that will outlast
for a landscape painter all others, I managed to paint a jackass's head
for the landlord of the inn where I boarded, with my refuse
colors:--after all were gone, there still remained the vermilion. One
day, out in the fields sketching an old tower, and watching the pretty
little lizards darting in and out the old ruins, an idea struck me. The
next day I commenced my plan.
'I caught about fifty lizards, and painted a small vermilion cross on
the head of each one, using severe drying oil and turpentine, in order
to insure their not being rubbed off.
'The next dark night, when Padre Cipriano was returning from an
excursion, he saw an apparition: phosphorus eyes, from the apothecary; a
pair of horns, from the butcher; a tall form, made from reeds, held up
by Blaise Monet, and covered with his long cloak, made in the Rue
Cadet--strode before him with these words:
''I am the shade of Saint Inanimus, boiled to death by Roman legions,
for the sake of my religion--in oil. My bones long since have mouldered
in the dust, but, where they lie, the little lizards bear a red cross on
their heads. Seek near the old tower by the old Roman road, here at the
foot of this mountain, and over it erect a chapel, and cause prayers to
be said for Saint Inanimus: I, who was boiled to death for the sake of
my religion--in oil.'
''Sh-sh-shade of S-s-saint Ann-on-a-muss, w-w-what k-kind of oi-oil was
it?' gasped Padre Cipriano.
'The shade seemed to collect himself as if about to bestow a kick on the
padre, but changed his mind as he screamed:
''Hog oil. Go!'
'The priest departed in fear and trembling, and the next day the whole
town rang with the news that an apparition had visited Padre Cipriano,
and that a procession for some reason was to be made at once to the old
tower. Accordingly all the population that could, set forth at an early
hour in the afternoon, the padre first informing them of all the
circumstances attending the ghostly visitor, the red-headed cross
lizards by no means omitted. Arrived at the tower, they were fortunate
enough to find a red-cross lizard, then another, and another; and it
being buzzed about that one of them was worth, I don't know how many
gallons of holy water--the inhabitants moreover believing, if they had
one, they could commit all kinds of sins free gratis, without
confession, &c.,--there at once commenced, consequently, a most
indecorous riot among those in the procession; taking advantage of
which, the lizards made hurried journeys to other old ruins. The
inhabitants of another small town, having heard of the _Miracolo delle
lucertole_, came up in force to secure a few lizards for their
households: then commenced those exquisite battles seen nowhere else in
such perfection as in southern Italy.
'His eyes starting out of his head, his hands and legs shaking with
excitement, one man stands in front of another so 'hopping mad' that you
would believe them both dancing the tarantella, if you did not hear them
shout--such voices for an opera chorus!--
''You say that to _me_? to ME? to ME!' Hands working.
''I do, to _you!_'
''To me, _me_, ME?' striking himself on his breast.
''Yes, yes, I do, I do!'
''What, to ME! ME! _I_?' both hands pointing toward
his own body, as if to be sure of the identity of the person; and that
there might not be the possibility of any mistake, he again shouts,
screams, yells, shrieks: 'To me? What, that to ME! to ME!'
hands and arms working like a crab's.
'Then the entire population rush, in with, 'Bravo, Johnny, bravo!' At
last, after they have screamed themselves black in the face, and swung
their arms and legs until they are ready to drop off, both combatants
coolly walk off; and a couple of fresh hands rush in, assisted by the
splendid Roman chorus, and begin:
''What, ME? ME?' &c.
'But the battle of the lizards was conducted with more spirit than the
general run of quarrels, for the people were fighting for remission of
their sins as it were--the possession of every sanctified red-headed
lizard being so much money saved from the church, so many years out of
purgatory.
'The _gendarmerie_ heard the row, and at once rushed down--four soldiers
comprised the garrison--to dissipate the crowd: this they managed to do
in a peaceable way. There happened to be a heretical spur in the town,
in the shape of three German artists, and this incited the bishop of the
province, who was at once informed of the miracle-working doings of
Father Ciprian, to displace him.
'Thus, my dear friend, I was left to make love to the girls until I had
to return to Rome--unfortunately only two weeks' time--for the
newly-appointed priest had not the opportunity to set them against me.
'The moral of this long story is: that even vermilion can be worked up
in a miraculous manner--if you put the powerful reflective faculty in
motion; and doing so, you can have the satisfaction of knowing that by
its means you can cause an invisible sign to be stuck up over even a
country town in Italy: '_All Persons are Forbidden to Work Miracles
Here!_''
THE POPOLO EXHIBITION.
The government, aware of its foreign reputation for patronizing the
_Belle Arti_, has an annual display of such paintings and sculpture as
artists may see fit to send, and--the censor see fit to admit: for, in
_this_ exhibition, 'nothing is shown that will shock the most fastidious
taste'--and it can be found thus, in a building in the Piazza del
Popolo.
Caper's painting for the display was rejected for some reason. It
represented a sinister-looking brigand, stealing away with Two Keys in
one hand and a spilt cap in the other, suddenly kicked over by a
large-sized donkey, his mane and tail flying, head up, and an air of
liberty about him generally, which probably shocked Antonelli's tool the
censor's sense of the proprieties.
Rocjean consoled Caper with the reflection that his painting was refused
admittance because the donkey had gradually grown to be emblematical of
the state--in fact, was so popularly known to the _forestieri_ as the
Roman Locomotive, with allusions to its steam whistle, &c., highly
annoying to the chief authorities--and therefore, its introduction in a
painting was intolerable, and not to be endured.
The works of art included contributions from Americans, Italians,
Belgians, Swiss, English, Hessians, French, Dutch, Danes, Bavarians,
Spaniards, Norwegians, Prussians, Russians, Austrians, Finns,
Esthonians, Lithuanians, Laplanders, and Samoyedes. There was little
evidence of the handiwork of mature artists; they either withheld their
productions from dislike of the managers, or through determination of
giving their younger brethren a fair field and a clear show. A careful
observer could see that these young artists had not profited to the
fullest extent by the advantages held out to them through a residence in
the Imperial City. There was a wine-yness, and a pretty-girl-yness, and
tobacco-ness, about paintings and sculpture, that could have been picked
up just as well in Copenhagen or Madrid or New York as in Rome. Michael
Angelo evidently had not 'struck in' on their canvases, or Praxiteles
struck out from their marbles. Theirs was an unrevealed religion to
these neophytes.
The study of a piece of old Turkey carpet, or a camel's hair shawl, or a
butterfly's wing, or a bouquet of many flowers would have taught the
best artist in the exhibition more concerning color than he would learn
in ten years simply copying the best of the old painters, who had
themselves studied directly from these things and their like.
In sculpture, as in painting, the artists showed the same tame following
other sculptors; the same fear of facing Nature, and studying her face
to face. A pretty kind of statue of Modesty a man would make, who would
take the legs of a satyr, the body of a Venus, the head of Bacchus, the
arms of Eros, and thus construct her; yet scarcely a modern statue is
made wherein some such incongruous models do not play their part. Go
with a clear head, not one ringing with last night's debauch, and study
the Dying Gladiator! That will be enough--something more than five
tenths of you young Popolites can stand, if you catch but the faintest
conception of the mind once moving the sculptor of such a statue. After
you have earnestly thought over such a masterpiece, go back to your
studio: break up your models for legs, arms, bodies, and heads: take the
scalpel in hand, and study _anatomy_ as if your heart was in it. Have
the living model nude before you at all times. Close your studio door to
all 'orders,' be they ever so tempting: if a fastidious world will have
you make 'nude statues dressed in stockinet,' tell it to get behind you!
After long years of earnest study and labor, carve a hand, a foot: if,
when you have finished it, one living soul says, with truth, 'Blood,
bones, and muscles seem under the marble!' believe that you are not far
off from exceeding great reward.
In the Popolo exhibition for 1858 was a marble statuette of Daphnis and
Chloe, by Luigi Guglielmi, of Rome.
Chloe had a low-necked dress on.
The Roman censor disapproved of this. In a city claiming to be the 'HOME
OF ART'--THEY PINNED A PIECE OF FOOLSCAP PAPER AROUND THE NECK OF
CHLOE.
Rome is the cradle of art:--if so, the sooner the world changes its
nurse, the better for the babe!
'MISSED FIRE!'
Oh not in Independence Hall
Will ye proclaim your will;
Nor read aloud your negro call,
As yet, on Bunker Hill.
He said he would, and thought he could,
And tried--and missed it clean;--
Now he's o'er the Border, and awa',
Weel thrashed and unco' mean.
THE PROCLAMATION.
[SEPTEMBER 22, 1862.]
Now who has done the greatest deed
Which History has ever known,
And who, in Freedom's direst need,
Became her bravest champion?
Who a whole continent set free?
Who killed the curse and broke the ban
Which made a lie of liberty?
You--Father ABRAHAM--you're the man!
The deed is done. Millions have yearned
To see the spear of Freedom cast:--
The dragon writhed and roared and burned:
You've smote him full and square at last.
O Great and True! You do not know,
You cannot tell, you cannot feel
How far through time your name must go,
Honored by all men, high or low,
Wherever Freedom's votaries kneel.
This wide world talks in many a tongue--
This world boasts many a noble state--
In _all_, your praises will be sung,
In all the great will call you great.
Freedom! Where'er that word is known,
On silent shore, by sounding sea,
'Mid millions or in deserts lone,
Your noble name shall ever be.
The word is out--the deed is done;
Let no one carp or dread delay:
When such a steed is fairly on,
Fate never fails to find a way.
Hurrah! hurrah! The track is clear,
We know your policy and plan;
We'll stand by you through every year:
Now, Father ABRAHAM, _you're_ our man!
THE PRESS IN THE UNITED STATES.
The unexampled extent of newspaper issues in the United States has often
excited the astonishment of intelligent observers; but it is doubtful
whether the whole of the enormous truth could have been fully
appreciated without the actual figures which reveal it. According to the
"preliminary report" of the 8th census, 1860, recently published by the
Hon. J.C.G. Kennedy, the superintendent, it appears that the annual
circulation of newspapers and periodicals is no less than 927,951,548,
or at the rate of 34.36 for every white man, woman, and child of our
population. The annual value of all the printing done in the United
States, for that year, is stated at a fraction less than thirty nine and
three quarters millions of dollars.
These numbers are sufficiently astounding; but the rate of increase
since 1850, is, if possible, even more so. In that year, says Mr.
Kennedy, the whole circulation amounted to 426,409,978 copies; and the
rate of increase for the decade is 117.61 per cent., while the increase
of the white population during the same period was only 38.12 per cent.
If the circulation should continue to grow in the same proportion for
the next ten years, the number of newspapers and periodicals issued in
1870 will be a little over two billions.
In addition to these domestic publications, no inconsiderable number of
foreign journals is introduced into the United States. "The British
Almanac and Companion" for 1862 states the number in 1860 to have been
as follows: from Great Britain, 1,557,689; from France, 270,655; from
Bremen, 41,171; from Prussia, 83,349. These figures comprehend only the
foreign newspapers, and not the periodicals, some of which are
republished in the United States.
Persons competent to form a correct judgment, do not hesitate to say
that the number of newspapers taken in this country, exceeds that in all
the world beside. So vast an amount of reading matter, voluntarily
sought for and consumed by the people, at a cost of so many millions of
dollars, is one of the most remarkable phenomena of the present age of
wonders, and proves the avidity with which information is received, as
well as the incalculable influence which the press must have on the
public mind. The popular newspaper, issued in immense numbers, is in
truth emphatically an American institution. Nowhere else could an
audience, capable of reading, be found sufficiently numerous to absorb
the issues of our teeming press. It is the offspring and indispensable
accompaniment of universal education and popular representative
government. These could scarcely be maintained without it. Everywhere in
Europe, except perhaps in England, Italy, and Switzerland, the press is
little more than an engine of the government, used chiefly, or only, for
its own political purposes. Here it enjoys absolute freedom, being
responsible only to the laws for any abuse of its high privilege.
This entire freedom promotes unbounded growth in journalism, and gives a
circulation to the remotest cabin in the land. And if the unrestricted
energies of the system produce fruits somewhat wild, not imbued with the
refined flavor of better-cultivated productions, their universal
distribution and bounteous fulness of supply make up somewhat for the
deficiency in quality, and give promise of a future improvement, which
will leave nothing to be desired. If every leaf of the forest were a
sibylline record, and every month of the year should bring round the
deciduous influences of autumn, the leaves that would then "strew the
vales" of our country would give some adequate idea of the immense
shower of these printed missiles which falls every day, every week, and
every month, into the hands of the American people. Do they come as "a
kindly largess to the soil they grew on," or do they scatter mischief
where they fall? Of the power, for good or for evil, of this vast
intellectual agency, there can be no question. But what is the nature of
this influence? How does it affect the character and welfare of the
community in which its unregulated and unlimited authority prevails?
The daily papers of New York, and of some other cities, contain, in each
sheet, an amount of printed matter equal to sixty-four pages of an
ordinary octavo volume. The scope and variety of the information
embodied in them, and the uniformity with which they are maintained from
year to year, give evidence of wonderful enterprise, mechanical skill,
and intellectual ability. Concentrating news from all parts of the
world, by means of a vast and expensive organization, and discussing,
with more or less profound learning and logic, all the important
questions of the day, they have established an immense spiritual power
in the bosom of modern society, such as was not known to the nations in
past ages.
It is true that much of the space in the great dailies, so voluminous as
has been stated, is occupied in mere business notices and individual
advertisements; and such is the case, generally, with the daily and
weekly papers throughout the country. But even this, the humblest
department of the newspaper, may justly be considered an invaluable
instrument of civilization. It multiplies to an unlimited extent the
means of communication among men, and is, therefore, a labor-saving
invention of precisely the same character as the railroad and the steam
engine. In a few brief phrases, made expressive by conventional
understanding, every man can converse with thousands of his neighbors,
and even of distant strangers. Without change of place, without labor of
limbs or of lungs, the man of business can, in a single day, and every
day, if he will, inform a whole community of his own wants, and of his
readiness to meet the wants of others. The newspaper performs the work
of thousands of messengers, and saves countless hours of labor to the
whole community in which it circulates. In some sense, every man is
brought nearer to every other. Each hears the innumerable voices which
address him, and is able to distinguish the individual message which
each one has sent.
It is difficult to estimate the value of this simple agency in its
social aspect. Its material saving is plain to the most cursory thought;
but its higher influence in binding society together and making it
homogeneous, if not equally apparent, is at least quite as indisputable.
Civilization is the direct result of bringing mankind into cooperation
and combined effort, so that the whole power of mind and body of whole
communities is brought to bear in unison for the accomplishment of
social ends. Therefore, as a mere instrument of intercommunication,
rendering more direct and intimate the relations of individuals, and
promoting ease, celerity, and harmony in their combined movements, the
power of the press is prodigious and invaluable. But when this power is
extended beyond the bounds of mere material interests and the relations
of ordinary business--when it appeals to the intellect and enters the
domain of art, literature, science, and philosophy, embracing politics,
morality, and all the highest interests of mankind, its capacity for
good would seem to be illimitable.
In future ages, these innumerable sheets, which float so lightly on the
surface of our civilization, will form imperishable records of the
manners, habits, occupations, and the whole intellectual existence of
our people. They are so numerous that no accident can destroy them all;
and they will present to the eye of the future student of history the
most lively, natural, and perfect picture--the very moving panorama--of
the busy and teeming life of the present generation. No exhumed relics
of buried cities, no hieroglyphic inscriptions upon ancient monuments,
with whatever skill and genius deciphered, nor even any labored
descriptions of past ages, which may have survived the ravages of time,
will be equal to these memorials, in their power to recall the daily
work, the amusements, the business, and, in short, the whole material,
intellectual, and social being of our people.
The types and footprints of creation, imprinted on the rocks and
imbedded in the strata of the earth, giving knowledge of the existence
and habits of extinct species of animals, and teaching how geological
periods have succeeded each other, with their causes and concomitants,
are not so plain and distinct to us, as will be these daily effusions,
advertisements, and business notices of all kinds in the ordinary
newspapers of the country, to future generations of men, who shall there
seek to learn the successive and gradual steps by which the social
fabric shall be built up on the foundations of human thought and action.
Like the worm that crawls over the mud ere it hardens into rock; or the
leaf that fixes its form and impress in the bed of coal; or like the
bowlder that forms the pencil point of a mighty iceberg, scratching the
rocks in its movement across a submerged plain, destined to be upheaved
as a continent in some future convulsion; or like the coral insect,
which, in forming his separate cell, unconsciously assists in laying the
foundation of islands and vast regions of solid earth; we, the creatures
of the hour, all unconscious of the record we are making, leave
imperishable memorials of our existence and works, in the apparently
petty and fugitive contents of the journals which we read daily, and in
which we make known our business and our wants. Narratives and formal
descriptions may be one-sided, and may easily deceive and mislead; but
these indications, which will be preserved in the social strata as they
slowly subside in the ocean of humanity, carry in themselves perfect
fulness and absolute verity.
One of the most significant and influential results of the wide and
rapid circulation of newspapers is to be found in the simultaneous
impression made on the popular mind throughout the vast extent of our
country. Flashed on the telegraph, daguerreotyped and made visible in
the newspaper, every event of any importance, occurring in any part of
the world, is communicated, almost at the same moment, to many millions
of people. All are impressed at the same time with the same thoughts, or
with such kindred ideas as will naturally arise from reflection upon the
same facts. Humor, with its thousand tongues, is hushed; and the
telegraph, under control of agents employed to sift the truth, and
responsible for it, takes its place. Falsehood still may, and, indeed,
often does tamper with this mighty instrument; but its speed is so great
that it can overtake even falsehood, and soon counteract and correct the
mischief. What is the import of this momentous fact,--the instantaneous
communication of information over a continent, and the participation of
all minds, in the same thoughts, virtually at the same time? Undoubtedly
the result must be a closeness of intercourse and a completeness of
cooperation, which will give to the social organization a power and
efficiency in accomplishing great ends, such as no human thought has
ever heretofore conceived. Society becomes a unity in the highest and
truest sense of that term; like the bodily frame of the individual man,
it is connected throughout all its parts by a network of nerves, every
member sympathizing with every other, feeling the same impulses, having
the same knowledge, and forming judgments upon the same facts. When
sentiments are perfectly harmonious among men, the increase of power is
not merely in proportion to numbers. It grows in a much higher ratio.
The effect is something like that of multiplying the surfaces in a
galvanic battery, or increasing the coils in an electro-magnetic
apparatus. Passion in a multitude becomes a tornado. Eloquence moves a
large audience with a power vastly greater than when the listeners are
few. Similar is that strange influence which fashion exerts in all
societies. Nor is this sympathetic multiplication of power limited to
passion or artistic sentiment: it extends to opinions and all
intellectual phenomena. A person feeling strong emotions or having
profound convictions, and knowing them to be shared by millions of
others, inevitably experiences a strengthening and intensifying
influence from the sympathy of his fellows. If he knew himself to be
solitary and alone in his opinions, unsupported by that human sympathy
which every one craves, his ideas would languish, and be greatly
diminished in their power. It is only great minds, of exceptional
character, which can do battle, single-handed, against the world. Most
men require to be propped and supported on all sides, by the great power
of public opinion. The approach to unanimity of thought promoted by the
general circulation of newspapers, has something of the marvellous
effects seen in other cases, in enhancing the moral and intellectual
power of the community.
The telegraph is the legitimate offspring of the newspaper. In the
absence of the latter, there would have been comparatively little use
for the former. Without the almost universal distribution of the
newspaper, instantaneous communication of news would not have been so
much required, and the invention for that purpose would hardly have been
made. It is probably in the United States alone, with its unlimited
circulation of newspapers, that this extraordinary application of
natural forces could have been conceived. It is here those wonderful
lightning presses have been constructed, under the stimulus of that vast
demand for daily papers which arises from the general education of the
people and their avidity for information. In no other state of things
could such combinations have been imagined, because there would have
been no occasion for the inventive effort, and even the very idea would
not have occurred. Although the wide extent of our country, the vast
distances separating important centres of commerce and industry, and the
general activity and energy of men in this free government, all
concurred in enforcing the necessity of this latest wonder of human
ingenuity--the telegraph,--yet the newspaper, with its boundless
circulation and power of distribution, was indispensable to make it
available and to give it all its inestimable value.
But, after all, the prodigious influence of the press, aided by its
great instrument, the telegraph, derives its moral and political value
chiefly from the lessons it teaches, and the good purposes it aims to
accomplish. Unhappily, if the newspaper may be the means of doing
incalculable good, it may also be instrumental in doing infinite
mischief. If it may multiply the power of the community, by promoting
harmony of thought and feeling, it may direct this concentrated energy
to the wrong end, as well as to the right. Being a great vehicle for the
communication of ideas on all subjects, it becomes a mighty instrument
of education; entering almost every house in the land, and reaching the
eye of every man, woman, and child who can read, it exercises almost
supreme control over the sentiments of the masses. It is a tremendous
intellectual engine, radiating the light of knowledge to the extremities
of the land, and, in its turn, wielding, to some extent, the
incalculable power which that knowledge imparts to its recipients.
Like every other human agency, the press is liable to be controlled by
sinister influences. Perhaps, from the entire absence of all direct
responsibility, from its usual entire devotion to public affairs, and
the acknowledged influence of its representations on the popular mind,
it is peculiarly exposed to the seductions of patronage, and to the
temptations of personal and mercenary interests. A mere party journal,
involved in a perpetual conflict for power, and for the accompanying
spoils, is, of all the depositaries of moral power, at once the most
dangerous and the most contemptible. To it, truth is of secondary
importance; having satisfied itself that no prosperity, or even liberty,
can exist without the success of its men and measures, it makes
everything bend to this purpose. The end justifies the means. Impartial
statement or rational investigation is seldom to be found in its
columns. Nevertheless, in the general competition which arises where the
press is free, the _tendency_ will always be toward the true and the
good. Rival journals will advocate different theories and maintain
opposite systems; but free discussion will gradually eliminate error,
and out of the multitudinous rays of different colors, diffused
throughout society, will eventually come that perfect combination which
constitutes the clear, pure, homogeneous light of truth. And even
pending the early struggle and confusion which attend the inauguration
of a free press, divergencies of opinion, ever tending to harmony,
cannot become so great as to produce fatal effects. The rebellion of the
Southern States of this Union could never have happened, in the presence
of universal education and of a free press, whose emanations could have
penetrated as widely as those which reach the people of the opposite
section.
In view of the high functions of the press and its immense influence in
the nation,--its perpetual daily lessons, falling on the public mind
like drops that wear away the hardest rock and work their channel where
they will,--it is of the first importance to comprehend the power behind
this imperial throne, which directs and controls it. Does it assume to
originate and establish principles in government and morals? Or does it
aspire only to the humbler office of propagating such ideas as have been
sanctioned by the best judgment of the age, of illustrating their
operation, and making them acceptable to the people? The fugitive essays
and hurried comments on passing events, which fill the columns of
newspapers, do not ordinarily constitute solid foundations on which the
principles of social or political action can be safely established. The
men usually employed in this work of distributing ideas, are not they
who are capable of building up substantial systems by the slow process
of induction, or who can, by the opposite system, apply great general
truths to the purposes of national prosperity and happiness. They are
far too much engaged in the active business of life,--too deeply
involved in the strifes and turmoils of mankind,--too thoroughly imbued
with the spirit of the passing hour, with all its passions and
prejudices--to be the philosophic guides of humanity, and to lay down,
with the serene logic of truth, the bases of moral and political
progress. The inevitable sympathy between the editor and his daily
readers--the action and reaction which constantly take place and
insensibly lead the journalist into the paths of popular opinion and
passion--these are too apt to render him altogether unfit to be an
oracle in the great work of social organization and government. The
common sense of the multitude is often an invaluable corrective of
speculative error; but the impulses and strong prejudices of
communities, though calculated to sweep along with them the judgments of
all, are mostly pernicious, and sometimes dangerous in the extreme. The
true remedy for these evils and dangers is, to employ in the management
of the daily press, the noblest intellect, combined with the most
incorruptible purity of motive. Commanding the entire confidence of the
nation, and worthy of it, the lessons of this great teacher--the central
light-giving orb of civilization--will be received with reverence and
gratitude, and with a benign and fructifying influence, something like
that which the sun sheds on the world of nature.
A French philosopher, writing in 1840, says of us:
'This universal colony, notwithstanding the eminent temporal
advantages of its present position, must be regarded as, in fact,
in all important respects, more remote from a true social
reorganization than the nations from whom it is derived, and to
whom it will owe, in course of time, its final regeneration. The
philosophical induction into that ulterior state is not to be
looked for in America--whatever may be the existing illusions about
the political superiority of a society in which the elements of
modern civilization are, with the exception of industrial activity,
most imperfectly developed.'
It may be admitted that we are yet somewhat behind the foremost nations
of Europe in the higher walks of philosophy, and certainly in the
practical application of true social principles, which, as yet, we do
not fully comprehend, even if they do. But the conclusion of this author
cannot be sound. However moderate may be our standard of knowledge in
the United States, this knowledge, such as it is, is more widely
diffused among the people who are to profit by it, than in any other
country. If our attainments be comparatively small in philosophic
statesmanship, the whole population partakes more or less in such
progress as we have made; for education is universal, and whatever ideas
are generated in the highest order of minds, soon become the familiar
possession of all to the extremities of the land. Government yields with
little opposition or delay to the interests and intelligence, and it may
be, to the ignorance of the people: there is no other nation on the
globe in which social forms and institutions are so plastic in the hands
of wise and energetic men. By means of universal education and the
perfect distribution of knowledge, we are laying the broadest possible
basis on which the noblest structure may be raised, if we can only
command the wisdom to build aright. The question, therefore, is, whether
a whole people thoroughly educated and with the most perfect machinery
for the diffusion of knowledge, though starting from a moderate
condition of enlightenment, will outrun or fall behind other nations in
which the few may be wiser, while the multitude is greatly more
ignorant, and in which the forms of government and of social,
organization are more rigid, and inaccessible to change or improvement.
To answer this question will not cause much hesitation, at least in the
mind of an American; and if we are not altogether what we think
ourselves, the wisest and best of mankind, we may at least claim to be
on the way to the highest improvement, with no serious obstacles in our
path.
OUR FRIENDS ABROAD.
Two souls alone are friends of ours
In all the British isles;
Who sorrow for our darkened hours
And greet our luck with smiles.
"And who may those twain outcasts be
Whose favor ye have won?"
The first is Queen of England's realm,
The other that good Queen's son.
WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?
'Do but grasp into the thick of human life. Every one _lives_
it--to not many is it _known_; and seize it where you will, it is
interesting.'--_Goethe._
'SUCCESSFUL.--Terminating in accomplishing what is wished
or intended.'--_Webster's Dictionary._