CHAPTER VI.

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. V.--FEBRUARY, 1860.--NO. XXVIII.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected. Footnotes have been

moved to the end of the article.

COUNTING AND MEASURING.

Though, from the rapid action of the eye and the mind, grouping and

counting by groups appear to be a single operation, yet, as things can

be seen in succession only, however rapidly, the counting of things,

whether ideal or real, is necessarily one by one. This is the first step

of the art. The second step is grouping. The use of grouping is to

economize speech in numeration, and writing in notation, by the exercise

of the memory. The memorizing of groups is, therefore, a part of the

primary education of every individual. Until this art is attained, to a

certain extent, it is very convenient to use the fingers as

representatives of the individuals of which the groups are composed.

This practice led to the general adoption of a group derived from the

fingers of the left hand. The adoption of this group was the first

distinct step toward mental arithmetic. Previous groupings were for

particular numerations; this for numeration in general; being, in fact,

the first numeric base,--the quinary. As men advanced in the use of

numbers, they adopted a group derived from the fingers of both hands;

thus ten became the base of numeration.

Notation, like numeration, began with ones, advanced to fives, then to

tens, etc. Roman notation consisted of a series of signs signifying 1,

5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, etc.,--a series evidently the result of

counting by the five fingers and the two hands, the numbers signified

being the products of continued multiplication by five and by two

alternately. The Romans adhered to their mode, nor is it entirely out of

use at the present day, being revered for its antiquity, admired for its

beauty, and practised for its convenience.

The ancient Greek series corresponded to that of the Romans, though

primarily the signs for 50, 500 and 5000 had no place. Ultimately,

however, those places were supplied by means of compound signs.

The Greeks abandoned their ancient mode in favor of the alphabetic,

which, as it signified by a single letter each number of the

arithmetical series from one to nine separately, and also in union by

multiplication with the successive powers of the base of numeration, was

a decided improvement; yet, as it consisted of signs which by their

number were difficult to remember, and by their resemblance easy to

mistake, it was far from being perfect.

Doubtless, strenuous efforts were made to remedy these defects, and,

apparently as the result of those efforts, the Arabic or Indian mode

appeared; which, signifying the powers of the base by position, reduced

the number of signs to that of the arithmetical series, beginning with

nought and ending with a number of the value of the base less one.

The peculiarity of the Arabic mode, therefore, in comparison with the

Greek, the Roman, or the alphabetic, is place value; the value of a

combination by either of these being simply equal to the sum of its

elements. By that, the value of the successive places, counting from

right to left, being equal to the successive powers of the base,

beginning with the noughth power, each figure in the combination is

multiplied in value by the power of the base proper to its place, and

the value of the whole is equal to the sum of those products.

The Arabic mode is justly esteemed one of the happiest results of human

intelligence; and though the most complex ever practised, its

efficiency, as an arithmetical means, has obtained for it the reputation

of great simplicity,--a reputation that extends even to the present

base, which, from its intimate and habitual association with the mode,

is taken to be a part of the mode itself.

With regard to this impression it may be remarked, that the qualities

proper to a mode bear no resemblance to those proper to a base. The

qualities of the present mode are well known and well accepted. Those of

the present base are accepted with the mode, but those proper to a base

remain to be determined. In attempting to ascertain these, it will be

necessary to consider the uses of numeration and of notation.

These may be arranged in three divisions,--scientific, mechanical, and

commercial. The first is limited, being confined to a few; the second is

general, being common to many; the third is universal, being necessary

to all. Commercial use, therefore, will govern the present inquiry.

Commerce, being the exchange of property, requires real quantity to be

determined, and this in such proportions as are most readily obtained

and most frequently required. This can be done only by the adoption of a

unit of quantity that is both real and constant, and such multiples and

divisions of it as are consistent with the nature of things and the

requirements of use: real, because property, being real, can be measured

by real measures only; constant, because the determination of quantity

requires a standard of comparison that is invariable; conveniently

proportioned, because both time and labor are precious. These rules

being acted on, the result will be a system of real, constant, and

convenient weights, measures, and coins. Consequently, the numeration

and notation best suited to commerce will be those which agree best with

such a system.

From the earliest periods, special attention has been paid to units of

quantity, and, in the ignorance of more constant quantities, the

governors of men have offered their own persons as measures; hence the

fathom, yard, pace, cubit, foot, span, hand, digit, pound, and pint. It

is quite probable that the Egyptians first gave to such measures the

permanent form of government standards, and that copies of them were

carried by commerce, and otherwise, to surrounding nations. In time,

these became vitiated, and should have been verified by their originals;

but for distant nations this was not convenient; moreover, the governors

of those nations had a variety of reasons for preferring to verify them

by their own persons. Thus they became doubly vitiated; yet, as they

were not duly enforced, the people pleased themselves, so that almost

every market-town and fair had its own weights and measures; and as, in

the regulation of coins, governments, like the people, pleased

themselves, so that almost every nation had a peculiar currency, the

general result was, that with the laws and the practices of the

governors and the governed, neither of whom pursued a legitimate

course, confusion reigned supreme. Indeed, a system of weights,

measures, and coins, with a constant and real standard, and

corresponding multiples and divisions, though indulged in as a day-dream

by a few, has never yet been presented to the world in a definite form;

and as, in the absence of such a system, a corresponding system of

numeration and notation can be of no real use, the probability is, that

neither the one nor the other has ever been fully idealized. On the

contrary, the present base is taken to be a fixed fact, of the order of

the laws of the Medes and Persians; so much so, that, when the great

question is asked, one of the leading questions of the age,--How is this

mass of confusion to be brought into harmony?--the reply is,--It is only

necessary to adopt one constant and real standard, with decimal

multiples and divisions, and a corresponding nomenclature, and the work

is done: a reply that is still persisted in, though the proposition has

been fairly tried, and clearly proved to be impracticable.

Ever since commerce began, merchants, and governments for them, have,

from time to time, established multiples and divisions of given

standards; yet, for some reason, they have seldom chosen the number ten

as a base. From the long-continued and intimate connection of decimal

numeration and notation with the quantities commerce requires, may not

the fact, that it has not been so used more frequently, be considered as

sufficient evidence that this use is not proper to it? That it is not

may be shown thus:--A thing may be divided directly into equal parts

only by first dividing it into two, then dividing each of the parts into

two, etc., producing 2, 4, 8, 16, etc., equal parts, but ten never. This

results from the fact, that doubling or folding is the only direct mode

of dividing real quantities into equal parts, and that balancing is the

nearest indirect mode,--two facts that go far to prove binary division

to be proper to weights, measures, and coins. Moreover, use evidently

requires things to be divided by two more frequently than by any other

number,--a fact apparently due to a natural agreement between men and

things. Thus it appears the binary division of things is not only most

readily obtained, but also most frequently required. Indeed, it is to

some extent necessary; and though it may be set aside in part, with

proportionate inconvenience, it can never be set aside entirely, as has

been proved by experience. That men have set it aside in part, to their

own loss, is sufficiently evidenced. Witness the heterogeneous mass of

irregularities already pointed out. Of these our own coins present a

familiar example. For the reasons above stated, coins, to be practical,

should represent the powers of two; yet, on examination, it will be

found, that, of our twelve grades of coins, only one-half are obtained

by binary division, and these not in a regular series. Do not these six

grades, irregular as they are, give to our coins their principal

convenience? Then why do we claim that our coins are decimal? Are not

their gradations produced by the following multiplications: 1 x 5 x 2 x

2-1/2 x 2 x 2 x 2-1/2 x 2 x 2 x 2, and 1 x 3 x 100? Are any of these

decimal? We might have decimal coins by dropping all but cents, dimes,

dollars, and eagles; but the question is not, What we might have, but,

What have we? Certainly we have not decimal coins. A purely decimal

system of coins would be an intolerable nuisance, because it would

require a greatly increased number of small coins. This may be

illustrated by means of the ancient Greek notation, using the simple

signs only, with the exception of the second sign, to make it purely

decimal. To express $9.99 by such a notation, only three signs can be

used; consequently nine repetitions of each are required, making a total

of twenty-seven signs. To pay it in decimal coins, the same number of

pieces are required. Including the second Greek sign, twenty-three signs

are required; including the compound signs also, only fifteen. By Roman

notation, without subtraction, fifteen; with subtraction, nine. By

alphabetic notation, three signs without repetition. By the Arabic, one

sign thrice repeated. By Federal coins, nine pieces, one of them being a

repetition. By dual coins, six pieces without a repetition, a fraction

remaining.

In the gradation of real weights, measures, and coins, it is important

to adopt those grades which are most convenient, which require the least

expense of capital, time, and labor, and which are least likely to be

mistaken for each other. What, then, is the most convenient gradation?

The base two gives a series of seven weights that may be used: 1, 2, 4,

8, 16, 32, 64 lbs. By these any weight from one to one hundred and

twenty-seven pounds may be weighed. This is, perhaps, the smallest

number of weights or of coins with which those several quantities of

pounds or of dollars may be weighed or paid. With the same number of

weights, representing the arithmetical series from one to seven, only

from one to twenty-eight pounds may be weighed; and though a more

extended series may be used, this will only add to their inconvenience;

moreover, from similarity of size, such weights will be readily

mistaken. The base ten gives only two weights that may be used. The base

three gives a series of weights, 1, 3, 9, 27, etc., which has a great

promise of convenience; but as only four may be used, the fifth being

too heavy to handle, and as their use requires subtraction as well as

addition, they have neither the convenience nor the capability of binary

weights; moreover, the necessity for subtraction renders this series

peculiarly unfit for coins.

The legitimate inference from the foregoing seems to be, that a

perfectly practical system of weights, measures, and coins, one not

practical only, but also agreeable and convenient, because requiring the

smallest possible number of pieces, and these not readily mistaken for

each other, and because agreeing with the natural division of things,

and therefore commercially proper, and avoiding much fractional

calculation, is that, and that only, the successive grades of which

represent the successive powers of two.

That much fractional calculation may thus be avoided is evident from the

fact that the system will be homogeneous. Thus, as binary gradation

supplies one coin for every binary division of the dollar, down to the

sixty-fourth part, and farther, if necessary, any of those divisions may

be paid without a remainder. On the contrary, Federal gradation, though

in part binary, gives one coin for each of the first two divisions only.

Of the remaining four divisions, one requires two coins, and another

three, and not one of them can be paid in full. Thus it appears there

are four divisions of the dollar that cannot be paid in Federal coins,

divisions that are constantly in use, and unavoidable, because resulting

from the natural division of things, and from the popular division of

the pound, gallon, yard, inch, etc., that has grown out of it. Those

fractious that cannot be paid, the proper result of a heterogeneous

system, are a constant source of jealousy, and often produce disputes,

and sometimes bitter wrangling, between buyer and seller. The injury to

public morals arising from this cause, like the destructive effect of

the constant dropping of water, though too slow in its progress to be

distinctly traced, is not the less certain. The economic value of binary

gradation is, in the aggregate, immense; yet its moral value is not to

be overlooked, when a full estimate of its worth is required.

Admitting binary gradation to be proper to weights, measures, and coins,

it follows that a corresponding base of numeration and notation must be

provided, as that best suited to commerce. For this purpose, the number

two immediately presents itself; but binary numeration and notation

being too prolix for arithmetical practice, it becomes necessary to

select for a base a power of two that will afford a more comprehensive

notation: a power of two, because no other number will agree with binary

gradation. It is scarcely proper to say the third power has been

selected, for there was no alternative,--the second power being too

small, and the fourth too large. Happily, the third is admirably suited

to the purpose, combining, as it does, the comprehensiveness of eight

with the simplicity of two.

It may be asked, how a number, hitherto almost entirely overlooked as a

base of numeration, is suddenly found to be so well suited to the

purpose. The fact is, the present base being accepted as proper for

numeration, however erroneously, it is assumed to be proper for

gradation also; and a very flattering assumption it is, promising a

perfectly homogeneous system of weights, measures, coins, and numbers,

than which nothing can be more desirable; but, siren-like, it draws the

mind away from a proper investigation of the subject, and the basic

qualities of numbers, being unquestioned, remain unknown. When the

natural order is adopted, and the base of gradation is ascertained by

its adaptation to things, and the base of numeration by its agreement

with that of gradation, then, the basic qualities of numbers being

questioned, two is found to be proper to the first use, and eight to the

second.

The idea of changing the base of numeration will appear to most persons

as absurd, and its realization as impossible; yet the probability is, it

will be done. The question is one of time rather than of fact, and there

is plenty of time. The diffusion of education will ultimately cause it

to be demanded. A change of notation is not an impossible thing. The

Greeks changed theirs, first for the alphabetic, and afterwards, with

the rest of the civilized world, for the Arabic,--both greater changes

than that now proposed. A change of numeration is truly a more serious

matter, yet the difficulty may not be as great as our apprehensions

paint it. Its inauguration must not be compared with that of French

gradation, which, though theoretically perfect, is practically absurd.

Decimal numeration grew out of the fact that each person has ten fingers

and thumbs, without reference to science, art, or commerce. Ultimately

scientific men discovered that it was not the best for certain purposes,

consequently that a change might be desirable; but as they were not

disposed to accommodate themselves to popular practices, which they

erroneously viewed, not as necessary consequences, but simply as bad

habits, they suggested a base with reference not so much to commerce as

to science. The suggestion was never acted on, however; indeed, it would

have been in vain, as Delambre remarks, for the French commission to

have made the attempt, not only for the reason he presents, but also

because it does not agree with natural division, and is therefore not

suited to commerce; neither is it suited to the average capacity of

mankind for numbers; for, though some may be able to use duodecimal

numeration and notation with ease, the great majority find themselves

equal to decimal only, and some come short even of that, except in its

simplest use. Theoretically, twelve should be preferred to ten, because

it agrees with circle measure at least, and ten agrees with nothing;

besides, it affords a more comprehensive notation, and is divisible by

6, 4, 3, and 2 without a fraction, qualities that are theoretically

valuable.

At first sight, the universal use of decimal numeration seems to be an

argument in its favor. It appears as though Nature had pointed directly

to it, on account of some peculiar fitness. It is assumed, indeed, that

this is the case, and habit confirms the assumption; yet, when

reflection has overcome habit, it will be seen that its adoption was due

to accident alone,--that it took place before any attention was paid to

a general system, in short, without reflection,--and that its supposed

perfection is a mere delusion; for, as a member of such a system, it

presents disagreements on every hand; as has been said, it has no

agreement with anything, unless it be allowable to say that it agrees

with the Arabic mode of notation. This kind of agreement it has, in

common with every other base. It is this that gives it character. On

this account alone it is believed by many to be the perfection of

harmony. They get the base of numeration and the mode of notation so

mingled together, that they cannot separate them sufficiently to obtain

a distinct idea of either; and some are not conscious that they are

distinct, but see in the Arabic mode nothing save decimal notation, and

attribute to it all those high qualities that belong to the mode only.

The Arabic mode is an invention of the highest merit, not surpassed by

any other; but the admiration that belongs to it is thus bestowed upon a

quite commonplace idea, a misapplication, which, in this as in many

other cases, arises from the fact, that it is much easier to admire than

to investigate. This result of carelessness, if isolated, might be

excused; but all errors are productive, and it should be remembered that

this one has produced that extraordinary perversion of truth to be found

in the reply to the question, How is all this confusion to be brought

into harmony? It has produced it not only in words, but in deed. Was it

not this reply that led the French commission to extend the use of the

present base from numeration to gradation also, under the delusive hope

of producing a perfectly homogeneous system, that would be practical

also? Was it not under its influence, that, adhering to the base to

which the world had been so long accustomed, instead of attempting to

regulate ideal division by real, which might have led to the adoption of

the true base and a practical system, they committed the one great error

of endeavoring to reverse true order, by forcing real division into

conformity with a preconceived ideal? This attempt was made at a time

supposed by many to be peculiarly suited to the purpose, a time of

changes. It was a time of changes, truly; but these were the result of

high excitement, not of quiet thought, such as the subject requires,--a

time for rushing forward, not for retracing misguided steps.

Accordingly, a system was produced which from its magnitude and

importance was truly imposing, and which, to the present day, is highly

applauded by all those who, under the influence of the error alluded to,

conceive decimal numeration to be a sacred truth: applauded, not because

of its adaptation to commerce, but simply because of its beautiful

proportions, its elegant symmetry, to say nothing of the array of

learning and power engaged in its production and inauguration: imposing,

truly, and alike on its authors and admirers; for the qualities they so

much admire are not peculiar to the decimal base, but to the use of one

and the same base for numeration, notation, and gradation. But if the

base ten agrees with nothing, over, on, or under the earth, can it be

the best for scientific use? can it be at all suited to commercial

purposes? If true order is the object to be attained, and that for the

sake of its utility, then agreement between real and ideal division is

the one thing needful, the one essential change without which all other

changes are vain, the only change that will yield the greatest good to

the greatest number,--a change, which, as volition is with the ideal,

and inertia with the real, can be attained only by adaptation of the

ideal to the real.

A full investigation of the existing heterogeneous or fragmentary system

will lead to the discovery that it contains two elements which are at

variance with natural division and with each other, and that the

unsuccessful issue of every attempt at regulation hitherto made has been

the proper result of the mistake of supposing agreement between those

elements to be a possible thing.

The first element of discord to be considered is the division of things

by personal proportion, as by fathom, yard, cubit, foot, etc. It is

obvious at a glance, that these do not agree with binary division, nor

with decimal, nor yet with each other. It is this element that has

suggested the duodecimal base, to which some adhere so tenaciously,

apparently because they have not ascertained the essential quality of a

base.

The second is the numeration of things by personal parts, as fingers,

hands, etc.,--suggesting a base of numeration that has no agreement

with the binary, nor with personal proportion, neither can it have with

any proper general system. Are there any things in Nature that exist by

tens, that associate by tens, that separate into tenths? Are there any

things that are sold by tens, or by tenths? Even the fingers number

eight, and, had there been any reflection used in the adoption of a base

of numeration, the thumbs would not have been included. The ease with

which the simplest arithmetical series may be continued led our fathers

quietly to the adoption, first, of the quinary, and second, of the

decimal group; and we have continued its use so quietly, that its

propriety has rarely been questioned; indeed, most persons are both

surprised and offended, when they hear it declared to be a purely

artificial base, proper only to abstract numbers.

The binary base, on the contrary, is natural, real, simple,

and accords with the tendency of the mind to simplify, to

individualize. In business, who ever thinks of a half as

two-fourths, or three-sixths, much less as two-and-a-half-fifths,

or three-and-a-half-sevenths? For division by two produces a half

at one operation; but with any other divisor, the reduction is too

great, and must be followed by multiplication. Think of calling

a half five-tenths, a quarter twenty-five-hundredths, an eighth

one-hundred-and-twenty-five-thousandths! Arithmetic is seldom used as a

plaything. It generally comes into use when the mind is too much

occupied for sporting. Consequently, the smallest divisor that will

serve the purpose is always preferred. A calculation is an appendage to

a mercantile transaction, not a part of the transaction itself; it is,

indeed, a hindrance, and in large business is performed by a distinct

person. But even with him, simplicity, because necessary to speed, is

second in merit only to correctness.

The binary base is not only simple, it is real. Accordingly, it has

large agreement with the popular divisions of weights, etc. Grocers'

weights, up to the four-pound piece, and all their measures, are binary;

so are the divisions of the yard, the inch, etc.

It is not only simple and real, it is natural. On every hand, things may

be found that are duplex in form, that associate in pairs, that separate

into halves, that may be divided into two equal parts. Things are

continually sold in pairs, in halves, and in quantities produced by

halving.

The binary base, therefore, is here proposed, as the only proper base

for gradation; and the octonal, as the true commercial base, for

numeration and notation: two bases which in combination form a

binoctonal system that is at once simple, comprehensive, and efficient.

MY LAST LOVE.

I had counted many more in my girlhood, in the first flush of

blossoming,--and a few, good men and true, whom I never meet even now

without an added color; for, at one time or another, I thought I loved

each of them.

"Why didn't I marry them, then?"

For the same reason that many another woman does not. We are afraid to

trust our own likings. Too many of them are but sunrise vapors, very

rosy to begin with, but by mid-day as dingy as any old dead cloud with

the rain all shed out of it. I never see any of those old swains of

mine, without feeling profoundly thankful that I don't belong to him. I

shouldn't want to look over my husband's head in any sense. So they all

got wives and children, and I lived an old maid,--although I was

scarcely conscious of the state; for, if my own eyes or other people's

testimony were to be trusted, I didn't look old, and I'm quite sure I

didn't feel so. But I came to myself on my thirty-second birthday, an

old maid most truly, without benefit of clergy. And thereby hangs this

tale; for on that birthday I first made acquaintance with my last love.

Something like a month before, there had come to Huntsville two

gentlemen in search of game and quiet quarters for the summer. They soon

found that a hotel in a country village affords little seclusion; but

the woods were full of game, the mountain-brooks swarmed with trout too

fine to be given up, and they decided to take a house of their own.

After some search, they fixed on an old house, (I've forgotten whose

"folly" it was called,) full a mile and a half from town, standing upon

a mossy hill that bounded my fields, square and stiff and

weather-beaten, and without any protection except a ragged pine-tree

that thrust its huge limbs beneath the empty windows, as though it were

running away with a stolen house under its arm. The place was musty,

rat-eaten, and tenanted by a couple of ghosts, who thought a fever, once

quite fatal within the walls, no suitable discharge from the property,

and made themselves perfectly free of the quarters in properly weird

seasons. But money and labor cleared out all the cobwebs, (for ghosts

are but spiritual cobwebs, you know,) and the old house soon wore a

charming air of rustic comfort.

I used to look over sometimes, for it was full in view from my

chamber-windows, and see the sportsmen going off by sunrise with their

guns or fishing-rods, or lying, after their late dinner, stretched upon

the grass in front of the house, smoking and reading. Sometimes a

fragment of a song would be dropped down from the lazy wings of the

south wind, sometimes a long laugh filled all the summer air and

frightened the pinewood into echoes, and, altogether, the new neighbors

seemed to live an enviable life. They were very civil people, too; for,

though their nearest path out lay across my fields, and close by the

doorway, and they often stopped to buy fruit or cream or butter, we were

never annoyed by an impertinent question or look. Once only I overheard

a remark not altogether civil, and that was on the evening before my

birthday. One of them, the elder, said, as he went away from my house

with a basket of cherries, that he should like to get speech with that

polyglot old maid, who read, and wrote, and made her own butter-pats.

The other answered, that the butter was excellent at any rate, and

perhaps she had a classical cow; and they went down the lane laughingly

disputing about the matter, not knowing that I was behind the

currant-bushes.

"Polyglot old maid!" I thought, very indignantly, as I went into the

house. "I've a mind not to sell them another cake of my butter. But I

wonder if people call me an old maid. I wonder if I am one."

I thought of it all the evening, and dreamt of it all night, waking the

next morning with a new realization of the subject. That first sense of

a lost youth! How sharp and strong it comes! That suddenly opened north

door of middle life, through which the winter winds rush in, sweeping

out of the southern windows all the splendors of the earlier time; it is

like a sea-turn in late summer. It has seemed to be June all along, and

we thought it was June, until the wind went round to the east, and the

first red leaf admonished us. By-and-by we close, as well as we may,

that open door, and look out again from the windows upon blooms,

beautiful in their way, to which some birds yet sing; but, alas! the

wind is still from the east, and blows as though, far away, it had lain

among icebergs.

So I mused all the morning, watering the sentiment with a bit of a

shower out of my cloud; and when the shadows turned themselves, I went

out to see how old age would look to me in the fields and woods. It was

a delicious afternoon, more like a warm dream of hay-making, odorous,

misty, sleepily musical, than a waking reality, on which the sun shone.

Tremulous blue clouds lay down all around upon the mountains, and lazy

white ones lost themselves in the waters; and through the dozing air,

the faint chirp of robin or cricket, and ding of bells in the woods, and

mellow cut of scythe, melted into one song, as though the heart-beat of

the luscious midsummer-time had set itself to tune.

I walked on to loiter through the woods. No dust-brush for brain or

heart like the boughs of trees! There dwells a truth, and pure, strong

health within them, an ever-returning youth, promising us a glorious

leafage in some strange spring-time, and a symmetry and sweetness that

possess us until our thoughts grow skyward like them, and wave and sing

in some sunnier strata of soul-air. In the woods I was a girl again, and

forgot the flow of the hours in their pleasant companionship. I must

have grown tired and sat down by a thicket of pines to rest, though I

have forgotten, and perhaps I had fallen asleep; for suddenly I became

conscious of a sharp report, and a sharper pain in my shoulder, and,

tearing off my cape, I found the blood was flowing from a wound just

below the joint. I remember little more, for a sudden faintness came

over me; but I have an indistinct remembrance of people coming up, of

voices, of being carried home, and of the consternation there, and long

delay in obtaining the surgeon. The pain of an operation brought me

fully to my senses; and when that was over, I was left alone to sleep,

or to think over my situation at leisure. I'm afraid I had but little of

a Christian spirit then. All my plans of labor and pleasure spoiled by

this one piece of carelessness! to call it by the mildest term. All

those nice little fancies that should have grown into real

flesh-and-blood articles for my publisher, hung up to dry and shrivel

without shape or comeliness! The garden, the dairy, the new bit of

carriage-way through the beeches,--my pet scheme,--the new music, the

sewing, all laid upon the shelf for an indefinite time, and I with no

better employment than to watch the wall-paper, and to wonder if it

wasn't almost dinner- or supper-time, or nearly daylight! To be sure, I

knew and thought of all the improving reflections of a sick-room; but it

was much like a mild-spoken person making peace among twenty quarrelsome

ones. You can see him making mouths, but you don't hear a word he says.

A sick mind breeds fever fast in a sick body, and by night I was in a

high fever, and for a day or two knew but little of what went on about

me. One of the first things I heard, when I grew easier, was, that my

neighbor, the sportsman, was waiting below to hear how I was. It was the

younger one whose gun had wounded me; and he had shown great solicitude,

they said, coming several times each day to inquire for me. He brought

some birds to be cooked for me, too,--and came again to bring some

lilies he had gone a mile to fetch, he told the girl. Every day he came

to inquire, or to bring some delicacy, or a few flowers, or a new

magazine for me, until the report of his visit came to be an expected

excitement, and varied the dull days wonderfully. Sickness and seclusion

are a new birth to our senses, oftentimes. Not only do we get a real

glimpse of ourselves, undecked and unclothed, but the commonest habits

of life, and the things that have helped to shape them day by day, put

on a sort of strangeness, and come to shake hands with us again, and

make us wonder that they should be just exactly what they are. We get at

the primitive meaning of them, as if we rubbed off the nap of life, and

looked to see how the threads were woven; and they come and go before us

with a sort of old newness that affects us much as if we should meet our

own ghost some time, and wonder if we are really our own or some other

person's housekeeper.

I went through all this, and came out with a stock of small facts

beside,--as, that the paper-hanger had patched the hangings in my

chamber very badly in certain dark spots, (I had got several headaches,

making it out,)--that the chimney was a little too much on one

side,--that certain boards in the entry-floor creaked of their own

accord in the night,--that Neighbor Brown had tucked a few new shingles

into the roof of his barn, so that it seemed to have broken out with

them,--and any number of other things equally important. At length I got

down-stairs, and was allowed to see a few friends. Of course there was

an inundation of them; and each one expected to hear my story, and to

tell a companion one, something like mine, only a little more so. It was

astonishing, the immense number of people that had been hurt with guns.

No wonder I was sick for a day or two afterward. I was more prudent next

time, however, and, as the gossips had got all they wanted, I saw only

my particular friends. Among these my neighbor, the sportsman, insisted

on being reckoned, and after a little hesitation we were obliged to

admit him. I say we,--for, on hearing of my injury, my good cousin, Mary

Mead, had come to nurse and amuse me. She was one of those safe,

serviceable, amiable people, made of just the stuff for a satellite, and

she proved invaluable to me. She was immensely taken with Mr. Ames, too,

(I speak of the younger, for, after the first call of condolence, the

elder sportsman never came,) and to her I left the task of entertaining

him, or rather of doing the honors of the house,--for the gentleman

contrived to entertain himself and us.

Now don't imagine the man a hero, for he was no such thing. He was very

good-looking,--some might say handsome,--well-bred, well educated, with

plenty of common information picked up in a promiscuous intercourse with

town and country people, rather fine tastes, and a great, strong,

magnanimous, physical nature, modest, but perfectly self-conscious. That

was his only charm for me. I despise a mere animal; but, other things

being equal, I admire a man who is big and strong, and aware of his

advantages; and I think most women, and very refined ones, too, love

physical beauty and strength much more than they are willing to

acknowledge. So I had the same admiration for Mr. Ames that I should

have had for any other finely proportioned thing, and enjoyed him very

much, sitting quietly in my corner while he chatted with Mary, or told

me stories of travel or hunting, or read aloud, which he soon fell into

the way of doing.

We did try, as much as hospitality permitted, to confine his visits to a

few ceremonious calls; but he persisted in coming almost every day, and

walked in past the girl with that quiet sort of authority which it is so

difficult to resist. In the same way he took possession of Mary and me.

He was sure it must be very dull for both of us; therefore he was going,

if we would pardon the liberty, to offer his services as reader, while

my nurse went out for a ride or a walk. Couldn't I sit out under the

shadow of the beech-trees, as well as in that hot room? He could lift

the chair and me perfectly well, and arrange all so that I should be

comfortable. He would like to superintend the cooking of some birds he

brought one day. He noticed that the girl didn't do them quite as nicely

as he had learned to do them in the woods. And so in a thousand things

he quietly made us do as he chose, without seeming to outrage any rule

of propriety. When I was able to sit in a carriage, he persuaded me to

drive with him; and I had to lean on his arm, when I first went round

the place to see how matters went on.

Once I protested against his making himself so necessary to us, and told

him that I didn't care to furnish the gossips so much food as we were

doing.

When I turned him out of doors, he would certainly stay away, he said;

but he thought, that, as long as I was an invalid, I needed some one to

think and act for me and save me the trouble, and, as no one else seemed

disposed to take the office, he thought it was rather his duty and

privilege,--especially, he added, with a slight smile, as he was quite

sure that it was not very disagreeable to us. As for the gossips, he

didn't think they would make much out of it, with such an excellent

duenna as Cousin Mary,--and, indeed, he heard the other day that he was

paying attention to her.

I thought it all over by myself, when he had gone, and came to the

conclusion that it was not necessary for me to resign so great a

pleasure as his society had become, merely for the fear of what a few

curious people might say. Even Mary, cautious as she was, protested

against banishing him for such a reason; and, after a little talking

over of the matter among ourselves, we decided to let Mr. Ames come as

often as he chose, for the remaining month of his stay.

That month went rapidly enough, for I was well enough to ride and walk

out, and half the time had Mr. Ames to accompany me. I got to value him

very much, as I knew him better, and as he grew acquainted with my

peculiarities; and we were the best friends in the world, without a

thought of being more. No one would have laughed at that more than we,

there was such an evident unsuitableness in the idea. At length the time

came for him to leave Huntsville; his house was closed, except one room

where he still preferred to remain, and his friend was already gone. He

came to take tea with us for the last time, and made himself as

agreeable as ever, although it evidently required some effort to do so.

Soft-hearted Cousin Mary broke down and went off crying when he bade her

good-bye, after tea; but I was not of such stuff, and laughingly rallied

him on the impression he had made.

"Get your bonnet, and walk over to the stile with me, Miss Rachel," he

said. "It isn't sunset quite yet, and the afternoon is warm. Come! it's

the last walk we shall take together."

I followed him out, and we went almost silently across the fields to the

hill that overlooked the strip of meadow between our houses. There was

the stile over which I had looked to see him spring, many a time.

"Sit down a moment, until the sun is quite down," he said, making room

for me beside him on the topmost step. "See how splendid that sky is! a

pavilion for the gods!"

"I should think they were airing all their finery," I answered. "It

looks more like a counter spread with bright goods than anything else I

can think of."

"That's a decidedly vulgar comparison, and you're not in a spiritual

mood at all," he said. "You've snubbed me two or three times to-night,

when I've tried to be sentimental. What's amiss with you?" and he bent

his eyes, full of a saucy sort of triumph, upon mine.

"I don't like parting with friends; it sets me all awry," I said, giving

back his own self-assured look. I was sorry to have him go; but if he

thought I was going to cry or blush, he was mistaken.

"You'll write to me, Miss Rachel?" he asked.

"No, Mr. Ames,--not at all," I said.

"Not write? Why not?" he asked, in astonishment.

"Because I don't believe in galvanizing dead friendships," I answered.

"Dead friendships, Miss Rachel? I hope ours has much life in it yet," he

said.

"It's in the last agony, Sir. It will be comfortably dead and buried

before long, with a neat little epitaph over it,--which is much the best

way to dispose of them finally, I think."

"You're harder than I thought you were," he said. "Is that the way you

feel towards all your friends?"

"I love my friends as well as any one," I answered. "But I never hold

them when they wish to be gone. My life-yarn spins against some other

yarn, catches the fibres, and twists into the very heart"----

"So far?" he asked, turning his eyes down to mine.

"Yes," I said, coolly,--"for the time being. You don't play at your

friendships, do you? If so, I pity you. As I was saying, they're like

one thread. By-and-by one spindle is moved, the strands spin away from

each other, and become strange yarn. What's the use of sending little

locks of wool across to keep them acquainted? They're two yarns from

henceforth. Reach out for some other thread,--there's plenty near,--and

spin into that. We're made all up of little locks from other people, Mr.

Ames. Won't it be strange, in that great Hereafter, to hunt up our own

fibres, and return other people's? It would take about forty-five

degrees of an eternity to do that."

"I shall never return mine," he said. "I couldn't take myself to pieces

in such a style. But won't you write at all?"

"To what purpose? You'll be glad of one letter,--possibly of two. Then

it will be, 'Confound it! here's a missive from that old maid! What a

bore! Now I suppose I must air my wits in her behalf; but, if you ever

catch me again,'----_Exit_."

"And you?" he asked, laughing.

"I shall be as weary as you, and find it as difficult to keep warmth in

the poor dying body. No, Mr. Ames. Let the poor thing die a natural

death, and we'll wear a bit of crape a little while, and get a new

friend for the old."

"So you mean to forget me altogether?"

"No, indeed! I shall recollect you as a very pleasant tale that is

told,--not a friend to hanker after. Isn't that good common sense?"

"It's all head-work,--mere cold calculation," he said; "while I"----He

stopped and colored.

"Your gods, there, are downright turn-coats," I said, coming down from

the stile. "Their red mantles are nothing but pearl-colored now, and

presently they'll be russet-gray. That whippoorwill always brings the

dew with him, too; so I must go home. Good-night, and good-bye, Mr.

Ames."

"I scarcely know how to part with you," he said, taking my hand. "It's

not so easy a thing to do."

"People say, 'Good-bye,' or 'God bless you,' or some such civil phrase,

usually," I said, with just the least curl of my lip,--for I knew I had

got the better of him.

He colored again, and then smiled a little sadly.

"Ah! I'm afraid I leave a bigger lock than I take," he exclaimed. "Well,

then, good friend! good-bye, and God bless you, too! Don't be quite so

hard as you promise to be."

I missed him very much, indeed; but if any think I cried after him, or

wrote verses, or soliloquized for his sake, they are much mistaken. I

had lost friends before, and made it a point to think just as little of

them as possible, until the sore spot grew strong enough to handle

without wincing. Besides, my cousin stayed with me, and all my good

friends in the village had to come out for a call or a visit to see how

the land lay; so I had occupation enough. Once in a while I used to look

over to the old house, and wish for one good breezy conversation with

its master; and when the snow came and lay in one mass upon the old

roof, clear down to the eaves, like a night-cap pulled down to the eyes

of a low-browed old woman, I moved my bed against the window that looked

that way. These forsaken nests are gloomy things enough!

I had no thought of hearing again of him or from him, and was surprised,

when, in a month, a review came, and before long another, and afterwards

a box, by express, with a finely kept bouquet, and, in mid-winter, a

little oil-painting,--a delicious bit of landscape for my _sanctum_, as

he said in the note that accompanied it. I heard from him in this way

all winter, although I never sent word or message back again, and tried

to think I was sorry that he did not forget me, as I had supposed he

would. Of course I never thought of acknowledging to myself that it was

possible for me to love him. I was too good a sophist for that; and,

indeed, I think that between a perfect friendship and a perfect love a

fainter distinction exists than many people imagine. I have known

likings to be colored as rosily as love, and seen what called itself

love as cold as the chilliest liking.

One day, after spring had been some time come, I was returning from a

walk and saw that Mr. Ames's house was open. I could not see any person

there; but the door and windows were opened, and a faint smoke crept out

of the chimney and up among the new spring foliage after the squirrels.

I had walked some distance, and was tired, and the weather was not

perfect; but I thought I would go round that way and see what was going

on. It was one of those charming child-days in early May, laughing and

crying all in one, the fine mist-drops shining down in the sun's rays,

like star-dust from some new world in process of rasping up for use. I

liked such days. The showers were as good for me as for the trees. I

grew and budded under them, and they filled my soul's soil full of

singing brooks.

When I reached the lawn before the door, Mr. Ames came out to see

me,--so glad to meet that he held my hand and drew me in, asking two or

three times how I was and if I were glad to see him. He had called at

the house and seen Cousin Mary, on his way over, he said,--for he was

hungering for a sight of us. He was not looking as well as when he left

in the autumn,--thinner, paler, and with a more anxious expression when

he was not speaking; but when I began to talk with him, he brightened

up, and seemed like his old self. He had two or three workmen already

tearing down portions of the finishing, and after a few moments asked me

to go round and see what improvements he was to make. We stopped at last

at his chamber, a room that looked through the foliage towards my house.

"This is my lounging-place," he said, pointing to the sofa beneath the

window. "I shall sit here with my cigar and watch you this summer; so be

circumspect! But are you sure that you are glad to see me?"

"To be sure. Do you take me for a heathen?" I said. "But what are you

making such a change for? Couldn't the old house content you?"

"It satisfies me well enough; but I expect visitors this summer who are

quite fastidious, and this old worm-eaten wood-work wouldn't do for

them. What makes you look so dark? Don't you like the notion of my

lady-visitors?"

"I didn't know that they were to be ladies until you told me," I said;

"and it's none of my business whom you entertain, Mr. Ames."

"There wasn't much of a welcome for them in your face, at any rate," he

answered. "And to tell the truth, I am not much pleased with the

arrangement myself. But they took a sudden fancy for coming, and no

amount of persuasion could induce them to change their minds. It's

hardly a suitable place for ladies; but if they will come, they must

make the best of it."

"How came you ever to take a fancy to this place? and what makes you

spend so much money on it?" I asked.

"You don't like to see the money thrown away," he said, laughing. "The

truth is, that I've got a skeleton, like many another man, and I've been

trying these two years to get away from it. The first time I stopped to

rest under this tree, I felt light-hearted. I don't know why, except it

was some mysterious influence; but I loved the place, and I love it no

less now, although my skeleton has found a lodging-place here too."

"Of course," I said, "and very appropriately. The house was haunted

before you came."

"It was haunted for me afterward," he said softly, more to himself than

to me; "sweet, shadowy visions I should be glad to call up now." And he

turned away and swallowed a sigh.

I pitied him all the way home, and sat up to pity him, looking through

the soft May starlight to see the lamp burning steadily at his window

until after midnight. From that time I seemed to have a trouble,--though

I could scarcely have named or owned it, it was so indefinite.

He came to see me a few days afterward, and sat quite dull and

abstracted until I warmed him up with a little lively opposition. I

vexed him first, and then, when I saw he was interested enough to talk,

I let him have a chance; and I had never seen him so interesting. He

showed me a new phase of his character, and I listened, and answered him

in as few words as possible, that I might lose nothing of the

revelation. When he got up to go away, I asked him where he had been to

learn and think so much since the last autumn. He began to be, I thought

and hoped, what a sterner teaching might have made him before.

He seemed a little embarrassed; said no one else had discovered any

change in him, and he thought it must be only a reflected light. He had

observed that I had "a remarkable faculty for drawing people out. What

was my witchcraft?"

I disclaimed all witchcraft, and told him it was only because I

quarrelled with people. A little wholesome opposition had warmed him

into quite a flight of fancy.

"If I could only,"----he began, hurriedly; but took out his watch, said

it was time for him to go, and went off quite hastily. It was very weak

in me, but I wished very much to know what he would have said.

The next time, he called a few moments to tell me that his

lady-visitors, with a friend of theirs, had come, and had expressed a

wish to make my acquaintance. He promised them that he would call and

let me know,--though he hoped I would not come, unless I felt inclined.

He was very absent-minded, and went off the moment I asked him where he

had left his good spirits. This made me a little cold to him when I

called on the ladies, for I found them all sitting after tea out at the

door. It was a miserably constrained affair, though we all tried to be

civil,--for I could see that both ladies were taking, or trying to take,

my measure, and it did not set me at ease in the least. But in the mean

time I had measured them; and as experience has confirmed that first

impression, I may as well sketch them here. I protest, in the first

place, against any imputation of prejudice or jealousy. I thought much

more charitably of them than others did.

Mrs. Winslow was one of those pleasant, well-bred ladies, who can look

at you until you are obliged to look away, contradict you flatly, and

say the most grossly impertinent things in the mildest voice and

choicest words. A woman of the world, without nobility enough to

appreciate a magnanimous thought or action, and with very narrow,

shallow views of everything about her, she had still some agreeable

traits of character,--much shrewd knowledge of the world, as she saw it,

some taste for Art, and an excellent judgment in relation to all things

appertaining to polite society. I had really some pleasant intercourse

with her, although I think she was one of the most insulting persons I

ever met. I made a point of never letting her get any advantage of me,

and so we got along very well. Whenever she had a chance, she was sure

to say something that would mortify or hurt me; and I never failed to

repay both principal and interest with a voice and face as smooth as

hers. And here let me say that there is no other way of dealing with

such people. Self-denial, modesty, magnanimity, they do not and cannot

understand. Never turn them the other cheek, but give a smart slap back

again. It will do them good.

The daughter was a very pretty, artificial, silly girl, who might have

been very amiable in a different position, and was not ill-natured as it

was. I might have liked her very well, if she had not conceived such a

wonderful liking for me, and hugged and kissed me as much as she did.

She cooed, too, and I dislike to hear a woman coo; it is a sure mark of

inferiority.

We were quite intimate soon, and Miss Lucy fell into the habit of coming

early in the morning to ride with me, and after dinner to sit and sew,

and after tea for a walk. She showed me all her heart, apparently,

though there was not much of it, and vowed that she scarcely knew how

she should exist without me. I let her play at liking me, just as I

should have indulged a playful kitten, and tried to say and do something

that might improve her for Mr. Ames's sake. I saw now what his skeleton

was. He was to marry the poor child, and shrunk from it as I should have

shrunk from a shallow husband.

He used to come with her sometimes, and I must confess that he behaved

admirably. I never saw him in the least rude, or ill-natured, or

contemptuous towards her, even when she was silliest and tried his

patience most severely; and I felt my respect for him increasing every

day. As for Mrs. Winslow, she came sometimes to see me, and was very

particular to invite me there; but I saw that she watched both me and

Mr. Ames, and suspected that she had come to Huntsville for that

purpose. She sought every opportunity, too, of making me seem awkward or

ignorant before him; and he perceived it, I know, and was mortified and

annoyed by it, though he left the chastisement entirely to me. Once in a

while Cousin Mary and I had a real old-fashioned visit from him all

alone, either when it was very stormy, or when the ladies were visiting

elsewhere. He always came serious and abstracted, and went away in good

spirits, and he said that those few hours were the pleasantest he

passed. Mrs. Winslow looked on them with an evil eye, I knew, and

suspected a great deal of which we were all innocent; for one day, when

she had been dining at my house with her daughter, and we were all out

in the garden together, I overheard her saying,--

"She is just the person to captivate him, and you mustn't bring yourself

into competition with her, Lucy. She can out-shine you in conversation,

and I know that she is playing a deep game."

"La, ma!" the girl exclaimed. "An old maid, without the least style! and

she makes butter too, and actually climbs up in a chair to scrub down

her closets,--for Edward and I caught her at it one day."

"And did she seem confused?" asked Mrs. Winslow.

"No, indeed! Now I should have died, if he had caught me in such a

plight; but she shook down her dress as though it were a matter of

course, and they were soon talking about some German stuff,--I don't

know what it was,--while I had to amuse myself with the drawings."

"That's the way!" retorted the mother. "You play dummy for them. I wish

you had a little more spirit, Lucy. You wouldn't play into the hands of

this designing"----

"Nonsense, mamma! She's a real clever, good-natured old thing, and I

like her," exclaimed the daughter. "You're so suspicious!"

"You're so foolishly secure!" answered mamma. "A man is never certain

until after the ceremony; and you don't know Edward Ames, Lucy."

"I know he's got plenty of money, mother, and I know he's real nice and

handsome," was the reply; and they walked out of hearing.

I wouldn't have listened even to so much as that, if I could have

avoided it; and as soon as I could, I went into the parlor, and sat down

to some work, trying to keep down that old trouble, which somehow

gathered size like a rolling snowball. I might have known what it was,

if I had not closed my eyes resolutely, and said to myself, "The summer

will soon be gone, and there will be an end of it all then"; and I

winced, as I said it, like one who sees a blow coming.

The summer went by imperceptibly; it was autumn, and still all things

remained outwardly as they had been. We went back and forth continually,

rode and walked out, sang and read together, and Lucy grew fonder and

fonder of me. She could scarcely live out of my presence, and confided

to me all her plans when she and Edward should be married,--how much she

thought of him, and he of her, all about their courtship, how he

declared himself and how she accepted him one soft moonlight night in

far Italy, how agitated and distressed he had been when she had a fever,

and a thousand other details which swelled that great stone in my heart

more and more. But I shut my eyes, until one day when I saw them

together. He was listening, intent, and very pale, to something she told

him, and, to my surprise, she was pale too, and weeping. Before she

could finish, she broke into a passionate rush of tears, and would have

thrown herself at his feet; but he caught her, and she sunk down upon

his shoulder, and he stooped towards her as he might if he had loved

her. Then I knew how I loved him.

I had to bear up a little while, for they were in my house, and I must

bid them good-night, and talk idly, so that they should not suspect the

wound I had. But I must do something, or go mad; and so I went out to

the garden-wall, and struck my hand upon it until the blood ran. The

pain of that balanced the terrible pain within for a few moments, and I

went in to them calm and smiling. They were sitting on the sofa, he with

a perplexed, pale face, and she blushing and radiant. They started up

when they saw my hand bandaged, and she was full of sympathy for my

hurt. He said but little, though he looked fixedly at my face. I know I

must have looked strangely. When they were gone, I went into my chamber

and shut the door, with some such feeling as I should have closed the

entrance of a tomb behind me forever. I fought myself all that night. My

heart was hungry and cried out for food, and I would promise it none at

all. Is there anyone who thinks that youth has monopolized all the

passion of life, all the rapture, all the wild despair? Let them breast

the deep, strong current of middle life.

I never could quite recollect how that last month went away. I know that

I kept myself incessantly occupied, and that I saw them almost daily,

without departing from the tone of familiar friendship I had worn

throughout, although my heart was full of jealousy and a fast-growing

hatred that would not be quelled. Not for a thousand happy loves would I

have let them see my humiliation. I was even afraid that already he

might suspect it, for his manner was changed. Sometimes he was distant,

sometimes sad, and sometimes almost tenderer than a friend.

It got to be October, and I felt that I could not bear such a state of

things any longer, and questioned within myself whether I had better not

leave home for a while. If I had been alone, it would have been easy;

but my cousin Mary was still with me, and I could give no good reason

for such a step. Before I had settled upon anything, Lucy came to me in

great distress, with a confession that Mr. Ames was somehow turned

against her, and that she was almost heart-broken about it. If she lost

him, she must die; for she had so long looked upon him as her husband,

and loved him so well, that life would be nothing without him. What

should she do? Would I advise her?

I didn't know, until long afterward, that it was a consummate piece of

acting, dictated by the mother, and that she was as heartless as it was

possible for a young girl to be; and while she lay weeping at my feet, I

pitied her, and wondered if, perhaps, there might not be some spring of

generous feeling in her heart, that a happy love would unlock. The next

morning I went out alone, for a ride, in a direction where I thought I

could not be disturbed. Up hill and down, over roads, pastures, and

streams, I tore until the fever within was allayed, and then I stopped

to rest, and look upon the beauties of the bright October day. All

overhead and around, the sky and patches of water were of that

far-looking blue which seems all ready to open upon new and wonderful

worlds. Big, bright drops of a night-shower lay asleep in the curled-up

leaves, as though the trees had stretched out a million hands to catch

them. And such hands! What comparison could match them? Clouds of

butterflies, such as sleep among the flowers of Paradise,--forgotten

dreams of children, who sleep and smile,--fancies of fairy laureates,

strung shining together for some high festival,--anything most rich or

unreal, might furnish a type for the foliage that was painted upon the

golden blue of that October day. I could almost have forgotten my

trouble in the charmed gaze.

"You turn up in strange places, Rachel!" said a voice behind me.

This was what I had dreaded; but I swallowed love and fear in one great

gulp, and shut my teeth with a resolution of iron. I would not be guilty

of the meanness of standing in that child's way, if she were but a fool;

so I answered him gayly.

"'The same to yourself,' as Neighbor Dawkins would say. Why didn't you

all go to the lake, as you planned last night?"

"For some good reasons. Were you bewitched, that you stood here so

still?" He looked brightly into my face, as he came up.

"No,--but the trees are. Shouldn't you think that Oberon had held high

court here over-night?"

"And that they had left their wedding-dresses upon the boughs? Yes, they

are gay enough! But where have you been these four weeks, that I haven't

got speech with you?"

"A pretty question, when you've been at my house almost every day! Where

are your senses, man?"

"I know too well where they are," he said. "But I've wanted a good talk

with you, face to face,--not with a veil of commonplace people between.

You're not yourself among them. I like you best when your spirits are a

little ruffled, and your eye kindles, and your lip curls, as it does

now,--not when you say, "No, Sir," or "Yes, Ma'am," and smile as though

it were only skin-deep."

I started my horse.

"Let's be going, Jessie," I said. "It's our duty to feel insulted. He

accuses your mistress of being deceitful among her friends, and says he

likes her when she's cross."

He laughed lightly, and walked along by my side.

"How are your ladies? and when will Miss Lucy come to ride out with me?"

I asked, fearing a look into his eyes.

This brought him down. I knew it would.

He answered that she was well, and walked along with his head down,

quite like another man. At length he looked up, very pale, and put his

hand on my bridle.

"I want to put a case to you," he said. "Suppose a man to have made some

engagement before his mind was mature, and under a strong outside

pressure of which he was not aware. When he grows to a better knowledge

of the world and himself, and finds that he has been half cheated, and

that to keep his word will entail lasting misery and ruin on himself,

without really benefiting any one else, is he bound to keep it?"

I stopped an instant to press my heart back, and then I answered him.

"A promise is a promise, Mr. Ames. I have thought that a man of honor

valued his word more than happiness or life."

He flushed a moment, and then looked down again; and we walked on

slowly, without a word, over the stubbly ground, and through brooklets

and groves and thickets, towards home. If I could only reach there

before he spoke again! How could I hold out to do my duty, if I were

tempted any farther? At last he checked the horse, and, putting his hand

heavily on mine, looked me full in the face, while his was pale and

agitated.

"Rachel," he said, huskily, "if a man came to you and said, 'I am bound

to another; but my heart, my soul, my life are at your feet,' would you

turn him away?"

I gasped one long breath of fresh air.

"Do I look like a woman who would take a man's love at second hand?" I

said, haughtily. "Women like me _must_ respect the man they marry, Sir."

He dropped his hand, and turned away his head, with a deep-drawn breath.

I saw him stoop and lift himself again, as though some weight were laid

upon his shoulders. I saw the muscles round and ridgy upon his clenched

hand. "All this for a silly, shallow thing, who knows nothing of the

heart she loses!" some tempter whispered, and passionate words of love

rushed up and beat hard against my shut teeth. "Get thee behind me!" I

muttered, and resolutely started my horse forward. "Not for her,--but

for myself,--for self-respect! The best love in the world shall not buy

that!"

He came along beside me, silent, and stepping heavily, and thus we went

to the leafy lane that came out near my house. There I stopped; for I

felt that this must end now.

"Mr. Ames, you must leave this place, directly," I said, with as much

sternness as I could assume. "If you please, I will bid you good-bye,

now."

"Not see you again, Rachel?" he exclaimed, sharply. "No! not that!

Forgive me, if I have said too much; but don't send me away!"

He took my hand in both his, and gazed as one might for a sentence of

life or death.

"Will you let a woman's strength shame you?" I cried, desperately. "I

thought you were a man of honor, Mr. Ames. I trusted you entirely, but I

will never trust any one again."

He dropped my hand, and drew himself up.

"You are right, Rachel! you are right," he said, after a moment's

thought. "No one must trust me, and be disappointed. I have never

forgotten that before; please God, I never will again. But must I say

farewell here?"

"It is better," I said.

"Good-bye, then, dear friend!--dear friend!" he whispered. "If you ever

love any better than yourself, you will know how to forgive me."

I felt his kiss on my hand, and felt, rather than saw, his last look,

for I dared not raise my eyes to his; and I knew that he had turned

back, and that I had seen the last of him. For one instant I thought I

would follow and tell him that he did not suffer alone; but before my

horse was half turned, I was myself again.

"Fool!" I said. "If you let the dam down, can you push the waters back

again? Would that man let anything upon earth stand between him and a

woman that loved him? Let him go so. He'll forget you in six months."

I had to endure a farewell call from Lucy and her mother. Mr. Ames had

received a sudden summons home, and they were to accompany him a part of

the way. The elder scrutinized me very closely, but I think she got

nothing to satisfy her; the younger kissed and shed tears enough for the

parting of twin sisters. How I hated her! In a couple of days they were

gone, Mr. Ames calling to see me when he knew me to be out, and leaving

a civil message only. The house was closed, the faded leaves fell all

about the doorway, and the grass withered upon the little lawn.

"That play is over, and the curtain dropped," I said to myself, as I

took one long look towards the old house, and closed the shutters that

opened that way.

You who have suffered some great loss, and stagger for want of strength

to walk alone, thank God for work. Nothing like that for bracing up a

feeble heart! I worked restlessly from morning till night, and often

encroached on what should have been sleep. Hard work, real sinewy labor,

was all that would content me; and I found enough of it. To have been a

proper heroine, I suppose I should have devoted myself to works of

charity, read sentimental poetry, and folded my hands very meekly and

prettily; but I did no such thing. I ripped up carpets, and scoured

paint, and swept down cobwebs, I made sweetmeats and winter clothing, I

dug up and set out trees, and smoothed the turf in my garden, and

tramped round my fields with the man behind me, to see if the fences

needed mending, or if the marshes were properly drained, or the fallow

land wanted ploughing. It made me better. All the sickliness of my grief

passed away, and only the deep-lying regret was left like a weight to

which my heart soon became accustomed. We can manage trouble much better

than we often do, if we only choose to try resolutely.

I had but one relapse. It was when I got news of their marriage. I

remember the day with a peculiar distinctness; for it was the first

snow-storm of the season, and I had been out walking all the afternoon.

It was one of those soft, leaden-colored, expectant days, of late autumn

or early winter, when one is sure of snow; and I went out on purpose to

see it fall among the woods; for it was just upon Christmas, and I

longed to see the black ground covered. By-and-by a few flakes sauntered

down, coquetting as to where they would alight; then a few more

followed, thickening and thickening until the whole upper air was alive

with them, and the frozen ridges whitened along their backs, and every

little stiff blade of grass or rush or dead bush held all it could

carry. It was pleasant to see the quiet wonder go on, until the

landscape was completely changed,--to walk home _scuffing_ the snow from

the frozen road on which my feet had ground as I came that way, and see

the fences full, and the hollows heaped up level, and the birches bent

down with their hair hidden, and the broad arms of the fir-trees loaded,

like sombre cotton-pickers going home heavily laden. Then to see the

brassy streak widen in the west, and the cold moon hang astonished upon

the dead tops of some distant pine-trees, was to enjoy a most beautiful

picture, with only the cost of a little fatigue.

When I got home, I found among my letters one from Mr. Ames. He could

not leave the country without pleading once more for my esteem, he

wrote. He had not intended to marry until he could think more calmly of

the past; but Lucy's mother had married again very suddenly into a

family where her daughter found it not pleasant to follow her. She was

poor, without very near relatives now, and friends, on both sides, had

urged the marriage. He had told her the state of his feelings, and

offered, if she could overlook the want of love, to be everything else

to her. She should never repent the step, and he prayed me, when I

thought of him, to think as leniently as possible. Alas! now I must not

think at all.

How I fought that thought,--how I worked by day, and studied deep into

the night, filling every hour full to the brim with activity, seems now

a feverish dream to me. Such dead thoughts will not be buried out of

sight, but lie cold and stiff, until the falling foliage of seasons of

labor and experience eddies round them, and moss and herbs venture to

grow over their decay, and birds come slowly and curiously to sing a

little there. In time, the mound is beautiful with the richness of the

growth, but the lord of the manor shudders as he walks that way. For

him, it is always haunted.

Thus with me. I knew that the sorrow was doing me good, that it had been

needed long, and I tried to profit by it, as the time came when I could

think calmly of it all. I thought I had ceased to love him; but the news

of her death (for she died in two years) taught me better. I heard of

him from others,--that he had been most tender and indulgent to a

selfish, heartless woman, who trifled with his best feelings, and almost

broke his heart before she went. I heard that he had one child, a poor

little blind baby, for whom the mother had neither love nor care, and

that he still continued abroad. But from himself I never heard a word.

No doubt he had forgotten me, as I had always thought he would.

More than two years passed, and spring-time was upon us, when I heard

that he had returned to the country, and was to be married shortly to a

wealthy, beautiful widow he had found abroad. At first we heard that he

was married, and then that he was making great preparations, but would

not marry until autumn. Even the bride's dress was described, and the

furniture of the house of which she was to be mistress. I had expected

some such thing, but it added one more drop of bitterness to the

yearning I had for him. It was so hard to think him like any other man!

However, now, as before, I covered up the wound with a smiling face, and

went about my business. I had been making extensive improvements on my

farm, and kept out all day often, over-seeing the laborers. One night, a

soft, starlight evening in late May, I came home very tired, and, being

quite alone, sat down on the portico to watch the stars and think. I had

not been long there, when a man's step came up the avenue, and some

person, I could not tell who in the darkness, opened the gate, and came

slowly up towards me. I rose, and bade him good-evening.

"Is it you, Rachel?" he said, quite faintly. It was his voice. Thank

Heaven for the darkness! The hand I gave him might tremble, but my face

should betray nothing. I invited him into the parlor, and rang for

lights.

"He's come to see about selling the old house," I thought; there was a

report that he would sell it by auction. When the lights came, he looked

eagerly at me.

"Am I much changed?" I said, with a half-bitter smile.

"Not so much as I," he answered, sighing and looking down;--he seemed to

be in deep thought for a moment.

He was much changed. His hair was turning gray; his face was thin, with

a subdued expression I had never expected to see him wear. He must have

suffered greatly; and, as I looked, my heart began to melt. That would

not do; and besides, what was the need of pity, when he had consoled

himself? I asked some ordinary question about his journey, and led him

into a conversation on foreign travel.

The evening passed away as it might with two strangers, and he rose to

go, with a grave face and manner as cold as mine,--for I had been very

cold. I followed him to the door, and asked how long he stayed at

Huntsville.

Only a part of the next day, he said; his child could not be left any

longer; but he wished very much to see me, and so had contrived to get a

few days.

"Indeed!" I said. "You honor me. Your Huntsville friends scarcely

expected to be remembered so long."

"They have not done me justice, then," he said, quietly. "I seem to have

the warmest recollection of any. Good-night, Miss Mead. I shall not be

likely to see you again."

He gave me his hand, but it was very cold, and I let it slip as coldly

from mine. He went down the gravel-walk slowly and heavily, and he

certainly sighed as he closed the gate. Could I give him up thus? "Down

pride! You have held sway long enough! I must part more kindly, or die!"

I ran down the gravel-walk and overtook him in the avenue. He stopped as

I came up, and turned to meet me.

"Forgive me," I said, breathlessly. "I could not part with old friends

so, after wishing so much for them."

He took both my hands in his. "Have you wished for me, Rachel?" he said,

tenderly. "I thought you would scarcely have treated a stranger with so

little kindness."

"I was afraid to be warmer," I said.

"Afraid of what?" he asked.

My mouth was unsealed. "Are you to be married?" I asked.

"I have no such expectation," he answered.

"And are not engaged to any one?"

"To nothing but an old love, dear! Was that why you were afraid to show

yourself to me?"

"Yes!" I answered, making no resistance to the arm that was put gently

round me. He was mine now, I knew, as I felt the strong heart beating

fast against my own.

"Rachel," he whispered, "the only woman I ever did or ever can love,

will you send me away again?"

A SHETLAND SHAWL.

It was made of the purest and finest wool,

As fine as silk, and as soft and cool;

It was pearly white, of that cloud-like hue

Which has a shadowy tinge of blue;

And brought by the good ship, miles and miles,

From the distant shores of the Shetland Isles.

And in it were woven, here and there,

The golden threads of a maiden's hair,

As the wanton wind with tosses and twirls

Blew in and out of her floating curls,

While her busy fingers swiftly drew

The ivory needle through and through.

The warm sun flashed on the brilliant dyes

Of the purple and golden butterflies,

And the drowsy bees, with a changeless tune,

Hummed in the perfumed air of June,

As the gossamer fabric, fair to view,

Under the maiden's fingers grew.

The shadows of tender thought arise

In the tranquil depths of her dreamy eyes,

And her blushing cheek bears the first impress

Of the spirit's awakening consciousness,

Like the rose, when it bursts, in a single hour,

From the folded bud to the perfect flower.

Many a tremulous hope and care,

Many a loving wish and prayer,

With the blissful dreams of one who stood

At the golden gate of womanhood,

The little maiden's tireless hands

Wove in and out of the shining strands.

The buds that burst in an April sun

Had seen the wonderful shawl begun;

It was finished, and folded up with pride,

When the vintage purpled the mountain-side;

And smiles made light in the violet eyes,

At the thought of a lover's pleased surprise.

The spider hung from the budding thorn

His baseless web, when the shawl was worn;

And the cobwebs, silvered by the dew,

With the morning sunshine breaking through,

The maiden's toil might well recall,

In the vanished year, on the Shetland Shawl.

For the rose had died in the autumn showers,

That bloomed in the summer's golden hours;

And the shining tissue of hopes and dreams,

With misty glories and rainbow gleams

Woven within and out, was one

Like the slender thread by the spider spun.

As fresh and as pure as the sad young face,

The snowy shawl with its clinging grace

Seems a fitting veil for a form so fair:

But who would think what a tale of care,

Of love and grief and faith, might all

Be folded up in a Shetland Shawl?

ROBA DI ROMA.

[Continued.]

CHAPTER VI.

GAMES IN ROME.

Walking, during pleasant weather, almost anywhere in Rome, but

especially in passing through the enormous arches of the Temple of

Peace, or along by the Colosseum, or some wayside _osteria_ outside the

city-walls, the ear of the traveller is often saluted by the loud,

explosive tones of two voices going off together, at little intervals,

like a brace of pistol-shots; and turning round to seek the cause of

these strange sounds, he will see two men, in a very excited state,

shouting, as they fling out their hands at each other with violent

gesticulation. Ten to one he will say to himself, if he be a stranger in

Rome, "How quarrelsome and passionate these Italians are!" If he be an

Englishman or an American, he will be sure to congratulate himself on

the superiority of his own countrymen, and wonder why these fellows

stand there shaking their fists at each other, and screaming, instead of

fighting it out like men,--and muttering, "A cowardly pack, too!" will

pass on, perfectly satisfied with his facts and his philosophy. But what

he has seen was really not a quarrel. It is simply the game of _Mora_,

as old as the Pyramids, and formerly played among the host of Pharaoh

and the armies of Cæsar as now by the subjects of Pius IX. It is thus

played.

Two persons place themselves opposite each other, holding their right

hands closed before them. They then simultaneously and with a sudden

gesture throw out their hands, some of the fingers being extended, and

others shut up on the palm,--each calling out in a loud voice, at the

same moment, the number he guesses the fingers extended by himself and

his adversary to make. If neither cry out aright, or if both cry out

aright, nothing is gained or lost; but if only one guess the true

number, he wins a point. Thus, if one throw out four fingers and the

other two, he who cries out six makes a point, unless the other cry out

the same number. The points are generally five, though sometimes they

are doubled, and as they are made, they are marked by the left hand,

which, during the whole game, is held stiffly in the air at about the

shoulders' height, one finger being extended for every point. When the

_partito_ is won, the winner cries out, "_Fatto!_" or "_Guadagnato!_" or

"_Vinto!_" or else strikes his hands across each other in sign of

triumph. This last sign is also used when Double _Mora_ is played, to

indicate that five points are made.

So universal is this game in Rome, that the very beggars play away their

earnings at it. It was only yesterday, as I came out of the gallery of

the Capitol, that I saw two who had stopped screaming for "_baiocchi per

amor di Dio_," to play pauls against each other at _Mora_. One, a

cripple, supported himself against a column, and the other, with his

ragged cloak slung on his shoulder, stood opposite him. They staked a

paul each time with the utmost _nonchalance_, and played with an

earnestness and rapidity which showed that they were old hands at it,

while the coachmen from their boxes cracked their whips, and jeered and

joked them, and the shabby circle around them cheered them on. I stopped

to see the result, and found that the cripple won two successive games.

But his cloaked antagonist bore his losses like a hero, and when all was

over, he did his best with the strangers issuing from the Capitol to

line his pockets for a new chance.

Nothing is more simple and apparently easy than _Mora_, yet to play it

well requires quickness of perception and readiness in the calculation

of chances. As each player, of course, knows how many fingers he himself

throws out, the main point is to guess the number of fingers thrown by

his opponent, and to add the two instantaneously together. A player of

skill will soon detect the favorite numbers of his antagonist, and it is

curious to see how remarkably clever some of them are in divining, from

the movement of the hand, the number to be thrown. The game is always

played with great vivacity, the hands being flung out with vehemence,

and the numbers shouted at the full pitch of the voice, so as to be

heard at a considerable distance. It is from the sudden opening of the

fingers, while the hands are in the air, that the old Roman phrase,

_micare digitis_, "to flash with the fingers," is derived.

A bottle of wine is generally the stake; and round the _osterias_, of a

_festa_-day, when the game is played after the blood has been heated and

the nerves strained by previous potations, the regular volleyed

explosions of "_Tre! Cinque! Otto! Tutti!_" are often interrupted by hot

discussions. But these are generally settled peacefully by the

bystanders, who act as umpires,--and the excitement goes off in talk.

The question arises almost invariably upon the number of fingers flashed

out; for an unscrupulous player has great opportunities of cheating, by

holding a finger half extended, so as to be able to close or open it

afterwards according to circumstances; but sometimes the losing party

will dispute as to the number called out. The thumb is the father of all

evil at _Mora_, it being often impossible to say whether it was intended

to be closed or not, and an unskilful player is easily deceived in this

matter by a clever one. When "_Tutti_" is called, all the fingers, thumb

and all, must be extended, and then it is an even chance that a

discussion will take place as to whether the thumb was out. Sometimes,

when the blood is hot, and one of the parties has been losing, violent

quarrels will arise, which the umpires cannot decide, and, in very rare

cases, knives are drawn and blood is spilled. Generally these disputes

end in nothing, and, often as I have seen this game, I have never been a

spectator of any quarrel, though discussions numberless I have heard.

But, beyond vague stories by foreigners, in which I put no confidence,

the vivacity of the Italians easily leading persons unacquainted with

their characters to mistake a very peaceable talk for a violent quarrel,

I know of only one case that ended tragically. There a savage quarrel,

begun at _Mora_, was with difficulty pacified by the bystanders, and one

of the parties withdrew to an _osteria_ to drink with his companions.

But while he was there, the rage which had been smothered, but not

extinguished, in the breast of his antagonist, blazed out anew. Rushing

at the other, as he sat by the table of the _osteria_, he attacked him

fiercely with his knife. The friends of both parties started at once to

their feet, to interpose and tear them apart; but before they could

reach them, one of the combatants dropped bleeding and dying on the

floor, and the other fled like a maniac from the room.

This readiness of the Italians to use the knife, for the settlement of

every dispute, is generally attributed by foreigners to the

passionateness of their nature; but I am inclined to believe that it

also results from their entire distrust of the possibility of legal

redress in the courts. Where courts are organized as they are in Naples,

who but a fool would trust to them? Open tribunals, where justice should

be impartially administered, would soon check private assassinations;

and were there more honest and efficient police courts, there would be

far fewer knives drawn. The Englishman invokes the aid of the law,

knowing that he can count upon prompt justice; take that belief from

him, he, too, like Harry Gow, would "fight for his own hand." In the

half-organized society of the less civilized parts of the United States,

the pistol and bowie-knife are as frequent arbiters of disputes as the

stiletto is among the Italians. But it would be a gross error to argue

from this, that the Americans are violent and passionate by nature; for,

among the same people in the older States, where justice is cheaply and

strictly administered, the pistol and bowie-knife are almost unknown.

Despotism and slavery nurse the passions of men; and wherever law is

loose, or courts are venal, public justice assumes the shape of private

vengeance. The farther south one goes in Italy, the more frequent is

violence and the more unrepressed are the passions. Compare Piedmont

with Naples, and the difference is immense. The dregs of vice and

violence settle to the south. Rome is worse than Tuscany, and Naples

worse than Rome,--not so much because of the nature of the people, as of

the government and the laws.

But to return to _Mora_. As I was walking out beyond the Porta San

Giovanni the other day, I heard the most ingenious and consolatory

periphrasis for a defeat that it was ever my good-fortune to hear; and,

as it shows the peculiar humor of the Romans, it may here have a place.

Two of a party of _contadini_ had been playing at _Mora_, the stakes

being, as usual, a bottle of wine, and each, in turn, had lost and won.

A lively and jocose discussion now arose between the friends on the one

side and the players on the other,--the former claiming that each of the

latter was to pay his bottle of wine for the game he lost, (to be drunk,

of course, by all,) and the latter insisting, that, as one loss offset

the other, nothing was to be paid by either. As I passed, one of the

players was speaking. "_Il primo partito_," he said, "_ho guadagnato io;

e poi, nel secondo_,"--here a pause,--"_ho perso la vittoria_": "The

first game, I won; the second, I----_lost the victory_." And with this

happy periphrasis, our friend admitted his defeat. I could not but think

how much better it would have been for the French, if this ingenious

mode of adjusting with the English the Battle of Waterloo had ever

occurred to them. To admit that they were defeated was of course

impossible; but to acknowledge that they "lost the victory" would by no

means have been humiliating. This would have soothed their irritable

national vanity, prevented many heart-burnings, saved long and idle

arguments and terrible "kicking against the pricks," and rendered a

friendly alliance possible.

No game has a better pedigree than _Mora_. It was played by the

Egyptians more than two thousand years before the Christian era. In the

paintings at Thebes and in the temples of Beni-Hassan, seated figures

may be seen playing it,--some keeping their reckoning with the left hand

uplifted,--some striking off the game with both hands, to show that it

was won,--and, in a word, using the same gestures as the modern Romans.

From Egypt it was introduced into Greece. The Romans brought it from

Greece at an early period, and it has existed among them ever since,

having suffered apparently no alteration. Its ancient Roman name was

_Micatio_, and to play it was called _micare digitis_,--"to flash the

fingers,"--the modern name _Mora_ being merely a corruption of the verb

_micare_. Varro describes it precisely as it is now played; and Cicero,

in the first book of his treatise "De Divinatione," thus alludes to

it:--"_Quid enim est sors? Idem propemodum quod_ micare, _quod talos

jacere, quod tesseras; quibus in rebus temeritas et casus, non ratio et

consilium valent._" So common was it, that it became the basis of an

admirable proverb, to denote the honesty of a person:--"_Dignus est

quicum in tenebris mices_": "So trustworthy, that one may play _Mora_

with him in the dark." At one period they carried their love of it so

far, that they used to settle by _micatio_ the sales of merchandise and

meat in the Forum, until Apronius, prefect of the city, prohibited the

practice in the following terms, as appears by an old inscription, which

is particularly interesting as containing an admirable pun: "_Sub exagio

potius pecora vendere quam digitis concludentibus tradere_": "Sell your

sheep by the balance, and do not bargain or deceive" (_tradere_ having

both these meanings) "by opening and shutting your fingers at _Mora_."

One of the various kinds of the old Roman game of _Pila_ still survives

under the modern name of _Pallone_. It is played between two sides, each

numbering from five to eight persons. Each of the players is armed with

a _bracciale_, or gantlet of wood, covering the hand and extending

nearly up to the elbow, with which a heavy ball is beaten backwards and

forwards, high into the air, from one side to the other. The object of

the game is to keep the ball in constant flight, and whoever suffers it

to fall dead within his bounds loses. It may, however, be struck in its

rebound, though the best strokes are before it touches the ground. The

_bracciali_ are hollow tubes of wood, thickly studded outside with

pointed bosses, projecting an inch and a half, and having inside, across

the end, a transverse bar, which is grasped by the hand, so as to render

them manageable to the wearer. The balls, which are of the size of a

large cricket-ball, are made of leather, and are so heavy, that, when

well played, they are capable of breaking the arm, unless properly

received on the _bracciale_. They are inflated with air, which is pumped

into them with a long syringe, through a small aperture closed by a

valve inside. The game is played on an oblong figure, marked out on the

ground, or designated by the wall around the sunken platform on which it

is played; across the centre is drawn a transverse line, dividing

equally the two sides. Whenever a ball either falls outside the lateral

boundary or is not struck over the central line, it counts against the

party playing it. When it flies over the extreme limits, it is called a

_volata_, and is reckoned the best stroke that can be made. At the end

of the lists is a spring-board, on which the principal player stands.

The best batter is always selected for this post; the others are

distributed about. Near him stands the _pallonaio_, whose office is to

keep the balls well inflated with air, and he is busy nearly all the

time. Facing him, at a short distance, is the _mandarino_, who gives

ball. As soon as the ball leaves the _mandarino's_ hand, the chief

batter runs forward to meet it, and strikes it as far and high as he

can, with the _bracciale_. Four times in succession have I seen a good

player strike a _volata_, with the loud applause of the spectators. When

this does not occur, the two sides bat the ball backwards and forwards,

from one to the other, sometimes fifteen or twenty times before the

point is won; and as it falls here and there, now flying high in the air

and caught at once on the _bracciale_ before touching the ground, now

glancing back from the wall which generally forms one side of the lists,

the players rush eagerly to hit it, calling loudly to each other, and

often displaying great agility, skill, and strength. The interest now

becomes very exciting; the bystanders shout when a good stroke is made,

and groan and hiss at a miss, until, finally, the ball is struck over

the lists, or lost within them. The points of the game are fifty,--the

first two strokes counting fifteen each, and the others ten each. When

one side makes the fifty before the other has made anything, it is

called a _marcio_, and counts double. As each point is made, it is

shouted by the caller, who stands in the middle and keeps the count, and

proclaims the bets of the spectators.

This game is as national to the Italians as cricket to the English; it

is not only, as it seems to me, much more interesting than the latter,

but requires vastly more strength, agility, and dexterity, to play it

well. The Italians give themselves to it with all the enthusiasm of

their nature, and many a young fellow injures himself for life by the

fierceness of his batting. After the excitement and stir of this game,

which only the young and athletic can play well, cricket seems a very

dull affair.

The game of _Pallone_ has always been a favorite one in Rome; and near

the summit of the Quattro Fontane, in the Barberini grounds, there is a

circus, which used to be specially devoted to public exhibitions during

the summer afternoons. At these representations, the most renowned

players were engaged by an _impresario_. The audience was generally

large, and the entrance-fee was one paul. Wonderful feats were sometimes

performed here; and on the wall are marked the heights of some

remarkable _volate_. The players were clothed in a thin, tight dress,

like _saltimbanchi_. One side wore a blue, and the other a red ribbon,

on the arm. The contests, generally, were fiercely disputed,--the

spectators betting heavily, and shouting, as good or bad strokes were

made. Sometimes a line was extended across the amphitheatre, from wall

to wall, over which it was necessary to strike the ball, a point being

lost in case it passed below. But this is a variation from the game as

ordinarily played, and can be ventured on only when the players are of

the first force. The games here, however, are now suspended; for the

French, since their occupation, have not only seized the post-office, to

convert it into a club-room, and the _piano nobile_ of some of the

richest palaces, to serve as barracks for their soldiers, but have also

driven the Romans from their amphitheatre, where _Pallone_ was played,

to make it into _ateliers de génie_. Still, one may see the game played

by ordinary players, towards the twilight of any summer day, in the

Piazza di Termini, or near the Tempio della Pace, or the Colosseo. The

boys from the studios and shops also play in the streets a sort of

mongrel game called _Pillotta_, beating a small ball back and forth,

with a round bat, shaped like a small _tamburello_ and covered with

parchment. But the real game, played by skilful players, may be seen

almost every summer night outside the Porta a Pinti, in Florence; and I

have also seen it admirably played under the fortress-wall at Siena, the

players being dressed entirely in white, with loose ruffled jackets,

breeches, long stockings, and shoes of undressed leather, and the

audience sitting round on the stone benches, or leaning over the lofty

wall, cheering on the game, while they ate the cherries or _zucca_-seeds

which were hawked about among them by itinerant peddlers. Here, towards

twilight, one could lounge away an hour pleasantly under the shadow of

the fortress, looking now at the game and now at the rolling country

beyond, where olives and long battalions of vines marched knee-deep

through the golden grain, until the purple splendors of sunset had

ceased to transfigure the distant hills, and the crickets chirped louder

under the deepening gray of the sky.

In the walls of the amphitheatre at Florence is a bust in colored marble

of one of the most famous players of his day, whose battered face seems

still to preside over the game, getting now and then a smart blow from

the _Pallone_ itself, which, in its inflation, is no respecter of

persons. The honorable inscription beneath the bust, celebrating the

powers of this champion, who rejoiced in the surname of Earthquake, is

as follows:--

_"Josephus Barnius, Petiolensis, vir in jactando repercutiendoque folle

singularis, qui ob robur ingens maximamque artis peritiam, et collusores

ubique devictos, Terræmotus formidabili cognomento dictus est."_

Another favorite game of ball among the Romans is _Bocce_ or _Boccette_.

It is played between two sides, consisting of any number of persons,

each of whom has two large wooden balls of about the size of an average

American nine-pin ball. Beside these, there is a little ball called the

_lecco_. This is rolled first by one of the winning party to any

distance he pleases, and the object is to roll or pitch the _boccette_

or large balls so as to place them beside the _lecco_. Every ball of one

side nearer to the _lecco_ than any ball of the other counts one point

in the game,--the number of points depending on the agreement of the

parties. The game is played on the ground, and not upon any smooth or

prepared plane; and as the _lecco_ often runs into hollows, or poises

itself on some uneven declivity, it is sometimes a matter of no small

difficulty to play the other balls near to it. The great skill of the

game consists, however, in displacing the balls of the adverse party so

as to make the balls of the playing party count, and a clever player

will often change the whole aspect of affairs by one well-directed

throw. The balls are thrown alternately,--first by a player on one side,

and then by a player on the other. As the game advances, the interest

increases, and there is a constant variety. However good a throw is

made, it may be ruined by the next. Sometimes the ball is pitched with

great accuracy, so as to strike a close-counting ball far into the

distance, while the new ball takes its place. Sometimes the _lecco_

itself is suddenly transplanted into a new position, which entirely

reverses all the previous counting. It is the last ball which decides

the game, and, of course, it is eagerly watched. In the Piazza di

Termini numerous parties may be seen every bright day in summer or

spring playing this game under the locust-trees, surrounded by idlers,

who stand by to approve or condemn, and to give their advice. The French

soldiers, once free from drill or guard or from practising trumpet-calls

on the old Agger of Servius Tullius near by, are sure to be rolling

balls in this fascinating game. Having heated their blood sufficiently

at it, they adjourn to a little _osteria_ in the Piazza to refresh

themselves with a glass of _asciutto_ wine, after which they sit on a

bench outside the door, or stretch themselves under the trees, and take

a _siesta_, with their handkerchiefs over their eyes, while other

parties take their turn at the _bocce_. Meanwhile, from the Agger beyond

are heard the distressing trumpets struggling with false notes and

wheezing and shrieking in ludicrous discord, while now and then the

solemn bell of Santa Maria Maggiore tolls from the neighboring hill.

Another favorite game in Rome and Tuscany is _Ruzzola_, so called from

the circular disk of wood with which it is played. Round this the player

winds tightly a cord, which, by a sudden cast and backward jerk of the

hand, he uncoils so as to send the disk whirling along the road. Outside

the walls, and along all the principal avenues leading to the city,

parties are constantly to be met playing at this game; and oftentimes

before the players are visible, the disk is seen bounding round some

curve, to the great danger of one's legs. He whose disk whirls the

farthest wins a point. It is an excellent walking game, and it requires

some knack to play the disk evenly along the road. Often the swiftest

disks, when not well-directed, bound over the hedges, knock themselves

down against the walls, or bury themselves in the tangled ditches; and

when well played, if they chance to hit a stone in the road, they will

leap like mad into the air, at the risk of serious injury to any

unfortunate passer. In the country, instead of wooden disks, the

_contadini_ often use _cacio di pecora_, a kind of hard goat's cheese,

whose rind will resist the roughest play. What, then, must be the

digestive powers of those who eat it, may be imagined. Like the peptic

countryman, they probably do not know they have a stomach, not having

ever felt it; and certainly they can say with Tony Lumpkin, "It never

hurts me, and I sleep like a hound after it."

In common with the French, the Romans have a passion for the game of

Dominos. Every _caffè_ is supplied with a number of boxes, and, in the

evening especially, it is played by young and old, with a seriousness

which strikes us Saxons with surprise. We generally have a contempt for

this game, and look upon it as childish. But I know not why. It is by no

means easy to play well, and requires a careful memory and quick powers

of combination and calculation. No _caffè_ in Rome or Marseilles would

be complete without its little black and white counters; and as it

interests at once the most mercurial and fidgety of people and the

laziest and languidest, it must have some hidden charm as yet unrevealed

to the Anglo-Saxon.

Beside Dominos, Chess (_Scacchi_) is often played in public in the

_caffès_; and there is one _caffè_ named _Dei Scacchi_, because it is

frequented by the best chess-players in Rome. Here matches are often

made, and admirable games are played.

Among the Roman boys the game of _Campana_ is also common. A

parallelogram is drawn upon the ground and subdivided into four squares,

which are numbered. At the top and bottom are two small semicircles, or

_bells_, thus:--

[Illustration]

Each of the players, having deposited his stake in the semicircle (_b_)

at the farthest end, takes his station at a short distance, and

endeavors to pitch some object, either a disk or a bit of _terracotta_,

or more generally a _baiocco_, into one of the compartments. If he lodge

it in the nearest bell, (_a_,) he pays a new stake into the pool; if

into the farthest bell, (_b_,) he takes the whole pool; if into either

of the other compartments, he takes one, two, three, or four of the

stakes, according to the number of the compartment. If he lodge on a

line, he is _abbrucciato_, as it is termed, and his play goes for

nothing. Among the boys, the pool is frequently filled with

buttons,--among the men, with _baiocchi_; but buttons or _baiocchi_ are

all the same to the players,--they are the representatives of luck or

skill.

But the game of games in Rome is the Lottery. This is under the

direction of the government, which, with a truly ecclesiastic regard for

its subjects, has organized it into a means of raising revenue. The

financial objection to this method of taxation is, that its hardest

pressure is upon the poorest classes; but the moral and political

objections are still stronger. The habit of gambling engendered by it

ruins the temper, depraves the morals, and keeps up a constant state of

excitement at variance with any settled and serious occupation. The

temptations to laziness which it offers are too great for any people

luxurious or idle by temperament; and the demon of Luck is set upon the

altar which should be dedicated to Industry. If one happy chance can

bring a fortune, who will spend laborious days to gain a competence? The

common classes in Rome are those who are most corrupted by the lottery;

and when they can neither earn nor borrow _baiocchi_ to play, they

strive to obtain them by beggary, cheating, and sometimes theft. The

fallacious hope that their ticket will some day bring a prize leads them

from step to step, until, having emptied their purses, they are tempted

to raise the necessary funds by any unjustifiable means. When you pay

them their wages or throw them a _buona-mano_, they instantly run to the

lottery-office to play it. Loss after loss does not discourage them. It

is always, "The next time they are to win,--there was a slight mistake

in their calculation before." Some good reason or other is always at

hand. If by chance one of them do happen to win a large sum, it is ten

to one that it will cost him his life,--that he will fall into a fit, or

drop in an apoplexy, on hearing the news. There is a most melancholy

instance of this in the very next house,--of a Jew made suddenly and

unexpectedly rich, who instantly became insane in consequence, and is

now the most wretched and melancholy spectacle that man can ever

become,--starving in the midst of abundance, and moving like a beast

about his house. But of all ill luck that can happen to the

lottery-gambler, the worst is to win a small prize. It is all over with

him from that time forward; into the great pit of the lottery everything

that he can lay his hands on is sure to go.

There has been some difference of opinion as to whether the lottery was

of later Italian invention, or dated back to the Roman Empire,--some

even contending that it was in existence in Egypt long before that

period; and several ingenious discussions may be found on this subject

in the journals and annals of the French _savans_. A strong claim has

been put forward for the ancient Romans, on the ground that Nero, Titus,

and Heliogabalus were in the habit of writing on bits of wood and shells

the names of various articles which they intended to distribute, and

then casting them to the crowd to be scrambled for.[A] On some of these

shells and billets were inscribed the names of slaves, precious vases,

costly dresses, articles of silver and gold, valuable beasts, etc.,

which became the property of the fortunate persons who secured the

billets and shells. On others were written absurd and useless articles,

which turned the laugh against the unfortunate finder. Some, for

instance, had inscribed upon them ten pieces of gold, and some ten

cabbages. Some were for one hundred bears, and some for one egg. Some

for five camels, and some for ten flies. In one sense, these were

lotteries, and the Emperors deserve all due credit for their invention.

But the lottery, according to its modern signification, is of Italian

origin, and had its birth in Upper Italy as early as the fourteenth or

fifteenth century. Here it was principally practised by the Venetians

and Genoese, under the name of _Borsa di Ventura_,--the prizes

consisting originally, not of money, but of merchandise of every

kind,--precious stones, pictures, gold and silver work, and similar

articles. The great difference between them and the ancient lotteries of

Heliogabalus and Nero was, that tickets were bought and prizes drawn.

The lottery soon came to be played, however, for money, and was

considered so admirable an invention, that it was early imported into

France, where Francis I., in 1539, granted letters-patent for the

establishment of one. In the seventeenth century, this "_infezione_," as

an old Italian writer calls it, was introduced into Holland and England,

and at a still later date into Germany. Those who invented it still

retain it; but those who adopted it have rejected it. After nearly three

centuries' existence in France, it was abolished on the 31st of

December, 1835. The last drawing was at Paris on the 27th of the same

month, when the number of players was so great that it became necessary

to close the offices before the appointed time, and one Englishman is

said to have gained a _quaterno_ of the sum of one million two hundred

thousand francs. When abolished in France, the government was drawing

from it a net revenue of twenty million francs.

In Italy the lottery was proscribed by Innocent XII., Benedict XIII.,

and Clement XII. But it was soon revived. It was not without vehement

opposers then as now, as may be seen by a little work published at Pisa

in the early part of the last century, entitled, "L'Inganno non

conosciuto, oppure non voluto conoscere, nell'Estrazione del Lotto."

Muratori, in 1696, calls it, in his "Annals of Italy," "_Inventione

dell' amara malizia per succiare il sangue dei malaccorti giuocatori_."

In a late number of the "Civiltà Cattolica," published at Rome by the

Jesuits, (the motto of which is "_Beatus Populus cujus Dominus Deus

est_,") there is, on the other hand, an elaborate and most Jesuitical

article, in which the lottery is defended with amusing skill. What

Christendom in general has agreed to consider immoral and pernicious in

its effects on a people seems, on the contrary, to the writer of this

article, to be highly moral and commendable.

The numbers which can be played are from one to ninety. Of these only

five are now drawn. Originally the numbers drawn were eight,

(_otto_,)--and it is said that the Italian name of this game, _lotto_,

was derived from this circumstance. The player may stake upon one, two,

three, four, or five numbers,--but no ticket can be taken for more than

five; and he may stake upon his ticket any sum, from one _baiocco_ up to

five _scudi_,--but the latter sum only in case he play upon several

chances on the same ticket. If he play one number, he may either play it

_al posto assegnato_, according to its place in the drawing, as first,

second, third, etc.,--or he may play it _senza posto_, without place, in

which case he wins, if the number come anywhere among the five drawn. In

the latter case, however, the prize is much less in proportion to the

sum staked. Thus, for one _baiocco_ staked _al posto assegnato_, a

_scudo_ may be won; but to gain a _scudo_ on a number _senza posto_,

seven _baiocchi_ must be played. A sum staked upon two numbers is called

an _ambo_,--on three, a _terno_,--on four, a _quaterno_,--and on five, a

_cinquino_; and of course the prizes increase in rapid proportion to the

numbers played,--the sum gained multiplying very largely on each

additional number. For instance, if two _baiocchi_ be staked on an

_ambo_, the prize is one _scudo_; but if the same sum be staked on a

_terno_, the prize is a hundred _scudi_. When an _ambo_ is played for,

the same two numbers may be played as single numbers, either _al posto_

or _senza posto_, and in such case one of the numbers alone may win. So,

also, a _terno_ may be played so as to include an _ambo_, and a

_quaterno_ so as to include a _terno_ and _ambo_, and a _cinquino_ so as

to include all. But whenever more than one chance is played for, the

price is proportionally increased. For a simple _terno_ the limit of

price is thirty-five pauls. The ordinary rule is to play for every

chance within the numbers taken; but the common people rarely attempt

more than a _terno_. If four numbers are played with all their chances,

they are reckoned as four _terni_, and paid for accordingly. If five

numbers are taken, the price is for five _terni_.

Where two numbers are played, there is always an augment to the nominal

prize of twenty per cent.; where three numbers are played, the augment

is of eighty per cent.; and from every prize is deducted ten per cent.,

to be devoted to the hospitals and the poor. The rule creating the

augments was decreed by Innocent XIII. Such is the rage for the lottery

in Rome, as well as in all the Italian States, and so great is the

number of tickets bought within the year, that this tax on the prizes

brings in a very considerable revenue for eleëmosynary purposes.

The lottery is a branch of the department of finance, and is under the

direction of a Monsignore. The tickets originally issue from one grand

central office in the Palazzo Madama; but there is scarcely a street in

Rome without some subsidiary and distributing office, which is easily

recognized, not only by its great sign of "_Prenditoria di Lotti_" over

the door, but by scores of boards set round the windows and doorway, on

which are displayed, in large figures, hundreds of combinations of

numbers for sale. The tickets sold here are merely purchased on

speculation for resale, and though it is rare that all are sold, yet, as

a small advance of price is asked on each ticket beyond what was given

at the original office, there is enough profit to support these shops.

The large show of placards would to a stranger indicate a very

considerable investment; yet, in point of fact, as the tickets rarely

cost more than a few _baioicchi_, the amount risked is small. No ticket

is available for a prize, unless it bear the stamp and signature of the

central office, as well as of the distributing shop, if bought in the

latter.

Every Saturday, at noon, the lottery is drawn in Rome, in the Piazza

Madama. Half an hour before the appointed time, the Piazza begins to be

thronged with ticket-holders, who eagerly watch a large balcony of the

sombre old Palazzo Madama, (built by the infamous Catharine de' Medici,)

where the drawing is to take place. This is covered by an awning and

colored draperies. In front, and fastened to the balustrade, is a glass

barrel, standing on thin brass legs and turned by a handle. Five or six

persons are in the balcony, making arrangements for the drawing. These

are the officials,--one of them being the government officer, and the

others persons taken at random, to supervise the proceedings. The chief

official first takes from the table beside him a slip of paper on which

a number is inscribed. He names it aloud, passes it to the next, who

verifies it and passes it on, until it has been subjected to the

examination of all. The last person then proclaims the number in a loud

voice to the populace below, folds it up, and drops it into the glass

barrel. This operation is repeated until every number from one to ninety

is passed, verified by all, proclaimed, folded, and dropped into the

barrel. The last number is rather sung than called, and with more

ceremony than all the rest. The crowd shout back from below. The bell

strikes noon. A blast of trumpets sounds from the balcony, and a boy

dressed in white robes advances from within, ascends the steps, and

stands high up before the people, facing the Piazza. The barrel is then

whirled rapidly round and round, so as to mix in inextricable confusion

all the tickets. This over, the boy lifts high his right hand, makes the

sign of the cross on his breast, then, waving his open hand in the air,

to show that nothing is concealed, plunges it into the barrel, and draws

out a number. This he hands to the official, who names it, and passes it

along the line of his companions. There is dead silence below, all

listening eagerly. Then, in a loud voice, the number is sung out by the

last official, "_Primo estratto, numero 14_," or whatever the number may

be. Then sound the trumpets again, and there is a rustle and buzz among

the crowd. All the five numbers are drawn with like ceremony, and all is

over. Within a surprisingly short space of time, these numbers are

exhibited in the long frames which are to be seen over the door of every

_Prenditoria di Lotti_ in Rome, and there they remain until the next

drawing takes place. The boy who does the drawing belongs to a college

of orphans, an admirable institution, at which children who have lost

both parents and are left helpless are lodged, cared for, and educated,

and the members of which are employed to perform this office in

rotation, receiving therefor a few _scudi_.

It will be seen from the manner in which the drawing of the lottery is

conducted, that no precaution is spared by the government to assure the

public of the perfect good faith and fairness observed in it. This is,

in fact, absolutely necessary in order to establish that confidence

without which its very object would be frustrated. But the Italians are

a very suspicious and jealous people, and I fear that there is less

faith in the uprightness of the government than in their own

watchfulness and the difficulty of deception. There can be little doubt

that no deceit is practised by the government, so far as the drawing is

concerned,--for it would be nearly impossible to employ it. Still there

are not wanting stories of fortunate coincidences which are singular and

interesting; one case, which I have every reason to believe authentic,

was related to me by a most trustworthy person, as being within his own

knowledge. A few years ago, the Monsignore who was at the head of the

lottery had occasion to diminish his household, and accordingly

dismissed an old servant who had been long in his palace. Often the old

man returned and asked for relief, and as often was charitably received.

But his visits at last became importunate, and the Monsignore

remonstrated. The answer of the servant was, "I have given my best years

to the service of your Eminence,--I am too old to labor,--what shall I

do?" The case was a hard one. His Eminence paused and reflected;--at

last he said, "Why not buy a ticket in the lottery?" "Ah!" was the

answer, "I have not even money to supply my daily needs. What you now

give me is all I have. If I risk it, I may lose it,--and that lost, what

can I do?" Still the Monsignore said, "Buy a ticket in the lottery."

"Since your Eminence commands me, I will," said the old man; "but what

numbers?" "Play on number so and so for the first drawing," was the

answer, "_e Dio ti benedica_!" The servant did as he was ordered, and,

to his surprise and joy, the first number drawn was his. He was a rich

man for life,--and his Eminence lost a troublesome dependant.

A capital story is told by the author of the article in the "Civiltà

Cattolica," which is to the point here, and which, even were it not told

on such respectable authority, bears its truth on the face of it. As

very frequently happens, a poor _bottegaio_, or shopkeeper, being

hard-driven by his creditors, went to his priest, an _uomo apostolico_,

and prayed him earnestly to give him three numbers to play in the

lottery.

"But how under heaven," says the innocent priest, "has it ever got into

your head that I can know the five numbers which are to issue in the

lottery?"

"_Eh! Padre mio!_ what will it cost you?" was the answer. "Just look at

me and my wretched family; if we do not pay our rent on Saturday, out we

go into the street. There is nothing left but the lottery, and you can

give us the three numbers that will set all right."

"Oh, there you are again! I am ready to do all I can to assist you, but

this matter of the lottery is impossible; and I must say, that your

folly, in supposing I can give you the three lucky numbers, does little

credit to your brains."

"Oh, no! no! do not say so, _Padre mio_! Give me a _terno_. It will be

like rain in May, or cheese on my maccaroni. On my word of honor, I'll

keep it secret. _Via!_ You, so good and charitable, cannot refuse me the

three numbers. Pray, content me this once."

"_Caro mio!_ I will give you a rule for always being content:--Avoid

Sin, think often on Death, and behave so as to deserve Paradise,--and

so"----

"_Basta! basta! Padre mio!_ That's enough. Thanks! thanks! God will

reward you."

And, making a profound reverence, off the _bottegaio_ rushes to his

house. There he takes down the "Libro del Sogni," calls into

consultation his wife and children, and, after a long and earnest

discussion and study, the three numbers corresponding to the terms Sin,

Death, and Paradise are settled upon, and away goes our friend to play

them in the lottery. Will you believe it? the three numbers are

drawn,--and the joy of the poor _bottegaio_ and his family may well be

imagined. But what you will not imagine is the persecution of the poor

_uomo apostolico_ which followed. The secret was all over town the next

day, and he was beset by scores of applicants for numbers. Vainly he

protested and declared that he knew nothing, and that the man's drawing

the right numbers was all chance. Every word he spoke turned into

numbers, and off ran his hearers to play them. He was like the girl in

the fairy story, who dropped pearls every time she spoke. The worst of

the imbroglio was, that in an hour the good priest had uttered words

equivalent to all the ninety numbers in the lottery, and the players

were all at loggerheads with each other. Nor did this persecution cease

for weeks, nor until those who had played the numbers corresponding to

his words found themselves, as the Italians say, with only flies in

their hands.

The stupidity of many of the common people in regard to these numbers is

wonderful. When the number drawn is next to the number they have, they

console themselves with thinking that they were within one of it,--as if

in such cases a miss were not as bad as a mile. But when the number

drawn is a multiple of the one they play, it is a sympathetic number,

and is next door to winning; and if the number come reversed,--as if,

having played 12, it come out 21,--he laughs with delight. "Eh, don't

you see, you stupid fellow," said the _speziale_ of a village one day to

a dunce of a _contadino_, of whose infallible _terno_ not a single

number had been drawn,--"Don't you see, in substance all your three

numbers have been drawn? and it's shameful in you to be discontented.

Here you have played 8--44--26, and instead of these have been drawn

7--11--62. Well! just observe! Your 8 is just within one point of being

7; your 44 is in substance 11, for 4 times 11 are 44 exactly; and your

26 is nothing more or less than precisely 62 reversed;--what would you

ask more?" And by his own mode of reasoning, the poor _contadino_ sees

as clearly as possible that he has really won,--only the difficulty is

that he cannot touch the prize without correcting the little variations.

_Ma, pazienza!_ he came so near this time, that he will be sure to win

the next,--and away he goes to hunt out more sympathetic numbers, and to

rejoice with his friends on coming so near winning.

Dreams of numbers are, of course, very frequent,--and are justly much

prized. Yet one must know how to use them, and be brave and bold, or the

opportunity is lost. I myself once dreamt of having gained a _terno_ in

the lottery, but was fool enough not to play it,--and in consequence

lost a prize, the very numbers coming up in the next drawing. The next

time I have such a dream, of course I shall play; but perhaps I shall be

too late, and only lose. And this recalls to my mind a story, which may

serve as a warning to the timid and an encouragement to the bold. An

Englishman, who had lived on bad terms with a very quarrelsome and

annoying wife, (according to his own account, of course,) had finally

the luck, I mean the misfortune, to lose her. He had lived long enough

in Italy, however, to say "_Pazienza_" and buried his sorrows and his

wife in the same grave. But, after the lapse of some time, his wife

appeared to him in a dream, and confessed her sins towards him during

her life, and prayed his forgiveness, and added, that in token of

reconciliation he must accept three numbers to play in the lottery,

which would certainly win a great prize. But the husband was obstinate,

and absolutely refused to follow the advice of a friend to whom he

recounted the odd dream, and who urged him to play the numbers. "Bah!"

he answered to this good counsel; "I know her too well;--she never meant

well to me during her life, and I don't believe she's changed now that

she's dead. She only means to play me a trick, and make me lose. But I'm

too old a bird to be taken with her chaff." "Better play them," said his

friend, and they separated. In the course of a week they met again. "By

the way," said the friend, "did you see that your three numbers came up

in the lottery this morning?" "The Devil they did! What a consummate

fool I was not to play them!" "You didn't play them?" "No!" "Well, I

did, and won a good round sum with them, too." So the obstinate husband,

mad at his ill luck, cursed himself for a fool, and had his curses for

his pains. That very night, however, his wife again appeared to him,

and, though she reproached him a little for his want of faith in her,

(no woman could be expected to forego such an opportunity, even though

she were dead,) yet she forgave him, and added,--"Think no more about it

now, for here are three more numbers, just as good." The husband, who

had eaten the bitter food of experience, was determined at all events

not to let his fortune slip again through his fingers, and played the

highest possible _terno_ in the lottery, and waited anxiously for the

next drawing. He could scarcely eat his breakfast for nervousness, that

morning,--but at last mid-day sounded, and the drawing took place, but

no one of his numbers came up. "Too late! taken in!" he cried. "Confound

her! she knew me better than I knew myself. She gave me a prize the

first time, because she knew I wouldn't play it; and, having so whet my

passions, she then gave me a blank the second time, because she knew I

would play it. I might have known better."

From the moment one lottery is drawn, the mind of the people is intent

on selecting numbers for the next. Nor is this an easy matter,--all

sorts of superstitions existing as to figures and numbers. Some are

lucky, some unlucky, in themselves,--some lucky only in certain

combinations, and some sympathetic with others. The chances, therefore,

must be carefully calculated, no number or combination being ever played

without profound consideration, and under advice of skilful friends.

Almost every event in life has a numerical signification; and such is

the reverence paid to dreams, that a large book exists of several

hundred pages, called "Libro dei Sogni," containing, besides various

cabala and mystical figures and lists of numbers which are

"sympathetic," with directions for their use, a dictionary of thousands

of objects with the numbers supposed to be represented by each, as well

as rules for interpreting into numbers all dreams in which these objects

appear,--and this book is the constant _vade-mecum_ of a true

lottery-player. As Boniface lived, ate, and slept on his ale, so do the

Romans on their numbers. The very children "lisp in numbers, for the

numbers come," and the fathers run immediately to play them. Accidents,

executions, deaths, apoplexies, marriages, assassinations, births,

anomalies of all kinds, become auguries and enigmas of numbers. A

lottery-gambler will count the stabs on a dead body, the drops of blood

from a decollated head, the passengers in an overturned coach, the

wrinkles in the forehead of a new-born child, the gasps of a person

struck by apoplexy, the day of the month and the hour and the minute of

his death, the _scudi_ lost by a friend, the forks stolen by a thief,

anything and everything, to play them in the lottery. If a strange dream

is dreamed,--as of one being in a desert on a camel, which turns into a

rat, and runs down into the Maelström to hide,--the "Libro dei Sogni" is

at once consulted, the numbers for desert, rat, camel, and Maelström are

found and combined, and the hopeful player waits in eager expectation of

a prize. Of course, dream after dream of particular numbers and

combinations occurs,--for the mind bent to this subject plays freaks in

the night, and repeats contortedly the thoughts of the day,--and these

dreams are considered of special value. Sometimes, when a startling

incident takes place with a special numerical signification, the run

upon the numbers indicated becomes so great, that the government, which

is always careful to guard against any losses on its own part, refuses

to allow more than a certain amount to be played on them, cancels the

rest, and returns the price of the tickets.

Sometimes, in passing through the streets, one may see a crowd collected

about a man mounted upon a chair or stool. Fixed to a stand at his side

or on the back of his chair is a glass bottle, in which are two or three

hollow manikins of glass, so arranged as to rise and sink by pressure of

the confined air. The neck of the bottle is cased in a tin box which

surmounts it and has a movable cover. This personage is a charlatan,

with an apparatus for divining lucky numbers for the lottery. The "soft

bastard Latin" runs off his tongue in an uninterrupted stream of talk,

while he offers on a waiter to the bystanders a number of little folded

papers containing a _pianeta_, or augury, on which are printed a

fortune and a _terno_. "Who will buy a _pianeta_," he cries, "with the

numbers sure to bring him a prize? He shall have his fortune told him

who buys. Who does not need counsel must surely be wise. Here's Master

Tommetto, who never tells lies. And here is his brother, still smaller

in size. And Madama Medea Plutonia to advise. They'll write you a

fortune and bring you a prize for a single _baiocco_. No creature so

wise as not to need counsel. A fool I despise, who keeps his _baiocco_

and loses his prize. Who knows what a fortune he'll get till he tries?

Time's going, Signori,--who buys? who buys?" And so on by the yard.

Meantime the crowd about him gape, stare, wonder, and finally put their

hands to their pockets, out with their _baiocchi_, and buy their papers.

Each then makes a mark on his paper to verify it, and returns it to the

charlatan. After several are thus collected, he opens the cover of the

tin box, deposits them therein with a certain ceremony, and commences an

exhortatory discourse to the manikins in the bottle,--two of whom,

Maestro Tommetto and his brother, are made to resemble little black

imps, while Madama Medea Plutonia is dressed _alla Francese_. "_Fa una

reverenza, Maestro Tommetto!_" "Make a bow, Master Tommetto!" he now

begins. The puppet bows. "_Ancora!_" "Again!" Again he bows. "_Lesto,

Signore, un piccolo giretto!_" "Quick, Sir, a little turn!" And round

whirls the puppet. "Now, up, up, to make a registry on the ticket! and

do it conscientiously, Master Tommetto!" And up the imp goes, and

disappears through the neck of the bottle. Then comes a burst of

admiration at his cleverness from the charlatan. Then, turning to the

brother imp, he goes through the same _rôle_ with him. "And now, Madama

Medea, make a reverence, and follow your husband! Quick, quick, a little

_giretto_!" And up she goes. A moment after, down they all come again at

his call; he lifts the cover of the box; cries, "_Quanto sei caro,

Tommetto!_" and triumphantly exhibits the papers, each with a little

freshly written inscription, and distributes them to the purchasers. Now

and then he takes from his pocket a little bottle containing a mixture

of the color of wine, and a paper filled with some sort of powder, and,

exclaiming, "_Ah! tu hai fame e sete. Bisogna che ti dia da bere e

mangiare_," pours them into the tin cup.

It is astonishing to see how many of these little tickets a clever

charlatan will sell in an hour, and principally on account of the

lottery-numbers they contain. The fortunes are all the stereotype thing,

and almost invariably warn you to be careful lest you should be

"_tradito_," or promise you that you shall not be "_tradito_"; for the

idea of betrayal is the corner-stone of every Italian's mind.

In not only permitting, but promoting the lottery, Italy is certainly

far behind England, France, and America. This system no longer exists

with us, except in the disguised shape of gift-enterprises, art-unions,

and that unpleasant institution of mendicant robbery called the raffle,

and employed specially by those "who have seen better days." But a fair

parallel to this rage of the Italians for the lottery is to be found in

the love of betting, which is a national characteristic of the English.

I do not refer to the bets upon horseflesh at Ascot, Epsom, and

Goodwood, by which fortunes change owners in an hour and so many men are

ruined, but rather to the general habit of betting upon any and every

subject to settle a question, no matter how trivial, for which the

Englishman is everywhere renowned on the Continent. Betting is with most

other nations a form of speech, but with Englishmen it is a serious

fact, and no one will be long in their company without finding an

opinion backed up by a bet. It would not be very difficult to parallel

those cases where the Italians disregard the solemnity of death, in

their eagerness for omens of lottery-numbers, with equally reprehensible

and apparently heartless cases of betting in England. Let any one who

doubts this examine the betting-books at White's and Brookes's. In them

he will find a most startling catalogue of bets,--some so bad as to

justify the good parson in Walpole's story, who declared that they were

such an impious set in this respect at White's, that, "if the last trump

were to sound, they would bet puppet-show against judgment." Let one

instance suffice. A man, happening to drop down at the door of White's,

was lifted up and carried in. He was insensible, and the question was,

whether he were dead or not. Bets were at once given and taken on both

sides, and, it being proposed to bleed him, those who had taken odds

that he was dead protested, on the ground that the use of the lancet

would affect the fairness of the bet.[B] In the matter of play, things

have now much changed since the time when Mr. Thynne left the club at

White's in disgust, because he had won only twelve hundred guineas in

two months. There is also a description of one of Fox's mornings, about

the year 1783, which Horace Walpole has left us, and the truth of which

Lord Holland admits, which it would be well for those to read who

measure out hard justice to the Italians for their love of the lottery.

Let us be fair. Italy is in these respects behind England in morals and

practice by nearly a century; but it is as idle to argue

hard-heartedness in an Italian who counts the drops of blood at a

beheading as to suppose that the English have no feeling because in the

bet we have mentioned there was a protest against the use of the lancet,

or to deny kindliness to a surgeon who lectures on structure and disease

while he removes a cancer.

Vehement protests against the lottery and all gaming are as often

uttered in Italy as elsewhere; and among them may be cited this eloquent

passage from one of the most powerful of her modern writers. Guerrazzi,

in the thirteenth chapter of "L'Assedio di Firenze," speaking on this

subject, says, "You would in vain seek anything more fatal to men than

play. It brings ignorance, poverty, despair, and at last crime....

Gambling (the wicked gambling of the lottery) forms a precious jewel in

the crown of princes."

In a recent work, by the same author, called "L'Asino," occurs the

following indignant and satirical passage, which, for the sake of the

story, if for no other reason, deserves a place here:--

"In our search for the history of human perfection, shall I speak of

Naples or Rome? Alas! At the contemplation of such misery, in vain you

constrain your lips to smile; they pout, and the uncalled tears stream

over your face. Pity, in these most unhappy countries, blinded with

weeping and hoarse with vain supplication, when she has no more voice to

cry out to heaven, flies thither, and, kneeling before the throne of

God, with outstretched hand, and proffering no word, begs that He will

look at her.

"Behold, O Lord, and judge whether our sins were remitted, or whether

the sins of others exceed ours.

"Is not Tuscany the garden of Italy? So say the Tuscans; and the

Florentines add, that Florence is the Athens of Tuscany. Truly, both

seem beautiful. Let us search in Tuscany. At Barberino di Mugello, in

the midst of an olive-grove is a cemetery, where the vines, which have

taken root in the outer walls and climbed over their summit, fall into

the inclosed space, as if they wished to garland Death with vine-leaves

and make it smile; over the gate, strange guardians of the tombs, two

fig-trees give their shadow and fruit to recompense the piety of the

passers-by, giving a fig in exchange for a _De Profundis_; while the

ivy, stretching its wanton arms over the black cross, endeavors to

clothe the austere sign of the Redemption with the jocund leaves of

Bacchus, and recalls to your mind the mad Phryne who vainly tempted

Xenocrates. A beautiful cemetery, by my faith! a cemetery to arouse in

the body an intense desire to die, if only for the pleasure of being

buried there. Now observe. Look into my magic-lantern. What figures do

you see? A priest with a pick; after him a peasant with a spade; and

behind them a woman with a hatchet: the priest holds a corpse by the

hair; the peasant, with one blow, strikes off its head; then, all things

being carefully rearranged, priest, peasant, and woman, after thrusting

the head into a sack, return as they came. Attention now, for I change

the picture. What figures are these that now appear? A kitchen; a fire

that has not its superior, even in the Inferno; and a caldron, where the

hissing and boiling water sends up its bubbles. Look about and what do

you see? Enter the priest, the peasant, and the housewife, and in a

moment empty a sack into the caldron. Lo! a head rolls out, dives into

the water, and floats to the surface, now showing its nape and now its

face. The Lord help us! It is an abominable spectacle; this poor head,

with its ashy, open lips, seems to say, Give me again my Christian

burial! That is enough. Only take note that in Tuscany, in the beautiful

middle of the nineteenth century, a sepulchre was violated, and a

sacrilege committed, to obtain from the boiled head of a corpse good

numbers to play in the lottery! And, by way of corollary, add this to

your note, that in Rome, _Caput Mundi_, and in Tuscany, Garden of Italy,

it is prohibited, under the severest penalties, to play at _Faro_,

_Zecchinetto_, _Banco-Fallito_, _Rossa e Nera_, and other similar games

at cards, where each party may lose the whole or half the stakes, while

the government encourage the play of the Lottery, by which, out of one

hundred and twenty chances of winning, eighty are reserved for the bank,

and forty or so allowed to the player. Finally, take note that in Rome,

_Caput Mundi_, and in Tuscany, Garden of Italy, _Faro_, _Zecchinetto_,

_Rossa e Nera_ were prohibited, as acknowledged pests of social

existence and open death to honest customs,--as a set-off for which

deprivation, the game of the Lottery is still kept on foot."

The following extraordinary story, improbable as it seems, is founded

upon fact, and was clearly proved, on judicial investigation, a few

years since. It is well known in Tuscany, and forms the subject of a

satirical narrative ("Il Sortilegio") by Giusti, a modern Tuscan poet,

of true fire and genius, who has lashed the vices of his country in

verses remarkable for point, idiom, and power. According to him, the

method of divination resorted to in this case was as follows:--The

sorcerer who invented it ordered his dupes to procure, either at dawn or

twilight, ninety dry beans, called _ceci_, and upon each of these to

write one of the ninety numbers drawn in the lottery, with an ink made

of pitch and lard, which would not be affected by water. They were then

to sharpen a knife, taking care that he who did so should touch no one

during the operation; and after a day of fasting, they were to dig up at

night a body recently dead, and, having cut off the head and removed the

brain, they were to count the beans thrice, and to shake them thrice,

and then, on their knees, to put them one by one into the skull. This

was then to be placed in a caldron of water and set on the fire to boil.

As soon as the water boiled violently, the head would be rolled about so

that some of the beans would be ejected, and the first three which were

thus thrown to the surface would be a sure _terno_ for the lottery. The

wretched dupes added yet another feature of superstition to insure the

success of this horrible device. They selected the head of their curate,

who had recently died,--on the ground that, as he had studied algebra,

he was a great cabalist, and any numbers from his head would be sure to

draw a prize.

Some one, I have no doubt, will here be anxious to know the numbers that

bubbled up to the surface; but I am very sorry to say that I cannot

gratify their laudable curiosity, for the interference of the police

prevented the completion of the sorcery. So the curious must be content

to consult some other cabalist,--

"sull'arti segrete

Di menar la Fortuna per il naso,

Pescando il certo nel gran mar del Caso."

Despite a wide-spread feeling among the higher classes against the

lottery, it still continues to exist, for it has fastened itself into

the habits and prejudices of many; and an institution which takes such

hold of the passions of the people, and has lived so long, dies hard.

Nor are there ever wanting specious excuses for the continuance of this,

as of other reprobated systems,--of which the strongest is, that its

abolition would not only deprive of their present means of subsistence

numbers of persons employed in its administration, but would cut off

certain charities dependent upon it, amounting to no less than forty

thousand _scudi_ annually. Among these may be mentioned the dowry of

forty _scudi_ which is given out of the profits received by the

government at the drawing of every lottery to some five or six of the

poor girls of Rome. The list of those who would profit by this charity

is open to all, and contains thousands of names. The first number drawn

in the lottery decides the fortunate persons; and, on the subsequent

day, each receives a draft for forty _scudi_ on the government, payable

on the presentation of the certificate of marriage. On the accession of

the present Pope, an attempt was made to abolish the system; but these

considerations, among others, had weight enough to prevent any changes.

Though the play is generally small, yet sometimes large fortunes are

gained. The family of the Marchese del Cinque, for instance, derive

their title and fortune from the luck of an ancestor who played and won

the highest prize, a _Cinquino_. With the money thus acquired he

purchased his marquisate, and took the title _del Cinque_, "of the

Five," in reference to the lucky five numbers. The Villa Quaranta Cinque

in Rome derives its name from a similar circumstance. A lucky Monsignore

played the single number of forty-five, _al posto_, and with his

winnings built the villa, to which the Romans, always addicted to

nicknames, gave the name of _Quaranta Cinque_. This love of nicknames,

or _soprannomi_, as they are called, is, by the way, an odd peculiarity

of the Italians, and it often occurs that persons are known only

thereby. Examples of these, among the celebrated names of Italy, are so

frequent as to form a rule in favor of the surname rather than of the

real name, and in many cases the former has utterly obliterated the

latter. Thus, Squint Eye, (_Guercino_,) Dirty Tom, (_Masaccio_,) The

Little Dyer, (_Tintoretto_,) Great George, (_Giorgione_,) The

Garland-Maker, (_Ghirlandaio_,) Luke of the Madder, (_Luca della

Robbia_,) The Little Spaniard, (_Spagnoletto_,) and The Tailor's Son,

(_Del Sarto_,) would scarcely be known under their real names of

Barbieri, Tommaso, Guido, Robusti, Barbarelli, Corradi, Ribera, and

Vannuchi. The list might be very much enlarged, but let it suffice to

add the following well-known names, all of which are nicknames derived

from their places of birth: Perugino, Veronese, Aretino, Pisano, Giulio

Romano, Correggio, Parmegiano.

The other day a curious instance of this occurred to me in taking the

testimony of a Roman coachman. On being called upon to give the names of

some of his companions, with whom he had been in daily and intimate

intercourse for more than two years, he could give only their

_soprannomi_; their real names he did not know, and had never heard. A

little, gay, odd genius, whom I took into my service during a

_villeggiatura_ at Siena, would not answer to his real name, Lorenzo,

but remonstrated on being so called, and said he was only _Pipetta_,

(The Little Pipe,) a nickname given to him when a child, from his

precocity in smoking, and of which he was as tenacious as if it were a

title of honor. "You prefer, then, to be called Pipetta?" I asked.

"_Felicissimo! sì_," was his answer. Not a foreigner comes to Rome that

his name does not "suffer a sea-change into something rich and

strange." Our break-jaw Saxon names are discarded, and a new christening

takes place. One friend I had who was called _Il Malinconico_,--another,

_La Barbarossa_,--another, _Il bel Signore_; but generally they are

called after the number of the house or the name of the street in which

they live,--_La Signora bella Bionda di Palazzo Albani_,--_Il Signore

Quattordici Capo le Case_,--_Monsieur_ and _Madama Terzo Piano, Corso_.

But to return from this digression.--At every country festival may be

seen a peculiar form of the lottery called _Tombola_; and in the notices

of these _festas_, which are always placarded over the walls of Rome for

weeks before they take place, the eye will always be attracted first by

the imposing word _Tombola_, printed in the largest and blackest of

letters. This is, in fact, the characteristic feature of the _festa_,

and attracts large numbers of _contadini_. As in the ordinary lottery,

only ninety numbers are played. Every ticket contains blank spaces for

fifteen numbers, which are inserted by the purchaser, and registered

duly at the office or booth where the ticket is bought. The price of

tickets in any single _Tombola_ is uniform; but in different _Tombolas_

it varies, of course, according to the amount of the prizes. These are

generally five, namely,--the _Ambo_, _Terno_, _Quaterno_, _Cinquino_,

and _Tombola_, though sometimes a second _Tombola_ or _Tomboletta_ is

added. The drawing takes place in precisely the same manner as in the

ordinary lottery, but with more ceremony. A large staging, with a

pavilion, is erected, where the officers who are to superintend the

drawing stand. In the centre is a glass vase, in which the numbers are

placed after having been separately verified and proclaimed, and a boy

gayly dressed draws them. All the ninety numbers are drawn; and as each

issues, it is called out, and exhibited on a large card. Near by stands

a large framework, elevated so as to be visible to all, with ninety

divisions corresponding to the ninety numbers, and on this, also, every

number is shown as soon as it is drawn. The first person who has upon

his ticket two drawn numbers gains an _Ambo_, which is the smallest

prize. Whoever first has three numbers drawn gains a _Terno_; and so on

with the _Quaterno_ and _Cinquino_. The _Tombola_, which is the great

prize, is won by whoever first has his whole fifteen numbers drawn. As

soon as any one finds two of the drawn numbers on his ticket, he cries,

"_Ambo_," at the top of his lungs. A flag is then raised on the

pavilion, the band plays, and the game is suspended, while the claimant

at once makes his way to the judges on the platform to present his

ticket for examination. No sooner does the cry of "_Ambo_," "_Terno_,"

"_Quaterno_," take place, than there is a great rustle all around.

Everybody looks out for the fortunate person, who is immediately to be

seen running through the parting crowd, which opens before him, cheering

him as he goes, if his appearance be poor and needy, and greeting him

with sarcasms, if he be apparently well to do in the world. Sometimes

there are two or three claimants for the same prize, in which case it is

divided among them. The _Ambo_ is soon taken, and there is little room

for a mistake; but when it comes to the _Quaterno_ or _Cinquino_,

mistakes are very common, and the claimant is almost always saluted with

chaff and jests. After his ticket has been examined, if he have won, a

placard is exhibited with _Ambo_, _Terno_, _Quaterno_ on it, as the case

may be. But if he have committed an error, down goes the flag, and, amid

a burst of laughter, jeering, whistling, screaming, and catcalls, the

disappointed claimant sneaks back and hides himself in the excited

crowd. At a really good _Tombola_, where the prizes are high, there is

no end of fun and gayety among the people. They stand with their tickets

in their hands, congratulating each other ironically, as they fail to

find the numbers on them, paying all sorts of absurd compliments to each

other and the drawer, offering to sell out their chances at enormous

prices when they are behindhand, and letting off all sorts of squibs

and jests, not so excellent in themselves as provocative of laughter. If

the wit be little, the fun is great,--and, in the excitement of

expectation, a great deal of real Italian humor is often ventilated.

Sometimes, at the country fairs, the fun is rather slow, particularly

where the prizes are small; but on exciting occasions, there is a

constant small fire of jests, which is very amusing.

These _Tombole_ are sometimes got up with great pomp. That, for

instance, which sometimes takes place in the Villa Borghese is one of

the most striking spectacles which can be seen in Rome. At one end of

the great open-air amphitheatre is erected a large pavilion, flanked on

either side with covered _logge_ or _palchi_, festooned with yellow and

white,--the Papal colors,--adorned with flags, and closed round with

rich old arrases all pictured over with Scripture stories. Beneath the

central pavilion is a band. Midway down the amphitheatre, on either

side, are two more _logge_, similarly draped, where two more bands are

stationed,--and still another at the opposite end, for the same purpose.

The _logge_ which flank the pavilion are sold by ticket, and filled with

the richer classes. Three great stagings show the numbers as they are

drawn. The pit of the amphitheatre is densely packed with a motley

crowd. Under the ilexes and noble stone-pines that show their dark-green

foliage against the sky, the helmets and swords of cavalry glitter as

they move to and fro. All around on the green slopes are the

people,--soldiers, _contadini_, priests, mingled together,--and

thousands of gay dresses and ribbons and parasols enliven the mass. The

four bands play successively as the multitude gathers. They have already

arrived in tens of thousands, but the game has not yet begun, and

thousands are still flocking to see it. All the gay equipages are on the

outskirts, and through the trees and up the avenues stream the crowds on

foot. As we stand in the centre of the amphitheatre and look up, we get

a faint idea of the old Roman gatherings when Rome emptied itself to

join in the games at the Colosseum. Row upon row they stand, a mass of

gay and swarming life. The sunlight flashes over them, and blazes on the

rich colors. The tall pines and dark ilexes shadow them here and there;

over them is the soft blue dome of the Italian sky. They are gathered

round the _villetta_,--they throng the roof and balconies,--they crowd

the stone steps,--they pack the green oval of the amphitheatre's pit.

The ring of cymbals, the clarion of trumpets, and the clash of brazen

music vibrate in the air. All the world is abroad to see, from the

infant in arms to the oldest inhabitant. _Monsignori_ in purple

stockings and tricornered hats, _contadini_ in gay reds and crimsons,

cardinals in scarlet. Princes, shopkeepers, beggars, foreigners, all

mingle together; while the screams of the vendors of cigars,

pumpkin-seeds, cakes, and lemonade are everywhere heard over the

suppressed roar of the crowd. As you walk along the outskirts of the

mass, you may see Monte Gennaro's dark peak looking over the Campagna,

and all the Sabine hills trembling in a purple haze,--or, strolling down

through the green avenues, you may watch the silver columns of fountains

as they crumble in foam and plash in their mossy basins,--or gather

masses of the sweet Parma violet and other beautiful wild-flowers.

The only other games among the modern Romans, which deserve particular

notice from their peculiarity, are those of Cards. In an Italian pack

there are only forty cards,--the eight, nine, and ten of the French and

English cards having no existence. The suits also have different signs

and names, and, instead of hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds, they are

called _coppe_, _spade_, _bastoni_, and _denari_,--all being of the same

color, and differing entirely in form from our cards. The _coppe_ are

cups or vases; the _spade_ are swords; the _bastoni_ are veritable clubs

or bludgeons; and the _denari_ are coins. The games are still more

different from ours than the cards, and they are legion in number. There

are _Briscola_, _Tresette_, _Calabresella_, _Banco-Fallito_, _Rossa e

Nera_, _Scaraccoccia_, _Scopa_, _Spizzica_, _Faraone_, _Zecchinetto_,

_Mercante in Fiera_, _La Bazzica_, _Ruba-Monte_, _Uomo-Nero_, _La

Paura_, and I know not how many others,--but they are recorded and

explained in no book, and are only to be picked up orally. Wherever you

go, on _festa_-day, you will find persons playing cards. At the common

_osterias_, before the doors or on the soiled tables within, on the

ruins of the Cæsars' palaces and in the Temple of Peace, on the stone

tables in the _vigna_, on the walls along the public roads, on the

uncarved blocks of marble in front of the sculptors' studios, in the

antechambers or gateways of palaces,--everywhere, cards are played.

Every _contadino_ has a pack in his pocket, with the flavor of the soil

upon it. The playing is ordinarily for very low sums, often for nothing

at all. But there are some games which are purely games of luck, and

dangerous. Some of these, as _Rossa e Nera_, _Banco-Fallito_, and

_Zecchinetto_, though prohibited by the government, are none the less

favorite games in Rome, particularly among those who play for money.

_Zecchinetto_ may be played by any number of persons, after the

following manner:--The dealer, who plays against the whole table, deals

to each player one card. The next card is then turned up as a trump.

Each player then makes his bet on the card dealt to him, and places his

money on it. The dealer then deals to the table the other cards in

order, and any of the players may bet on them as they are thrown down.

If a card of the number of that bet on issue before a card corresponding

to the number of the trump, the dealer wins the stake on that card; but

whenever a card corresponding to the trump issues, the player wins on

every card on which he has bet. When the banker or dealer loses at once,

the bank "_fa toppa_," and the deal passes, but not otherwise. Nothing

can be more simple than this game, and it is just as dangerous as it is

simple, and as exciting as it is dangerous. A late Roman _principessa_

is said to have been passionately fond of it, and to have lost

enormously by it. The story runs, that, while passing the evening at a

friend's house, after losing ten thousand _scudi_ at one sitting, she

staked her horses and carriage, which were at the door waiting to take

her home, and lost them also. She then wrote a note to the prince, her

husband, saying that she had lost her carriage and horses at

_Zecchinetto_, and wished others to be sent for her. To which he

answered, that she might return on foot,--which she was obliged to do.

This will serve at least as a specimen of the games of chance played by

the Romans at cards. Of the more innocent games, _Briscola_, _Tresette_,

and _Scaraccoccia_ are the favorites among the common people. And the

first of these may not be uninteresting, as being, perhaps, the most

popular of all. It is played by either two or four persons. The _Fante_

(or Knave) counts as two; the _Carallo_ (equal to our Queen) as three;

the _Rè_ (King) as four; the Three-spot as ten; and the Ace as eleven.

Three cards are dealt to each person, and after the deal the next card

is turned as trump, or _Briscola_. Each plays, and, after one card all

round is played, its place is supplied by a new deal of one card to

each. Every card of the trump-suit takes any card of the other suits.

Each player takes as many counting-cards as he can, and, at the end of

the game, he who counts the most wins,--the account being made according

to the value of the cards, as stated above.

[To be continued.]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] See Dessault, _Traité de la Passion du Jeu_.

[B] Even while I am writing these notes, I find almost the same incident

recorded as a "modern instance," in a recent work by Lieutenant-Colonel

Addison, entitled _Traits and Stories of Anglo-Indian Life_; but,

despite the authority of Colonel Addison, I cannot but suspect that he

has simply changed the _venue_, and that his story is but a

_rifacimento_ of the actual case alluded to above.

THE AMBER GODS.

[Concluded.]

Papa made Mr. Dudley stay and dine, and of course we were almost bored

to death, when in came Rose again, stealing behind Lu's chair and

showering her in the twilight with a rain of May-flowers.

"Now you'll have to gather them again," he said.

"Oh, how exquisite! how delicious! how I thank you!" she exclaimed,

without disturbing one, however.

"You won't touch them again? Then I must," he added.

"No! no! Mr. Rose!" I cried. "I'll pick them up and take toll."

"Don't touch them!" said Lu, "they're so sweet!"

"Yes," he murmured lower, "they're like you. I always said so, you

remember."

"Oh, yes! and every May-day but the last you have brought them to me."

"Have you the trailing-arbutus there?" asked Mr. Dudley.

"No," returned Rose.

"I thought I detected strawberries," submitted the other,--"a pleasant

odor which recalls childhood to memory."

For some noses all sweet scents are lumped in one big strawberry;

clovers, or hyacinths, or every laden air indifferently, they still

sniff strawberries. Commonplace things!

"It's a sign of high birth to track strawberry-beds where no fruit is,

Mr. Dudley," said I.

"Very true, Miss Willoughby. I was born pretty high up in the Green

Mountains."

"And so keep your memory green?"

"Strawberries in June," said Rose, good-naturedly. "But fruit out of

season is trouble out of reason, the Dream-Book says. It's May now, and

these are its blossoms."

"Everybody makes such a fuss about ground-laurel!" said I. "I don't see

why, I'm sure. They're never perfect. The leaf is hideous,--a stupid

duenna! You get great green leaves, and the flowers all white; you get

deep, rosy flowers, and the leaves are all brown and bitten. They're

neither one thing nor another. They're just like heliotropes,--no bloom

at all, only scent. I've torn up myriads, to the ten stamens in their

feathered case, to find where that smell comes from,--that is perfectly

delicious,--and I never could. They are a cheat."

"Have you finished your tirade?" asked Rose, indifferently.

"I don't believe you mean so," murmured Lu. "They have a color of their

own, almost human, infantine; and when you mass them, the tone is more

soft and mellow than a flute. Everybody loves May-flowers."

"Just about. I despise flutes. I like bassoons."

"They are prophets of apple-blossoms."

"Which brings them at once into the culinary."

"They are not very showy," said Mr. Dudley; "but when we remember the

Fathers"----

"There's nothing like them," said Rose, gently, as he knelt by Lu,

slowly putting them into order; "nothing but pure, clear things; they're

the fruit of snowflakes, the firstlings of the year. When one thinks how

sweetly they come from their warm coverts and look into this cold,

breezy sky so unshrinkingly, and from what a soil they gather such a

wealth of simple beauty, one feels ashamed."

"Climax worthy of the useless things!" said I.

"The moment in which first we are thoroughly ashamed, Miss Willoughby,

is the sovereign one of our life. Useless things? They are worth king

and bishop. Every year, weariness and depression melt away when atop of

the seasons' crucible boil these little bubbles. Isn't everybody better

for lavishing love? And no one merely likes these; whoever cares at all

loves entirely. We always take and give resemblances or sympathies from

any close connection, and so these are in their way a type of their

lovers. What virtue is in them to distil the shadow of the great pines,

that wave layer after layer with a grave rhythm over them,

into this delicate tint, I wonder. They have so decided an

individuality,--different there from hot-house belles;--fashion strips

us of our characteristics"----

"You needn't turn to me for illustration of exotics," said I.

He threw me a cluster, half-hidden in its green towers, and went on,

laying one by one and bringing out little effects.

"The sweetest modesty clings to them, which Alphonse Karr denies to the

violet, so that they are almost out of place in a drawing-room; one

ought to give them there the shelter of their large, kind leaves."

"Hemlock's the only wear," said Louise.

"Or last year's scarlet blackberry triads. Vines together," he

suggested.

"But sometimes they forget their nun-like habit," she added, "put on a

frolicsome mood, and clamber out and flush all the deep ruts of the

carriage-road in Follymill woods, you remember."

"Penance next year," said I.

"No, no; you are not to bring your old world into my new," objected

Rose. "Perhaps they ran out so to greet the winter-worn mariners of

Plymouth, and have been pursued by the love of their descendants ever

since, they getting charier. Just remember how they grow. Why, you'd

never suspect a flower there, till, happening to turn up a leaf, you're

in the midst of harvest. You may tramp acres in vain, and within a

stone's throw they've been awaiting you. There's something very

charming, too, about them in this,--that when the buds are set, and at

last a single blossom starts the trail, you plucking at one end of the

vine, your heart's delight may touch the other a hundred miles away.

Spring's telegraph. So they bind our coast with this network of flower

and root."

"By no means," I asserted. "They grow in spots."

"Pshaw! I won't believe it. They're everywhere just the same, only

underground preparing their little witnesses, whom they send out where

most needed. You don't suppose they find much joy in the fellowship of

brown pine pins and sad, gray mosses, do you? Some folks say they don't

grow away from the shore; but I've found them, I'm sorry to say, up in

New Hampshire."

"Why sorry?" asked Lu.

"Oh, I like it best that they need our sea. They're eminently choice for

this hour, too, when you scarcely gather their tint,--that tint, as if

moonlight should wish to become a flower,--but their fragrance is an

atmosphere all about you. How genuinely spicy it is! It's the very

quintessence of those regions all whose sweetness exudes in

sun-saturated balsams,--the very breath of pine woods and salt sea

winds. How could it live away from the sea?"

"Why, Sir," said Mr. Dudley, "you speak as if it were a creature!"

"A hard, woody stem, a green, robust leaf, a delicate, odorous flower,

Mr. Dudley, what is it all but an expression of New England character?"

"Doxology!" said I.

"Now, Miss Louise, as you have made me atone for my freedom, the task

being done, let me present them in form."

"I'm sure she needn't praise them," said I.

She didn't.

"I declared people make a great fuss over them," I continued. "And you

prove it. You put me in mind of a sound, to be heard where one gets

them,--a strange sound, like low, distant thunder, and it's nothing but

the drum of a little partridge! a great song out of nothing.--Bless me!

what's that?"

"Oh, the fireworks!" said Lu. And we all thronged to the windows.

"It's very good of your uncle to have them," said Rose. "What a crowd

from the town! Think of the pyrotechnics among comets and aërolites some

fellows may have! It's quite right, too, to make our festivals with

light; it's the highest and last of all things; we never can carry our

imaginations beyond light"----

"Our imaginations ought to carry us," said Lu.

"Come," I said, "you can play what pranks you please with the little

May; but light is my province, my absorption; let it alone."

It grew quite dark, interrupted now and then by the glare of rockets;

but at last a stream of central fire went out in a slow rain of

countless violets, reflected with pale blue flashes in the river below,

and then the gloom was unbroken. I saw them, in that long, dim gleam,

standing together at a window. Louise, her figure almost swaying as if

to some inaudible music, but her face turned to him with such a steady

quiet. Ah, me! what a tremulous joy, what passion, and what search, lit

those eyes! But you know that passion means suffering, and, tracing it

in the original through its roots, you come to pathos, and still

farther, to lamentation, I've heard. But he was not looking down at her,

only out and away, paler than ever in the blue light, sad and resolved.

I ordered candles.

"Sing to me, Louise," said Rose, at length. "It is two years since I

heard you."

"Sing 'What's a' the steer, kimmer,'" I said. But instead, she gave the

little ballad, 'And bring my love again, for he lies among the moors.'

Rose went and leaned over the pianoforte while she sang, bending and

commanding her eyes. He seemed to wish to put himself where he was

before he ever left her, to awaken everything lovely in her, to bring

her before him as utterly developed as she might be,--not only to afford

her, but to force upon her every chance to master him. He seemed to wish

to love, I thought.

"Thank you," he said, as she ceased. "Did you choose it purposely,

Louise?"

Lu sang very nicely, and, though I dare say she would rather not then,

when Mr. Dudley asked for the "Vale of Avoca" and the "Margin of

Zürich's Fair Waters," she gave them just as kindly. Altogether, quite a

damp programme. Then papa came in, bright and blithe, whirled me round

in a _pas de deux_, and we all very gay and hilarious slipped into the

second of May.

Dear me! how time goes! I must hurry.--After that, _I_ didn't see so

much of Rose; but he met Lu everywhere, came in when I was out, and, if

I returned, he went, perfectly regardless of my existence, it seemed.

They rode, too, all round the country; and she sat to him, though he

never filled out the sketch. For weeks he was devoted; but I fancied,

when I saw them, that there lingered in his manner the same thing as on

the first evening while she sang to him. Lu was so gay and sweet and

happy that I hardly knew her; she was always very gentle, but such a

decided body,--that's the Willoughby, her mother. Yet during these weeks

Rose had not spoken, not formally; delicate and friendly kindness was

all Lu could have found, had she sought. One night, I remember, he came

in and wanted us to go out and row with him on the river. Lu wouldn't go

without me.

"Will you come?" said he, coolly, as if I were merely necessary as a

thwart or thole-pin might have been, turning and letting his eyes fall

on me an instant, then snatching them off with a sparkle and flush, and

such a lordly carelessness of manner otherwise.

"Certainly not," I replied.

So they remained, and Lu began to open a bundle of Border Ballads, which

he had brought her. The very first one was "Whistle an' I'll come to

you, my lad." I laughed. She glanced up quickly, then held it in her

hands a moment, repeated the name, and asked if he liked it.

"Oh, yes," he said. "There couldn't be a Scotch song without that rhythm

better than melody, which, after all, is Beethoven's secret."

"Perhaps," said Louise. "But I shall not sing this."

"Oh, do!" he said, turning with surprise. "You don't know what an

aërial, whistling little thing it is!"

"No."

"Why, Louise! There is nobody could sing it but you."

"Of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what

color it please God," quoted I, and in came Mr. Dudley, as he usually

did when not wanted; though I've no reason to find fault with him,

notwithstanding his blank treatment of me. He never took any notice,

because he was in love with Lu. Rose never took any notice of me,

either. But with a difference!

Lu was singularly condescending to Mr. Dudley that evening; and Rose,

sitting aside, looked so very much disturbed--whether pleasantly or

otherwise didn't occur to me--that I couldn't help enjoying his

discomfiture, and watching him through it.

Now, though I told you I wasn't nervous, I never should know I had this

luxurious calm, if there were nothing to measure it by; and once in a

great while a perfect whirlpool seizes me,--my blood is all in

turmoil,--I bubble with silent laughter, or cry with all my heart. I had

been in such a strange state a good while, and now, as I surveyed Rose,

it gradually grew fiercer, till I actually sprang to my feet, and

exclaimed, "There! it is insupportable! I've been in the magnetic storm

long enough! it is time something took it from me!" and ran out-doors.

Rose sauntered after, by-and-by, as if unwillingly drawn by a loadstone,

and found the heavens wrapped in a rosy flame of Northern Lights. He

looked as though he belonged to them, so pale and elf-like was his face

then, like one bewitched.

"Papa's fireworks fade before mine," I said. "Now we can live in the

woods, as Lu has been wishing; for a dry southerly wind follows this,

with a blue smoke filming all the distant fields. Won't it be

delicious?"

"Or rain," he replied; "I think it will rain to-morrow,--warm, full

rains"; and he seemed as if such a chance would dissolve him entirely.

As for me, those shifting, silent sheets of splendor abstracted all that

was alien, and left me in my normal state.

"There they come!" I said, as Lu and Mr. Dudley, and some others who had

entered in my absence,--gnats dancing in the beam,--stepped down toward

us. "How charming for us all to sit out here!"

"How annoying, you mean," he replied, simply for contradiction.

"It hasn't been warm enough before," I added.

"And Louise may take cold now," he said, as if wishing to exhibit his

care for her. "Whom is she speaking with? Blarsaye? And who comes

after?"

"Parti. A delightful person,--been abroad, too. You and he can have a

crack about Louvres and Vaticans now, and leave Lu and Mr. Dudley to

me."

Rose suddenly inspected me and then Parti, as if he preferred the crack

to be with cudgels; but in a second the little blaze vanished, and he

only stripped a weigelia branch of every blossom.

I wonder what made Lu behave so that night; she scarcely spoke to Rose,

appeared entirely unconcerned while he hovered round her like an

officious sprite, was all grace to the others and sweetness to Mr.

Dudley. And Rose, oblivious of snubs, paraded his devotion, seemed

determined to show his love for Lu,--as if any one cared a straw,--and

took the pains to be positively rude to me. He was possessed of an odd

restlessness; a little defiance bristled his movements, an air of

contrariness; and whenever he became quiet, he seemed again like one

enchanted and folded up in a dream, to break whose spell he was about to

abandon efforts. He told me life had destroyed my enchantment; I wonder

what will destroy his. Lu refused to sit in the garden-chair he

offered,--just suffered the wreath of pink bells he gave her to hang in

her hand, and by-and-by fall,--and when the north grew ruddier and swept

the zenith with lances of light, and when it faded, and a dim cloud

hazed all the stars, preserved the same equanimity, kept on the _evil_

tenor of her way, and bade every one an impartial farewell at

separating. She is preciously well-bred.

We hadn't remained in the garden all that time, though,--but, strolling

through the gate and over the field, had reached a small grove that

fringes the gully worn by Wild Fall and crossed by the railway. As we

emerged from that, talking gayly, and our voices almost drowned by the

dash of the little waterfall and the echo from the opposite rock, I

sprang across the curving track, thinking them behind, and at the same

instant a thunderous roar burst all about, a torrent of hot air whizzed

and eddied over me, I fell dizzied and stunned, and the night

express-train shot by like a burning arrow. Of course I was dreadfully

hurt by my fall and fright,--I feel the shock now,--but they all stood

on the little mound, from which I had sprung, like so many

petrifactions: Rose, just as he had caught Louise back on firmer ground,

when she was about to follow me, his arm wound swiftly round her waist,

yet his head thrust forward eagerly, his pale face and glowing eyes

bent, not on her, but me. Still he never stirred, and poor Mr. Dudley

first came to my assistance. We all drew breath at our escape, and, a

little slowly, on my account, turned homeward.

"You are not bruised, Miss Willoughby?" asked Blarsaye, wakened.

"Dear Yone!" Lu said, leaving Mr. Dudley's arm, "you're so very pale!

It's not pain, is it?"

"I am not conscious of any. Why should I be injured, any more than you?"

"Do you know," said Rose, _sotto voce_, turning and bending merely his

head to me, "I thought I heard you scream, and that you were dead."

"And what then?"

"Nothing, but that you were lying dead and torn, and I should see you,"

he said,--and said as if he liked to say it, experiencing a kind of

savage delight at his ability to say it.

"A pity to have disappointed you!" I answered.

"I saw it coming before you leaped," he added, as a malignant finality,

and drawing nearer. "You were both on the brink. I called, but probably

neither you nor Lu heard me. So I snatched her back."

Now I had been next him then.

"Jove's balance," I said, taking Parti's arm.

He turned instantly to Lu, and kept by her during the remainder of the

walk, Mr. Dudley being at the other side. I was puzzled a little by Lu,

as I have been a good many times since; I thought she liked Rose so

much. Papa met us in the field, and there the affair must be detailed to

him, and then he would have us celebrate our safety in Champagne.