THEIR AMUSEMENTS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
Of amusements for women in the first century of colonial life, we can
almost say there were none. There was in New England no card-playing,
no theatre-going, no dancing. The solemn Thursday lecture was the
sole mid-week gathering. Occasionally there was the excitement of
Training Day. In the South the distances were too great from plantation
to plantation for frequent friendly meetings. As time went on,
coöperation in gathering and storing the various food-harvests afforded
opportunities for social intercourse. Apple-parings and corn-huskings
were autumnal delights, but when these were over, the chafing youth
found no recreations through the long, snowy months in country homes,
and but scant opportunity for amusement in town. No wonder that they
turned eagerly to the singing-school, and found in that innocent
gathering a safety-valve for the pent-up longing for diversion which
burned in young souls then as now. We can but wonder how, ere the
singing-school became a force, young New Englanders became acquainted
enough with each other to think of marriage; and we can almost regard
the establishment of the study of fugue and psalm singing as the
preservation of the commonwealth.
In Virginia the different elements of life developed characteristic
pastimes, and by the first quarter of the eighteenth century there were
opportunities of diversion offered for women.
We have preserved to us an exact account of the sports which were
enjoyed by both Virginian men and women. It may be found in the
_Virginia Gazette_ for October, 1737:--
We have advices from Hanover County that on St Andrews Day there are
to be Horse Races and several other Diversions for the entertainment
of the Gentlemen and Ladies, at the Old Field, near Captain John
Bickertons, in that County if permitted by the Hon Wm Byrd Esq
Proprietor of said land, the substance of which is as follows viz:
It is proposed that 20 Horses or Mares do run around a three mile
course for a prize of five pounds.
That a Hat of the value of 20s be cudgelled for, and that after the
first challenge made the Drums are to beat every Quarter of an hour
for three challenges round the Ring and none to play with their Left
hand.
That a violin be played for by 20 Fiddlers; no person to have the
liberty of playing unless he bring a fiddle with him. After the prize
is won they are all to play together and each a different tune, and to
be treated by the company.
That 12 Boys of 12 years of age do run 112 yards for a hat of the cost
of 12 shillings.
That a Flag be flying on said Day 30 feet high.
That a handsome entertainment be provided for the subscribers and
their wives; and such of them as are not so happy as to have wives may
treat any other lady.
That Drums Trumpets Hautboys &c be provided to play at said
entertainment.
That after Dinner the Royal Health His Honor the Governor’s &c are to
be drunk.
That a Quire of Ballads be sung for by a number of Songsters, all of
them to have liquor sufficient to clear their Wind Pipes.
That a pair of Silver Buckles be wrestled for by a number of brisk
young men.
That a pair of handsome Shoes be danced for.
That a pair of handsome Silk Stockings of one Pistole value be given
to the handsomest young country maid that appears in the field.
With many other whimsical and Comical Diversions too numerous to
mention.
And as this mirth is designed to be purely innocent and void of
offence, all persons resorting there are desired to behave themselves
with decency and sobriety; the subscribers being resolved to
discountenance all immorality with the utmost rigor.
There is a certain rough and noisy heartiness in this rollicking Racing
Day in old Virginia that speaks of boisterous cheer akin to the days of
“merrie England,” and which seems far from disagreeable when contrasted
with the dull yearly round of sober days in New England. Virginia and
Maryland men had many social clubs “to promote innocent mirth and
ingenious humour,” but of course within these clubs their consorts and
daughters were not guests. A ball or a country dance were the chief
amusements of Southern women, and very smart functions some of these
balls were, though they did begin in broad daylight.
An early account was given by a travelling Virginian, William Black, of
a Government Ball in the Council Room at Annapolis in 1744.
The Ladies of Note made a Splendant Appearance. In a Room Back from
where they Danc’d was Several Sorts of Wines, Punch and Sweetmeats.
In this Room those that was not engaged in any Dancing Match might
better employ themselves at Cards, Dice, Backgammon, or with a
cheerful Glass. The Ladies were so very agreeable and seem’d so intent
on Dancing that one might have Imagin’d they had some Design on the
Virginians, either Designing to make Tryal of their Strength and
Vigour, or to convince them of their Activity and Sprightliness. After
several smart engagements in which no advantage on either side was
Observable, with a mutual Consent about 1 of the Clock in the Morning
it was agreed to break up, every Gentleman waiting on his Partner home.
The method in which a ball was conducted somewhat more than a century
ago in Louisville was thus told by Maj. Samuel S. Forman, who visited
that town as a young man.
After the managers had organized the Company by drawing numbers
and appointing the opening with a Minuet, Uncle was called on
and introduc’d to a Lady for the opening scene. The Managers who
distributed the numbers called Gentⁿ No. 1, he takes his stand--Lady
No. 1, she rises from her seat, the Manager leads her to the floor
and introduces Gentⁿ No. 1, & so on till the floor is full. After all
the Company have been thus call’d out then the Gentⁿ are free to seek
his Partner but no monopoly. Lady at the head chooses the figure, but
it is considered out of order for one Lady to head a figure twice
unless all have been at the head. If there happen to be some ladies
to whom from mistake or otherwise have been passed the Managers duty
is to see to it. And another Custom was for a Gentⁿ to call on a Lady
& inform her of an intended ball & ask permission to see her to the
place & see her safe home again. If the Gentⁿ does not draw such Lady
for the first Contra Dance he generally engages her for the first
Volunteer. At the Refreshments the Gentⁿ will by instinct without
Chesterfieldian monition see that his betterhalf (for the time being)
has a _quantum sufficit_ and that without cramming his jaws full until
he has reconducted her to the ball-room, then he is at liberty to
absent himself for a while. There were two young gentlemen there from
New York who were much attached to each other. They promised to let
each other know when a ball was on foot. At one time one came to the
other and told him to prepare his pumps against such an evening. The
answer was--Pumps out of order, must decline. No Sir that will not do.
Then Sir you have been buying Several pair of handsome Mocassons for
New York Ladies. If you will lend me one pair & you will put on one
pair (it wont hurt them) I will go. Snaps his fingers--the very thing.
The next ball after this Moccasons became very fashionable. So many
fashions have their origins from Necessity.
A traveller named Bennet gives us an account of the amusements of
Boston women in the middle of the century, when dancing was slowly
becoming fashionable.
For their domestic amusements every afternoon after drinking tea, the
gentlemen and ladies walk the Mall, and from there adjourn to one
anothers house to spend the evening, those that are not disposed to
attend the evening lecture which they may do if they please six nights
in the seven the year round. What they call the Mall is a walk on a
fine green Common adjoining to the south east side of the town. The
Government being in the hands of dissenters they dont admit of plays
or music houses; but of late they have sent up an assembly to which
some of the ladies resort. But they are looked upon to be none of the
nicest, in regard to their reputation, and it is thought it will be
soon suppressed for it is much taken notice of and exploded by the
religious and sober part of the people. But notwithstanding plays and
such like diversions do not obtain here, they dont be dispirited or
moped for the want of them; for both the ladies and gentlemen dress
and appear as gay in common as courtiers in England on a coronation
or birthday. And the ladies visit here, drink tea, indulge in every
little piece of gentility to the height of the mode, and neglect the
affairs of the family with as good a grace as the finest ladies in
London.
The Marquis de Chastellux writes of the Philadelphia assembly in 1780:--
The assembly or subscription ball, of which I must give an account may
here be introduced. At Philadelphia, there are places appropriated for
the young people to dance in and where those whom that amusement does
not suit may play at different games of cards, but at Philadelphia
games of commerce are alone allowed. A manager or Master of Ceremonies
presides at the methodical amusements; he presents to the gentlemen
and lady dancers, billets folded up containing each a number; thus
fate decides the male or female partner for the whole evening. All
the dances are previously arranged and the dancers are called in
their turns. These dances, like the toasts we drink at table, have
some relation to politics; one is called The Successful Campaign,
another Bourgoynes Defeat, a third Clintons Retreat. The managers
are generally chosen from among the most distinguished officers of
the army. Colonel Mitchell, a little fat squat man, was formerly the
manager, but when I saw him he had descended from the magistracy and
danced like a common citizen. He is said to have exercised his office
with great severity, and it is told of him, that a young lady who was
figuring in a country dance, having forgot her turn through conversing
with a friend, he came up to her and called out aloud, “Give over,
Miss, take care what you are about. Do you think you come here for
your pleasure?”
The dance, _A Successful Campaign_, was the one selected by diplomatic
Miss Peggy Champlin to open the ball, when she danced in Newport with
General Washington, to the piping of De Rochambeau and his fellow
officers. This was “the figure” of _A Successful Campaign_. “Lead
down two couples on the outside and up the middle; second couple do
the same, turn contrary partners, cast off, right hand and left.” It
was simple, was it not--but I doubt not it was dignified and of sedate
importance when Washington footed it.
_Stony Point_ was another favorite of Revolutionary days--for did
not General Wayne successfully storm the place? This dance was more
difficult; the directions were somewhat bewildering. “First couple
three hands round with the second lady--allemand. Three hands round
with the second gentleman--allemand again. Lead down two couples, up
again, cast off one couple, hands round with the third, right and
left.” I scarcely know what the figure “allemand” was. The German
allemande was then an old style of waltz, slower than the modern waltz,
but I can scarcely think that Washington or any of those serious,
dignified officers waltzed, even to slow time.
Another obsolete term is “foot it.”
Come and foot it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
seems to refer to some definite step in dancing. Sheridan in _The
Rivals_ thus uses the term in regard to dances:--
I’d foot it with e’er a captain in the county, but these outlandish
heathen allemandes and cotillions are quite beyond me.
But “footing it” and “outlandish heathen allemandes” are not so misty
as another term, “to haze.” In the _Innocent Maid_ they “hazed.” “First
three couples haze, then lead down the middle and back again, close
with the right hand and left.” In dancing the _Corsino_ they figured
thus: “Three couples foot it and change sides; foot it again and once
more change sides; three couples allemand, and the first fall in the
middle then right hand and left.”
Dancing-masters’ advertisements of those days often give us the list of
modish dances: “Allemandes Vally’s, De la Cours, Devonshire Minuets and
Jiggs.”
Burnaby in 1759 wrote of a special pleasure of the Quaker maids of
Philadelphia: of fishing-parties.
The women are exceedingly handsome and polite. They are naturally
sprightly and fond of pleasure and upon the whole are much more
agreeable and accomplished than the men. Since their intercourse with
the English officers they are greatly improved, and without flattery,
many of them would not make bad figures even in the first assemblies
in Europe. Their amusements are chiefly dancing in the winter, and
in the summer forming parties of pleasure upon the Schuilkill, and
in the country. There is a society of sixteen ladies and as many
gentlemen called The fishing company, who meet once a fortnight upon
the Schuilkill. They have a very pleasant room erected in a romantic
situation upon the banks of that river where they generally dine
and drink tea. There are several pretty walks about it, and some
wild and rugged rocks which together with the water and fine groves
that adorn the banks, form a most beautiful and picturesque scene.
There are boats and fishing tackle of all sorts, and the company
divert themselves with walking, fishing, going up the water, dancing,
singing, conversing, or just as they please. The ladies wear an
uniform and appear with great ease and advantage from the neatness
and simplicity of it. The first and most distinguished people of the
colony are of this society; and it is very advantageous to a stranger
to be introduced to it, as he hereby gets acquainted with the best and
most respectable company in Philadelphia. In the winter when there
is snow upon the ground it is usual to make what they call sleighing
parties.
He says of New York society:--
The women are handsome and agreeable though rather more reserved than
the Philadelphian ladies. Their amusements are much the same as in
Pensylvania; viz balls and sleighing expeditions in the winter, and
in the summer going in parties upon the water and fishing; or making
excursions into the country. There are several houses pleasantly
situated upon East River near New York where it is common to have
turtle feasts; these happen once or twice in a week. Thirty or
forty gentlemen and ladies meet and dine together, drink tea in the
afternoon, fish and amuse themselves till evening and then return home
in Italian chaises, a gentleman and lady in each chaise. In the way
there is a bridge, about three miles distant from New York which you
always pass over as you return, called the Kissing Bridge where it is
a part of the etiquette to salute the lady who has put herself under
your protection.
It is evident from these quotations and from the testimony of other
contemporary authors that one of the chief winter amusements
in New York and Philadelphia and neighboring towns was through
sleighing-parties. Madam Knights, of Boston, writing in 1704 of her
visit to New York, said:--
Their diversion in winter is riding sleighs about three or four miles
out of town where they have houses of entertainment at a place called
the Bowery, and some go to friends houses, who handsomely treat them.
Mr. Burroughs carried his spouse and daughter and myself out to one
Madam Dowes a gentlewoman that lived at a farmhouse who gave us a
handsome entertainment of five or six dishes and choice beer and
metheglin, etc, all which she said was the produce of her farm. I
believe we met fifty or sixty sleighs that day; they fly with great
swiftness and some are so furious that they will turn out of the path
for none except a loaded cart.
There were few sleighs at that date in Boston.
Sixty-four years later, in 1768, a young English officer, Alexander
Macraby, wrote thus to his brother of the pleasures of sleighing:--
You can never have had a party in a sleigh or sledge I had a very
clever one a few days ago. Seven sleighs with two ladies and two men
in each proceeded by fiddlers on horseback set out together upon a
snow of about a foot deep on the roads to a public house, a few miles
from town where we danced, sung, romped and eat and drank and kicked
away care from morning till night, and finished our frolic in two or
three side-boxes at the play. You can have no idea of the state of the
pulse seated with pretty women mid-deep in straw, your body armed with
furs and flannels, clear air, bright sunshine, spotless sky, horses
galloping, every feeling turned to joy and jollity.
That older members of society then, as now, did not find sleighing
parties altogether alluring, we learn from this sentence in a letter of
Hannah Thompson written to John Mifflin in 1786:--
This Slaying match Mr Houston of Houston St gave his Daughters, Dear
Papa, Dear Papa, do give us a slaying--he at last consented, told them
to get ready and dress themselves warm, which they accordingly did and
came running. We are ready papa. He ordered the Servants to have some
burnt wine against they came back. He desir’d them to step upstairs
with him before they went. As soon as they got in an Attick chamber,
he threw up all the windows and seated them in two old Arm Chairs and
began to whip and Chirrup with all the Spirit of a Slaying party. And
after he kept them long enough to be sufficiently cold he took them
down and call’d for the Mulled Wine and they were very glad to set
close to the Fire and leave Slaying for those who were too warm.
This I quote to execrate the memory of Mr. Houston and express my
sympathy for his daughters.
There were no entertainments more popular, from the middle of the past
century to the early years of this one, than “turtle frolics,” what
Burnaby called turtle-feasts. Every sea-captain who sailed to the West
Indies intended and was expected to bring home a turtle on the return
voyage; and if he were only to touch at the West Indies and thence pass
on to more distant shores, he still tried, if possible, to secure a
turtle and send it home by some returning vessel. In no seaport town
did the turtle frolic come to a higher state of perfection than in
Newport. Scores of turtles were borne to that welcoming shore. In 1752
George Bresett, a Newport gentleman, sailed to the West Indies, and
promptly did a neighborly and civic duty by sending home to his friend
Samuel Freebody, a gallant turtle and a generous keg of limes. Lime
juice was the fashionable and favorite “souring” of the day, to combine
with arrack and Barbadoes rum into a glorious punch. The turtle arrived
in prime condition, and Freebody handed the prize over to a slave-body
named Cuffy Cockroach. He was a Guinea Coast negro, of a race who were
(as I have noted before) the most intelligent of all the Africans
brought as slaves to these shores. Any negro who acquired a position
of dignity or trust or skill in this country, in colonial days, was
sure to be a Guinea-boy. Cuffy Cockroach followed the rule, by filling
a position of much dignity and trust and skill--as turtle-cook. He was
a slave of Jaheel Brenton, but he cooked turtle for the entire town.
The frolic was held at Fort George, on Goat Island, on December 23. The
guests, fifty ladies and gentlemen, sailed over in a sloop, and were
welcomed with hoisted flag and salute of cannon. The dinner was served
at two, tea at five, and then dancing begun. _Pea Straw_, _Faithful
Shepherd_, _Arcadian Nuptials_, were allemanded and footed, and the
keg of limes and its fellow-ingredients kept pace with the turtle. The
moon was at the full when the party landed at the Newport wharf at
eleven, but the frolic was not ended. For instead of the jolly crowd
separating, they went the rounds, leaving one member of the party at a
time at his own door, and then serenading him or her, till the whole
company had been honored in succession. When Sammy wrote to Mr. Bresett
he said:--
Upon the whole the entertainment had the preference over all turtle
frolics before it, and Mr George Bresetts health with “Honest
George” was freely drank in a cheerful glass by every person; and at
the request of the company I return you their compliments for the
foundation of so agreeable an entertainment.
We find even so staid and dignified a minister and legislator as
Manasseh Cutler writing thus in Providence in 1787:--
This morning I received a polite invitation from Govenor Bowen in the
name of a large company to join them in a Turtle Frolic about six
miles out of town. Mr Hitchcock and other clergymen of the town were
of the party but much against my inclination I was obliged to excuse
myself.
The traveller who drives through the by-roads of New England to-day is
almost ready to assert that there is no dwelling too poor or too lonely
to contain a piano, or at the very least a melodeon or parlor organ.
The sounds of Czerny’s exercises issue from every farmhouse. There may
be no new farm implements, no sewing-machine, but there will surely
be a piano. This love of music has ever existed on those rock-bound
shores, though in early days it found a stunted and sad expression in
hymn tunes only, and the performance of music could scarce be called a
colonial accomplishment. The first musical instruments were martial,
drums and fifes and hautboys. I have never seen, in any personal
inventory, the notice of a “gitterne” as in similar Virginian lists.
But in the early years of the eighteenth century a few spinets must
have been exported to Boston and Philadelphia, and perhaps to Virginia.
In 1712 an advertisement was placed in the _Boston News-Letter_ that
the Spinet would be taught, and on April 23, 1716, appeared in the same
paper:--
Note that any Persons may have all Instruments of Music mended or
Virginalls or Spinnets Strung & Tun’d, at a Reasonable Rate & likewise
may be taught to play on any of the Instruments above mentioned.
In August, 1740, a “Good Spinnet” was offered for sale, and soon after
a second-hand “Spinnet,” and in January, 1750, “Spinnet wire.”
On September 18, 1769, this notice appeared in the _Boston Gazette and
Country Journal_:--
It is with pleasure that we inform the Public that a few days since
was ship’d for Newport a very Curious Spinnet being the first ever
made in America, the performance of the ingenious Mr. John Harris of
Boston (son of the late Mr. Jos. Harris of London, Harpsichord and
Spinnet Maker deceased) and in every respect does honor to that Artist
who now carries on the Business at his house a few doors Northward of
Dr. Clarkes, North End of Boston.
This first American spinet is said to be still in existence in a
house in Newport on the corner of Thames and Gidley streets. It has
one set of jacks and strings. The hammers have crow-quills which
press on brass strings. It has ancient neighbors. In Bristol, R. I.,
is a triangular spinet four feet long, which is more than a century
older than the town which is now its home. It bears this maker’s
mark,--“Johann Hitchcock fecit London 1520.” If this date is correct,
it is the oldest spinet known, the one of Italian manufacture in the
British Museum being dated 1521.
At the rooms of the Essex Institute in Salem, Mass., is an old spinet
made by Dr. Samuel Blyth in that town. Henry M. Brooks, Esq., author
of _Olden Time Music_, has in his possession a bill for one of these
American spinets that shows that the price in 1786 was £18. In the
Memorial Hall at Deerfield, Mass., may be seen another dilapidated one,
made by Stephanus & Keene. This belonged once to Mrs. Sukey Barker, of
Hingham.
In the _Newport Mercury_ of May 17, 1773, is advertised, “To be sold
a Spinnet of a proper size for a little miss, and a most agreeable
tone--plays extremely easy on the keys. Inquire of the Printer.”
Advertisement of the sale of spinets and of instruction on the spinet
do not disappear from the newspapers in this country even after
formidable rivals and successors, the harpsichord and forte-piano, had
begun to be imported in comparatively large numbers.
The tone of a spinet has been characterized concisely by Holmes in his
poem, _The Opening of the Piano_,--the “spinet with its thin metallic
thrills.” I know of nothing more truly the “relic of things that have
passed away,” more completely the voice of the past, than the tinkling
thrill of a spinet. It is like seeing a ghost to touch the keys, and
bring forth once more that obsolete sound. There is no sound born in
the nineteenth century that at all resembles it. Like “loggerheads” in
the coals and “lug-poles” in the chimney, like church lotteries and
tithingmen, the spinet--even its very voice--is extinct.
Since in the _News-Letter_ first quoted in this chapter virginals are
named, I think the musical instrument of Queen Elizabeth must have been
tolerably familiar to Bostonians. Judge Sewall, who “had a passion for
music,” writes in 1690 of fetching his wife’s “virginalls.” I cannot
conceive what tunes Madam Sewall played on her virginals, no tawdry
ballads and roundelays, no minuets and corams; she may have known half
a dozen long-metre psalm tunes such as the Judge set for so many years
in meeting.
“Forte-pianers” were imported to America, as were other musical
instruments. It is said the first one brought to New England was in
1785 by John Brown for his daughter Sarah, afterwards Mrs. Herreshoff.
It is still possessed by Miss Herreshoff, of Bristol, R. I. The first
brought to “the Cape” was a Clementi of the date 1790, and found for
many years a home in Falmouth. It is in perfect preservation, a dainty
little inlaid box lying upon a slender low table, with tiny shelves
for the music books, and a tiny little painted rack to hold the music
sheets, and a pedal fit for the foot of a doll. It is now owned by
Miss Frances Morse, of Worcester, Mass. An old Broadwood piano, once
owned by the venerable Dr. Sweetser, may be seen at the rooms of the
Worcester Society of Antiquity; and still another, a Clementi, at the
Essex Institute in Salem.
By the beginning of this century piano-playing became a more common
accomplishment, especially in the large towns, though General Oliver
said that in 1810, among the six thousand families in Boston, there
were not fifty pianos. Rev. Manasseh Cutler writes in 1801, from
Washington, of a young friend:--
She has been educated at the best schools in Baltimore and Alexandria.
She does not converse much, but is very modest and agreeable. She
plays with great skill on the Forte Piano which she always accompanies
with the most delightful voice, and is frequently joined in the vocal
part by her mother. Mr. King has an excellent Forte-Piano which is
connected with an organ placed under it, which she plays and fills
with her feet, while her fingers are employed upon the Forte-Piano.
On Sunday evenings she constantly plays Psalm music. Miss Anna plays
Denmark remarkably well. But the most of the psalm tunes our gentlemen
prefer are the old ones such as Old Hundred, Canterbury, which
you would be delighted to hear on the Forte-Piano assisted by the
Organ. Miss Anna gave us some good music this evening, particularly
the Wayworn Traveller, Ma Chere Amie, The Tea, The Twins of Latma
(somewhat similar to Indian Chief) Eliza, Lucy or Selims Complaint.
These are among my favourites.
In February, 1800, Eliza Southgate Bowne wrote thus in Boston:--
In the morning I am going to look at some Instruments; however we got
one picked out that I imagine we shall take, 150 dollars, a charming
toned one and not made in this country.
In June she said enthusiastically of her “Instrument:”--
I am learning my 12th tune Oh Octavia, I almost worship my
Instrument,--it reciprocates my joys and sorrows, and is my bosom
companion. How I long to have you return! I have hardly attempted
to sing since you went away. I am sure I shall not dare to when you
return. I must enjoy my triumph while you are absent; my musical
talents will be dim when compared with the lustre of yours.
The most universal accomplishment of colonial women was the making
of samplers, if, indeed, anything could be termed an accomplishment
which was so rigidly and prosaically part of their education. I can
well imagine the disgrace it would have been to any little miss in
her teens a century ago not to be able to show a carefully designed
and wrought sampler. On these samplers were displayed the alphabet,
sometimes in various shaped letters--thus did she learn to mark neatly
her household linen; bands of conventional designs, of flowers, of
geometrical patterns--thus was she taught to embroider muslin caps
and kerchiefs; and there were gorgeous flowers and strange buildings,
and domestic scenes, and pastoral views, birds that perched as large
as cows, and roses that were larger than either; and last and best of
all (and often of much satisfaction to the genealogist), there was
her name and her age, and sometimes her place of birth, and withal a
pious verse as a motto for this housewifely shield. Of all the relics
of old-time life which have come to us, none are more interesting than
the samplers. Happily, many of them _have_ come to us; worked with
wiry enduring crewels and silk on strong linen canvas, they speak down
through the century of the little, useful, willing hands that worked
them; of the tidy sempstresses and housewives of those simple domestic
days. We know little of the daughters of the Pilgrims, but Lora
Standish has sent to us a prim little message of her piety, and a faded
testimony of her skill, that makes her seem dear to us:--
Lora Standish is My Name.
Lord Guide my heart that I may do thy Will
Also fill my hands with such convenient skill
As will conduce to Virtue void of Shame,
And I will give the Glory to Thy Name.
A more ambitious kind of needlework took the form of what were known as
mourning pieces. These were regarded with deepest affection, for were
they not a token of loving remembrance? They bore stiff presentments
of funeral urns, with drooping willows, or a monument with a bowed and
weeping figure. Often the names of dead members of the family were
worked upon the monument. A still more ambitious sampler bore a design
known as The Tree of Life. A stiffly branched tree was sparingly hung
with apples labelled with the names of the virtues of humanity, such
as Love, Honor, Truth, Modesty, Silence. A white-winged angel on one
side of this tree watered the roots with a very realistic watering-pot,
and was balanced with exactness, as were evenly adjusted all good
embroidery designs of that day, by an inky-black Satan who bore a
pitchfork of colossal proportions and a tail as long as a kite’s, and
so heavy that he could scarce have dragged it along the ground--much
less with it have flown.
For many years a favorite and much praised accomplishment was the
cutting of paper in ornamental designs. This art was ambitiously called
Papyrotamia, and it was of special usefulness in its application to
watch-papers, a favorite lover’s token of the day. The watch proper
at that time was separate and removable from its case, which was of
gold, silver, shagreen, or lacquer. Of course the watch did not fit
closely into the case, and watch-papers were placed within to serve
as a cushion to prevent jar and wear; sometimes the case would hold
several. Artistic and grotesque taste could be used in the manufacture
of these tokens of regard. I have seen them cut in various open-work
designs from gilt and silver paper, embroidered in hair, painted in
water colors. One I have has two turtle-doves billing over two hearts,
and surrounded by a tiny wreath; another, embroidered on net, has the
words “God is Love;” another has a moss rose and the words “Rejoice
and blossom as a rose.” Another bears a funeral urn, and is evidently
_in memoriam_. Still another, a heart and arrows, and the sentimental
legend “Kill me for I die of love.” Jefferson, writing as a young man,
bitterly deplores his inadvertent tearing of watch-papers which had
been cut for him by his beloved Belinda. Watch and watch-papers had
been accidentally soaked in water, and when he attempted to remove the
papers, he says, “My cursed fingers gave them such a rent as I fear I
shall never get over. I would have cried bitterly, but that I thought
it beneath the dignity of a man.” And he trusts the fair Becca will
give him another paper of her cutting, which, though but a plain round
one, he will esteem more than the nicest in the world cut by other
hands.
Nothing can be more pathetic than the thoughtful survey of the crude
and often cumbersome and ludicrous attempts at decorative art, through
which the stunted and cramped love of the beautiful found expression,
until our own day, in country homes. The dreary succession of
hair-work, feather-work, wax flowers, shell-work, the crystallization
with various domestic minerals and gums of dried leaves and grasses,
vied with yarn and worsted monstrosities, and bewildering patchwork.
Occasionally some bold feminine spirit, made inventive through artistic
longing, gave birth to a novel, though too often grotesque form of
decoration.
A most interesting symbol of exquisite neatness, unbounded patience,
and blind groping for artistic expression was Rhoda Baker’s
“Leather-Works.” Rhoda Baker lived in a small Rhode Island village,
which was dull at its birth and slow of growth and progress. She had a
nature so timid, so repelling, and so wholly introspective, that, after
nearly fifty years of shy and even unwilling “keeping company” with
a preaching elder of the time,--a saint, almost a mystic,--she died
without ever having given to the quaint, thin, pleasant-faced, awkward
man, one word of encouragement to his equally timid, his hinting and
halting love-making. During those patient years of warm hopes, but
most scanty fruition, he had built a house on an island which he owned
in Narragansett Bay, with a window where his beloved Rhoda could sit
sewing when she became his wife, and watch him happily rowing across
the Bay to her; but great lilac bushes grew up unchecked, and shaded
and finally hid the window at which Rhoda never sat to welcome her
husband-lover. After her death the Elder so grieved that he had naught
to remind him and speak to him of his beloved, that he boldly decided
to name his boat for her; but as he could not conscientiously say she
had ever encouraged him by word or look in his incipient love-making,
and he must be strictly honest and chivalrously respectful to her
memory, he painted upon the boat in black letters this truthful yet
dimly consoling legend, “Rhoda Wouldnt.” Poor Elder! Many a time had he
ventured a-courting, and slowly entering, after his unanswered assault
upon the door-knocker, had found the kitchen of this elusive Rhoda
vacant,--_but her rocking-chair was slowly rocking_,--so he sadly left
the deserted room, the unwelcoming house.
He sacrificed his life to his affection for his dead love. He had all
his days a fear, a premonition, that he should lose his life through
a horse, so he never rode or drove, but walked, rowed, or sailed, and
lived on an island to escape his dreaded doom. When Rhoda’s brother
died in a distant town, the Elder was bidden to the funeral, and he
honored his Rhoda’s memory by his attendance, and he had to ride there.
As he left the house of mourning, a fractious young colt ran away with
him, threw him out of the wagon, and broke his neck.
His sweetheart’s “Leather-Works” still exist, to keep fresh this New
England romance. I saw them last summer in the attic of the Town
Hall. Rhoda left them in her will to her church, and they are now the
property of the village church-guild. The guild is vigorous and young,
so can bear this ancient maiden’s bequest with cheerful carriage and
undaunted spirits. The leather-works are many and ponderous. One is a
vast trellis (which may have been originally two clothes-horses), hung
with elaborately twisted and tendrilled vines, bearing minutely veined
leaves and various counterfeit and imaginary fruits. The bunches of
grapes are made of home-cast leaden bullets, or round stones, covered
dexterously and with unparalleled neatness and imperceptible stitches
with pieces of old kid gloves or thin leather; and to each a common
dress-hook is attached. The stem of the bunch has corresponding eyes,
to each of which a grape is hung. By this ingenious means the bunches
of grapes could be neatly dusted each week, and kept in repair, as
well as easily shaped. On this trellis hung also Roses of Sharon, a
mystic flower which Rhoda’s sister Eunice invented, and which had a
deep spiritual signification, as well as extraordinary outline and
intricate composition. Every leaf, every grape, every monstrous fruit,
every flower of these Leather-Works, speaks of the æsthetic longing,
the vague mysticism, the stifled repression, of Rhoda Baker’s life;
and they speak equally of the Elder’s love. It was he who moulded the
bullets, and searched on the shore for carefully rounded stones; and
he who haunted the country saddlers and repair-shops for waste strips
of leather, which he often deposited in the silent kitchen by the
rocking-chair, sure of grateful though unspoken thanks. Many a pair
of his old boot-tops figures as glorious vine leaves; and he even
tanned and dressed skins to supply swiftly the artist’s materials when
genius burned. It was he who tenderly unhooked the grapes and pears,
the fruits of Eden and the Roses of Sharon, when the trellis was
transported to the Town Hall, and he reverently placed the trophies of
his true love’s skill and genius in place in their new home. I always
rather resent the fact that Rhoda did not bequeath the Leather-Works
to him, when I think of the vast and almost sacred pleasure he would
have had in them; as well as when I remember the share he had in the
preparations for their manufacture. And the Leather-Works speak still
another lesson, as do many of the household grotesqueries seen in New
England, a lesson of sympathy, almost of beauty, to those who “read
between the lines, the finer grace of unfulfilled designs.”