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FROM THE
OAK TO THE OLIVE.
A PLAIN RECORD OF A PLEASANT JOURNEY.
BY
JULIA WARD HOWE
BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD.
1868.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1868, by
JULIA WARD HOWE,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court
of the District of Massachusetts.
STEREOTYPED AT THE
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY,
19 Spring Lane.
TO
S. G. H.,
_THE STRENUOUS CHAMPION OF GREEK LIBERTY
AND OF HUMAN RIGHTS_,
IS OFFERED SUCH SMALL HOMAGE AS THE
DEDICATION OF THIS VOLUME
CAN CONFER.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PRELIMINARIES. 1
THE VOYAGE. 3
LIVERPOOL. 9
CHESTER--LICHFIELD. 11
LONDON. 17
ST. PAUL'S--THE JAPANESE. 23
SOCIETY. 28
THE CHANNEL. 36
PARIS AND THENCE. 37
MARSEILLES. 42
ROME. 45
ST. PETER'S. 50
SUPPER OF THE PILGRIMS. 55
EASTER. 58
WORKS OF ART. 60
PIAZZA NAVONA--THE TOMBOLA. 65
SUNDAYS IN ROME. 70
CATACOMBS. 74
VIA APPIA AND THE COLUMBARIA. 81
NAPLES--THE JOURNEY. 88
THE MUSEUM. 92
NAPLES--EXCURSIONS. 96
THE CAPUCHIN. 102
BAJA. 106
CAPRI. 110
SORRENTO. 119
FLORENCE. 122
PALAZZO PITTI. 124
VENICE. 133
GREECE AND THE VOYAGE THITHER. 153
SYRA. 164
PIRAEUS--ATHENS. 169
EXPEDITIONS--NAUPLIA. 175
ARGOS. 183
EGINA. 196
DAYS IN ATHENS. 198
EXCURSIONS. 205
HYMETTUS. 214
ITEMS. 221
THE PALACE. 222
THE CATHEDRAL. 227
THE MISSIONARIES. 231
THE PIAZZA. 234
DEPARTURE. 237
RETURN VOYAGE. 239
FARTHER. 249
FRAGMENTS. 253
FLYING FOOTSTEPS. 270
MUNICH. 275
SWITZERLAND. 284
THE GREAT EXPOSITION. 290
PICTURES IN ANTWERP. 299
FROM THE OAK TO THE OLIVE.
PRELIMINARIES.
Not being, at this moment, in the pay of any press, whether foreign or
domestic, I will not, at this my third landing in English country, be in
haste to accomplish the correspondent's office of extroversion, and to
expose all the inner processes of thought and of nature to the gaze of
an imaginary public, often, alas! a delusory one, and difficult to be
met with. No individual editor, nor joint stock company, bespoke my
emotions before my departure. I am, therefore, under no obligation to
furnish for the market, with the elements of time and of postage
unhandsomely curtailed. Instead, then, of that breathless steeple chase
after the butterfly of the moment, with whose risks and hurry I am
intimately acquainted, I feel myself enabled to look around me at every
step which I shall take on paper, and to represent, in my small literary
operations, the three dimensions of time, instead of the flat disc of
the present.
And first as to my pronoun. The augmentative _We_ is essential for
newspaper writing, because people are liable to be horsewhipped for what
they put in the sacred columns of a daily journal. _We_ may represent a
vague number of individuals, less inviting to, and safer from, the
cowhide, than the provoking _egomet ipse_. Or perhaps the _We_ derives
from the New Testament incorporation of devils, whose name was legion,
for we are many. In the Fichtean philosophy, also, there are three
pronouns comprised in the personal unity whose corporeal effort applies
this pen to this paper, to wit, the _I_ absolute, the _I_ limited, and
the _I_ resulting from the union of these two. So that a philosopher may
say _we_ as well as a monarch or a penny-a-liner. Yet I, at the present
moment, incline to fall back upon my record of baptism, and to confront
the white sheet, whose blankness I trust to overcome, in the character
of an agent one and indivisible.
Nor let it be supposed that these preliminary remarks undervalue the
merits and dignity of those who write for ready money, whose meals and
travels are at the expense of mysterious corporations, the very cocktail
which fringes their daily experience being thrown in as a brightener of
their wits and fancies. Thus would I, too, have written, had anybody
ordered me to do so. I can hurry up my hot cakes like another, when
there is any one to pay for them. But, leisure being accorded me, I
shall stand with my tablets in the marketplace, hoping in the end to
receive my penny, upon a footing of equality with those who have borne
the burden and heat of the day.
With the rights of translation, however, already arranged for in the
Russian, Sclavonian, Hindustanee, and Fijian dialects, I reserve to
myself the right to convert my pronoun, and to write a chapter in _we_
whenever the individual _I_ shall seem to be insufficient. With these
little points agreed upon beforehand, to prevent mistakes,--since a book
always represents a bargain,--I will enter, without further delay, upon
what I intend as a very brief but cogent chronicle of a third visit to
Europe, the first two having attained no personal record.
THE VOYAGE.
The steamer voyage is now become a fact so trite and familiar as to call
for no special illustration at these or any other hands. Yet voyages and
lives resemble each other in many particulars, and differ in as many
others. Ours proves almost unprecedented for smoothness, as well as for
safety. We start on the fatal Wednesday, as twice before, expecting the
fatal pang. Our last vicarious purchase on shore was a box of that
energetic mustard, so useful as a counter-irritant in cases of internal
commotion. The bitter partings are over, the dear ones heartily
commended to Heaven, we see, as in a dream, the figure of command
mounted upon the paddle-box. We cling to a camp stool near the red
smoke-stack, and cruelly murmur to the two rosy neophytes who are our
companions, "In five minutes you will be more unhappy than you ever were
or ever dreamed of being." They reply with sweet, unconscious looks of
wonder, that ignorance of danger which the recruit carries into his
first battle, or which carries him into it. But five minutes pass, and
twelve times five, and the moment for going below does not come. In the
expected shape, in fact, it does not arrive at all. We do not resolve
upon locomotion, nor venture into the dining saloon; but leaning back
upon a borrowed _chaise longue_, we receive hurried and fragmentary
instalments of victuals, and discuss with an improvised acquaintance the
aspects of foreign and domestic travel. The plunge into the state-room
at bedtime, and the crawl into the narrow berth, are not without their
direr features, which the sea-smells and confined air aggravate. We hear
bad accounts of A, B, and C, but our neophytes patrol the deck to the
last moment, and rise from their dive, on the second morning, fresher
than ever.
Our steamer is an old one, but a favorite, and as steady as a
Massachusetts matron of forty. Our captain is a kindly old sea-dog, who
understands his business, and does not mind much else. To the innocent
flatteries of the neophytes he opposes a resolute front. They will
forget him, he says, as soon as they touch land. They protest that they
will not, and assure him that he shall breakfast, dine, and sup with
them in Boston, six months hence, and that he shall always remain their
sole, single, and ideal captain; at all of which he laughs as grimly as
Jove is said to do at lovers' perjuries.
Our company is a small one, after the debarkation at Halifax, where
sixty-five passengers leave us,--among whom are some of the most
strenuous _euchreists_. The remaining thirty-six are composed partly of
our own country people,--of whom praise or blame would be impertinent in
this connection,--partly of the Anglo-Saxon of the day, in the
pre-puritan variety. Of the latter, as of the former, we will waive all
discriminating mention, having porrigated to them the dexter of
good-will, with no hint of aboriginal tomahawks to be exhumed hereafter.
Some traits, however, of the _Anglais de voyage_, as seen on his return
from an American trip, may be vaguely given, without personality or fear
of offence.
The higher in grade the culture of the European traveller in America,
the more reverently does he speak of what he has seen and learned. To
the gentle-hearted, childhood and its defects are no less sacred than
age and its decrepitude; withal, much dearer, because full of hope and
of promise. The French barber sneezes out "Paris" at every step taken on
the new land. That is the utmost his ratiocination can do; he can
perceive that Boston, Washington, Chicago, are not Paris. The French
exquisite flirts, flatters the individual, and depreciates the
commonwealth. The English bagman hazards the glibbest sentences as to
the falsity of the whole American foundation. Not much behind him lags
the fox-hunting squire. The folly and uselessness of our late war supply
the theme of diatribes as eloquent as twenty-_five_ letters can make
them. Obliging _apercus_ of the degradation and misery in store for us
are vouchsafed at every opportunity. But it is when primogeniture is
touched upon, or the neutrality of England in the late war criticised,
that the bellowing of the sacred bulls becomes a brazen thunder. After
listening to their voluminous complaints of the shortcomings of western
civilization, we are tempted to go back to a set of questions asked and
answered many centuries ago.
"What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A man clothed in soft
raiment? Behold, they that live delicately dwell in kings' houses. But
what went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, And more
than a prophet." For the prophet only foretells what is to be, but the
prophetic nation is working out and fulfilling the prophet's future.
Peace, however, peace between us and them. Let the bagman return to his
business, the squire to his five-barred gate. We wish them nothing worse
than to stay at home, once they have got there. Not thus do the Goldwin
Smiths, the Liulph Stanleys, take the altitude of things under a new
horizon. They have those tools and appliances of scientific thought
which build just theories and strait conclusions. The imperfection and
the value of human phenomena are too well understood by them to allow
them to place all of the values in the old world, and all of the
imperfections in the new. And, _apropos_ of this, we have an antidote to
all the poison of gratuitous malignity in the shape of M. Auguste
Laugel's thorough and appreciative treatise entitled The United States
during the War. From depths of misconception which we cannot fathom we
turn to his pages, and see the truths of our record and of our
conviction set forth with a simplicity and elegance which should give
his work a permanent value. To Americans it must be dear as a righteous
judgment; to Europeans as a vindication of their power of judging.
It must not, however, be supposed that our whole _traversee_ is a
squabble, open or suppressed, between nationalities which should contend
only in good will. The dreamy sea-days bring, on the contrary, much
social chat and comfort. Two of the Britons exercise hospitality of tea,
of fresh butter, of drinks cunningly compounded. One of these glows at
night like a smelting furnace, and goes about humming in privileged
ears, "The great brew is about to begin." For this same great brew he
ties a white apron before his stout person, breaks ten eggs into a bowl,
inflicting flagellation on the same, empties as many bottles of ale in a
tin pan, and flies off to the galley, whence he returns with a smoking,
frothing mixture, which is dispensed in tumblers, and much appreciated
by the recipients. In good fellowship these two Britons are not
deficient, and the restriction of the alphabet, dimly alluded to above,
does not lie at their door.
After rocking, and dreaming, and tumbling; after drowsy attempts to get
hold of other people's ideas and to disentangle your own; after a week's
wonder over the hot suppers of such as dine copiously at four P. M., and
the morning cocktails of those who drink whiskey in all its varieties
before we separate for the night; after repeated experiments, which end
by suiting our gait and diet to an ever-mobile existence, in which our
prejudices are the only stable points, our personal restraints the only
fixed facts,--we fairly reach the other side. The earliest terrene
object which we behold is a light-house some sixty miles out at sea,
whose occupants, we hope, are not resolutely bent upon social enjoyment.
Here the sending up of blue lights and rockets gives us a cheerful sense
of some one besides ourselves. Queenstown, our next point, is made at
two A. M., and left after weary waiting for the pilot, but still before
convenient hours for being up. Some hours later we heave the lead, and
enjoy the sight of as much _terra firma_ as can be fished up on the
greased end of the same. Our last day on board is marred by a heavy and
penetrating fog. We are in the Channel, but can see neither shore. In
the early morning we arrive at Liverpool, and, after one more of those
good breakfasts, and a mild encounter with the custom-house officers, we
part from our late home, its mingled associations and associates to be
recalled hereafter with various shades of regard and regret. The good
captain, having been without sleep for two nights, does not come to take
leave of us--a neglect which almost moves the neophytes to tears. The
two veterans console them, however; and now all parties are in the
little lighter which carries the steamer's passengers and luggage to the
dock. Here, three shillings' worth of cab and horse convey us and ours,
a respectable show of trunks, to the hotel of our choice--the
Washington by name. We commend this cheapness of conveyance, a novel
feature in American experience. At the hotel we find a comfortable
parlor, and, for the first time in many days, part from our wrappings.
After losing ourselves among the Egyptian china of our toilet set,
wondering at the width of beds and warmth of carpets, we descend to the
coffee-room, order dinner, and feel that we have again taken possession
of ourselves.
LIVERPOOL.
A good deal of our time here is spent in the prosaic but vital
occupation of getting something to eat. If Nature abhors a vacuum, she
does so especially when, after twelve days of a fluctuating and
predatory existence, the well-shaken traveller at last finds a stable
foundation for self and victuals. The Washington being announced as
organized on the American plan, we descend to the coffee-room with the
same happy confidence which would characterize our first appearance at
the buffet of the Tremont House or Fifth Avenue Hotel. But here no
waiter takes possession of you and your wants, hastening to administer
both to the mutual advantage of guest and landlord. You sit long
unnoticed; you attract attention only by a desperate effort. Having at
length secured the medium through which a dinner may be ordered, the
minister (he wears a black dress coat and white trimmings) disappears
with an air of "Will you have it now, or wait till you can get it?"
which our subsequent experience entirely justifies. We learn later that
a meal ordered half an hour beforehand will be punctually served.
And here, except in cases of absolute starvation, we shall dismiss the
meal question altogether, and devote ourselves to nobler themes. We
ransack the smoky and commercial city in search of objects of interest.
The weather being incessantly showery, we lay the foundation of our
English liberty in the purchase of two umbrellas, capable each of
protecting two heads. Of clothes we must henceforward be regardless. In
the streets, barefooted beggary strikes us, running along in the wet,
whining and coaxing. We visit the boasted St. George's Hall, where,
among other statues, is one of the distinguished Stephenson, of railroad
memory. Here the court is in session for the assizes. The wigs and gowns
astound the neophytes. The ushers in green and orange livery shriek
"Silence!" through every sentence of judge or counsel. No one can hear
what is going on. Probably all is known beforehand. At the hotel, the
Greek committee wait upon the veteran, with asseverations and
hiccoughings of to us incomprehensible emotions. We resist the theatre,
with the programme of "Lost in London," expecting soon to experience the
sensation without artistic intervention. We sleep, missing the cradle of
the deep, and on the morrow, by means of an uncanny little ferry-boat,
reach the Birkenhead station, and are booked for Chester.
CHESTER--LICHFIELD.
The Grosvenor Inn receives us, not at all in the fashion of the hostelry
of twenty years ago. A new and spacious building forming a quadrangle
around a small open garden, the style highly architectural and somewhat
inconvenient; waiters got up after fashion plates; chambermaids with
apologetic caps, not smaller than a dime nor larger than a dinner plate;
a handsome sitting-room, difficult to warm; airy sleeping-rooms; a
coffee-room in which our hunger and cold seek food and shelter; a
housekeeper in a striped silk gown,--these are the first features with
which we become familiar at the Grosvenor. The veteran falling ill
detains us there for the better part of two days; and we employ the
interim of his and our necessities in exploring the curious old town,
with its many relics of times long distant. The neophytes here see their
first cathedral, and are in raptures with nothing so much as with its
dilapidation. We happen in during the afternoon hour of cathedral
service, and the sexton, finding that we do not ask for seats, fastens
upon us with the zeal of a starved leech upon a fresh patient, and leads
us as weary a dance as Puck led the Athenian clowns. This chase after
antiquity proves to have something unsubstantial about it. The object is
really long dead and done with. These ancient buildings are only its
external skeleton, the empty shell of the tortoise. No effort of
imagination can show us how people felt when these dark passages and
deserted enclosures were full of the arterial warmth and current of
human life. The monumental tablets tell an impossible tale. The immortal
spirit of things, which is past, present, and future, dwells not in
these relics, but lives in the descent of noble thoughts, in the
perpetuity of moral effort which makes man human. We make these
reflections shivering, while the neophytes explore nave and transept,
gallery and crypt. A long tale does the old sexton tell, to which they
listen with ever-wondering expectation. Meantime the cold cathedral
service has ended. Canon, precentor, and choir have departed, with the
very slender lay attendance. In a commodious apartment, by a bright
fire, we recover our frozen joints a little. Here stands a full-length
portrait of his most gracious etc., etc. The sexton, preparing for a
huge jest, says to us, "Ladies, this represents the last king of
America." The most curious thing we see in the cathedral is the room in
which the ecclesiastical court held its sittings. The judges' seat and
the high-backed benches still form a quadrangular enclosure within a
room of the same shape. Across one corner of this enclosure is mounted a
chair, on which the prisoner, accused of the intangible offence of
heresy or witchcraft, was perforce seated. I seem to see there a face
and figure not unlike my own, the brow seamed with cabalistic wrinkles.
Add a little queerness to the travelling dress, a pinch or two to the
black bonnet, and how easy were it to make a witch out of the sibyl of
these present leaves! The march from one of these types to the other is
one of those retrograde steps whose contrast only attests the world's
progress. The sibylline was an excellent career for a queer and
unexplained old woman. To make her a sorceress was an ingenious device
for getting rid of a much-decried element of the social variety. Poor
Kepler's years of solitary glory and poverty were made more wretched by
the danger which constantly threatened his aged mother, who was in
imminent danger of burning, on account of her supposed occult
intelligences with the powers of darkness.
After a long and chilly wandering, we dismiss our voluble guide with a
guerdon which certainly sends him home to keep a silver wedding with his
ancient wife. The next day, the veteran's illness detained us within the
ancient city, and we contemplated at some leisure its quaint old houses,
which in Boston would not stand five days. They have been much propped
and cherished, and the new architecture of the town does its best to
continue the traditions of the old. The Guide to Chester, in which we
regretfully invest a shilling, presents a list of objects of interest
which a week would not more than exhaust. One of these--the Roodeye--is
an extensive meadow with a silly legend, and is now utilized as a
race-course. We see the winning post, the graduated seats, the track.
For the rest,--
"The Spanish fleet thou canst not see, because
It is not yet in sight."
We visit the outside of a tiny church of ancient renown,--St.
Olave's,--but, dreading the eternal sexton with the eternal story, we do
not attempt to effect an entrance. The much-famed Roman bath we find in
connection with a shop at which newspapers are sold. We descend a narrow
staircase, and view much rubbish in a small space. For description, see
Chester Guide. One of our party gets into the bath, and comes out none
the cleaner. Spleen apart, however, the ruin is probably authentic, with
its deep spring and worn arches. Near the Grosvenor Hotel is a curious
arcade, built in a part of the old wall--for Chester was a fortified
place. A portion of the old castle still stands, but we fail to visit
its interior. The third morning sees us depart, having been quite
comfortably entertained at the Grosvenor, even to the indulgence of
sweetmeats with our tea, which American extravagance we propose speedily
to abjure. Our national sins, however, still cling to us.
Although the servants are "put in the bill," the cringing civility with
which they follow us to the coach leads me to suspect that the nimble
sixpence might find its way to their acceptance without too severe a
gymnastic. _En route_, now, in a comfortable compartment, with hot water
to our feet, according to the European custom. Our way to Lichfield lies
through an agricultural region, and the fine English mutton appear to be
forward. Small lambs cuddle near magnificent fat mothers. The wide
domains lie open to the view. Everything attests the concentration of
landed property in the hands of the few. We stop at Lichfield, attracted
by the famous cathedral. The Swan Inn receives, but cannot make us
comfortable, a violent wind sweeping through walls and windows. Having
eaten and drunk, we implore our way to the cathedral, St. Chadde, which
we find beautiful without, and magnificently restored within. Many
monuments, ancient and modern, adorn it, with epitaphs of Latin in every
stage of plagiarism. A costly monument to some hero of the Sutlej war
challenges attention, with its tame and polished modern sphinxes. Tombs
of ancient abbots we also find, and one recumbent carving of a starved
and shrunken figure, whose leanness attests some ascetic period not
famous in sculpture. The pulpit is adorned with shining brass and
stones, principally cornelians and agates. The organ discoursed a sonata
of Beethoven for the practice of the organist, but secondarily for our
delectation. A box with an inscription invites us to contribute our mite
to the restoration of the cathedral, which may easily cost as much as
the original structure. Carving, gilding, inlaid work, stained glass--no
one circumstance of ecclesiastical gewgawry is spared or omitted; and
trusting that some to us unknown centre of sanctification exists, to
make the result of the whole something other than idol worship, we
comply with the gratifying suggestion of our wealth and generosity.
After satisfying ourselves with the cathedral, we look round wonderingly
for the recipient of some further fee. He appears in the shape of a
one-eyed man who invites us to ascend the tower. Guided by a small boy,
Neophyte No. 1 executes this ascent, and of course reports a wonderful
prospect, which we are content to take on hearsay. Leaving the
cathedral, we seek the house in which Dr. Johnson is said to have been
born. It is, strange to say, much like other houses, the lower story
having been turned into a furnishing shop, where we buy a pincushion
tidy for remembrance. In an open space, in front of the house, sits a
statue of the renowned and redoubted doctor, supported by a pedestal
with biographical bas-reliefs. Below one of these is inscribed, "He
hears Sacheverell." The design represents a small child in a father's
arms, presented before a wiggy divine, who can, of course, be none other
than the one in question. While these simple undertakings are planned
and executed, the veteran and elder neophyte engage a one-horse vehicle,
and madly fly to visit an insane asylum. We shiver till dinner in the
chilly parlor of the inn, and inter ourselves at an early hour in the
recesses of a huge feather-bed, where the precious jewel, sleep, is
easily found. And the next morning sees us _en route_ for London.
At one of the stations between Lichfield and London, we encounter a
group whose chief figure is that of a pretty little lady, blithe as a
golden butterfly, apparelled for the chase. Her dress consists of a
narrow-skirted habit, of moderate length, beneath which we perceive a
pair of stout boots, of a description not strictly feminine. A black
plush paletot corresponds with her black skirt. A shining stove-pipe
crowns her yellow tresses. As she emerges from the railway carriage, a
young man of elegant aspect approaches her. He wears white hunting
trousers, high black boots, a black plush coat, and carries a hunting
whip. The similarity of color in the costumes leads us to suppose that
the wearers belong to some hunting association. He is at least Sir
Charles, she, Lady Arabella. He accosts her with evident pleasure, and
is allowed a shake of the hand. An elderly relative in the background, a
servant in top boots, who touches his hat as if it could cure the
plague,--these complete the picture.
At the same station we descry another huntsman in white breeches,
scarlet cap, and overcoat. We learn that there are two _meets_ to-day in
this region, but our interests are with the black and white party.
Farewell, Sir Charles and Lady Arabella. Joyous be your gallop, light
your leap over five-barred gates. The sly fox Cupid may be chasing you,
while you chase poor Renard. _Prosit_.
LONDON.
"Charing Cross Hotel? 'Ere you are, sir;" and a small four-wheeled cab,
with a diminutive horse and beer-tinted driver, has us up at the door of
the same. In front, within the precincts of the hotel court, stands the
ancient cross, or that which replaces it, and around radiate cook-shops
and book-shops, jewellers and victuallers and milliners. The human river
of the Strand fluxes and refluxes before this central spot, and
Trafalgar Square, and Waterloo Place, and Westminster Abbey, and the
Houses of Parliament are near. Cabs spring up like daisies and primroses
beneath the footsteps of spring. At the hotel they make a gratifying
fuss about us. They seize upon all of us but our persons; the lift,
(_Americane_--elevator) does that, and noiselessly lodges us on the
second floor, where we occupy a decent sitting-room, with bedrooms _en
suite_. A fire of soft coal soon glows in the grate. A smart chambermaid
takes our orders. We get out our address-book, rub up our recollections,
enclose and send our cards, then run out and take a dip in the Strand,
and expand to the full consciousness that we are in the mighty city
which cannot fall because there is no hollow deep enough to hold it.
We have a quiet day and a half at the hotel before we receive the echo
of our cards. This interval we improve by visits to the houses of
Parliament and Westminster Abbey, where we pay our full price, and visit
the royal chapels with their many tombs. At the recumbent figures of
Mary Stuart and Elizabeth we pause to think of the dramatic ghosts which
will not allow them to rest in their graves. Poetry is resurrection, and
for us who have seen Rachel and Ristori, Mary and Elizabeth are still
living and speaking lessons of human passion and misfortune. These
marbles hold their crumbling bones, but we have seen them in far
America, doing a night's royalty before a democratic audience, and
demanding to be largely paid for the same.
The frescoes and statues in the long corridors of the Houses of
Parliament deserve a more minute study than we are able to give them.
The former show considerable progress in the pictorial art during the
seventeen years which divide our present from our past observations.
They represent noted events in English history, the last sleep of
Argyle, the execution of Montrose, and so on. Among them we see the
departure of the May Flower, but not the battle of Bunker Hill. The
statues perpetuate the memories of public men, including a great variety
both as to opinion and as to service. The solidity of all these
adornments and arrangements well deserves the praise with which English
authorities have been wont to comment upon them. A little sombre and
sober in their tone, they are expressive of the taste and feeling of the
nation. Parliament is now in session, and various interesting measures
and reforms are under contemplation. Among these are the extension of
the elective franchise, the abolition of flogging in the army, and the
change of the whole long-transmitted system by which commissions in the
latter are conferred or purchased. The last is perhaps a more democratic
measure than is dreamed of. Throw open the military and church benefices
to the competition of the most able and deserving, and the younger sons
of houses esteemed noble will stand no better chance than others. They
will then simply earn their bread where they can get it. Then, down
comes primogeniture, then the union of state and church, then the
prestige of royalty. This last we think to be greatly on the wane. The
English prefer an hereditary to an elective symbol of supreme power. The
permitted descent in the female line prevents the inconvenient issues to
which the failure of an heir male might give rise. The Georges rose to
great respectability in the third person, and sank to a disreputable
level in the fourth. The present queen is an excellently behaved woman,
and has adhered strictly to her public and private duties. Her long and
strict widowhood is a little carped at by people in general, the
personal sentiment having seemed to encroach upon the public career and
office. But the Prince of Wales will be held to strict and sensible
behavior, and, failing of it, will be severely dealt with. The English
people will endure no second season of Carlton House, no letting down of
manly reserve and womanly character by the spectacle of royal favorites,
bankrupt at the fireside, but current in the world. All this John Bull
will not put up with again. Nor will any Christendom, save that Frankish
and monkeyish one which has yet to learn that true freedom of thought is
not to be had without purity of conscience, and which, in its desire to
be polite, holds the door wider open to bad manners than to good ones.
Rash words! What noble, thoughtful Frenchmen have not we known, and the
world with us! Shall boastful Secesh and blustering Yankee, or the
sordid, shining shoddy fool stand for the American? Yet these are the
figures with which Europe is most familiar. So let us fling no smallest
pebble at the nation of Des Cartes, Montesquieu, Pascal, and De
Tocqueville. It is not in one, but in all countries that extremes meet.
And in this connection a word.
The less we know about a thing, the easier to write about it. To give
quite an assured and fluent account of a country, we should lose no time
on our first arrival. The first impression is the strongest. Familiarity
constantly wears off the edge of observation. The face of the new region
astonishes us once, and once only. We soon grow used to it, and forget
to describe it. The first day of our arrival in Liverpool or in London
gave us volumes to write, which have proved as evanescent as the
pictures of a swift panorama, vanishing to return no more. For now we
are seated in London as though we had always lived there. We may sooner
astonish it with our western accent, unconsidered costume, and wild
coiffure, than it can rivet our attention with its splendors and its
queernesses, its squares, fountains, equipages, cabmen, well-dressed and
well-mannered circles. This for the features, for the surface. But for
the depth and spirit of things, the longer we explore, the less sanguine
do we feel of being able to exhaust them. We sink our deepest shaft, and
write upon it, "Thus far our abilities and opportunities; far more
remains than we can ever bring to light."
And, _apropos_ of this terrible familiarity with things once discerned,
let me say that when we shall have been two days in heaven, we shall not
know it any longer, which is one reason why we must always be getting
there, but never arrive. Pope's old-fashioned line, "always to be
blest," expresses profoundly this philosophical necessity, although he
saw it in a simply didactic light, and stated it accordingly. The line
none the less takes its place in the stately train of the ideal
philosophy, to which those have best contributed who have been least
aware of the fact of their having done so. "Lord, when saw I thee naked
and an hungered," etc., etc. On some smallest, obscurest occasion
probably, when, the recognized form and the ignored spirit presenting
themselves together, thy hospitable bosom received the one, and left the
other to take care of itself.
Our neophytes take this great Babel with the charming _at-homeness_ to
which our paragraph alludes. They devour London as if it were the
perpetual bread and butter which their father's house keeps always cut
and spread for them; cab hire, great dinners, distinguished company, the
lofty friend's equipage and livery, lent for precious occasions,--all
this seems as much a matter of course as Lindley Murray's rules, or the
Creed and the Commandments. Joachim? Of course they will hear Joachim,
and the Opera, if it be good enough, and Mr. Dickens. Lady ----, Duke of
So and so. Very well in their way. Presented at court? They wouldn't
mind, provided it were not too tedious. Mr. Carlyle? Herbert Spencer?
Yes, they have heard tell of them.
Happy season of youth, which can find nothing more reverend than its
possibilities, more glorious than its unwasted powers! In spite of all
the new views and theories, I say, let children be born, and let women
nurse them and bring them up, and let us have young people to take our
work where we leave it, laughing at our limitations, and excelling us
with noble strides; to pause some day, and remember our lessons, and
weep over our pains, not the less, O God of the future, surpassing us!
So let children continue to be born, and let no one attempt to
reconstruct society at the expense of one hair of the head of these
little ones, ourselves in hope as well as in memory.
ST. PAUL'S--THE JAPANESE.
The first feature of novelty in visiting St. Paul's Cathedral is the
facility for going thither afforded by the city railways,--one of which
swiftly deposits us in Cannon Street, whence, with the Cathedral in full
sight, we beg our way to the entrance, so far as information goes,--one
only of its several doors being open to the public at all times. The
second is the crypt occupied and solemnized by the ponderous funereal
pomps of the late Duke of Wellington. In conjunction with these must be
mentioned the Nelson monument. These two men have been the great
deliverers of England in modern times, and there is, no doubt, a certain
heartiness in the gratitude that attends their memory. The duke's
mausoleum is of solid porphyry, highly polished, in a quadrangular
enclosure, at each of whose four corners flames a gas-jet, fixed on a
porphyry shaft. Behind this a large space is filled by the huge funereal
car which bore the hero to this place of rest. It is of cast iron,
furnished by the cannon taken in his victories. In it are harnessed
effigies of the six horses that dragged it, in the veritable trappings
worn on the occasion. The heavy black draperies of the car are edged
with a colored border, representing the orders worn by the duke. And
here the care of England will, no doubt, preserve them, with the nodding
hearse-plumes, and all the monuments of that holiday of woe, to moulder
as long as such things can possibly hold together. For there is a point
at which the most illustrious antiquity degenerates into dirt. And in
England the past and present will yet have some awkward controversies to
settle; for the small island cannot always have room for both, and to
cramp and crowd the one for the heraldic display of the other will not
be good housekeeping, according to the theories of to-day. So, when the
fox-hunting squire tells us that his chief public aim and occupation
will be to keep his county conservative, we think that this should mean
to cheat the honest and laborious peasantry out of their eye teeth;
though how they should be ignorant enough to be outwitted by him, is a
question which makes us pause as over an unexplored abyss of
knownothingism.
St. Paul's is clearly organized for the extortion of shillings and
sixpences. So much for seeing the bell, clock, and whispering gallery;
so much for the crypt. You are pressed, too, at every turn, to purchase
guide-books, each more authentic than the last. There, as elsewhere, we
go about spilling our small change at every step, and wondering where it
will all end. We remember the debtors' prisons which still abound in
England, and endeavor to view the younger neophyte in the sober livery
of Little Dorrit.
The only occasion of public amusement that we improve, after the one
happy hearing of Joachim, is an evening performance of the Japanese
jugglers, which remains fresh and vivid in our recollections, with all
its barbaric smoothness and perfection.
The first spectacle which we behold is that of a chattering and
shrieking monkey of a man, who, squatting on his haunches, visibly
fills a tea-cup with water, inverts it upon a pile of papers without
spilling a drop, and pulls out layer after layer of those papers, all
perfectly dry, which he waves at us with a childish joy. By and by, he
restores the cup to its original position, and then empties its contents
into another vessel before our eyes. Another, a top-spinning savage,
continually whirls his top into that state which the boys call "sleep,"
and spins it, thus impelled, along the sharp edge of a steel sword, up
to the point and back again, and along the border of a paper fan, with
other deeds which it were tedious to enumerate. While these feats go on,
two funny little Japanese children, oddly bundled up according to the
patterns of the two sexes, toddle about and chatter with the elders,
probably for the purpose of illustrating the features of family life in
Japan. A young creature, said to be the wife of six unpronounceable
syllables, strums on a monotonous stringed instrument, and screeches,
sometimes striking an octave, but successfully dodging every other
interval. Both in speech and in song the tones of these people betray an
utter want of command over the inflections of the voice. Every elevation
is a scream, every depression, _con rispetto_, a grunt. And when, in
addition to the song and strumming, the little ones lustily beat a large
wooden tea-box with wooden weapons, we begin to waver a little about the
old proverb, _De gustibus non disputandum est_. The beautiful butterfly
trick, however, consoles our eyes for what our ears have suffered. The
conjurer twists first one, then two, butterflies out of a bit of white
paper, and, by means of a fan, causes them to fly and poise as if they
were coquetting with July breezes. When, at last, he presents a basket
of flowers, the illusion is perfect. They settle, fly again, and hover
round, in true coleopteric fashion.
But the acrobatic exhibition is that which beggars all that our
overworked sensibilities have endured at the hands of rope-dancer or
equestrian. Blondin himself, Hanlon in the flying trapeze, are less
perfect and less terrible. Acrobat No. 1 appears in an athlete's costume
of white linen. He binds a stout silken tie around his head--a
precaution whose object is later understood. He then gets into a small
metal triangle with a running cord attached, and is swung up to the
neighborhood of the high, arched ceiling, where various cross-pieces,
slight in appearance, are attached. To one of these he directs his
venturous flight, and letting his triangle depart, he takes his station
with his legs firmly closed upon the cross-piece, his head hanging down,
his hands free. Acrobat No. 2 now comes upon the scene. Mounting in a
second triangle, he is swung to a certain height at a distance of some
twenty or more feet from the first performer. A bamboo pole is here
handed him, of which he manages to convey the upper end within the grasp
of the latter. And now, swinging loose from his triangle, he hangs at
the lower end of the bamboo, his steadfast colleague holding fast the
upper end. And this mere straight line, with only the natural jointings
of the cane, becomes to him a domain, a palace of ease. Now he clings to
it apparently with one finger, throwing out the other hand and both
feet. Now he clings by one foot, his head being down, and his hands
occupied with a fan. There is, in fact, no name for the singularities
with which he amazes us for at least a quarter of an hour. No. 1 always
holds on like grim death. No. 2 seems at times to hold on by nothing.
All the while one of their number chatters volubly in the Japanese
dialect, directing attention to the achievements of the two pendent
heroes. Our thoughts recurred forcibly to a dialogue long familiar in
our own country:--
"Wat's dat darkening up de hole?" asks Cuffee in the she bear's den to
Cuffee without, who is forcibly detaining the returned she bear by one
extremity.
"If de tail slips through my fingers, you'll find out," is the curt
reply, and end of the story.
But the pole did not slip through, and, finally, the second triangle was
swung towards acrobat No. 2, who relinquished his hold of the bamboo,
and intwining his legs about it, pleasantly made his descent with his
head downwards, afterwards setting himself to rights with one shake.
Acrobat No. 1 now condescends to come down from his high position, also
with his head down, and a cool and consummate demeanor. But he walks off
from the stage as if his late inverted view of it had given him
something to think of. And in all this, not one jerk, one hasty snatch,
one fall and recovery. All goes with the rounded smoothness of
machinery. These gymnasts have perfected the mechanism of the body, but
they have given it nothing to do that is worth doing.
SOCIETY.
We bite at the tempting bait of London society a little eagerly. In our
case, as veterans, it is like returning to a delicious element from
which we have long been weaned. The cheerfulness with which English
people respond to the modest presentment of a card _well-motived_, the
cordiality with which they welcome an old friend, once truly a friend,
may well offset the reserve with which they respond to advances made at
random, and the resolute self-defence of the British _Lion_ in
particular against all vague and vagabond enthusiasms. Carlyle's wrath
at the Americans who homaged and tormented him prompted a grandiose
vengeance. He called them a nation of hyperbores. Not for this do we now
vigorously let him alone, but because his spleeny literary utterances
these many years attest the precise moment in which bright Apollo left
him. The most brilliant genius should beware of the infirmity of the
fireside and admiring few, whose friendship applauds his poorest
sayings, and, at the utmost, shrugs its shoulders where praise is out of
the question.
Our remembrance of the London of twenty-four years ago is, indeed
hyperdelightful, and of that description which one does not ask to have
repeated, so perfect is it in the first instance. A second visit was
less social and more secluded in its opportunities. But now--for what
reason it matters not; would it were that of our superior merit--we find
the old delightful account reopened, the friendly visits frequent, and
the luxurious invitations to dinner occupy every evening of our short
week in London, crowding out theatres and opera,--the latter now just in
the bud. To these dissipations a new one has been added, and the
afternoon tea is now a recognized institution. Less formal and expensive
than a New York afternoon reception, it answers the same purpose of a
final object and rest for the day's visiting. In some instances, it
continues through the season; in others, invitations are given for a
single occasion only. You go, if invited, in spruce morning dress, with
as much or as little display of train and bonnet as may suit with your
views. You find a cheerful and broken-up assemblage--people conversing
in twos, or, at most, in threes. And here is the Very Reverend the Dean.
And here is the Catholic Archbishop, renowned for the rank and number of
his proselytes. And here is Sir Charles--not he of the hunting-whip and
breeches, but one renowned in science, and making a practical as well as
a theoretical approximation to the antiquity of man. And here is Sir
Samuel, who has finally discovered those parent lakes of the Nile which
have been among the lost arts of geography for so many centuries. In
this society, no man sees or shows a full-length portrait. A word is
given, a phrase exchanged, and "_tout est dit_." What it all may amount
to must be made out in another book than mine.
Well, having been more or less introduced, you take a cup of tea, with
the option of bread and butter or a fragment of sponge cake. Having
finished this, you vanish; you have shown yourself, reported yourself;
more was not expected of you.
A graver and more important institution is the London dinner, commencing
at half past seven, with good evening clothes--a white neckcloth and
black vest for gentlemen; for _nous autres_, evening dress, not
resplendent. The dinners we attend have perhaps the edge of state a
little taken off, being given at short notice; but we observe female
attire to be less showy than in our recollections of twenty-four years
previous, and our one evening dress, devised to answer for dinner,
evening party, and ball, proves a little over, rather than under, the
golden mean of average appearance. As one dinner is like all, the
briefest sketch of a single possible occasion may suffice. If you have
been at afternoon tea before dinner, your toilet has been perforce a
very hurried one. If it is your first appearance, the _annonce_ of a
French hair-dresser in the upper floor of your hotel may have inspired
you with the insane idea of submitting your precious brain-case to his
manipulations. Having you once in his dreadful seat, he imposes upon you
at his pleasure. You must accept his hair-string, his pins, his rats, at
a price at which angola cats were dear. You are palpitating with haste,
he with the conceit of his character and profession. Fain would he add
swindle to swindle, and perfidy to perfidy. "Don't you want a little
crayon to darken the hair?" and hide the ravages of age; "it is true it
colors a little, since it is made on purpose." You desire it not. "A
cream? a pomade? a hair-wash?" None of all this; only in Heaven's name
to have done with him! He capers behind you, puffing your sober head
with curls, as if he had the breath of AEolus, according to Flaxman's
illustration. Finally he dismisses you at large and unwarranted cost;
but in your imagination he capers at your back for a week to come.
This prelude, which gives to
"_hairy_ nothing
A local habitation and a name,"
leaves little time for further adornment. A hired cab takes your
splendors to the door of the inviting mansion, and leaves them there.
When you depart, you request the servant of the house which feeds you to
call another cab, which he does with the air of rendering a familiar
service.