'Once, I went with a giant and a dwarf, to see a bear.'
'Fiddlestick! what a story to tell!' retorted Aunt Hepsibah, 'and these
children, just as like's not, will believe every word of it.'
'O cousin Dick!' chirped those innocents, [_strepitu avido, multum nido
minuriente_], 'tell us all about it; it sounds just like a fairy-tale!'
'Why, there isn't much to tell. Late one evening, not in a great wood,
but a great city, I fell in with an old couple, a huge, hulking fellow,
nearly eight feet high, with a heavy, loutish air, and the most pitiful
little woman you ever saw, hardly taller than his knee. Her arms were
not longer, than a baby's, and her poor little legs trotted along as
fast as they could, to keep up with his sluggish stride. In a clownish,
lubberly sort of way, he seemed to be taking good, kind care of her.
They were on exhibition, it appeared, and (their own show being over for
the night) were going, poor things, to see a certain famous performing
bear.
'Of course, I went with them. We found the showroom nearly deserted. The
bear, a monstrous fellow, bigger than Samson by half, lay on his back,
his huge, hairy chest heaved up like a bullock's, and a great paw,
holding lazily on to one of his bars. His owner, quite fatigued, and
apparently a trifle in liquor, brightened up when he saw his strange
audience, and at once volunteered to repeat the performance.
''This animal, gentlemen,' said he, 'is considerable tired, for I've
been a workin' on him mighty hard to-day. He knows that he's done his
work for the night, and I wouldn't go in with him again for a
fifty-dollar bill, but I shall do it, seeing I've got such distinguished
company,' and he made a sweeping obeisance, comprehending the giant, the
dwarf, and my humble person.
'The performance was really quite remarkable; but I was more interested
in observing my fellow visitors. The dwarf looked up with her bright
little eyes, and the giant looked down with his great leaden ones, while
the bear jumped over the man's head, and pretended to fight him and hug
him, and finally, walking on his hind-feet, stooped down, and took his
head into the horrid cavern of those great jaws. Out of breath, and red
in the face, the enthusiastic operator wound up by plucking a handful of
long hair from the flank of the much-enduring creature, and presented it
to us, as a souvenir of our visit.'
'I say, when he had him in his mouth, it was 'bear and forbear,' wasn't
it?' put in that scapegrace, Tom, who is always doing something of the
sort.
'Silence! and don't interrupt the court, unless you can say something
better than that. Well, let me tell you, I have been in very genteel
society, without feeling any thing so human, so catholic, so
pantheistical, (in the right sense,) as I did in making one of that
queer company. The great lout of a giant, with not soul enough in him to
fill out his circumference; the sad little dwarf, with not room enough
for hers; the poor, patient, necromanted savage of a bear; the smart,
steely, grog-loving, praise-loving keeper; the curious, bookish,
indolent traveler. Expressions, all of the grand, never-weary
Life-Intention, how widely variant! yet all children, and equally
beloved, of the Infinite Father.
'In four of the five cases, it should seem, the creative energy had set
about to fashion its supposed ultimate and perfect work, and with what
result? At first blush, the failure seemed most conspicuous in my
companions, especially the big and the little one; but a small
introspection might, perhaps, have disclosed a deeper disappointment in
a nobler aim. The bear was the only success among us. He was perfect in
his line, though sadly at a disadvantage; ravished from his
forest-world, and bedeviled with alien civilization. And note (as that
splendid prig, Ruskin, would say) with what mathematical accuracy
nature, in her less ambitious essays, goes to the proposed end. The
bee's flight--a specimen wonder--is not straighter than her course. In
her lower business, she needs no backers. Meddling only monsters her. It
is only when she comes to the grand, resulting combination, for which
she has so long been fussing and preparing--when she tries her hand
('her 'prentice han', I fear,) on man, that she falters, hesitates, and
lastly compromises for something lamentably less than she bargained for.
'Her apparent purpose seems almost inevitably thwarted by some
influence--shall we call it malign? or rather shall we consider (as
perhaps we should in all short-comings) that 'tis only a matter of time
and the comparative degree? a piece of circuition needed for variety of
development, and, of necessity, to eventuate in forms fresher, more
_prononcés_, nearer perfect than any thing we now wot or conceive of.
'To my thinking, the hitch is, that just at this point, she has got
complicated with the wills and motions of intelligences already
individualized and eliminated, and forever alienated from her immediate
impulse. And if this be so, depend on it, the _onus_ of the attempted
perfection comes a good deal upon us. The mighty Mother, unsatisfied in
her fantastic longings, and troubled generally [_Greek: dia to
tiktein_], should be helped and not bothered by her children. We can
remove vexations, can arrange conditions, keep the house quiet
generally. At any rate, we can take such care as may be of the smaller
young ones, help them up-stairs, or at least keep them from tumbling
down again--we bigger babies that have crawled or been pushed a few
steps up the awful stairway of the Inconceivable Ascending-Spiral.'
'I say, Dick, stop your metaphysics.'
'You are quite right, Tom, they are threadbare enough; but these happen
to be _physics_. I don't mean such as you had to take last week, after
that sleigh-ride. Well, I remember feeling this intense communism, this
voltaic _rapport_ with nature in a like way once before, on seeing a
covey of strange creatures, Aztecs, Albinos, wild Africans, busied, by
chance, in a game of romps together, the pure overflow of animal
spirits. It was a curious scene. They made eerie faces at each other;
they feigned assaults; they wove a maze, more fantastic and bizarre than
any thing in _Faust_ or _Freysehutz_. It was the mirth of Fauns, the
mischief of Elves and Brownies. The glee, that lighted up those strange
faces was not of this earth; but a thrill, pulsated through infinitude,
of that joy of life which wells forever from the exhaustless fountain of
the Central Heart; a scintillation, from how afar off! of the
Immeasurable Love, of the Eternal Pity; though it seemed hardly more
human than the play of kits and puppies, or than the _anerithmon
gelasma_ (the soulless, uncontrollable titter) of the tossed spring
spray, or the blue, breezy ripple, for which overhaul your _Prometheus_,
master Tom, and when found, make a note of it.'
'Well, that's not so bad,' allowed Hepsibah, a good deal mollified.
Greek, I have observed, always has an excellent effect upon her.
'And it has a good moral, my dears,' said grandmother, 'I always like a
good moral.'
'And was the bear always good to him?'
'Well, my dear, I am sorry to say that he had once bitten off three of
his fingers. You may think this was proceeding to extremities; but, on
the whole, I give him credit for great moderation. They will bite
sometimes, however--_me teste_, who once in my proper person verified
the old proverb, which I had always taken for a bit of unnatural
history.'
'I know; 'been a bear, 'twould a bit you,' eh?'
'Your customary sagacity, Tom, is not at fault. Yes, the bear bit me.'
'Dick,' said my uncle, 'it strikes me, all this wouldn't make a bad
magazine article, if you'd only leave out your confounded speculations;
and Tom, as your cousin says, I wish you _would_ stick a little closer
to your classics.'
'Cousin Dick!'
'Well, little No-no!'
'You tell a real good story.'
'Do I? then come and pay me for it.'
'No-o! you sha-a-ant! aeou!! there now, tell us another; tell us about
the bear that bit you?'
'There isn't much to tell about that either. It was on a steamer, in the
Gulf. On the forecastle lay a stout oaken box, and in it--all his
troubles to come--was a young bear. In the top of it was an inch
auger-hole, and at this small port the poor devil used to keep his eye
all day so pitifully, that I had compassion on him, saw he would get
etiolated, and besought the captain to let him out.
''Not if I know it,' responded Dux, severely, 'he'd clear the decks in a
minute! We had one aboard once before--a big rascal, in a cage, 'tween
decks--and one dark, stormy night, he broke adrift and stowed himself
away so snug that we never found him till next day. You may judge what a
hurrah's nest there was, every body knowing this d----d bear was
_somewhere_ aboard, and afraid of running foul of him in the dark. No,
no, better let him alone!'
'Howbeit, I over-persuaded him. We managed to get hold of a bit of chain
fastened to his collar, bent a line on to it, gave him reasonable scope,
belayed the bight, and knocked off one end of his box. Out he bolted! It
was a change from that dark den to the glaring tropical sunshine, the
blue sea foaming under the trades, the rolling masts, and the hundreds
of curious eyes that surrounded him. Sensible to the last, he tried to
go aloft, but the line soon brought him up. Down he came, and steered
for'ard. The cooks and stewards, their hands on the combing, filled the
fore-hatch. He made a dive for them, and they tumbled ignominiously down
the hatchway. We laughed consumedly. Then he cruised aft, the
dress-circle considerately widening. He came up to me, as if knowing his
benefactor by instinct, looking curiously about him, and curling and
retracting his flexile snout and lip, after the manner of his kind. Now,
I had often dealt with bears, tame and semi-tame, had 'held Sackerson by
the chain,' as often as Master Slender, had known them sometimes to
strike or hug, (which they always do standing,) but had never known one
to bite. So I didn't take the trouble to move, and--the first I
knew--the villain had me by the leg!'
'Sarved yer right, for lettin' on him out,' interposed that grim utilist
Jonas, our hired man. He had entered, pending the narrative, and stood,
_arrectis auribus_, by the door.
'Mercy on us! didn't it hurt?'
'Yes; but not more than might easily be borne. It didn't seem like
biting--more like the strong, hard grip of a vice than any thing
else--puncture quite lost in constriction. My viznomy, I am told, was a
study: supreme disgust, tempered with divine philosophy.'
'And how on earth did you get away from him?'
'By not trying to; kept as still as a mouse, till he had bitten all he
wanted to, which took about a minute. Then he let go, and walked quietly
off, to see if he couldn't bite somebody else. I afterward improved our
acquaintance by giving him sugar-cane and a licking or two; but he was
always an ill-conditioned brute, not amenable to reason, and when we
came to New York, gave no end of trouble, by getting over the side and
running up the North River on the ice--I dare say he scented the
Catskills--the whole waterside whooping and hallooing in chase after
him. Ah! I could tell you a better story than that, of a wild beast
aboard a ship!'
'Do, then.'
'It was told me by an ancient mariner, who knows how many years ago? for
I'm getting to be an old fellow myself, children.'
'What nonsense, Dick! talk about _your_ being old.'
'Well, never mind. I'll try to give it to you in his own words. Said he:
"I never see a nigger turn white but once, and that was aboard of the
old 'Emperor.' We was bound from Calcutta, to Boston, and had aboard an
elephant, a big Bengal tiger, and a lot of other wild creturs, for a
menagerie. Well, one forenoon, blowing a good topsail breeze, as it
might be to-day, but more sea than wind, we was going large, and I up on
the main-yard, turning in a splice. All to once, I heerd a strange
noise, and looked down. There was the black cook, shinning of it up,
making a great hullibaloo, and shaking the tormentors behind him--that's
a big iron fork he has in the galley. His face was as white as a
table-cloth. Close behind him was the tiger, who had got out of his cage
somehow, and, snuffing the grub, had made tracks for the coppers.
"All the watch, by this time, was tumbling up the rigging, fore and aft.
The tiger he tried two or three of the ratlins, but thought it onsafe,
so he let himself down, mighty careful, to the deck. The companion-way
was open, and he dived into the cabin. The captain lay asleep on the
transom, and never waked up. The cretur didn't touch him, but come up
agin, and poked his nose into, the door of the mate's room, that was a
little on the jar. The mate see him, and gin him a kick in the face, and
slammed the door agin him. That made him mad, and he tried to get in at
the little window; but his head was so big, he couldn't begin. Did you
ever mind what eyes them devils has? They've got a kind of cruel,
murderin' look that no other beast has, that I ever see. Well, he give
it up, and went aft. Then, a kind of a sick feelin' come over me; for,
d'ye see, there was _one_ man that couldn't leave no way!'
"The man at the wheel?'
"Ay, shipmet! He saw the tiger comin', for he turned as pale as death;
but he didn't look at him, and never stirred tack or sheet. He stuck
right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he
did, for if he hadn't, we'd a broached to in five seconds, and that
would a been wuss than the tiger. Well, the cussed beast went close up
to him, and actually snuffed at him. You may judge what a relief it was
to us when he left him, at last, and come for'ard. There was a sheep in
the long-boat, and, as he was cruising about decks, he smelt it, and
grabbed it, and was suckin' its blood in a jiffy; so we managed to get a
slip-knot over him, and hauled taut on it from aloft. Then a young
fellow went down with a line, and wound it round and round him, till he
couldn't stir, and at last, with a heap of trouble, we got him stowed in
his cage again, sheep and all; for he never let go on it.'
"And what was done for the man at the wheel?'
"Well, sir, nothing; he was only doing his duty."
'That was too bad! Now tell us another--tell us some more about shows?'
'Shows, chickabiddy? I've not seen any of late. The last was the
What-Is-It.'
'Well, and what _was_ it?'
'That is more than I can tell you. The proprietor is constantly asking
the question, and has even gone to the expense of repeatedly
advertising. I shouldn't wonder if, by this time, he had gotten a
satisfactory response. I went and listened to the customary description.
The silence that ensued was broken by a miserable skeptic, whose
ill-regulated aspirations betrayed his insular prejudice, 'Vot is it?
arf hanimal, eh? t'other day, I stuck a pin into him, and ses he, '_Dam
yez!_' Vot is it, eh?'
'Thus did this wretch, by implication, endeavor to unsettle the opinions
of the audience, none too definite, perhaps, before.
'It is singular the distrust with which a thankless public has long come
to regard the efforts of one whose aim it has ever been to combine
instruction with amusement. Do you remember an itinerant expedition sent
forth, years ago, by the same grand purveyor? There was a Car of
Juggernaut, you may recollect, drawn by twenty little pigs of elephants.
That show I also attended, and was well repaid for going. Near the
entrance of the tent was a large cage, peopled with the gayest denizens
of tropic life, macaws, cockatoos, paroquets--what know I?--a feathered
iridescence, that sulked prehensile or perched paradisiacal in their
iron house. Two youths entered; one paused admiringly. 'Come along,
Jack,' remonstrated the other, hurrying him on by the arm, 'them darned
things is only painted.' He wasn't going to see his friend imposed upon
and his admiration extorted under false pretenses. Not if _he_ knew it!
Mr. B---- couldn't do _him!_
'Painted! Ay, Jonathan--and if Church or Kensett, look you, could only
get at those pigments! could find the oil-and-color men that filled that
order! ah me! what opaline skies! what amethystine day-breaks! what
incarnadine sunsets we should have! The palette for that work was laid
by angels, from tubes long hidden in the choicest crypts of the vast
elaboratory, and those transcendent tints.
'Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on,'
Painted! to be sure.
'For this wicked specimen of infidelity, I was presently overpaid by a
charming bit of belief. At the further end of the great tent was a case,
containing divers wax effigies of eminent personages; the Czar, Prince
Albert, General Spitzentuyfel--what know I? You may see them any day,
(if you happen to have two York shillings,) at the sumptuous home to
which they have returned from those travels. There they stood, side by
side, an imposing company, forever shiny in the face, like Mrs.
Wittitterly's page, and with eyes magnificently superior to any thing so
sordid as speculation. All were finely befrogged, and ruched, and
epauletted, and, for the most part, they sported moustaches. It happened
that I had the latter adornment--a variety then--on my own mug.
While recognizing them--they were old acquaintances--I felt a gentle
pull at my skirt, and looking down, was aware of a little _tot_, some
three years old, who asked, pointing to the counterfeit presentments in
the show-case: 'Did _you_ come out o' there?' The innocent! he little
knew what an extinguisher he was clapping on me. 'No, sonny,' said I,
looking down on the little nose, itself a bit of wax, between two
peaches. The soft impeachment proceeded--'Well, where do yer belong? do
yer belong in with the _bear_?' for there was a plantigrade there too.
But I reckon that will do for bears, this time.'
'I should think so! They'll be dreaming about 'em all night.'
'Dick, how much of all this is true?'
'The whole, barring a few verbal interpolations.'
'Wal, I've seed shows,' moralized Jonas, 'a good many on 'em; but I
couldn't tell the yarns about 'em that Mr. Richard, here, does. He
figurs on 'em considerable, I 'xpect.''
* * * * *