dream was to be beautifully realized and in time not only little
Fruitlands, but the whole earth, be turned into a Happy Valley. He
worked with every muscle of his body, for _he_ was in deadly earnest. He
taught with his whole head and heart; planned and sacrificed, preached
and prophesied, with a soul full of the purest aspirations, most
unselfish purposes, and desires for a life devoted to God and man, too
high and tender to bear the rough usage of this world.
It was a little remarkable that only one woman ever joined this
community. Mrs. Lamb merely followed wheresoever her husband led,--"as
ballast for his balloon," as she said, in her bright way.
Miss Jane Gage was a stout lady of mature years, sentimental, amiable,
and lazy. She wrote verses copiously, and had vague yearnings and
graspings after the unknown, which led her to believe herself fitted for
a higher sphere than any she had yet adorned.
Having been a teacher, she was set to instructing the children in the
common branches. Each adult member took a turn at the infants; and, as
each taught in his own way, the result was a chronic state of chaos in
the minds of these much-afflicted innocents.
Sleep, food, and poetic musings were the desires of dear Jane's life,
and she shirked all duties as clogs upon her spirit's wings. Any thought
of lending a hand with the domestic drudgery never occurred to her; and
when to the question, "Are there any beasts of burden on the place?"
Mrs. Lamb answered, with a face that told its own tale, "Only one
woman!" the buxom Jane took no shame to herself, but laughed at the
joke, and let the stout-hearted sister tug on alone.
Unfortunately, the poor lady hankered after the flesh-pots, and
endeavored to stay herself with private sips of milk, crackers, and
cheese, and on one dire occasion she partook of fish at a neighbor's
table.
One of the children reported this sad lapse from virtue, and poor Jane
was publicly reprimanded by Timon.
"I only took a little bit of the tail," sobbed the penitent poetess.
"Yes, but the whole fish had to be tortured and slain that you might
tempt your carnal appetite with that one taste of the tail. Know ye not,
consumers of flesh meat, that ye are nourishing the wolf and tiger in
your bosoms?"
At this awful question and the peal of laughter which arose from some of
the younger brethren, tickled by the ludicrous contrast between the
stout sinner, the stern judge, and the naughty satisfaction of the young
detective, poor Jane fled from the room to pack her trunk, and return to
a world where fishes' tails were not forbidden fruit.
Transcendental wild oats were sown broadcast that year, and the fame
thereof has not yet ceased in the land; for, futile as this crop seemed
to outsiders, it bore an invisible harvest, worth much to those who
planted in earnest. As none of the members of this particular community
have ever recounted their experiences before, a few of them may not be
amiss, since the interest in these attempts has never died out and
Fruitlands was the most ideal of all these castles in Spain.--_Silver
Pitchers, and Other Stories_.
WILLIAM WIRT HOWE.
(BORN, 1833.)
* * * * *
CONVERSATIONAL DEPRAVITY
_To the Chief-Justice of Glenwood_,
SUBLIME SIR: ... What can be more destructive of the higher forms of
conversation than a pun? What right has any one to explode a petard in
the midst of sweet sociality, and blow every thing like sequence and
sentiment sky-high? And therefore, since you, as translator of the
Pasha's Letters, have taken pains to publish his observations on many
social subjects, I think it eminently proper that you should ventilate
the ideas of his friend Tompkins upon a not less important theme.
Happily, I have been saved the trouble of original composition, by a
discovery made by my landlady while I was boarding a year ago on St.
John's Park. Mr. Green, our attic boarder, went off suddenly one day to
see a friend in the country, as he said. Of course our landlady
searched his room, with a view of reading his letters; and in a brown
hair-trunk, with a boot-jack, a razor-strop, a box of Seidlitz powders,
and an odd volume of Young's Night Thoughts, she found the following
manuscript. The females of the house were satisfied with reading such
letters as were left by Mr. Green in his apartment, and so this paper
was handed over to me. I may say that it was marked with pencil,
"Declined with Thanks."
"THE PUN FIEND.
"BY C. GREEN.
"I used to be corpulent, rosy-cheeked, and cheerful. I am gaunt, pale,
and morose now. I used to sleep sweetly; but now I toss about upon my
bed, terrified by hideous visions, and feelings as of a clammy hand or
wet cloth laid on my face. I was wont to walk about our streets after
business hours, and on Sundays, with a genuine smile of enjoyment
lighting up my face; but now I hurry along with my eyes cast down, and I
seek by-ways and dark lanes for my rambles. My friends think I am in
love; persons who know me but slightly, suppose me a victim to
remorse--imagine that I wear a hair shirt, and macerate my flesh. They
are all wrong. An old bachelor like myself has long ago buried the
light of love in a tomb, and set a seal upon the great stone at the
door; and as for remorse, I owe no tailor any thing, and do not at
present blame myself for any great fault, except having once subscribed
for six months to the New York _Morning Cretan_. Nevertheless, my face
grows haggard, my step weary, and even our Thursday's beef _à la mode_
fails to tempt my enfeebled appetite.
"I am haunted, haunted by a foul fiend. He meets me at six, P.M., in our
festive dining-room, and the fork or spoon drops from my nerveless
grasp. He follows me up to the parlor, where I sometimes talk of an
evening to Miss Pipkin (Miss P. is our fourth story, front), and I
become silent in his presence, and Pipkin votes me a bore. He sits by my
side when I am playing at whist, and I trump my partner's trick, and the
dear old game becomes disgusting. He even dared once to follow me into
church, but I cried 'Avaunt!' in a tone so peremptory, that he fled for
a moment. He joined me, however, as soon as service was over, and walked
from Tenth Street to Madison Square, with his grizzly arm thurst through
mine, and his diabolical jeers drumming on my tympana. In dreams he
perches on my breast, and clutches me by the throat.
"Like the arch fiend, he assumes many shapes. He is now a tall man, and
again a short man; sometimes young and audacious, sometimes old and
leering. He only once took a feminine guise: that blessed form was
irksome to him. He prefers the freedom of masculinity and ineffables. He
was once a bookkeeper like myself; then a young attorney; then a medical
student; then a bald-headed old gentleman, who seemed to blow a
flageolet for a living; and lately, he has taken the shape of a
well-to-do President of 'The Arkansas and Arizona Sky Rocket
Transportation Company,' but through all these shifting shapes, I
recognize him and shudder.
"He is known as the Funny Fellow.
"Very glorious are wit and humor. I have heard many eminent lecturers
discourse on the distinctions, definitions, and value of these airy good
gifts. I remember being especially edified by the skill with which
Spout, the eloquent, dissected the philosophy of mirth in the same style
and with the same effect that the boy in the story dissected his
grandmamma's bellows to see how the wind was raised. I agree with Spout
that wit and humor are glorious; that satire, pricking the balloons of
conceit, vain glory, and hypocrisy, is invaluable; that a good laugh can
come only from a warm heart; that the man in motley is often wiser than
the judge in ermine or the priest in lawn. These qualities are goodly in
literature. We all love the kindly humorist from Chaucer to Holmes,
inclusive. How genial and gentle they are, as they sit with us around
the fireside, chucking us under the chins, and slyly poking us in the
ribs; and in the field how nobly they have charged upon humbugs and
shams. They have been true knights, chivalrous, kind-hearted, brave,
religious; their spears are slender, perhaps, yet sharp and elastic as
the blades of Toledo; and as they have galloped up and down in the
lists, gaily caparisoned and cheery, it has done our hearts good to see
how they have hurled into the dust the pompous, sleepy champions of
error and hypocrisy.
"So too, consider how pleasant a thing is mirth on the stage. Who does
not thank William the Great for Falstaff, and Hackett for his
personation of the fat knight? Who does not chuckle over the humors of
Autolycus, rogue and peddler? Who has not felt his eye glisten, as his
lips smiled, when Jesse Rural has spoken, and who will not say to
Ollapod, 'Thank you, good sir, I owe you one'?
"Ah me! how I used to read those jolly unctuous authors when I was
young, in the old 'sitting-room' at home! The great fire-place glows
before me now; its light dances on the wall; my mother's hand is on my
head; my sister's eyes are beaming on her lover over in the darker
corner; there is a murmur of pleasant voices; there are quiet mirth and
deep joy. I lose myself in revery when I think of these pleasures, and
almost forget the Funny Fellow.
"He is pestiferous. If I were in the habit of profanity, I would let
loose upon him an octagonal oath. If I were a man of muscle, it would be
pleasant to get his head in chancery, and bruise it. It would be a
relief to serve him with subpoenas, or present him long bills and demand
immediate payment. Was my name providentially ordered to be Green, that
he might pass verbal contumely upon it? Does he suppose that a man can
live thirty-five years in this state of probation, without becoming
slightly calloused to a pun on his own name? Yet he continues to pun on
mine as if the process were highly amusing. Then again he interrupts
any little attempts at pleasing conversation with his infernal
absurdities. I was speaking one day at the dinner-table of a well-known
orator who had been entertaining the town, and I flatter myself that my
remarks were critically just as well as deeply interesting. The wretched
being interposed--
"'Mr. Green, when you say there was too much American Eagle in the
speaker's discourse, do you mean that it was a talon-ted production, and
to what claws of the speech do you especially refer?'
"Miss Pipkin, who had been deeply intent on my observations, commenced
to titter; what could I do but hang my head and swallow the rest of the
meal in silence? If I had been possessed of a quick tongue, I would have
lashed him with sarcasms, and Pipkin would have rejoiced with me in his
groans. But no--I am slow of speech--and so I was bound to submit. After
that he was more tyrannical than ever. He would come stealthily into my
room and garotte me in a conversational way. He would seem to take me by
the throat, saying, 'why don't you laugh--why don't you burst with
merriment?' and then I would force a dismal grin, just to get rid of
him.
"I said to myself, I will leave this selfish Sahara called the city and
county of New York I will leave its dust, dirt, carts, confusion, bulls,
bears, Peter Funks, Jeremy Diddlers, and, best of all, the Funny Fellow.
I will take board in some rural, as well as accessible place; the
mosquitoes and ague of Flushing shall refresh my frame; the cottages of
Astoria, with their pleasant view of the Penitentiary, shall revive my
wounded spirit; I will exile myself from my native land to the shores of
Jersey; I will sit beneath the shadow of the Quarantine on Staten
Island. No--I won't--I will go to Yonkers--Yonkers that looks as though
it had been built on a gentle slope, and then had suffered a violent
attack of earthquake; daily boats shall convey me from my ledger to my
bed and board, at convenient hours, so that while I post books in New
York by day, I may revel in breezes, moonbeams, sweet milk, and gentle
influences, by night. There, said I, in a burst of excusable enthusiasm,
I will recline beneath wide-spreading beeches, and pipe upon an oaten
reed. There will I listen to the soft bleating of lambs, and scent the
fresh breath of cows; Nature shall touch and thrill me with her gentle
hand; I will see the dear flowers turn their faces up to receive the
kiss of the rising sun, or the benediction of the summer shower. There,
too, I will meet the members of the mystic P.B., so that I shall talk of
books other than day-books and blotters: we will discourse reverently of
authors and their creations. I will not meet the Funny Fellow, for such
a wretch can be produced only in the corrupt social hot-bed of Gotham.
"So to Yonkers I went. I chose a room looking out upon the Hudson and
the noble Palisades. I took with me a flute, a copy of the Bucolics of
Virgil, and numerous linen garments. A great calm came over me. I was no
longer haunted, goaded, oppressed. With peace nestling in my bosom, I
went down to my first supper in the new boarding-house. A goodly meal
smoked on the table, and the savor of baked shad, sweetest of smells,
went up. While I sat choking myself with the bones of this delicious
fish, I heard a voice on the opposite side of the table that sent the
blood to my heart. If I had been feminine, there would have been a
scene.
"He was there: his eyes gloated over the board, a malicious quirk sat
astride his fat lips. The Funny Fellow spoke to Miss Grasscloth:
"'Why are the fishermen who catch these shad like wigmakers?'
"'I don't know,'
"'Because they make their living from bare poles.'
"I ate no more supper. A nausea supervened. I left the table, rushed
into the cool evening air, and let the fresh breeze visit my faded
cheek. I strolled up the main street of Yonkers, and as I crushed my
toes against the stones which then adorned that highway, I resolved to
call on my sweet friend Julia ----. Her gentle smile, said I, will
console me. She is not a Funny Fellow. We will talk together calmly,
earnestly, in the moonlight, close by the great river. I will sit as
near to her as her fashionable garments will permit, and forget my foe.
"We walked together--Julia and I. We talked of things good and true. We
spoke of the beauty of the nocturnal scene. Alas! a fearful, a demoniac
change came over the girl's face. She said:
"'Yes, my friend, we ought to enjoy this scene--for we are fine-night
beings.'
"I bid a hasty farewell to the large eyes and gentle smile. She was not
much offended at my abrupt and angry departure, for my salary is small,
my hair is turning grey, and I do not dance. But I was not entirely
discouraged. I resolved to give Yonkers a fair trial, and a true verdict
to render according to the evidence. So I frequented the tea-parties and
sociables so common in that wretched town, and strove to shake off the
melancholy that clung to me like the Old Man of the Sea. To my horror,
the Funny Fellow became multiplied like the reflections in a shivered
mirror. Men and women, and even young innocent children, became Funny,
and danced about me in a horrible maze, and squeaked and gibbered, and
tossed their jokes in my face. In one week I made five mortal enemies by
refusing to smile when their tormenting squibs were exploded in my eyes.
I felt like a rustic pony, who comes in his simple way into town on the
Fourth of July, and has Chinese crackers and fiery serpents cast under
his heels. One evening, in particular, they asked me to play the game of
Comparisons (a proverbially odious game, that could exist only in an
effete and degenerate civilization), in which the entire company tried
to see how Funny they could be; and because I made stupid answers, I was
laughed at by the young ladies.
"I became disgusted with Yonkers, and returned to my intramural
boarding-house in St. John's Park. The sidewalk near the house was in a
dilapidated state, through the carelessness of the contractor, who had
stipulated to pave it properly, but had not paved it at all, except with
good intentions. And therefore, as I came along, I first besmeared my
boots with muck then tripped my toes against a pile of brick: and
finally fell headlong into the gutter. As I rose up and denounced, in
somewhat loud language, the idleness and inefficiency of the contractor
who had the work in charge, the Funny Fellow stood before me, his eyes
glaring with triumph. He spoke in reply to my denunciations:
"' My dear Green, do not call the contractor lazy and inefficient. I am
sure that his is an energy that never FLAGS!'
"I rushed to the room where I am now sealed. There is but one hope left
me.
"In the Territory of Nebraska, far to the west thereof, lies a tract of
land which the early French trappers, with shrewd fitness called the'
Mauvaises Terres.' It is a region of rocks, petrifactions, and other
pre-Adamite peculiarities. In a paper written by Dr. Leid of
Philadelphia, and published by the Smithsonian Institute, we are assured
that there once lived in these bad lands, turtles six feet square, and
alligators, compared with which the present squatter sovereigns of the
territory are lovely and refined. The fossil remains of these ancient
inhabitants still encumber the earth of that region, and make it
unpleasant to view with an agricultural eye; but here and there the
general desolation is relieved by a fertile valley, with a running brook
and green slopes. White men, whisky, and Funny Fellows have not yet
penetrated there. I will go to this sanctuary. A snug cabin will contain
my necessary household--to wit--twelve shirts and a Bible. I will plant
my corn, and tobacco, and vines on the fertile slope that looks to the
south; my cattle and sheep shall browse the rest of the valley, while a
few agile goats shall stand in picturesque positions upon the rocky
monsters described by Dr. Leidy. My guests shall be the brave and wise
red men who never try to make bad jokes. I do not think they ever try to
be Funny; but to make assurance doubly sure, I shall not learn their
language, so that any melancholy attempts they may possibly make, will
fall upon unappreciative ears. By day I will cultivate my crops and
tend my flocks and herds; and in the long evenings smoke the calumet
with the worthy aborigines. If I should find there some dusky maiden,
like Palmer's Indian girl, who has no idea of puns, polkas, crinoline,
or eligible matches, I will woo her in savage hyperbole, and she shall
light my pipe with her slender fingers, and beat for me the tom-tom when
I am sad. I will live in a calm and conscientious way; the Funny Fellow
shall become like the dim recollection of some horrible dream, and"--
Mr. Green seems not to have finished his interesting reflections, and I
shall not attempt to complete them. As well might I try to finish the
Cathedral at Cologne. But I heartily sympathize with the feelings he has
expressed, and trust that his new home in the West will never be invaded
by conversational garroters.
Sincerely your friend,
TOMPKINS.
--_The Pasha Papers_.
CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE.
("ARTEMUS WARD.")
(BORN, 1834--DIED, 1867.)
* * * * *
THE TOWER OF LONDON.
MR. PUNCH,--_My Dear Sir_:--I skurcely need inform you that your
excellent Tower is very pop'lar with pe'ple from the agricultooral
districks, and it was chiefly them class which I found waitin at the
gates the other mornin.
I saw at once that the Tower was established on a firm basis. In the
entire history of firm basisis I don't find a basis more firmer than
this one.
"You have no Tower in America?" said a man in the crowd, who had somehow
detected my denomination.
"Alars! no," I anserd; "we boste of our enterprise and improovements,
and yit we are devoid of a Tower. America oh my onhappy country! thou
hast not got no Tower! It's a sweet Boon."
The gates was opened after a while, and we all purchist tickets, and
went into a waitin-room.
"My frens," said a pale-faced little man, in black close, "this is a sad
day."
"Inasmuch as to how?" I said.
"I mean it is sad to think that so many peple have been killed within
these gloomy walls. My frens, let us drop a tear!"
"No," I said, "you must excuse me. Others may drop one if they feel like
it; but as for me, I decline. The early managers of this institootion
were a bad lot, and their crimes were trooly orful; but I can't sob for
those who died four or five hundred years ago. If they was my own
relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs over things which occurd
during the rain of Henry the Three. Let us be cheerful," I continnered.
"Look at the festiv Warders, in their red flannil jackets. They are
cheerful, and why should it not be thusly with us?"
A Warder now took us in charge, and showed us the Trater's Gate, the
armers, and things. The Trater's Gate is wide enuff to admit about
twenty traters abrest, I should jedge; but beyond this, I couldn't see
that it was superior to gates in gen'ral.
Traters, I will here remark, are a onfornit class of peple. If they
wasn't, they wouldn't be traters. They conspire to bust up a
country--they fail, and they're traters. They bust her, and they become
statesmen and heroes.
Take the case of Gloster, afterwards Old Dick the Three, who may be seen
at the Tower on horseback, in a heavy tin overcoat--take Mr. Gloster's
case. Mr. G. was a conspirator of the basist dye, and if he'd failed, he
would have been hung on a sour apple tree. But Mr. G. succeeded, and
became great. He was slewed by Col. Richmond, but he lives in history,
and his equestrian figger may be seen daily for a sixpence, in
conjunction with other em'nent persons, and no extra charge for the
Warder's able and bootiful lectur.
There's one king in this room who is mounted onto a foaming steed, his
right hand graspin a barber's pole. I didn't learn his name.
The room where the daggers and pistils and other weppins is kept is
interestin. Among this collection of choice cuttlery I notist the bow
and arrer which those hot-heded old chaps used to conduct battles with.
It is quite like the bow and arrer used at this day by certain tribes
of American Injuns, and they shoot 'em off with such a excellent
precision that I almost sigh'd to be an Injun when I was in the Rocky
Mountain regin. They are a pleasant lot them Injuns. Mr. Cooper and Dr.
Catlin have told us of the red man's wonerful eloquence, and I found it
so. Our party was stopt on the plains of Utah by a band of Shoshones,
whose chief said:
"Brothers! the pale-face is welcome. Brothers! the sun is sinking in the
west, and Wa-na-bucky-she will soon cease speakin. Brothers! the poor
red man belongs to a race which is fast becomin extink."
He then whooped in a shrill manner, stole all our blankets and whisky,
and fled to the primeval forest to conceal his emotions.
I will remark here, while on the subjeck of Injuns, that they are in the
main a very shaky set, with even less sense than the Fenians, and when I
hear philanthropists bewailin the fack that every year "carries the
noble red man nearer the settin sun," I simply have to say I'm glad of
it, tho' it is rough on the settin sun. They call you by the sweet name
of Brother one minit, and the next they scalp you with their
Thomas-hawks. But I wander. Let us return to the Tower.
At one end of the room where the weppins is kept, is a wax figger of
Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a fiery stuffed hoss, whose glass eye
flashes with pride, and whose red morocker nostril dilates hawtily, as
if conscious of the royal burden he bears. I have associated Elizabeth
with the Spanish Armady. She's mixed up with it at the Surrey Theatre,
where _Troo to the Core_ is bein acted, and in which a full bally core
is introjooced on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, giving the audiens
the idee that he intends openin a moosic-hall in Plymouth the moment he
conkers that town. But a very interesting drammer is _Troo to the Core_,
notwithstandin the eccentric conduct of the Spanish Admiral; and very
nice it is in Queen Elizabeth to make Martin Truegold a baronet.
The Warder shows us some instrooments of tortur, such as thumbscrews,
throat-collars, etc., statin that these was conkered from the Spanish
Armady, and addin what a crooil peple the Spaniards was in them
days--which elissited from a bright-eyed little girl of about twelve
summers the remark that she tho't it _was_ rich to talk about the
crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when he was in a Tower
where so many poor peple's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder
stammer and turn red.