Being a Hindoo gentleman of the old school, Karlee repudiated the

headdress at home; for the _puggree_, at least in its present form, was

adopted from the Mohammedan conquerors, and is, historically, a badge of

subjugation. So when he met me at the door his head was uncovered; but I

had no sooner crossed the threshold than he made haste to don his flat

turban,--reflecting, perhaps, that I had never seen him without it, and

might resent his bare head as an indignity. Of course his feet were

unshod. To have worn his sandals in my presence would have been a

flagrant insult; but on the porch I espied those two queer clogs of

wood, shaped to the sole of the foot, and having no other fastening than

an impracticable-looking knob, to be held between the toes.

This is the orthodox Hindoo dress; but the costume for public occasions

of many Hindoos of rank has been for a quarter of a century in a state

of transition from Mohammedan to British. By way of turbans, loose

trousers, Cashmere shawls, and embroidered slippers, they are marching

on toward pantaloons, waistcoats, shoes and stockings, stove-pipe hats,

and tail-coats. A baboo of superlative fashion, according to the code of

Young Bengal, paid me a visit one day in a state of confirmed "pants"

and "Congress gaiters"; and, on seating himself, he took off his turban

and held it on his knee. I need hardly say that he was a fool and an

infidel. And I have seen an intrepid buffoon of this class in an English

shirt, which he wore over his pantaloons, and hanging down to his knees.

But, after all, these clumsy desecrations are confined to a small

minority of the population, if not strictly to that "set" which is

brought most closely in contact with Europeans; such as a few native

gentlemen in the Presidency capitals, some of the pleaders and principal

_employés_ of the higher courts, not a few of the teachers and pupils in

the Anglo-Indian schools, and many of the native Christians.

Karlee's politeness, superior to that of the more servile bhearers, was

a fair type of the pure Hindoo manners of that well-bred middle class

which clings with orthodox conservatism to its dear traditions, and

spurns as unconstitutional all upstart and dandy amendments of the old

social and religious law. He had invariably one salutation for an

equal,--the right hand gently raised, and the head as gently inclined to

meet it; another, for what I may term a familiar superior (such as

myself),--the hands joined palm to palm, and so applied twice or thrice

to the forehead; and still other, and more and more reverential,

ceremonials for _gooroos_, Brahmins, holy sages, and princes,--the brow

touching the ground, or the whole body prostrated.

If it was an indispensable requirement of respect that he should leave

his slippers at the door on entering any house, it was no less important

that he should resume them on taking his leave. To have appeared in

public with uncovered feet would have been a gross breach of propriety.

Fine old Hindoo gentlemen, all of the olden time, find it difficult to

express their mingled contempt, indignation, and regret for the

innovation which substitutes the Cheapside shoe for the ceremonial

slipper, or permits the wearing of the latter in a Sahib's office or

drawing-room. It shows, they say, that the natives are losing their

respect for the Sahibs. And yet the British authorities stupidly

sanction it, even set the seal of fashion upon it, by allowing natives

of rank, who visit Government House, to appear in the presence of the

Governor-General, and the _élite_ of the European society, in their

slippers. The fact is, these impious disturbings of the established

order of things are most shocking to the well-regulated heathen mind, to

which no spectacle can be more monstrous than that of a Hindoo of good

caste and old family performing with some arf-and-arf Cockney visitor a

duet on the pump-handle, and directly afterward wreathing his apoplectic

neck with flowers, and sprinkling his asthmatic waistcoat with

rose-water. You see they both back "Young Bengal" in the Barrackpore

races.

When Karlee visits his friend the sircar, he is scrupulous not to make

his parting salaam until his host has given the customary signal. He

waits to be dismissed, or rather to receive permission to withdraw. The

etiquette supposes that his inclination is to prolong the enjoyment he

derives from the society of so agreeable a gentleman; it is, therefore,

not until rose-water has been presented to him, or betel-leaf, or

sweetmeats, that he will venture to take his sandals and his leave.

The style of Hindoo politeness is format and imperturbably grave,

utterly devoid of heartiness or impulsiveness; and the cordiality which

distinguishes the intercourse of American friends appears to the native

gentleman boisterous and vulgar. I never saw Karlee laugh; and if I had

happened to snatch him from sudden death by fire or water, I think he

would have acknowledged the obligation with precisely the same

mathematical salaam, or at most the same sententious obsequiousness,

with which he accepted a buksheesh of a half-rupee; and yet in both

good-humor and gratitude he was as cheerful and as worthy as the most

giddy and gushing of damsels. But I must acknowledge there was something

truly corpsy in the solemnity with which he would "lay out" a clean

shirt. Even so, in the midst of all the jolly uproar of a mess dinner,

our Kitmudgars would stand in grim deadliness at our backs, like so many

executioners, only waiting for a sign from the ruthless Kousomar, who

was just then horribly popping the champagne corks, to behead us,--each

his own doomed Sahib.

No wonder Karlee was a gentleman; for the Vishnu Pooran was his

Chesterfield, and he had its precepts by heart. "A wise man," he would

say to the pert young Kitmudgars, as they bragged and wrangled, between

their hubble-bubbles, on the back stairs,--"a wise man will never

address another with the least unkindness; but will always speak gently,

and with truth, and never make public another's faults. He will never

engage in a dispute with either his superiors or his inferiors:

controversy and marriage are permitted only between equals. Nor will he

ever associate with wicked persons: half an instant is the utmost time

he should allow himself to remain in their company. A wise man, when

sitting, will not put one foot over the other, nor stretch forth his

foot in the presence of a superior; but he will sit with modesty, in the

posture styled _virasama_. Above all, he will not expectorate at the

time of eating, offering oblations, or repeating prayers, or in the

presence of any respectable person; nor will he ever cross the shadow of

a venerable man or of an idol."

For those who imagine that polygamy is a popular institution in

Hindostan, the answer of a Hill-man to a Mofussil magistrate should

suffice. "Do you keep more than one wife?" "We can hardly feed one; why

should we keep more?" In fact, the privilege of maintaining a plurality

of wives is restricted to a very few,--those only of the largest means

and smallest scruples,--except in the case of _Kooleen_ Brahmins, that

superlative aristocracy of caste which is supposed to be descended from

certain illustrious families who settled in Bengal several centuries

ago. Wealthy Hindoos of low degree eagerly aspire to the honor of mixing

their puddle blood with the quintessentially clarified fluid that

glorifies the circulatory systems of these demigods, and the result is a

very pretty and profitable branch of the Brahmin business,--_Kooleen_

marrying sometimes as many as fifty of such nut-brown maids of baser

birth, in consideration of a substantial dowry attached to each bride,

and a solemn obligation, accepted and signed by the paternal Puddle,

forever to feed at home her and her improved progeny. So the fifty

continue to roost in the old paternal coops, while Kooleen, like a

pampered Brahmapootra, struts, in pompous patronage, from one to the

other, his sense of duty satisfied when he has left a crow and a cackle

behind him. It is said that many fine fowls of the Brahmin breed, who do

not happen to be Kooleens, complain of the monopoly.

So Karlee had but one wife,--the handy, thrifty ayah already mentioned.

She was nine and he twelve years old when they were betrothed, and they

never saw each other until they were married. A professional

match-maker, or go-between,--female, of course,--was employed by the

parents to negotiate terms and arrange the preliminaries; and when

horoscopes had been compared and the stars found all right, with a

little consequential chaffering, the hymeneal instruments were

"executed." There was no trouble on the score of caste, both families

being soodra; otherwise, the sensitive social balance would have had to

be adjusted by the payment of a sum of money. When the skirts of the

bride and bridegroom had been fastened together with blades of the

sweet-scented cusa grass,--when he had said, "May that heart which is

thine become my heart, and this heart which is mine become thy

heart,"--when, hand in hand, they had stept into the seventh of the

mystic circles,--Mr. and Mrs. Karlee were an accomplished Hindoo fact.

To the parents on both sides, the wedding was a costly performance.

There were the irrepressible and voracious Brahmins to propitiate, the

hungry friends of both families to feast for three days, the musicians

and the nautch-girls and the _tamasha-wallahs_[19] to be bountifully

buksheeshed; and when the bridal palanquin was borne homeward, it was a

high-priced indispensability that the procession should satisfy the best

soodra society,--

"With the yellow torches gleaming,

And the scarlet mantles streaming,

And the canopy above

Swaying as they slowly move."

Karlee has assured me that neither his father nor his father-in-law,

although both were soodras of fair credit and condition, ever quite

recovered from the financial shock of that "awspidges okashn."

A Hindoo very rarely pronounces the name of his wife, even to his most

intimate friends,--to strangers, and especially foreigners, never; on

the part of a native visitor it is the etiquette to ignore her

altogether, and for the husband to allude to her familiarly is an

unpardonable breach of decorum. When, therefore, Karlee, to gratify my

friendly curiosity, led in the happy grandmother, I felt that I was the

recipient of an extraordinary mark of respect and confidence, involving

a generous sacrifice of prejudice. As she made her modest salaam, and,

in the manner of a shy child, sank to the floor in the habitual posture

of an ayah, I had before me the well-preserved remains of a Hindoo

beauty, according to the standard of the Shasters,--a placid, reposeful

woman, almost fat, with rather delicate features of Rajpoot fairness,

the complexion of high caste, wealth, and ease, such as her

less-favored sisters vainly strive to imitate with a sort of saffron

_rouge_. Her expression was chaste and gentle, her voice dulcet; and to

the practice of carrying light burdens on her head she was indebted for

a carriage erect and graceful. On Broadway or Tremont Street, Mrs.

Karlee would have passed for a very comely colored woman. If she was not

like Rama, fair as the jasmine, or the moon, or the fibres of the lotos,

neither had she, like Krishna, the complexion of a cloud. If she was not

so delicate as that dainty beauty who bewitched the hard heart of

Surajah Dowlah, and weighed but sixty-four pounds, neither did she

reproduce the unwieldy charms of that Venus of one of the Shasters

"whose gait was the gait of a drunken elephant or a goose." A prudent

man, says the Vishnoo Pooran, will not marry a woman who has a beard, or

one who has thick ankles, or one who speaks with a shrill voice, or one

who croaks like a raven, or one whose eyebrows meet, or one whose teeth

resemble tusks. And Karlee was a prudent man.

From the extravagant and clumsy complications, the stupid caprices and

discords, and studious indecencies of our women's fashions, to the

prudent simplicity, the unconscious poetry and picturesqueness and

musically blended modesty and freedom of the good ayah's unchangeable

attire, my thought reverts with a mingled sense of refreshment and

regret. A single web of cloth, eight or nine yards long, having a narrow

blue border, was drawn in self-forming folds around her shoulders and

bosom, and hung down to her feet,--the material muslin, the texture

somewhat coarse, the color white. No dressmaker had ever played

fantastic tricks with it: it was pure and simple in its entireness as it

came from the loom.

Other women, of the laboring class, and very poor, passed to and fro on

the street, half naked, their legs and shoulders bare, and with only a

piece of dirty cloth--blue, red, or yellow--around the loins and hips;

while here and there some superfine baboo's wife floated past in her

close palanquin, or sat with her children on the flat roof of her house,

or peeped through her narrow windows into the street, arrayed in fancy

bodice and petticoat,--Mohammedan fashion.

But the simplicity of Mrs. Karlee's attire began and ended with her

drapery. Her ornaments were cumbersome, clumsy, and grotesque. On her

arms and ankles were many fetter-like bands of silver and copper; rude

rings of gold and silver adorned her fingers and great toes; small

silver coins were twisted in her hair; and the naturally delicate

outline of her lips was deformed by a broad gold ring, which she wore,

like a fractious ox, in her nose. This latter vanity is as precious as

it is ugly; in some of the minor castes its absence is regarded as a

badge of widowhood; and for no inducement would the pious ayah have

removed it from its place, even for an instant. Had it fallen, by any

dreadful chance, the house would have been filled with horror and

lamentation. The half-naked wife of my syce rejoices in a nose-ring of

brass or pewter, and her wrists and ankles are gay with hoops of painted

shell-lac; and even she stains her eyelids with lampblack, and tinges

her nails with henna. Much lovelier was our pretty ayah in her

maidenhood, when her dainty bosom was decked with shells and

sweet-scented flowers, and her raven hair lighted up with sprays of the

Indian jasmine, which first she had offered to Seeta.

But that reminds me that, when I approached her, and presented the

string of corals, my small _salaamee_, and bade Karlee tell her that it

was for the baby,--for she understood not a word of English,--and that I

wished him happy stars and a good name, riches and honors, and a

houseful of sons,--she uttered not a word; but with eyes brimming with

gratitude, flattered to tears, by a sudden graceful movement she touched

my foot with her hand and immediately laid it on her head,--and then,

with many shy and mute, but eloquent salaams, retired. It is difficult

to imagine such a woman scolding and slang-whanging as low Hindoo women

do, accompanying with passionate attitudes and gestures a reckless

torrent of words, and fitting the foulest action to the most scandalous

epithet.

The wives of the native servants are generally industrious. This one,

Karlee boasted, was a notable housewife. Before she went out to service

as an ayah she had cleaned the rice, pounded the curry, cooked all the

meals, brought water from the tank in earthen jars on her head, swept

and scrubbed the floor, cultivated a small kitchen garden, "shopped" at

the bazaar, spun endless supplies of cotton thread on a very primitive

reel, consisting of a piece of wire with a ball of clay at the end of

it, which she twirled with one hand while she fed it with the other; and

every morning she bathed in the Hooghly, and returned home before

daybreak. Sewing and knitting were unknown arts to her,--she had no use

for either; and her washing and ironing were done by a hired dhobee.

True, it was not permitted to her to eat with her husband; when Karlee

dined she sat at the respectful orthodox distance, and waited; and if at

any time they walked out together, ayah must keep her legal place in the

rear. Saith the Shaster, "Is it not the practice of women of immaculate

chastity to eat after their lords have eaten, to sleep only after they

have slept, and to rise from sleep before them?" And again, "Let a wife

who wishes to perform sacred ablution wash the feet of her lord, and

drink the water." Nevertheless, ayah exercised an influence over her

husband as decided as it was wholesome; she did not hesitate to rebuke

him when occasion required; and in all that related to the moral

government of her children she was free to dispute his authority, and

try parental conclusions with him,--kindly but firmly. As for "the

tyrannical immuring of the Oriental female," the cruel caging of the

pretty birds who are supposed to be forever longing and pining for the

gossip of the _ghaut_ and the bustle of the bazaar, the only fault she

had to find with it was that she did not get enough of it. The

well-trained Hindoo woman has been taught to regard such seclusion as

her most charming compliment, and a precious proof of her husband's

affection; to be kept jealously veiled from the staring world, is

associated in her mind with ideas of wealth and rank,--it is the very

aristocracy of fashion.

According to the Code of Menyu, "a believer in Scripture may receive

pure knowledge even from a soodra, a lesson of the highest virtue even

from a chandala, and a woman bright as a gem even from the lowest

family." So if Karlee's wife, instead of being of the same social rank

as himself, had come of basest caste, she would still have been a

treasure. Soon after she had retired, she gently pushed into the room,

to pay his respects to the Sahib, a shy little boy of five years, whom

Karlee presented to me as the child of his only son, a bhearer in the

service of an English officer stationed at Fort William. The mother had

died in blessing her husband with this bright little puttro. In costume

he was the exact miniature of his grandfather, except that he wore no

puggree, and his hair was cut short round the forehead in a quaint

frill, like the small boys one sees running about the streets in Orissa.

His ankles, too, were loaded with massive silver rings, which noticeably

impeded the childish freedom of his steps. When he has begun to

understand what the word "wife" means, these must be laid aside. In his

manners, likewise, little Karlee was the very tautology of his namesake

with the gray moustache,--the same wary self-possession, the same

immovable gravity and nice decorum. Like a little courtier, he made his

small salaam, and through his grandfather replied to some playful

questions I addressed to him, with good emphasis and discretion, without

either awkwardness or boldness, and especially without a smile. When I

gave him a rupee, he construed it as the customary signal, and with

another small salaam immediately dismissed himself.

Little Karlee must have taken lessons in deportment with his primal pap;

and in India all good little boys, who hope to go to heaven when they

die, keep their noses clean, and never romp or whistle. As to girls it

matters less; the midwife gets only half price for consummating that

sort of blunder; for when you are dead only a son can carry you out and

bury you _dacent_,--no daughter, though she pray with the power and

perseverance of the Seven Penitents, can procure you a respectable

metempsychosis.

So far little Karlee had been lucky. This house, where he was born, was

lucky,--no one had ever died in it. When his dear mother could not spin

any more, they carried her to the Hooghly on a charpoy, and she had

breathed her last on the banks of the sacred river. Besides, his

grandfather had immediately stuck up a cooking-pot, striped with

perpendicular white lines, on a pole at the side of the house; so _he_

had never been in any danger from malicious incantations and the Evil

Eye. His education had been begun on a propitious day, else he might

have died or turned out a dunce. The very day he was born, a Brahmin--O

_so_ pious!--had hung a charm round his neck, and only charged grandpa

fifty rupees for it; when he went to the bazaar with his grandmother he

was always dressed in rags, to avert envy, and no one out of the family

knew his real name except his gooroo; all the other boys, and the

neighbors, called him Teencowry (three cowries[20]),--such a nice mean

name against spells and cross-eyed people! Once a strange Melican Sahib

had said, "Hello, Buster!" to him; but he wasn't at all frightened, for

his gooroo had taught him how to say a holy _mautra_[21] backwards; and

when the Melican Sahib passed on, he spat on his shadow and said it.

Last week a lizard dropped on his foot, and yesterday he saw a cow on

his right hand three times,--he had always been so lucky!

Now, time, place, and mood being favorable, I called for the company

hookah, and, extending the long Chinese chair, smoked myself to sleep

under the punka. My nap was a long one, and when I awoke there watched

and waited Karlee, tenderly patient, with the fly-flapper.

In the hospitalities thus far so handsomely extended to me, the reader

will recognize and appreciate an extraordinary display of liberal ideas,

for which, however, considering the sound common sense of my

affectionate old bhearer, I was not altogether unprepared; but when, his

little grandson being gone, he conducted me into another room, to

partake of what he humbly styled a _chota khana_, a trifle of luncheon,

my astonishment exceeded my gratification. I doubt if such a thing had

ever before happened in the life of a bhearer.

On the floor a broad sheet, of spotless whiteness, was spread, and

beside it a narrow mattress of striped seersucker, very clean and cool,

and with a double cushion at the head to support the elbow; on this my

host invited me to recline. Here then were table and chair, but as yet

the board was bare. Presently little Karlee reappeared, bringing a great

round hand-punka, formed of a single huge palm-leaf, and, standing

behind my shoulder, began to fan me solemnly. Immediately there was a

subdued and mysterious clapping of hands, and the old man, going to the

door, received, from behind the red curtain which hung across it, a bowl

of coarse unglazed earthenware, but smoking and savory, which he set

before me, together with a smaller bowl of the same material, empty; and

to my lively surprise these were followed by English bunns and pickles,

a jar of chutney, a bottle of Allsop's ale, my own silver beer-mug,

knives and forks, table and dessert spoons, fruit-knife, and

napkin,--all from our quarters in Cossitollah, two miles away. By what

conjuration and mighty magic Karlee had procured these from my kitmudgar

without a _chittee_, or order, I have not yet discovered.

The tureen contained delicious Mulligatawney soup, of which, as Karlee

well knew, I was inordinately fond; and as he opened the ale he modestly

congratulated himself on my vigorous enjoyment of it.

After the soup came curried prawns, a very piquant dish, in eminent

repute among the Sahibs, and a famous appetizer. Tonic, hot, and pungent

as it is, with spices, betel, and chillies, it is hard to imagine what

the torpid livers of the Civil Service would do without their rousing

curry.

The curry was followed by a tender _bouilli_ of kid, sauced with a

delicate sort of onions stewed in ghee (boiled butter), and flanked with

boiled rice, sweet pumpkin, and fried bananas, all served on green

leaves. Next came pine-apple, covered with sherry-wine and sugar, in

company with English walnuts and cheese; and, last of all, sweetmeats

and coffee,--the former a not unpleasant compound of ground rice and

sugar with curds and the crushed kernel of the cocoa-nut; the coffee was

served in a diminutive gourd, and was not sweetened. Last of the last,

the hookah.

And all these wonders had been wrought since the grateful ayah retired

with the corals! But then the bazaar was close at hand, and in the

sircar's house help was handy.

Whilst I kanahed[22] and smoked, Karlee, humbly "squatting" at my back,

allowed me to draw from him all that I have here related of his house

and family, and much more that I have not space to relate. Of course, he

could not have shared the repast with me,--all the holy water of Ganges

could never have washed out so deep a defilement,--but he accompanied my

hookah with his hubble-bubble. The reader has observed that, although

the viands were choice enough, they were laid on the cheapest pottery,

and even on leaves, that the plate from which I ate was of unglazed

earthenware, and that the coffee was served in a gourd. This was in

order that they might be at once destroyed. By no special dispensation

could those vessels ever again be purified for the use of a respectable

Hindoo; even a pariah would have felt insulted if he had been asked to

eat from them; and if the knives and forks and spoons had not been my

own, they must have shared the fate of the platters. But this prejudice

must be taken in a Pickwickian sense,--it covered no objection simply

personal to the Sahib. In some castes it is forbidden to eat from any

plate twice, even in the strictest privacy of the family; and many

natives, however wealthy, scrupulously insist upon leaves. All

respectable Hindoos lift their food with their fingers, using neither

knife, fork, nor spoon; and for this purpose they employ the right hand

only, the left being reserved for baser purposes. In drinking water,

many of them will not allow the _lotah_ to touch the lips; but, throwing

the head back, and holding the vessel at arm's length on high, with an

odd expertness they let the water run into their mouths. The sect of

Ramanujas obstinately refuse to sit down to a meal while any one is

standing by or looking on; nor will they chew betel in company with a

man of low caste. Ward has written, "If a European of the highest rank

touch the food of a Hindoo of the lowest caste, the latter will

instantly throw it away, although he may not have another morsel to

allay the pangs of hunger";--but this is true only of certain very

strait sects. There are numerous sects that admit proselytes from every

caste; but at the same time they will not partake of food, except with

those of their own religious party. "Here," says Kerr, "the spirit of

sect has supplanted even the spirit of caste,"--as at the temple of

Juggernath in Orissa, where the pilgrims of all castes take their

_khana_ in common.

At our quarters in Cossitollah even this progressive Karlee will not

taste of the food which has been served at our mess-table, though it be

returned to the kitchen untouched. But at least he is consistent; for

neither will he take medicine from the hand of a Sahib, however ill he

may be; nor have I ever known him to decline or postpone the performance

of this or that duty because it was Sunday,--as many knavish bhearers do

when they have set their hearts on a cock-fight. To compound for sins

one is inclined to, by damning those one has no mind to, it is not

indispensable that one should be a Christian.

The amiable Mr. James Kerr, of the Hindoo College of Calcutta, has

contrived an ingenious and plausible apology for the constitutional (or

geographical) laziness of Bengalese servants. He says: "A love of repose

may be considered one of the most striking features in the character of

the people of India. The Hindoos may be said to have deified this state.

Their favorite notion of a Supreme Being is that of one who reposes in

himself, in a dream of absolute quiescence. This idea is, doubtless, in

the first instance, a reflection of their own character; but, in

whatever way it originated, it tends to sanctify in their eyes a state

of repose. When removed from this world of care, their highest hope is

to become a part of the great Quiescent. It will naturally appear to

them the best preparation for the repose of a future life to cultivate

repose in this." Therefore, if your kitmudgar, nodding behind your

chair, permits his astonished fly-flapper to become a part of the great

Quiescent, or if your punka-wallah, having subsided into a comatose

beatitude, suddenly invites his compliant machine to repose in himself,

in a dream of absolute stagnation, with the thermometer at 120° outside

the refrigerator, you must not say, "Damn that boy,--he's asleep

again!"--but patiently survey and intelligently admire the spiritual

processes by which an exalted sentient force prepares itself for the

repose of a future life. But our reckless Karlee took no thought for the

everlasting rest into which his soul should enter "when removed from

this world of care," according to the ingenious psychological system of

the amiable Kerr Sahib; for when he had anything to do, he kept on doing

it until it was done, and when he caught the punka-wallah reposing in a

dream of absolute quiescence, he bumped his head against the wall, and

called him a _sooa_, and a _banchut_, and a _junglee-wallah_.[23]

Though possessed of a lively imagination and all his race's sympathy

with what is vast, though he saw nothing extravagant in the Hindoo

chronology, nor aught that was monstrous in Hindoo mythology, Karlee yet

served to illustrate the arguments of those who contend that Hindoos

need not necessarily be all boasters, servile liars, and flatterers. He

was not forever saying, "Master very wise man; master all time do good;

master all time ispeak right." He never told me that my words were

pearls and diamonds that I dropped munificently from my mouth. He never

called me "your highness," or said I was his father and mother, and the

lord of the world; and if I said at noonday, "It is night," he did not

exclaim, "Behold the moon and stars!" He never tried to prove to me that

the earth revolved on its axis once in twenty-four hours by my favor.

"What! dost thou think him a Christian that he would go about to deceive

thee?" No, he was as proudly truthful as a Rajpoot, as frank and manly

as a Goorkah, and as honest as an up-country Durwan.

Good by, my best of bhearers. To the new baby a good name, and to the

faithful ayah enviable enlargement of liver! _Khodá rukho ki beebi-ka

kulle-jee bhee itui burri hoga!_[24]--I owe thee for a day of hospitable

edifications; and when thou comest to my country, thou shalt find _thy_

Heathen at Home.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] A long, round, narrow bolster, stuffed with very light materials

(often with paper), and not for the head, but embraced in the arms, so

as to help the sleeper to a cool and comfortable posture.

[4] Body-servants.

[5] A salutation of particular respect and well-wishing.

[6] Waistband.

[7] Destiny, fortune.

[8] A table-servant.

[9] A spiritual teacher.

[10] Writer, clerk.

[11] Banker, merchant in foreign trade.

[12] The fourth caste--originally laborers.

[13] A native gentleman, of wealth, education, and influence.

[14] Hostler and footman.

[15] Washerman.

[16] Sweeper.

[17] _Lit._ Fan-fellow.

[18] "Good! Bring the Europe-water,"--Bengali for soda-water.

[19] Showmen and puppet-dancers.

[20] Little shells, used as coins by the poorest people to make the

smallest change.

[21] Text.

[22] Dined.

[23] Pig, sot, and jungle-animal.

[24] "God grant the lady a substantial liver!"--"the happiness and

honors which should follow upon the birth of a male child being

figuratively comprehended in that liberality of the liver whence comes

the good digestion for which alone life is worth the

living."--_Child-Life by the Ganges_.

* * * * *

A FRIEND.

A friend!--It seems a simple boon to crave,--

An easy thing to have.

Yet our world differs somewhat from the days

Of the romancer's lays.

A friend? Why, _all_ are friends in Christian lands.

We smile and clasp the hands

With merry fellows o'er cigars and wine.

We breakfast, walk, and dine

With social men and women. Yes, we are friends;--

And there the music ends!

No close heart-heats,--a cool sweet ice-cream feast,--

Mild thaws, to say the least;--

The faint, slant smile of winter afternoons;--

The inconstant moods of moons,

Sometimes too late, sometimes too early rising,--

But for a night sufficing,

Showing a half-face, clouded, shy, and null,--

Once in a month at full,--

Lending to-night what from the sun they borrow,

Quenched in his light to-morrow.

If thou'rt my friend, show me the life that sleeps

Down in thy spirit's deeps.

Give all thy heart, the thought within thy thought.

Nay, I've already caught

Its meaning in thine eyes, thy tones. What need

Of words? Flowers keep their seed.

I love thee ere thou tellest me "I love."

We both are raised above

The ball-room puppets with their varnished faces,

Whispering dead commonplaces,

Doing their best to dress their lifeless thought

In tinselled phrase worth naught;

Or at the best, throwing a passing spark

Like fire-flies in the dark;--

Not the continuous lamp-light of the soul,

Which, though the seasons roll

Without on tides of ever-varying winds,

The watcher never finds

Flickering in draughts, or dim for lack of oil.

There is a clime, a soil,

Where loves spring up twin-stemmed from mere chance seed

Dropped by a word, a deed.

As travellers toiling through the Alpine snow

See Italy below;--

Down glacier slopes and craggy cliffs and pines

Descend upon the vines,

And meet the welcoming South who half-way up

Lifts her o'erbrimming cup,--

So, blest is he, from peaks of human ice

Lit on this Paradise;--

Who 'mid the jar of tongues hears music sweet;--

Who in some foreign street

Thronged with cold eyes catches a hand, a glance,

That deifies his chance,

That turns the dreary city to a home,

The blank hotel to a dome

Of splendor, while the unsympathizing crowd

Seems with his light endowed.

Many there be who call themselves our friends.

But ah! if Heaven sends

One, only one, the fellow to our soul,

To make our half a whole,

Rich beyond price are we. The millionnaire

Without such boon is bare,

Bare to the skin,--a gilded tavern-sign

Creaking with fitful whine

Beneath chill winds, with none to look at him

Save as a label grim

To the good cheer and company within

His comfortable inn.

* * * * *

THE SINGING-SCHOOL ROMANCE.

Father sits at the head of our pew. In old Indian times they say that

the male head of the family always took that place, on account of the

possible _whoops_ of the savages, who sometimes came down on a

congregation like wolves on the fold. It was necessary that the men

should be ready to rise at once to defend their families. Whatever the

old reason was, the new is sufficient. Men must sit near the pew doors

now on account of the _hoops_ of the ladies. The cause is different, the

effect is the same.

Father, then, sits at the head of the pew; mother next; Aunt Clara next;

next I, and then Jerusha. That has been the arrangement ever since I can

remember. Any change in our places would be as fatal to our devotions as

the dislodgment of Baron Rothschild from his particular pillar was once

to the business of the London Stock Exchange. He could not negotiate if

not at his post. We could not worship if not in our precise places. I

think, by the fussing and fidgeting which taking seats in the church

always causes, that everybody has the same feeling.

It was Sunday afternoon. The good minister, Parson Oliver, had finished

his sermon. The text was--well, I can't pretend to remember. Aunt

Clara's behavior in meeting, and what she said to us that afternoon,

have put the text, sermon, and all out of my head forever. That is no

matter; or rather, it is all the better; for when the same sermon comes

again, in its triennial round, I shall not recognize an old

acquaintance.

The sermon finished, we took up our hymn-books, of course. But the

minister gave out no hymn. He sat down with a patient look at the choir,

as much as to say, "Now, do your worst!" Then we understood that we

were to be treated to an extra performance, not in our books. There had

been a renewal of interest in the choir, and there was a new

singing-master. We were to have the results of the late practisings and

the first fruits of the new school. The piece they sung was that in

which occur the lines,--

"I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings,

And vie with Gabriel, while he sings,

In notes almost divine!"

We always, when we rise during the singing, face round to the choir. I

don't know why. Perhaps it is to complete our view of the congregation,

since during the rest of the time we look the other way, and, unless we

faced about, should see only half. I like to peep at father, to discover

whether he appreciates the performance. To-day he just turned his head

away. Mother sat down. Aunt Clara looked straight ahead, and her

old-fashioned bonnet hid her face; but I could discover that something

more than usual was working under her cap. I looked at every one of the

singers, and then at the players, from the big bass-viol down to the

tenor, and not a bit of reason could I perceive for the twitter the

heads of our pew had certainly got themselves into. There's a pattern

old lady, Prudence Clark, presidentess of the Dorcas Society,--a

spinster, just Aunt Clara's age,--a woman who knows everything, and more

too. She sits in the pew before us. She turned her head and gave a sly

peep at Aunt Clara. They both laughed in meeting. I know they did, and

they can't deny it. I peeped round at the minister, and, if he did not

laugh too, his face was scarlet, and he was taken with a wonderful fit

of coughing. Such strange proceedings in meeting I never had seen. The

minister, the deacon (father is a deacon), and the oldest members were

setting us young folks a very bad example. But we tolerate anything in

our good old parson. He was a youth when our old folks were young, and

as to us young folks, he remembers us longer than we do ourselves.

* * * * *

We were all home, and tea was over,--the early tea with substantials, as

is the custom in the primitive districts of New England on Sunday

afternoon. The double accumulation of dishes was disposed of; for at

noon we take a cold collation, doughnuts and cheese, and bread and

butter, and we never descend to servile employments till after tea. Then

many hands make light work. I suppose light work does not break the

Sabbath, especially as it is done in our Sunday best, with sleeves

tucked up, and an extra apron.

The laughing in church was the point upon which, as yet, we had obtained

no satisfaction. Jerusha and I, in an uncertain hope that we should find

out something in due time, were discussing the music. The particular

point in debate was, why village choirs _will_ astonish the people with

pieces of music in which nobody can join them. We did not settle it, nor

has anybody ever solved the riddle that I know of. We don't even know

whether it comes under the ontological or psychological departments.

(There, now! Haven't I brought in the famous words that our new

schoolmaster astonished us with at the teachers' meeting? He need not

think that Webster Unabridged is his particular field, in which nobody

else may hunt.)

We were, as I said, discussing the music. Mother was flitting round,

giving the final dust-off and brush-about after our early tea. Aunt

Clara was sitting quietly at the window, pretending to read Baxter's

"Saint's Rest." Jerusha and I tried to imitate the tune, and we did it,

as well as we could, and I am sure we are not bad singers. Mother

slipped out of the room just as we came to

"And vie with Gabriel, while he sings."

She ran as if something had stung her, and she was making for the

hartshorn or some fresh brook-mud. Aunt Clara's face laughed all over,

and I said:

"Come, now, Aunt Clara, you are really irreverent. You began laughing in

meeting, and you are keeping it up over that good book."

"Downright wicked," said Jerusha.

Now I am a Normal graduate, and Jerusha is not yet "finished." That will

account for the greater elegance of my expressions. Aunt Clara paid no

heed to either of us, but laughed on. The most provoking thing in the

world is a laugh that you don't understand. Here was the whole Dorcas

Society laughing through its presidentess, and Aunt Clara joining in the

laugh in meeting, and aggravating the offence by stereotyping the smirk

in her face. In came mother again, evidently afraid to stay out, and not

liking for some reason to stay in. Again we tried the tune, and had just

got to

"And vie with Gabriel, while he sings."

Up jumped mother again, stopping in the door, and holding up a warning

finger to Aunt Clara. That gesture spurred my curiosity to the utmost

point. As to my beloved parent's running in and out, _that_ I should not

have heeded. She is like Martha, careful of many things. She is unlike

Martha, for she wants no assistance; but when the rest of us are

disposed to be quiet, she _will_ keep flitting here and there, and is

vexed if we follow. If father is talking, and has just reached the point

of his story, off she goes, as if the common topic were nothing to her.

Father says she is a perturbed spirit. But then he is always saying

queer things, which poor mother cannot understand. Aunt Clara seems to

know him a great deal better. I wonder he had not taken to wife a woman

like Aunt Clara. He would have taken _her_, I suppose, if she were not

his own sister.

I besought mother, as she fled, to tell me what ailed aunty. "Don't ask

_me_," she answered. "The dear only knows. As for me, I have given up

thinking, let alone asking, what either your aunt or your father would

be at." And away she went, perturbed-spirit fashion, and Aunt Clara

laughed louder than ever. Indeed, before she had only chuckled and

silently shaken her sides; now she broke out into a scream.

"Well, I never!" she said. "That flounce of your mother's out of the

room was certainly as much like old times as if the thing had happened

yesterday."

"What had happened yesterday?" asked Jerusha and I, both in a breath.

"O, I _shall_ die of laughing," said Aunt Clara.

"We shall die of impatience," said I, "if you don't tell us what you

mean."

"No you won't. Nobody, especially no woman, ever yet died of unsatisfied

curiosity. It rather keeps folks alive."

We very well knew that nothing would be made of Aunt Clara by teasing

her. So Jerusha turned over the great family Bible, her custom always of

a Sunday afternoon. Over her shoulder I happened to see that the good

book was open at the first chapter of I Chronicles, "Adam,

Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jared." Though her lips moved

diligently, I am afraid she did not make much of it. As for me, I turned

to the window, and studied the landscape. Father, his custom of a Sunday

afternoon, walked down into the meadow, and the cattle came

affectionately up to him. It was the salt in his broad pocket that they

were after. "I might salt them of a Monday," he says, "but they kind of

look for it, and it isn't kind to disappoint the creetur's on a

Sabba'-day. And the merciful man is merciful to his beasts."

The flies droned and buzzed that summer afternoon. Jerusha nodded over

the big Bible. Aunt Clara tried to look serious over the book she held.

But the latent laugh was coursing among the dimples in her face, like a

spark among tinder. I stole up behind, and, leaning over her shoulder,

kissed her.

"O, yes," said aunty. "Fine words butter no parsnips, and fine kisses

are no better."

Jerusha's head made an awful plunge, then a reactionary lift back, and

then she opened her eyes and her mouth with such a yawn!

"Why, what a mouth!" I cried. "Master Minim would rejoice if you would

thus open out in singing-school,

'And vie with Gabriel, while he sings.'"

Off went Aunt Clara in the laugh again, and this time till the tears

came. We saw now that there was something in that line which provoked

her mirth; but what Gabriel could have to do with her strange behavior

we could not imagine, and were wisely silent.

"Girls," she said, as soon as she could speak for laughing, "I _will_

tell you."

We knew she would, provided we were not too anxious to hear. So Jerusha

turned over her leaf to the second chapter of I Chronicles,

"Reuben, Simeon, Levi." I pretended to be more than ever interested out

of doors. Aunt Clara took off her specs, closed her book, smoothed her

apron, and began:--

"When I was a girl--"

Now that we knew the story was coming, we pretended to no more

indifference. Once get aunty started, and, like a horse balky at the

jump, she was good for the journey. So Jerusha shut the Bible, and we

both sat down at her feet.

"Not too close, girls. It's dreadful warm."

Her face worked and her sides heaved with her provoking laugh, and we

were half afraid of a disappointment. But there was no danger. She was

by this time quite as ready to tell as we to hear.

"When I was a girl I went to singing-school. Dear me! how many of the

scholars are dead and gone! There was my brother William, poor fellow!

he died away off in Calcutty. And Sarah Morgan, she never would own to

it that she liked him. But actions speak plainer than words. She never

held up her head after. And she's dead now, too."

Aunt Clara's face--she _is_ a dear old aunty--had now lost every trace

of mirth. The golden sunset touched her fine head, and made her look so

sweetly beautiful that I wondered why no man had had the good taste,

long ago, to relieve her of her maiden name. Perhaps she will tell us

some day, and if she does, perhaps we will tell you. She sat two or

three minutes, thinking and looking, as if she waited to see the loved

and lost. There was a rustle, and she started from her revery. It was

only mother, flitting into the room with one of her uneasy glances. But

we were all so still and serious and Sabbath-like, that a look of relief

came over her countenance. She vanished again, and through the window I

saw her join her husband in the meadow.

"There, now, before they come in," said Aunt Clara. "When I was a girl,

I went to singing-school. Dear me! But we will not think of the dead any

more. There was one of the girls,--she thought she had a very good

voice. But she never sings now."

"Why?" asked Jerusha.

"The dear knows. I suppose because she is married. Married people never

sing, I believe. So, girls, if you would keep your voices, you must stay

single. Well, there was one of the boys, he thought _he_ had a good

voice. And he never sings now either."

"Why?" said I.

"O, he's married too. So don't you get cheated into thinking you have

mated a robin. He will turn out a crow, like as any way. I suppose they

both did have good voices, and, for all that I know, they have still.

They were the singing-master's especial wonders and his pattern pieces.

He never was tired of praising them up to the skies, to mortify the rest

of us into good behavior. She was the wonder for the girls' side and he

for the boys',--two copies that we were to sing up to. I think they were

a little proud of the distinction. They were kind of brought together by

it, so that they did not see any harm at all in singing out of the same

note-book."

"I suppose not," said Jerusha.

"Well, there was one girl in the school,--I dare say she _was_ a

giggling, mischief-making thing, for everybody said so--"

"Is she living now?" I asked.

"Yes, indeed."

"Does _she_ sing now?" asked Jerusha.

"Well,--not much."

"Then," said I, "she must be married, too."

"No, she is not," said Aunt Clara, with a plaintive and very positive

emphasis on the negative particle,--"no, she is not."

"Then why does she not sing?" I asked.

"Nobody will look over the same note-book with her," said Jerusha.

"O, you girls may have your own fun now," said Aunt Clara. "You will see

the world with a sadder face by and by."

"Not if we look at it through your spectacles, aunty," I answered.

"Dear me; well, the Lord _has_ been kind, to me," said Aunt Clara, "if I

am a spinster still. But we must make haste. The old folks are coming

back."

"Old folks!" I thought, and Aunt Clara is older than either of them.

Father stopped and gave an ugly weed a whack with his cane. Then he

stooped and rooted it up, Sabbath-day though it was. I presume he

considered it an ox in a pit, for the moment.

Aunt Clara continued:--"The same tune you were at this afternoon used to

be a great favorite in our school. It's as old as the hills. I wonder if

Israel did not let out his voice in it! And Sally, she wouldn't be

behind _him_, I warrant you."

Jerusha and I exchanged glances.

"It happened, one evening,--and that's what I was laughing at this

afternoon. You see, the singing-master, if the music was not going to

suit him, would pull the class straight up in the middle of it, and make

them begin again. The giggling girl that I was speaking of, she was

always fuller of her own nonsense than of learning. This particular

evening she was tempted of the Evil One to alter the words to her own

purposes, just for the confusion of those close to her; and a dreadful

mess she would get them into. It was wrong, very wrong indeed," Aunt

Clara added, with a face that was meant to be serious, while her voice

laughed, in spite of her.

"On this evening, they were singing the very tune, as I told you.

Something went wrong. The singing-master stopped his viol, and called

out to the class to stop singing. But the heedless girl had got into

mischief, and could not stop with the rest, or she did not hear, or she

did not wish to. So on she went, all alone, right out, at the top of her

voice:--

'And vie with _Israel_, while he sings,

In notes almost divine!'

"And there she broke down, and sat down, and, graceless hussy as she

was, laughed as if she was mad. The truth was, that 'vying with Israel'

was a byword with us. We were always teasing Sally about her vying with

Israel, as she certainly did, while they sung out of the same book, and

thought a deal more of each other than they did of the music. Everybody

took the joke, and such a time as there was! Prudence Clark, who turned

round and looked at me in meeting to-day, she laughed the most

spitefully of anybody, for she had a great notion of your fath--I mean

of Israel. As to Israel and Sarah, if ever you did see two persons who

did not know whether to stand still or to run, to cry or to laugh, they

were the couple. The master, he tried to read us a solemn lecture; but

he was so full of suppressed fun that he hugged his viol under his arm

till one of the strings snapped. That gave the pitch, and we had a

laughing chorus. All joined in, except Israel and Sarah. She pouted, and

I do believe he grit his teeth." Here Aunt Clara gave herself up to the

comic reminiscence, till her eyes filled again.

"Well, and what came of it all?" asked Jerusha.

"Why, it broke up the school for that season, and made town-talk for

nine days. Parson Oliver,--he was a young man then,--he went for to give

the mischievous girl a good talking to. He needn't have tried that; for

he was too young to scold a young girl, full of mischief, and, though I

say it that shouldn't say it, rather pretty."

"Why shouldn't _you_ say she was pretty?" asked Jerusha.

"O, you hush! Well, the girl bent her head down, and a few stray tears

came, for it _was_ wicked, and she knew it. But before the water got

head enough to fall from her eyes, she kind of thought that the young

minister's voice was getting shaky, either with mirth or with sadness.

To find out which, she slyly looked up, and both she and the minister

laughed long and loud. So there was an end of the jobation that he meant

to give her."

"How did you know all this?" said Jerusha. "Were you there?"

"I certainly was not far off."

"But Israel and Sarah," said I, now seeing through the whole affair, and

understanding perfectly why father looked aside, and mother sat down,

and Aunt Clara and Prudence Clark of the Dorcas Society exchanged

glances, and the minister himself would have laughed in the pulpit, if

he had not turned it off with a cough,--"but Israel and Sarah, how did

they fare?"

"Why, Israel, he said that Sarah was just a pretty nobody, and Prudence

Clark was a great deal more sensible,--for his part he never cared

anything about Sarah. And Sarah, she declared that Israel was a hawbuck

of a fellow, that no girl would think of when he was out of sight."

"It was too bad!" said Jerusha.

"_Too_ bad!" I echoed.

"_Dreadful suz_!" said aunty, mocking our tone. "Never you fear, if two

young simpletons are once caught, that a joke is going to separate them!

And whenever you hear two people pretending to hate one another, you may

get your wedding present ready for them. The folks did tease them

though, too bad, and so they had it, back and forth. Stories never lose

anything by carrying, especially the compliments between two quarrelling

lovers. So it went on for about a month, when Israel, on his way to see

Prudence Clark, who was sitting in her best, waiting for him, stopped to

tell Sarah that he _never_ said so and so. And Sarah said, _she_ never

said so and so. And they went into the house to finish their talk, and

Prudence Clark was left lamenting. _I_ know Israel came home very late

that night."

"_You_ know?" said Jerusha.

"And father's name is Israel," said I.

"And mother's name is Sarah," said my sister.

"Hush, hush; here they come," said Aunt Clara. "But I don't believe they

would ever have found out their own minds if it had not been for me."

"And you were the giggling girl," said I.

"She's no better now," said my mother, as she entered the room, and

readily guessed what we had been hearing from aunty. Father walked up to

Aunt Clara, and pinched her ears for her. What more he might have done I

don't know, if Parson Oliver had not dropped in. We made quite a

pleasant evening of it, and the old folks discussed the reminiscence in

all its bearings. I like to hear old people talk. They come straight to

the pith of a subject, especially if it is love and matrimony. And the

more I hear them, the better I can realize the truth of the Old Virginia

admonition,--

"Ole folks, ole folks, you better go to bed,

You only put the mischief in the young folks' head."

* * * * *

AUTUMN SONG.

In Spring the Poet is glad,

And in Summer the Poet is gay;

But in Autumn the Poet is sad,

And has something sad to say:

For the wind moans in the wood,

And the leaf drops from the tree;

And the cold rain falls on the graves of the good,

And the cold mist comes up from the sea:

And the Autumn songs of the Poet's soul

Are set to the passionate grief

Of winds that sough and bells that toll

The dirge of the falling leaf.

* * * * *

THE FALL OF AUSTRIA.

The great characteristic of aristocracies, according to their admirers,

is prudence; and even democrats do not deny the soundness of the claim

thus put forward in their behalf. They are cautious, and if they seldom

accomplish anything brilliant, neither do they put everything to hazard.

If they gain slowly, they keep long what they have. Did not Venice

endure so long that, when she perished as a nation, within living

memory, she was the oldest of great communities? And was she not the

most perfect of all aristocratically governed nations? Was she not the

admiration of those English republicans of the seventeenth century whose

names are held in the highest honor wherever freedom is worshipped?

Aristocracies have their faults, but they outlast every other kind of

government, and therefore are objects of reverence to all who love

order. The Roman Republic was aristocratical in its polity, and all that

is great in Roman history is due to the ascendency of the Senate in the

government; and when the Forum populace began to show its power, the

decay of the commonwealth commenced, and did not cease till despotism

was established,--the natural effect of the resistance of the many to

the government of the few being the formation of the government of one.

England's polity is, and for ages has been, aristocratical. Not even the

passage of the Reform Bill materially lessened the power of the

aristocracy; and the declaration of Earl Grey, the father of the

measure, that it would be found the most aristocratical of measures,--as

he was one of the most aristocratical of men,--does not seem so absurd

now as it appeared four-and-thirty years since, when we note how

difficult it now is to lower the franchise in Britain. The firmest

government in Europe is that of England, in which property has greater

influence than in that of any other nation. The conclusion drawn by

aristocrats and their admirers is, that aristocracies are the most

enduring of all the polities known to men, and that they are so because

aristocrats are the most prudent and cautious of men. The governments

they form and control wash and wear well, and bid defiance to what Bacon

calls "the waves and weathers of time."

There is some truth in this. Aristocracies _are_ cautious and prudent,

and indisposed to risk present advantage in the hope of future gain.

Therefore aristocratical polities often attain to great age, and the

nations that know them attain slowly to great and firmly-placed power.

Rome and Venice and England are striking examples of these truths. Yet

it is not the less true that aristocracies sometimes do behave with a

rashness that cannot be paralleled from the histories of democracies and

despotisms. It has been the fortune of this age to see two examples of

this rashness, such as no other age ever witnessed or ever could have

witnessed. The first of these was presented in the action, in 1860-61,

of the American aristocracy. The second was that of the Austrian

aristocracy, in 1866. The American aristocracy--the late slavocracy--was

the most powerful body in the world; so powerful, that it was safe

against everything but itself. It had been gradually built up, until it

was as towering as its foundations were deep and broad. Not only was it

unassailed, but there was no disposition in any influential quarter to

assail it. The few persons who did attack it, from a distance, produced

scarcely more effect adverse to its ascendency, than was produced by the

labors of the first Christians against the Capitoline Jupiter in the

days of the Julian Cæsars. Abolitionists were annoyed and insulted even

in the course of that political campaign which ended in the election of

Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency; and not a few of the victors in that

campaign were forward to declare, that between their party and the

"friends of the slave" there was neither friendship nor sympathy. One of

the most eminent of the Republicans of Massachusetts declared that he

felt hurt at the thought that his party could be suspected of approving

the conduct of Captain John Brown at Harper's Ferry. Down to the

spring-time of 1860, it required, on the part of the American

slaveholding interest, only a moderate display of that prudence which is

said to be the chief virtue of an aristocracy, to secure all they

possessed,--which was all the country had to give,--and to prepare the

way for such gains as it might be found necessary to make, as the

American nation should increase in strength. But this prudence the

slaveholders would not display. They annoyed and insulted the people of

the Free States. They broke up the Democratic party, which was well

disposed to do their work. They pursued such a course as compelled the

great majority of the American people to take up arms against them, and

to abolish slavery by an act of war. The effect was the fall of a body

of men who certainly were very powerful, and who were believed to be

very wise in their generation. It was impossible to attack them as long

as they were true to their own interests, and they could fall only

through being attacked. They made war on the nation, and the nation was

forced to defend herself, and destroyed them. It is the most wonderful

case of suicide known to mankind.

The Austrian aristocracy behaved almost as unwisely as the American

aristocracy. As the Republic of the United States is a union of States,

which in reality was governed by the slaveholders down to 1861, so is

the Austrian Empire a collection of countries, governed by a few great

families, at the head of which stand the imperial family,--the House of

Austria, or, as it is now generally called, the House of

Hapsburg-Lorraine. That aristocracy might have prevented the occurrence

of war last summer, by ceding Venetia to Italy; and that it did not make

such cession early in June, when we know it was ready to make it early

in July, but plunged into a contest which, according to the apologists

for its terrible defeat, it was wholly unprepared to wage, speaks but

poorly for its prudence, though that is claimed to be _the_ virtue of

aristocracies. The Austrian aristocrats behaved as senselessly in 1866

as the Prussian aristocrats in 1806, but with less excuse than the

latter had. By their action they caused their country's degradation.

From the rank of a first-rate power that country has been compelled to

descend, not so much through loss of territory and population as through

loss of position. For centuries the house of Austria has been very

powerful in Europe, though the Austrian empire can count but sixty

years. Rudolph of Hapsburg, the first member of his line who rose to

great eminence, in the latter part of the thirteenth century, founded

the house of Austria. While holding the imperial throne, he obtained for

his own family Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola; but it was not

till several generations after his death, and in the fifteenth century,

that the imperial dignity became virtually, though not in terms,

hereditary in the Hapsburg line. For several centuries, down to the

extinction of the office, there was no Emperor of Germany who was not of

that family. Every effort to divert the office from that house ended in

failure. The consequence was, that the house of Austria became the first

of reigning families; and at one time it seemed about to grasp the

sceptre of the world. When the Empire ceased to exist, the Austrian

empire, though of later creation than the French empire of Napoleon I.,

had that appearance of antique grandeur which has so great an effect on

men's minds. It was looked upon as ancient because the imperial family

really was ancient, and could trace itself back through almost twelve

hundred years, to the sixth century, though in places the tracing was of

the most shadowy character. It profited from the greatness of the

Hapsburgs in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries,--a

greatness which is among the most extraordinary things recorded in

history.

Should the history of royal marriages ever be written in a manner

proportioned to its importance, a large part of the work would have to

be given to the marriages made by various princes of the house of

Austria; for those marriages had prodigious effect on the condition of

the best portions of the human race, and in the sixteenth century it

seemed that they were about to bring, not only most of Europe, but

nearly all America, a large part of Asia, and not a little of Africa

under the rule of one family, and that family by no means superior to

that of Valois or the Plantagenets. The extraordinary luck of the house

of Austria in turning marriage into a source of profit was early

remarked; and in the latter part of the fifteenth century, long before

the best of the Austrian matrimonial alliances were made, Matthias

Corvinus, the greatest of Hungarian kings, wrote a Latin epigram on the

subject, which was even more remarkable as a prediction than as a

statement of fact; for it was as applicable to the marriage of Napoleon

I. and Maria Louisa, and to that of Philip the Fair and Juana the

Foolish, as it was to that of Maximilian and Mary.[25] It is from the

Styrian line of the Austrian house that all princes of that house who

have reigned for four centuries and upward are descended. Ernest, third

son of that Leopold who was defeated and slain at the battle of Sempach

by the Swiss, became master of the duchies of Styria, Carniola, and

Carinthia. He was a pious prince, and made a pilgrimage to Palestine,

after the superstitious fashion of his time. He was a quarrelsome

prince, and kept himself in a state of perpetual hot water with his

brother. He was an amorous and a chivalrous prince, and, having lost his

first wife, he got him a second after a knightly fashion. Having heard

much of the material and mental charms of the Princess Cymburga, a

Polish lady who had the blood of the Yagellons in her veins, he went to

Cracow in disguise, found that report had not exaggerated her merits,

and, prudently making himself known, proposed for her hand, and got it.

But Cymburga was not only very clever and very beautiful: she was a

muscular Christian in crinoline,--for hoops were known in those days

among the Poles, or might have been known to them,--and if they were, no

doubt Cymburga, like American ladies of to-day, had the sense and taste

to use them. She had such strength of fist that, when she had occasion

to drive a nail into anything, she dispensed with a hammer; and she

economized in nut-crackers, as some independent people do in the item of

pocket-handkerchiefs, by using her fingers. One would think that Ernest

would have hesitated to woo and wed a lady who was so capable of

carrying matters with a high hand; but then he was a very strong man,

and was surnamed "The Iron," so that he could venture where no other man

would have thought of going. This strong-handed as well as strong-minded

couple, who were both paired and matched, must be taken as the real

founders of that house of Austria which has been so conspicuous in the

history of Christendom for almost four centuries, though they and their

descendants built on the broad and solid foundations established by

Rudolph of Hapsburg and his earlier descendants. Some authorities say

that Cymburga brought into the Hapsburg family that thick lip--"the

Austrian lip"--so often mentioned in history; but others call it the

Burgundian lip, though the marriage between Maximilian (Cymburga's

grandson) and Mary of Burgundy (Charles the Bold's daughter) did not

take place till 1477; and the ducal Burgundian family was only a branch

of the French royal line of Valois. It was no addition to the beauty of

the imperial family, no matter to whom that family was indebted for it.

It is certain that it appeared in the Emperor Frederick III., son of

Ernest and Cymburga, and father of that Emperor who, when an archduke,

married the Burgundian duchess, if such Mary can be called; for Menzel,

who must have seen portraits of him, and who knew his history well,

speaks of him as "a slow, grave man, with a large, protruding

under-lip."

This Frederick was a singular character. He had the longest

reign--fifty-three years--of all the German Emperors, and it may be said

that he founded the house of Hapsburg, considering it as an imperial

line. Yet he is almost invariably spoken of contemptuously. Menzel says

that no Emperor had reigned so long and done so little. Mr. Bryce

declares that under him the Empire sank to its lowest point. Even

Archdeacon Coxe, who held his memory in respect, and did his best to

make out a good character for him, has to admit "that he was a prince of

a languid and inactive character," and to make other damaging admissions

that detract from the excellence of the elaborate portrait he has drawn

of him. There was something fantastical in his favorite

pursuits,--astrology, alchemy, antiquities, alphabet-making, and the

like,--which the men of an iron age viewed with a contempt that probably

had much to do with giving him that character which he has in history,

contemporary opinion of a ruler generally being accepted, and enduring.

"A species of anagram," says the English historian of his family,

"consisting of the five vowels, he adopted as indicative of the future

greatness of the house of Austria, imprinted it on all his books, carved

it on all his buildings, and engraved it on all his plate. This riddle

occupied the grave heads of his learned contemporaries, and gave rise to

many ridiculous conjectures, till the _important_ secret was disclosed

after his death by an interpretation written in his own hand, in which

the vowels form the initials of a sentence in Latin and German,

signifying, 'The house of Austria is to govern the whole world.'"[26]

Notwithstanding the archidiaconal sneer, Frederick III.'s anagram came

quite as near the truth as any uninspired prophecy that can be

mentioned. In little more than sixty years after the Emperor's death,

the house of Austria ruled over Germany, the Netherlands, Naples,

Sicily, the Milanese, Hungary, Bohemia, the Spains, England and Ireland

(in virtue of Philip II.'s marriage with Mary I., queen-regnant of

England), the greater part of America, from the extreme north to the

extreme south, portions of Northern Africa, the Philippines, and some

minor possessions; and it really ruled, though indirectly, most of that

part of Italy, outside of the territory of Venice, that had nominally an

independent existence. Before Holland's independence was fully

established, but after the connection with England had ceased, Portugal

passed under the dominion of the Spanish branch of the house of Austria,

with all her immense American, African, and Asiatic colonial

possessions. For years, Philip II. was more powerful in France than any

one of her sovereigns could pretend to be. Frederick's prediction,

therefore, came to pass almost literally, and was less an exaggeration

than St. Luke's assertion that a decree went forth from Cæsar Augustus

that all the world should be taxed. As Augustus was lord of nearly all

the world that a man like St. Luke could consider civilized and worth

governing, so might an Austrian writer of the sixteenth century declare

that the Hapsburgs ruled over wellnigh all the world that could be

looked upon as belonging to the Christian commonwealth, including not a

little that had been stolen from the heathen by Christians.

It was by marriage that the Hapsburgs became so great in so short a

time. Frederick III. married Eleanor, a Portuguese princess, whose

mother was of the royal house of Castille. Portugal is not even of

second rank now, and the Braganças are not in the first rank of royal

families. But in the fifteenth century Portugal stood relatively and

positively very high, and the house of Avis was above the house of

Austria, though a king of Portugal was necessarily inferior to the head

of the Holy Roman Empire. This marriage did not advance the fortunes of

the Austrian family, though it connected them with three other great

families,--the reigning houses of Portugal, Castille, and England, the

Princess Eleanor having Plantagenet blood. But the son of Frederick and

Eleanor, afterward the Emperor Maximilian I.,[27] married Mary of

Burgundy in 1477, which "gave a lift" to his race that enabled it to

increase in importance at a very rapid rate. Mary was in possession of

most of the immense dominions of her father, which he had intended to

convert into a kingdom, had he lived to complete his purpose. His

success would have had great effect on the after history of Europe, for

he would have reigned over the finest of countries, and his dominions

would have extended from the North Sea to Provence,--and over Provence

so powerful a sovereign would have had no difficulty in extending his

power,--which done, his dominions would have been touched by the

Mediterranean. Louis XI. of France got hold of some of Mary's

inheritance; but the greater part thereof she conveyed to Maximilian.

She died young, leaving a son and a daughter. The son was Philip the

Fair, who in 1496 married Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella,

king of Aragon, and queen of Castille, and heiress of the Spanish

monarchy, which had come to great glory through the conquest of Granada,

and to wonderful influence through the discovery of the New

World,--events that took place in the same year, and but a short time

before the marriage of the Austrian archduke and the Peninsular

princess. This marriage, useful and brilliant as it was to the house of

Austria, turned out bitterly bad to the parties to it,--and it is not an

isolated case in that respect. Philip the Fair was a very handsome

fellow, as became his designation, or rather whence his designation

came; but on the principle that "handsome is that handsome does," he was

one of the ugliest of men. He was guilty of gallantry, the weakness of

kings, and of many of the sovereign people too. When living in Spain he

had many amorous adventures; and his wife, who had brought him so great

a fortune that she thought she had an especial claim on his fidelity,

became exceedingly jealous, and, being a _dague en jarretière_ lady, as

became one who was born to reign over Andaluçia, killed her faithless

husband,--not by stabbing him, but by giving him poison. This was in

1506, when husband and wife were but twenty-eight and twenty-four years

old, and had been but ten years married. There were two sons and four

daughters born of this marriage, all of whom made important marriages.

The eldest son was the man whom Mr. Stirling calls "the greatest monarch

of the memorable sixteenth century,"--Charles V., Emperor of Germany,

and the Spanish Charles I. He founded the Spanish branch of the house of

Austria, the elder branch.[28] He married Isabella of Portugal, and

their son was Philip II., who added Portugal to the possessions of the

Austrian family, and one of whose wives was Mary Tudor, queen of

England, the Bloody Mary of fire-and-fagot memory; and Philip gladly

would have placed Mary's sister Elizabeth in his half-vacant bed. The

marriage of Philip and Mary was barren, and poor Mary's belief that a

"blessed baby" was coming has been matter for laughter for more than

three hundred years. Had her agonizing prayers for offspring been heard,

what a change would have been wrought in human destinies, even had the

child lived to be no older than Edward VI.! The second son of Philip the

Fair and Juana was Ferdinand, named from his maternal grandfather,

Ferdinand the Catholic, king of Argon. He was the founder of the German

branch of the house of Austria, the younger branch, which has long

survived the elder branch, though now it exists only in the female line,

and really is the house of Lorraine. Ferdinand became Ferdinand I.,

Emperor of Germany, and he did far more than was done by his elder

brother to keep up the character of his family for making much through

marriage. In 1522, when but nineteen, he married Anne Yagellon, princess

of Hungary and Bohemia,--a marriage that might not have proved very

important, but that death came in and made it so, and also the births

that came from it, as will presently appear. Charles and Ferdinand had

four sisters, and they all four made great marriages, three of which

were very useful to the Austrian house. The eldest of these ladies,

Eleanora, was married to Emanuel, king of Portugal,--a man old enough to

be her father, with some years to spare,--being sacrificed to the

ambition of her brother Charles, for she was attached to the Count

Palatine. Becoming a widow, she was compelled to give her hand to that

popular rascal, Francis I. of France, when her brother wished to

strengthen the treaty he made with his "good brother" at Madrid, and

which the Frenchman had arranged to disregard even before he signed it.

The second sister, Isabella, married Christian II., king of Denmark,

when she was but fourteen, and died at twenty-four. Mary, the third

sister, became the wife of Louis II., king of Hungary and Bohemia, and

last of the Yagellons. The fourth sister, Catherine, married John III.,

king of Portugal. It was the marriage of the third sister, Mary, that,

in connection with his own marriage, had the greatest effect on the

fortunes of her brother Ferdinand, as his wife was the sister of Louis

II., Mary's husband. Louis was defeated by the Turks at the battle of

Mohacz, in 1526, and lost his life while flying from the field.

Ferdinand claimed the crowns of Bohemia and Hungary, as Louis left no

children, and he was chosen king in both countries; and though he

disowned all other rights to the Bohemian throne than that of the

election, it is certain he never would have been elected by either

nation had he not married the sister of Louis, and had not Louis married

his sister. All these marriages, and other events that carried the power

of the house of Austria to the greatest height, took place only

thirty-three years after the death of Frederick III., and some of his

contemporaries may have lived to witness them all.

The marriages of the house of Austria since the sixteenth century have

not been so important as they were in that century, but they have not

been without influence on events, in exceptional cases. The marriage of

Marie Antoinette and the French prince who became Louis XVI. was

fruitful of results; and the marriage of Napoleon I. and Marie Louise,

by causing the French emperor to rely on Austrian aid in 1813, had

memorable consequences. Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. married Austrian

princesses of the Spanish branch; and the marriage of Louis XIV. and

Maria Theresa led to the founding of that Bourbon line which reigns over

Spain, though the main line has ceased to reign in France. The greatness

of the house of Austria in the seventeenth century is visible only in

Germany, after the death of Philip IV. of Spain. The German Hapsburgs

had a powerful influence in the seventeenth century, playing then great

parts, but often finding themselves in danger of extinction before their

Spanish cousins had run out.[29] They were the rivals of the French

kings of that century, and Louis XIV. was talked of as a candidate for

the imperial throne. The course of English politics had a very favorable

effect on the fortunes of the Hapsburgs, the same conduct that gave

supremacy to Protestantism and constitutionalism in Great Britain

working most favorably in behalf of that family which, for ten

generations, has been identified with everything that is bigoted and

intolerant in religion and politics. James II., after his fall, implored

assistance from the Emperor of Germany, Leopold I.; and, considering

that both were intensely Catholic, his application ought to have been

favorably received; but the reigning Emperor had little difficulty in

showing that it was not in his power, as assuredly it was not for his

interest, to help the exiled king,--who was an exile only because of his

attachment to that ancient Church through which alone, as Leopold

believed, salvation could be secured. He went with the heretical William

III. England, indeed, has been the bulwark of the German Hapsburgs on

many occasions, and has saved them on more than one occasion from

overthrow; and she did her best to aid even the Spanish branch in its

last years, and then exerted herself to secure that branch's possessions

for its relations at Vienna. It was English military genius that saved

the Emperor Leopold I. from destruction.[30] When most of Continental

Europe showed itself hostile to the Austrian house after the death of

Charles VI., England was the fast friend of Maria Theresa, his daughter,

and aided her to get over difficulties that seemed about to overwhelm

her; and it was the fault rather of Austria than of England that the two

countries did not act together in the Seven Years' War, when England

was, as it were, forced into the Prussian alliance, and helped Frederick

win his astonishing victories. Austria came out of that memorable

contest without having accomplished the purpose for which she entered

it; but she had displayed great power during its course, and in the last

half of the reign of the empress-queen, her reputation stood very high.

Joseph II., though he declared that he had failed in everything,

impressed himself very powerfully on the European mind, and was counted

a great sovereign. No common man could have entertained the projects

that crowded his teeming mind, and which came to little in most

instances because they were in advance of the time.