All were ambitious to share the glory of the coming triumph, little

dreaming of the terrible cost of life and limb with which it was to be

achieved. Of those who went from the hospital, numbers were stricken

down, never to need care again. How sadly the words "Shot through the

head" looked opposite the name of Frank Wagner, in the first lists which

came from the front! He was a spirited boy of seventeen, who by great

care had been raised from a dangerous illness. But almost sadder than

the death-lists were the names of those taken prisoners. We had learned

but too well that it would be death in the end to most; to very few life

worth having.

Back to the hospital, too, came letters, telling of long marches and

hard fighting; and of the amount of sickness which would be kept off,

and pain and misery saved, if there were two or three hundred Miss ----s

down there. The wounded might be counted, the letters said, by tens of

thousands; the Ninth Army Corps had earned imperishable laurels, but

they had lost heavily. The Michigan regiment from which we had had so

many patients suffered severely; of the company of Indians, which

started one hundred and ten in number, only six remained; and the other

companies were hardly more fortunate. Dismay and anguish filled the land

at the tidings of the desolation which was the price of victory.

Early in the spring another exchange of paroled prisoners was made. The

New York came several times, bringing hundreds of starved men. Death had

released many from their sufferings during the winter. The men had had

no meat since New-Year's, and their tortures on Belle Isle and in Libby

Prison had been excruciating. Smallpox had broken out among them. The

dead had lain by the side of the living for days without burial.

Among the prisoners who came were twenty-five little drummer-boys. They

had endured the hardships of exile better than the men, and were in the

best of spirits. A little flaxen-haired boy of about thirteen years of

age, on being asked if he were not rather young to come to the war,

answered, "O no, and there are plenty more just as able as I to come and

help put down this Rebellion." There was a man by the name of Schwarz,

who unfurled the flag of his regiment on landing. He was the

color-bearer of the First Maryland, and had succeeded in concealing the

flag, until now, with proud joy, he held it high once more in free air.

His brother was the first man wounded in the war, at Fort Sumter.

General Neal Dow came at this time, having passed nearly a year in Libby

Prison. He was able to come in and take tea with the ladies on his

arrival, and to start for home the next day. He gave a graphic account

of his prison-life in Virginia. The colored people he had always found

good friends. Being without the news of the day was among the

deprivations of Libby, and the prisoners were indebted to the colored

attendants in the prison for an occasional newspaper. When any great

victory had taken place on the Union side, there was always a stricter

watch kept over our men, lest even this gleam of joy should brighten

their dull life; and particular care was taken constantly to inform them

that great battles had been fought, that the South had gained immense

advantages, and that the North would soon be forced to give up the war.

One morning a colored man came to General Dow and told him that there

was a "mighty big piece of news," but that he was afraid to tell, lest

he should be detected in giving information. But after the General had

promised that he should not be betrayed, "Vicksburg is taken!" resounded

in a loud whisper through the room. It was too good a secret to be kept

in silence, and inspired their hearts with fresh courage to bear their

hard lot.

Major Calhoun came too at this time. He was from Kentucky, a man of

marked character and superior education. He had made an attempt to

escape, and, being caught, was taken back and confined in a cell, in

which he Could neither lie down nor stand up. For six weeks he was kept

there, and then taken out with a brain-fever settled upon him, from

which he had not fully recovered when brought to us. As his pale, thin

face looked forth from the coarse brown blanket in which he was wrapped,

it was as pitiable a sight as can be imagined. It was enough to melt the

stoutest heart to hear him relate his woful experiences, and tell how

many comrades he had left in misery. "Good by, Cap',--we're glad you are

going to God's land; but tell them at home how we fare here, and see if

they can't get us away." These were the parting words from his sorrowful

comrades.

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased?"

was often the piteous appeal of countenances among the returned

prisoners, betraying a brain disturbed by depressing fancies or

harrowing imaginations. In some cases the malady amounted to insanity,

and then the patients were removed to an asylum. Homesickness was

frequently the cause of the most unmanageable of cases. No medicine was

effectual in giving an appetite or producing sound sleep. All attempts

to cheer or amuse these childish patients were regarded by them as the

evidence of a heartless want of sympathy. "Just think, I have been out

four months, and not had a furlough yet!" said an officer one day at the

conclusion of an hour's effort to divert his mind; and, with violent

sobbings, he buried his face in the pillow. A leave of absence proved

his cure.

There was a Pennsylvania man who had never before he became a soldier

left his native farm,--a vigorous-looking youth, hearty and robust in

stature. At night he would awake from dreams of haying-scenes or

apple-gatherings, shouting out the names of his brothers; and when he

found himself so far away, and in the hospital, he would break into the

most grievous wails and lamentations. This of course disturbed the other

sick men seriously, and night after night the poor nurse strove in vain

to soothe him. In the daytime a quieter kind of crying would satisfy

him. There was nothing but talking about his home that would bring a

gleam of gladness to his disconsolate countenance. Every time that the

lady in charge of the ward left him was the occasion of a trembling lip

and tearful eyes. At last it was proposed to treat him as if he were a

child. "Now you must try and be a good boy, Joseph, and when you wake up

not make such a noise and disturb the men; if you are quiet, you shall

have something nice given you in the morning." This was a good-night

promise. The experiment succeeded; for on our going into the ward in the

morning, he said, "I have been real good, and only woke the men up

once." And then he wondered what he should get. An orange satisfied his

most ardent expectations; and then a promise of something more at noon,

and again at night, if he continued his improved behavior, kept him

happier through the day. This system was followed up for a few days,

when he recovered his spirits, and was able to rejoin his regiment in a

short time.

Where nostalgia was the only complaint, it would yield, but was almost

hopeless if disease had undermined the constitution. There were two boys

about seventeen years old in one ward, both dolefully sad, and pining

continually for home and familiar faces. One was from Tennessee, the

other from Connecticut. They were equally low, being among the worst

cases from prison life. The father of one came to him; the sister whom

the other talked constantly about could not even hear from him, the

Rebels cutting off postal communication. The evening West's father came,

he seemed nearer death than the little Tennesseean, but his father's

presence saved his life; he quickly rallied, the pressure of his

melancholy was removed by hearing a home voice, his appetite returned,

his strength was restored. But the other boy sank lower and lower in

despondency for which there was no remedy; and the last words he spoke

were of his sister,--he would be content to die if he could only see her

once more.

The enlivening music of a fine band was added this spring to the

hospital organization. For an hour every morning and evening its

animating strains stirred the martial spirit in the worn-out and

suffering, and brought cheer and courage to hours of loneliness. The

little "Knapsack," too, was merged into a printed sheet called "The

Crutch," the weekly publication of which furnished an occasion for the

patients to amuse themselves in writing articles in prose or verse.

A complete photographic establishment appeared in one corner of the

hospital grounds at this time, and became the resort of hundreds of

officers and men in their leisure hours of convalescence. The instrument

was used in taking pictures of uncommon cases in surgery, and in

faithfully delineating the spectral features of the returned prisoners.

The month of June found our hospital comparatively deserted: all the men

who were able had left for their regiments, and all but two or three

prisoners had gone to Camp Parole to await exchange, or had been laid

beneath the sods of Maryland. In the wards were to be found patients who

had been there for months, prostrated either by chronic illness or

stubborn wounds,--mere human wrecks, bones and breath alone remaining of

once rugged frames and constitutions.

Gently the balmy summer breezes creep into the tent wards, laden with

the rich fragrance of roses, violets, and jasmine, offering their mute

sympathy to those who shall never more walk forth to behold them growing

in luxuriant beauty. William Miller, a boy of fifteen, is one of these.

He is an orphan, and was the pet of fond grandparents, who consented to

let him join the Union army to escape Rebel conscription. He is a mere

child; his dark, deep, expressive eyes, shaded by long, drooping lashes,

light up with happiness his face of marble paleness, as he receives the

comforts of life and the kindness of friends once more, after long

months of homesickness and starvation. His spirit is buoyant with the

anticipation of seeing his native State of Tennessee entirely rescued

from the destroying hand of treason, and he is proud of having suffered

for the flag of freedom. But at times those bright eyes are clouded; not

that he for one moment regrets his experiences, bitter as they have

been, in contrast with the doting care in which he was reared; yet he

talks a good deal about that little home in the far-off mountains, and

it is easy to discern that the tidings which cannot come from those he

so dearly loves there would bring him great happiness. He is too manly

in his patriotism, however, to give way to these restless longings, and

stifles the secret unquiet of his heart by a bravely forced

cheerfulness. The doctor is sure that he cannot live much longer, and

thinks best that he should be told. It is a painful duty thus to blight

all the hopes which cling to earth.

One day, as he was talking about his grandparents, and how much he

should have to tell them when he got home, he was asked, "But suppose,

Miller, that it was God's will for you not to get well, but to go to a

better world above, how would you feel?" The awful possibility flashed

upon him for the first time, and, bursting into tears, he exclaimed,

"Must I die, and never see grandpapa and grandmamma again?... I can die

for the country, but I do want to see them once more." After a little

while, with a maturity and strength of character far beyond his years,

he sweetly acquiesced in the will of the wise Disposer of our joys and

sorrows, and transferred his thoughts to eternal realities. He was

comforted by the thought that he should meet those he loved in the

heavenly home. "And perhaps they may be there now," he said, "waiting

for me." At another time, on being reminded that his best and most

loving Friend was always near him, he said that he wished that he loved

him better, and knew how to pray to him aright. "Can't you say, God be

merciful to me a sinner?" "O yes, but do you call that praying?" With

his thin, white hands meekly clasped upon his breast, he would lie for

hours repeating with his slowly moving lips this petition. God heard and

answered it A settled peace filled his soul, making those last few days

the beginning of immortal glory to him, as he awaited with triumphant

faith the hour of transition. To the end his patriotism glowed warmly;

he asked, the day before he died, that a little flag which was in the

tent might be put up where he could see it: "I would love to have that

dear flag the last thing that my eyes shall rest upon on earth."

Patiently he suffered until within a few hours of his death, when he

sank into a deep sleep, to awake no more here. As we gazed at his little

form in the coffin, with the flag he died for laid across his snowy

shroud, that impressive, mysterious "Why?" which is so often asked in

life, came to our thoughts. Why should one so pure and innocent be

called to offer his young life in a struggle for which he was in no

manner responsible? Eternity will unfold all the hidden reasons; but

cannot we even now catch a glimpse of them, remembering that no devotion

is too precious a sacrifice for the principles of truth and liberty, and

that the longest life could not be crowned with loftier praise than the

death of a child-patriot? A wreath of white rose-buds was woven for the

funeral of our little loved one; a single pink rose was laid with tears

on the flag-covered coffin by the soldier-nurse who had tenderly cared

for him through his illness.

Impelled by an intense feeling of the importance of a speedy exchange of

the large number of men who had been taken prisoners since the opening

of the spring campaign, two of the ladies in the hospital went to

Washington one day. They were kindly received by President Lincoln, and,

in the few minutes' interview they had with him, the pictures of some of

the released prisoners were shown to him. As he gazed at them, a pitying

sadness crossed his brow. He asked if indeed they could be correct, and

gave a promise that those who were then in the hands of the enemy should

be exchanged as soon as it was in his power to effect it. Could that

time have sooner come, what unutterable tortures would have been saved

to thousands!

Strawberry festivals were given to the men at this time; gingerbread,

and a plentiful supply of fruit, adding a little variety to their

every-day fare. The time afforded for such diversions by a less pressing

amount of care than usual was cut short by the arrival of the steamer

Connecticut, bringing six hundred of those most seriously wounded at the

disastrous attack upon Petersburg on the 18th of June. These men were

landed at midnight; their wounds had been carefully attended to before

their arrival, and were found to be in good order. Yet many were in a

dying state, and it was impossible to do for every man all that we

desired on the morning that followed, and added by its heat to their

weakness, thirst, and discomfort. Hastily the hospital attendants moved

from one helpless sufferer to another, in the thickly crowded tent

wards. One man would shriek, in frenzied agony, for a drink of water;

another would beg to be fanned; while others would ask to be bathed with

ice-water.

Among the newly arrived was General Chamberlain, the present Governor of

Maine. Supposed to have been "mortally wounded," so terribly had a

Minie-rifle-ball shattered his body, he was, after having been borne by

painful and exhausting stages from the extreme front, landed in an

almost dying condition. Leaving Bowdoin College as Colonel of the Maine

Twentieth, he had already distinguished himself by dashing bravery in

many of the great battles of the war. At Petersburg he was raised to the

rank of General by Grant for gallantry in leading a charge,--the only

case of actual promotion on the field during the war. Bravest in battle,

his courage was not less evinced during months of intense and tedious

suffering. Partially restored to health as by a miracle, he resumed his

command five months from the day of his desperate wound. In Grant's last

campaign he opened the attack on the left at Quaker Road and White Oak

Road, for which he received the brevet of Major-General. Although

several times wounded, he valiantly pressed on, fighting through the

campaign, and taking a prominent and important part in the battle of

Five Forks. His command, the First Division of the Fifth Army Corps, was

designated to receive the surrender of the arms and colors of Lee's

army; and the flag that waved that day over a conquered rebellion now

hangs in his peaceful study at Brunswick.

Of those who died on the morning after the arrival of the Connecticut

was a young man belonging to the Rebel army. He had by chance been taken

up among our wounded. He had his little Bible in his pocket, which he

requested should be sent to his mother, with the message that he died

happy, and hoped to meet her in a better world, but that he was a fool

for having joined the army. As it was supposed that he might have some

such regret in his last hours, he was asked if he were sorry that he had

fought against the old flag. "Well, you need not say that," he said,

"but that I was a fool ever to come to this war." With a smile of peace

upon his countenance, he passed away. Several attempts have been made,

in vain, since the close of the war, to find his mother; the Bible, and

a ring taken from his finger, will possibly never reach her now.

Among the wounded were four men who had lost both legs; they were in the

best of spirits, surely thinking to live, and earnestly planning for the

future. Had the heat not been so excessive for the ten days after they

came, they would probably have survived; but, one after another, they

died, suddenly, overcome by fainting weakness. I remember, too, one boy,

only sixteen years old, who had lost his right arm. "You have given a

good deal for the country," was said to him. "Yes, and I would willingly

give my other arm to help put down this Rebellion." Little did he think

that within a few hours his life would be yielded in his country's

cause.

Every day a funeral procession moved forth to the place of burial, the

band playing the "Russian Dirge" or the "Dead March in Saul."

It seemed as if a special inspiration of silent endurance and courageous

patience were given to the men who lingered in the most acute

sufferings. Gangrene spread through the wards, and the remedy was like

the application of fire to open wounds. Three times a day was this agony

endured with a martyr's spirit. One man by the name of Hollenbeck would

sing in joyous tones,--

"I'm glad I'm in this army,

I'm glad I'm in this army,

And I'll battle till the end.

"He will give me grace to conquer,

He will give me grace to conquer,

And keep me to the end."

While consciousness lasted, he firmly retained his self-control; but at

last reason gave way, and the groans and distressing cries which for a

few days preceded his death told over what a depth of agony his soul had

triumphed, before his brain lost its power.

Not alone by the men themselves was this sublime fortitude shown.

Mothers, who came to visit their sons, though crushed with grief at

their hopeless state, would yet calmly and even cheerfully minister to

their comfort.

There was one mother, especially, whom I remember,--a slight, fragile

little woman, dressed in widow's mourning, for her husband had been

killed in the war, and it was her third and last son who was now dying

for the country. Her strength of mind and body was almost superhuman.

She had an angelic expression of countenance, such as comes from

learning the full and perfect love of God in the sharp lessons of

suffering. She was only too thankful at being permitted to spend these

last days and nights by the side of her son,--begging him to put his

trust in the Saviour, and telling of the celestial glory prepared for

him beyond the grave. She could hardly be persuaded to take even a few

hours' sleep; she felt that she could not leave him with the nurse, but

consented, if one of the ladies would stay with him, to take a little

rest. It was my privilege to watch by him through that last night of

restless pain, and then I found that he was in every way worthy of so

noble a mother. He expressed his willingness to die, saying that it had

been his duty to fight, and that now he gloried in dying for the nation.

The tent sides' fluttering in the light breeze from the bay was the only

sound that disturbed the quiet of that starry night, as in the solemn

solitude the departing soul gathered fresh energy as the body grew

weaker and weaker. Chapters of the Bible and Psalms were read over and

over to him; he earnestly listened to each promise and benediction, and

would at the low singing of hymns sleep gently for a few moments at a

time. Early in the morning his mother resumed her place of loving care.

In the afternoon she sent for two of the ladies to come over and sing to

Frank. The chaplain was there, and life was fast ebbing away. After

prayer, the hymn, "My heavenly home is bright and fair," was sung. As

the dying boy thanked the ladies, he said that there was a hymn about

"rest" that he would like to hear once more. "There is rest for the

weary" having been sung, he folded his wasted hands, and said: "This is

the last hymn I shall hear on earth. In a little while I shall know of

that rest." He breathed for a few hours longer, and then his spirit was

among the redeemed, "in the Christian's home in glory." The faithful,

trusting mother only said, in the depth of her affliction, "It is the

Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him best."

Dr. Vanderkeift mingled with the pride of a surgeon the utmost

kindliness toward each patient. He would, on examining a critical case,

immediately after amputation, bend in the most fatherly manner over the

man, and, patting him gently, would say, with his German accent: "Now,

my dear fellow, do please to live. I am doing all I can for you, and

will send you milk from my own Alderney every day."

Flowers were never more appreciated than in the hospital that summer. A

bunch of these bright little treasures would make a man happy for hours,

and would receive the most endearing care to preserve their beauty. On

going in to see a wounded man one day, the attention of one of the

ladies was attracted by a strange-looking object hanging from the tent.

Her curiosity being excited, she inquired, "What have you here, John?"

"Well, miss, it is a long while since I had seen any flowers before

those you brought me in yesterday, and it was so warm that I was afraid

water wouldn't keep them, and I hated to see them wither; so I got Evans

to make me this calico bag and put some earth in it, and I am in hopes

they will grow here by my side, if I keep them moist." Sure enough, when

this admiring florist was able to leave on crutches in a few weeks, he

carried these specimens of Maryland floriculture, all rooted and

growing, to his Western home.

For the sake of convenience, the ladies usually dressed in dark attire;

but when a light muslin appeared in the wards the effect was quite

noticeable. I remember that one day a man asked the lady in charge of

his own ward to get another lady, who was arrayed in pink, to come in

from her ward and see him. "But what do you want with her? Can't I do

everything for you?" "W-e-ll, y-e-s; but then she is dressed up so nice;

if she would only walk through the tent, it would make me feel better."

In July there was threatened an invasion of the city of Annapolis, which

produced much excitement in the hospital. As there were between six and

seven hundred officers there at the time as patients, it was not deemed

unlikely that Harry Gilmore, with his band of raiders, would, after

burning Governor Bradford's house at Baltimore, make a dash in our

direction, if only to terrify and then parole the officers and men. By

degrees the telegraphic wires and railway lines were destroyed nearer

and nearer to us, thus isolating the city, and giving rise to fearful

anticipations. Outside the two entrances to the hospital were dug broad

moats, protected by ramparts of earth and a very ludicrous structure of

barrels; while about a mile off a line of rifle-pits was prepared, with

cannon mounted in hastily made forts behind them. Every steamer,

fishing-boat, or craft capable of carrying persons or property was put

into requisition by the people of Annapolis, and kept constantly ready

to start at the first appearance of the foe, and some of the valuable

possessions of the hospital floated on the bay for a few days. Messages

were left with us for home friends by the men hurrying off to the front,

as we termed the spot of the impending encounter, as if the ladies were

expected to be the sole survivors of the affair. Every man who could

handle a spade or a pickaxe was required at this season of alarm. For

three days and nights the reign of terror lasted, causing an injuriously

nervous inquietude to the helpless and sick. It was useless to try to

allay their apprehensions, for those who smiled at the idea of an attack

were merely regarded as endowed with a Quixotic cheerfulness. When

gunboats arrived to protect the city, a ray of hope dawned; and when the

news reached us that the raiders had retreated across the Potomac, all

felt safe once more. A man by the name of Beck, one of the most valued

of the hospital attendants, was accidentally shot, though not fatally.

He was the sole hero of this brief campaign of fright.

It was not until August that any of our wounded who had been taken

prisoners were exchanged on parole. The New York came about the middle

of the month, bringing six hundred. Many said that their wounds had been

slight, but that amputation had been performed with the assurance from

the Rebels that they would fix them so that they would never fight any

more. I think that these were exceptional victims of cruelty, for the

almost universal testimony of our soldiers was that the surgeons were

their best friends at the South. They would insist upon the necessity of

more food being given to their patients, and remonstrate with the Rebel

authorities,--unfortunately without success.

One of the officers who came at this time was Lieutenant F----,

belonging to a New York regiment. He had lost a limb, and remained a few

weeks in the hospital. The first letter of joyous welcome which he

received from home told him that his family had been wearing mourning

four months for him, and a printed funeral sermon which shortly followed

the letter gave an account of his supposed death at the Battle of the

Wilderness, and contained a eulogy upon his character.

I remember being particularly impressed by a description of hunger in

the hospital at Libby, given by Lieutenant William Foy Smith, who came

at this time. He belonged to the First Massachusetts Cavalry. He was

shot through the lungs, and left for dead on the battle-field. By the

kind care of colored women, who brought him milk, he was

resuscitated--to find himself a prisoner. He said that often at night in

Libby he would amuse himself by calculating how many places there were

in Washington Street, Boston, where edibles were to be had, and he would

fancy the people getting oysters and thousands of good things; and then

he would muse over all the bountiful dinners that he used to have at

home, and reproach himself for not having partaken more heartily,

resolving, if ever he had another opportunity, that his gnawing appetite

should forever do itself justice. Then he would wildly scrape the wall

by which he was lying, and ravenously devour the atoms from it, until at

last he would dream in his sleep of happier days to come. After several

months, Lieutenant Smith was able to rejoin his regiment, whose entrance

into Richmond he thus describes: "I shall never repine again, while I

have health; but who talks of repining after such a march as our last? I

joined the regiment at Manchester, opposite Richmond. How often have I

looked across the river to the field on which we camped, and longed for

liberty! We passed in review through the city the next day. I cannot

describe my sensations as I went by the old prison-house, with a good

horse under me,--one seemed hardly sufficient,--health in my veins, and

freedom,--it was too much. I had to shout. A lank, unshorn Rebel was

looking through the bars where I had so often looked. We had the finest

of music and the gayest of banners, but the people let us have them all

to ourselves. But our glorious reception in Washington repaid us."

It was a great recompense for all his sufferings that this brave, modest

young officer lived to see the day of victorious peace; but within a few

months the wound from which he had partially recovered was the cause of

his death.

Malarial fever was the prevalent disease in the hospital in the early

autumn. Hundreds sank with it, after the hard marches and

counter-marches with Sheridan in the hot Valley of the Shenandoah

through the summer. Stimulating and nourishing diet came too late to

many of these undermined constitutions, and disease worked its deadly

ravages where ball and bayonet had missed their aim. Dr. Hunter, surgeon

of a Pennsylvania regiment, lived but a short time in severe suffering.

A man of strong character, his patriotism had responded when an urgent

call for men had come from the War Department. Having no son to send to

the war, he felt it to be his duty to leave a large practice and enlist

as a private. He was immediately made surgeon of the regiment which he

devotedly served for several months. His death-bed was the scene of the

most serene peace. "Why should I stay longer below? I am only too glad

to depart and be with Christ: it is far better." These and similar words

showed the tone of his mind. His earnest prayers for the nation were his

last rich legacy of dying faith. He cheerfully gave his life as part of

the ransom of liberty and peace.

On one of those autumnal days died, too, Major Butler. Wounded at

Petersburg, one leg had been fractured in seven places, from the thigh

to the ankle. Three months he lingered in distress which can be

imagined, but to which his heroic spirit never gave utterance.

The hospital was brilliantly illuminated when the result of the

Presidential election was made known, in November. Music and shouts of

rejoicing rent the air, and all were filled with exulting confidence

that the beginning of the end had been accomplished by the overwhelming

verdict of the people at home.

The National Thanksgiving was celebrated by a service in the chapel, and

a fine dinner, which one man said he "could not have enjoyed better had

he eaten it at his grandmother's,--only the folks would have been

there."

At last, in December, the earnest entreaties of hearts breaking with

wild anguish and suspense prevailed upon the authorities in Washington

to effect the release of our prisoners. To no one person was this happy

result so much due as to General Mulford, our Commissioner of Exchange.

He was unceasing in his exertions to accomplish this end on almost any

terms, for he knew what tortures our men were enduring, and how rapidly

they were dying. The soldiers looked upon him as their deliverer, and

with good reason. His arduous care and kindly manner deserved their

warmest enthusiasm and gratitude. His personal watchfulness in receiving

the men may be illustrated by a little incident. A man who was feebly

walking fell down quite exhausted, just before reaching the New York; he

lay behind a pile of wood, and could not make himself heard. Just as the

boat was about putting off, General Mulford stepped on shore to look

round and be certain that no one was left. "I should have lain there

till I died had he not in his kindness found me," said the man.

The first exchange was of ten thousand men. Large ocean steamers found

their way up Chesapeake Bay, and our band played "Home again," "Home,

Sweet Home," and other strains of welcome, to their ghastly passengers.

As one man looked up, in landing, to the flag waving in the hospital

grounds, he said earnestly, "We're glad to see you; we know there's grub

enough under you." Such inexpressible relief and joy were never felt by

mortals before. Libby Prison and Belle Isle had startled the ear of

humanity by their records of woe, but the story of Andersonville far

exceeded theirs. The revolting torments inflicted in that place are too

well known to need repetition. Rather let us dwell upon the happiness of

those fortunate enough to escape. The hospital was crowded to its utmost

capacity. Many lived only a few minutes or hours after reaching the

wards; others survived but a day or two, breathing their last in peace

and comfort. An elderly man, quite pulseless when brought in, was

resuscitated with brandy sufficiently to express his gratitude. "God has

been very good in bringing me here," he said, as a beam of joy

irradiated his wan face; "I can die willingly here, and lay my bones

under the old flag, but I didn't want to die down there." And when asked

if he had kept his faith in God while suffering so much at

Andersonville: "O yes! He has been my leader these twenty years, and I

thought He would bring me out all right." His name was John Buttery; he

did not live long enough to hear from his wife and six children, in

Connecticut.

Among the unknown was a boy apparently about seventeen years old, with

clustering curls of auburn hair, and eyes, that once must have been full

of life, now sending forth only a vacant stare. I worked over him,

hoping to get him to utter one word before he died that would give some

hint of his name or home, but in vain.

That month of December, with its cold, leaden sky, and bleak, wintry

winds, will never be forgotten. On going down one dreary morning, in the

obscurity of early dawn, I found that a tent in which five men

dangerously ill had been left the night before was not to be seen; at

first I distrusted my senses,--it was surely the place where the tent

had stood, but the only vestige left was the plank floor. On inquiry, I

found that in the middle of the night the tent had blown over, and men,

furniture, and all had been moved in a furious storm.

Sixty men were buried at one time, and several times over forty were

borne in a long train of ambulances to the cemetery. The martial dirge,

with the sound of its muffled drum, was daily mingled with the groans of

the dying. Many a man who did not shrink from death still desired to

live long enough to hear from his home once more, and died piteously

lamenting his lot. Others, though dying, would cling to the hope of

going home; and when told that the doctor feared they could not live an

hour, and asked if they had any messages to leave, with their last gasp

would say, "O, I shall live! I am going home to see my mother."

In contrast with such cases were others of calm fortitude. These lines

were dictated at midnight by a man who had hoped to live, but whose

strength suddenly failed:--

"DEAR WIFE:--I am on my death-bed. Get N---- E---- to settle

our affairs, draw my pay, &c. If our daughter is still

living, I want her to have a share of three hundred dollars.

I die under the protecting folds of the starry banner of

freedom. You must take good care of the little one. Trust in

God, and meet me in heaven. I bid a last farewell to all my

friends. I die happy. God bless you.

"Your husband,

"H. W. VARNEY."

The friends of many came as soon as they heard of their arrival and

illness, but often failed to recognize them. One woman, on being taken

into the ward where her husband was asleep, persisted in saying that she

had never seen that man before; and on being shown his name and regiment

on the card, she refused to be convinced, feeling sure that there must

be some mistake, till he opened his eyes and greeted her by name.

On the evening of a day on which there had been a new arrival of men, I

was sitting in the comfortably heated tent, while eight happy faces

looked from the warmly blanketed beds. Each man had his own tale of

prison experience to tell. "Not for all the gold that could be heaped

into this tent would I voluntarily spend one more day at Andersonville."

Another said, "We suffered enough in body; but the mental agony, the

mental agony, no one can ever imagine." And so they went on, dwelling at

last upon their anxiety for home friends, wondering if mothers, wives,

and children were yet alive. Then one manly voice told, in earnest

tones, how he could bless the Lord for the perilous trials through which

he had passed; that he had been brought up religiously, but never had

truly loved the Saviour until he became his only refuge. "His love in my

heart is well worth all the discipline I have endured, and I can thank

him for it." These words came from John S. Farnell, a Michigan boy of

eighteen years of age. Since the battle of Gettysburg, seventeen months

before, he had been a prisoner. He enjoyed reading his own little new

Bible, and the meetings for prayer and singing held in his tent. He

seemed to be gaining strength, until an attack of pneumonia occurred,

when the utmost care failed to save his life. He talked peacefully of

dying, in intervals of consciousness, but at last sank into a heavy

stupor. Just as I closed his eyes, and while he ceased to breathe, the

band struck up the strain, "Do they miss me at home?"

It needed a stout heart to turn from the frequent scenes of death, at

that gloomy time, to cheer and amuse the less dangerously ill. The

coming of Christmas was a source of excitement for a few days. Some of

the boys had never heard of Santa Claus and his visits down the chimney

at this merry season; and when his descent through the pipes, and

passage through the stove-doors, and appearance in the tents became

possibilities, there was as much amusement and anticipation among them

as ever gladdened a nursery full of children. On the morning of this

happy festival every man found a sock hanging by his side stuffed with

mittens, scarfs, knives, suspenders, handkerchiefs, and many little

things. Out of the top of each sock peeped a little flag; and as the men

awoke, one by one, and examined the gifts of Santa Claus, shouts of

merriment rang through the wards, and they were satisfied that he was a

friend worth having.

All that was possible under the pressure of the melancholy circumstances

was done to make the day a happy one; but it was not celebrated with the

same rejoicings as the year before, nor was there much time to be spared

from the sick and dying. Steamers were constantly arriving, and filling

up the vacant places with new patients.

On a ragged, soiled piece of paper which a man handed me on landing were

these lines, written at Andersonville by a boy of sixteen who died

there. They are surely worthy of remembrance.

"Will you leave us here to die?

When our country called for men,

We came from forge and store and mill,

The broken ranks to fill;

We left our quiet, happy homes,

And ones we loved so well,

To vanquish all the Union foes,

Or fall where others fell.

Now, in prisons drear we languish,

And it is our constant cry,

O ye who yet can save us,

Will you leave us here to die?

"The voice of slander tells you

That our hearts were weak with fear,

That nearly every one of us

Was captured in the rear.

The scars upon our bodies

From the musket-ball and shell,

The missing legs and shattered arms

A truer tale will tell.

We have tried to do our duty

In the sight of God on high:

O ye who yet can save us,

Will you leave us here to die?

"There are hearts with hope still beating

In our pleasant Northern homes,

Waiting, watching for the footsteps

That may never, never come.

In Southern prisons pining,

Meagre, tattered, pale, and gaunt,

Growing weaker, weaker daily

From pinching cold and want.

Here brothers, sons, and husbands,

Poor and hopeless, captured lie:

O ye who yet can save them,

Will you leave us here to die?

"From out our prison gate,

There's a grave-yard close at hand,

Where lie ten thousand Union men

Beneath the Georgia sand.

Scores and scores are laid beside them,

As day succeeds to day;

And thus it ever will be

Till they all shall pass away,

And the last can say when dying,

With upturned and glazing eye,

Both love and faith are dead at home,--

They have left us here to die!"

A proof of the humanity with which the Rebel prisoners were treated by

our government is found in the fact of their reluctance to be exchanged;

they said that they were very comfortable, and would far rather remain

at the North until the war was over. One general, who was having an

artificial leg made, was forced to return against his will. His

entreaties to be left behind prevailed for a few days; but at last he

was obliged to take passage on the transport for exchange, as one of our

own generals was awaiting his return to come home.

Among the prisoners who came in January was Boston Corbett, of the

Seventeenth New York Cavalry. Every name made public even in remote

connection with the death of our beloved President becomes an object of

interest. The following is a characteristic letter from the brave and

earnest-hearted patriot at whose hand the assassin met his doom:--

"VIENNA, VA., March 9, 1865.

"MISS ----:--Many times I have thought I would write to

acknowledge the kindness shown by you and the other good

ladies of the hospital to us poor soldiers when we were

brought from Savannah, Andersonville, and Millen. I remember

with gratitude the first kind words expressed towards us,

and how strange and good they sounded after being so long

deprived of them. Although they might not seem much to the

giver, yet I believe they will live in the memory of us

soldier boys long after the war is over. I can never forget

how much was done for us all on our return from prison to

hospital; but many thousands lie under the soil of Georgia,

monuments of the cruelty and wickedness of this

Rebellion,--the head of all the rebellions of earth for

blackness and horror. Those only can feel the extent of it

who have seen their comrades, as I have, lying in the

broiling sun, without shelter, with swollen feet and parched

skin, in filth and dirt, suffering as I believe no people

ever suffered before in the world. But, thank God, these

things have come, I hope, to an end. May they never exist

again in the good land! With kind regards to all,

"Very truly,

"BOSTON CORBETT."

The ravages of the malignant fever which had broken out in the hospital

were not confined to the patients. Surgeons and chaplain yielded their

lives at its deadly touch. Then, too, was the bond severed which had

harmoniously united a happy sisterhood for many months. Of the six who

went down to the brink of the river of death, five crossed over to the

heavenly shore. She who alone remained gives these simple memories to

the reader.

MINOR ITALIAN TRAVELS.

I.

PISA.

I am afraid that the talk of the modern railway traveller, if he is

honest, must be a great deal of the custodians, the _vetturini_, and the

_facchini_, whose agreeable acquaintance constitutes his chief knowledge

of the population among which he journeys. We do not now-a-days carry

letters recommending us to citizens of the different places. If we did,

consider the calamity we should be to the be-travelled Italian

communities we now bless! No; we buy our through-tickets, and we put up

at the hotels praised in the hand-book, and are very glad of a little

conversation with any native, however adulterated he may be by contact

with the world to which we belong. I do not blush to own that I love the

whole rascal race which ministers to our curiosity and preys upon us,

and I am not ashamed to have spoken so often as I have done in former

sketches of the lowly and rapacious but interesting porters who opened

to me the different gates of that great realm of wonders, Italy. I doubt

if they can be much known to the dwellers in the land, though they are

the intimates of all sojourners and passengers; and if I have any regret

in the matter, it is that I did not more diligently study them when I

could. The opportunity, once lost, seldom recurs; they are all but as

transitory as the Object of Interest itself. I remember that years ago,

when I first visited Cambridge, there was an old man appeared to me in

the character of Genius of the College Grounds, who showed me all the

notable things in our city,--its treasures of art, its monuments,--and

ended by taking me into his wood-house, and sawing me off from a

wind-fallen branch of the Washington Elm a bit of the sacred wood for a

remembrancer. Where now is that old man? He no longer exists for me,

neither he nor his wood-house nor his dwelling-house. Let me look for a

month about the College Grounds, and I shall not see him. But somewhere

in the regions of traveller's faery he still lives, and he appears

instantly to the new-comer; he has an understanding with the dryads who

keep him supplied with boughs from the Washington Elm, and his

wood-house is full of them.

Among memorable cicerones in Italy was one whom we saw at Pisa, where we

stopped on our way from Leghorn after our accident in the Maremma, and

spent an hour in viewing the Quattro Fabbriche. The beautiful old town,

which every one knows from the report of travellers, one finds possessed

of the incommunicable charm which keeps old towns forever novel to the

visitor. Lying on either side of the Arno, it mirrors in the flood

architecture almost as fair and noble as that glassed in the Canalazzo,

and its streets seemed to us as tranquil as the canals of Venice. Those

over which we drove, on the day of our visit, were paved with broad

flag-stones, and gave out scarcely a sound under our wheels. It was

Sunday, and no one was to be seen. Yet the empty and silent city

inspired us with no sense of desolation. The palaces were in perfect

repair; the pavements were clean; behind those windows we felt that

there must be a good deal of easy, comfortable life. It is said that

Pisa is one of the few places in Europe where the sweet, but timid,

spirit of Inexpensiveness--everywhere pursued by Railways--still

lingers, and that you find cheap apartments in those well-preserved old

palaces. No doubt it would be worth more to live in Pisa than it would

cost, for the history of the place would alone be to any reasonable

sojourner a perpetual recompense and a princely income far exceeding his

expenditure. To be sure, the Tower of Famine, with which we chiefly

associate the name of Pisa, has been long razed to the ground, and built

piecemeal into the neighboring palaces; but you may still visit the dead

wall which hides from view the place where it stood, and you may thence

drive on, as we did, to the great Piazza where stands the unrivalledest

group of architecture in the world after that of St. Mark's Place in

Venice. There is the wonderful Leaning Tower, there is the old and

beautiful Duomo, there is the noble Baptistery, there is the lovely

Campo Santo. There, too,--somewhere lurking in portal or behind pillar,

and keeping out an eagle eye for the marvelling stranger,--is the much

experienced cicerone who shows you through the edifices. Yours is the

fourteen-thousandth American family to which he has had the honor of

acting as guide, and he makes you feel an illogical satisfaction in thus

becoming a contribution to statistics.

We entered the Duomo in our new friend's custody, and we saw the things

which it was well to see. There was mass, or some other ceremony,

transacting, but, as usual, it was made as little obtrusive as possible,

and there was not much to weaken the sense of proprietorship with which

travellers view objects of interest. Then we ascended the Leaning Tower,

skilfully preserving its equilibrium, as we went, by an inclination of

our persons in a direction opposed to the tower's inclination, but

perhaps not receiving a full justification of the Campanile's appearance

in pictures till we stood again at its base, and saw its vast bulk and

height as it seemed to sway and threaten in the blue sky above our

heads. There the sensation was too terrible for endurance,--even the

architectural beauty of the tower could not save it from being monstrous

to us,--and we were glad to hurry away from it to the serenity and

solemn loveliness of the Campo Santo.

Here are the frescos painted five hundred years ago to be ruinous and

ready against the time of your arrival in 1864, and you feel that you

are the first to enjoy the joke of the Vergogñosa,--that arch jade who

peers through her fingers at the shameful condition of deboshed Father

Noah, and seems to wink one eye of wicked amusement at you. Turning

afterward to any book written about Italy during the time specified, you

find your impression of exclusive property in the frescos erroneous, and

your Muse naturally despairs where so many muses have labored in vain to

give a just idea of the Campo Santo. Yet it is most worthy celebration.

Those exquisitely arched and traceried colonnades seem to grow like the

slim cypresses out of the sainted earth of Jerusalem; and those old

paintings enforce more effectively than their authors conceived the

lessons of life and death, for they are themselves becoming part of the

triumphant decay they represent. If it was awful once to look upon that

strange scene where the gay lords and ladies of the chase come suddenly

upon three dead men in their coffins, while the devoted hermits enjoy

the peace of a dismal righteousness on a hill in the background, it is

yet more tragic to behold it now, when the dead men are hardly

discernible in their coffins, and the hermits are but the vaguest

shadows of gloomy bliss. Alas! Death mocks even the homage done him by

our poor fears and hopes: with dust he wipes out dust, and with decay he

blots the image of decay.

I assure the reader that I made none of these apt reflections in the

Campo Santo at Pisa, but have written them out this morning, in

Cambridge, because there happens to be an east wind blowing. No one

could have been sad in the company of our cheerful and patient cicerone,

who, although visibly anxious to get his fourteen-thousandth American

family away, still would not go till he had shown us that monument to a

dead enmity which hangs in the Campo Santo. This is the mighty chain

which the Pisans, in their old wars with the Genoese, once stretched

across the mouth of their harbor to prevent the entrance of the hostile

galleys. The Genoese with no great trouble carried the chain away, and

kept it ever afterward till 1860, when Pisa was united to the kingdom of

Italy. Then the trophy was restored to the Pisans, and with public

rejoicings placed in the Campo Santo, an emblem of reconciliation and

perpetual amity between ancient foes.[101] It is not a very good

world,--_e pur si muove_.

The Baptistery stands but a step away from the Campo Santo, and our

guide ushered us into it with the air of one who had till now held in

reserve his great stroke and was ready to deliver it. Yet I think he

waited till we had looked at some comparatively trifling sculptures by

Nicolò da Pisa before he raised his voice and uttered a melodious

species of howl. While we stood in some amazement at this, the conscious

structure of the dome caught the sound, and prolonged it with a variety

and sweetness of which I could not have dreamed. The man poured out in

quick succession his musical wails, and then ceased, and a choir of

heavenly echoes burst forth in response. There was a supernatural beauty

in these harmonies of which I despair of giving any true idea. They were

of such tender and exalted rapture that we might well have thought them

the voices of young-eyed cherubim, singing as they passed through

Paradise over that spot of earth where we stood. They seemed a celestial

compassion that stooped and soothed, and rose again in lofty and solemn

acclaim, leaving us poor and penitent and humbled.

We were long silent, and then broke forth with cries of admiration of

which the marvellous echo at once made eloquence.

"Did you ever," said the cicerone after we had left the building, "hear

such music as that?"

"The papal choir does not equal it," we answered with one voice.

The cicerone was not to be silenced even with such a tribute, and he

went on:--

"Perhaps, as you are Americans, you know Moshu Feelmore, the President?

No? Ah, what a fine man! You saw that he had his heart actually in his

hand! Well, one day he said to me here, when I told him of the

Baptistery echo, 'We have the finest echo in the world in the Hall of

Congress.' I said nothing, but for answer I merely howled a

little,--thus! Moshu Feelmore was convinced. Said he, 'There is no other

echo in the world besides this. You are right.' I am unique," pursued

the cicerone, "for making this echo. But," he added with a sigh, "it has

been my ruin. The English have put me in all the guide-books, and

sometimes I have to howl twenty times a day. When our Victor Emanuel

came here, I showed him the church, the tower, and the Campo Santo. Says

the king, 'Pfui!'"--here the cicerone gave that sweeping, outward motion

with both hands by which Italians dismiss a trifling subject,--"'make me

the echo!' I was forced," concluded the cicerone, with a strong sense of

injury in his tone, "to howl half an hour without ceasing."

II.

COMO.

My visit to Lake Como has become to me a dream of summer,--a vision that

remains faded the whole year round, till the blazing heats of July bring

out the sympathetic tints in which it was vividly painted. Then I behold

myself again in burning Milan, amidst noises and fervors and bustle that

seem intolerable after my first six months in tranquil, cool, mute

Venice. Looking at the great white Cathedral, with its infinite

pinnacles piercing the cloudless blue, and gathering the fierce sun upon

it, I half expect to see the whole mass calcined by the heat, and

crumbling, statue by statue, finial by finial, arch by arch, into a vast

heap of lime on the Piazza, with a few charred English tourists

blackening here and there upon the ruin, and contributing a smell of

burnt leather and Scotch tweed to the horror of the scene. All round

Milan smokes the great Lombard plain, and to the north rises Monte Rosa,

her dark head coifed with tantalizing snows as with a peasant's white

linen kerchief. And I am walking out upon that fuming plain as far as to

the Arco della Pace, on which the bronze horses may melt any minute; or

I am sweltering through the city's noonday streets, in search of Sant'

Ambrogio, or the Cenacolo of Da Vinci, or what know I? Coming back to

our hotel, "Alla Bella Venezia," and greeted on entering by the immense

fresco which covers one whole side of the court, it appeared to my

friend and me no wonder that Garibaldi should look so longingly from the

prow of a gondola toward the airy towers and balloon-like domes that

swim above the unattainable lagoons of Venice, where the Austrian then

lorded it in coolness and quietness, while hot, red-shirted Italy was

shut out upon the dusty plains and stony hills. Our desire for water

became insufferable; we paid our modest bills, and at six o'clock we

took the train for Como, where we arrived about the hour when Don

Abbondio, walking down the lonely path with his book of devotions in his

hand, gave himself to the Devil on meeting the bravos of Don Rodrigo. I

counsel the reader to turn to _I Promessi Sposi_, if he would know how

all the lovely Como country looks at that hour. For me, the ride through

the evening landscape, and the faint sentiment of pensiveness provoked

by the smell of the ripening maize, which exhales the same sweetness on

the way to Como that it does on any Ohio bottom-land, have given me an

appetite, and I am to dine before wooing the descriptive Muse.

After dinner, we find at the door of the hotel an English architect whom

we know, and we take a boat together for a moonlight row upon the lake,

and voyage far up the placid water through air that bathes our heated

senses like dew. How far we have left Milan behind! On the lake lies the

moon, but the hills are held by mysterious shadows, which for the time

are as substantial to us as the hills themselves. Hints of habitation

appear in the twinkling lights along the water's edge, and we suspect an

alabaster lamp in every casement, and in every invisible house a villa

such as Claude Melnotte described to Pauline, and some one mouths that

well-worn fustian. The rags of sentimentality flutter from every crag

and olive-tree and orange-tree in all Italy,--like the wilted paper

collars which vulgar tourists leave by our own mountains and streams, to

commemorate their enjoyment of the landscape.

The town of Como lies, a swarm of lights, behind us; the hills and

shadows gloom around; the lake is a sheet of tremulous silver. There is

no telling how we get back to our hotel, or with what satisfied hearts

we fall asleep in our room there. The steamer starts for the head of the

lake at eight o'clock in the morning, and we go on board at that hour.

There is some pretence of shelter in the awning stretched over the after

part of the boat; but we do not feel the need of it in the fresh morning

air, and we get as near the bow as possible, that we may be the very

first to enjoy the famous beauty of the scenes opening before us. A few

sails dot the water, and everywhere there are small, canopied row-boats,

such as we went pleasuring in last night. We reach a bend in the lake,

and all the roofs and towers of the city of Como pass from view, as if

they had been so much architecture painted on a scene and shifted out of

sight at a theatre. But other roofs and towers constantly succeed them,

not less lovely and picturesque than they, with every curve of the

many-curving lake. We advance over charming expanses of water lying

between lofty hills; and as the lake is narrow, the voyage is like that

of a winding river,--like that of the Ohio, but for the primeval

wildness of the acclivities that guard our Western stream, and the

tawniness of its current. Wherever the hills do not descend sheer into

Como, a pretty town nestles on the brink, or, if not a town, then a

villa, or else a cottage, if there is room for nothing more. Many little

towns climb the heights half-way, and where the hills are green and

cultivated in vines or olives, peasants' houses scale them to the crest.

They grow loftier and loftier as we leave our starting-place farther

behind, and as we draw near Colico they wear light wreaths of cloud and

snow. So cool a breeze has drawn down between them all the way that we

fancy it to have come from them till we stop at Colico, and find that,

but for the efforts of our honest engine, sweating and toiling in the

dark below, we should have had no current of air. A burning calm is in

the atmosphere, and on the broad, flat valley,--out of which a marshy

stream oozes into the lake,--and on the snow-crowned hills upon the

left, and on the dirty village of Colico upon the right, and on the

indolent beggars waiting to welcome us, and sunning their goitres at the

landing.

The name Colico, indeed, might be literally taken in English as

descriptive of the local insalubrity. The place was once large, but it

has fallen away much from sickness, and we found a bill posted in its

public places inviting emigrants to America on the part of a German

steamship company. It was the only advertisement of the kind I ever saw

in Italy, and I judged that the people must be notoriously discontented

there to make it worth the while of a steamship company to tempt from

home any of the home-keeping Italian race. And yet Colico, though

undeniably hot, and openly dirty, and tacitly unhealthy, had merits,

though the dinner we got there was not among its virtues. It had an

accessible country about it; that is, its woods and fields were not

impenetrably walled in from the vagabond foot, and after we had dined we

went and lay down under some greenly waving trees beside a field of

corn, and heard the plumed and panoplied maize talking to itself of its

kindred in America. It always has a welcome for tourists of our nation

wherever it finds us in Italy, and sometimes its sympathy, expressed in

a rustling and clashing of its long green blades, or in its strong,

sweet perfume, has, as already hinted, made me homesick; though I have

been uniformly unaffected by potato-patches and tobacco-fields. If only

the maize could impart to the Italian cooks the beautiful mystery of

roasting-ears! Ah! then indeed it might claim a full and perfect

fraternization from its compatriots abroad.

From where we lay beside the cornfield, we could see, through the

twinkling leaves and the twinkling atmosphere, the great hills across

the lake, taking their afternoon naps, with their clouds drawn like

handkerchiefs over their heads. It was very hot, and the red and purple

ooze of the unwholesome river below "burnt like a witch's oils." It was

indeed but a fevered joy we snatched from nature there; and I am afraid

that we got nothing more comfortable from sentiment, when, rising, we

wandered off through the unguarded fields toward a ruined tower on a

hill. It must have been a relic of feudal times, and perhaps in the cool

season it is haunted by the wicked spirits of such lords as used to rule

in the terror of the people beside peaceful and happy Como. But in

summer no ghost, however sultrily appointed in the other world, could

feel it an object to revisit that ruined tower. A few scrawny

blackberries and other brambles grew out of its fallen stones; harsh,

dust-dry mosses painted its weather-worn walls with their blanched gray

and yellow. From its foot, looking out over the valley, we saw the road

to the Splügen Pass lying white-hot in the valley; and while we looked,

the diligence appeared, and dashed through the dust that rose like a

flame before. After that it was a relief to stroll in dirty by-ways,

past cottages of saffron peasants, and poor stony fields that begrudged

them a scanty vegetation, back to the steamer blistering in the sun.

Now indeed we were glad of the awning, under which a silent crowd of

people with sunburnt faces waited for the departure of the boat. The

breeze rose again as the engine resumed its unappreciated labors, and,

with our head toward Como, we pushed out into the lake. The company on

board was such as might be expected. There was a German

landscape-painter, with three heart's-friends beside him; there were

some German ladies; there were the unfailing Americans and the unfailing

Englishman; there were some French people; there were Italians from the

meridional provinces, dark, thin, and enthusiastic, with fat, silent

wives, and a rhythmical speech; there were Milanese with their families,

out for a holiday,--round-bodied men, with blunt, square features, and

hair and vowels clipped surprisingly short; there was a young girl whose

face was of the exact type affected in rococo sculpture, and at whom one

gazed without being able to decide whether she was a nymph descended

from a villa gate, or a saint come from under a broken arch in a

Renaissance church. At one of the little towns two young Englishmen in

knickerbockers came on board, who were devoured by the eyes of their

fellow-passengers, and between whom and our kindly architect there was

instantly ratified the tacit treaty of non-intercourse which travelling

Englishmen observe.

Nothing further interested us on the way to Como, except the gathering

coolness of the evening air; the shadows creeping higher and higher on

the hills; the songs of the girls winding yellow silk on the reels that

hummed through the open windows of the factories on the shore; and the

appearance of a flag that floated from a shallop before the landing of a

stately villa. The Italians did not know this banner, and the Germans

loudly debated its nationality. The Englishmen grinned, and the

Americans blushed in silence. Of all my memories of that hot day on Lake

Como, this is burnt the deepest; for the flag was that insolent banner

which in 1862 proclaimed us a broken people, and persuaded willing

Europe of our ruin. It has gone down long ago from ship and fort and

regiment, and they who used to flaunt it so gayly in Europe probably

pawned it later in the cheap towns of South France, whither so much

chivalry retired when wealth was to be wrung from slaves no more

forever. Still, I say, it made Como too hot for us that afternoon, and

even breathless Milan was afterwards a pleasant contrast.

III.

TRIESTE.

If you take the midnight steamer at Venice you reach Trieste by six

o'clock in the morning, and the hills rise to meet you as you enter the

broad bay dotted with the sail of fishing-craft. The hills are bald and

bare, and you find, as you draw near, that the city lies at their feet

under a veil of mist, or climbs earlier into view along their sides. The

prospect is singularly devoid of gentle and pleasing features, and

looking at those rugged acclivities, with their aspect of continual

bleakness, you readily believe all the stories you have ever heard of

that fierce wind called the Bora, which sweeps from them through Trieste

at certain seasons. While it blows, ladies walking near the quays are

sometimes caught up and set afloat, involuntary Galateas, in the bay,

and people keep in-doors as much as possible. But the Bora, though so

sudden and so savage, does give warning of its rise, and the peasants

avail themselves of this characteristic. They station a man on one of

the mountain-tops, and when he feels the first breath of the Bora, he

sounds a horn, which is a signal for all within hearing to lay hold of

something that cannot be blown away, and cling to it till the wind

falls. This may happen in three days or in nine, according to the

popular proverbs. "The spectacle of the sea," says Dall' Ongaro, in a

note to one of his ballads, "while the Bora blows, is sublime, and when

it ceases the prospect of the surrounding hills is delightful. The air,

purified by the rapid current, clothes them with a rosy veil, and the

temperature is instantly softened, even in the heart of winter."

The city itself, as you penetrate it, makes good with its stateliness

and picturesqueness your loss through the grimness of its environs. It

is in great part new, very clean, and full of the life and movement of a

prosperous port; but, better than this so far as the mere sight-seer is

concerned, it wins a novel charm from the many public staircases by

which you ascend and descend its hillier quarters, and which are made of

stone, and lightly railed and balustraded with iron.

Something of all this I noticed in my ride from the landing of the

steamer to the house of friends in the suburbs. There I grew better

disposed toward the hills, which, as I strolled over them, I found

dotted with lovely villas, and everywhere traversed by perfectly-kept

carriage-roads, and easy and pleasant foot-paths. It was in the

spring-time, and the peach-trees and almond-trees hung full of blossoms

and bees; the lizards lay in the walks absorbing the vernal sunshine;

the violets and cowslips sweetened all the grassy borders. The scene did

not want a human interest, for the peasant-girls were going to market at

that hour, and I met them everywhere, bearing heavy burdens on their own

heads, or hurrying forward with their wares on the backs of donkeys.

They were as handsome as heart could wish, and they wore that Italian

head-dress which I have never seen anywhere in Italy except at Trieste

and in the Roman and Neapolitan provinces,--a kerchief of dazzling white

linen, laid square upon the crown, and dropping lightly to the

shoulders. Later I saw these comely maidens crouching on the ground in

the market-place, and selling their wares, with much glitter of eyes,

teeth, and ear-rings, and a continual babble of bargaining.

It seemed to me that the average of good looks was greater among the

women of Trieste than among those of Venice, but that the instances of

striking and exquisite beauty were rarer. At Trieste, too, the Italian

type, so pure at Venice, is lost or continually modified by the mixed

character of the population, which perhaps is most noticeable at the

Merchants' Exchange. This is a vast edifice roofed with glass, where are

the offices of the great steam navigation company, the Austrian

Lloyds,--which, far more than the favor of the Imperial government, has

contributed to the prosperity of Trieste,--and where the traffickers of

all races meet daily to gossip over the news and the prices. Here a

Greek or a Dalmat talks with an eager Italian, or a slow, sure

Englishman; here the hated Austrian button-holes the Venetian or the

Magyar; here the Jew meets the Gentile on common ground; here

Christianity encounters the superstitions of the East, and makes a good

thing out of them in cotton or grain. All costumes are seen here, and

all tongues are heard, the native Triestines contributing almost as much

to the variety of the latter as the foreigners. "In regard to language,"

says Cantù, "though the country is peopled by Slavonians, yet the

Italian tongue is spreading into the remotest villages, where a few

years since it was not understood. In the city it is the common and

familiar language; the Slavonians of the North use the German for the

language of ceremony; those of the South, as well as the Israelites, the

Italian; while the Protestants use the German, the Greeks the Hellenic

and Illyric, the employees of the civil courts the Italian or the

German, the schools now German and now Italian, the bar and the pulpit

Italian. Most of the inhabitants, indeed, are bi-lingual, and very many

tri-lingual, without counting French, which is understood and spoken

from infancy. Italian, German, and Greek are written, but the Slavonic

little, this having remained in the condition of a vulgar tongue. But it

would be idle to distinguish the population according to language, for

the son adopts a language different from the father's, and now prefers

one language and now another; the women generally incline to the

Italian; but many of the upper class prefer now German, now French, now

English, as, from one decade to another, affairs, fashions, and fancies

change. This in the salons; in the squares and streets, the Venetian

dialect is heard."

And with the introduction of the Venetian dialect, Venetian discontent

seems also to have crept in, and I once heard a Triestine declaim

against the Imperial government quite in the manner of Venice. It struck

me that this desire for union with Italy, which he declared prevalent in

Trieste, must be of very recent growth, since even so late as 1848

Trieste had refused to join Venice in the expulsion of the Austrians.

Indeed, the Triestines have fought the Venetians from the first; they

stole the Brides of Venice in one of their piratical cruises in the

lagoons; gave aid and comfort to those enemies of Venice, the Visconti,

the Carraras, and the Genoese; revolted from St. Mark whenever subjected

to his banner; and finally, rather than remain under his sway, gave

themselves five centuries ago to Austria.

The objects of interest in Trieste are not many. There are remains of an

attributive temple of Jupiter under the Duomo, and there is near at hand

the museum of classical antiquities founded in honor of Winckelmann,

murdered at Trieste by that ill-advised Pistojese, Ancangeli, who had

seen the medals bestowed on the antiquary by Maria Theresa and believed

him rich. There is also a scientific museum founded by the Archduke

Maximilian, and, above all, there is the beautiful residence of this

unhappy prince,--the Miramare, where the half-crazed Empress of the

Mexicans vainly waits her husband's return from the experiment of

paternal government in the New World. It would be hard to tell how art

has there charmed rock and wave, until the spur of one of those rugged

Triestine hills, jutting into the sea, has been made the seat of ease

and luxury; but the visitor is aware of the magic as soon as he passes

the gate of the palace grounds. These are in great part perpendicular,

and are overclambered with airy stairways climbing to pensile arbors.

Where horizontal, they are diversified with mimic seas for swans to sail

upon, and summer-houses for people to lounge in and look at the swans

from. On the point of land farthest from the acclivity stands the castle

of Miramare, half at sea, and half adrift in the clouds above.

"And fain it would stoop downward

To the mirrored wave below;

And fain it would soar upward

In the evening's crimson glow."

I remember that a little yacht lay beside the pier at the castle's foot,

and lazily flapped its sail, while the sea beat inward with as languid a

pulse. That was some years ago, before Mexico was dreamed of at

Miramare. Now, perchance, she who is one of the most unhappy among women

looks down distraught from those high windows, and finds in the helpless

sail and impassive wave the images of her baffled hope, and that

immeasurable sea which gives back its mariners neither to love nor to

sorrow. I think, though she be the wife and daughter of royalty, we may

pity this poor Empress at least as much as we pity the Mexicans to whom

her dreams have brought so many woes.

It was the midnight following the visit to Miramare when the fiacre in

which I had quitted my friend's house was drawn up by its greatly

bewildered driver on the quay near the place where the steamer for

Venice should be lying. There was no steamer for Venice to be seen. The

driver swore a little in the polyglot profanities of his native city,

and, descending from his box, went and questioned different

lights--blue lights, yellow lights, green lights--to be seen at

different points. To a light, they were ignorant, though eloquent, and,

to pass the time, we drove up and down the quay, and stopped at the

landings of all the steamers that touch at Trieste. It was a snug fiacre

enough, but I did not care to spend the night in it, and I urged the

driver to further inquiry. A wanderer whom we met declared that it was

not the night for the Venice steamer; another admitted that it might be;

a third conversed with the driver in low tones, and then leaped upon the

box. We drove rapidly away, and before I had, in view of this mysterious

proceeding, composed a fitting paragraph for the _Fatti Diversi_ of the

_Osservatore Triestino_, descriptive of the state in which the Guardie

di Polizia should find me floating in the bay, exanimate and too clearly

the prey of a _triste evvenimento_, the driver pulled up once more, and

now beside a steamer. It was the steamer for Venice, he said, in

precisely the tone which he would have used had he driven me directly to

it without blundering. It was breathing heavily, and was just about to

depart; but even in the hurry of getting on board I could not help

noticing that it seemed to have grown a great deal since I had last

voyaged in it. There was not a soul to be seen except the mute steward

who took my satchel, and, guiding me below into an elegant saloon,

instantly left me alone. Here again the steamer was vastly enlarged.

These were not the narrow quarters of the Venice steamer, nor was this

lamp, shedding a soft light on cushioned seats and panelled doors and

wainscotings, the sort of illumination usual in that humble craft. I

rang the small silver bell on the long table, and the mute steward

appeared.

_Was_ this the steamer for Venice?

_Sicuro!_

All that I could do in comment was to sit down; and in the mean time the

steamer trembled, groaned, choked, cleared its throat, and we were under

way.

"The other passengers have all gone to bed, I suppose," I argued

acutely, seeing none of them. Nevertheless, I thought it odd, and it

seemed a shrewd means of relief to ring the bell, and, pretending

drowsiness, to ask the steward which was my state-room.

He replied, with a curious smile, that I could have any of them. Amazed,

I yet selected a state-room, and while the steward was gone for the

sheets and pillow-cases I occupied my time by opening the doors of all

the other staterooms. They were empty.

"Am I the only passenger?" I asked, when he returned, with some anxiety.

"Precisely," he answered.

I could not proceed and ask if he composed the entire crew: it seemed

too fearfully probable that he did.

I now suspected that I had taken passage with the Olandese Volante, but

there was now nothing in the world for it, except to go to bed, and

there, with the accession of a slight sea-sickness, my views of the

situation underwent a total change. I had gone down into the Maelstrom

with the Ancient Mariner,--I was a Manuscript Found in a Bottle!

Coming to the surface about six o'clock A. M., I found a daylight as

cheerful as need be upon the appointments of the elegant cabin, and upon

the good-natured face of the steward when he brought me the _caffè

_caffè latte_, and the buttered toast for my breakfast. He said,

"_Servitor suo!_" in a loud and comfortable voice, and I perceived the

absurdity of having thought that he was in any way related to the

Nightmare-Death-in-life-that-thicks-man's-blood-with-cold.

"This is not the regular Venice steamer, I suppose," I remarked to the

steward as he laid my breakfast in state upon the long table.

No. Properly, no boat should have left for Venice last night, which was

not one of the times of the tri-weekly departure. This was one of the

steamers of the line between Trieste and Alexandria, and it was going at

present to take on an extraordinary freight at Venice for Egypt. I had

been permitted to come on board because my driver said I had a return

ticket, and would go.

Ascending to the deck, I found nothing whatever mysterious in the

management of the steamer thus pressed for the first time, probably,

into the service of an American citizen. The captain met me with a bow

to the gangway; seamen were coiling wet ropes at different points, as

they always are; the mate was promenading the bridge, and taking the

rainy weather as it came, with his oil-cloth coat and hat on. The wheel

of the steamer was as usual chewing the sea, and finding it unpalatable,

and vainly expectorating.

We were in sight of the breakwater outside Malamocco, and a pilot-boat

was making us from the land. Even at this point the fortifications of

the Austrians began, and they multiplied as we drew near Venice, till we

entered the lagoon, and found it a nest of fortresses, one within

another.

Unhappily, the day being rainy, Venice did not spring resplendent from

the sea, as I had always read she would. She rose slowly and languidly

from the water,--not like a queen, but like the slovenly, heart-broken

old slave she was.

IV.

CANOVA'S BIRTHPLACE.

From Venice to the city of Vicenza by rail it is two hours, and thence

you must take a carriage if you would go to Bassano, which is an opulent

and busy little grain mart of some twelve thousand souls, about thirty

miles north of Venice, at the foot of the Alps. We reached the town at

nine o'clock. It was moonlight; and as we looked out we saw the quaint,

steep streets full of promenaders, and everybody in Bassano seemed to be

making love. Young girls strolled about the picturesque way with their

lovers, and tender couples were cooing at all the doors and windows.

Bassano is the birthplace of the painter Jacopo da Ponte, who was one of

the first Italian painters to treat Scriptural story as accessory to

mere landscape, and who had a peculiar fondness for painting Entrances

into the Ark, because he could indulge without stint the taste for

pairing-off early acquired from observation of the just-mentioned local

customs in his native town. This was the theory offered by one who had

imbibed the spirit of subtile speculation from Ruskin, and I think it

reasonable. At least it does not conflict with the fact that there is at

Bassano a most excellent gallery of paintings entirely devoted to the

works of Jacopo da Ponte and his four sons, who are here to be seen to

better advantage than anywhere else. As few strangers visit Bassano, the

gallery is little frequented. It is in charge of a very strict old man,

who will not allow people to look at the pictures till he has shown them

the adjoining cabinet of geological specimens. It is in vain that you

assure him of your indifference to these scientific _seccature_; he is

deaf, and you are not suffered to escape a single fossil. He asked us a

hundred questions, and understood nothing in reply, insomuch that when

he came to his last inquiry, "Have the Protestants the same God as the

Catholics?" we were rather glad that he should be obliged to settle the

fact for himself.

Underneath the gallery was a school of boys, whom, as we entered, we

heard humming over the bitter honey which childhood is obliged to gather

from the opening flowers of orthography. When we passed out, the master

gave these poor busy bees an atom of holiday, and they all swarmed forth

together to look at the strangers. The teacher was a long, lank man, in

a black threadbare coat, and a skull-cap,--exactly like the schoolmaster

in "The Deserted Village." We made a pretence of asking him our way

somewhere, and went wrong, and came by accident upon a wide, flat space,

bare as a brick-yard, beside which was lettered on a fragment of the old

city wall, "Giuoco di Palla." It was evidently the play-ground of the

whole city, and it gave us a pleasanter idea of life in Bassano than we

had yet conceived, to think of its entire population playing ball there

in the spring afternoons. We respected Bassano as much for this as for

her diligent remembrance of her illustrious dead, of whom she has very

great numbers. It appeared to us that nearly every other house bore a

tablet announcing that "Here was born," or "Here died," some great or

good man of whom no one out of Bassano ever heard. There is enough

celebrity there to supply the world; but as laurel is a thing that grows

anywhere, I covet rather from Bassano the magnificent ivy that covers

the portions of her ancient wall yet standing. The wall, where visible,

is seen to be of a pebbly rough-cast, but it is clothed almost from the

ground in glossy ivy, that glitters upon it like chain-mail upon the

vast shoulders of some giant warrior. The bed of the moat is turned into

a lovely promenade, bordered by quiet villas, with shepherds and

shepherdesses carved in marble on their gates. Where the wall is built

to the verge of the high ground on which the city stands, there is a

swift descent to the wide valley of the Brenta, waving in corn and vines

and tobacco.

It did not take a long time to exhaust the interest of Bassano; but we

were sorry to leave the place, because of the excellence of the inn at

which we tarried. It was called "Il Mondo," and it had everything in it

that heart could wish. Our rooms were miracles of neatness and comfort;

they had the freshness, not the rawness, of recent repair, and they

opened into the dining-hall, where we were served with indescribable

salads and _risotti_. During our sojourn we simply enjoyed the house;

when we were come away we wondered that so much perfection of hotel

could exist in so small a town as Bassano. It is one of the pleasures of

by-way travel in Italy, that you are everywhere introduced in fanciful

character,--that you become fictitious, and play a part as in a novel.

To this inn of "The World" our driver had brought us with a clamor and

rattle proportioned to the fee received from us, and when, in response

to his haughty summons, the _cameriere_, who had been gossiping with the

cook, threw open the kitchen door, and stood out to welcome us in a

broad square of forth-streaming ruddy light, amid the lovely odors of

broiling and roasting, our driver saluted him with, "Receive these

gentle folks, and treat them to your very best. They are worthy of

anything." This at once put us back several centuries, and we never

ceased to be lords and ladies of the period of Don Quixote as long as we

rested in that inn.

It was a bright and breezy Sunday when we left "Il Mondo," and gayly

journeyed toward Treviso, intending to visit Possagno, the birthplace of

Canova, on our way. The road to the latter place passes through a

beautiful country, that gently undulates on either hand, till in the

distance it rises into pleasant hills and green mountain-heights.

Possagno itself lies upon the brink of a declivity, down the side of

which drops terrace after terrace, all planted with vines and figs and

peaches, to a water-course below. The ground on which the village is

built, with its quaint and antiquated stone cottages, slopes gently

northward, and on a little rise upon the left hand of us coming from

Bassano, we saw that stately religious edifice with which Canova has

honored his humble birthplace. It is a copy of the Pantheon, and it

cannot help being beautiful and imposing, but it would be utterly out of

place in any other than an Italian village. Here, however, it consorted

well enough with the lingering qualities of that old pagan civilization

still perceptible in Italy. A sense of that past was so strong with us,

as we ascended the broad stairway leading up the slope from the village

to the level on which the temple stands at the foot of a mountain, that

we might well have fancied we approached an altar devoted to the elder

worship: through the open doorway and between the columns of the portico

we could see the priests moving to and fro, and the voice of their

chanting came out to us like the sound of hymns to some of the deities

long disowned; and I could but recall how Padre L---- had once said to

me in Venice, "Our blessed saints are only the old gods baptized and

christened anew." Within, as without, the temple resembled the Pantheon,

but it had little to show us. The niches designed by Canova for statues

of the saints are empty yet; but there are busts by his own hand of

himself and his brother, the Bishop Canova. Among the people present was

the sculptor's niece, whom our guide pointed out to us, and who was

evidently used to being looked at. She seemed not to dislike it, and

stared back at us amiably enough, being a good-natured, plump, comely,

dark-faced lady of perhaps fifty years.

Possagno is nothing if not Canova, and our guide, a boy, knew all about

him,--how, more especially, he had first manifested his wonderful genius

by modelling a group of sheep out of the dust of the highway, and how an

Inglese, happening along in his carriage, saw the boy's work and gave

him a plateful of gold napoleons. I dare say this is as near the truth

as most facts. And is it not better for the historic Canova to have

begun in this way, than to have poorly picked up the rudiments of his

art in the work-shop of his father, a maker of altar-pieces and the like

for country churches? The Canova family has intermarried with the

Venetian nobility, and probably would not believe those stories of

Canova's beginnings which his townsmen so fondly cherish. I dare say

they would even discredit the butter lion with which the boy-sculptor is

said to have adorned the table of the noble Falier, and first won his

notice.

Besides the temple at Possagno, there is a very pretty gallery

containing casts of all Canova's works. It is an interesting place,

where Psyches and Cupids flutter, where Venuses present themselves in

every variety of attitude, where Sorrows sit upon hard, straight-backed

classic chairs, and mourn in the society of faithful Storks; where the

Bereft of this century surround death-beds in Greek costume appropriate

to the scene; where Muses and Graces sweetly pose themselves and

insipidly smile, and where the Dancers and Passions, though nakeder, are

no wickeder than the Saints and Virtues. In all, there are a hundred and

ninety-five pieces in the gallery, and among the rest the statue named

George Washington which was sent to America in 1820, and afterwards

destroyed by fire in the Capitol of North Carolina, at Raleigh. The

figure is in a sitting posture; naturally, it is in the dress of a Roman

general; and if it does not look much like George Washington, it does

resemble Julius Cæsar.

The custodian of the gallery had been Canova's body-servant, and he

loved to talk of his master. He had so far imbibed the spirit of family

pride that he did not like to allow that Canova had ever been other than

rich and grand, and he begged us not to believe the idle stories of his

first essays in art. He was delighted with our interest in the imperial

Washington, and our pleasure in the whole gallery, which we viewed with

the homage due to the man who had rescued the world from Swaggering in

sculpture. When we were tired, he invited us, with his mistress's

permission, into the house of the Canovas adjoining the gallery; and

there we saw many paintings by the sculptor,--pausing longest in a

lovely little room decorated, after the Pompeian manner, with _scherzi_

in miniature panels representing the jocose classic usualities,--Cupids

escaping from cages, and being sold from them, and playing many pranks

and games with Nymphs and Graces.

Then Canova was done, and Possagno was finished; and we resumed our way

to Treviso.

FOOTNOTES:

[101] I read in Mr. Norton's "Notes of Travel and Study in Italy," that

he saw in the Campo Santo, as long ago as 1856, "the chains that marked

the servitude of Pisa, now restored by Florence," and it is of course

possible that our cicerone may have employed one of these chains for the

different historical purpose I have mentioned. It would be a thousand

pities, I think, if a monument of that sort should be limited to the

commemoration of one fact only.

THE MYSTERY OF NATURE.

The works of God are fair for naught,

Unless our eyes, in seeing,

See hidden in the thing the thought

That animates its being.

The outward form is not the whole,

But every part is moulded

To image forth an inward soul

That dimly is unfolded.

The shadow, pictured in the lake

By every tree that trembles,

Is cast for more than just the sake

Of that which it resembles.

The dew falls nightly, not alone

Because the meadows need it,

But on an errand of its own

To human souls that heed it.

The stars are lighted in the skies

Not merely for their shining,

But, like the looks of loving eyes,

Have meanings worth divining.

The waves that moan along the shore,

The winds that sigh in blowing,

Are sent to teach a mystic lore

Which men are wise in knowing.

The clouds around the mountain-peak,

The rivers in their winding,

Have secrets which, to all who seek,

Are precious in the finding.

Thus Nature dwells within our reach,

But, though we stand so near her,

We still interpret half her speech

With ears too dull to hear her.

Whoever, at the coarsest sound,

Still listens for the finest,

Shall hear the noisy world go round

To music the divinest.

Whoever yearns to see aright

Because his heart is tender,

Shall catch a glimpse of heavenly light

In every earthly splendor.

So, since the universe began,

And till it shall be ended,

The soul of Nature, soul of Man,

And soul of God are blended!

A WIFE BY WAGER.

On a sunny afternoon in the middle of August, 1756, a gayly-dressed

young gentleman of evident rank and wealth, apparently about

twenty-three years old, sat in the doorway of the Café de la Régence,

languidly surveying the passers-by, and occasionally vouchsafing a nod

of recognition to some noble cavalier, or graciously waving from his

perfumed handkerchief a sentimental salutation to some lively beauty of

high estate or doubtful fame. So very inert and imperturbable was this

gayly-dressed young gentleman, that it seemed that nothing could disturb

his dainty suavity; but suddenly, and without apparent cause, his eyes

were lighted with a feeble expression of vexation, and, by a petulant

movement, he thrust back his chair as if anxious to avoid observation.

The object that kindled this momentary spark of animation was a tall,

broad-chested man, whose appearance, as he sauntered along the

promenade, casting glances of contempt, which might or might not be

sincerely felt, at the fashionable vanities which surrounded him,

presented a striking contrast to that of the majority of strollers on

that summer afternoon. His dress, though neat, was simple, and almost

sombre, being destitute of any species of decoration. His step was bold

and vigorous, and, in his indifference to the gay panorama which glided

past him, he held his chin so high in the air that the listless young

gentleman hoped he might, in his loftiness, overlook him with the rest.

But possibly the new-comer's unconsciousness may not have been so

absolute as he endeavored to make it appear; or possibly his attention

may have been particularly attracted by the sounds of mirth issuing from

the famous Café. At any rate, as he approached it, he turned his head,

and, gazing a moment at the first-named gentleman, exclaimed, "Ah, my

little Fronsacquin, is it really you?"

The "little Fronsacquin" rose with a vapid smile, from which every trace

of annoyance had vanished. To be associated, even by a title of

questionable compliment, with that social hero, the Due de Fronsac,

whose nimble caperings had been the admiration of Young France for

nearly half a century, was sufficient to banish from his mind any other

thoughts than those of proud complacency and self-content. He welcomed

his interrogator with all the ardor of which he was capable. That is to

say, he lifted his hat with one effort, inclined his body with a second,

and motioned to a vacant chair beside him with a third, after which he

sank back exhausted.

Rallying presently, he said, "You are soon back again, M. de Montalvan."

"Yea, M. de Berniers, our part of the fighting is over for the present."

"Then why not leave off your fighting dress?" said M. de Berniers. "You

look as if you knew nothing of the age we are living in."

"My friend, we live in an age when nobody occupies himself with anything

but the pleasures of life. One of the pleasures of my life is to wear a

soldier's dress; and you very well know the reason why."

"Don't snarl, M. de Montalvan. Yes, I remember the reason now. Never

mind. Some wine; and tell me about the great Duke. Is he really as

gallant in the field as in the boudoir?"

"Hum. The great Duc de Richelieu looked on with remarkable bravery while

we took St. Philippe. Yes, now that the _salons_ refuse him for a hero,

I suppose we must make a place for him in the camp."

"Ah! I have heard why you begrudge the Maréchal his fame. But it matters

very little; even Madame de Pompadour has given him her acclamations at

last."

"She knows when to hide her hatreds and how to cherish them. But that's

a dull subject, M. de Berniers; give me news of home. The Queen?"

"More virtuous than ever."

"And the King?"

"Less."

"Impossible!"

"Quite true."

"Some more wine, then. And the Pompadour?"

"Cold, but still powerful."

"I have heard," said M. de Montalvan, lowering his voice, "strange tales

about the Parliament,--that it holds secret meetings, and that the court

should keep itself prepared for some unexpected action."

"Bah!" said M. de Berniers, with a laugh, or rather a gentle

inarticulate murmur of mockery; "put aside those notions, my dear M. de

Montalvan. There is no power on earth can move the court of France."

"Good! And the theatres?"

"Intolerable. La Clairon has done something in a play by M. de

Voltaire,-a play stolen from a Chinese tragedy, 'The Orphan of Tchao.'

He calls it 'The Orphan of China.' It is dreary stuff. I wonder if our

well-beloved king could not be induced to keep M. de Voltaire's plays in

exile, as well as M. de Voltaire himself."

"Precisely," said M. de Montalvan. "Some more wine."

"And yet," said M. de Berniers, whose usually pale face was flushed by

the repeated draughts of Burgundy with which he had found it necessary

to stimulate himself to the effort of conversation, "and yet Mlle. de

Terville, they say, will hear of nothing but M. de Voltaire. We shall

quarrel finely about that, for one thing,"--and his eyes gleamed with

what would have been amusement if they had been capable of so definite

an expression.

"Mlle. de Terville!" said M. de Montalvan in some surprise, which,

however, the other did not observe; "do you know her?"

"Perfectly."

"Is it possible?"

"All about her."

"Tell me, how does she look?"

"Ah, now you ask too much. I have never seen her."

"But you say--"

"That I know all about her. Yes, I am to wed her in six weeks."

"The Devil and St. Philippe!"

"I don't wonder you are astonished, my dear De Montalvan. It's quite

throwing myself away to marry any woman at my time of life. Think how

many adventures I shall lose. I never intended to be married until I had

risen to something like the glory of Richelieu. Imagine having two

beauties fight a duel for you, for example! Richelieu was only

twenty-two when Mesdames de Nesle and de Polignac fought for his favor.

I am twenty-three, and no woman ever fought for me. At least, not that I

am aware of."

"Courage, De Berniers; if you had lived in Richelieu's day you would

have had forty duels upon your account instead of one."

"Quite likely. The age has degenerated. Some wine, De Montalvan. Yes,

the affair was arranged by our relatives. Contiguous estates; enormous

_dot_. I know very little about it myself, except that I am the victim.

Apropos," added M. de Berniers, as energetically as was consistent with

his sense of what a disciple of Fronsac owed himself, "you are at

leisure. The contract is to be signed early in September. Come to

Brittany, and help me through. They say Brittany is a fine country. I

have never seen it, though I have a chateau there. Will you come?"

De Montalvan looked keenly at his companion, as if endeavoring to detect

some hidden meaning in these last words, drank some more wine, and

remained silent.

"Come, De Montalvan, an answer."

M. de Montalvan scowled, and drank again. He appeared to be considering

in what manner he could most readily make himself offensive to M. de

Berniers. Presently he remarked, in a tone which was intended to be

deeply satirical, but which his frequent imbibitions rendered merely

malicious, "Have you made any wagers of late, my little friend?"

M. de Berniers's countenance fell into the same expression of discontent

as that which it had displayed on his companion's first appearance. He

essayed a frown,--a feat it would have been difficult for him to execute

at any time, but which was now simply impossible. He was not equal even

to a distortion. But he answered spitefully: "To the Devil with you and

your wagers! But I will make it even yet. Perhaps another time you will

not dare to compete so readily."

"Dare, Monsieur!" said De Montalvan, hastily. Then, checking himself, he

added, more composedly: "But why should I quarrel with Fronsacquin? It

is clear he knows nothing. If I must ease my mind by quarrelling, there

are plenty hereabout," and he glared around quite savagely. His eye

lighted upon a _brouette_, one of the small hand-carriages then in

vogue, in which a large and heavily built young man was reclining, while

the owner of the vehicle, a slender lad, toiled with difficulty before

him. "Dare, is it, De Berniers? Do you see that sluggard, wasting this

beautiful day in a lazy _brouette_? Ten louis that I have him out, and

walking, as he ought, in less than five minutes."

"You are mad, M. de Montalvan."

"You decline?"

"No, I accept!" and De Berniers, who was not so tipsy but that he could

plainly see De Montalvan was more so, wore upon his face what by one who

was acquainted with him would have been understood as an air of triumph,

but to a casual observer would convey no direct idea of any kind.

M. de Montalvan rose and advanced, hat in hand. "Pardon me, Monsieur,"

he began, "I have a few observations to address to you. It is a singular

spectacle to behold a man of your health and vigor, and especially of

your size, compelling a poor wretch like this to drag you through the

streets in the midsummer heat."

"It is more singular, Monsieur, that you should venture to address me in

this manner," said the stranger, and he directed his attendant to move

forward.

"No, Monsieur," said De Montalvan, placing himself in the way, "that is

out of the question. I feel it my duty to object to your making use of a

_brouette_ on such a day as this."

"Ah, you object!"

"Most decidedly. In fact I will not allow it."

The stranger sprang with alacrity upon the sidewalk, and, drawing his

sword, advanced upon his persecutor. "We shall see," he said, grimly.

"As you please, Monsieur," said De Montalvan, putting himself on guard.

But, as may be supposed, the soldier's hand was unsteady, and his eye

uncertain. After a few rapid passes, he let fall his right arm, which

had been sharply punctured above the elbow. M. de Berniers absolutely

cackled with delight.

"Now, Monsieur," said the stout stranger, "you will probably suffer me

to traverse the streets in the manner that best suits me."

"Pardon me again," responded De Montalvan; "you have fairly wounded me,

but I am sure you are too gallant a gentleman to deprive a bleeding

adversary of the most convenient means of reaching his home";--with

which he quietly stepped into the _brouette_ and was wheeled away, while

the stranger gazed after him in stupefaction.

De Berniers would have gnashed his teeth, but that he had not yet

recovered from the exertion of his previous cackle. For a week

thenceforth he was the sport of Paris, and, to complete his disgust, the

adventure was circulated by the celebrated _raconteur_, M. de Lugeac, in

the _salons_ of the Dauphine and elsewhere, with embellishments by no

means favorable to his reputation as a _bel esprit_.

* * * * *

Raoul de Montalvan was a young gentleman of moderate fortune, who, at

the age of twenty, sold his small estates in Avignon in order to equip a

company and join the Chevalier de Modène in the campaign of 1745, under

the Maréchal Saxe. At Fontenoy he was acknowledged to have distinguished

himself; but his recollections of that battle were embittered by the

fact that the Comte de Lally had robbed him of the honor which he most

coveted,--that of having detected, by a bold reconnoissance, the weak

point in the enemy's front, by piercing which the field was ultimately

won.[102] Nevertheless, he had been praised; and praise, at that period,

was his best reward. With a light heart and high hopes he started for

Paris, in further pursuit of fortune. In company with his patron, M. de

Modène, he presented himself at court. The sentinel on duty curiously

eyed their uniforms, and refused to admit them. The King, fatigued with

war's alarms, and anxious to banish from court all memories of carnage

and confusion, had ordered that no military dresses should appear in his

_salons_. In vain the young soldiers represented that they had parted

with all their possessions to serve their monarch, and that they had

surrendered the last means of otherwise arraying themselves; in vain

they insisted that the noblest decorations in the eyes of his Majesty

should be the dust and blood of the field of Fontenoy. They were

repulsed. De Modène revenged himself by the famous epigram which caused

an order of arrest, and compelled his flight. De Montalvan, taking the

insult more to heart, swore furiously that, excepting as a soldier and

in soldier's dress, he would never enter the French court, and from that

time had steadfastly persisted in the rigorous costume which excited M.

de Berniers's criticism. There were, indeed, some who declared that he

claimed as a virtue of obstinacy that which was only a necessity of

poverty; but for such aspersions he cared little.

As a further mark of his disgust, he quitted France altogether, and, in

his twenty-first year, joined the expedition of the Pretender; but as

his fortunes were not materially improved by this enterprise, he next

year became loyal, and assisted M. de Belle-Isle in the extirpation of

the Austrians from Dauphiny. In 1748 he again followed his old leader,

M. de Saxe, to victory, after which, the war in France having ceased, he

turned his attention to foreign fields of glory and profit. He served

two years in India, with Dupleix, where he found that, although the

glory was free to any man's clutch, the profit was sacred to a few.

After Dupleix's fall, he joined the French troops in America, where,

with his comrades, he assisted in the defeat of Lieutenant-Colonel

Washington in the action which followed the massacre of M. de

Jumonville. Finally, after ten years of military hardship and heroism,

he returned to Paris, bringing with him as the result of his career a

high repute for skill and courage, a well-worn sword, and a dozen deep

scars.

It may be imagined that these ten years had not softened the asperity

with which M. de Montalvan regarded the court and society. His manners

were bizarre, his language was cynical, and his wilful deviations from

the strict etiquette of the day could never have been tolerated

excepting for the brilliant notoriety he had gained as a daring

adventurer. He permitted himself to mingle in fashionable circles, that

he might the better ridicule them, which he did audaciously. The edict

against military dress was no longer in force, so that he was enabled to

hover upon the outskirts of the court without sacrifice of dignity. But

nothing in that effeminate world seemed to satisfy his turbulent

instincts. _Homo erat_,--yet _everything_ human, in that sphere, was

foreign to him. At one of the court balls, however, an incident occurred

which momentarily turned him from the course of his ill-humor.

Mlle. Virginie de Terville, a noble Nantaise, whose life, though not one

of seclusion, had been judiciously kept apart from the corrupting

influences of the capital, was at Paris for the first time, with her

uncle, an ex-officer of the king's household. To the fair neophyte the

scene was one of rare enchantment; and although her keen instincts

enabled her to conform with aptitude to the usages of the lively world

around her, there was a freshness and a _naïveté_ in her manner which

contrasted charmingly with the effete and ceremonious forms of the

experienced. M. de Montalvan met her at a masked ball, and was

captivated with becoming rapidity. Although poor beyond description, his

family was among the best, and he found no difficulty in making M. de

Terville's acquaintance, and in due season that of his niece. For once

he abandoned his acerbity, and returned to the character which had been

natural to him ten years before. None could be more winning than M. de

Montalvan if the impulse prompted him; and his graceful conversation,

overflowing with anecdote and illustration which the homely wits of the

home-keeping youth of Paris could not rival, made a vivid impression

upon Virginie's imagination. They met only twice; for, just as M. de

Montalvan was beginning to take serious thought of where this would lead

him, he received an appointment from M. de Richelieu to the command of a

company in the Minorca expedition, and was obliged to sail for Port

Mahon without even the opportunity of a hasty adieu. Partly by good

luck, partly by hard fighting, and partly owing to the blunders of

Admiral Byng, the island was captured in a few months, and it was not

long after his return from victory--as full of honors and as empty in

purse as ever--that De Montalvan encountered his "little Fronsacquin" on

the threshold of the Café de la Régence.

* * * * *

Louis de Berniers was the incarnation of aristocratic _niaiserie_. He

was young, titled, not ill-looking, and had vast wealth at his command.

But for this latter possession he might possibly have distinguished

himself otherwise than by his follies; for he was not without one or two

good qualities,--for example, generosity. But with him generosity took

the form of a reckless prodigality, which caused him to be surrounded by

a swarm of flatterers and parasites, male and female, who so fed and

pampered his raging vanity that he believed himself a Crichton at

eighteen. His ambition soared only to the height of emulating the

boudoir exploits of M. de Richelieu, and he fancied himself a master of

all the social ceremonies of the capital. So far as his languid nature

would allow him, he sought notoriety in every quarter. "No man's pie was

free from his ambitious finger." He had acted with Madame de Pompadour's

company of amateurs at Versailles, and, though surrounded by clever

gentlemen like D'Entragues and De Maillebois, firmly believed himself

the only worthy supporter of Madame d'Etioles. On the strength of his

supposed supremacy, he had from time to time graciously volunteered his

aid to Lekain and Mlle. Clairon in the preparation of their most

difficult _rôles_. He had supplied the poet Beauverset with now and then

a topic, and imagined himself to be the true source whence that

incendiary rhymer drew his choicest inspirations. After the success of

Rousseau's _Devin du Village_, he had driven the composer wild by his

offers to assist him in the purification of his melodies. Nothing in the

way of notoriety was too high or too low for him. He had laid out a plan

for the replanting of the Trianon gardens, and was disgusted because

Richard, the king's gardener, politely declined to adopt it; and he had

been heard to say that in the composition of sauces and _ragoûts_ he

could easily rival his Majesty himself, and would prove his superiority,

but for the fear of losing favor at court.

M. de Berniers and M. de Montalvan had met a short time before the

attack upon Minorca. The gallant soldier was no flatterer, but the

conceited little Parisian amused him sufficiently to occupy a good

share of his leisure. He satirized De Berniers mercilessly from morning

till night, to the latter's great astonishment, he having up to that

time received only adulation and deference from his companions. But the

name of "Fronsacquin," which De Montalvan had jestingly applied, so

gratified his puerile vanity, that for a few days he looked upon the

warlike adventurer almost with affection. Their intimacy had, however,

been broken off a few days before De Montalvan's departure, in

consequence of De Berniers's chagrin at losing a wager he had boastingly

made. He had declared himself capable of securing the attention of any

lady, however distinguished in appearance and however reserved in

manner, that his friends might indicate, at a certain masked ball, and

of bringing her openly to sup with them. De Montalvan defied him, and,

selecting a fresh-faced lad from the opera, trained him to a perfect

illustration of feminine modesty and simplicity, and set De Berniers

upon him. Of course the farce was easily carried through. After the

requisite preliminaries of shy evasion and coy resistance, the supposed

fair one was led triumphantly to the supper-table,--the mask was

removed, the secret exposed, and for ten humiliating days De Berniers

was the laugh of the town.

It may be supposed that his peevishness was not diminished by the loss

of a second public wager; but his opponent had been wounded, and that

afforded him some comfort. Besides, he was still confident of winning

his revenge, so he stifled his angry feelings, and renewed the request

that De Montalvan would accompany him to Nantes. De Montalvan was moody,

and swore he would go and join Montcalm in Canada. But his own

recollection of the charms of Mademoiselle de Terville, added to the

solicitations of De Berniers,--who was all unconscious that they had

ever known one another,--induced him to change his resolution, and he

half graciously consented.

Virginie de Terville, as has been said, was a different being, not only

in the freshness and bloom of her beauty, but also by virtue of her

domestic education, from the artificial goddesses of the Parisian sphere

with whom she had been thrown into temporary contact. But her visit had

not been long enough to reveal to her what lay beneath the glittering

exterior of life at court. Her cautious uncle had cut short their

sojourn at what he deemed a judicious period, and brought his ward back

to the tranquil old chateau near Nantes, not entirely, it must be

admitted, to her satisfaction. The splendors of the capital had just

begun to fascinate her, and, what was more, she had been loath to think

that that last brief interview with the handsome and eccentric captain,

who had seen so much and told what he had seen so well, might never be

repeated. Not that she cared to hear anything beyond his strange tales

of adventure. Indeed no. He had lightly touched upon one or two other

topics, during that same last interview, and she was sorry she had not

checked him. Yet she _did_ wonder what ever had become of him, and

really would have been glad to know the result of his long journey

through the tropical Indian forests with that beautiful Rajah's daughter

of whom he had begun to tell her.

But these ideas did not occur to Virginie until after she had left

Paris. While there, the constant succession of gayeties left no room for

other than merry thoughts. She was a belle of high distinction,--an

heiress, and a lovely one. For a month she was a leader of fashionable

revels, and a very princess of masquerade. If it were known that at a

particular ball she would appear as a heathen goddess, the _salons_ were

thronged with illustrations of mythology. When she wore the quaint dress

of a Brittany peasant, all classes affected a rural simplicity. She had

only to personate Joan of Arc, and a martial spirit fired the assembly;

and when she crowned her triumphs by enacting a dashing young cavalier

of the period, women as well as men yielded their admiration and

contended for her smiles. After so brilliant a career, what could she

care for the applause which her dexterous disguises excited in the

drowsy masquerades of Nantes. It served only to recall to her the

vanished glories of the capital.

M. de Berniers, as chance would have it, was ignorant of the peculiar

sensation which Virginie had created in the _beau monde_. During her

month at Paris he had been hunting upon the estates of a noble friend in

the East of France, and when he returned to his accustomed haunts, some

time after, the fickle heart of society was fixed upon some new object

of adoration, and cherished no recollection of the past. So he arrived

at Terville with little knowledge of his intended _fiancée_, except that

she was young, reputed good-looking, and the possessor of great riches.

Leaving M. de Montalvan at the village inn, he rode over to the chateau

the first morning after their arrival, to present himself in due form.

The fresh country atmosphere and the picturesque surroundings of the

journey had done more to cheer M. de Montalvan's spirits than a college

of physicians could have accomplished. The wound which he had received

in his ridiculous duel was nearly healed, and he seemed more a man of

the world than at any previous period in ten years,--always excepting

the brief term of his acquaintance with Virginie. In spite of his

natural hardihood, he was somewhat uneasy at the thought of again

meeting that young lady, for whom he entertained, to say the least, a

feeling of profound admiration; but curiosity was powerful within him,

and he waited anxiously for the expected summons to the chateau. Any

other sentiment than that of curiosity it would have been absurd for him

to acknowledge. He was poor, and therefore unavailable in a matrimonial

way. He had no domains adjoining the Terville estates, nor indeed

anywhere else. He had nothing but his sword and his renown; and these

would not serve him in such a case. So, if ever the flame of hope had

for a moment lighted his mind, he had summarily extinguished it, and

flung aside, as it were, the tinder-box of every inflammable

recollection.