from their beer, the scenery being in readiness, and the ubiquitous
call-boy having again summoned the fish and other people to be up
for the second act, the wings are full of fish. That little wasp,
Venturola, is to have a solo, and that there may not be anything to
offend her dainty feet, she seizes the broom and sweeps the bottom of
the Rhine clear of all obstructions, for she is going to try to outdo
Westmael to-night. The curtain rises, and my friends, the demons,
have the stage. Kuhleborn, like a shot from a cannon ball, flies
up through the star trap. Had there been a slight variation in the
working of the nice machinery of the trap, poor Kuhleborn's brains
would have been dashed out by the heavy counter-weights, which, in
their descent, force him up; but the working is so well graduated
that Kuhleborn is in no danger of injury, save from the apices of
the triangular sections of the trap, which upon every exit manage to
take off a small piece of his nose, whereupon, being a demon, he is
excusable for indulging in slight expletives, such as are used by
the Rhine demons. As the square trap, through which he shuts himself
up like a jack-knife and disappears, also manages to take off a small
piece of his back and shoulders, it would prove an interesting study
to calculate how much of Kuhleborn will be left at the expiration of
the allotted six weeks.
The preliminary scene over, the Fish Ballet commences. This is
Venturola's opportunity. A little more resin on her pretty feet. A
little impatiently she waves aside the Amazons and Naiads, who have
congregated in her wing to see the dance, and bounds upon the stage
like a ball hot from the striker, amid the applause of the audience.
But not even her own fine effort, nor the graceful posturing of the
coryphees, nor the acrobatic and unique dancing of Kuhleborn, in his
oil-cloth fish-skin, secure for her an encore. She does not even get
a bouquet.
Frantic young man! Where were you at this critical moment?
She comes off the stage, and there is a snapping of those black eyes
as she brushes through the crowd down stairs to her dressing-room and
slams the door. Westmael must look out for her laurels in the grand
ballet of the next act, when the solo tests come.
I pass to the grand ballet. The stage is full of the Amazons and
coryphees, and all the premiers are in the wings, Westmael looking
sadder and more weary than ever; Venturola full of determination and
talking chain-lightning at the ballet master; Fontana quietly walking
about, and now and then rising on her toes; Mazzeri, Adrian, Oberti,
Negri and Guerrero, all anxious, for thunderbolts have fallen ere
this out of the clear sky, and who knows but one of them may get an
encore? Little Schlager has already had her encore and gone off the
stage with an approving pat on the head from the ballet-master, with
her mother's face beaming with satisfaction, and her own lit up with
triumph. Encore is the magic word which incites them all.
The ballet is drawing to a close. Only Venturola and Westmael are
left. Venturola has outdone herself, and her fine _diminuendo_ whirl
has gained for her not only a bouquet but the coveted encore. She
is satisfied, and in her nervous manner she chatters French, German
and English to everybody. The familiar music of Westmael's brief
closing solo strikes up. She is standing, as at the first, quietly in
the wing. She has paid no attention to the dance. By a stranger she
would have been taken only for a listless observer. She is evidently
in pain and very sick to-night, and the hard, dry cough grates upon
the ear, but at the first bar of the music her face lights up and
she springs upon the stage with no trace of trouble. Every movement
is perfect, from the dainty, spirited, bold walk upon the toes to
the final pose, and there is no mistaking the encore that follows.
The encore does not seem to have any charm for her to-night, but
the audience compel it, and by a tremendous effort of the will
she repeats. I say by a tremendous effort, for as she returns she
instantly relapses into her old state. Her breath comes and goes
spasmodically and her chest is thumping as if a sledge-hammer were
at work within it. She staggers along a few steps and faints, and
pitying hands carry her to her room. To-morrow night she will be
herself again, but to-night it has been a burden.
It would not be proper for me to disclose the workings of the last,
or Transformation Scene; and if it were, I would not strip off the
romance, grace and beauty that surround and pervade it. I can only
admire the skill, taste and knowledge of effects--the genius which
with the slightest of materials can produce an illusion so brilliant
and captivating, both to the eye and ear. It requires a genius akin
to that of the best worker in oils, and a taste and imagination of
the highest order.
The calcium lights are extinguished. The colored fires have burned
down. The prompter closes his book. The figures of the tableaux
descend from their graceful but uncomfortable positions. The property
man is looking after his properties. The manager is thanking "you,
ladies, very well done." The lights are turned off. Rhine land and
Rhine River vanish, and I leave the stage for this upper world.
December 14, 1867.
_A CHRISTMAS CAROL._
In the year 1 of our blessed Lord, a carpenter came with his wife to
Bethlehem to pay his taxes, and it is to be hoped he did not have to
shut his eyes and grit his teeth as I did when I paid mine in the
year 1867 of our blessed Lord.
If the taxes at Bethlehem were on the scale of the taxes at Chicago,
it is no wonder that the carpenter and his wife lodged in a stable.
On that night a Child was born among the cattle, and the angels
opened the doors of Heaven and flooded the whole Bethlehem Plain with
music, what time the shepherds leaned upon their staves to listen,
and the sheep knelt down upon their knees in adoration. And wise,
long-bearded Magi of the Orient came upon their camels, bearing gifts
with them and following the star which never tarried until it stood
over the young Child.
And from that Christmas to this Christmas, do I solemnly believe,
that on each recurrence of the birthday of our blessed Lord, the
angels open wide the doors of Heaven and smile upon each young child,
and that some star still stands over each young child to guide Santa
Claus on his beautiful errand.
Now I know that old Midas, who never had an aspiration of soul that
soared higher than a quintal of codfish, nor an imagination that was
not regularly ruled and indexed with a Dr. on one side, and a Cr. on
the other, and a $ all over it; and that Mrs. Midas, whose theory
of life is bounded by a bonnet-string and colored with the latest
Bismarck shade, will shrug shoulders at the idea. And well they may,
for I think it exceedingly doubtful whether the smallest star in
the canopy would find it worth while to stand over either of them.
And yet do I believe that there are choice spirits over whom a star
stands, raining down blessed influences and ever bringing them closer
together.
And thus the first Christmas was celebrated in that Bethlehem stable
one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven years ago, and when it
was over, the carpenter took his tax receipt, unvexed by special
assessments for lamp posts, Nicolson pavements, plank sidewalks,
etc., and went on his way rejoicing.
It seems to me, furthermore, that I hang up my stocking--that
stocking which all the rest of the year has held only a foot, terror
to shoemakers, and a bunion worthy its namesake, the immortal
Tinker--on the most beautiful day of the year. It comes set like a
jewel in the very heart of winter; when all nature is at rest; when
the days are shortest and the nights are darkest; when every bird is
silent upon the hillside; when no leaf is green but the holly, and
the ivy, and the winter-green; when the weather is bleakest without
but cheeriest within; when the storms sweep through the streets and
the house-fires glow ruddiest on the hearths; when the grayest sky is
made bright by Santa Claus, Kriss Kringle and the Christ-Kindchen;
and Christmas-tide runs joyfully with wassail and taper-lighted
tree, and song and dance. New Year has come to be hedged in by
fashion. Fourth of July is a matter of buncombe. Thanksgiving is dear
to the stomach. But Christmas is the day of all days--the best and
the brightest of the year.
I would like to be a little child, or an old woman, it matters
little which, to really enjoy Christmas. I would like to have back
all the angles which friction with the world has rubbed off, and to
thoroughly believe in the existence of that Laplander who drives his
team of reindeer athwart the housetops, tethers them to the chimneys,
and fills up the small stockings on the bed-posts; and to stand
before a Christmas tree under the firm conviction that there never
was anything so beautiful in the world before.
Or I would like to be an old woman, to sit, with my feet to the
fire, in the arm-chair, with my best cap on, and just one gray curl
escaping from it--that identical curl which played the deuce with
gouty, rheumatic, splenetic, dear old John Anderson, in the chair
opposite, half a century ago, when we were the pride of the whole
country-side; with not a single wrinkle on my smooth face; with my
silk gown on, which will stand alone; with my flock of children,
and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren trooping about me;
with blessed memories of a long and well-spent life: with tender
recollections of eighty Christmases, dead and under the snow, whose
ghosts flit by me in the ashes; with the beautiful privilege of
extending my hands over the young heads and blessing them, as the
Lord Christ stretches his hands in benediction over the earth each
Christmas, and confers upon it the gift of his grace.
Even the crisp brown goose, smoking upon the platter, down whose
streaming sides the little rivulets of rich gravy are trickling, his
breast bursting with all savory essences, happy in his side pieces
and doubly blessed in his second joints, is to be congratulated
on his culinary canonization. The bald eagle, flying from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, gazing at the sun because it don't hurt
him a particle, and stealing chickens and other small deer from
the barnyards; and the strutting turkey of Thanksgiving, with his
shrivelled, chippy breast and stringy legs, are unworthy of mention
by the side of the Christmas goose. Is it not well worth the while
of any feathered biped to be a fool through life, the scoff and
scorn of dogs and men, if haply he may achieve an apotheosis like
that of the Christmas goose? He dies that we may dine. He dies in
the flesh to resurrect in the oven. He passes from mortal sight to
reappear in _pate de foie gras_. He gives his head cheerfully to
the block that his body may be the crowning glory and the holocaust
of Christmas-tide. His life, homely and foolish as it is, is not
altogether in vain. How many of us bipeds without feathers may lay
claim to the same merits?
If there is a sad spot in all the earth, on Christmas morning, it
must be the house where there are no children; over which no star
stops; in which there is no small stocking to be filled; in which no
juvenile carnival will be celebrated. The giving of gifts is one of
the most blessed privileges of the day. Blessed, too, on that day, is
the bachelor uncle or brother, who can confer gifts upon the little
ones, and thrice blessed the good sister of every neighborhood, who
makes glad so many little hearts. If there is a wretched person on
earth, it must be the man who can't or won't make a Christmas gift.
And, in all our Christmas giving, let us remember this, that under
many roofs no Christmas-tree will blaze, and on many hearths the
ashes will be gray and cold; that in many homes the voice of the
angel, proclaiming the Bethlehem message, "Peace on earth, and good
will to men," will be silenced by the wolf at the door; that many
little feet will be cold upon the pavement, wandering about in quest
of food; that many little eyes will peer into the windows and wonder
at the strange sights and sounds; that poverty, hunger and despair
will be the only visitants at many firesides in this Christian land
of ours, filled with feasting and plenty. Let us therefore in all
our giving remember that "the greatest of these is charity." Let us
remember that the abodes of poverty are doubly dear to us on this
day of all the year. Let us cheer them with our bounty, and vivify
them with words of joy and hope. Let us make our star stand over
these homes. Let us remember the poor, for the first Christmas was
celebrated in a stable among the cattle, and the Christ-child was
born in a manger, for the carpenter and his wife, who came down to
pay taxes, were very poor.
My carol would not be closed without my Christmas wishes. And
therefore a merry Christmas-tide to all gentle people, and a blotting
out of all enmities on Christmas morn. A merry Christmas to all,
saints and sinners. A merry Christmas to Aurelia and Celeste basking
in the sunshine, and to Bridget in the shade. A merry Christmas to my
enemy, whom I forgive, and to my friend, in whose heart I live. A
merry Christmas to all children whose little lips will syllable the
sweet utterances of childhood. A merry Christmas to the homeless, and
the outcasts, and the Pariahs--God help them. A merry Christmas to my
creditors, and many returns of the same. A merry Christmas and a full
wassail bowl to all good fellows. A merry Christmas to the TRIBUNE
and all its readers, and, Mr. Editor, a merry Christmas to you upon
your tripod, and may your stockings be well filled.
And "Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, and good will to
men."
December 25, 1867.
_THE NEW YEAR._
The closing of the year offers some epistolary temptations which it
is hard to resist. One fiend says "write;" the other says "don't."
One fiend shows me the admirable things I might say, as, for
instance: The old man going out sadly, and the young man coming in
gleefully. This, done up with allusions to biers and shrouds and
angels and roses, would be a stunner.
Again, I could make a strong point out of the hour-glass, with the
grains of sand slipping through, skilfully keeping up the interest
until I got to the last grain, which I could manipulate up to a
thrilling denouement.
And then what a touching picture I might draw of 1867 frozen on
his bier, his crown tumbled off and his sceptre broken; and what a
bacchanalian revelry I might paint in introducing the birth of 1868.
And again, I might draw a strong draft on the tears of tender readers
by recalling recollections of the Old year and casting the horoscope
of the New.
And think of the magnificent material I might have to use in doing
all this: the dark shores of Eternity, the waves of Styx, old Charon,
all the cheerful paraphernalia of the undertaker, and the appliances
of the _accoucheur_, which would form the _piece de resistance_, not
to speak of the garnitures of regrets, tears, sighs, resolutions,
prophesies, flowers, cherubs, broken harp-strings and other
properties which might be mixed in indiscriminately, and with a sort
of blue-fire effect, which would be telling.
And as there is nothing else to write about, it shows that I have a
good deal of moral courage when I solemnly assert that I am not going
to say a word about them.
For, _cui bono_?
The world will continue to turn on its axis every twenty-four hours.
Old Midas will continue to crust his soul over with $ marks, until
he gets them on so thickly that he won't be able to give an account
of himself on the Day of Judgment, without referring to his ledger
or sending for his confidential clerk. Mrs. Midas will go on saying
ungracious things about her next-door neighbor, who can "see" her
bonnet and go ten dollars better every time. Celeste will continue
to distract her pretty little empty head in solving the problem
of a new bias. Aurelia and Mr. Peplum will continue to have their
little differences over the muffins, which will begin to abate with
the soup, and disappear in a torrent of regrets over the mediatory
Souchong. Railroads will continue to cook people alive without a pang
of remorse. Men and women will continue to air their dirty linen
and haul each other through the mud of the divorce courts, under
the insane idea that other people will be interested in their small
vices, just as if other people hadn't any of their own which were
just as interesting.
The coming year will be very like the going year, and thus the world
will keep going round the sun for us, until the Great Manager sends
the call-boy to summon us up for the last act. We shall then make our
parting bow--pray God, all of us like gentlemen, and the curtain will
come down.
But because our little stage grows suddenly dark, it does not follow
that the great audience in front of the curtain will break up and
go home, or that other actors will not play their parts on the same
grand stage of life.
And a hundred years hence it is not altogether improbable that our
little ant-hill, over which we have made such a fuss, and up and
down which we have paraded so often, and on which we have expended
so much effort to make it larger than the next hill, will be utterly
forgotten; and that, in those far-off days, we may be blowing down
Clark street on some fine, breezy, spring day, or sold in the form of
cabbage from some itinerant Teuton's cart; or, if we have been good
children, that we may be blossoming in a daisy, or looking out of the
blue eyes of a violet at the great, white, lying slab close by, in a
maze of wonder at the saints we were a hundred years ago.
You see all these things are to be considered in deciding whether to
say anything about New Year's. And as I have before stated that I am
not going to say anything about it, this relieves me from alluding to
New Year's calls.
Because if I were to say anything about them I should have to
hurt the feelings of the Dear Creatures. It would be unkind, for
instance, to go to work deliberately and catalogue Aurelia's callers;
Old Gunnybags, who carries into effect his business regulations,
atoning on that day, by wholesale, his little retail visiting sins
of the year; the bashful young man who remarks that it is a very
fine day to-day, that it was remarkable weather yesterday, and
that he shouldn't be surprised at pleasant weather to-morrow; and
who, having fired off his little speech, falls back in good order
to the refreshments; the mental leisure which Titmouse enjoys, who
does a smashing day's business on a small capital by establishing a
reputation for wit in three hundred families, upon whom he has palmed
off the same brilliant remarks, the same carefully drawn out repartee
and the same conundrum; the young man of florid complexion and rather
heavy build, who makes the duration of his call conditional upon the
character of refreshments, and who will not fail to mention your
sins of omission to Mrs. Brown, next door, who has spread herself on
London sherry and boned turkey; the bore who never calls but once a
year, and then tries to become a permanent boarder; the nuisance whom
you never saw before and never want to see again; old Deacon Glum,
who tenderly inquires after your soul, in a business sort of way
remarks on the brevity of time, and throws in a lot of those pretty
metaphors which I threw out at the commencement of this letter; young
FitzHenry, who has a wine supper for six wagered that he will do his
four hundred calls before six o'clock, and is now on his last heat;
that fellow Boodle, with the long nose and little eyes, who is making
up a collection of small gossip which he will dish up for the next
six months. It would be unfair to catalogue all these nice people,
and I will spare Aurelia's feelings by refusing to do it.
Neither do I propose on this occasion to allude to the astounding
number of resolutions which I make on the first day of the year and
break regularly before I reach the second week of January. If I have
one faculty better developed than another, it is that of making and
breaking resolutions. Didn't I firmly resolve the first of last
January that I would be very temperate in the use of the King's
English for the space of three hundred and sixty-five days? And when
two hours later I slipped down on the sidewalk, and in the operation
sat down on my new hat and looked up to see a thoughtless young man
laughing at me, didn't I break that resolution and address some
remarks to that thoughtless young man which were rather more emphatic
than elegant?
I fancy I did.
Equally when I was a little boy did I not resolve one New Year's Day
that I would keep the whole Ten Commandments, and was I not caught
in the preserve closet the same day and subjected to a degree of
corporal punishment which made me break nearly all the rest of them
before night?
I never saw but one person who succeeded in keeping a New Year's
resolution, and he had pined away so rapidly in his physical and
grown so abnormally in his moral man, that it was really painful to
look at him. He was the nearest approach to an angel on half rations
I ever expect to see. A good meal would have made him sick, but I
really believe he would have bolted at one gulp the entire nine tons
of tracts which some New York individual has kindly forwarded to the
Young Men's Christian Association.
I cannot but admire the theological cheek of this man. His brass is
of no ordinary description. It is sonorous, stately, magnificent.
Nine tons of tracts! Twenty thousand one hundred and sixty pounds of
appeal to the ungodly! Three hundred and twenty-two thousand five
hundred and sixty ounces of the essence of doctrine! About thirty
miles of grace!
December 28, 1867.
_OLE BULL._
My last recollection of Farwell Hall is connected with a tall,
graceful, sweet-faced old man, his head lovingly bending over a
violin that old Stradivarius made centuries ago, his eyes closed,
transfigured in a vision of music, until he seemed to me to wear the
face that Beethoven, the Master, might have worn. In his hands the
dull wood was again in life. It was part of an organism, and it told
the old man of the rustle of leaves in the summer gales; of the songs
of birds in the branches; of the brawling waters of the brooks that
moistened the roots; of the rude winds that smote the tree on Italian
hills; of the star that looked down upon it in delicious Italian
nights; of the vernal thrill, the summer glow, the autumnal decay,
and the wintry death in life--the great miracle which Nature performs
for us each year; and the old man interpreted it in bewitching
strains to some who gave themselves up to the spell and were drawn
nearer together by the sympathy which music produces, to some who
heard the sound and not the soul, and to some who heard neither, in
the sound of their own small gabble.
And the next day, when a heap of smoking bricks, and charred beams,
and twisted iron was all that was left of the beautiful hall, it
seemed to me that I had met with an irreparable loss--that some
friend had suddenly vanished.
January 11, 1868.
* * * * *
One of the most charmingly chatty things Leigh Hunt ever wrote was
his "Earth Upon Heaven," in which he imagined himself following out
his earthly occupations in the upper world; dining with all the good
fellows of past ages; reading new plays of Shakspeare and new novels
of Scott; eating sugar that was not sanded, and drinking milk from
celestial cows in the Milky Way.
It is to be hoped the earthly concert nuisances will be abated there
also, and that we may hope to hear the Malibrans and the Linds,
Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Bach and Gluck in new and diviner
symphonies and songs (think of that!), without being annoyed by a
garrulous angel behind us commenting on the cut of this angel's
wings, the color of that angel's feathers, and the awkward manner in
which some other angel flies to her seat, and the dreadfully stupid
way in which young Highflier sat down upon Blanche's wings. It would
be horrible to think of an eternity of music with an eternity of
nuisance.
Ibid.
_SMALL TALK._
There are two kinds of small talk--one which is very silly, and when
it does not run to twaddle, takes the worse form of slander and cruel
gossip. These two phases are not inconsistent with each other, for it
takes a very silly person to be a good gossiper. The greater amount
of nonsense that a woman can talk to your face, the worse will be the
gossip that she will talk behind you. Her wits may be very small in
one direction, but they will be very sharp in the other.
The other kind of small talk is very delightful. It is chatty, sunny,
spicy and brilliant. It may not be as deep as the ocean, but is not a
little brook, singing over the pebbles, flashing in the sunlight, and
whispering pretty little stories it learned from the naiads in the
fountain where it was born, to the scarlet cardinals and golden-rods
that lean over to listen, just as delightful as the uncertain depths
of the ocean with dim suggestions of dirty sea-weed, slimy monsters,
ribs of argosies and dead men's bones? Is not the little brook
which can take the most distant star right into its heart, just as
beautiful as the heavy ocean into whose depths no star beam can
penetrate?