and doing away with altogether of those _consolatory interstices_ and
_sprinklings of freedom_ through the four seasons--the _red-letter_
days, now become, to all intents and purposes, _dead-letter_ days.
There was Paul and Stephen and Barnabas, Andrew and John, men famous
in old times,--we used to keep all their days holy, as long back as
when I was at school at Christ's. I remember their effigies by the
same token, in the old Basket Prayer-book. I honoured them all, and
could almost have wept the defalcation of Iscariot, so much did we
love to keep holy memories sacred; only methought I a little grudged
at the coalition of the _better Jude_ with _Simon_--clubbing, as it
were, their sanctities together to make up one poor gaudy day between
them, as an economy unworthy of the dispensation. These were bright
visitations in a scholar's and a clerk's life,--"far off their coming
shone." I was as good as an almanac in those days.'[18]
And who has written, like Lamb, of the forlorn pathos of the charity boy's
'objectless holiday;' of the 'most touching peal which rings out the old
year;' of 'the safety which a palpable hallucination warrants' on All
Fools'; and the 'Immortal Go-between,' St. Valentine?
The devotion to the immediate, the thrift, the enterprise, and the
material activity which pertain to a new country, and especially to our
own, distinguish American holidays from those of the Old World. Not a few
of them are consecrated to the future, many spring from the triumphs of
the present, and nearly all hint progress rather than retrospection. We
inaugurate civil and local improvements; glorify the achievements of
mechanical skill and of social reform; pay honour by feasts, processions,
and rhetoric to public men; give a municipal ovation to a foreign patriot,
or a funeral pageant to a native statesman. Our festivals are chiefly on
occasions of economic interest. Daily toil is suspended, and gala
assemblies convene, to rejoice over the completion of an aqueduct or a
railroad, or the launching of an ocean steamer. One of the earliest of
these economical displays--in New York, memorable equally from the great
principle it initiated and the felicitous auguries of the holiday
itself--was the celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal, the first of
a series of grand internal improvements which have since advanced our
national prosperity beyond all historical precedent; and one of the last
was the grand excursion which signalized the union by railroads of the
Atlantic seacoast and the Mississippi river. The two celebrations were but
festive landmarks in one magnificent system. The enterprise initiated in
Western New York, in 1825, was consummated in Illinois, in 1854, when the
last link was riveted to the chain which binds the vast line of eastern
seacoast to the great river of the West, and the genius of communication,
so essential to our unity and prosperity, brought permanently together the
boundless harvest-fields of the interior and the mighty fleets of the
seaboard. To European eyes the sight of the thousand invited guests
conveyed from New York to the Falls of St. Anthony would yield a thrilling
impression of the scale of festal arrangements in this Republic; and were
they to scan the reports of popular anniversaries and conventions in our
journals, embracing every class and vocation, representative of every art,
trade, and interest, a conviction would inevitably arise that we are the
most social and holiday nation in the world; on the constant _qui vive_
for any plausible excuse for public dinners, speeches, processions, songs,
toasts, and other republican divertisements. One month brings round the
anniversary banquet of the printers, when Franklin's memory is invoked and
his story rehearsed; another is marked by the annual symposium and
contributions of the Dramatic Fund; a temperance jubilee is announced
to-day, a picnic of Spiritualists to-morrow; here we encounter a long
train of Sunday scholars, and there are invited to a publishers' feast in
a 'crystal palace;' the triumph of the 'Yacht America' must be celebrated
this week, and the anniversary of Clay's birth or Webster's death the
next; a clerk delivers a poem before a Mercantile Library Association, a
mechanic addresses his fellows; exhibitions of fruit, of fowls, of cattle,
of machines, of horses, ploughing-matches, schools, and pictures, lead to
social gatherings and volunteer discourses, and make a holiday now for the
farmer and now for the artisan; so that the programme of festivals, such
as they are, is coextensive with the land and the calendar. All this
proves that there is no lack of holiday instinct among us, but it also
demonstrates that the spirit of utility, the pride of occupation, and the
ambition of success, interfuse the recreative as they do the serious life
of America. The American enters into festivity as if it were a serious
business; he cannot take pleasure naturally like the European, and is
pursued with a half-conscious remorse if he dedicates time to amusement;
so that even our holidays seem rather an ordeal to be gone through with,
than an occasion to be enjoyed. At many of these _fêtes_, too, we are
painfully conscious of interested motives, which are essentially opposed
to genuine recreation. Capital is made of amusement, as of every other
conceivable element of our national life. It is often to advertise the
stock, to introduce the breed, to gain political influence, to win
fashionable suffrages to a scheme or a product of art or industry, that
these expensive arrangements are made, these hospitalities exercised,
these guests convened. Too many of our so-called holidays are tricks of
trade; too many are exclusively utilitarian; too many consecrate external
success and material well-being; and too few are based on sentiment,
taste, and good-fellowship. In a panorama of national holidays, therefore,
instead of a crowd of gracefully-attired rustics waltzing under trees, an
enthusiastic chorus breathing as one deep voice the popular chant, ladies
veiled in _tulle_ following an imperial infant to a cathedral altar, the
garlands and maidens of Old England's May-day, or the splendid evolutions
of the continental soldiery,--we should be most aptly represented by a
fleet of steamers with crowded decks and gay pennons, sweeping through the
lofty and wooded bluffs of the Upper Mississippi, the procession of boats
and regiment of marines disembarking in the bay of Jeddo, or the old Hall,
in whose sleeping echoes lives the patriotic eloquence of the Revolution,
alive with hundreds of children invited by the city authorities to the
annual school festival; for these occasions typify the enterprise at home,
the exploration abroad, and the system of public instruction, which
constitute our specific and absolute distinction in the family of nations.
A jovial eclectic could, notwithstanding, gather traces of the partial and
isolated festivals of every race and country in America;--harvest-songs
among the German settlers of Pennsylvania, here a 'golden wedding,' there
a private grape-feast; in the South a tournament, at Hoboken a
cricket-match, and an archery club at Sunnyside; a Vienna lager-beer dance
in New York, or a vine-dressers' merry-making in Ohio.
If from those holidays which arise from temporary causes we turn to those
which, from annual recurrence, aspire to the dignity of institutions, the
first thing which strikes us is their essentially local character.
'Pilgrim-day,' wherever kept, is a New England festival; 'Evacuation-day'
belongs to the city of New York; the anniversary of the battle of Bunker
Hill is celebrated only in Charlestown; and the victory on Lake Erie, at
Newport, where its hero resided. The events thus commemorated deserve
their eminence in our regard; and patriotic sentiment is excited and
maintained by such observances. Yet in many instances they have dwindled
to a lifeless parade, and in others have become a somewhat invidious
exaggeration of local self-complacency. The latter is the case, for
instance, with the New England Society's annual feast in the commercial
metropolis of the Union. It occasionally tries the patience and vexes the
liberal sentiment of the considerate son of New England, to hear the
reiterated laudation of her schools, her clergy, her women, her codfish,
and her granite, at the hospitable board where sits, perhaps, a venerable
Knickerbocker, conscious that the glib orators and their people have
worked themselves into all places of honour and profit, where the honest
burgomaster used to smoke the pipe of peace and comfort in his generous
portico, his children now superseded by the restless emigrants from the
Eastern States, thus boastfully tracing all that redeems and sustains the
republic to the wisdom, foresight, and moral superiority of their own
peculiar ancestry. The style of the festival is often in bad taste; there
is too little recognition of the hospitality of their adopted home, too
little respect for Manhattan blood; an exuberance of language too
conspicuously triumphant over a race which the best of comic histories
illustrates by the reign of Peter the Silent, so that, at length, a jocose
reproof was administered by the toast of a humorist present, who gave,
with irresistible nasal emphasis,--'Plymouth Rock--the Blarney-stone of
New England.'
It is, however, an appropriate illustration of the cosmopolitan population
of New York, that every year her English, Scotch, Welsh, Irish, French,
German, and Dutch children, after their own fashion, recall their
respective national associations. In point of oratory the New England
Society carries the day, inasmuch as it usually presses into its service
some distinguished speaker from abroad; in geniality, antique customs, and
long-drawn reminiscences, the St. Nicholas excels; at St. Andrew's board
the memory of Burns is revived in song; Monsieur extols his vanished
_Republique_; Welsh harps tinkle at St. David's; 'God save the Queen'
echoes under the banner of St. George; green sprigs and uncouth garments
mark the Irish procession of St. Patrick; and the Germans multiply their
festivals by summer picnics, at which lager-beer, waltzing, and fine
instrumental music recall the gardens of Vienna. 'Thanksgiving-day' is of
Puritan origin, and was designed to combine family reunions with a
grateful recognition of the autumnal harvest. The former beautiful feature
is not as salient now as when the absence of locomotive facilities made it
a rare privilege for the scattered members of a household to come together
around the paternal hearth. The occasion has also diminished in value as
one of clerical emancipation from Sabbath themes, when the preacher could
expatiate unreproved on the questions of the day and the aspects of the
times,--that privilege being now exercised, at will, on the regular day of
weekly religious service. 'Fast-day' has also become anomalous; its
abolition or identification with Good Friday has been repeatedly
advocated; strictly speaking, its title is a misnomer, and the actual
observance of it is too partial and ineffective to have any true
significance.
An old town on the north-eastern extremity of an island, the nearest
approach to which overland is from the southern shore of Cape Cod, was
eagerly visited annually, until within a few years, by those who delight
in primitive character and local festivals. The broad plain beyond the
town was long held in common property by the inhabitants as a
sheep-pasture. It may be that the maritime occupations of the natives,
their insular position and frugal habits, imparted, by contrast, a
singular relish to the rural episode thus secured in their lives of
hazardous toil and dreary absence, as sailors and whalemen; but it is
remarkable that amid the sands of that island flourished one of the
heartiest and most characteristic of New England festivals. Simplicity of
manners, hardihood, frankness, the genial spirit of the mariner, and the
unsophisticated energy and kindliness of the sailor's wife, gave to the
Nantucket 'Sheep-shearing' a rare and permanent freshness and charm.
Unfortunately discord, arising from the conflicting interests of these
primitive islanders, at length made it desirable to restore peace by
sacrificing the flocks--innocent provocations of this domestic feud;--the
sheep were sold, and the unique festival to which they gave occasion
vanished with them. We must turn to that most available resource, an old
newspaper, for a description of this now obsolete holiday:--
'_Sheep-shearing._--This patriarchal festival was celebrated on Monday
and Tuesday last, in this place, with more than ordinary interest. For
some days previous, the sheep-drivers had been busily employed in
collecting from all quarters of the island the dispersed members of
the several flocks; and committing them to the great sheepfold, about
two miles from town, preparatory to the ceremonies of ablution and
_devestment_.
'The principal enclosure contains three hundred acres; towards one
side of this area, and near the margin of a considerable pond, are
four or five circular fences, one within the other--like Captain
Symmes's concentric curves,--and about twenty feet apart, forming a
sort of labyrinth. Into these circuits the sheep are gradually driven,
so as to be designated by their "ear-marks," and secured for their
proper owners in sheepcotes arranged laterally, or nearly so, around
the exterior circle. Contiguous to these smaller pens, each of which
is calculated to contain about one hundred sheep, the respective
owners had erected temporary tents, wherein the operation of shearing
was usually performed. The number of hands engaged in this service may
be imagined from the fact that one gentleman is the owner of about
1,000 sheep, another of 700, and numerous others of smaller flocks,
varying in number from three or four hundred down to a single dozen.
The business of identifying, seizing, and yarding the sheep, creates a
degree of bustle that adds no small amusement to the general activity
of the scene. The whole number of sheep and lambs brought within the
great enclosure is said to be 16,000. There are also several large
flocks commonly sheared at other parts of the island.
'As these are the only important holidays which the inhabitants of
Nantucket have ever been accustomed to observe, it is not to be
marvelled at that all other business should on such occasions be
suspended; and that the labours attendant thereon should be mingled
with a due share of recreation. Accordingly, the fancies of the
juvenile portion of our community are, for a long time prior to the
annual "Shearing," occupied in dreams of fun and schemes of frolic.
With the mind's eye they behold the long array of tents, surmounted
with motley banners flaunting in the breeze, and stored with tempting
titbits, candidates for money and for mastication. With the mind's ear
they distinguish the spirit-stirring screak of the fiddle, the gruff
jangling of the drum, the somniferous _smorzando_ of the jews-harp,
and the enlivening scuffle of little feet in a helter-skelter jig upon
a deal platform. And their visions, unlike those of riper mortals, are
always realized. For be it known, that independent of the preparations
made by persons actually concerned in the mechanical duties of the
day, there are erected on a rising ground in the vicinity of the
sheep-field, some twenty pole and sail-cloth edifices, furnished with
seats, and tables, and casks, and dishes, severally filled with jocund
faces, baked pigs, punch, and cakes, and surrounded with divers
savoury concomitants in the premises, courteously dispensed by the
changeful master of ceremonies, studious of custom and emulous of
cash. For the accommodation of those merry urchins and youngsters who
choose to "trip it on the light fantastic toe," a floor is laid at one
corner, over which presides some African genius of melody, brandishing
a cracked violin, and drawing most moving notes from its agonized
intestines, by dint of griping fingers and right-angled elbows.
'We know of no parallel for this section of the entertainment, other
than what the Boston boys were wont to denominate "Nigger
'Lection,"--so called in contradistinction from "Artillery Election."
At the former anniversary, which is the day on which "who is Governor"
is officially announced, the blacks and blackees are permitted to
perambulate the Mall and Common, to buy gingerbread and beer with the
best of folks, and to mingle in the mysteries of pawpaw. But on the
latter day, when that grave and chivalrous corps, known as the Ancient
and Honourable Artillery Company, parade for choice of
officers,--which officers are to receive their diplomas directly from
the hands of His Excellency the Governor and Commander-in-Chief in
open day, and in the august presence of all sorts of civil and martial
dignitaries,--why, woe to the sable imp that shall _then_ adventure
his woolly poll and tarnished cuticle within the hallowed
neighbourhood of nobility!
'On previous days the sheep had been collected from every quarter of
the island, driven into the great fold at Miacomet (the site of an
ancient Indian settlement, about a mile from town), selected and
identified by their respective owners, placed in separate pens, and
subjected to the somewhat arduous process of _washing_, in the large
pond contiguous. After this preparatory ablution, they were then ready
to "throw off this muddy vesture of decay" by the aid of some hundreds
of shearers, who began to ply their vocation on Monday morning, seated
in rude booths, or beneath umbrageous awnings ranged around the
circular labyrinth of enclosures, wherein the panting animals awaited
the divestment of their uncomfortable jackets. The space partially
occupied by the unshorn sheep and their contented lambs, and in other
spots exhibiting multitudes stripped of their fleece and clamorously
seeking their wandering young, presented to the eye and ear of the
stranger sights and sounds somewhat rare.'
We have sometimes been tempted to believe that all illustrious occasions,
men, and things, in this Republic, must inevitably be profaned,--that, as
a compensatory balance to the 'greatest good of the greatest number,'
secured by democratic institutions, there must exist a sacrifice of the
hallowed, aspiring, and consecrated elements of national feeling and
achievement. If there is an anniversary which should compel respect,
excite eternal gratitude, and win unhackneyed observance, it is that of
the day when, for the first time in the world's history, the select
intelligences of a country proclaimed to the nations, with deliberate and
resolved wisdom, the principles of human equality and the right of
self-government, pledged thereto their lives, fortunes, and honour, and
consistently redeemed the heroically prophetic pledge. Subsequent events
have only deepened the significance of that act, and extended its agency;
every succeeding year has increased its moral value and its material
fruits; the career of other and less happy nations has given more and more
relief to its isolated grandeur; and not a day fraught with more hope and
glory lives in the calendar. Yet what is the actual observance, the
average estimation, it boasts among us? In our large cities, especially in
New York, 'Independence' is, by universal consent, a nuisance. It is most
auspicious to the Chinese, from increasing the importation of
fire-crackers. The municipal authorities provide for it as for a lawless
saturnalia; the fire-department dread its approach as indicative of
conflagrations; physicians, as hazardous to such unfortunate patients as
cannot be removed into the country; quiet citizens, as insufferable from
incessant detonation; the prudent, as fraught with reckless tomfoolery;
and the respectable, as desecrated by rowdyism. John Adams, when he
prophesied that the Fourth of July would be hailed, in all after-time, by
the ringing of bells, the blaze of bonfires, and the roar of cannon, was
far from intending, by this programme of Anglo-Saxon methods of popular
rejoicing, to indicate the exclusive and ultimate style of our national
holiday. On its earlier recurrence, when many of the actors in the scenes
it commemorates still lived, there was an interest and a meaning in the
ceremonies which time has lessened. Yet it is difficult to account for the
absence of all that high civilization presupposes, in the celebration of
our only holiday which can strictly be called national; and if the
sympathies of the most intelligent of our citizens could be enlisted, so
as to make the occasion a genuine patriotic jubilee--instead of a noisy
carnival, or a time for political animosity to assert itself with special
emphasis,--much would be gained on the score of rational enjoyment and
American fraternity. As it is, although the 'Hundred Boston Orators' nobly
vindicate the talent and good taste of one city in regard to this
anniversary, and is a most pleasing historical memorial of the occasion,
it cannot be denied that our usual synonyme for bombast and mere
rhetorical patriotism is 'a Fourth of July Oration,' and that Pickwickian
sentiment, pyrotechnic flashes, torpedoes, arrests, bursting cannon,
draggled flags, crowded steamboats, the retiracy of the educated and the
uproar of the multitude, make up the confused and wearisome details of
what should and might be a sacred feast, a pious memory, a hallowed
consecration, a 'Sabbath day of Freedom.' Perhaps the real zest of this
holiday is felt only abroad, when, under some remote consular flag, at the
board of private and munificent hospitality in London, or at an American
_réunion_ in the French capital, distance from home, the ties of common
nativity in a foreign land, and the contrast of uneducated masses or
despotic insignia around, with the prosperous, free, and enlightened
population of our own favoured country, to say nothing of superior festal
arrangements, render the occasion at once charming and memorable.