"Horace Smith's two daughters are still living, and in Brighton. Their
very pleasant house is frequented by the best and most interesting
kind of society, affording what may be called a _salon_, that rare
relic of ancient literary taste and cementer of literary intimacies--a
salon which the cultivated consider it a privilege to frequent, and
where these ladies receive with a grace and geniality which their
friends know how to appreciate. It is much to be regretted that
gatherings of this description seem to be becoming rarer every year,
for as death disturbs them society seems to lack the spirit or the
good taste, or the ability, to replace them."
Brighton is a very pleasant place, because it combines the advantages of
a seaside resort with those of a clean and cheerful city. Walking along
the front, you have a brave outlook to the blue sea on one hand, and
elegant shop-windows and fine hotels on the other. A little back in the
town on a hill is the fine old fifteenth-century church of St. Nicholas,
in which there is perhaps the most curious carved Norman font in England;
but all this is known to so few visitors, that I feel as if I were
telling a great secret in letting it out. Smith's book-store on the
Western Road, and Bohn's near the station, are kept by very well-informed
and very courteous men. I have been much indebted to the former in many
ways, and found by his aid many a greatly needed and rare work.
When I first went to Brighton there was one evening a brilliant aurora
borealis. As I looked at it, I heard an Englishman say, to my great
amazement, it was the first time he had ever seen one in his life! I
once saw one in America of such extraordinary brilliancy and duration,
that it prolonged the daylight for half an hour or more, till I became
amazed, and then found it was a Northern Light. It lasted till sunrise
in all its splendour. I have taken down from Algonkin Indians several
beautiful legends relating to them. In one, the Milky Way is the girdle
of a stupendous deity, and the Northern Lights the splendid gleams
emitted by his ball when playing. In another, the narrator describes him
as clad in an ineffable glory of light, and in colours unknown on earth!
And this reminds me further that I have just read in the newspapers of
the death of Edwin Booth, who was born during the famous star shower of
1833, which phenomenon I witnessed from beginning to end, and remember as
if it were only yesterday. Now, I was actually dreaming that I was in a
room in which _cigars_ were flying about in every direction, when my
father came and woke me and my brother Henry, to come and see an
exceeding great marvel. There were for a long time many thousands of
stars at once in the sky, all shooting, as it were, or converging towards
a centre. They were not half so long as the meteors which we see; one or
two had a crook or bend in the middle, _e.g._
{The meteor pattern: p409.jpg}
The next day I was almost alone at school in the glory of having seen it,
for so few people were awake in sober Philadelphia at three in the
morning that one of the newspapers ridiculed the whole story.
I can distinctly recall that the next day, at Mr. Alcott's, I read
through a very favourite work of mine, a translation of the German _Das
Mahrchen ohne Ende_--"The Story without an End."
All kinds of odd fish came to Brighton, floating here and there; but two
of the very oddest were encountered by me in it on my last visit. I was
looking into a chemist's window, when two well-dressed and decidedly
jolly feminines, one perhaps of thirty years, and the other much younger
and quite pretty, paused by me, while the elder asked--
"Are you looking for a hair-restorer?"
"I am not, though I fear I need one much more than you do."
"The search for a good hair-restorer," she replied in Italian, "is as
vain as the search for happiness."
"True," I answered in the same tongue, "and unless you have the happiness
in you, or a beautiful head of hair like yours already growing on you,
you will find neither."
"What we _forget_," added the younger in Spanish, "is the best part of
our happiness."
"_Senorita_, _parece que no ha olvidado su Espanol_--The young lady
appears not to have forgotten her Spanish--I replied. (Mine is not very
good.)
"There is no use asking whether _you_ talk French," said the elder.
"_Konnen Sie auch Deutsch sprechen_?"
"_Ja wohl_! Even worse than German itself," I answered.
Just then there came up to us a gypsy girl whom I knew, with a basket of
flowers, and asked me in Gypsy to buy some; but I said, "_Parraco pen_,
_ja vri_, _mandy kams kek ruzhia kedivvus_"--Thank you, sister, no
flowers to-day--and she darted away.
"Did you understand _that_?" I inquired.
"No; what was it?"
"_Gitano_--gypsy."
"But how in Heaven's name," cried the girl, "could she _know_ that _you_
spoke Gitano?"
"Because I am," I replied slowly and grimly, "the chief of all the
gypsies in England, the _boro Romany rye_ and President of the Gypsy
Society. Subscription one pound per annum, which entitles you to receive
the journal for one year, and includes postage. Behold in me the gypsy
king, whom all know and fear! I shall be happy to put your names down as
subscribers."
At this appalling announcement, which sounded like an extract from a
penny dreadful, my two romantic friends looked absolutely bewildered.
They seemed as if they had read in novels how mysterious gypsy chiefs
cast aside their cloaks, revealing themselves to astonished maidens, and
as I had actually spoken Gitano to a gypsy in their hearing, it must be
so. They had come for wool with all their languages, poor little souls!
and gone back shorn. The elder said something about their having just
come to Brighton for six hours' frolic, and so they departed. They had
had their spree.
I have often wondered what under the sun they could have been. Attaches
of an opera company--ladies'-maids who had made the grand tour--who
knows? A mad world, my masters!
I can recall of that first year, as of many since at Brighton, long
breezy walks on the brow of the chalk cliffs, looking out at the blue sea
white capped, or at the downs rolling inland to Newport, sometimes alone,
at times in company. On all this chalk the grass does not grow to more
than an inch or so in length, and as the shortest, tenderest food is best
for sheep, it is on this that they thrive--I believe by millions--yielding
the famous South Downs mutton. In or on this grass are incredible
numbers of minute snails, which the sheep are said to devour; in fact, I
do not see how they could eat the grass without taking them in, and these
contribute to give the mutton its delicate flavour. Snails are curious
beings. Being epicene, they conduct their wooings on the mutual give and
take principle, which would save human beings a great deal of spasmodic
flirtation, and abolish the whole _femme incomprise_ business, besides a
great many bad novels, if we could adopt it. When winter comes, half-a-
dozen of them retire into a hole in a bank, connect themselves firmly
into a loving band like a bunch of grapes by the tenderest ties, and stay
there till spring. Finally, in folk-lore the snail is an uncanny or
demoniac being, because it has horns. Its shell is an amulet, and the
presentation of one by a lady to a gentleman is a very decided
declaration of love, especially in Germany. _Sed mittamus haec_.
At this time, and for some time to come, I was engaged in collecting and
correcting a book of poems of a more serious character than the
"Breitmann Ballads." This was "The Music Lesson of Confucius and other
Poems." Of which book I can say truly that it had a _succes d'estime_,
though it had a very small sale. There were in it ten or twelve ballads
only which were adapted to singing, and _all_ of these were set to music
by Carlo Pinsutti, Virginia Gabriel, or others. There was in it a poem
entitled "On Mount Meru." In this the Creator is supposed to show the
world when it was first made to Satan. The adversary finds that all is
fit and well, save "the being called Man," who seems to him to be the
worst and most incongruous. To which the Demiurgus replies that Man will
in the end conquer all things, even the devil himself. And at the last
the demon lies dying at the feet of God, and confesses that "Man, thy
creature hath vanquished me for ever--_Vicisti Galilaee_!" Some years
after I read a work by a French writer in which this same idea of God and
the devil is curiously carried out and illustrated by the history of
architecture. And as in the case of the letter from Lord Lytton Bulwer,
warm praise from other persons of high rank in the literary world and
reviews, I had many proofs that these poems had made a favourable
impression. The only exception which I can recall was a very sarcastic
review in the _Athenaeum_, in which the writer declared his belief that
the poems or Legends of Perfumes in the book were originally written as
advertisements of some barber or tradesman, and being by him rejected as
worthless, had been thrown back on my hands! Other works by me it
treated kindly--so it goes in this world--like a recipe for a cement
which I have just copied into my great work on "Mending and Repairing"--in
which vinegar is combined with sugar.
While at Brighton we met Louis Blanc, whom we had previously seen several
times at the Trubners', in London. In Brighton he heard the news of the
overthrow of the Empire and departed for Paris. At Christmas we went to
London to visit the Trubners, and thence to the Langham Hotel, where we
remained till July. I recall very little of what I witnessed or did
beyond seeing the Queen prorogue Parliament and translating Scheffel's
_Gaudeamus_, a little volume of German humorous poems. Scheffel, as I
have before written, was an old _Mitkneipant_, or evening-beer companion
of mine in Heidelberg.
In July we made up a travelling party with Mrs. S. Laing and her
daughters Cecilia and Floy, and departed for a visit to the Rhine--that
is to say, these ladies preceded us, and we joined them at the Hotel des
Quatre Saisons in Homburg. It was a very brilliant season, for the
German Emperor, fresh with the glory of his great victory, was being
_feted_ everywhere, and Homburg the brilliant was not behind the German
world in this respect. I saw the great man frequently, near and far, and
was much impressed with his appearance. _Punch_ had not long before
represented him as Hans Breitmann in a cartoon, deploring that he had not
squeezed more milliards out of the French, and I indeed found in the
original very closely my ideal of Hans, who always occurs to me as a
German gentleman, who drinks, fights, and plunders, not as a mere rowdy,
raised above his natural sphere, but as a rough cavalier. And that the
great-bearded giant Emperor Wilhelm did drink heavily, fight hard, and
mulct France mightily, is matter of history. This was the last year of
the gaming-tables at Homburg. Apropos of these, the roulette-table was
placed in the Homburg Museum, where it may be seen amid many Roman
relics. Two or three years ago, while I was in the room, there came in a
small party of English or Yankee looking or gazing tourists, to whom the
attendant pointed out the roulette-table. "And did the old Romans really
play at roulette, and was _that_ one of their tables?" said the leader of
the visitors. This ready simple faith indicates the Englishman. The
ordinary American is always possessed with the conviction that everything
antique is a forgery. Once when I was examining the old Viking armour in
the Museum of Copenhagen, a Yankee, in whose face a general vulgar
distrust of all earthly things was strongly marked, came up to me and
asked, "Do you believe that all these curiosities air _genooine_?" "I
certainly do," I replied. With an intensely self-satisfied air he
rejoined, "I guess you can't fool _me_ with no such humbug."
There was a great deal of cholera that year in Germany, and I had a very
severe attack of it either in an incipient form or something thereunto
allied: suffice it to say that for twelve hours I almost thought I should
die of pure pain. I took in vain laudanum, cayenne pepper, brandy,
camphor, and kino--nothing would remain. At last, at midnight, when I
was beginning to despair, or just as I felt like being wrecked, I
succeeded in keeping a little weak laudanum and water on my stomach, and
then the point was cleared. After that I took the other remedies, and
was soon well. But it was a crisis of such fearful suffering that it all
remains vividly impressed on my memory. I do not know whether any
sensible book has ever been written on the moral influence of pain, but
it is certain that a wonderful one might be. So far as I can understand
it, I think that in the vast majority of cases it is an evil, or one of
Nature's innumerable mistakes or divagations, not as yet outgrown or
corrected; and it is the great error of Buddhistic-Christianity that it
_accepts_ pain not merely as inevitable, but glorifies and increases it,
instead of making every conceivable exertion to _diminish_ it. Herein
clearly lies the difference between Science and Religion. Science
strives in every way to alleviate pain and suffering; erroneous
"Religion" is based on it. During the Middle Ages, the Church did all in
its power to hinder, if not destroy, the healing art. It made anatomy of
the human body a crime, and carried its precautions so far that, quite
till the Reformation, the art of healing (as Paracelsus declares) was
chiefly in the hands of witches and public executioners. _Torturers_,
chiefly clergymen such as Grillandus, were in great honour, while the
healing leech was disreputable. It was not, as people say, "the age"
which caused all this--it was the result of religion based on crucifixion
and martyrdoms and pain--in fact, on that element of _torture_ which we
are elsewhere taught, most inconsistently, is the special province of the
devil in hell. The _cant_ of this still survives in Longfellow's "Suffer
and be strong," and in the pious praise of endurance of pain. What the
world wants is the hope held out to it, or enforced on it as a religion
or conviction, that pain and suffering are to be diminished, and that our
chief duty should consist in diminishing them, instead of always praising
or worshipping them as a cross!
We left our friends and went for a short time to Switzerland, where we
visited Lucerne, Interlaken, Basle, and Berne. Thence we returned to
London and the Langham Hotel. This was at that time under the management
of Mr. John Sanderson, an American, whom I had known of old. He was a
brother of Professor Sanderson, of Philadelphia, who wrote a remarkably
clever work entitled _The American in Paris_. John Sanderson himself had
contributed many articles to Appletons' _Cyclopaedia_, belonged to the
New York Century Club, and, like all the members of his family, had
culture in music and literary taste. While he managed the Langham it was
crowded during all the year, as indeed any decent hotel almost anywhere
may be by simple proper liberal management. This is a subject which I
have studied _au fond_, having read _Das Hotel wesen der Gegenwart_, a
very remarkable work, and passed more than twenty years of my life in
hotels in all countries.
I can remember that during the first year of my residence in England I
tried to persuade a chemist to import from South America the _coca_ leaf,
of which not an ounce was then consumed in Europe. Weston the walker
brought it into fashion "later on." I had heard extraordinary and
authentic accounts of its enabling Indian messengers to run all day from
a friend who had employed them. Apropos of this, "I do recall a wondrous
pleasant tale." My cousin, Godfrey Davenport, a son of the Uncle Seth
mentioned in my earlier life, owned what was regarded as the model
plantation of Louisiana. My brother Henry visited him one winter, and
while there was kindly treated by a very genial, hospitable neighbouring
planter, whom I afterwards met at my father's house in Philadelphia. He
was a good-looking, finely-formed man, lithe and active as a panther--the
_replica_ of Albert Pike's "fine Arkansas gentleman." And here I would
fain disquisit on Pike, but type and time are pressing. Well, this
gentleman had one day a difference of opinion with another planter, who
was, like himself, a great runner, and drawing his bowie knife, pursued
him on the run, _twenty-two miles_, ere he "got" his victim. The
distance was subsequently measured and verified by the admiring
neighbours, who put up posts in commemoration of such an unparalleled
pedestrian feat.
When I returned to Brighton, after getting into lodgings, I began to
employ or amuse myself in novel fashion. Old Gentilla Cooper, the gypsy,
had an old brother named Matthias, a full-blood Romany, of whom all his
people spoke as being very eccentric and wild, but who had all his life a
fancy for picking up the old "Egyptian" tongue. I engaged him to come to
me two or three times a week, at half-a-crown a visit, to give me lessons
in it. As he had never lived in houses, and, like Regnar Lodbrog, had
never slept under a fixed roof, unless when he had taken a nap in a
tavern or stable, and finally, as his whole life had been utterly that of
a gypsy in the roads, at fairs, or "by wood and wold as outlaws wont to
do," I found him abundantly original and interesting. And as on account
of his eccentricity and amusing gifts he had always been welcome in every
camp or tent, and was watchful withal and crafty, there was not a phase,
hole, or corner of gypsy life or a member of the fraternity with which or
whom he was not familiar. I soon learned his jargon, with every kind of
gypsy device, dodge, or peculiar custom, and, with the aid of several
works, succeeded in drawing from the recesses of his memory an
astonishing number of forgotten words. Thus, to begin with, I read to
him aloud the Turkish Gypsy Dictionary of Paspati. When he remembered or
recognised a word, or it recalled another, I wrote it down. Then I went
through the vocabularies of Liebrich, Pott, Simson, &c., and finally
through Brice's Hindustani Dictionary and the great part of a much larger
work, and one in Persian. The reader may find most of the results of
Matty's teaching in my work entitled "The English Gypsies and their
Language." Very often I went with my professor to visit the gypsies
camped about Brighton, far or near, and certainly never failed to amuse
myself and pick up many quaint observations. In due time I passed to
that singular state when I could never walk a mile or two in the country
anywhere without meeting or making acquaintance with some wanderer on the
highways, by use of my newly-acquired knowledge. Thus, I needed only
say, "Seen any of the Coopers or Bosvilles lately on the drum?" (road),
or "Do you know Sam Smith?" &c., to be recognised as one of the grand
army in some fashion. Then it was widely rumoured that the Coopers had
got a _rye_, or master, who spoke Romany, and was withal not ungenerous,
so that in due time there was hardly a wanderer of gypsy kind in Southern
England who had not heard of me. And though there are thousands of
people who are more thoroughly versed in Society than I am, I do not
think there are many so much at home in such extremely _varied_ phases of
it as I have been. I have sat in a gypsy camp, like one of them, hearing
all their little secrets and talking familiarly in Romany, and an hour
after dined with distinguished people; and this life had many other
variations, and they came daily for many years. My gypsy experiences
have not been so great as those of Francis H. Groome (once a pupil and
_protege_ of Benfey), or the Grand Duke Josef of Hungary, or of Dr.
Wlislocki, but next after these great masters, and as an all-round gypsy
rye in many lands, I believe that I am not far behind any _aficionado_
who has as yet manifested himself.
To become intimate, as I did in time, during years in Brighton, off and
on, with all the gypsies who roamed the south of England, to be beloved
of the old fortune-tellers and the children and mothers as I was, and to
be much in tents, involves a great deal of strangely picturesque rural
life, night-scenes by firelight, in forests and by river-banks, and
marvellously odd reminiscences of other days. There was a gypsy child
who knew me so well that the very first words she could speak were "_O
'omany 'i_" (O Romany rye), to the great delight of her parents.
After a little while I found that the _Romany_ element was spread
strangely and mysteriously round about among the rural population in many
ways. I went one day with Francis H. Groome to Cobham Fair. As I was
about to enter a tavern, there stood near by three men whose faces and
general appearance had nothing of the gypsy, but as I passed one said to
the other so that I could hear--
"_Dikk adovo rye_, _se o Romany rye_, _yuv_, _tacho_!" (Look at that
gentleman; he is a gypsy gentleman, sure!)
I naturally turned my head hearing this, when he burst out laughing, and
said--
"I told you I'd make him look round."
Once I was startled at hearing a well-dressed, I may say a gentlemanly-
looking man, seated in a gig with a fine horse stopping by the road, say,
as I passed with my wife--
"_Dikk adovo gorgio adoi_!" (Look at that Gentile, of no-gypsy!)
Not being accustomed to hear myself called a _gorgio_, I glanced up at
him angrily, when he, perceiving that I understood him and was of the
mysterious brotherhood, smiled, and touched his hat to me. One touch of
nature makes the whole world grin.
But the drollest proposal ever made to me in serious earnest came from
that indomitable incarnate old _gypssissimus Tsingarorum_, Matthew
Cooper, who proposed that I should buy a donkey. He knew where to get
one for a pound, but 2 pounds 10s. would buy a "stunner." He would
borrow a small cart and a tent, and brown my face and hands so that I
would be dark enough, and then on the _drum_--"over the hills." As for
all the expenses of the journey, I need not spend anything, for he could
provide a neat nut-brown maid, who would not only do all our cooking, but
earn money enough by fortune-telling to support us all. I would be
expected, however, to greatly aid by my superior knowledge of ladies and
gentlemen; and so all would go merrily on, with unlimited bread and
cheese, bacon and ale, and tobacco--into the blue away!