Among other early recollections is a visit with my mother to the
plantation of a favorite cousin, not far from Richmond, and one
of the handsomest seats on James river. This residence--Howard's
Neck--was a favorite resort for people from Richmond and the adjacent
counties; and, like many others on the river, always full of guests--a
round of visiting and dinner parties being kept up from one house
to another,--so that the ladies presiding over these establishments
had no time to attend to domestic duties, which were left to their
housekeepers, while they were employed entertaining visitors.
The negroes on the these estates appeared lively and happy; that is,
if singing and laughing indicates happiness; for they went to their
work in the fields singing, and returned in the evening singing, after
which they often spent the whole night visiting from one plantation to
another, or dancing until day to the music of the banjo or "fiddle."
These dances were wild and boisterous, their evolutions being like
those of the savage dances, described by travelers in Africa. Although
the most perfect timists, their music with its wild, melancholy
cadence, half savage, half civilized, can not be imitated or described.
Many a midnight were we wakened by their wild choruses, sung as they
returned from a frolic or "corn shucking," sounding at first like some
hideous, savage yell, but dying away on the air, echoing a cadence
melancholy and indescribable, with a peculiar pathos, and yet without
melody or sweetness.
"Corn shuckings" were occasions of great hilarity and good eating.
The negroes from various plantations assembled at night around a huge
pile of corn. Selecting one among them, the most original, amusing and
having the loudest voice, they called him "Captain." The "Captain"
seated himself on top of the pile--a large lightwood torch burning in
front of him--and while he shucked improvised words and music to a
wild "recitative," the chorus of which was "caught up" by the army of
"shuckers" around. The glare of the torches on the black faces, with
the wild music and impromptu words, made a scene curious even to us who
were so accustomed to it.
After the corn was shucked they assembled around a table laden with
roast pigs, mutton, beef, hams, cakes, pies, coffee, and other
substantials--many participating in the supper who had not in the work.
The laughing and merriment continued until one or two o'clock in the
morning.
* * * * *
On these James river plantations were entertained often distinguished
foreigners, who visiting Richmond desired to see something of Virginia
country life. Mr. Thackeray was once entertained at one of them. But
Dickens never visited them. Could he have passed a month, at any one
of the homes I have described, he would have written something more
flattering, I am sure, of Americans and American life than is found
in "Martin Chuzzlewit" and "Notes on America." However, with these we
should not quarrel, as some of the sketches--especially the one on
"tobacco chewers," we can recognize.
Every nation has a right to its prejudices--certainly the English
towards the American--America appearing to the English eye a huge
mushroom affair, the growth of a night and unsubstantial. But it is
surely wrong to censure a whole nation--as some have done the Southern
people--for the faults of a few. For although every nation has a right
to its prejudices, none has a right, without thorough examination and
acquaintance with the subject, to seize a few exaggerated accounts, of
another nation by its enemies, and publish them as facts. The world in
this way receives very erroneous impressions.
For instance, we have no right to suppose the Germans a cruel race
because of the following paragraph clipped from a recent newspaper:
"The cruelty of German officers is a matter of notoriety, but an
officer in an artillery regiment has lately gone beyond precedent in
ingenuity of cruelty. Some of his men being insubordinate, he punished
them by means of a 'spurring process,' which consisted in jabbing spurs
persistently and brutally into their legs. By this process his men were
so severely injured they had to go to the hospital."
Neither have we a right to pronounce all Pennsylvanians cruel to their
"helps," as they call them, because a Pennsylvania lady told me "the
only way she could manage her 'help'"--a white girl fourteen years
old--"was by holding her head under the pump and pumping water upon it
until she lost her breath;" a process I could not have conceived, and
which filled me with horror.
But sorrow and oppression, we suppose, may be found in some form in
every clime; and in every phase of existence some hearts are "weary and
heavy laden." Even Dickens, whose mind naturally sought, and fed upon,
the comic, saw wrong and oppression in the "humane institutions" of his
own land!
And Macaulay gives a painful picture of Madam D'Arblay's life as
waiting maid to Queen Charlotte--from which we are not to infer,
however, that all Queens are cruel to their waiting maids.
Madam D'Arblay--whose maiden name was Frances Burney--was the first
female novelist in England, who deserved and received the applause
of her countrymen. The most eminent men of London paid homage to her
genius. Johnson, Burke, Windham, Gibbon, Reynolds, Sheridan, were
her friends and ardent eulogists. In the midst of her literary fame,
surrounded by congenial friends, herself a star in this select and
brilliant coterie, she was offered the place of waiting maid in the
palace. She accepted the position, and bade farewell to all congenial
friends and pursuits. "And now began," says Macaulay, "a slavery of
five years--of five years taken from the best part of her life, and
wasted in menial drudgery. The history of an ordinary day was this:
Miss Burney had to rise and dress herself early, that she might be
ready to answer the royal bell, which rang at half after seven. Till
about eight she attended in the Queen's dressing-room, and had the
honor of lacing her august mistress' stays, and of putting on the
hoop, gown and neckhandkerchief. The morning was chiefly spent in
rummaging drawers and laying fine clothes in their proper places. Then
the Queen was to be powdered and dressed for the day. Twice a week her
Majesty's hair had to be curled and craped; and this operation added a
full hour to the business of the toilet. It was generally three before
Miss Burney was at liberty. At five she had to attend her colleague,
Madame Schwellenberg, a hateful old toadeater, as illiterate as a
chamber-maid, proud, rude, peevish, unable to bear solitude, unable to
conduct herself with common decency in society. With this delightful
associate Frances Burney had to dine and pass the evening. The pair
generally remained together from five to eleven, and often had no other
company the whole time. Between eleven and twelve the bell rang again.
Miss Burney had to pass a half hour undressing the Queen, and was then
at liberty to retire.
"Now and then, indeed, events occurred which disturbed the wretched
monotony of Frances Burney's life. The court moved from Kew to Windsor,
and from Windsor back to Kew.
"A more important occurrence was the King's visit to Oxford. Then Miss
Burney had the honor of entering Oxford in the last of a long string
of carriages, which formed the royal procession, of walking after the
Queen all day through refectories and chapels, and of standing half
dead with fatigue and hunger, while her august mistress was seated at
an excellent cold collation. At Magdalen College, Frances was left for
a moment in a parlor, where she sank down on a chair. A good natured
equerry saw that she was exhausted, and shared with her some apricots
and bread, which he had wisely put in his pockets. At that moment the
door opened, the Queen entered, the wearied attendants sprang up, the
bread and fruit were hastily concealed.
"After this the King became very ill, and during more than two years
after his recovery Frances dragged on a miserable existence at the
palace. Madame Schwellenberg became more and more insolent and
intolerable, and now the health of poor Frances began to give way; and
all who saw her pale face, her emaciated figure and her feeble walk,
predicted that her sufferings would soon be over.
"The Queen seems to have been utterly regardless of the _comfort_, the
_health_, the _life_ of her attendants. Weak, feverish, hardly able to
stand, Frances had still to rise before seven, in order to dress the
sweet Queen, and sit up 'till midnight, in order to undress the sweet
Queen. The indisposition of the handmaid could not, and _did not escape
the notice of_ her royal mistress. But the _established doctrine of the
court was, that all sickness_ was to be _considered as a pretence until
it proved fatal_. The only way in which the invalid could clear herself
from the suspicion of malingering, as it is called in the army, was
to go on lacing and unlacing, _'till she felt down dead at the royal
feet_."
Finally Miss Burney's father pays her a visit in this palace prison
when "she told him that she was miserable, that she was worn with
attendance and want of sleep, that she had no comfort in life, nothing
to love, nothing to hope, that her family and friends were to her
as though they were not, and were remembered by her as men remember
the dead. From daybreak to midnight the same killing labor, the same
recreation, more hateful than labor itself, followed each other without
variety, without any interval of liberty or repose."
Her father's veneration for royalty amounting to idolatry, he could not
bear to remove her from the court--"and, between the dear father and
the sweet Queen, there seemed to be little doubt that some day or other
Frances _would drop down a corpse_. Six months had elapsed since the
interview between the parent and the daughter. The resignation was not
sent in. The sufferer grew worse and worse. She took bark, but it soon
failed to produce a beneficial effect. She was stimulated with wine;
she was soothed with opium, but in vain. Her breath began to fail. The
whisper that she was in a decline spread through the court. The pains
in her side became so severe that she was forced to crawl from the card
table of the old fury, Madame Schwellenberg, to whom she was tethered,
three or four times in an evening, for the purpose of taking hartshorn.
Had she been a negro slave, a humane planter would have excused her
from work. But her Majesty showed no mercy. Thrice a day the accursed
bell still rang; the Queen was still to be dressed for the morning at
seven, and to be dressed for the day at noon, and to be undressed at
midnight."
At last Miss Burney's father was moved to compassion and allowed her
to write a letter of resignation. "Still I could not," writes Miss
Burney in her diary, "summon courage to present my memorial from seeing
the Queen's entire freedom from such an expectation. For though I was
frequently so ill in her presence that I could hardly stand, I saw she
concluded me, while life remained, inevitably hers."
"At last, with a trembling hand, the paper was delivered. Then came the
storm. Madame Schwellenberg raved like a maniac. The resignation was
not accepted. The father's fears were aroused, and he declared, in a
letter meant to be shown to the Queen, that his daughter must retire.
The Schwellenberg raged like a wild cat. A scene almost horrible ensued.
"The Queen then promised that, after the next birthday, Miss Burney
should be set at liberty. But the promise was ill kept; and her Majesty
showed displeasure at being reminded of it."
At length, however, the prison door was opened, and Frances was free
once more. Her health was restored by traveling, and she returned to
London in health and spirits. Macaulay tells us that she went to visit
the palace, "her _old dungeon, and found her successor already far
on the way to the grave, and kept to strict duty, from morning till
midnight, with a sprained ankle and a nervous fever_."
An ignorant and unlettered woman would doubtless not have found this
life in the palace tedious, and our sympathy would not have been
aroused for her; for as long as the earth lasts there must be human
beings fitted for every station, and it is supposed, till the end of
all things, there must be cooks, housemaids and dining-room servants,
which will make it never possible for the whole human family to stand
entirely upon the same platform socially and intellectually. And Miss
Burney's wretchedness, which calls forth our sympathy, was not because
she had to perform the duties of waiting-maid, but because to a gifted
and educated woman these duties were uncongenial; and congeniality
means _happiness_; uncongeniality _unhappiness_.