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THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._
VOL. XVII.--APRIL, 1866.--NO. CII.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
to the end of the article.
LAST DAYS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
PART I.
When, in October, 1864, the European steamer brought us the intelligence
of Walter Savage Landor's death, which occurred the month previous at
Florence, newspaper readers asked, "Who is Landor?" The few who remember
him remotely through the medium of Mr. Hillard's selections from his
writings exclaimed, "What! Did he not die long ago?" The half-dozen
Americans really familiar with this author knew that the fire of a
genius unequalled in its way had gone out. Two or three, who were
acquainted with the man even better than with his books, sighed, and
thanked God! They thanked God that the old man's prayer had at last been
answered, and that the curtain had been drawn on a life which in reality
terminated ten years before, when old age became more than ripe. But
Landor's walk into the dark valley was slow and majestic. Death fought
long and desperately before he could claim his victim; and it was not
until the last three years that body and mind grew thoroughly apathetic.
"I have lost my intellect," said Landor, nearly two years ago: "for this
I care not; but alas! I have lost my teeth and cannot eat!" Was it not
time for him to go?
"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
The glory of old age ceases when second childishness and oblivion begin;
therefore we thanked God for His goodness in taking the lonely old man
home.
Long as was Landor's life and literary career, little is known of him
personally. There are glimpses of him in Lady Blessington's Memoirs; and
Emerson, in his "English Traits," describes two interviews with him in
1843 at his Florentine villa. "I found him noble and courteous, living
in a cloud of pictures.... I had inferred from his books, or magnified
from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath,--an untamable
petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but
certainly on this May-day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind, and he
was the most patient and gentle of hosts." According to the world's
opinion, it was not always "May-day" with Landor, for the world neither
preaches nor practices that rarity, human charity. Its instinct is a
species of divining-rod, the virtue of which seems to be limited to a
fatal facility in discovering frailty. Great men and women live in glass
houses, and what passer-by can resist the temptation to throw stones? Is
it generous, or even just, in scoffers who are safely hidden behind
bricks and mortar, to take advantage of the glass? Could they show a
nobler record if subjected to equally close scrutiny? Worshippers, too,
at the shrines of inspiration are prone to look for ideal lives in their
elect, forgetting that the divine afflatus is, after all, a gift,--that
great thoughts are not the daily food of even the finest intellects. It
is a necessity of nature for valleys to lie beneath the lofty mountain
peaks that daringly pierce the sky; and it would seem as though the
artist-temperament, after rising to sublime heights of ecstasy, plunged
into corresponding depths, showing thereby the supremacy of the man over
the god. Then is there much sighing and shaking of heads at the failings
of genius, whereas genius in its depths sinks no lower than the ordinary
level of mankind. It simply proves its title-deeds to mortality.
Humanity at best is weak, and can only be divine by flashes. The Pythia
was a stupid old woman, saving when she sat upon the tripod. Seeing
genius to the best advantage in its work,--not always, but most
frequently,--they are wisest who love the artist without demanding
personal perfection. It is rational to conclude that the loftiest
possible genius should be allied to the most perfect specimen of man,
heart holding equal sway with head. A great man, however, need not be a
great artist,--that is, of course, understood; but time ought to prove
that the highest form of art can only emanate from the noblest type of
humanity. The most glorious inspirations must flow through the purest
channels. But this is the genius of the future, as far removed from what
is best known as order is removed from chaos. The genius most familiar
is not often founded on common sense; the _plus_ of one faculty denotes
the _minus_ of another; and matter-of-fact people, who rule the
world,--as they should,--and who have never dreamed of an inclination
from the perpendicular, bestow little patience and less sympathy on
vagaries, moral and mental, than, partly natural, are aggravated by that
"capacity for joy" which "admits temptation."
Landor's characteristic fault, in fact his vice, was that of a temper so
undisciplined and impulsive as to be somewhat hurricanic in its
consequences, though, not unlike the Australian boomerang, it frequently
returned whence it came, and injured no one but the possessor.
Circumstances aggravated, rather than diminished, this Landorian
idiosyncrasy. Born in prosperity, heir to a large landed estate, and
educated in aristocratic traditions, Walter Savage Landor began life
without a struggle, and throughout a long career remained master of the
situation, independent of the world and its favors. Perhaps too much
freedom is as unfortunate in its results upon character as too much
dependence. A nature to be properly developed should receive as well as
give; otherwise it must be an angelic disposition that does not become
tyrannical. All animated nature is despotic, the strong preying upon the
weak. If men and women do not devour one another, it is merely because
they dare not. The law of self-preservation prevents them from becoming
anthropophagi. A knowledge that the eater may in his turn be eaten, is
not appetizing. Materially and professionally successful, possessed of a
physique that did honor to his ancestors and Nature, no shadows fell on
Landor's path to chasten his spirit. Trials he endured of a private
nature grievous in the extreme, yet calculated to harden rather than
soften the heart,--trials of which others were partially the cause, and
which probably need not have been had his character been understood and
rightly dealt with. There is a soothing system for men as well as
horses,--even for human Cruisers,--and the Rarey who reduces it to a
science will deserve the world's everlasting gratitude. Powerful natures
are likely to be as strong in their weaknesses as in their virtues;
this, however, is a reckoning entirely too rational to be largely
indulged in by the packed jury that holds inquest over the bodies,
rather than the souls, of men. In his old age at least, Landor's
irascibility amounted to temporary madness, for which he was no more
responsible than is the sick man for the feverish ravings of delirium.
That miserable law-suit at Bath, which has done so much to drag the name
of Landor into the mire, would never have been prosecuted had its
instigators had any respect for themselves or any decent appreciation of
their victim.
But Landor in his best moods was chivalry incarnate. His courtly manners
toward ladies were particularly noticeable from the rarity of so much
external polish in the new school of Anglo-Saxon gallantry. It was a
pleasure to receive compliments from him; for they generally lay
imbedded in the _sauce piquante_ of a _bon mot_. Having one day dropped
his spectacles, which were picked up and presented to him by an American
girl, Landor quickly exclaimed, with a grace not to be translated into
words, "Ah, this is not the first time you have caught my eyes!" It was
to the same young lady that he addressed this heretofore unpublished
poem:--
"TO K. F.
"Kisses in former times I've seen,
Which, I confess it, raised my spleen;
They were contrived by Love to mock
The battledoor and shuttlecock.
Given, returned,--how strange a play,
Where neither loses all the day,
And both are, even when night sets in,
Again as ready to begin!
I am not sure I have not played
This very game with some fair maid.
Perhaps it was a dream; but this
I _know_ was not; I _know_ a kiss
Was given me in the sight of more
Than ever saw me kissed before.
Modest as winged angels are,
And no less brave and no less fair,
She came across, nor greatly feared,
The horrid brake of wintry beard.
"WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
"Sienna, July, 1860."
The following papers, in so far as they relate to Landor personally, are
not reminiscences of him in the zenith of fame. They contain glimpses of
the old man of Florence in the years 1859, 1860, and 1861, just before
the intellectual light began to flicker and go out. Even then Landor was
cleverer, and, provided he was properly approached, more interesting
than many younger men of genius. I shall ever esteem it one of the great
privileges of my life that I was permitted to know him well, and call
him friend. These papers are given to the public with the hope that they
may be of more than ordinary interest to the intelligent reader, and
that they may delineate Landor in more truthful colors than those in
which he has heretofore been painted. In repeating conversations, I have
endeavored to stand in the background, where I very properly belong. For
the inevitable egotism of the personal pronoun, I hope to be pardoned by
all charitable souls. That Landor, the octogenarian, has not been
photographed by a more competent person, is certainly not my fault.
Having had the good fortune to enjoy opportunities beyond my deserts, I
should have shown a great want of appreciation had I not availed myself
of them. If, in referring to Landor, I avoid the prefix "Mr.," it is
because I feel, with Lady Blessington, that "there are some people, and
he is of those, whom one cannot designate as 'Mr.' I should as soon
think of adding the word to his name, as, in talking of some of the
great writers of old, to prefix it to theirs."
It was a modest house in a modest street that Landor inhabited during
the last six years of his life. Tourists can have no recollection of the
_Via Nunziatina_, directly back of the "Carmine" in the old part of
Florence; but there is no loving lounger about those picturesque streets
that does not remember how, strolling up the _Via dei Seragli_, one
encounters the old shrine to the Madonna, which marks the entrance to
that street made historical henceforth for having sheltered a great
English writer. There, half-way down the _via_, in that little two-story
_casa_, No. 2671, dwelt Walter Savage Landor, with his English
housekeeper and _cameriera_. Sitting-room, bed-room, and dining-room
opened into each other; and in the former he was always found, in a
large arm-chair, surrounded by paintings; for he declared he could not
live without them. His snowy hair and beard of patriarchal proportions,
clear, keen, gray eyes, and grand head made the old poet greatly
resemble Michel Angelo's world-renowned masterpiece of "Moses"; nor was
the formation of Landor's forehead unlike that of Shakespeare. "If, as
you declare," said he, jokingly, one day, "I look like that meekest of
men, Moses and Shakespeare, I ought to be exceedingly good and somewhat
clever."
At Landor's feet was always crouched a beautiful Pomeranian dog, the
gift of his kind American friend, William W. Story. The affection
existing between "Gaillo" and his master was really touching. Gaillo's
eyes were always turned towards Landor's; and upon the least
encouragement, the dog would jump into his lap, lay his head most
lovingly upon his master's neck, and generally deport himself in a very
human manner. "Gaillo is such a dear dog!" said Landor, one day, while
patting him. "We are very fond of each other, and always have a game of
play after dinner; sometimes, when he is very good, we have two. I am
sure I could not live, if he died; and I know that, when I am gone, he
will grieve for me." Thereupon Gaillo wagged his tail, and looked
piteously into _padrone's_ face, as much as to say he would be grieved
indeed. Upon being asked if he thought dogs would be admitted into
heaven, Landor answered: "And, pray, why not? They have all of the good
and none of the bad qualities of man." No matter upon what subject
conversation turned, Gaillo's feelings were consulted. He was the only
and chosen companion of Landor in his walks; but few of the Florentines
who stopped to remark the _vecchio con quel bel canino_, knew how great
was the man upon whom they thus commented.
It is seldom that England gives birth to so rampant a republican as
Landor. Born on the 30th of January, two years before our Declaration of
Independence, it is probable that the volcanic action of those troublous
times had no little influence in permeating the mind of the embryo poet
with that enthusiasm for and love of liberty for which he was
distinguished in maturer years. From early youth, Landor was a poor
respecter of royalty and rank _per se_. He often related, with great
good-humor, an incident of his boyhood which brought his democratic
ideas into domestic disgrace. An influential bishop of the Church of
England, happening to dine with young Landor's father one day, assailed
Porson, and, with self-assumed superiority, thinking to annihilate the
old Grecian, exclaimed "_We_ have no opinion of his scholarship." Irate
at this stupid pronunciamento against so renowned a man, young Landor
looked up, and, with a sarcasm the point of which was not in the least
blunted by age, retorted, "_We_, my Lord?" Of course such unheard of
audacity and contempt of my Lord Bishop's capacity for criticism was
severely reprobated by Landor Senior; but no amount of reproof could
force his son into a confession of sorrow.
"At Oxford," said Landor, "I was about the first student who wore his
hair without powder. 'Take care,' said my tutor. 'They will stone you
for a republican.' The Whigs (not the wigs) were then unpopular; but I
stuck to my plain hair and queue tied with black ribbon."
Of Landor's mature opinion of republics in general we glean much from a
passage of the "Pentameron," in which the author adorns Petrarca with
his own fine thoughts.
"When the familiars of absolute princes taunt us, as they are wont to
do, with the only apothegm they ever learnt by heart,--namely, that it
is better to be ruled by one master than by many,--I quite agree with
them; unity of power being the principle of republicanism, while the
principle of despotism is division and delegation. In the one system,
every man conducts his own affairs, either personally or through the
agency of some trustworthy representative, which is essentially the
same: in the other system, no man, in quality of citizen, has any
affairs of his own to conduct; but a tutor has been as much set over him
as over a lunatic, as little with his option or consent, and without any
provision, as there is in the case of the lunatic, for returning reason.
Meanwhile, the spirit of republics is omnipresent in them, as active in
the particles as in the mass, in the circumference as in the centre.
Eternal it must be, as truth and justice are, although not stationary."
Let Europeans who, having predicted dismemberment of our Union,
proclaimed death to democracy, and those thoughtless Americans who
believe that liberty cannot survive the destruction of our Republic,
think well of what great men have written. Though North America were
submerged to-morrow, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans rushing over our
buried hopes to a riotous embrace, republicanism would live as long as
the elements endure,--borne on every wind, inhaled in every breath of
air, abiding its opportunity to become an active principle. Absorbed in
our own peculiar form of egotism, we believe that a Supreme Being has
cast the cause of humanity upon one die, to prosper or perish by the
chances of our game. What belittling of the Almighty! what magnifying of
ourselves!
Though often urged, Landor never became a candidate for Parliamentary
honors. Political wire-pulling was not to the taste of a man who,
notwithstanding large landed interests, could say: "I never was at a
public dinner, at a club or hustings. I never influenced or attempted to
influence a vote, and yet many, and not only my own tenants, have asked
me to whom they should give theirs." Nor was he ever presented at court,
although a presentation would have been at the request of the (at that
time) Regent. Landor would not countenance a system of court-favor that
opens its arms to every noodle wearing an officer's uniform, and almost
universally turns its back upon intellect. He put not his faith in
princes, and of titles says: "Formerly titles were inherited by men who
could not write; they now are conferred on men who will not let others.
Theirs may have been the darker age; ours is the duller. In theirs a
high spirit was provoked; in ours, proscribed. In theirs the bravest
were pre-eminent; in ours, the basest."
Although a democrat, Landor was not indifferent to the good name of his
own ancestors, not because of a long pedigree, but because many of these
ancestors were historical personages and served their country long and
well. That stock must be worthy of honorable mention which, extending
with its ramifications over several centuries, gives to the world its
finest fruit in its latest scion. It is a satisfaction to spring from
hidalgo blood when the advantages of gentle rearing are demonstrated by
being greater than one's fathers. In Lander's most admirable "Citation
and Examination of William Shakespeare," the youngster whom Sir Silas
Gough declares to be as "deep as the big tankard" says, "out of his own
head":--"Hardly any man is ashamed of being inferior to his ancestors,
although it is the very thing at which the great should blush, if,
indeed, the great in general descended from the worthy. I did expect to
see the day, and, although I shall not see it, it must come at last,
when he shall be treated as a madman or an impostor who dares to claim
nobility or precedency, and cannot show his family name in the history
of his country. Even he who can show it, and who cannot write his own
under it in the same or as goodly characters, must submit to the
imputation of degeneracy, from which the lowly and obscure are exempt."
Good old Penn, too, is made a lay figure upon which Landor dressed his
thoughts, when the Quaker tells Lord Peterborough: "Of all pride,
however, and all folly, the grossest is where a man who possesses no
merit in himself shall pretend to an equality with one who does possess
it, and shall found this pretension on no better plea or title than
that, although he hath it not, his grandfather had. I would use no
violence or coercion with any rational creature; but, rather than that
such a bestiality in a human form should run about the streets uncured,
I would shout like a stripling for the farrier at his furnace, and
unthong the drenching horn from my stable-door." Landor could write his
name under that of his family in as goodly characters, therefore he was
not ashamed to relate anecdotes of his forefathers. It was with honest
satisfaction that he perpetuated the memory of two of these worthies in
the "Imaginary Conversations" between King Henry IV. and Sir Arnold
Savage, and Oliver Cromwell and Walter Noble. "Sir Arnold, according to
Elsynge, 'was the first who appears _upon any record_' to have been
appointed to the dignity of Speaker in the House of Commons, as now
constituted. He was elected a second time, four years afterwards, a rare
honor in earlier days; and during this presidency he headed the Commons,
and delivered their resolutions in the plain words recorded by
Hakewell." These "plain words" were, that no subsidy should be granted
to Henry IV. until every cause of public grievance had been removed.
Landor came rightly by his independence of thought. "Walter Noble
represented the city of Lichfield; he lived familiarly with the best
patriots of the age, remonstrated with Cromwell, and retired from public
life on the punishment of Charles."
Landor was very fond of selecting the grand old Roundheads for his
conversations. In their society he was most at home, and with them he
was able to air his pet opinions. Good Andrew Marvell, a man after the
author's own heart, discourses upon this matter of family: "Between the
titled man of ancient and the titled man of recent date, the difference,
if any, is in favor of the last. Suppose them both raised for merit,
(here, indeed, we do come to theory!) the benefits that society has
received from him are nearer us.... Some of us may look back six or
seven centuries, and find a stout ruffian at the beginning." In England,
where the institutions are such that a title of nobility is considered
by the majority to be the highest reward attainable by merit, it is not
surprising that the great god of Rank should be worshipped at the family
altar of Form. In England, too, it must be acknowledged that men of rank
are men of education, frequently of culture, and are useful to the
nation as patrons of art and of science; therefore nobility frequently
means absolute gentility. But in America what good can be said of those
who, living upon the fortunes of fathers or grandfathers, amassed in
honest trade,--residents of a particular street which is thereby
rendered pluperfectly genteel,--with no recommendation but that derived
from fashion and idleness,--draw the lines of social demarcation more
closely than they are drawn in Europe, intellect and accomplishments
being systematically snubbed where the possessors cannot show their
family passes? Is not this attempt to graft the foibles of an older and
more corrupt civilization upon our institutions, a disgrace to
republicanism? Were the truth known, we should be able to report the
existence of many advocates of monarchy, a privileged class, and an
established church, among those into whose ancestry it would be unsafe
to dig deeper than a second generation; by digging deeper we might touch
sugar or tumble into a vat of molasses, and then what blushes for false
pride!
A very different idea of a great man from that of the vulgar do we get
out of Landor's writings. His Diogenes tells us, (and very like the
original seeker after honesty do we take him to be,) that "the great
man is he who hath nothing to fear and nothing to hope from another. It
is he who, while he demonstrates the iniquity of the laws and is able to
correct them, obeys them peaceably. It is he who looks on the ambitious
both as weak and fraudulent. It is he who hath no disposition or
occasion for any kind of conceit, no reason for being or for appearing
different from what he is. It is he who can call together the most
select company when it pleases him." And Petrarca says that "Time the
Sovran is first to discover the truly great." Yet, though we put faith
in the justice of posterity, even Time plays many a one false through
misplaced favoritism. "They, O Timotheus," exclaims the imaginary
Lucian, "who survive the wreck of ages, are by no means, as a body, most
worthy of our admiration. It is in these wrecks as in those at sea,--the
best things are not always saved. Hencoops and empty barrels bob upon
the surface, under a serene and smiling sky, when the graven or depicted
images of the gods are scattered on invisible rocks, and when those who
most resembled them in knowledge and beneficence are devoured by cold
monsters below." We claim, however, that Lucian's theory is good for
this world only, as we believe that soul, though it may be temporarily
wrecked, speeds on to the inevitable justice of eternity. And can we,
now that the fever of military glory is upon us, remember that, great as
may be the man who conquers his country's enemies upon the battle-field,
he is far greater who conquers the prejudices of his age and instils
into groping masses the doctrines of a more glorious civilization?
"For civilisation perfected
Is fully developed Christianity."
Every generation has two or three such men; no age has enough moral
courage to give birth to more. They live under protest,--thought alone
is free,--and when these men, fifty years in advance of their times,
proclaim God's truth with the enthusiasm begotten of religion,
grub-worms that rule the great _status quo_ sting the prophets with all
the virus of their nature, and render each step forward as difficult as
was once the passage of the Simplon. There is no stumbling-block like
that of ignorance, and he who would remove it must wear the holy crown
of thorns. We speak of the horrors of the Inquisition as things of the
past. Are we so sure of this? Has not prejudice invented most exquisite
tortures for reformers of all ages? America has her sins to answer for
in this respect.
"Because ye prosper in God's name,
With a claim.
To honor in the old world's sight,
Yet do the fiend's work perfectly
In strangling martyrs,--for this lie
This is the curse."
On the stubbornness of _Status Quo_ none have written better than
Landor. "Unbendingness, in the moral as in the vegetable world, is an
indication as frequently of unsoundness as of strength. Indeed, wise
men, kings as well as others, have been free from it. Stiff necks are
diseased ones."
It was impossible to be in Landor's society a half-hour and not reap
advantage. His great learning, varied information, extensive
acquaintance with the world's celebrities, ready wit, and even readier
repartee, rendered his conversation wonderfully entertaining. He would
narrate anecdote after anecdote with surprising accuracy, being
possessed of a singularly retentive memory, that could refer to a
catalogue of notables far longer than Don Giovanni's picture-gallery of
conquests. Names, it is true, he was frequently unable to recall, and
supplied their place with a "God bless my soul, I forget everything";
but facts were indelibly stamped upon his mind. He referred back to the
year _one_ with as much facility as a person of the rising generation
invokes the shade of some deed dead a few years. I looked with wonder
upon a person who remembered Napoleon Bonaparte as a slender young man,
and listened with delight to a voice from so dim a past. "I was in
Paris," said Landor one day, "at the time that Bonaparte made his
entrance as First Consul. I was standing within a few feet of him when
he passed, and had a capital good look at him. He was exceedingly
handsome then, with a rich olive complexion and oval face, youthful as a
girl's. Near him rode Murat, mounted upon a gold-clad charger,--and very
handsome he was too, but coxcombical."
Like the rest of human kind, Landor had his prejudices,--they were very
many. Foremost among them was an antipathy to the Bonaparte family. It
is not necessary to have known him personally to be aware of his
detestation of the first Napoleon, as in the conversation between
himself, an English and a Florentine visitor, he gives expression to a
generous indignation, which may well be inserted here, as it contains
the pith of what Landor repeated in many a social talk. "This Holy
Alliance will soon appear unholy to every nation in Europe. I despised
Napoleon in the plenitude of his power no less than others despise him
in the solitude of his exile: I thought him no less an impostor when he
took the ermine, than when he took the emetic. I confess I do not love
him the better, as some mercenaries in England and Scotland do, for
having been the enemy of my country; nor should I love him the less for
it, had his enmity been principled and manly. In what manner did this
cruel wretch treat his enthusiastic admirer and humble follower,
Toussaint l'Ouverture? He was thrown into a subterranean call, solitary,
dark, damp, pestiferously unclean, where rheumatism racked his limbs,
and where famine terminated his existence." Again, in his written
opinions of Cæsar, Cromwell, Milton, and Bonaparte, Landor criticises
the career of the latter with no fondness, but with much truth, and
justly says, that "Napoleon, in the last years of his sovereignty,
fought without aim, vanquished without glory, and perished without
defeat."
Great as was Landor's dislike to the uncle, it paled before his
detestation of the reigning Emperor,--a detestation too general to be
designated an idiosyncrasy on the part of the poet. We always knew who
was meant when a sentence was prefaced with "that rascal" or "that
scoundrel,"--such were the epithets substituted for the name of Louis
Napoleon. Believing the third Napoleon to be the worst enemy of his
foster-mother, Italy, as well as of France, Landor bestowed upon him
less love, if possible, than the majority of Englishmen. Having been
personally acquainted with the Emperor when he lived in England as an
exile, Landor, unlike many of Napoleon's enemies, acknowledged the
superiority of his intellect. "I used to see a great deal of the Prince
when he was in London. I met him very frequently of an evening at Lady
Blessington's, and had many conversations with him, as he always sought
me and made himself particularly civil. He was a very clever man, well
informed on most subjects. The fops used to laugh at him, and call him a
bore. A coxcombical young lord came up to me one evening after the
Prince had taken his leave, and said, 'Mr. Landor, how _can_ you talk to
that fool, Prince Napoleon?' To which I replied, 'My Lord, it takes a
fool to find out that he is not a wise man!' His Lordship retired
somewhat discomfited," added Landor with a laugh, "The Prince presented
me with his work on Artillery, and invited me to his house. He had a
very handsome establishment, and was not at all the poor man he is so
often said to have been." Of this book Landor writes in an article to
the "Quarterly Review" (I think): "If it is any honor, it has been
conferred on me to have received from Napoleon's heir the literary work
he composed in prison, well knowing, as he did, and expressing his
regret for, my sentiments on his uncle. The explosion of the first
cannon against Rome threw us apart forever." I shall not soon forget
Landor's lively narration of Napoleon's escape from the prison at Ham,
given in the same language in which it was told to him by the Prince. I
would feign repeat it here, were it not that an account of this
wonderful escape found its way into print some years ago. _Apropos_ of
Napoleon, an old friend of Landor's told me that, while in London, the
Prince was in the habit of calling upon him after dinner. He would sip
_café noir_, smoke a cigar, ply his host with every conceivable
question, but otherwise maintain a dignified reticence. It seems then
that Louis Napoleon is indebted to nature, as well as to art, for his
masterly ability in keeping his own counsel.
Among other persons of note encountered by Landor at Lady Blessington's
was Rachel. It was many years ago, before her star had attained its
zenith. "She took tea with her Ladyship, and was accompanied by a female
attendant, her mother I think. Rachel had very little to say, and left
early, as she had an engagement at the theatre. There was nothing
particularly noticeable in her appearance, but she was very ladylike. I
never met her again."
Landor entertained a genuine affection for the memory of Lady
Blessington. "Ah, there was a woman!" he exclaimed one day with a sigh.
"I never knew so brilliant and witty a person in conversation. She was
most generous too, and kind-hearted. I never heard her make an
ill-natured remark. It was my custom to visit her whenever the laurel
was in bloom; and as the season approached, she would write me a note,
saying, 'Gore House expects you, for the laurel has begun to blossom.' I
never see laurel now, that it does not make me sad, for it recalls her
to me so vividly. During these visits I never saw Lady Blessington until
dinner-time. She always breakfasted in her own room, and wrote during
the morning. She wrote very well, too; her style was pure. In the
evening her drawing-room was thrown open to her friends, except when she
attended the opera. Her opera-box faced the Queen's, and a formidable
rival she was to her Majesty."
"D'Orsay was an Apollo in beauty, very amiable, and had considerable
talent for modelling." Taking me into his little back sitting-room,
Landor brought out a small album, and, passing over the likenesses of
several old friends, among whom were Southey, Porson, Napier, and other
celebrities, he held up an engraving of Lady Blessington. Upon my
remarking its beauty, Landor replied: "That was taken at the age of
fifty, so you can imagine how beautiful she must have been in her youth.
Her voice and laugh were very musical." Then, turning to a young lady
present, Landor made her an exceedingly neat compliment, by saying,
"_Your_ voice reminds me very vividly of Lady Blessington's. Perhaps,"
he continued with a smile, "this is the reason why my old, deaf ears
never lose a word when you are speaking." Driving along the north side
of the Arno, one summer's day, Landor gazed sadly at a terrace
overlooking the water, and said: "Many a delightful evening have I spent
on that terrace with Lord and Lady Blessington. There we used to take
our tea. They once visited Florence for no other purpose than to see me.
Was not that friendly? They are both dead now, and I am doomed to live
on. When Lady Blessington died, I was asked to write a Latin epitaph for
her tomb, which I did; but some officious person thought to improve the
Latin before it was engraved, and ruined it."
This friendship was fully reciprocated by Lady Blessington, who, in her
letters to Landor, refers no less than three times to those "calm nights
on the terrace of the Casa Pelosi." "I send you," she writes, "the
engraving, and have only to wish that it may sometimes remind you of the
original.... Five fleeting years have gone by since our delicious
evenings on the lovely Arno,--evenings never to be forgotten, and the
recollections of which ought to cement the friendships then formed."
Again, in her books of travel,--the "Idler in France" and "Idler in
Italy,"--Lady Blessington pays the very highest tribute to Landor's
heart, as well as intellect, and declares his real conversations to be
quite as delightful as his imaginary ones. She who will live long in
history as the friend of great men now lies "beneath the chestnut shade
of Saint Germain"; and Landor, with the indignation of one who loved
her, has turned to D'Orsay, asking
"Who was it squandered all her wealth,
And swept away the bloom of health?"
Although a Latinist, Landor did not approve of making those who have
passed away doubly dead to a majority of the living by Latin eulogy. In
an interesting conversation he gives the following opinion: "Although I
have written at various times a great number of such inscriptions"
(Latin), "as parts of literature, yet I think nothing is so absurd, if
you only inscribe them on a tomb. Why should extremely few persons, the
least capable, perhaps, of sympathy, be invited to sympathize, while
thousands are excluded from it by the iron grate of a dead language?
Those who read a Latin inscription are the most likely to know already
the character of the defunct, and no new feelings are to be excited in
them; but the language of the country tells the ignorant who he was that
lies under the turf before them; and, if he was a stranger, it
naturalizes him among them; it gives him friends and relations; it
brings to him and detains about him some who may imitate, many who will
lament him. We have no right to deprive any one of a tender sentiment,
by talking in an unknown tongue to him, when his heart would listen and
answer to his own; we have no right to turn a chapel into a library,
locking it with a key which the lawful proprietors cannot turn."
I once asked Landor to describe Wordsworth's personal appearance. He
laughed and replied: "The best description I can give you of Wordsworth
is the one that Hazlitt gave _me_. Hazlitt's voice was very deep and
gruff, and he peppered his sentences very bountifully with 'sirs.' In
speaking to me of Wordsworth, he said: 'Well, sir, did you ever see a
horse, sir?' 'Yes.' 'Then, sir, you have seen Wordsworth, sir! He looks
exactly like a horse, sir, and a very long-faced horse at that, sir!'
And he did look like a horse," added Landor.
Those who have seen good likenesses of Wordsworth will readily remark
this resemblance. A greater length of ear would liken the Lake poet to
an animal of less dignity.
Continuing the conversation thus begun, Landor said: "I saw a great deal
of Hazlitt when he was in Florence. He called upon me frequently, and a
funny fellow he was. He used to say to me: 'Mr. Landor, I like you,
sir,--I like you very much, sir,--you're an honest man, sir; but I don't
approve, sir, of a great deal that you have written, sir. You must
reform some of your opinions, sir.'" And again Landor laughed with great
good-will.
"I regret that I saw Charles Lamb but once," replied Landor, in answer
to many questions asked concerning this delightful man and writer. "Lamb
sent word by Southey" (I think it was Southey) "that he would be very
happy to see me, whereupon we made him a visit. He had then retired from
the India House, and lived at Enfield. He was most charming in
conversation, and his smile impressed me as being particularly genial.
His sister also was a very agreeable person. During my visit, Lamb rose,
went to a table in the centre of the room, and took up a book, out of
which he read aloud. Soon shutting it, he turned to me, saying: 'Is not
what I have been reading exceedingly good?' 'Very good,' I replied.
Thereupon Lamb burst out laughing, and exclaimed: 'Did one ever know so
conceited a man as Mr. Landor? He has actually praised his own ideas!'
It was now my turn to laugh, as I had not the slightest remembrance of
having written what Lamb had read."
Are there many to whom the following lines will not be better than new?
"Once, and only once, have I seen thy face,
Elia! once only has thy tripping tongue
Run o'er my breast, yet never has been left
Impression on it stronger or more sweet.
Cordial old man! what youth was in thy years,
What wisdom in thy levity! what truth
In every utterance of that purest soul!
Few are the spirits of the glorified
I'd spring to earlier at the gate of Heaven."
Being asked if he had met Byron, Landor replied: "I never saw Byron but
once, and then accidentally. I went into a perfumery shop in London to
purchase a pot of the ottar of roses, which at that time was very rare
and expensive. As I entered the shop a handsome young man, with a slight
limp in his walk, passed me and went out. The shopkeeper directed my
attention to him, saying: 'Do you know who that is, sir?' 'No,' I
answered. 'That is the young Lord Byron.' He had been purchasing some
fancy soaps, and at that time was the fashion. I never desired to meet
him."
As all the world knows, there was little love lost between these two
great writers; but it was the man, not the poet, that Landor so
cordially disliked.
MY ANNUAL.
FOR THE "BOYS OF '29."
How long will this harp which you once loved to hear
Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear?
How long stir the echoes it wakened of old,
While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold?
Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong;
The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song;
It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes,--
"We will bid our old harper play on till he dies."
Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings,
Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings,
Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone,
It is still the old harp that was always your own.
I claim not its music,--each note it affords
I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords;
I know you will listen and love to the last,
For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past.
Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold
No craftsman could string and no artisan mould;
He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres
That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs.
Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings,
Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings;
Those shapes are the phantoms of years that have fled,
Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed.
Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this,
Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss;
The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will,
Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still.
The bird wanders careless while Summer is green,
The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen;
When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed,
The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest.
Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling
Is the light of our year, is the gem in its ring,
So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget
The rays it has lost, and its border of jet.
While round us the many-hued halo is shed,
How dear are the living, how near are the dead!
One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below,
Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow!
Not life shall enlarge it, nor death shall divide,--
No brother new-born finds his place at my side;
No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs infest,--
His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the rest.
Some won the world's homage,--their names we hold dear,--
But Friendship, not Fame, is the countersign here;
Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife
For the comrade that limps from the battle of life!
What tongue talks of battle? Too long we have heard
In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word;
It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the wave,
It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave.
Peace, Peace, comes at last, with her garland of white;
Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night;
The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun;
We echo its words,--We are One! We are One!
WERE THEY CRICKETS?
About seven years ago, (it is possible that some of my readers may
recall it,) the following paragraph appeared in the New York daily
papers;--
"MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.--A young man named George Snyder
left the residence of his parents in Thirty-Third Street, last
Friday evening without his hat and taking nothing with him but
the suit which he was wearing (dark doeskin pants, and
invisible-green coat), and has not yet been heard from. It is
feared that he has wandered, in some sudden mental derangement,
off the wharves. Any information which may lead to his
discovery will be gratefully received by the distressed
parents."
No information was ever received until the 1st of April last, when the
missing man himself returned to his father's house, as mysteriously as
he went, and was welcomed as one risen from the dead. I am that George
Snyder, and propose to give now a brief account of that strange going
and coming. Since April last I have been engaged, as well as the
excitement of listening to the narrative of the great events which had
taken place in my native land during my absence would allow me, in
preparing for publication a history of my observations, made during the
six years' absence; but of this history I can now give merely an
outline.
On the night of my departure, November 5, 1858, I was sitting in my own
room, studying Gauss's "Theoria Motus"; and, as was often the case with
me, I grew so absorbed in the study as to lose all consciousness of
outward things beyond the limits of the single page before me. I had
forgotten the time of night,--nay, I could not have recalled the time of
my life, whether I was in college or had graduated, whether I had
entered on my profession or was preparing for it. My loss of the sense
of space was as absolute as my loss of the sense of time, and I could
not have said whether I was in my father's house in New York, or in my
room in Wentworth Hall, or in my office in Jersey City. I only knew that
the page, illuminated by a drop gas-light, was before me, and on it the
record of that brilliant triumph of the human intellect, the deduction
of a planet's entire orbit from observations of its position.
As I sat thus absorbed, my attention was partially diverted by a slight
tapping, as if upon the very table upon which my book was resting.
Without raising my eyes from the page, I allowed my thoughts to wander,
as I inquired within myself what could have produced the noise. Could it
be that I was thus suddenly "developed as a medium," and that the spirit
of some departed friend wished to communicate with me? I rejected the
thought instantly, for I was no believer in modern necromancy. But no
sooner had I mentally decided that this was not the true explanation
than I began to feel my right hand tremble in an unnatural manner, and
my fingers close against my will around a pencil which I had been
loosely holding. Then suddenly, upon the paper on which I
had been occasionally filling out the omitted links in Gauss's
mathematical reasoning, my hand, against my will, legibly scrawled,
"_Copernicus_,"--upon which a renewed tapping was heard upon the table.
I sprang out of my chair, as one startled out of sleep, and looked about
the room. My full consciousness of time and place returned, and I saw
nothing unusual about my apartment; there were the books, the chairs,
and even the table, standing in motionless silence as usual. I concluded
that my late hours and excessive concentration on my studies had made me
nervous, or else that I had had a dream. I closed the book and prepared
to go to bed. Like school-boy whistling to keep his courage up, I began
to talk aloud, saying: "I wish Copernicus would really come and carry me
off to explore the solar system; I fancy that I could make a better
report than Andrew Jackson Davis has done."
I tremble even now as I recall the instantaneous effect of those words.
While I was still speaking, all earthly things vanished suddenly from my
sight. There was no floor beneath me, no ceiling above, no walls around.
There was even no earth below me, and no sky above. Look where I would,
nothing was visible but my own body. My clothing shone with a pale blue
light, by which I could peer into the surrounding darkness to the
distance, as I should judge, of about twenty or thirty feet. I was
apparently hanging, like a planet, in mid-ether, resting upon nothing.
Horrible amazement seized me, as the conviction flashed through me like
an electric shock that I must have lost my reason. In a few moments,
however, this terror subsided; I felt certain that my thoughts were
rational, and concluded that it was some affection of the optic nerve.
But in a very few seconds I discovered by internal sensations that I was
in motion, in a rapid, irregular, and accelerating motion. Awful horror
again seized me; I screamed out a despairing cry for help, and fainted.
When I recovered from the swoon, I found myself lying on a grassy bank
near a sea-shore, with strange trees waving over me. The sun was
apparently an hour high. I was dressed as on the preceding evening,
without a hat. The air was deliciously mild, the landscape before me
lovely and grand. I said to myself: "This is a beautiful dream; it must
be a dream." But it was too real, and I said, "Can it be that I am
asleep?" I pinched my arms, I went to the sea and dipped my head in the
waters,--'t was in vain; I could not awake myself, because I was already
awake.
"No!" I replied, "you are not awake." Do you not remember that saying of
Engel, that when men dream of asking whether they are awake, they always
dream that they answer yes? But I said, I will apply two tests of my own
which have often, when I was dreaming, convinced me that I was asleep
and thus enabled me to awake. I gathered some pebbles and began to count
them and lay them in heaps, and count them over again. There were no
discrepancies between my counts; I was awake. Then I took out my pencil
and memorandum-book to see whether I could solve an equation. But my
hand was seized with trembling, and wrote without my assistance or
guidance these words: "I, Copernicus, will comfort your friends. Be
calm, be happy, you shall return and reap a peculiar glory. You, first
of the inhabitants of Earth, have visited another planet while in the
flesh. You are on an island in the tropical regions of Mars. I will take
you home when you desire it,--only not now."
It would be in vain for me to attempt to recall and to describe the
whirling tumult of thoughts and emotions which this message created. I
sat down upon the grass, and for a time was incapable of deliberate
thought or action. At length I arose and paced up and down the turf,
staring around upon the changeless blue of the seaward horizon, the
heaving swell of the ocean, the restless surf fretting against the
shore, and the motionless hills that rose behind each other inland, and
lured the eye to a distant group of mountains. The coloring of sea and
land was wonderfully fine; both seemed formed of similar translucent
purple; and despite the excited state of my feelings and the stupendous
nature of the words which I had just seen written by my own pencil, I
was impressed with a sense of grandeur and of beauty which presently
filled me with faith and hope. I assured myself that the spirit to whom
permission had been given thus to transport me from my home was as kind
as he was powerful. He had set me down in a beautiful country, he had
promised to return me home when I desired it,--"only not now";--by which
I concluded that he wished me to think calmly over the question before
asking to return. And why, I added, should I be in haste? Copernicus, if
it be he, promises to comfort my parents,--the island looks fertile,--if
I find no inhabitants, I can be a new Robinson Crusoe,--and when I have
explored the island thoroughly, I will ask this spirit to carry me back
to New York, where I shall publish my observations, and add a new
chapter to our knowledge of the solar system.
I walked toward the mountains, among strange shrubs, and under strange
trees. Some were in blossom, others laden with fruit, all in luxuriant
foliage. As I walked on, the scenery became more and more charming; but
I saw no signs of man, nor even of birds, nor beasts. Beautiful
butterflies and other insects were abundant; in a little stream I saw
minnows, and a fish elegantly striped with silver and gold; and as I
followed up the brook, occasionally a frog, startled at my approach,
leaped from the bank and dived into the water with a familiar cry. I
wandered on until I judged it to be nearly noon, and, growing hungry,
ventured to taste a fruit which looked more edible than any I had seen.
To my delight I found it as delicious as a paw-paw. I dined on them
heartily, and, sitting under the shade of the low trees from which I had
gathered them, I fell into a reverie which ended in a sound sleep.
When I awoke it was night. I walked out of the little grove in which I
was sheltered, that I might have a clearer view of the stars. I soon
recognized the constellations with which I had been familiar for years,
though in somewhat new positions. Conspicuous near, the horizon was the
"Milk Dipper" of Sagittarius, and I instantly noticed, with a thrill of
intense surprise, that the planet Mars was missing! When I had first
awakened, and stepped out of the grove, I had only a dim remembrance in
my mind of having rambled in the fields and fallen asleep on the grass;
but this planet missing in the constellation Sagittarius recalled to me
at once my miraculous position on the planet Mars. Here was a
confirmation unexpected and irrefragable of the truth of what Copernicus
had written by my hand. The excited whirl of thoughts and emotions thus
revived banished sleep, and I walked back and forward under the grove,
and out on the open turf, gazing again and again at the constellation in
which, only two days before, I had from the Jersey City ferryboat seen
the now missing planet. At length Sagittarius sank behind the mountains,
and the Twins arose out of the sea. With new wonder and admiration I
beheld in Castor's knee the steady lustre of a planet which I had not
known before,--an overwhelming proof of the reality of my asserted
position on the planet Mars. For as this new planet was exactly in the
opposite pole of the point whence Mars was missing, what could it be but
my native Earth seen as a planet from that planet which had now become
my earth? You may imagine that this new vision excited me too much to
allow sleep to overpower me again until nearly daybreak.
When I awoke, the sun was far above the waves. I breakfasted upon my
newly tasted fruit, and resumed my journey toward the mountains in the
west. An hour's walk brought me to the spot where I first saw the
inhabitants of the island. I shall never forget a single feature of that
landscape. The mingled delight at seeing them, and astonishment after
looking a few moments at them, have photographed the whole surrounding
scene to its minutest details indelibly upon my memory. I had ascended a
little eminence in the principal valley of a brook, (which I had been
following nearly from its outlet,) when suddenly the mountains, of which
I had lost sight for a time, rose up before me in sublime strength, no
longer of translucent purple, but revealing, under the direct light,
their rugged solidity. On my right, in the foreground, were lofty black
cliffs, made darker by being seen lying in their own shadow. On my left,
green hills, in varying forms, stretched almost an interminable
distance, varying also in their color and depth of shade. At the foot of
the cliffs, in full sight, but too distant to be distinctly heard, the
brook leaped along its rocky bed in a succession of scrambling
cataracts, until it was in a perfect foam with the exertion. I sat upon
a stone, gazing upon this valley, calmed, soothed, charmed with its
beauty, and was speculating upon the cause of the ruddy purplish hue
which I still noticed in the landscape, as I had the day before, when I
heard a choir of half a dozen voices, apparently on the nearest cliff,
joining in a Haydn-like hymn of praise. I drew nearer to the spot, and
soon satisfied myself that all the sounds proceeded from one man sitting
alone on a projecting rock. I listened to him attentively, vainly
endeavoring to imagine how he produced such a volume of sounds, and
delighted with the beautiful melody and exquisite harmony of his
polyphonous song. When he ceased to sing, I stepped out in front of him
and hailed him with a hearty "Good morning!" What was my astonishment to
see him instantly unfurl a prodigious pair of wings, and fly off the
rock. Hovering over me for a little while, evidently as much astonished
at me as I at him, he flew away, and presently returned with a
companion. They alighted near me, and began, as I thought, to sing, but
in a very fragmentary way. I afterwards found that they were in
conversation. I spoke to them, and, concealing my fears, endeavored by
various signs to intimate my friendly disposition. They were not very
backward in meeting my advances; and yet I soon discovered that,
although they were two to one against me, they were as much alarmed as
I; whereupon I became greatly reassured. It was not long before we had
exchanged presents of wild fruits, and they had begun, by dumb show, and
beckoning, and the utterance of soothing sounds, to invite me to
accompany them. We proceeded slowly, for they could not be satisfied in
their examination of me, nor I in my examination of them; and yet we
rather preferred to keep out of each other's reach. Two points in them
chiefly attracted my attention. One was their prodigious wings, which
they folded into a very small compass when they walked. The other was
their peculiar language, not being any _articulate_ speech, but only the
utterance of vowel-sounds of musical quality, which seemed to come from
several voices at once, and that not from the mouth, but, as I then
thought, from all parts of their bodies.
At length we reached a charming arbor, into which they conducted me.
This arbor was built of some sort of bamboo or cane, woven together into
a coarse lattice-work, the roof being made of the same and covered with
huge leaves, perhaps of some palm. I call it an arbor, because the
latticed sides were covered with flowering vines, of great variety and
beauty. Within were bamboo seats and a table, whose material I afterward
discovered was the dried leaves of a gigantic flag, flattened and made
hard by a peculiar process of drawing them between joints of bamboo,
somewhat as cane is pressed between rollers. Upon the table were
numerous manuscripts, written, as I afterwards learned, on a paper made
of the same flag. These manuscripts were removed, and a repast set on
the table by servants, as I then took them to be, who brought it in from
an adjoining arbor; but I found afterwards that they were members of the
family, and that the relation of servant and master was not known among
the inhabitants of the island. When these new members of the family
first came to the arbor in which I and my two captors, as they
considered themselves, were sitting, they started back, terrified at my
appearance; and it was with great difficulty that my captors prevailed
upon them to enter. This further encouraged me in the faith that they
were a timid and inoffensive people. Their noonday meal, of which they
gave me a part, (although they did not invite me to come to the table
with them,) gave me still greater assurance, since I found it composed
wholly of fruits and cereals. After their dinner, during which it was
evident that they were engaged in a very lively discussion of their
visitor or captive, some of the family flew away, and in the course of
an hour returned, accompanied by half a dozen others, whom I afterwards
found were the most learned naturalists of my captor's acquaintance. I
was invited by pantomime to walk out into the open air, and of course
accepted the invitation. Never was there such a Babel of musical tones
as that which assailed my ears while these six learned--(what shall I
call them? since their own name is not expressible by the letters of any
alphabet)--learned men discussed me from every point of view. The mild
and inoffensive appearance of the people, and the evident kindness
mingled with their curiosity, had entirely disarmed my suspicions, and I
as gladly showed them what I could do as I watched to see their habits.
The whole afternoon was passed in exhibiting to these strange beings all
of the various gaits and modes of motion and gymnastic exercises which I
had ever learned.
After supper my captor led me to a separate arbor, and pointed to a bed
of soft, white straw, upon which I immediately stretched myself, and he
retired. Presently I arose and attempted to go out, but found that he
had fastened the door on the outside. It was not pleasant to find myself
a prisoner; but that subject was instantly driven from my mind as I
looked out through the lattice and saw Sagittarius, with no signs of the
planet Mars. I returned to my straw; and, after the excitement of the
day had subsided, I fell asleep and slept until after sunrise. My captor
soon after appeared, bringing a basket of delicious fruits and bread.
When I had eaten freely, he allowed me to wander at will, setting first
a boy on top of my arbor, apparently to watch that I did not wander out
of sight. I walked about and found that the homestead of my captor
consisted of seven arbors in a grove of fruit-trees, with about a dozen
acres of corn adjoining. This corn is a perennial, like our grass, and a
field once planted yields in good land fifteen or twenty crops with only
the labor of gathering. It then becomes exhausted, and the canes are
burnt at a particular season, which destroys the roots, and prepares the
ground admirably for fruit-trees. There were no stables about the place,
and there are no horses nor cows on the island,--indeed, frogs and toads
are the highest vertebrates known there.
About the middle of the forenoon, my host, or captor, came, guided by
his boy, who, flying from arbor to arbor and from tree to tree, had kept
me in sight during my ramble. He brought with him seven others, bearing
a hammock through the air, four flying on either side, and lowered it
near me in the field. He then made signs to me to lie in the hammock. It
was with some difficulty that I persuaded myself to risk it; but I
thought at last that, after coming safely from the Earth to Mars, I
would not shrink from a little excursion in the atmosphere of that
planet. I laid myself in the hammock, and soon saw that the seven
friends of my host were as much afraid of taking it up as I had been of
getting in it. However, they mustered courage, and, spreading their
wings, raised me up in the air. I was, I suppose, a deal heavier than
they expected; for they set me down upon the top of the first knoll in
their path, and set me down so suddenly that I was aware of their
intention only by being dashed against the ground. I sprang up, and
began to rub the bruised spots, while my winged bearers folded their
wings, and lay panting on the turf. They had not taken me a half-mile.
When they were rested, my host motioned to me to resume my place; and
the eight again bore me, with more deliberate stroke, a full mile before
dropping me again. But they were so much exhausted, and took so long to
rest, that I suggested, by signs and motions, that I should rather walk;
and so for the next mile they carried the empty hammock, flying very
slowly, while I walked rapidly, or ran, after them. When, in my turn, I
became exhausted, they motioned me into the hammock again. In this way,
partly by being carried and partly on my own feet, I at length reached
an immense arbor, in which several hundred of these creatures were
assembled. It was the regular day of meeting for their Society of
Natural History. One of our party first went in, and, I suppose,
announced our arrival, then came out and spoke to my captor, who
beckoned me to follow, and led me in. I was placed on a platform, and he
then made a polyphonous speech, without a consonant sound in it;
describing, as I afterwards learned, the history of my discovery and
capture, and going into some speculations on my nature. Then the
principal men crowded about me and felt me, and led me about the hall,
until, what with the landings of the hammock and the handling of these
sons of Mars, I was sore and wearied beyond expression.
At length I was taken to a small arbor, where I was allowed to rest and
to take food. The Society then, as I have since been told, held a long
discussion, and finally appointed a committee to examine me, observe my
habits, and report at the next regular meeting. There is no moon at
Mars; but the regular meeting was on the twenty-eighth day
following,--the seven notes of music having given them the idea of
weeks.
Extra ropes were then attached to the hammock, (which was built for the
use of the infirm and aged, but the weight of these creatures is scarce
half that of men,) and sixteen of them carried me back to my captor's
homestead. That night I fell asleep before it was dark enough to see the
stars, and assure myself, by a glance at the Milk Dipper, that it was
not all a dream; but I awoke before daylight, and gazed through the
lattice at the Twins, and at the Earth, shining with steady lustre upon
Castor's knee.
I will not weary the reader with details from my journal of each
succeeding day. The committee came day after day and studied me. They
induced me to lay aside part of my clothing that they might examine me
more minutely, especially about the joints of the ankle, the knee,
shoulder, and elbow; and were never weary of examining my neck and
spinal column. I could not talk to them, and they had never seen a
vertebrate higher in organization than their frogs and toads; wherefore,
at the end of four weeks, they reported "that I was a new and wonderful
gigantic Batrachian"; that "they recommended the Society to purchase me,
and, after studying my habits thoroughly, dissect me, and mount my
skeleton." Of which report I was, of course, in blessed ignorance for a
long, long while.
So my captor and his friends took the kindest care of me, and endeavored
to amuse and instruct me, and also to find out what I would do if left
to myself,--taking notes assiduously for the memoirs of their Society. I
can assure the reader that I, on my part, was not idle, but took notes
of them with equal diligence, at which imitation of their actions they
were greatly amused. But I flatter myself that, when my notes, now in
the hands of the Smithsonian Institution, are published, with the
comments of the learned naturalists to whom the Institution has referred
them, they will be found to embody the most valuable contributions to
science. My own view of the inhabitants of Mars is that they are
Rational Articulates. Rational they certainly are, and, although I am no
naturalist, I venture to pronounce them Articulates. I do not mean
anything disrespectful to these learned inhabitants of Mars in saying
that their figure and movements reminded me of crickets: for I never
have watched the black field-crickets in New England, standing on tiptoe
to reach a blade of grass, without a feeling of admiration at their
gentlemanly figure and the gracefulness of their air. But what is more
important, I am told that Articulates breathe through spiracles in the
sides of their bodies; and I know that these planetary men breathe
through six mouths, three on either side of the body, entirely different
in appearance and character from the seventh mouth in their face,
through which they eat.
In the volumes of notes which will be published by the Smithsonian
Institution as soon as the necessary engravings can be finished, will
also appear all that I was able to learn concerning the natural history
of that planet, under the strict limitation, to which I was subjected,
of bringing to Earth nothing but what I could carry about my own
person.[A]
I was, myself, particularly interested in investigating the Martial
language, which differs entirely from our terrestrial tongues in not
being articulate. Each of the six lateral mouths of these curious men is
capable of sounding only one vowel, and of varying its musical pitch
about five or six semitones. Thus, their six mouths give them a range of
two and a half or three octaves. The right-hand lowest mouth is lowest
in pitch, and gives a sound resembling the double _o_ in _moon_; the
next lowest in pitch is the lowest left-hand mouth, and its vowel is
more like _o_ in _note_. Thus they alternate, the highest left-hand
mouth being highest in pitch, and uttering a sound resembling a long
_ee_. The sound of each of the six is so individual, that, before I had
been there six months, I could recognize, even in a stranger, the tones
of each one of the six mouths. But they seldom use one mouth at a time.
Their simplest ideas, such as the names of the most familiar objects,
are expressed by brief melodic phrases, uttered by one mouth alone.
Closely allied ideas are expressed by the same phrase uttered by a
different mouth, and so with a different vowel-sound. But most ideas are
complex; and these are expressed in the Mavortian speech by chords, or
discords, produced by using two or more mouths at once. A few music
types will illustrate this, by examples, better than any verbal
description can do.
[Illustration: {Music} A tree. Fruit. A fruit-tree. Do. in leaf and
blossom. Do. in leaf and fruit. A dead fruit-tree]
The signification of these chords is by no means arbitrary; but, on the
contrary, their application is according to fixed rules and according to
æsthetic principles; so that the highest poetry of these people becomes,
in the very process of utterance, the finest music; while the utterance
of base sentiments, or of fustian, becomes, by the very nature of the
language, discordant, or at best vapid and unmelodious.
It will readily be imagined that I was a very long while in learning to
understand a speech so entirely different in all its principles from our
earthly tongues. And when I began to comprehend it, as spoken by my new
friends, I was unable, having but one mouth, to express anything but the
simplest ideas. However, I had Yankee ingenuity enough to supply in some
measure my want of lateral mouths.
My captor daily allowed me more and more freedom, and at length
permitted me to wander freely over the whole island, simply taking the
precaution to send a boy with me as a companion and guide, in case I
should lose my way. In one of these rambles I discovered a swamp of
bamboos, and by the aid of my pocket-knife cut down several and carried
them home. Then, with great difficulty and interminable labor, I managed
to make a sort of small organ, a very rude affair, with six kinds of
pipes, six of each kind. A bamboo pipe, with a reed tongue of the same
material, or even one with a flute action, was not so sweet in tone as
the voice of my friends; but they saw what I was trying to do, and
could, after growing familiar with the sound of my pipes, decipher my
meaning. The astonishment of my captor and his family at finding that
their monster Batrachian could not only express simple ideas with his
one mouth, but all the most complex notions by pieces of bamboo fastened
together and held on his knees before him, was beyond measure. From this
time my progress in learning their speech was very rapid; and within a
year from the completion of my organ I could converse fluently with
them. Of course, I had not mastered all the intricacies of their tongue,
and even up to the time of my leaving them I felt that I was a mere
learner; nevertheless, I could understand the main drift of all that
they said; and what was equally gratifying to me, I could express to
them almost anything expressible in English, and they understood me.
My life now became a very happy one; I became sincerely attached to my
captor and to his family, and was charmed with their good sense and
their kind feeling. I flatter myself also that they, in their turn, were
not only proud of their Batrachian, but grew fond of him. They showed me
more and more attention, gave me a seat at their table, and furnished me
with clothes of their own fashion. I must confess, however, that the
openings on the sides for their mouths, and on the back for their wings,
were rather troublesome to me, and occasioned me several severe colds,
until I taught them to make my vesture close about my chest.
When visitors came to their house I was always invited to bring out my
organ and converse with them. Strangers found some difficulty in
understanding me; but with the family I conversed with perfect ease, and
they interpreted for me. I found that the universal theory concerning me
was, that I came from beyond a range of mountains on the nearest
continent, beyond which no explorations had ever been made. Concerning
my mode of crossing the steep and lofty barrier on the continent, and
the deep, wide strait which separated the island from the mainland, they
speculated in vain. I humored this theory at first, as far as I could
without positive statements of falsehood, for I knew that, if I told the
truth, it would be absolutely incredible to them; and I did not reveal
to my Martial friends my own terrestrial, to them celestial character,
until just before my departure.
But my psychical character perplexed them much more than my zoölogical.
It seems that these islanders had been accustomed to call themselves, in
their own tongue, "rational animals with sentiments of justice and
piety,"--all which, be it remembered, is expressed in their wonderful
language by a simple harmonic progression of four full chords.[B] But
here was a Batrachian,--one of the lower orders of creation, in their
view,--from whom the Almighty had withheld the gift of a rational soul,
who nevertheless appeared to reason as soundly as they,--to understand
all their ideas,--not only repeating their sentences on his bamboo
pipes, but commenting intelligently on them; and who not only gave these
proofs of an understanding mind, but of a heart and soul, manifesting
almost Mavortian affection for his captor's family, and occasionally
betraying even the existence of some religious sentiments. Was all this
delusive? Did this Batrachian really possess a rational soul, with
sentiments of piety and justice, or only a wonderfully constructive
faculty of imitation?
Reader, in your pride of Caucasian blood, you may think it incredible
that such doubts should have been entertained concerning a man whose
father is from one of the best families in Holland, whose mother is
descended from, good English stock, and who himself exhibits sufficient
intelligence to write this narrative; but nevertheless such doubts were
actually entertained by a large proportion of the inhabitants of the
island. Not only did the members of their Society of Natural History
become warmly interested in the discussion, but finally the whole
population of the island took sides on the question, and debated it with
great warmth. The area of their country is about the same as that of
Great Britain; but as they have no law of primogeniture, nor entailment
of estates, nor hereditary rank, they have no poverty and no
over-population; all of the inhabitants were happy and well-educated,
all had abundant leisure, and all were ready to examine the evidence
concerning the wonderful Batrachian that was said to have come ashore on
the eastern side of their island.
But alas! even in this well-governed and happy community, not every
man's opinion was free from error, nor every man's temper free from
prejudice and passion. Those who insisted that my bamboo music was only
a parrot-like imitation of their speech accused those who held that I
was really rational of the crime of exalting a Batrachian into equality
with "rational animals with sentiments of justice and piety"; and the
accused party, after a little natural shrinking from so bold a position,
finally confessed the crime, by acknowledging that they thought that I
was at least entitled to all the rights of their race. Here was the
beginning of a feud which presently waxed as hot as that between the
Big-Endians and the Little-Endians of Liliput.
I have no doubt in my own mind that the temper displayed in this
controversy sprang partly from causes which had been in operation for
many years before my visit. Somewhere about the middle of the last
century, (I am speaking now of terrestrial dates, translating their long
years and odd numeral scale into ours,) a colony from the mainland had
settled at one end of their island, and were still living among them.
These continental men differed somewhat in figure and stature from the
islanders, and their wings were of a dusky hue, while the islanders'
wings were distinctly purple in their tone. These colonists were looked
upon by most of the islanders as an inferior race, and there had been
very few cases of intermarriage between them. These few cases had,
however, led to some earnest discussions. Some maintained that it was
only a want of good taste in a Purple-wing to be willing to marry a
Dusky-wing, but that it was not a thing forbidden by morality or to be
forbidden by law. Others maintained that such intermarriage was against
nature, against public order and morality, and should be prohibited.
Nay, some went so far as to say that these Dusky-wings were intruders,
who ought to be sent back to their native continent; that the island was
the Purple-wings' country, and that the Purple-wings should have
absolute control over it, and ought not to suffer any other race to
participate in its advantages.
This division of opinion and feeling concerning the Dusky-wings,
although deep and earnest, had not led to much open debate; the people
of the island were very hospitable and polite, and they refrained to a
great extent from showing their prejudices against the colonists. But my
arrival gave them an opportunity of saying with open frankness many
things which, although said concerning me, were meant and understood as
referring to the immigrants from the continent. The Dusky-wings
themselves said but little; they were quiet, inoffensive, affectionate
people, who were somewhat wounded occasionally by the scorn of a
Purple-wing, but simply went on minding their own business, and showing
kindness to all persons alike.
The aborigines of the island, outnumbering the others by twenty to one,
discussed me and my position with eager warmth. On the one hand, it was
argued that I was a Batrachian,--of a high species, it was granted, but
still only an animal; that, if I really had reason and sentiments, they
must be of a low order; that certainly I had no social nor legal rights
which their race were bound to respect; that I was the property of my
captor, by right of discovery, and he had absolute rights over me as a
chattel; that he might sell me or use me as lawfully as he could sell or
use clothing, food, or books; that he might compel me to work for him;
and that he even had a right to poison me (as they poisoned troublesome
insects) whenever he was tired of the burden of my support, or wished to
study my anatomy.
On the other hand, it was maintained that the fact of my being a
Batrachian had no bearing on my moral rights, and ought not to have upon
my social and legal rights. The capacity which I had for understanding
the moral law and for feeling injustice gave me a claim to justice.
Whoever has the moral sense to claim rights is by that very endowment
vested with rights. "The true brotherhood between us rational animals,"
said this party, "is founded in our rationality and in our sentiments of
justice and piety, and not in our animal nature. But this Batrachian,
although belonging to the lower orders of animal nature, partakes with
us of reason and of the sentiments of justice and piety. He is therefore
our brother, and his rights are as sacred as our own. He is the guest,
and not the chattel, of the family who discovered him. To sell him or to
buy him, to force him to labor against his will, to hold his life less
sacred than our own, would be criminal."
Of course I knew nothing of all this until I had been there for several
years, and acquired a tolerable familiarity with their speech. Indeed,
it required a considerable time for the feud to arrive at its highest.
But at length party strife concerning me and concerning the relative
superiority of the two races rose to such a pitch, that I seriously
feared lest I should be the innocent cause of a civil war in this once
happy island. Moreover, I saw that my presence was becoming a source of
serious inconvenience to my host and to his family. They were attached
to me, that I could not doubt; but neither could I doubt that it was
unpleasant to them to have old acquaintances decline any further
intercourse with them because they had allowed a Batrachian to sit at
table with them.
Very reluctantly I decided that I would ask Copernicus to restore me to
my own family on Earth. First I broke the matter cautiously to my host,
and explained to him confidentially my real origin and my intended
return. He was astonished beyond measure at my revelation, and I could
with difficulty persuade him that I was not of celestial nature. We
talked it over daily for several weeks, and then explained it to the
family, and afterwards to a select circle of friends, who were to
publish it after my departure, and give to the whole island their first
notions of _terrestrial_ geography and history. Finally, I decided upon
a night in which I would depart, and at bed-time bade the family good
by. At midnight I filled my pockets and sundry satchels with my
note-books, specimens of dried plants, insects, fragments of minerals,
etc., and, hanging these satchels on my arms, called on Copernicus to
fulfil his promise. Instantly all things disappeared again from my view;
I was floating with my satchels in mid-ether, and fell into a trance.
When I awaked, I was in my father's house in New York. How long the
passage required, I have no means of determining.
The present brief sketch of my life upon the planet Mars is designed
partly to call attention to the volumes which I am preparing, in
conjunction with more learned and more scientific _collaborateurs_, for
immediate publication by the Smithsonian Institution, and partly for the
gratification of readers who may never see those ponderous quartos.
I will only add, that, since my return to Earth, I have never been able
to obtain any information either from Copernicus or from any other of
the illustrious dead, except through the pages of their printed works.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The strangeness of my adventures will be so apt to breed incredulity
among those unacquainted with my character, that I add some certificates
from the highest names known to science.
"New York, June 13, 1865.--Three plants, submitted to me by Mr.
George Snyder for examination, prove to be totally unlike any
botanical family hitherto known or described in any books to
which I have access.
"ROBERT BROWN, _Prof. Bott. Col., Coll. N. Y._"
"New York, June 15, 1865.--Mr. George Snyder. Dear Sir: Your
mineral gives, in the spectroscope, three elegant red bands and
one blue band; and certainly contains a new metal hitherto
unknown to chemistry.
"R. BUNSEN, _Prof. Chem., N. Y. Free Acad._"
"Cambridge, Mass., June, 18, 1863.--Mr. George Snyder has
placed in my hands three insects, belonging to three new
families of Orthoptera, differing widely from all previously
known.
"KIRBY SPENCE, _Assist. Ent., Mus. Comp. Zöol._"
[B] These chords are those of E, A, B, E, whence the creatures might be
called _Eabes_.
MADAM WALDOBOROUGH'S CARRIAGE.
On a bright particular afternoon, in the month of November, 1855, I met
on the Avenue des Champs Élysées, in Paris, my young friend Herbert
J----.
After many desolate days of wind and rain and falling leaves, the city
had thrown off her wet rags, so to speak, and arrayed herself in the
gorgeous apparel of one of the most golden and perfect Sundays of the
season. "All the world" was out of doors. The Boulevards, the Bois de
Boulogne, the bridges over the Seine, all the public promenades and
gardens, swarmed with joyous multitudes. The Champs Élysées, and the
long avenue leading up to the Barrière de l'Étoile, appeared one mighty
river, an Amazon of many-colored human life. The finest July weather had
not produced such a superb display; for now the people of fashion, who
had passed the summer at their country-seats, or in Switzerland, or
among the Pyrenees, reappeared in their showy equipages. The tide, which
had been flowing to the Bois de Boulogne ever since two o'clock, had
turned, and was pouring back into Paris. For miles, up and down, on
either side of the city-wall, extended the glittering train of vehicles.
The three broad, open gateways of the Barrière proved insufficient
channels; and far as you could see, along the Avenue de l'Impératrice,
stood three seemingly endless rows of carriages, closely crowded, unable
to advance, waiting for the Barrière de l'Étoile to discharge its
surplus living waters. Detachments of the mounted city guard, and long
lines of police, regulated the flow; while at the Barrière an extra
force of customhouse officers fulfilled the necessary formality of
casting an eye of inspection into each vehicle as it passed, to see that
nothing was smuggled.
Just below the Barrière, as I was moving with the stream of pedestrians,
I met Herbert. He turned and took my arm. As he did so, I noticed that
he lifted his bran-new Parisian hat towards heaven, saluting with a
lofty flourish one of the carriages that passed the gate.
It was a dashy barouche, drawn by a glossy-black span, and occupied by
two ladies and a lapdog. A driver on the box, and a footman perched
behind, both in livery,--long coats, white gloves, and gold bands on
their hats,--completed the establishment The ladies sat facing each
other, and their mingled, effervescing skirts and flounces filled the
cup of the vehicle quite to over-foaming, like a Rochelle powder, nearly
drowning the brave spaniel, whose sturdy little nose was elevated, for
air, just above the surge.
Both ladies recognized my friend, and she who sat, or rather reclined,
(for such a luxurious, languishing attitude can hardly be called a
sitting posture.) fairy-like, in the hinder part of the shell, bestowed
upon him a very gracious, condescending smile. She was a most imposing
creature,--in freshness of complexion, in physical development, and,
above all, in amplitude and magnificence of attire, a full-blown rose of
a woman,--aged, I should say, about forty.
"Don't you know that turn-out?" said Herbert, as the shallop with its
lovely freight floated on in the current.
"I am not so fortunate," I replied.
"Good gracious! miserable man! Where do you live? In what obscure
society have you buried yourself? Not to know MADAM WALDOBOROUGH'S
CARRIAGE!"
This was spoken in a tone of humorous extravagance which piqued my
curiosity. Behind the ostentatious deference with which he had raised
his hat to the sky, beneath the respectful awe with which he spoke the
lady's name, I detected irony and a spirit of mischief.
"Who is Madam Waldoborough? and what about her carriage?"
"Who is Madam Waldoborough?" echoed Herbert, with mock astonishment;
"that an American, six months in Paris, should ask that question! An
American woman, and a woman of fortune, sir; and, which is more, of
fashion; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any in
Messina or elsewhere;--one that occupies a position, go to! and receives
on Thursday evenings, go to! and that hath ambassadors at her table, and
everything handsome about her! And as for her carriage," he continued,
coming down from his Dogberrian strain of eloquence, "it is the very
identical carriage which I didn't ride in once!"
"How was that?"
"I'll tell you; for it was a curious adventure, and as it was a very
useful lesson to me, so you may take warning by my experience, and, if
ever she invites you to ride with her, as she did me, beware! beware!
her flashing eyes, her floating hair!--do not accept, or, before
accepting, take Iago's advice, and put money in your purse: PUT MONEY IN
YOUR PURSE! I'll tell you why.
"But, in the first place, I must explain how I came to be without money
in mine, so soon after arriving in Paris, where so much of the article
is necessary. My woes all arise from vanity. That is the rock, that is
the quicksand, that is the maelstrom. I presume you don't know anybody
else who is afflicted with that complaint? If you do, I'll but teach you
how to tell my story, and that will cure him; or, at least, it ought to.
"You see, in crossing over to Liverpool in the steamer, I became
acquainted with a charming young lady, who proved to be a second-cousin
of my father's. She belongs to the aristocratic branch of our family.
Every family tree has an aristocratic branch, or bough, or little twig
at least, I believe. She was a Todworth; and having always heard my
other relations mention with immense pride and respect the
Todworths,--as if it was one of the solid satisfactions of life to be
able to speak of 'my uncle Todworth,' or 'my cousins the Todworths,'--I
was prepared to appreciate my extreme good fortune. She was a bride,
setting out on her wedding tour. She had married a sallow, bilious,
perfumed, very disagreeable fellow,--except that he too was an
aristocrat, and a millionnaire besides, which made him very agreeable;
at least, I thought so. That was before I rode in Madam Waldoborough's
carriage: since which era in my life I have slightly changed my habits
of thinking on these subjects.
"Well, the fair bride was most gratifyingly affable, and cousined me to
my heart's content. Her husband was no less friendly: they not only
petted me, but I think they really liked me; and by the time we reached
London I was on as affectionately familiar terms with them as a younger
brother could have been. If I had been a Todworth, they couldn't have
made more of me. They insisted on my going to the same hotel with them,
and taking a room adjoining their suite. This was a happiness to which I
had but one objection,--my limited pecuniary resources. My family are
neither aristocrats nor millionnaires; and economy required that I
should place myself in humble and inexpensive lodgings for the two or
three weeks I was to spend in London. But vanity! vanity! I was actually
ashamed, sir, to do the honest and true thing,--afraid of disgracing my
branch of the family in the eyes of the Todworth branch, and of losing
the fine friends I had made, by confessing my poverty. The bride, I
confess, was a delightful companion; but I know other ladies just as
interesting, although they do not happen to be Todworths. For her sake,
personally, I should never have thought of committing the folly; and
still less, I assure you, for that piece of perfumed and
yellow-complexioned politeness, her husband. It was pride, sir, pride
that ruined me. They went to Cox's Hotel, in Jermyn Street; and I,
simpleton as I was, went with them,--for that was before I rode in Madam
Waldoborough's carriage.
"Cox's, I fancy, is the crack hotel of London. Lady Byron boarded there;
the author of 'Childe Harold' himself used to stop there; Tom Moore
wrote a few of his last songs and drank a good many of his last bottles
of wine there; my Lords Tom, Dick, and Harry,--the Duke of Dash, Sir
Edward Splash, and Viscount Flash,--these and other notables always
honor Cox's when they go to town. So _we_ honored Cox's. And a very
quiet, orderly, well-kept tavern we found it. I think Mr. Cox must have
a good housekeeper. He has been fortunate in securing a very excellent
cook. I should judge that he had engaged some of the finest gentlemen in
England to act as waiters. Their manners would do credit to any
potentate in Europe: there is that calm self-possession about them, that
serious dignity of deportment, sustained by a secure sense of the mighty
importance of their mission to the world which strikes a beholder with
awe. I was made to feel very inferior in their presence. We dined at a
private table, and these ministers of state waited upon us. They brought
us the morning paper on a silver salver; they presented it as if it had
been a mission from a king to a king. Whenever we went out or came in,
there stood two of those magnates, in white waistcoats and white gloves,
to open the folding-doors for us, with stately mien. You would have said
it was the Lord High Chamberlain and his deputy, and that I was at least
Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James. I tried to receive
these overpowering attentions with an air of easy indifference, like one
who had been all his life accustomed to that sort of thing, you know;
but I was oppressed with a terrible sense of being out of my place. I
couldn't help feeling that these serene and lofty highnesses knew
perfectly well that I was a green Yankee boy, with less than fifty
pounds in my pocket; and I fancied that, behind the mask of gravity each
imperturbable countenance wore, there was always lurking a smile of
contempt.
"But this was not the worst of it. I suffered from another cause. If
noblemen were my attendants, I must expect to maintain noblemen. All
that ceremony and deportment must go into the bill. With this view of
the case, I could not look at their white kids without feeling sick at
heart; white waistcoats became a terror; the sight of an august
neckcloth, bowing its solemn attentions to me, depressed my very soul.
The folding-doors, on golden hinges turning,--figuratively, at least, if
not literally, like those of Milton's heaven,--grated as horrible
discords on my secret ear as the gates of Milton's other place. It was
my gold that helped to make those hinges. And this I endured merely for
the sake of enjoying the society, not of my dear newly-found cousins,
but of two phantoms, intangible, unsatisfactory, unreal that hovered
over their heads,--the phantom of wealth and the still more empty
phantom of social position. But all this, understand, was _before_ I
rode in Madam Waldoborough's carriage.
"Well, I saw London in company with my aristocratic relatives, and paid
a good deal more for the show, and really profited less by it, than if I
had gone about the business in my own deliberate and humble way.
Everything was, of course, done in the most lordly and costly manner
known. Instead of walking to this place or that, or taking an omnibus or
a cab, we rolled magnificently in our carriage. I suppose the happy
bridegroom would willingly have defrayed all these expenses, if I had
wished him to do so; but pride prompted me to pay my share. So it
happened that, during nine days in London, I spent as much as would have
lasted me as many weeks, if I had been as wise as I was vain,--that is,
if I had ridden in Madam Waldoborough's carriage _before_ I went to
England.
"When I saw how things were going, bankruptcy staring me in the face,
ruin yawning at my feet, I was suddenly seized with an irresistible
desire to go on to Paris, I had a French fever of the most violent
character. I declared myself sick of the soot and smoke uproar of the
great Babel,--I even spoke slightingly of Cox's Hotel, as if I had been
used to better things,--and I called for my bill. Heavens and earth, how
I trembled! Did ever a condemned wretch feel as faint at the sight of
the priest coming to bid him prepare for the gallows, as I did at the
sight of one of those sublime functionaries bringing me my doom on a
silver salver? Every pore opened; a clammy perspiration broke out all
over me; I reached forth a shaking hand, and thanked his highness with a
ghastly smile.
"A few figures told my fate. The convict who hears his death-sentence
may still hope for a reprieve; but figures are inexorable, figures
cannot lie. My bill at Cox's was in pounds, shillings, and pence,
amounting to just eleven dollars a day. Eleven times nine are
ninety-nine. It was so near a round hundred, it seemed a bitter mockery
not to say a hundred, and have done with it, instead of scrupulously
stopping to consider a single paltry dollar. I was reminded of the boy
whose father bragged of killing nine hundred and ninety-nine pigeons at
one shot. Somebody asked why he didn't say a thousand. 'Thunder!' says
the boy, 'do you suppose my father would lie just for one pigeon?' I
told the story, to show my cousins how coolly I received the bill, and
paid it,--coined my heart and dropped my blood for drachmas, rather than
appear mean in presence of my relatives, although I knew that a portion
of the charge was for the bridal arrangements for which the bridegroom
alone was responsible.
"This drained my purse so nearly dry that I had only just money enough
left to take me to Paris, and pay for a week's lodging or so in advance.
They urged me to remain and go to Scotland with them; but I tore myself
away, and fled to France. I would not permit them to accompany me to the
railroad station, and see me off; for I was unwilling that they should
know I was going to economize my finances by purchasing a second-class
ticket. From the life I had been leading at Cox's to a second-class
passage to Paris was that step from the sublime to the ridiculous which
I did not wish to be seen taking. I think I'd have thrown myself into
the Thames before I would thus have exposed myself; for, as I tell you,
I had not yet been honored with a seat in Madame Waldoborough's
carriage.
"It is certainly a grand thing to keep grand company; but if ever I felt
a sense of relief, it was when I found myself free from my cousins,
emancipated from the fearful bondage of keeping up such expensive
appearances; when I found myself seated on the hard, cushionless bench
of the second-class car, and nibbled my crackers at my leisure,
unoppressed by the awful presence of those grandees in white waistcoats,
and by the more awful presence of a condemning conscience within myself.
"I nibbled my crackers, and they tasted sweeter than Cox's best dinners;
I nibbled, and contemplated my late experiences; nibbled, and was almost
persuaded to be a Christian,--that is, to forswear thenceforth and
forever all company which I could not afford to keep, all appearances
which were not honest, all foolish pride, and silly ambition, and moral
cowardice;--as I did after I had ridden in a certain carriage I have
mentioned, and which I am coming to now as fast as possible.
"I had lost nearly all my money and a good share of my self-respect by
the course I had taken, and I could think of only one substantial
advantage which I had gained. That was a note of introduction from my
lovely cousin to Madame Waldoborough. That would be of inestimable value
to me in Paris. It would give me access to the best society, and secure
to me, a stranger many privileges which could not otherwise be obtained.
'Perhaps, after all,' thought I, as I read over the flattering contents
of the unsealed note,--'perhaps, after all, I shall find this worth
quite as much as it has cost me.' O, had I foreseen that it was actually
destined to procure me an invitation to ride out with Madam
Waldoborough herself, shouldn't I have been elated?
"I reached Paris, took a cheap lodging, and waited for the arrival of my
uncle's goods destined for the Great Exhibition,--for to look after
them, (I could speak French, you know,) and to assist in having them
properly placed, was the main business that had brought me here. I also
waited anxiously for my uncle and a fresh supply of funds. In the mean
time I delivered my letters of introduction, and made a few
acquaintances. Twice I called at Madam Waldoborough's hotel, but did not
see her; she was out. So at least the servants said, but I suspect they
lied; for, the second time I was told so, I noticed, O, the most
splendid turn-out!--the same you just saw pass--waiting in the
carriage-way before her door, with the driver on the box, and the
footman holding open the silver-handled and escutchioned panel that
served as a door to the barouche, as if expecting some grand personage
to get in.
"'Some distinguished visitor, perhaps,' thought I; 'or, it may be, Madam
Waldoborough herself; instead of being out, she is just going out, and
in five minutes the servant's lie will be a truth.' Sure enough, before
I left the street--for I may as well confess that curiosity caused me to
linger a little--my lady herself appeared in all her glory, and bounced
into the barouche with a vigor that made it rock quite unromantically;
for she is not frail, she is not a butterfly, as you perceived. I
recognized her from a description I had received from my cousin the
bride. She was accompanied by that meagre, smart little sprite of a
French girl, whom Madam always takes with her,--to talk French with, and
to be waited upon by her, she says; but rather, I believe, by way of a
contrast to set off her own brilliant complexion and imperial
proportions. It is Juno and Arachne. The divine orbs of the goddess
turned haughtily upon me, but did not see me,--looked through and beyond
me, as if I had been nothing but gossamer, feathers, air; and the little
black, bead-like eyes of the insect pierced me maliciously an instant,
as the barouche dashed past, and disappeared in the Rue de Rivoli. I was
humiliated; I felt that I was recognized,--known as the rash youth who
had just called at the Hôtel de Waldoborough, been told that Madam was
out, and had stopped outside to catch the hotel in a lie. It is very
singular--how do you explain it?--that it should have seemed to me the
circumstance was something, not for Madam, but for me to be ashamed of!
I don't believe that the color of her peachy cheeks was heightened the
shadow of a shade; but as for me, I blushed to the tips of my ears.
"You may believe that I did not go away in such a cheerful frame of mind
as might have encouraged me to repeat my call in a hurry. I just coldly
enclosed to her my cousin's letter of introduction, along with my
address; and said to myself, 'Now, she'll know what a deuse of a fellow
she has slighted: she'll know she has put an affront upon a connection
of the Todworths!' I was very silly, you see, for I had not yet--but I
am coming to that part of my story.
"Well, returning to my lodgings a few days afterwards, I found a note
which had been left for me by a liveried footman,--Madam Waldoborough's
footman, O heaven! I was thrown into great trepidation by the stupendous
event, and eagerly inquired if Madam herself was in her carriage, and
was immensely relieved to learn she was not; for, unspeakably gratifying
as such condescension, such an Olympian compliment, would have been
under other circumstances, I should have felt it more than offset by the
mortification of knowing that she knew, that her own eyes had beheld,
the very humble quarter in which a lack of means had compelled me to
locate myself.
"I turned from that frightful possibility to the note itself. It was
everything I could have asked. It was ambrosia, it was nectar. I had
done a big thing when I fired the Todworth gun: it had brought the enemy
to terms. My cousin was complimented, and I was welcomed to Paris,
and--THE HÔTEL WALDOBOROUGH!
"'Why have you not called to see me?' the note inquired, with charming
innocence. 'I shall be at home to-morrow morning at two o'clock; cannot
you give me the pleasure of greeting so near a relative of my dear,
delightful Louise?'
"Of course, I would afford her that pleasure! 'O, what a thing it is,' I
said to myself, 'to be a third cousin to a Todworth!' But the two
o'clock in the morning,--how should I manage that? I had not supposed
that fashionable people in Paris got up so early, much less received
visitors at that wonderful hour. But, on reflection, I concluded that
two in the morning meant two in the afternoon; for I had heard that the
great folks commenced their day at about that time.
"At two o'clock, accordingly, the next afternoon,--excuse me, O ye
fashionable ones! I mean the next morning,--I sallied forth from my
little barren room in the Rue des Vieux Augustins, and proceeded to
Madam's ancient palace in the Rue St. Martin, dressed in my best, and
palpitating with a sense of the honor I was doing myself. This time the
_concierge_ smiled encouragingly, and ascertained for me that Madam
_was_ at home. I ascended the polished marble staircase to a saloon on
the first floor, where I was requested to have the _obligeance
d'attendre un petit moment_, until Madam should be informed of my
arrival.
"It was a very large, and, I must admit, a very respectable saloon,
although not exactly what I had expected to see at the very summit of
the social Olympus. I dropped into a fauteuil near a centre-table, on
which there was a fantastical silver-wrought card-basket. What struck me
particularly about the basket was a well-known little Todworth envelope,
superscribed in the delicate handwriting of my aristocratic cousin,--my
letter of introduction, in fact,--displayed upon the very top of the
pile of billets and cards. My own card I did not see; but in looking for
it I discovered some curious specimens of foreign orthography,--one
dainty little note to '_Madame Valtobureau_'; another laboriously
addressed to '_M. et Mme. Jean Val-d'eau-Bèrot_'; and still a third, in
which the name was conscientiously and industriously written out,
'_Ouâldôbeurreaux_. This last, as an instance of spelling an English
word _à la Française_, I thought a remarkable success, and very
creditable to people who speak of _Lor Berong_, meaning Lord Byron,
(_Be-wrong_ is good!) and talk glibly about _Frongclang_, and
_Vashangtong_, meaning the great philosopher, and the Father of his
Country.
"I was trying to amuse myself with these orthographical curiosities, yet
waiting anxiously all the while for the appearance of that illustrious
ornament of her sex, to whom they were addressed; and the servant's
'_petit moment_' had become a good _petit quart d'heure_, when the
drawing-room door opened, and in glided, not the Goddess, but the
Spider.
"She had come to beg Monsieur (that was me) to have the bounty to excuse
Madam (that was the Waldoborough), who had caused herself to be waited
for, and who, I was assured, would give herself '_le plaisir de me voir
dans un tout petit moment_.' So saying, with a smile, she seated
herself; and, discovering that I was an American, began to talk bad
English to me. I may say execrable English; for it is a habit your
Frenchwoman often has, to abandon her own facile and fluent vernacular,
which she speaks so charmingly, in order to show off a wretched
smattering she may have acquired of your language,--from politeness,
possibly, but I rather think from vanity. In the mean time Arachne
busied her long agile fingers with some very appropriate embroidery; and
busied her mind, too, I couldn't help thinking, weaving some intricate
web of mischief,--for her eyes sparkled as they looked at me with a
certain gleeful, malicious expression,--seeming to say, 'You have walked
into my parlor, Mr. Fly, and I am sure to entangle you!' which made me
feel uncomfortable.
"The '_tout petit moment_' had become another good quarter of an hour,
when the door again opened, and Madam--Madam herself--the Waldoborough
appeared! Did you ever see flounces? did you ever witness expansion?
have your eyes ever beheld the--so to speak--new-risen sun trailing
clouds of glory over the threshold of the dawn? You should have seen
Madam enter that room; you should have seen the effulgence of the
greeting smile she gave me; then you wouldn't wonder that I was dazzled.
"She filled and overflowed with her magnificence the most royal fauteuil
in the saloon, and talked to me of my Todworth cousin, and of my
Todworth cousin's husband, and of London, and America,--occasionally
turning aside to show off her bad French by speaking to the Spider,
until another quarter of an hour had elapsed. Then Paris was mentioned;
one of us happened to speak of the Gobelins,--I cannot now recall which
it was first uttered that fatal word to me, the direful spring of woes
unnumbered! Had I visited the Gobelins? I had not, but I anticipated
having that pleasure soon.
"'Long as I have lived in Paris, I have never yet been to the Gobelins!'
says Mrs. Waldoborough. '_Mademoiselle_' (that was Arachne) '_m'accuse
toujours d'avoir tort, et me dit que je dois y aller, n'est ce pas,
Mademoiselle?_'
"'_Certainement!_' says Mademoiselle, emphatically; and in return for
Madam's ill-spoken French, she added in English, of even worse quality,
that the Gobelins' manufacture of tapisserie and carpet, was the place
the moz curiouze and interressante which one could go see in Paris.
"'_C'est ce qu'elle dit toujours_,' says the Waldoborough. 'But I make
great allowances for her opinions, since she is an enthusiast with
regard to everything that pertains to weaving.'
"'Very natural that she should be, being a Spider,' I thought, but did
not say so.
"'However,' Madam continued, 'I should like extremely well to go there,
if I could ever get the time. _Quand aurai-je le tems, Mademoiselle?_'
"'I sink zis af'noon is more time zan you have anozer day, Madame,' says
the Spider.
"So the net was completed, and I was caught thus: Mrs. Waldoborough,
with an hospitable glance at me, referred the proposition; and I said,
if she would like to go that day, she must not let me hinder her, and
offered to take my leave; and Arachne said, 'Monsieur perhaps he like go
too?' And as Madam suggested ordering the carriage for the purpose, of
course I jumped at the chance. To ride in that carriage! with the
Waldoborough herself! with the driver before and the footman behind, in
livery! O ye gods!
"I was abandoned to intoxicating dreams of ambition, whilst Madam went
to prepare herself, and Mademoiselle to order the carriage. It was not
long before I heard a vehicle enter the court-yard, turn, and stop in
the carriage-way, I tried to catch a glimpse of it from the window, but
saw it only in imagination,--that barouche of barouches, which is
Waldoborough's! I imagined myself seated luxuriously in that shell, with
Madam by my side, rolling through the streets of Paris in even greater
state than I had rolled through London with my Todworth cousin. I was
impatient to be experiencing the new sensation. The moments dragged:
five, ten, fifteen minutes at least elapsed, and all the while the
carriage and I were waiting. Then appeared--who do you suppose? The
Spider, dressed for an excursion. 'So she is going too!' thought I, not
very well pleased. She had in her arms--what do you suppose? A
confounded little lapdog,--the spaniel you saw just now with his nose
just above the crinoline.
"'Monsieur,' says she, 'I desire make you know the King François.' I
hate lapdogs; but, in order to be civil, I offered to pat his majesty
on the head. That, however, did not seem to be court-etiquette; and I
got snapped at by the little despot. 'Our compagnon of voyage,' says
Mademoiselle, pacifying him with caresses.
"'So, he is going too?' thought I,--so unreasonable as to feel a little
dissatisfied; as if I had a right to say who should or who should not
ride in Madam Waldoborough's carriage.
"Mademoiselle sat with her hat on, and held the pup; and I sat with my
hat in my hand, and held my peace; and she talked bad English to me, and
good French to the dog, for, may be, ten minutes longer, when the
Waldoborough swept in, arrayed for the occasion, and said, '_Maintenant
nous irons_.' That was the signal for descending: as we did so, Madam
casually remarked, that something was the matter with one of the
Waldoborough horses, but that she had not thought it worth the while to
give up our visit to the Gobelins on that account, since a _coupé_ would
answer our purpose;--and the _coupés_ in that quarter were really very
respectable!
"This considerate remark was as a feather-bed to break the frightful
fall before me. You think I tumbled down the Waldoborough stairs? Worse
than that: I dropped headlong, precipitately, from the heights of fairy
dreams to low actuality; all the way down, down, down, from the
Waldoborough barouche to a hired coach, a _voiture de remise_, that
stood in its place at the door!
"'Mademoiselle suggested that it would be quite as well to go in a
_coupé_,' says Mrs. Waldoborough, as she got in.
"'O certainly,' I replied, with preternatural cheerfulness. But I could
have killed the Spider; for I suspected this was a part of the plot she
had been weaving to entangle me.
"It was a vehicle with two horses and seats for four; one driver in a
red face,--the common livery of your Paris hackman; but no footman, no
footman, no footman!" Hubert repeated, with a groan. "Not so much as a
little tiger clinging to the straps behind! I comforted myself, however,
with the reflection that beggars must not be choosers; that, if I rode
with Madam, I must accept her style of turn-out; and that if I was a
good boy, and went in the _coupé_ this time, I might go in the barouche
the next.
"Madam occupied the back seat--the seat of honor in a coach--with whom,
do you suppose? Me? No, sir! With the Spider? Not even with the Spider!
With the lapdog, sir! And I was forced to content myself with a seat by
Arachne's side, facing the royal pair.
"'_Aux Gobelins_,' says Mrs. Waldoborough, to the driver; '_mais allez
par l'Hôtel de Ville, le pont Louis Philippe, el l'église de Nôtre
Dame,--n'est-ce pas?_' referring the question to me.
"I said, 'As you please.' And the red-faced driver said, '_Bien,
Madame!_' as he shut us into the coach. And off we went by the Hôtel de
Ville, the Pont Louis Philippe, and Nôtre Dame, accordingly.
"We stopped a few minutes to look at the Cathedral front; then rattled
on, up the Quai and across the Pont de l'Archevêché, and through the
crooked, countless streets until we reached the Gobelins; and I must
confess I did not yet experience any of the sublime emotions I had
counted upon in riding with the distinguished Madam Waldoborough.
"You have been to the Gobelins? If you haven't, you must go there,--not
with two ladies and a lapdog, as I did, but independently, and you will
find the visit well worth the trouble. The establishment derives its
name from an obscure wool-dyer of the fifteenth century, Jean Gobelin,
whose little workshop has grown to be one of the most extensive and
magnificent carpet and tapestry manufactories in the world.
"We found liveried attendants stationed at every door and turning-point,
to direct the crowds of visitors and to keep out dogs. No dog could be
admitted except in arms. I suggested that King Francis should be left in
the coach; upon which Mrs. Waldoborough asked, reproachfully, 'Could I
be so cruel?' and the Spider looked at me as if I had been an American
savage. To atone for my inhumanity, I offered to carry the cur; he was
put into my arms at once; and so it happened that I walked through that
wonderful series of rooms, hung with tapestries of the richest
description, of the times of Francis I., Louis XIV., and so forth, with
a detested lapdog in my hands. However, I showed my heroism by enduring
my fate without a murmur, and quoting Tennyson for the gratification of
Mrs. Waldoborough, who was reminded of the corridors of 'The Palace of
Art.'
'Some were hung with arras green and blue,
Showing a gaudy summer-morn,
Where with puffed cheek the belted hunter blew
His wreathéd bugle-horn.'
'One showed an iron coast, and angry waves.
You seemed to hear them climb and fall,
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,
Beneath the windy wall.'
'Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasped,
From off her shoulder backward borne:
From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand grasped
The mild bull's golden horn.'
And so forth, and so on. I continued my citations in order to keep
Madam's mouth shut; for she annoyed me exceedingly by telling everybody
she had occasion to speak with who she was.
"'_Je suis Madame Waldoborough; et je désire savoir_' this thing, or
that,--whatever she wished to inquire about; as if all the world knew of
her fame, and she had only to state, 'I am that distinguished
personage,' in order to command the utmost deference and respect.
"From the show-rooms we passed on to the work-rooms, where we found the
patient weavers sitting or standing at the back side of their pieces,
with their baskets of many-colored spools at their sides, and the
paintings they were copying behind them, slowly building up their
imitative fabrics, loop after loop, and stitch after stitch, by hand.
Madam told the workmen who she was, and learned that one had been at
work six months on his picture; it was a female figure kneeling to a
colossal pair of legs, destined to support a warrior, whose upper
proportions waited to be drawn out of the spool-baskets. Another had
been a year at work on a headless Virgin with a babe in her arms,
finished only to the eyes. Sometimes ten, or even twenty years, are
expended by one man upon a single piece of tapestry; but the patience of
the workmen is not more wonderful than the art with which they select
and blend their colors, passing from the softest to the most brilliant
shades, without fault, as the work they are copying requires.
"From the tapestry-weaving we passed on to the carpet-weaving rooms,
where the workmen have the right side of their fabric before them, and
the designs to be copied over their heads. Some of the patterns were of
the most gorgeous description,--vines, scrolls, flowers, birds, lions,
men; and the way they passed from the reflecting brain through the
fingers of the weaver into the woollen texture was marvellous to behold.
I could have spent some hours in the establishment pleasantly enough,
watching the operatives, but for that terrible annoyance, the dog in my
arms. I could not put him down, and I could not ask the ladies to take
him. The Spider was in her element; she forgot everything but the toil
of her fellow-spiders, and it was almost impossible to get her away from
any piece she once became interested in. Madam, busy in telling who she
was and asking questions, gave me little attention; so that I found
myself more in the position of a lackey than a companion. I had
regretted that her footman did not accompany us; but what need was there
of a footman as long as she had me?
"In half and hour I had become weary of the lapdog and the Gobelins, and
wished to get away. But no,--Madam must tell more people who she was,
and make further inquiries; and as for Arachne, I believe she would have
remained there until this time. Another half-hour, and another, and
still the good part of another, exhausted the strength of my arms and
the endurance of my soul, until at last Mrs. Waldoborough said, '_Eh
bien, nous avons tout vu, n'est-ce pas? Allons donc!_' And we
_allonged_.
"We found our _coupé_ waiting for us, and I thrust his majesty King
Francis into it rather unceremoniously. Now you must know that all this
time Mrs. Waldoborough had not the remotest idea but that she was
treating me with all due civility. She is one of your thoroughly
egotistical, self-absorbed women, accustomed to receiving homage, who
appear to consider that to breathe in their presence and attend upon
them is sufficient honor and happiness for anybody.
"'Never mind,' thought I, 'she'll invite me to dinner, and may be I
shall meet an ambassador!'
"Arrived at the Hotel Waldoborough, accordingly, I stepped out of the
_coupé_, and helped out the ladies and the lapdog, and was going in with
them, as a matter of course. But the Spider said, 'Do not give yourself
ze pain, Monsieur!' and relieved me of King Francis. And Madam said,
'Shall I order the driver to be paid? or will you retain the _coupé_?
You will want it to take you home. Well, good day,'--offering me two
fingers to shake. 'I am very happy to have met you; and I hope I shall
see you at my next reception. Thursday evening, remember; I receive
Thursday evenings. _Cocher, vous emporterez ce monsieur chez lui,
comprennez?_'
"'_Bien, Madame!_' says the _cocher_.
"'_Bon jour, Monsieur!_' says Arachne, gayly, tripping up the stairs
with the king in her arms.
"I was stunned. For a minute I did not know very well what I was about;
indeed, I should have done very differently if I had had my wits about
me. I stepped back into the _coupé_,--weary, disheartened, hungry; my
dinner hour was past long ago; it was now approaching Madam's dinner
hour, and I was sent away fasting. What was worse, the _coupé_ left for
me to pay for. It was three hours since it had been ordered; price, two
francs an hour; total, six francs. I had given the driver my address,
and we were clattering away towards the Rue des Vieux Augustins, when I
remembered, with a sinking of the heart I trust you may never
experience, that I had not six francs in the world,--at least in this
part of the world,--thanks to my Todworth cousin; that I had, in fact,
only fifteen paltry sous in my pocket!