VISITANTS FROM SPIRIT-LAND.
———
BY E. CURTISS HINE, U. S. N.
———
Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door,
The loved ones, the true-hearted,
Come to visit us once more.
—Longfellow.
They are ever hovering round us,
A mysterious, shadowy band,
Singing songs, low, soft and plaintive
They have learned in Spirit-Land.
Bright their wings as hues elysian,
Blended on the sunset sky,
By unseen, but angel-artists,
That concealed behind it lie.
Sweet their soft and gentle voices
Mingle with each passing breeze,
And the sorrowing heart rejoices,
As amid the leafy trees
In the green and verdant summer,
Tones long-hushed are heard again,
And the quick ear some new-comer
Catches joining in their strain.
Sceptics say ’tis but the breezes
Wandering on their wayward way—
That the souls of the departed
Rest in peace and bliss for aye.
But I know the fond, the loved ones,
Cleansed from every earthly stain,
Who have passed away before us,
Come to visit us again!
True, our eyes may not behold them,
Nor the glittering robes they wear.
True, our arms may not enfold them,
Radiant phantoms formed of air!
But I often hear them round me,
And each gentle voice is known,
When some dreamy spell hath bound me,
As I sit at eve alone!
Playmates of my joyous childhood,
Wont to laugh the hours away,
As they roamed with me the wildwood,
In life’s beauteous break-of-day;
They are spirits now, but hover
On bright pinions round me still,
Tender as some doting lover,
Warning me of every ill.
And among them comes one, brighter,
Fonder far than all beside,
Sunlight of my young existence,
Who in life’s green springtime died.
Music from her lips is gushing,
Like the wind-harps plaintive tune,
When the breeze with soft wing brushes
O’er its strings in flowery June.
O, thou white-browed peerless maiden,
Holiest star that beams for me!
Thou didst little dream how laden
Was this heart with love for thee!
Once fair garlands thou didst weave me,
But to gem Emanuel’s throne
Thou didst soar away and leave me
In this weary world alone!
But in dreams thou comest often,
Hovering saint-like round my bed,
Telling me in gentle whispers
Of the loved and early dead!
Once, methought, thou didst a letter
Bring from one remembered well,
Who has left this world of sorrow,
In the Spirit-Land to dwell!
Strange the seal, and when ’twas broken,
Strange the characters within,
For ’twas penned in language spoken
In a world devoid of Sin;
Told, no doubt, of joys that wait them
Who shall enter spotless there,
But before I could translate them
I awoke, and found them air!
Deem not that the soul reposes
In its radiant home for aye,
On the fragrant summer roses
Sunset beams may sadly play;
But they whisper “banish sorrow,
And from bitter thoughts refrain,
On the bright and glorious morrow
We will gild your leaves again!”
HISTORY OF THE COSTUME OF MEN,
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH AND THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
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BY FAYETTE ROBINSON.
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People grieve about the departure of the good old times, and prate of the days of chivalry, which Mr. Burke sixty years ago said were gone. That they are gone the world may well rejoice at, not only because they were times of ignorance and cruelty, but also of discomfort and inconvenience. In the diary of a court-officer of the days of Henry VII. is the note of a charge for cutting rushes, to strew on the floor of the Queen-closets; and another one mentions the number of under-garments belonging to Henri III. of France as considerably less than any one of the better orders in our own time would require. In those days, the downy couch meant a bed of goose-wing feathers; gloves were not; and when a gentleman needed a new doublet or head-piece, he went not to a tailor or the hatter of the day, but to a blacksmith. Let the lovers of romance talk as they please, there was little true poetry, and less feeling, in the minds of the heroes they wish to extol, than of the veriest apostles of commerce of our own age. Rightly enough do we date civilization from the times when men laid aside the rugged manners of old with the bronze and iron armor, and doffing the hammered helmet, assumed the cap of velvet and the hat of plush; when they laid aside the iron gauntlet for the chamois glove, and assumed the Cordovan boot in place of the leg-pieces of steel.
The feelings of chivalry yet lingered as late as the days of the English Charles I. and the French Louis XIII. in the minds of the nobility. A new series of ideas, however, had arisen in the breasts of the people at a date long previous to this. Printing had become general, and the learning previously the property of the priests had become the heir-loom of humanity: As a natural consequence, new ideas and new wants were unfolded, and these same ideas had become more general. At this crisis France took the lead, and not only in philosophy but in the minor things of life, French manners and habits were copied. Consequently, in describing costume, Paris will be perpetually referred to, from the fact that from that great city emanated the fashions which controlled the costume of the world.
It is true that other nations had their peculiar costume, handed down and preserved by the tradition of courts, as the Norman dress continues even now the court uniform of the state officials of the British kingdom; Spain had her peculiar doublet, hose and cloak, and Holland her own court apparel. If, however, we look nearer and closer, we shall discover each of these were dresses imported from France at some particular crisis, and retaining position and importance in their new home, when they were forgotten in the land whence they were adopted.
The most highly civilized of all the nations of Europe at the time that this supremacy over the costume of the world was exerted by France, it might have been expected that its selection would have been guided by good taste and propriety. This was not however the case, for in spite of the progress the world has made, the women of France and our own country, and the men also, are not to be compared to the members of the most savage tribes, either in gracefulness of form or propriety of dress. If the Chinese distort the foot, or the Indians of the North West Coast of America the forehead, the civilized women of to-day compress the waist, and men commit not less enormities.
These matters are, however, incontestable; and though we might regret we cannot prevent them. They simply therefore give us a clue in treating our subject, of which we will avail ourselves. They teach us, that to Paris belongs the incontestable empire of that mysterious power known in France as la mode, and in our own land as Fashion. Possibly this may be a remnant, the sole vestige, of that tone of pretension which led France in other days to aspire to universal empire. If so, the pride of other nations which led them elsewhere to resist French assumption here has been silent. Though not the rulers of the world by the power of the sword; though the French idiom be not so universal as the English, even the denizens of “Albion perfide” submit to the behests of the controlling powers of the French mode. Let the French language be universal or not, is to us now of no importance; that French fleets will drive English and American squadrons from the seas, is doubtful, but it is very certain Englishmen and Americans for all time to come will wear French waist-coats, and Germans both in London and Philadelphia will call themselves French bootmakers. How fond soever a people may be of its national garb, ultimately it must submit to the trammels devised in Paris. Ultimately all men will wear that most inconvenient article called a hat, will insert their extremities into pantaloons, and put their arms into the sleeves of the garment, so short before and so long behind, they are pleased to call a coat. When all nations shall have come to this state of subserviency, the end of the world will certainly be at hand, whether because the ultima perfectio has been reached, or because God, who created man after his own likeness, will be angry at the ridiculous figure they have made of his features, better theologians than I must decide. We certainly are not very near this crisis, for hundreds of yellow-skinned gentlemen are yet ignorant of the art and mystery of tying a cravat, and never saw a patent leather boot.
Like great epidemics, the passion for dress often leaps over territorial boundaries, and ships not unfrequently carry with the cholera and vomito bales of articles destined to spread this infection among lands as yet ignorant of it; so that some day we may live to hear of Oakford sending a case of hats to the Feejees, and of Watson making an uniform for the general-in-chief of the King of the Cannibal Islands.
Possibly this passion for our costumes is to be attributed to the deterioration of the morals of the savages, and if so, even dress has its historical importance and significance, and is the true reflection of morale. It may be that the days of the iron garb were days of iron manners, and also of iron virtue, and that in adopting a silken costume we have put on, and they may be about to adopt a silken laxity of virtue and honor.
We will begin to treat of costume as it was in the days of Louis XIV., the solemn mood and ideas of whom exerted their influence even on dress, and the era which saw all other arts become pompous and labored, also saw costume assume the most complicated character. Costume naturally during this reign was permanent in its character, and when Louis XV. succeeded to the throne he found his courtiers dressed entirely as their fathers had done, and the young king, five years of age, dressed precisely like his great-grandfather, with peruke, cane and breeches. When he had reached the years of discretion, Louis XV. continued to devote himself more to the trifles of the court than to affairs of state.
The following engraving is an illustration taken from a portrait of a celebrated marquis of that day.
This, it will be remembered, was the era when women wore whalebone frame-works to their dresses and caps, or a kind of defensive armor over the chest and body. The fine gentlemen also encased themselves in wires, to distend the hips of their culottes or breeches. This was the costume of the fine gentlemen, and in it kings and heroes appeared on the stage almost without interruption until the days of Talma, if we except the brief and unsuccessful attempt at reform, as far as theatres were concerned, by Le Kain and Mademoiselle Clairon.
The foregoing was the prevailing court costume, the next is the military garb of the day, recalling the costume of Charles XII. of Sweden, and not unlike that of our own Putnam or Mad Anthony Wayne. Thus the lowland gentlemen who fought in ’45, dressed after this mode, were the opposing parties of the armies at Ramilies. As a whole it is not malapropos, and altogether more suitable and proper than the uniforms of our own day. The following is the portrait of a mousquetaire just one century after the time of Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artignan, whom Dumas made illustrious.
