MORE THAN ONE CHECKMATED.
The game of chess was now over. Don Guzman had beaten Ruy Lopez—his triumph was complete, and he rose, saying to Calavarez—
“I am ready to meet the wishes of my king, as becomes one who has never swerved from his allegiance to him. My God, may this deed of foul injustice fall only upon him who has been the instigator of it, but may my blood never call down vengeance upon my king. I blame him not for my untimely fate.”
The executioner was now preparing the block, while Ruy Lopez, kneeling in a corner, and hiding his face in his mantle, recited the Office for the Dying.
Calavarez laid his hand on the duke’s shoulder to remove his ruff. Don Guzman drew back.
“Touch not a Guzman with aught belonging to thee, save this ax!” said he, and tearing off the collar, he placed his head upon the block. “Now strike,” added he; “I am ready!”
The executioner raised the ax, and all would have been over, when shouts, and the noise of hasty steps, and a confused murmur of voices, arrested the arm of Calavarez.
The door was flung open, and D’Ossuna threw himself between the victim and the executioner.
“We are in time!”
“Is he alive?” exclaimed Tarrasez.
“He is safe!” cried D’Ossuna. “My dearest friend and cousin, I had not hoped ever to see you again. God would not suffer the innocent to perish for the guilty. His holy name be praised!”
“God be praised!” exclaimed all present, and among them all, and above them all, was heard Don Ruy Lopez.
“You have indeed arrived in time—dear friend,” said Don Guzman to his cousin, “for now, I have not strength left to die.”
He fainted on the block—the revulsion was too mighty.
Ruy Lopez sprang to his side, and raising him in his arms, bore him to the royal saloon. The nobles followed, and when Don Guzman was restored to consciousness, he beheld all his friends thronging around him, with congratulations, which the presence of the monarch scarcely restrained. To Don Guzman, it all seemed a dream. One moment with his head on the block, and the next in the royal saloon. He had yet to learn, that Don Ramirez, agitated by secret remorse, and flurried by the impatience of the monarch, had, with the letters patent, the royal signature to which was to crown all his ambitious hopes, drawn from his bosom a document, fatal alike to those hopes and to himself. That paper contained indications not only of a plot to ruin Don Guzman, but of treasonable designs against the sovereign, sufficient to arouse the king’s suspicions, and further inquiry soon extorted confession from the lips of the traitor himself. He was instantly committed to the tender mercies of Calavarez, who, this time, was given to understand, that his own head must answer for any delay in executing the royal mandate.
Need we say that Don Guzman’s deliverance was hailed with joy by the whole court, and even the stern monarch himself condescended to express his satisfaction that his favorite had escaped.
“It is our royal desire,” he said, “that henceforth, to perpetuate the remembrance of your almost miraculous escape, that you bear in your escutcheon a silver ax on an azure chessboard. It is also our royal will and pleasure that Donna Estella shall be your bride, and that your nuptials be solemnized in this our palace of the Escurial.”
Then, turning to Ruy Lopez, he added, “I am sure the church has found a good servant in her new bishop. As a mark of our royal favor, we bestow upon you a scarlet robe enriched with diamonds, to wear on the day of your consecration. You well deserve this at my hands, for your game of chess with Don Guzman.”
“Sire,” replied Ruy Lopez, “for the first time in my life, I need no consolation for being checkmated.”
The king smiled—so did the court.
“Now, my lords,” added Philip, “we invite you to our royal banquet. Let covers for Don
Guzman and for the Bishop of Segovia be placed at the table with ourself. Your arm, Don Guzman.”
HOW MEN RISE IN THE WORLD.
Few things that happen in the world are the result of accident. Law governs all; there is even a law of Chances and Probabilities, which has been elaborated by Laplace, Quetelet, and others, and applied by practical men to such purposes as life insurance, insurances against fire, shipwreck, and so on. Many things which happen daily, and which are usually attributed to chance, occur with such regularity that, where the field of observation is large, they can almost be calculated upon as certainties.
But we do not propose now to follow out this idea, interesting though it would be; we would deal with the matter of “accident” in another light—that of self-culture. When a man has risen from a humble to a lofty position in life, carved his name deep into the core of the world, or fallen upon some sudden discovery with which his name is identified in all time coming, his rise, his work, his discovery is very often attributed to “accident.” The fall of the apple is often quoted as the accident by which Newton discovered the law of gravitation; and the convulsed frog’s legs, first observed by Galvani, are in like manner quoted as an instance of accidental discovery. But nothing can be more unfounded; Newton had been studying in retirement the laws of matter and motion, and his head was full, and his brain beating with the toil of thinking on the subject, when the apple fell. The train was already laid long before, and the significance of the apple’s fall was suddenly apprehended as only genius could apprehend it; and the discovery, which had long before been elaborating, suddenly burst on the philosopher’s sight. So with Galvani, Jenner, Franklin, Watt, Davy, and all other philosophers; their discoveries were invariably the result of patient labor, of long study, and of earnest investigation. They worked their way by steps, feeling for the right road like the blind man, and always trying carefully the firmness of the new ground before venturing upon it.
Genius of the very highest kind never trusts to accident, but is indefatigable in labor. Buffon has said of genius, “It is patience.” Some one else has called it “intense purpose;” and another, “hard work.” Newton himself used to declare, that whatever service he had done to the public was not owing to extraordinary sagacity, but solely to industry and patient thought. Genius, however, turns to account all accidents—call them rather by their right name, opportunities. The history of successful men proves that it was the habit of cultivating opportunities—of taking advantage of opportunities—which helped them to success—which, indeed, secured success. Take the Crystal Palace as an instance; was it a sudden idea—an inspiration of genius—flashing upon one who, though no architect, must at least have been something of a poet? Not at all; its contriver was simply a man who cultivates opportunities—a laborious, pains-taking man, whose life has been a career of labor, of diligent self-improvement, of assiduous cultivation of knowledge. The idea of the Crystal Palace, as Mr. Paxton himself has shown, in a lecture before the Society of Arts, was slowly and patiently elaborated by experiments extending over many years; and the Exhibition of 1851 merely afforded him the opportunity of putting forward his idea—the right thing at the right time—and the result is what we have seen.
If opportunities do not fortuitously occur, then the man of earnest purpose proceeds to make them for himself. He looks for helps every where; there are many roads into Nature; and if determined to find a path, a man need not have to wait long. He turns all accidents to account, and makes them promote his purpose. Dr. Lee, professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, pursued his trade of a bricklayer up to twenty-eight years of age, and was first led to study Hebrew by becoming interested in a Hebrew Bible, which fell in his way when engaged in the repairs of a synagogue; but before this time he had been engaged in the culture of his intellect, devoting all his spare hours and much of his nights to the study of Latin and Greek. Ferguson, the astronomer, cultivated the opportunity afforded him by the nights occupied by him in watching the flocks on the Highland hills, of studying astronomy in the heavens; and the sheep-skin in which he wrapped himself, became him as well as the gown of the Oxford Professor. Osgood, the American painter, when a boy, was deprived by an austere relative, of the use of pencils and paper; but he set to work and practiced drawing on the sand of the river side. Gifford, late editor of the Quarterly Review, worked his first problems in mathematics, when a cobbler’s apprentice, upon small scraps of leather, which he beat smooth for the purpose. Bloomfield, the author of the “Farmer’s Boy,” wrote his first poems on the same material with an awl. Bewick first practiced his genius on the cottage-walls of his native village, which he covered with his sketches in chalk. Rittenhouse, the astronomer, calculated eclipses on the plow-handle. Benjamin West, the painter, made his first brushes out of the cat’s tail.
It is not accident, then, that helps a man on in the world, but purpose and persistent industry. These make a man sharp to discern opportunities, and to use them. To the sluggish and the purposeless, the happiest opportunities avail nothing—they pass them by with indifference, seeing no meaning in them. Successful men achieve and perform, because they have the purpose to do so. They “scorn delights, and live laborious days.” They labor with hand and head. Difficulties serve only to draw forth the energies of their character, and often their highest pleasure is in grappling with and overcoming them. Difficulties are the tutors and monitors of men, placed in their path for their best discipline and development. Push through, then strength will grow with repeated effort.
Doubtless Professor Faraday had difficulties to encounter, in working his way up from the carpenter’s bench to the highest rank as a scientific chemist and philosopher. And Dr. Kitto had his difficulties to overcome, in reaching his present lofty position as one of the best of our Biblical critics; deaf from a very early age, he was for some time indebted to the poor-rates for his subsistence, having composed his first essays “in a workhouse.” And Hugh Miller, the author of “The Old Red Sandstone,” had difficulties to grapple with, in the stone-quarry in Cromarty, out of which he raised himself to a position of eminent honor and usefulness. And George Stephenson too, who was a trapper-boy in a coal-pit, had difficulties to encounter, perhaps greater than them all; but, like a true and strong man, bravely surmounted and triumphed over them. “What!” said John Hunter, the first of English surgeons, originally a carpenter, “Is there a man whom difficulties dishearten, who bends to the storm? He will do little. Is there one who will conquer? That kind of man never fails.”
Man must be his own helper. He must cultivate his own nature. No man can do this for him. No institution can do it. Possibly a man may get another to do his work for him, but not to do his thinking for him. A man’s best help is in himself—in his own heart, his own soul, his own resolute purpose. The battle can not be fought by proxy. A man’s mind may be roused by another, and his desire to improve and advance himself excited by another; but he must mould his own stuff, quarry his own nature, make his own character. What if a man fails in one effort? Let him try again! Let him try hard, try often, and he can not fail ultimately to succeed. No man can tell what he can do until he tries, and tries with resolution. Difficulties often fall away of themselves, before a determination to overcome them. “There is something in resolution,” says Walker, in the Original, “which has an influence beyond itself, and it marches on like a mighty lord among its slaves. All is prostration where it appears. When bent on good, it is almost the noblest attribute of man; when on evil, the most dangerous. It is only by habitual resolution, that men succeed to any great extent—mere impulses are not sufficient.”
Some are scared from the diligent practice of self-culture and self-help, because they find their progress to be slow. They are in despair, because, having planted their acorn, they do not see it grow up into an oak at once. These must cultivate the virtue of patience—one of the quietest but most valuable of human virtues. They must be satisfied to do their true work, and wait the issues thereof. “How much,” says Carlyle, “grows every where, if we do but wait! Through the swamps one will shape causeways, force purifying drains; we will learn to thread the rocky inaccessibilities, and beaten tracks, worn smooth by mere traveling human feet, will form themselves. Not a difficulty but can transfigure itself into a triumph; not even a deformity, but if our own soul have imprinted worth on it, will grow dear to us.”
Let us have the honesty and the wisdom to do the duty that lies nearest us; and assuredly the first is the culture of ourselves. If we can not accomplish much, we can at least do our best. We can cultivate such powers as have been given to us. We may not have the ten talents, but if we have only the one, let us bring it out and use it, not go bury it in the earth like the unworthy man in the parable. “If there be one thing on earth,” said Dr. Arnold, “which is truly admirable, it is to see God’s wisdom blessing an inferiority of natural powers, when they have been honestly, truly, and zealously cultivated.” Let us strike into the true path, and keep there, working on hopefully, patiently, and resolutely—not turned aside by temptation, nor putting off the work from day to day by vain resolutions to do things that are never done; but DO, with all our might, what the hand findeth to do; and we may safely leave the issues in the hands of Supreme Beneficence; for doubtless the rewards of well-doing will come in their due season.
THE BROTHERS.
One fine spring day in 1831, I was walking, accompanied by a physician, in the gardens belonging to the celebrated Lunatic Asylum near Paris, conducted by Dr. B——. At the turn of an alley I suddenly found myself close to an old man, on whose arm leaned a youth, apparently about twenty years of age. The countenance of the first wore an expression of profound sadness, while the young man’s eye gleamed with the wild strange fire of madness.
The aged man saluted me with silent courtesy, but the younger ran to me, seized my hand, and exclaimed, “A glorious day, monsieur; the scaffold is ready on the Plaza Bemposta! Do you see the crowds assembled? And look! chained on yonder cart, that woman with the pale and savage face; that is Queen Carlotta, the wife of Juan VI., the mother of Don Miguel. ’Tis now thy turn to die, tigress! thy turn to bow beneath the ax, and redden the scaffold with thy blood! But adieu,” he added, addressing me, “they are waiting for me—they call me! I am the queen’s executioner!”
I turned toward the old man, but he only shook his head and sighed; then I questioned the physician who accompanied me.
“That young man,” he said, “is one of the most interesting cases we have; his history is a strange one.”
My curiosity was now excited, and I begged of my companion to satisfy it.
“May I, without indiscretion, listen also?” asked a tall man, with a sad and gloomy countenance, who now approached us, and who, as I learned afterward, was under Dr. B——’s care for a serious affection of the heart.
“You may, certainly,” replied my friend, bowing, and then began: “In the year 1823, one of the first families in Portugal inhabited an old castle not far from Coimbra. The Marquis de
San Payo, the head of this house had played an important part in the revolution which, for a short time, removed from the throne Juan VI. and his imperious queen, Carlotta. The attempt, however, having been finally frustrated, the men who had made it fell victims to their temerity, and the marquis, disgraced and distrusted by the reigning powers, was forced to live in his castle, as it were in exile. His wife and his two sons accompanied him thither; the eldest of these, named Manoel, was fifteen years of age, and of an ardent, excitable temperament; his brother, Jacinto, two years younger, was of a tender, melancholy, dreamy disposition. The minds of both were fully nurtured in the political views which had ruined their father’s fortunes, both by his conversation and the instructions imparted to them at the college of Coimbra. That city had become the centre of the Cortes’ revolutionary operations, and the University had not escaped the contagious excitement of the times. The students organized the plan of a new insurrection, and at their head was Manoel; the contest, however, proved an unequal one—a charge of cavalry, a few volleys of shot and shell, two hundred corpses on the field, and all was over. Manoel was taken, and thrown into the prison of Oporto. The rebels were divided into three classes; the first, and least guilty, were condemned to perpetual confinement, the second to transportation, and the third to death; among the latter was Manoel. No allowance was made for his youth and inexperience, for among his judges was the Duca d’Arenas, a former rival of the marquis, first in love and then in ambition, whose cowardly malicious spirit sought to strike the father through the son.”
Here the stranger, who was listening attentively, gave a visible start.
“Imagine,” resumed the doctor, “what must have been the anguish of the poor parents, and of Jacinto. The boy’s energies were roused by his mighty grief; he hastened to the palace of Bemposta, and went straight to the hall, where the queen was giving audience to her favorite d’Arenas. When Jacinto crossed the threshold, he paused; a woman was before him—a cold and haughty woman. No trace of pity or of softness lingered on her features, or beamed in her piercing eyes; no, her heart was ice, her face iron.
“‘Pardon, madam!’ cried the boy, falling on his knees.
“‘Child, we know of naught but justice; who art thou—what dost thou want?’
“‘I am the son of the Marquis de San Payo, and I come to ask pardon for my brother.’
“The Duke d’Arenas looked up, and exchanged glances with the queen. ‘Madam,’ said he, ‘the best clemency in political affairs is shown by the sword of the executioner!’
“‘Manoel is but sixteen years old!’ cried Jacinto, in a voice of agony.
“‘So much the better,’ replied Carlotta; ‘he will go the more surely and speedily to heaven!’[4]
[4] These words are matter of history.
“Next morning the condemned cart left the prison of Oporto; it contained the two brothers, for Donna Carlotta, with an incredible refinement of cruelty, had ordered that Jacinto should be present at the execution. I shall not try to describe the last scene of this fearful drama; when Manoel bowed his head, Jacinto started upright; and when the fatal blow had fallen, he crouched down on the scaffold; a smile parted his lips—he was struck with madness! Concealed among the crowd, the marquis had witnessed all, but no external emotion betrayed his inward agony; his tearless eyes were fixed on the ax which had hewn down the noblest branch of his house. As to the marchioness, her woe was also silent: eight days afterward, she was found dead, with her eyes fixed on Manoel’s portrait. The marquis, after a time, went to England with Jacinto, where he was during a year and a half under medical treatment, but without benefit. Afterward, they went to Germany, and there, finding science equally powerless, the marquis at length resolved to place his son under the care of Dr. B——; he is now in a fair way to recover.”
“Are you sure of that!” asked the stranger eagerly.
“I have every reason to believe it.”
We walked toward the house, and again saw Jacinto; he was seated on a grass-plat, leaning forward, with his face buried in his hands. His father was near him, grave, silent, and anxious-looking as before. The stranger followed us, and, as he came near, the eyes of Jacinto were raised, and fixed on him with a wild bright look. Suddenly the youth started up, and shrieked, “the Duke d’Arenas!” Then he fell senseless on the ground.
At the unwonted sound the old man thought that intellect and memory had returned to his child, and, forgetting that his enemy, the murderer of his eldest son, stood before him, he exclaimed, “Oh! thank God he is saved!”
“He is lost,” said the doctor, sadly.
A few moments of awful silence followed; all eyes were fixed on Jacinto, whose mouth was open, and whose eyes were fixed on vacancy. The sudden shock had rendered him a hopeless idiot.
The Duke d’Arenas looked at the marquis with an earnest supplicating expression; and then, falling on his knees before him, exclaimed, “Pardon me, I have suffered!”
“I curse thee! Duke d’Arenas.”
“Behold me at thy feet, Marquis de San Payo!”
“Begone!” cried the old man, sternly; “there are between us the corpses of my wife and of my eldest son, besides this other ruin, whose destruction you have just achieved; I am now childless!”
The Duke d’Arenas fixed on the marquis a look so filled with sorrow and despair, that it might have sufficed to satisfy his vengeance.
“And I,” he said, bending his head, “can never again know repose, except in the grave!”
SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF M. THIERS.
M. Thiers is one of the notable celebrities of our day. Though a Frenchman, his name is well known in England as the author of the famous History of the French Revolution. But in his own country, he is also known as a distinguished orator and statesman; indeed it is not too much to say, that Thiers is the cleverest man in France.
You enter the Chamber of Deputies on some day of grand debate. A speaker has possession of the ear of the house. You see little more than his head above the marble of the tribune, but the head is a good one—large, well-formed, and intelligent. His eyes, the twinkle of which you can discern behind those huge spectacles he wears, are keen and piercing. His face is short, and rather disfigured by a grin, but when he speaks, it is lively, volatile, and expressive in a remarkable degree. His thin nervous lips, curled like Voltaire’s, are characterized by a smile, by turns the most winning, sarcastic, and subtle, that can possibly be imagined.
Listen to him. He speaks with a nasal twang and a provincial accent. He has no melody in his voice. It is loud and ear-piercing—that of a vixen. Sometimes it rises to a screech, as that of Sheil’s did. And yet all ears hang listening to that voice, which pours forth a succession of words embodying ideas as clear as crystal, copious almost to excess, but never tiresome. His exuberant thoughts flow from him without effort; he is perfectly easy, frank, familiar, and colloquial, in his style; his illustrations are most happy, often exceedingly brilliant. Be his theme ever so unpopular, he is invariably listened to with interest. His diminutive figure, his grim face, his screeching voice, are all forgotten in the brilliancy of his eloquence, and in the felicitous dexterity of his argument. That speaker is M. Thiers.
Such as his position is, he has made it himself. He has worked his way upward from obscure poverty. He owes nothing to birth, but every thing to labor. His father was a poor locksmith of Marseilles, where Adolphe was born in the year 1797. Through the interest of some of his mother’s relations, the boy obtained admission to the free school of Marseilles, where he distinguished himself by his industry, and achieved considerable success. From thence, at eighteen, he went to study law at the town of Aix. Here it was that he formed his friendship with Mignet, afterward the distinguished historian. These two young men, in the intervals of their dry labors in the study of law, directed their attention to literary, historical, and political subjects. Thiers even led a political party of the students of Aix, and harangued them against the government of the restoration. He was practicing his eloquence for the tribune, though he then knew it not. He thus got into disgrace with the professors and the police, but the students were ardently devoted to him. He competed for a prize essay, and though his paper was the best, the professors refused to adjudge the prize to “the little Jacobin.” The competition was adjourned till next year. Thiers sent in his paper again “next year,” but meanwhile, a production arrived from Paris, which eclipsed all the others. To this the prize was speedily adjudged by the professors. But great was their dismay, when, on opening the sealed letter containing the name of the competitor, it was found to be no other than that of M. Thiers himself!
The young lawyer commenced practice in the town of Aix, but finding it up-hill work, and not at all productive, he determined to remove, in company with his friend Mignet, to seek his fortune in Paris. Full of talents, but light in pocket, the two friends entered the capital, and took lodgings in one of its obscurest and dirtiest quarters—a room on the fourth floor of a house in the dark Passage Montesquieu, of which a deal chest of drawers, a walnut-wood bedstead, two chairs, and a small black table somewhat rickety, constituted the furniture. There the two students lodged, working for the future. They did not wait with their hands folded. Thiers was only twenty-four, but he could already write with brilliancy and power, as his prize essay had proved. He obtained an introduction to Manuel, then a man of great influence in Paris, who introduced Thiers to Lafitte, the banker, and Lafitte got him admitted among the editors of the Constitutionelle, then the leading journal. It was the organ of Les Epiciers, or “grocers,” in other words, of the rising middle classes of France. At the same time, Mignet obtained a similar engagement on the Courrier.
The position of Thiers was a good one to start from, and he did not fail to take advantage of it. He possessed a lively and brilliant style, admirably suited for polemical controversy; and he soon attracted notice by the boldness of his articles. He ventured to write on all subjects, and in course of time he learned something of them. Art, politics, literature, philosophy, religion, history, all came alike ready to his hand. In France, the literary man is a much greater person than he is in England. He is a veritable member of the fourth estate, which in France overshadows all others. Thiers became known, invited, courted, and was a frequenter of the most brilliant salons of the opposition. But newspaper writing was not enough to satisfy the indefatigable industry of the man. He must write history too, and his theme was neither more nor less than the great French Revolution. Our readers must know the book well enough. It is remarkably rapid, brilliant, stylish—full of interest in its narrative, though not very scrupulous in its morality—decidedly fatalistic, recognizing heroism only in the conqueror, and unworthiness only in the vanquished—in short, the history of M. Thiers is a deification of success. But ordinary readers did not look much below the surface; the brilliant narrative, which ministered abundantly to the national appetite for “glory,” fascinated all readers; and M. Thiers at once took his place among the most distinguished literary and political leaders of France.
He became a partner in the Constitutionelle; descended from his garret, turned dandy, and frequented Tortoni’s. Nothing less than a handsome hotel could now contain him. Thiers has grown a successful man, and to such nothing is denied. Liberalism had thriven so well with him, that he must go a little further, he must be democratic; the drift of opinion was then in that direction, so he set on foot the National, the organ of the revolutionary party. The war which this paper waged against the government of Charles X. and the Polignac ministry, was of the most relentless kind. The National it was, that stung the government into the famous Ordonnances, which issued in the “Three Days’” Revolution of 1830. Thiers was, throughout, the soul of this ardent, obstinate, brilliant struggle against the old Bourbon government.
The National had only been seven months in existence, when the event referred to occurred. The Ordonnances against the Press appeared on the morning of the 26th of July. In the course of the day, the leaders of the Opposition Press, and several members of the Chamber of Deputies, met at the office of the National. M. Thiers at once propounded the course that was to be adopted at this juncture.
“Well,” said he, “what’s to be done now, as to opposition in the journals—in our articles? Come! we must perform an act.”
“And what mean you by an act?”
“A signal of disobedience to a law which is no law! A protest!”
“Well—do it then!” was the reply.
A committee was named, on the spur of the moment, composed of Thiers, Chatelain, and Cauchois-Lemaire. Thiers drew up the protest: he inserted the leading idea—“The writers of journals, called upon the first to obey, ought to give the first example of resistance.” This was the signal of revolution! Some said, “Good! We shall insert the protest as a leading article in our journals.” “Not only that,” said Thiers, “we must put our names under it, and our heads under it.” The protest was agreed to, after considerable discussion; it was published; and the people of Paris indorsed the protest in the streets of Paris the very next day. Thus Thiers performed the initial act, which led to the expulsion from France of the elder branch of the Bourbon family. But it ought to be added that, after having signed the protest, which was published next morning, Thiers returned to muse in the shades of Montmorency, and did not return to Paris until the 29th, after the decisive battle of the barricades had been fought.
Of course, Thiers was now a man of greater mark than ever. The new government of the Citizen King at once secured him; and the son of the Marseilles locksmith, the poor law student of Aix, the newspaper writer of the garret, was now appointed Counselor of State and Secretary-General of Finance. It is said that the Citizen King even offered him the Portfolio of Finance, which he declined on the ground of inexperience; but he afterward accepted the office of Under-Secretary of State, and mainly directed that important part of the administration through a crisis of great financial difficulty. He was sent into the Chamber of Deputies as member for Aix, at whose college he had studied.
Thiers was no favorite when he entered the Chamber; he was very generally disliked, and he did much to alarm the timid by his style of dressing à-la-Danton, as well as by his high-flown phrases in favor of democratizing Europe, saving Poland, delivering Belgium, and passing the Rhine. His eloquence was then bluster, but as he grew older, he became more polished, more cautious, and more politic. When the Lafitte ministry fell, of which he had been a member, Thiers at once deserted that party, and attached himself to the Casimir-Perier administration. He fell foul of his old comrades, who proclaimed him a renegade. Never mind! Thiers was a clever fellow, who knew what cards he was playing. He who was for passing the Rhine, was now all for repose and peace; he would have no more innovations, nor propagandism; before, the advocate of equality and democracy, he now became the defender of conservatism, the peerage, and the old institutions of France. He stood almost alone in defending the peerage, but it fell nevertheless, and the revolution went on.
On Marshal Soult assuming the direction of affairs in 1831, Thiers was appointed Minister of the Interior. La Vendée was in flames at the time, Belgium was menaced, and excitement generally prevailed. Thiers acted with great energy under the circumstances; by means of gold, a traitor was found who secured the arrest of the Duchess de Berri, and the rebellion in Vendée was extinguished. A French army was sent against Antwerp, the citadel was taken, and the independence of Belgium secured. In the Chambers, Thiers obtained a credit for a hundred millions of francs, for the completion of public works. The statue of Napoleon was replaced on the Place Vendôme; public works were every where proceeded with; roads were formed; canals dug; and industry began generally to revive. The Minister of the Interior was successful.
But a storm was brewing. The republicans were yet a powerful party, and the government brought to bear upon them the terrors of the law. Secret associations were put down, and an explosion took place. Insurrections broke out at Paris and Lyons; Thiers went to the latter place, where he was less sparing of his person than he had been during the three days of Paris; for at Lyons two officers fell at his side, killed by musket-shots aimed at the minister himself. At length the insurrection was got under; dissensions occurred in the ministry; Thiers retired, but soon after took office under Marshal Mortier; the fêtes of July, 1835, arrived; the Fieschi massacre took place, Thiers being by the king’s side at the time of the explosion. Laws against the liberty of the Press followed this diabolic act, and now M. Thiers was found on the side of repression of free speech. The laws against the
Press were enforced by him with rigor. He was now on the high road to power. He became President of the Council, and Minister of Foreign Affairs. But the Spanish intervention question occurred. Thiers was in favor of intervention, and the majority of the ministry were opposed to it. Thiers resigned office, and bided his time. He went to Rome and kissed the Pope’s toe, bringing home with him leather trunks of the middle ages, Roman medals, and a store of new arguments against democracy.
A coalition ministry was formed in 1838, and Thiers, “the Mirabeau gadfly,” as a pungent lady styled him about this time, became the leader of the party. Thiers failed in his assaults on the ministry; Molé reigned, then Guizot; and the brilliant Thiers was reduced to the position of a simple deputy on the seats of the opposition. But again did M. Thiers find himself in power, after the failure of the ministry on the Dotation Bill of the Duke of Nemours. The ministry of March 1st, 1840, was formed, and Thiers was the President of the Council. Louis Philippe confided all to him; but, though Louis trusted Thiers, and perhaps owed his crown to him, this statesman seemed really to be his evil genius. The Thiers ministry brought the government of France into imminent danger from foreign powers, and was replaced, as a matter of urgency, by that of Guizot, in October. Thiers again relapsed into violent opposition. Years passed, during which he proceeded with his completion of the History of the Consulate and the Empire, which brought him in large gains. The fatal year of 1848 arrived; and when Guizot was driven from power, Louis Philippe again, and for the last time, charged M. Thiers with the formation of a ministry. It did not last an hour. The revolution of 1848 was already consummated.
The career of Thiers since then is well known. For a time he disappeared from France; haunted Louis Philippe’s foot-steps—still protesting undying love for that branch of the Bourbon family. He returned to the Chamber of Deputies, where he is again in opposition; though what he is, and what the principles he holds, it is difficult to say. Principles, indeed, seem to stick to Thiers but lightly. One day he is the bitter enemy of socialism, the next he is its defender. He is a Free-trader to-day, a Protectionist to-morrow. He is a liberal and a conservative by turns. In short, he is a man “too clever by half,” and seems constantly tempted, like many skillful speakers, to show how much can be said on both sides of a question. He is greatest in an attack; he is a capital puller-down: when any thing is to be built up, you will not find Thiers among the constructors. He is a thoroughly dextrous man—sagacious, subtle, scheming, and indefatigable. Few trust him, and yet, see how he is praised! “Have you read Thiers’ speech? Ah! there is a transcendent orator!” “Bah!” says another, “who believes in what Thiers says? The little stinging dwarf—he is only the roué of the tribune!”
Thus, though Thiers has many admirers, he has few friends. His changes have been so sudden and unexpected on many occasions, that few care to trust him. He is not a man to be depended upon. He has been a republican and a monarchist by turns: who knows but to-morrow he may be a Red? It all depends on how the wind blows! This is what they say of M. Thiers. The nobles regard him as a parvenu; the republicans stigmatize him as a renegade. The monarchists think of him as a waiter on Providence.
M. Cormenin (Timon), in his Livre des Orateurs, has drawn a portrait of Thiers with a pencil of caustic. Perhaps it is too severe; but many say it is just. In that masterly sketch, Cormenin says—“Principles make revolutions and revolutionists. Principles found monarchies, aristocracies, republics, parliaments. Principles are morals and religion, peace and war. Principles govern the world. In truth, M. Thiers affirms that there are no principles, that is to say, M. Thiers has none. That is all.”
LIFE AND DEATH.
BY REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY, AUTHOR OF “ALTON LOCKE,” “YEAST,” ETC.
God gives life, not only to us who have immortal souls, but to every thing on the face of the earth; for the psalm has been talking all through not only of men, but of beasts, fishes, trees, and rivers, and rocks, sun, and moon. Now, all these things have a life in them. Not a life like ours; but still you speak rightly and wisely when you say, “That tree is alive, and that tree is dead. That running water is live water; it is clear and fresh; but if it is kept standing it begins to putrefy; its life is gone from it, and a sort of death comes over it, and makes it foul, and unwholesome, and unfit to drink.” This is a deep matter, this, how there is a sort of life in every thing, even to the stones under our feet. I do not mean, of course, that stones can think as our life makes us do, or feel as the beasts’ life makes them do; or even grow as the trees’ life makes them do; but I mean that their life keeps them as they are, without changing. You hear miners and quarrymen talk very truly of the live rock. That stone, they say, was cut out of the live rock, meaning the rock as it was under ground, sound and hard; as it would be, for aught we know, to the end of time, unless it was taken out of the ground, out of the place where God’s Spirit meant it to be, and brought up to the open air and the rain, in which it is not its nature to be; and then you will see that the life of the stone begins to pass from it bit by bit, that it crumbles and peels away, and, in short, decays, and is turned again to its dust. Its organization, as it is called, or life, ends, and then—what? Does the stone lie forever useless? No. And there is the great, blessed mystery of how God’s Spirit is always bringing life out of death. When the stone is decayed and crumbled down to dust and clay, it makes soil. This very soil here, which you plow, is the decayed ruins of ancient hills; the clay which
you dig up in the fields was once part of some slate or granite mountains, which were worn away by weather and water, that they might become fruitful earth. Wonderful! But any one who has studied these things can tell you they are true. Any one who has ever lived in mountainous countries ought to have seen the thing happen—ought to know that the land in the mountain valleys is made at first, and kept rich year by year by the washings from the hills above; and this is the reason why land left dry by rivers and by the sea is generally so rich. Then what becomes of the soil? It begins a new life. The roots of the plants take it up; the salts which they find in it—the staple, as we call them—go to make leaves and seed; the very sand has its use; it feeds the stocks of corn and grass, and makes them stiff. The corn-stalks would never stand upright if they could not get sand from the soil. So what a thousand years ago made part of a mountain, now makes part of a wheat plant; and in a year more the wheat grain will have been eaten, and the wheat straw, perhaps, eaten too, and they will have died—decayed in the bodies of the animals who have eaten them, and then they will begin a third new life—they will be turned into parts of the animal’s body—of a man’s body. So what is now your bones and flesh may have been once a rock on some hill-side a hundred miles away.
A BLACK EAGLE IN A BAD WAY.
Austria, in this present year of grace, 1851, looks to me very much like a translated version of England under the Stuarts.
I am a resident at Vienna, and know Austria pretty well. I have seen many birds before now in a sickly state—have seen some absolutely rotting away—but I never saw one with such unpromising symptoms upon him as the Black Eagle of Austria.
The Court of Vienna is perhaps the most brilliant in Europe; the whole social system in Vienna is perhaps the most thoroughly unsound in Europe. Austria is weighed down by a numerous and impoverished nobility, by unjust taxes, and by a currency incredibly depreciated. Her commerce is hampered by all manner of monopolies, and is involved in such a complex network of restrictions, as only the industrious, gold-getting fingers of a few can unravel. Nearly the whole trade of Austria is in the hands of this busy, persevering few. Out of the immediate circle of the government, there is scarcely a satisfied man in the Austrian dominions. The nobles feel abridgment of their privileges, and decrease of profit by the abolition of their feudal rights, succeeding the late revolution. The merchants feel that in Austria they suffer more vexatious interference than it is in the nature of man to bear quietly. The people, a naturally good-humored race, have learned insensibly to clench their fists whenever they think of their absolute and paternal government.
The position of the nobles is ridiculous. They swarm over the land; increase and multiply, and starve. Not more than a few dozen of them can live honestly without employment; while not one of the noble millions may exercise a trade for bread; may practice law or medicine, or sink down into authorship. The Austrian patrician can not feed himself by marriage with a merchant’s daughter; if he do, his household will not be acknowledged by his noble friends. The he-noble must marry the she-noble, and they must make a miserable, mean, hungry, noble pair.
A celebrated Viennese Professor dined one day in England with a learned lord. “Pray, how is Baron Dash?” inquired a guest—said Baron Dash being at that time an Austrian Minister.
“He is quite well,” said the Professor.
“And his wife!” pursued the other. “I remember meeting her at Rome; they were just married, and she was a most delightful person. She created a sensation, no doubt, when she was received at your court?”
“She was not received at all,” said the Professor.
“How was that?” asked many voices.
“Because she is not born.”
“Not born” is the customary mode of ignoring (if I may use a slang word of this time) the existence of the vulgar, among the noble Viennese. At the present moment, the family of a Minister, or of any of the generals who have saved the throne, may be excluded from society on this pretense. Two recent exceptions have been made in favor of the wives of two of the most important people in the empire. They were invited to the court-balls; but were there treated so scurvily by the “born” ladies, that these unborn women visited them only once.
What is to be done by these poor nobles—shut out from commerce, law, and physic? Diplomacy is voted low; unless they get the great embassies. The church, as in all Catholic countries, is low; unless a nobleman should enter it with certain prospect of a cardinal’s hat or a bishopric. The best bishoprics in the world (meaning, of course, the most luxurious) are Austrian. The revenues of the Primate of Hungary are said to be worth the comfortable trifle of sixty thousand pounds a year.
But there remains for these wretched nobles, one road to independence and distinction; and this is the army. To the army, it may be said, the whole body of the Austrian nobility belongs. The more fortunate, that is to say, the highest in rank, add to their commissions places about the court. Cherished titles are acquired in this way; and a lady may insist on being seriously addressed in polite Austrian society as—say for example, Frau-ober-consistorial-hof-Directorinn.
In the army, of course, under such a system, we see lieutenants with the hair gone from their heads, and generals with no hair come yet on their chins. A young man of family may get a captaincy in three months, which his neighbor without patronage, might not get if he lived forever. Commissions are not sold in Austria as
they are in England, but the Ministry of War knows how to respond to proper influence. In an army of five hundred thousand, vacancies, it is needless to say constantly occur. The lad who is named cornet in Hungary, is presently lieutenant of a regiment in Italy, and by-and-by a captain in Croatia. After that, he may awake some morning, major, with the place of aid-de-camp to the Emperor; and to such a boy, with friends to back him, the army is decidedly a good profession. The inferior officers are miserably paid, an ensign having little more than thirty pounds a year. A captain, however, is well paid in allowances, if not in money; while a colonel has forage for twelve horses, and very good contingencies besides. Again, there are to be considered other very important differences between pay in the Austrian and pay in the English army. An Austrian can live upon his pay. His simple uniform is not costly; he is free from mess expenses, and may dine for six-pence at the tavern favored by his comrades. Not being allowed at any time to lay aside his uniform, he can not run up a long tailor’s bill; and, being admitted to the best society, he need not spend much money on amusement. Besides, does not the state accord to him the privilege of going to the theatre for twopence?
The poorer officers in the Austrian service are so unreasonable and ill-conditioned, that they are not in general pleased by these advantages being given to men, who may possibly be well born, but who have certainly not been long born; and in many places combinations have been made to resist the unfair system of promotion. A young captain sent down to command gray-beards, with a lively sense of their own claims on the vacancy, is now and then required to fight, one after the other, the whole series of senior lieutenants. This causes a juvenile captain occasionally to shirk the visit to his regiment, and effect a prompt exchange.
Some part of the last-named difficulty is overcome by the existence of one or two corps of officers who have no regiment at all. Where there are no men to murmur, the business of promotion is carried on with perfect comfort.
In spite of all this, there is much to be said to the credit and honor of the innumerable throng of people forming the Austrian army. It is an excellently appointed and well-disciplined multitude. The gallantry of its soldiers, and the skill and experience of many of its highest officers, must be freely admitted. Then, too, the great number of nobles classed within it has at least had the good effect of creating a high standard of artificial honor. The fellow-feeling among Austrian soldiers is also great; those of the same rank accost each other with the “Du,” the household word of German conversation; and the common word for an old companion in arms is “Duty-bruder.”
Duels are frequent, but not often fatal, or even dangerous. To take the nib from an adversary’s nose, or to pare a small rind from his ear, is ample vengeance even for the blood-thirsty.
An Austrian officer who has received a blow, though only in an accidental scuffle, is called upon to quit his regiment, unless he has slain upon the spot the owner of the sacrilegious hand that struck him. This he is authorized by law to do, if struck while wearing uniform. The effect of this savage custom has been to produce in Austrian officers a peculiar meekness and forbearance; to keep them always watchful against quarrels with civilians; and to make them socially the quietest gentlemen in the world.
Last winter a fast English gent left a masked ball at the Redoute, intoxicated. Disarming a sentry, he ensconced himself until morning in his box. The gent was then forwarded to the frontier, but the soldier was flogged for not having shot him.
Freedom from arrest for debt is an immunity enjoyed by Austrian officers; but those who indulge too freely in their exemption from responsibility, may want defenders powerful enough to prevent their summary dismissal from the service.
I have written thus much about the Austrian army, because, in fact, as the world here now stands, every third man is or has been a soldier; and one can not talk about society in this empire without beginning at once to talk about its military aspect.
Gay and trifling as the metropolis is, with its abundance of out-door amusement, Vienna must be put down in plain words as the most inhospitable capital in Europe. The Austrians themselves admit that they could not endure to be received abroad as they are in the habit of receiving strangers here. The greater Austrian nobles never receive a stranger to their intimacy.
A late French embassador, who conducted his establishment with splendor, and was at all times profusely hospitable, used to say that he was not once asked privately to dinner during the whole period of his residence in Vienna. The diplomatic corps do not succeed in forcing the close barriers of Austrian exclusiveness; and twenty years of residence will not entitle a stranger to feel that he has made himself familiarly the friend of a single Austrian. Any one who has lived among the higher classes in Vienna will confirm my statement, and will recall with astonishment the somewhat indignant testimony of the oldest and most respected members of the corps diplomatique to the inhospitable way in which their friendly overtures have been received. Invitations to dinner are exceedingly rare; there are brilliant balls; but these do not satisfy an English longing for good-fellowship. Familiar visits and free social intercourse do not exist at all. Then there are the two great divisions of society—or the nobles and the merchant Jews; on one side poverty and pride; on the other, wealth and intellect. The ugliest and most illiterate of pauper-countesses would consider her glove soiled by contact with the rosy fingers of the fairest and most accomplished among bankers’ wives. The nobles so intermarrying and so looking down contemptuously upon the brain and sinew of the land, have, as a matter of course,
degenerated into colorless morsels of humanity. How long they can remain uppermost is for themselves to calculate, if they can; it is enough for us who see good wine at the bottom, and lees at the top, to know that there must be a settlement impending.
For the inhospitality of Viennese society there is one sufficient reason; it springs out of the dread of espionage. In this city of Vienna alone there are said to be four hundred police spies, varying in rank between an archduke and a waiter. Letters are not safe; writing-desks are not sacred. An office for opening letters exists in the post-office. Upon the slightest suspicion or curiosity, seals have impressions taken from them, the wax is melted over a jet of flame, the letters are read, and, if necessary, copied, re-sealed, and delivered. Wafers are of course moistened by steam. You can not prevent this espionage, but it can be detected (supposing that to be any consolation) if you seal with wax over a wafer. One consequence of the melting and steaming practices of the Austrian post-office is especially afflicting to merchants;—bills come sometimes to be presented, while the letters containing advice of them lie detained by the authorities; acceptance, in the absence of advice, being refused.
From the surveillance of the police officials, perhaps not a house in Vienna is free. The man whom you invited as a friend, and who is dancing with your wife, may be a spy. You can not tell; and for this reason people in Vienna—naturally warm and sociable—close their doors upon familiarity, and are made freezingly inhospitable. Yet this grand machine of espionage leaves crime at liberty. Although murder is rare, or at least rare of discovery (there is a Todschauer, or inspector of deaths, but no coroner’s inquest), unpunished forgeries and robberies of the most shameless kind outrage society continually. Many of the more distant provinces are infested by gangs of organized banditti; who will ride, during broad daylight, into a country gentleman’s courtyard; invite themselves to dinner, take away his property, and insist on a ransom for himself if he has no wish to see his house in flames. When met by troops these bands of thieves are often strong enough to offer battle.
But, although the Austrian police can not protect Austrian subjects, it can annoy not only them, but foreigners besides. The English are extremely liable to suffer. One Englishman, only the other day, was ordered to the frontier for a quarrel with his landlady; another, for keeping bad society; another, for hissing a piece of music; three, for being suspected of political intrigue; two for being newspaper reporters. The French have lately come in for their share of police attentions; and we have lost, from the same cause, the company of two Americans. Among the Austrians themselves, the very name of the police is a word of terror. By their hearths they dare barely whisper matter that would be harmless enough elsewhere, but dangerous here, if falling upon a policeman’s ears.
Recently there was a poem published which professed to draw a parallel between a monarchy and a republic. Of course it was an orthodox and an almost rabid glorification of “sound” absolutist principles. The poet sent a copy to an Austrian noble; who, opening it carelessly, and immediately noticing the word “republic,” handed the book back to a servant, with a shudder, and a note to the author acknowledging its receipt, and wondering that the poet “should have thought him (the noble) capable of encouraging republican principles!” This note scarified the feelings of the rhymer intensely. He hurried off to exculpate himself and explain the real aim of his book. He did this, and, of course, his book was bought.
This is the state of Austria in 1851. Men of all grades look anxiously to France; well knowing that the events in Paris next year, if they lead to outbreak, will be felt in Vienna instantly. Yet Strauss delights the dancers, and the military bands play their “Hoch Lebe” round the throne. The nobles scorn the merchants and the men of letters; who return the noble scorn with a contemptuous pity. The murmur of the populace is heard below; but still we have the gayest capital in all the world. We throng the places of amusement. Dissipation occupies our minds and shuts out graver thought. Verily, Charles Stuart might be reigning in this capital.
THE POTTER OF TOURS.
Among the choicest works of art contributed to the Great Industrial Exhibition by our French neighbors, were some enameled earthernware vases of remarkably fine workmanship, and particularly worthy of attention for their grotesque yet graceful decorations. These vases had, however, a still higher claim to distinction than that arising from their own intrinsic value, for they were the workmanship of one who may truly be ranked among “nature’s nobles,” although by birth and station owning no greater title than that of “Charles Avisseau, the potter of Tours.”
A worthy successor of Bernard Palissy, he has, like him, achieved the highest success in his art, in spite of difficulties which would have caused most other men to yield despairingly before what they would have deemed their untoward fate. Charles Avisseau was born at Tours on Christmas-day, in the year 1796. His father was a stone-cutter, but whenever labor was slack in that department, he sought additional occupation in a neighboring pottery. While still a child, he used frequently to accompany his father to the factory. His eager attention was quickly attracted by the delicate workmanship of the painters in enamel, and before long he attempted to imitate their designs. The master of the factory observed some flowers and butterflies which he had sketched on a coarse earthernware vase, and at once perceiving that he gave promise of being a good workman, he engaged him in the service of the factory.
The boy now began to feel himself a man, and entered with his whole soul into his work. By the dim and uncertain light of the one lamp around
which the Avisseau family gathered in the long winter evenings, Charles would spend hour after hour in tracing out new designs for the earthernware he was to paint on the morrow. He was at first too poor to purchase either pencil or paper, and used to manufacture from clay the best substitute he could for the former, while he generally employed the walls of the apartment as a substitute for the latter. He applied himself indefatigably to the study of every branch of his art—the different varieties of earths, the methods of baking them, the mode of producing various enamels, &c.—until, after some years of patient labor in the humble situation he had first occupied, he was offered the post of superintendent of the manufactory of fine porcelain at Beaumont-les-Hôtels. He was still, however, but a poor man; and, having married very young, was struggling with family cares and the trials of penury, when one day there fell into his hands an old enameled earthenware vase, which filled him with a transport of astonishment and delight. This was the chef-d’œuvre he had so often dreamed of, and longed to accomplish; the colors were fired on the ware without the aid of the white glaze, and the effect was exquisite.
“Whose work is this masterpiece?” inquired the young man.
“That of Bernard Palissy,” was the reply; “a humble potter by birth. He lived at Saintes three centuries ago, and carried with him to the grave the secret of the means by which his beautiful enamels were produced.”
“Well, then,” thought Avisseau, “I will rediscover this great secret. If he was a potter like me, why should not I become an artist like him?”
From that hour forward he devoted himself with the most unwearying perseverance to his great pursuit. He passed whole nights over the furnace; and although ignorant of chemistry, and destitute of resources, instruments, or books, he tried one experiment after another, in hopes of at length attaining the much-desired object. His neighbors called him a madman and a fool; his wife, too gentle to complain, often looked on with sad and anxious eye as she saw their scanty resources diminishing day by day—wasted, as she conceived, in vain and fruitless experiments. All his hopes seemed doomed to disappointment, and destitution stared him in the face; yet one more trial he determined to make, although that one he promised should be the last. With the utmost care he blended the materials of his recomposed enamel, and applied them to the ware, previous to placing it in the oven. But who can describe the deep anxiety of the ensuing hour, the hour on which the fondly-cherished hopes of a lifetime seemed to hang? At length with beating heart and trembling hand he opened the furnace; his ware was duly baked, and the colors of his enamel had undergone no change! This was a sufficient reward for all his labors; and even to this day Avisseau can never speak of that moment without the deepest emotion.
But this was not a mind to rest contented with what he had already achieved: he longed still further to perfect his art. He accordingly gave up his situation in the factory, and opened a shop in Tours, where he earned his livelihood by selling little earthernware figures, ornaments for churches, &c., while he passed his nights in study and in making renewed experiments. He borrowed treatises on chemistry, botany, and mineralogy; studied plants, insects, and reptiles; and succeeded at last in composing a series of colors which were all fusible at the same temperature. One more step remained to be achieved: he wished to introduce gold among his enamel; but, alas! he was a poor man, too poor to buy even the smallest piece of that precious metal. For many a weary day and night this thought troubled him. Let us transport ourselves for a few moments to the interior of his lowly dwelling, and see how this difficulty too was overcome. It is a winter’s evening; two men—Charles Avisseau and his son—are seated at a table in the centre of the room; they have worked hard all day, but are not the less intent upon their present occupation—that of moulding a vase of graceful and classic form. Under their direction, two young sisters are engaged in tracing the veins upon some vine-leaves which had recently been modeled by the artists; while the mother of the family, seated by the chimney-corner, is employed in grinding the colors for her husband’s enamels. Her countenance expresses a peaceful gravity, although every now and then she might be perceived to direct an anxious and inquiring glance toward her goodman, who seemed to be this evening even more than usually pensive. At last he exclaimed, more as if speaking to himself than addressing his observation to others:
“Oh, what would I not give to be able to procure the smallest piece of gold!”
“You want gold!” quietly inquired his wife; “here is my wedding-ring: if it can help to make you happy, what better use can I put it to? Take it, my husband! God’s blessing rests upon it.” So saying, she placed the long-treasured pledge in Avisseau’s hand. He gazed upon it with deep emotion: how many were the associations connected with that little circlet of gold—the pledge of his union with one who had cheered him in his sorrows, assisted him in his labors, and aided him in his struggles! And, besides, would it not be cruel to accept from her so great a sacrifice? On the other hand, however, the temptation was strong; he had so longed to perform this experiment! If it succeeded, it would add so much to the beauty of his enamel: he knew not what to do. At length, hastily rising from his seat, he left the house. He still retained the ring in his hand: a great struggle was going on in his mind; but each moment the temptation to make the long-desired experiment gained strength in his mind, until at last the desire proved irresistible. He hurried to the furnace, dropped the precious metal into the crucible, applied it to the ware, which he then placed in the oven, and, after a night of anxious watching, held in his hand a cup, such as he had so long desired to see, ornamented with gilt enamel! His wife
as she gazed upon it, although at the same time a tear glistened in her eye; and looking proudly upon her husband, she exclaimed: “My wedding-ring has not been thrown away!”
Still, Avisseau, notwithstanding his genius, was destined to lead for many years a life of poverty and obscurity. It was not until the year 1845 that M. Charles Sciller, a barrister, at Tours, first drew attention to the great merit of some of the pieces he had executed, and persuaded him to exhibit them at Angers, Poitiers, and Paris. The attention of the public once directed toward his works, orders began to flow in upon him apace. The President of the Republic and the Princess Matilda Bonaparte are among his patrons, and the most distinguished artists and public men of the day are frequently to be met with in his atélier. In the midst of all this unlooked-for success, Avisseau had ever maintained the modest dignity of his character.
M. Brongniart, the influential director of the great porcelain manufactory at Sèvres, begged of him to remove thither, promising him a liberal salary if he would work for the Sèvres Company, and impart to them his secrets. “I thank you for your kindness, sir,” replied the potter of Tours, “and I feel you are doing me a great honor; but I would rather eat my dry crust here as an artisan than live as an artist on the fat of the land at Sèvres. Here I am free, and my own master: there I should be the property of another, and that would never suit me.”
When he was preparing his magnificent vase for the Exhibition, he was advised to emboss it with the royal arms of England. “No,” he replied, “I will not do that. If her Majesty were then to purchase my work, people might imagine I had ornamented it with these insignia in order to obtain her favor, and I have never yet solicited the favor of any human being!” Avisseau has no ambition to become a rich man. He shrinks from the busy turmoil of life—loving his art for its own sake, and delighting in a life of meditative retirement, which enables him to mature his ideas, and to execute them with due deliberation.
In the swamps and in the meadows he studies the varied forms and habits of reptiles, insects, and fish, until he succeeds in reproducing them so truly to the life, that one can almost fancy he sees them winding themselves around the rushes, or gliding beneath the shelter of the spreading water-leaves. His humble dwelling, situated in one of the faubourgs of Tours, is well worthy of a visit. Here he and his son—now twenty years of age, who promises to prove in every respect a worthy successor to his father—may be found at all hours of the day laboring with unremitting diligence. A room on the ground-floor forms the artist’s studio and museum: its walls are hung with cages, in which are contained a numerous family of frogs, snakes, lizards, caterpillars, &c., which are intended to serve as models; rough sketches, broken busts, half-finished vases, lie scattered around. The furnaces are constructed in a little shed in the garden, and one of them has been half-demolished, in order to render it capable of admitting the gigantic vase which Avisseau has sent to the Great Exhibition. There we trust the successor of Bernard Palissy will meet with the success so justly due to his unassuming merit, and to the persevering genius which carried him onward to his goal in the midst of so much to discourage, and with so little help to speed him on his way.
KNIGHTS OF THE CROSS.
ST. GEORGE’S CROSS.
BY CAROLINE CHESEBRO’.
A dull November evening: ghosts of a fog aspiring to the summit of a mountain, which formed the startling feature in the background of a landscape: a melancholy dissonance of swelling, rolling, breaking waves—strong, though not violent, moaning of autumnal winds through the valley, and up the mountain side: dark, heavy masses of cloud—red, and silvery, and leaden lines alternating on the horizon, at the point where the sun had disappeared: a girl standing on an enormous stone that was nearly surrounded by the water, a boy seated on the same rock near her feet; they were Ella, the clergyman’s daughter, and George, a shoemaker’s son.
An arm, white, round, and smooth as a girl’s, bared to the elbow, besmeared with blood and India ink, a hand, gliding over it rapidly, making strange tracery as it moved; a voice, soft and melodious, but tremulous in its tones, telling of a heart beating within the speaker’s breast that was keenly susceptible to every emotion—that voice saying,
“Did I show you the verses that I wrote about our Cross, Ella?”
“No! no—did you write verses about it?”
Without replying to the words, the boy laid down the needle he was using, drew from his pocket a little book, took from it a paper which he gave to the girl, silently resuming his work.
And in the gloom and cold she read,
FOR ELLA.
THE SYMBOL AND MEMORIAL.
I place the semblance of a Wayside Cross,
Thy hands and mine have fashioned, in this place,
Not only as an ornament, to grace
With well-shaped form, and covering of moss,
My shelves of books; nor yet Life’s supreme loss
To hint through it to all who will admire:
Another impulse urged me, and a higher—
All false ambition and “world praise,” pure dross,
Which doth but weaken thought, and lay on toil
A heavier curse than Adam’s, stands reproved
Before this solemn figure. He who died
Ordained a Rest from this vain world’s turmoil
In shadow of his cross. So unremoved
Here let this stand, and shed its warnings wide.
Here shall it stand above these graves of Thought,
These well-remembered, and frequented graves,
In memory of the lion-hearted braves
Who into Life new life and strength have brought—
In memory of the martyrs who have taught
The sacred truths for which they dared to die—
In memory of the poet-souls that lie
In the poor potter’s field for strangers bought;
Here let it stand, a hallowed monument,
Most meet, o’er the great hopes entomed beneath—
And if it speaks to only you and I
Of more than beauty, have we vainly blent
The moss and lichens? Is it thy belief
Our thoughts shall ever in such shadow lie?
“A rare library I have,” said the boy, with bitter accent—“yet I have made use of no poetic license in speaking of my shelves of books—I have just two shelves, and there are at least a dozen books in each.”
“I know of some men who have great libraries, and they might be glad to know as much as you do about books,” said the girl, soothingly. “Never mind, you’ll write more books than you own, one of these days.”
“Oh, Ella, you speak like a child—you are a child indeed,” he repeated, surveying her as if he had not thought of such a thing before. “I shall never, never write a book, I have got another life marked out for me.”
“Who says so? who put such a thing into your head?” she asked, quickly. “Why, you write now—you write verses and prose—so you are an author already.”
“I wish to God I were!”
“You are, you are, I tell you.”
“I have a mother—I am to be a preacher!” the words were almost hissed forth—but having uttered them, he seemed immediately to regain tranquillity. “Do you remember the day when we two had a pic-nic here, and gathered moss from the rocks, and made those crosses?” he said, tenderly.
“Why, yes,” she answered, with evident surprise—“to be sure I remember—it was only last week. What a lovely day it was—and what a beautiful cross that was you shaped for me. I look at it every day—I believe it will never fade.”
“It can not fade.... You spoke of my writing books ... what should I write them for?”
“Money and Fame—what all authors write for.”
“Oh, what a mistake! not all! Sit down here, Ella. There’s a good girl. Don’t you know there are some persons who don’t write for money, and who don’t care for fame? Some who write because they must, who’d go crazy outright, if they didn’t, but who would just as soon dig a hole in the ground, and throw what they write in there, or make a burial place of this sea, as they’d have their writings printed? They write to satisfy their own great spirits, not to please others.”
“No, I never heard of such a thing, and I don’t believe it either. You are talking in fun, to hear yourself—or to get me into a dispute with you—nothing pleases you better.”
The boy looked up, his eyes met those of the girl beside him—they smiled on each other. What children they were. How strangely forgetful of the gulf that lay between them!
“See, Ella, I have finished my work.”
It was getting very cold and cheerless there on the sea-side, and she shivered as she turned to look at the completed work, whose progress she had shrunk from watching.
“What did you call it? Oh, I remember, that is the anchor. But there’s another mark below it, an old one too,” she said, bending lower, that she might see it more distinctly. “You never told me about this—what is it?”
“Shall I make an anchor on your arm?”
The girl drew back.
“You are afraid it will hurt you,” he said, half in scorn.
She looked on his arm where the blood was mingling with the ink.
“No,” she said, resolutely,“I’m not afraid it will hurt me, but the mark, will it not last always?”
“To be sure it will. Oh! you will be a beauty—you will shine in ball-rooms with those fair white arms uncovered! Such stuff as this would deface them!”
“No such thing! you like to tease me, and that’s the reason you talk so. How wild you are! I’m not at all afraid of the pain—nor of marring my beauty. You know, in the first place, I have no beauty, and I don’t want any either.”
“Tut—but I’m not going to flatter you. Do you really want to know what this other mark here is?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a cross, Ella.”
“A cross, George? What’s the reason you wear it there?”
“Why do you wear that gold thing attached to the gold chain hung around your neck? That is a cross too.”
“This? Oh, mamma gave it to me.”
“What good does it do you? Do you say your prayers over it?”
“No—I think it very pretty—I wear it for mamma’s sake.”
The boy folded his arms, and turning half away from her said, scornfully, as if to himself:
“She wears it proudly, for it shines
With costly gems, a radiant thing’—
A worthier emblem of the times
To Fashion’s court she could not bring.
“Made fast with chain of precious gold,
She dons it with her gala-dress:—
It shines amid the silken fold—
Sin clasps it with a bold caress.
“It is no burden as she treads
Through Pleasure’s paths in open day;
No threat’ning shadow ever spreads
From those rich jewels round her way
“She clasps it in her vainest mood,
(That awful symbol lightly worn,)
Forgetful that ’tis stained with blood,
And has the Prince of Glory borne’
“Oh strange forgetfulness! She sees
No circling Crown of Thorns hung there’
Droops ne’er beneath it to her knees’
Is never driven by it to prayer!
“It lies no weight upon her breast—
It speaks no warning to her heart—
It lends no guiding light—at best
Is but a gaud in Folly’s mart.
“Go! hide the glittering thing from sight!
Go! bear the cross in worthier guise’
The soul-worn crucifix sheds light
That in no paltry bauble lies.”
As he finished the recitation, or improvisation, whichever it might be, the youth quietly turned toward the maiden, lifted the slight chain which secured the ornament over her head, and glancing at the “bauble” contemptuously, flung it far into the water.
She was so astonished that, though his movement
was comprehended, she made no attempt to stay his purpose—her eyes followed his hand, and the bright golden cross as it flashed on the waves and disappeared—then she turned away, without speaking, as if to leave him.
“Stay!” he said, and she stopped short—“come and sit down here beside me,” but she looked at him as though she did not hear.
“It vexes me,” he said, in an apologetic, conciliatory way, “it vexes me to see every holy, sacred thing made vain, by vain unmeaning people. What business has any one to wear a golden cross? Had you worn one of lead or iron, I would not have thrown it into the sea. I wish you would wait a few minutes—don’t go! I want to tell you about this cross on my arm. You asked me about it. To me it means endure. Ella, you can’t guess how much it means; because it isn’t possible for you ever to look into the future as I do. You can’t imagine what I see before me. I don’t know as I should have thought of engraving an anchor here, under this cross, but when I came down to the beach to-night I was very desperate—I saw you standing up here on this rock, the sunlight was shining on your hair and face, the breeze making sport with your shawl and dress, and you looked to me just like Hope, standing so firm on the rock, looking up so calmly into heaven. Oh, Ella, you can’t guess what quiet the sight of you sent into my soul. If you had been an angel, and had stood repeating the words of Jesus as He walked on the waters, I could not have heard you say Peace more distinctly.... One has no right to hope, who can not endure. I don’t like to see such awful realities as the cross turned into vain symbols, that’s the truth about it. But I want you to forgive me for throwing your cross into the sea, I only wish I could tear every cross from you as easily, as you go through life. I couldn’t bear to think that you would very soon, let me see, you are fifteen years old! go among gay people wearing that thing, forgetful of its meaning. Will you forgive me?”
The “Yes” she said was more than a half sob—but as if ashamed of the emotion she could not conceal, Ella gave the boy her hand, with a frankness that conveyed all the pardon he wanted.
“Will you let me mark the anchor on your arm then, Ella?”
“No, but you may do the cross.” She sat down beside him again, and he traced on her tender arm, with the fine point of the needle, a symbol and a badge.
“And you will not have the Hope?”
“That is in my heart.”
“In truth it is the safest place for it. Your arm might have to be amputated some day, but your heart, I know, will never die while you live.”
“Can the heart die?”
“Yes, it can be killed—it can die of disease, of cold, of fever, a thousand things can destroy it—just as the body is destroyed.”
“Don’t you keep your hope in your heart too?”
“Yes, when I have any. There’s no moon to-night. Let’s go. We shall have a storm before morning. See the waves! they look as if they had been saturated in the Blackness of Darkness, and were just escaped from it. And, do look up! what a fit pavilion are those clouds for the Angel of Wrath! oh, how I wish he would appear!”
“George! George!”
“Yes, Ella—for he would be sure to do away these cursed distinctions we know so much of! Then I should have no need for feeling as I do, when I shut your gate after you, and go on to the shed where the shoemaker’s widow lives with her son, whom people are so very kind, so exceeding kind, as to call a poet. Ella, neither you nor I will live to see it—but the old things shall pass away on this earth, and new powers reign here ere long. And then, in that blessed day when Justice shall rule, a girl like you may walk up this village street with a boy even like me, and take his arm, and speak with him as an equal, and none shall stare and think the condescension wonderful. As it is—walk alone—go on before me—though you are weary and cold, I am not fit to support or to shelter you.”
He opened the gate for her, for they stood now before the parsonage—as she passed through he said, more gently, “I am sorry that I threw your cross away; it was a violent, and passionate, and childish act. Besides, you prized it—for your mother’s sake; you love your mother. And no good will ever come of its being torn away from you. There was no cause for treating you so.”
“Yes, there was, George—don’t mind—good has come of it already.”
“Oh, Ella—how?”
“I’m ready, this moment, to bear another cross, to take it up and bear it, if God will.”
“Woe to the human hand that lays a heavier cross on your shoulder than that I threw away from you.”
“Good-night, George.”
“Good-night, Ella.”
“George, you don’t believe I feel as you say people do about being seen walking or talking—with—you? I am, indeed, very proud of you, and—”
“Yes—I don’t doubt it, since you say so—you’re proud of me, though I can’t see why. But you’re not proud for me, nor with me.”
“Yes—I am.”
“No! no! you don’t understand what you’re talking about. I’m glad you don’t—if I called ‘the whole world a cheat, and all men liars,’ you wouldn’t say yea and amen to that?”
“No; for I could prove to you that you mistook all about you. Oh, if you only knew how—”
“No more—good-night. You are not like other people, Ella, or we could not speak as we do together.”
II.
A dull November morning—rain had fallen in great quantities during the night, as George Waldron had predicted, and clouds yet covered
the entire heaven. Amid the leafless forest trees that covered the mountain side, stood here and there a few evergreens, like ghosts, robed in funereal gloom—the wind was fierce and cold—the waters of the lake rolled high and furiously, they dashed madly on the beach—they rolled far back and up, with maniac force.
The boy was there again, standing on the seashore—the sun had not yet risen—he stood where the sunlight had fallen the night before on Ella, but the light that had enveloped her as a glory-robe, was not on him. He looked pale, and very anxious, and from the rock where she had stood he restlessly and curiously scanned every wave that broke upon the beach.
He had been roused long before daylight from his slumbers, by the parson, Ella’s father, and at his request had gone for a physician, for Ella was very ill.
And all that night, after the leech was summoned, he walked or ran along the beach, waiting with an impatience so fierce that one could not call it childish, for day to come. His garments were soaked with rain, but he knew it not, neither was he conscious of fatigue, or cold, or faintness, but incessantly, as he went to and fro, wild prayers burst from his lips. In the gloom, and storm, and darkness, he harbored but one thought, one hope, the rescue of Ella’s golden cross from the waters. The moment he heard that she was ill, he said to himself, she will die, and his fiery soul, recalling her mild, reproachful look as she watched his sudden motion, and her gently-expressed regret when the cross was lost, began to torture him. The act of passion became a thousand times exaggerated, and the recollection maddened him.
All day he walked along that stormy beach, and when night came, it was not till thick darkness began to gather over land and flood, that he arose to go back to his mother’s house. Mrs. Waldron had but just come in from the parsonage—she was going back again for the night, for Ella was very ill—and this good woman was noted as an efficient nurse,
“How is she, mother?” was his abrupt salutation, as he closed the door behind him, and walked up to the table where she sat at work for him.
“Who?” asked the mother, forgetting her neighborly, in her maternal anxiety, as she looked upon the pale and haggard face of her boy.
“The girl at the parsonage. I went for the doctor for her last night, you know.”
“Oh—she is very ill indeed, very ill; I’m going to watch there to-night.”
“It will tire you. You’re not well yourself.”
“Oh, well, son, when a neighbor’s sick, and wants my help, I hope I shall always be ready to give it—even if I don’t feel over and above smart myself.”
“Neighbor!” he repeated, furiously. “If it was you they talked of visiting, or helping, they’d say, it is a poor woman that lives near us—they wouldn’t call you ‘neighbor,’ mother—they’ve a different way of talking.”
“Oh, son! son! how awful proud you are. You’re hard on ’em. I’m feared you haven’t the right sort of spirit in you. It’s not the mood to take into the world—if you knock people down you’ll have to pay for it; the best way is just to ask leave to go by, and if they won’t make room, apologize for pushing on.”
“Mother,” he said, abruptly interrupting her, “did you see El—the sick girl, to-day?”
“Why, yes! I staid in the room all the time. Poor child, I don’t think she quite knew what she was talking about. She was wild-like—running on about the storm, and the night, and a cross, which was give to her by her mother—and it’s lost, they say. You never see folks so done up as the minister and his wife. When sorrow comes to us we’re all alike. But they are knocked up complete.”
“Was she grieving about the cross? Why don’t they get another like it, and make her think it’s found!”
“Oh, they wouldn’t deceive her! That would be agin the parson’s principles. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Don’t trouble yourself about getting tea, mother. I’m not at all hungry. Lie down and take a little nap. I’ll help myself, and I’ve got a book I want to read now.”
Though the words were kindly uttered, he spoke as one having authority; and without attempting a remonstrance, the mother complied with his suggestion, and was soon in a deep sleep. Early in the evening he aroused her, hurried away to the parsonage, and there left her for the night.
Exhausted by the excitement to which both mind and body had been subject for the last twenty-four hours, he returned home, but not to read, nor to study. The door to his humble home made fast, he passionately flung himself upon the floor, and until the fire-light died away he lay there, his eyes glaring about like a maniac’s, scanning the discolored walls, and the humble furniture, familiar to him since he first learned to take note of things, and understand the contrasts in the world. He slept not for one moment, nor could he think connectedly on any subject. His hopes were all dashing to and fro, confused and stormy as he knew the waves were, that beat along the shore on that wild night. One moment a gleam of glory, like a lightning flash, would break upon his soul, and the next the thunder-crash of the decision of Destiny and Doom, would peal through his excited intellect. He never for an instant thought of her recovery. He looked upon her death as a necessity that concerned him, and him alone, and he looked beyond her grave to his own future, as though he could tread on to it across that mound alone.... He thought upon his mother, and an icy chill made him nerveless—he painted his own portrait, and stood apart from the work, and gazed upon it with a critic’s eyes. It was always in the light of a Preacher that he looked upon himself; but while one of these pictured similitudes, that of the Poet-Preacher, whose parish lay in Author-Land, won
him again and again, as by a siren charm, to bestow upon it one more, and one more look, from the other he turned with shuddering and aversion.
And while he lay on the hard floor, and thought, and groaned, and agonized through all that night, the wild and pitiless storm raged over sea and land—it was a desolating storm, but not so dreadful as that which convulsed the soul of this poor youth.
All the following day he kept up his vain search along the beach, until night came again, when dizzy with the incessant watch he kept over the dashing, breaking waves, and faint from his long fasting, and suddenly mindful that there might be some new tidings of Ella waiting him, he returned from the dreary watching place.
He did not find his mother at home, but she had been there since he left in the morning, for the table was spread in readiness for him. She had remembered him in the sick room, and mindful of his comfort had come, prepared the meal for him, and gone again. The boy’s heart smote him for the many ungrateful and hard thoughts he had borne her that day.
He was removing the things from the table, for he thought that he would write when she came in. He saw at once that she had been weeping, and his assumed indifference vanished in an instant; he cried out,
“Is she dead?”
“No; but they’re in dreadful trouble over to that house. Oh, son! if you could see that dear angel lying there so beautiful on the bed, and the room so quiet, and the poor creature’s pa and ma taking on so, and she not knowing it! It’s a dreadful sight! It’s strange, it is!”
“But is she no better, mother? Won’t she recover?”
“No hope of such a thing. I wanted to go back to-night to sit there in the room with her, but they said I’d tire out, and maybe they’d have to call on me again; and so I must rest to-night.”
“But do you feel so very tired?”
“No; I could sit there just as well as sleep here. I’m so anxious. I’ll have time enough to rest when I can’t do nothing for them, poor things!”
“Oh, do go then! Has she been in her right mind to-day?”
“Not a minute. But it’s strange though, how her thoughts has kept on to one thing the whole time. I wish you could see her arm! It’s dreadful inflamed; and it’s stained with something like ink, and odd enough, just in the shape of a cross. It couldn’t be no supernatural work, George. I told you her gold cross was lost.”
“And does her arm pain her?”
“Not that, I guess. But it’s all about having her hope amputated, and then she’ll lift her arm, as if she couldn’t do it hardly, and talk about the cross being heavy to bear. And then she cries about the Angel of Wrath, and says he’s coming—and whispers, and takes on the queerest you ever see. Oh, it would be dreadful if she wasn’t so lovely, and so angel-like, when she talks about these horrid things!”
“What horrid things?” he asked, abruptly and coldly, as though just waking from a sleep.
“Oh, but you’re heartless! I believe you don’t care for the dying no more than you do for the living. I believe you’ve slept all the time I was talking!”
“If I didn’t care about her being nursed every minute, would I ask you to go back, when I know you’re tired? They are nothing to me, and you are my mother! Would I ever ask you to go, if I could sleep while you are talking about her? Will you go?”
“Yes, yes; I mean to go. I’m glad you have some feeling in you. But you—you look like a ghost! I declare you look frightful! Your face is as pale! and your eyes stare out of your head so! Son! son! what’s the use of killing yourself just to get a little learning? What manner of good can come of it? Somebody, oh, the doctor, Dr. Williams, was asking me to-day if you was writing a book. I told him no; but I didn’t tell him what I thought about it—that you had as good as promised me that you would be a preacher. I shall be so proud of you then. These fiddling poets! I like a man, as long as he is in the world, to be of some use in it.”
“Don’t get in a passion, mother. I am no poet. No son of yours will disgrace you by ever publishing a book.” He spoke with frantic energy.
“But it’s getting late. I will now go with you.”
“No, no, you won’t—I’ll not hear of it, you look a’most as bad as Ella does.”
“Do you call her ‘Ella’ over there?”
“No—you know I haven’t much acquaintance with ’em.”
“Then I wouldn’t condescend to call her so here,” was the bitter rebuke.
His mother did not answer him, but went out of the house lamenting her son’s pride, rather audibly.
And he kept another watch that night, and in a solemn passion vowed a vow; and wherever his eyes turned through the darkness he beheld a cross uplifted before him—and a voice was ringing in his ear—“this for thee,” and the shadow of that cross he could not escape, for it lay upon his soul.
III.
Another day-dawn, but how unlike those wild preceding days! Again the sun arose, and was no longer hid by threatening clouds—the wind swept steadily and keenly, but not fiercely over the waters; and the waves beat against the shore, upon the beach, and the rock, but not with angry violence, and the splendor of the dazzling sunlight was upon them all.
And again a boyish form, in which a man’s heart and a giant’s soul were beating, paced to and fro upon that beach—and a vow made in the solitude of night was on his lips, and he spoke it calmly in that lonely place where there was only the mountain, and the waters, the singing petrel, and the sandy beach, and the Maker of them all, to testify against him if he should break
the vow: “Oh ye waves, only give up that treasure dear to her, and I will obey my mother—I will not let one dream of Fame tempt me—I will forget that I too could be a poet, and an author. Yes, yes, I will be a preacher, as she would have me. God! hear me!”
He stepped upon the rock, the rock on which she stood, that night—for the stormy petrel, singing as it went, was floating just then under it—but for a moment when he stood there he made no effort to advance, for the doom he had feared, yet invoked, met him there! Upon a shrub, that was lodged upon the rock in a handful of earth, the glittering cross and golden chain were hanging. He paused, as if blasted by the recollection of his vow—a phantom, horrible as death stood between him and the cross—then he went forward resolutely, as one who walks upon a sacrificed hope, to work for another some good thing.... In solemn silence he lifted the bauble, turned away from the sea-side, passed up the village-street, through the parsonage-gate, and for the first time in his life up to the parsonage-door.
He did not even pause to knock, but went on, as led by instinct, to the very door of her chamber—it stood open, and Dr. Williams was there alone with Ella. She must have been speaking of the youth even then, for the physician did not look surprise upon George—on the contrary he stepped aside, and while the boy remained with Ella none other of the household were permitted to enter the room.
Ella had wakened that morning from her fever-dream, and was once more quite conscious—of her danger—but not of the hopelessness of those around her: what all the household now knew, that she would not recover, had not yet been told her.
George took her hand—she recognized him with a smile, and directed his eyes to the inflamed arm which, through all her delirium, and now in her consciousness, she would not suffer to be covered. The red cross glared upon his sight.
“Where is the Anchor, Ella?”
“Here,” she said, laying her hand upon her breast.
“Ella, have you forgiven me for robbing you of the cross your mother gave you?”
“Oh, yes; I had forgotten it, George.”
He held it up before her—the sea-weed clinging to it still. “See,” he said, “the waves were too generous to keep it. I found it just now on the rock—the place where you stood that night.”
“Keep it, George. Though I never thought to leave you such a remembrancer. Oh, George! I should have been just as this sea-weed, and perhaps have clung to the Cross of Christ with not a bit more energy, if I had staid in the world.”
“You are not going away! You are not going!” he cried; but his voice faltered and fell as he said it, for he felt that she was going.
“Doctor, I left a little book on my desk, will you bring it to me?”
It was laid before her.
“This,” she said, again addressing the youth, “I meant for you. It pleased me, and I thought perhaps you would like it—and won’t you lay it on your shelf nearest to your cross, the one we made. It has a pretty name—The Shadow of the Cross. See, I wrote your name in it after I came home that night. You could write a better book”—he shuddered, and half turned away—she observed his look and motion, and said quickly, “Yes, you will. And all the world will love you. But you will keep this, if only for my sake. And don’t ever, ever think, George Waldron, that I wouldn’t have been proud to have taken your arm and walked with you in the broad daylight through our streets. I was very tired and sick that night, or I wouldn’t have let you go home without convincing you. Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” he said, and something of the calmness passed from her face into his, as he bent over her. “Do you know, can you guess, what my cross in this life is? I know, for it is laid on me already. Oh, Ella, if you could live, it would not be with me as it must be now!”
Perhaps she had grown too weak to answer him, for she pressed his hands closely between her own, and made no other reply.
He saw her only once after that day. They had removed her from the bed, and from her pleasant chamber then. She was in the little parlor of the parsonage—and the shadow of a cross was lying on her sweet, pale face, for her coffin was near the mantle, and on that stood the “symbol” which they had fashioned one bright October day. He only looked upon her for a moment on that morning, but the brief glance was more than he could bear composedly, and the widowed boy went out hastily from the little group of mourners, to weep such tears as he could never, never in his life weep again.
He kept that vow, made in the frenzy of despair, religiously. Did he not? Question his witness—it is not voiceless—it stands unimpeachable at this moment; on a now populous sea-side, there, in the very place where, one dull November night, the first act of a most sad life-drama was read, in a wild and dreary solitude, by two young, dreaming children. It stands a seamen’s chapel, whose corner-stone he laid, whose foundation is the rock whereon Ella stood that night. A cross surmounts its spire, and if you walk along the pleasant beach its shadow will be sure to fall upon you. Many a day and many a night George Waldron walked there: and this is his monument on earth.
But—who can tell the heaviness of that cross he bore? The cross his mother lifted to his shoulder, which, from the moment of Ella’s death, he bore in uncomplaining silence? There was energy in his heart, and in his brain; he was zealous, he was loving, he had respect, and sorrow, and compassion for the poor; and these were the characteristics he took with him on his
way of life, when the priestly office was conferred upon him. That vow his fiery spirit made, which was induced by a conviction of his mother’s will and hope (we state it as a fact merely, not as an extenuation), that vow was all the seal he ever recognized, to himself, as set upon his ministry, and yet, he was an honor to his calling; in all his human “walk and conversation” he was a holy example, and a shining light. But heavy, heavy was the cross he bore! Through the poet’s dreaming youth, and thoughtful, striving manhood, he went, and never a hope of Fame, nor praise of men beguiled him. Every freshly-tinted cloud that rose and floated over the fairy land of his imagination was suffered to dissolve, in unseen and unsuspected mist and dew, upon the hearts and lives of other men.
He steadily trode a straight and beaten path, when the panting soul within him urged his intellect forth on the wings of genius to discovery and portrayal, he suffered his aspiring nature to exhaust herself in a round of daily, common duties, than which indeed none are nobler, when inspired by the Spirit of Grace! than which none can be more glorious in result, if God incite to their performance; but, which are dreadful in enduring, and in working out, which are presumptuously and impiously endured and wrought by the poor cross-bearer, if another human being’s will, and not his own prayerful desire be the incitement.
It was this heavy cross that George Waldron bore. He died young, a maniac some said, a martyr and a saint assuredly. And in compliance with the only request made in his will, his body was lowered on his funeral day, a dull November day, from the Chapel Rock to the deep sea beneath. Oh, must it not have been with joy unspeakable and full of glory that his chastened, fettered spirit at last, at last, burst forth in its release, with thanksgiving and a wondrous voice of melody?
ANECDOTES OF WILD BEASTS.—LEOPARDS AND JAGUARS.
Leopards and panthers, if taken quite young, and treated with kindness, are capable of being thoroughly tamed; the poet Cowper, describes the great difference in the dispositions of his three celebrated hares; so it is with other wild animals, and leopards among the rest, some returning kindness with the utmost affection, others being rugged and untamable from the first. Of those brought to this country, the characters are much influenced by the treatment they have experienced on board ship; in some cases, they have been made pets by the sailors, and are as tractable as domestic cats; but when they have been teased and subjected to ill-treatment during the voyage, it is found very difficult to render them sociable; there are now (September, 1851), six young leopards in one den at the Zoological Gardens: of these, five are about the same age, and grew up as one family; the sixth was added some time after, and being looked upon as an intruder, was quite sent to Coventry, and even ill-treated by the others; this he has never forgotten. When the keeper comes to the den, he courts his caresses, and shows the greatest pleasure, but if any of his companions advance to share them with him, he growls and spits, and shows the utmost jealousy and displeasure.
In the same collection there is a remarkably fine, full-grown leopard, presented by her Majesty, who is as tame as any creature can be; mutton is his favorite food, but the keeper will sometimes place a piece of beef in the den; the leopard smells it, turns it over with an air of contempt, and coming forward, peers round behind the keeper’s back to see if he has not (as is generally the case), his favorite food concealed. If given to him, he lays it down, and will readily leave it at the keeper’s call, to come and be patted, and while caressed he purrs, and shows the greatest pleasure.
There were a pair of leopards in the Tower, before the collection was broken up, which illustrated well the difference in disposition; the male, a noble animal, continued to the last, as sullen and savage as on the day of his arrival. Every kindness was lavished upon him by the keepers, but he received all their overtures with such a sulky and morose return, that nothing could be made of his unreclaimable and unmanageable disposition. The female, which was the older of the two, on the contrary, was as gentle and affectionate as the other was savage, enjoying to be patted and caressed by the keeper, and fondly licking his hands; one failing, however, she had, which brought affliction to the soul of many a beau and lady fair; it was an extraordinary predilection for the destruction of hats, muffs, bonnets, umbrellas, and parasols, and indeed articles of dress generally, seizing them with the greatest quickness, and tearing them into pieces, almost before the astonished victim was aware of the loss; to so great an extent did she carry this peculiar taste, that Mr. Cops, the superintendent, used to say, that she had made prey of as many of these articles, as there were days in the year. Animals in menageries are sometimes great enemies to the milliner’s art; giraffes have been known to filch the flowers adorning a bonnet, and we once saw a lady miserably oppressed by monkeys. She was very decidedly of “a certain age,” but dressed in the extreme of juvenility, with flowers and ribbons of all the colors of the rainbow. Her complexion was delicately heightened with rouge, and the loveliest tresses played about her cheeks. As she languidly sauntered through the former monkey-house at the gardens, playfully poking the animals with her parasol, one seized it so vigorously, that she was drawn close to the den; in the twinkling of an eye, a dozen little paws were protruded, off went bonnet, curls and all, leaving a deplorably gray head, while others seized her reticule and her dress, pulling it in a very unpleasant manner. The handiwork of M. Vouillon was of course a wreck, and the contents of the reticule, her purse, gloves, and delicately scented handkerchief, were with difficulty recovered from out of the cheek pouch of a baboon.
On another occasion we saw the elephant, that fine old fellow who died some years ago, administer summary punishment to a weak-minded fop, who kept offering him cakes, and on his putting out his trunk, withdrawing them and giving him a rap with his cane instead. One of the keepers warned him, but he laughed, and after he had teased the animal to his heart’s content, walked away. After a time he was strolling by the spot again, intensely satisfied with himself, his glass stuck in his eye and smiling blandly in the face of a young lady who was evidently offended at his impudence, when the elephant, who was rocking backward and forward, suddenly threw out his trunk and seized our friend by the coat-tails; the cloth gave way, and the whole back of the coat was torn out, leaving nothing but the collar, sleeves, and front. As may be supposed, this was a damper upon his amatory proceedings; indeed we never saw a man look so small, as he shuffled away amidst the titters of the company, who enjoyed his just reward.
That very agreeable writer, Mrs. Lee, formerly Mrs. Bowdich, has related in the first volume of the “Magazine of Natural History,” a most interesting account of a tame panther which was in her possession several months. He and another were found very young in the forest, apparently deserted by their mother; they were taken to the King of Ashantee, in whose palace they lived several weeks, when our hero, being much larger than his brother, suffocated him in a fit of romping, and was then sent to Mr. Hutchinson, the resident left by Mr. Bowdich at Coomassie, by whom he was tamed. When eating was going on he would sit by his master’s side and receive his share with gentleness. Once or twice he purloined a fowl, but easily gave it up on being allowed a portion of something else; but on one occasion, when a silly servant tried to pull his food from him, he tore a piece of flesh from the offender’s leg, but never owed him any ill-will afterward. One morning he broke the cord by which he was confined, and the castle gates being shut, a chase commenced, but after leading his pursuers several times round the ramparts, and knocking over a few children by bouncing against them, he suffered himself to be caught and led quietly back to his quarters, under one of the guns of the fortress.
By degrees all fear of him subsided, and he was set at liberty, a boy being appointed to prevent his intruding into the apartments of the officers. His keeper, however, like a true negro, generally passed his watch in sleeping, and Saï, as the panther was called, roamed at large. On one occasion he found his servant sitting on the step of the door, upright, but fast asleep, when he lifted his paw, gave him a pat on the side of the head which laid him flat, and then stood wagging his tail as if enjoying the joke. He became exceedingly attached to the governor, and followed him every where like a dog. His favorite station was at a window in the sitting-room, which overlooked the whole town; there, standing on his hind legs, his fore paws resting on the ledge of the window, and his chin laid between them, he amused himself with watching all that was going on. The children were also fond of this scene; and one day finding Saï’s presence an incumbrance, they united their efforts and pulled him down by the tail. He one day missed the governor, and wandered with dejected look to various parts of the fortress in search of him; while absent on this errand the governor returned to his private rooms, and seated himself at a table to write; presently he heard a heavy step coming up the stairs, and raising his eyes to the open door beheld Saï. At that moment he gave himself up for lost, for Saï immediately sprang from the door on to his neck; instead, however, of devouring him, he laid his head close to the governor’s, rubbed his cheek upon his shoulder, wagged his tail, and tried to evince his happiness. Occasionally, however, the panther caused a little alarm to the other inmates of the castle, and on one occasion the woman, whose duty it was to sweep the floors, was made ill by her fright; she was sweeping the boards of the great hall with a short broom, and in an attitude approaching all fours, when Saï, who was hidden under one of the sofas, suddenly leaped upon her back, where he stood waving his tail in triumph. She screamed so violently as to summon the other servants, but they, seeing the panther in the act of devouring her, as they thought, gallantly scampered off one and all as fast as their heels could carry them; nor was the woman released from her load till the governor, hearing the noise, came to her assistance.
Mrs. Bowdich determined to take this interesting animal to England, and he was conveyed on board ship, in a large wooden cage, thickly barred in front with iron. Even this confinement was not deemed a sufficient protection by the canoe men, who were so alarmed that in their confusion they managed to drop cage and all into the sea. For a few minutes the poor fellow was given up for lost, but some sailors jumped into a boat belonging to the vessel, and dragged him out in safety. He seemed completely subdued by his ducking; and as no one dared to open the cage to dry it, he rolled himself up in one corner, where he remained for some days, till roused by the voice of his mistress. When she first spoke he raised his head, listened attentively, and when she came fully into his view, he jumped on his legs and appeared frantic, rolling over and over, howling and seeming as if he would have torn his cage to pieces; however, his violence gradually subsided, and he contented himself with thrusting his nose and paws through the bars to receive her caresses. The greatest treat that could be bestowed upon Saï was lavender water. Mr. Hutchinson had told Mrs. Bowdich, that on the way from Ashantee, happening to draw out a scented pocket-handkerchief, it was immediately seized by the panther, who reduced it to atoms; nor could he venture to open a bottle of perfume when the animal was near, he was so eager to enjoy it. Twice a week his mistress indulged him by making a
cup of stiff paper, pouring a little lavender water into it, and giving it to him through the bars of the cage; he would drag it to him with great eagerness, roll himself over it, nor rest till the smell had evaporated.
Quiet and gentle as Saï was, pigs never failed to excite indignation when they hovered about his cage, and the sight of a monkey put him in a complete fury. While at anchor in the Gaboon, an orang-outang was brought on board and remained three days. When the two animals met, the uncontrollable rage of the one and the agony of the other was very remarkable. The orang was about three feet high, and very powerful: so that when he fled, with extraordinary rapidity, from the panther to the other side of the deck, neither men or things remained upright if they opposed his progress. As for the panther, his back rose in an arch, his tail was elevated and perfectly stiff, his eyes flashed, and as he howled he showed his huge teeth; then, as if forgetting the bars before him, he made a spring at the orang to tear him to atoms. It was long before he recovered his tranquillity; day and night he was on the listen, and the approach of a monkey or a negro brought back his agitation. During the voyage to England the vessel was boarded by pirates, and the crew and passengers nearly reduced to starvation in consequence; Saï must have died had it not been for a collection of more than three hundred parrots; of these his allowance was one per diem, but he became so ravenous that he had not patience to pick off the feathers, but bolted the birds whole; this made him very ill, but Mrs. Bowdich administered some pills, and he recovered. On the arrival of the vessel in the London Docks, Saï was presented to the Duchess of York, who placed him in Exeter Change temporarily. On the morning of the duchess’s departure for Oatlands, she went to visit her new pet, played with him, and admired his gentleness and great beauty. In the evening, when her Royal Highness’s coachman went to take him away to his new quarters at Oatlands, Saï was dead from inflammation on the lungs.
Nature, ever provident, has scattered with a bounteous hand her gifts in the country of the Orinoco, where the jaguar especially abounds. The savannahs, which are covered with grasses and slender plants, present a surprising luxuriance and diversity of vegetation; piles of granite blocks rise here and there, and, at the margins of the plains, occur deep valleys and ravines, the humid soil of which is covered with arums, heliconias, and llianas. The shelves of primitive rocks, scarcely elevated above the plain, are partially coated with lichens and mosses, together with succulent plants and tufts of evergreen shrubs with shining leaves. The horizon is bounded with mountains overgrown with forests of laurels, among which clusters of palms rise to the height of more than a hundred feet, their slender stems supporting tufts of feathery foliage. To the east of Atures other mountains appear, the ridge of which is composed of pointed cliffs, rising like huge pillars above the trees. When these columnar masses are situated near the Orinoco, flamingoes, herons, and other wading birds perch on their summits, and look like sentinels. In the vicinity of the cataracts, the moisture which is diffused in the air, produces a perpetual verdure, and wherever soil has accumulated on the plains, it is adorned by the beautiful shrubs of the mountains.
Such is one view of the picture, but it has its dark side also; those flowing waters, which fertilize the soil, abound with crocodiles; those charming shrubs and flourishing plants, are the hiding-places of deadly serpents; those laurel forests, the favorite lurking spots of the fierce jaguar; while the atmosphere, so clear and lovely, abounds with musquitoes and zancudoes, to such a degree that, in the missions of Orinoco, the first questions in the morning when two people meet, are “How did you find the zancudoes during the night? How are we to-day for the musquitoes?”
It is in the solitude of this wilderness, that the jaguar, stretched out motionless and silent, upon one of the lower branches of the ancient trees, watches for its passing prey; a deer, urged by thirst, is making its way to the river, and approaches the tree where his enemy lies in wait. The jaguar’s eyes dilate, the ears are thrown down, and the whole frame becomes flattened against the branch. The deer, all unconscious of danger, draws near, every limb of the jaguar quivers with excitement; every fibre is stiffened for the spring; then, with the force of a bow unbent, he darts with a terrific yell upon his prey, seizes it by the back of the neck, a blow is given with his powerful paw, and with broken spine the deer falls lifeless to the earth. The blood is then sucked, and the prey dragged to some favorite haunt, where it is devoured at leisure.
Humboldt surprised a jaguar in his retreat. It was near the Joval, below the mouth of the Cano de la Tigrera, that in the midst of wild and awful scenery, he saw an enormous jaguar stretched beneath the shade of a large mimosa. He had just killed a chiguire, an animal about the size of a pig, which he held with one of his paws, while the vultures were assembled in flocks around. It was curious to observe the mixture of boldness and timidity which these birds exhibited; for although they advanced within two feet of the jaguar, they instantly shrank back at the least motion he made. In order to observe more nearly their proceedings, the travelers went into their little boat, when the tyrant of the forest withdrew behind the bushes, leaving his victim, upon which the vultures attempted to devour it, but were soon put to flight by the jaguar rushing into the midst of them; the following night, Humboldt and his party were entertained by a jaguar hunter, half-naked, and as brown as a Zambo, who prided himself on being of the European race, and called his wife and daughter, who were as slightly clothed as himself, Donna Isabella and Donna Manuela. As this aspiring personage had neither house nor hut, he invited the strangers to swing their hammocks near his own between two
trees, but as ill-luck would have it, a thunderstorm came on, which wetted them to the skin; but their troubles did not end here, for Donna Isabella’s cat had perched on one of the trees, and frightened by the thunder-storm, jumped down upon one of the travelers in his cot; he naturally supposed that he was attacked by a wild beast, and as smart a battle took place between the two, as that celebrated feline engagement of Don Quixote; the cat, who perhaps had most reason to consider himself an ill-used personage, at length bolted, but the fears of the gentleman had been excited to such a degree, that he could hardly be quieted. The following night was not more propitious to slumber. The party finding no tree convenient, had stuck their oars in the sand, and suspended their hammocks upon them. About eleven, there arose in the immediately adjoining wood, so terrific a noise, that it was impossible to sleep. The Indians distinguished the cries of sapagous, alouates, jaguars, cougars, peccaris, sloths, curassows, paraquas, and other birds, so that there must have been as full a forest chorus as Mr. Hullah himself could desire.
When the jaguars approached the edge of the forest, which they frequently did, a dog belonging to the party began to howl, and seek refuge under their cots. Sometimes, after a long silence, the cry of the jaguars came from the tops of the trees, when it was followed by an outcry among the monkeys. Humboldt supposes the noise thus made by the inhabitants of the forest during the night, to be the effect of some contest that has arisen among them.
On the pampas of Paraguay, great havoc is committed among the herds of horses by the jaguars, whose strength is quite sufficient to enable them to drag off one of these animals. Azara caused the body of a horse, which had been recently killed by a jaguar, to be drawn within musket-shot of a tree, in which he intended to pass the night, anticipating that the jaguar would return in the course of it, to its victim; but while he was gone to prepare for his adventure, behold the animal swam across a large and deep river, and having seized the horse with his teeth, dragged it full sixty paces to the river, swam across again with his prey, and then dragged the carcass into a neighboring wood: and all this in sight of a person, whom Azara had placed to keep watch. But the jaguars have also an aldermanic goût for turtles, which they gratify in a very systematic manner, as related by Humboldt, who was shown large shells of turtles emptied by them. They follow the turtles toward the beaches, where the laying of eggs is to take place, surprise them on the sand, and in order to devour them at their ease, adroitly turn them on their backs; and as they turn many more than they can devour in one night, the Indians often profit by their cunning. The jaguar pursues the turtle quite into the water, and when not very deep, digs up the eggs; they, with the crocodile, the heron, and the gallinago vulture, are the most formidable enemies the little turtles have. Humboldt justly remarks, “When we reflect on the difficulty that the naturalist finds in getting out the body of the turtle, without separating the upper and under shells, we can not enough admire the suppleness of the jaguar’s paw, which empties the double armor of the arraus, as if the adhering parts of the muscles had been cut by means of a surgical instrument.”
The rivers of South America swarm with crocodiles, and these wage perpetual war with the jaguars. It is said, that when the jaguar surprises the alligator asleep on the hot sand-bank, he attacks him in a vulnerable part under the tail, and often kills him, but let the crocodile only get his antagonist into the water, and the tables are turned, for the jaguar is held under water until he is drowned.
The onset of the jaguar is always made from behind, partaking of the stealthy treacherous character of his tribe; if a herd of animals, or a party of men be passing, it is the last that is always the object of his attack. When he has made choice of his victim, he springs upon the neck, and placing one paw on the back of the head, while he seizes the muzzle with the other, twists the head round with a sudden jerk which dislocates the spine, and deprives it instantaneously of life; sometimes, especially when satiated with food, he is indolent and cowardly, skulking in the gloomiest depths of the forest, and scared by the most trifling causes, but when urged by the cravings of hunger, the largest quadrupeds, and man himself, are attacked with fury and success.
Mr. Darwin has given an interesting account of the habits of the jaguar: the wooded banks of the great South American rivers appear to be their favorite haunt, but south of the Plata they frequent the reeds bordering lakes; wherever they are they seem to require water. They are particularly abundant on the isles of the Parana, their common prey being the carpincho, so that it is generally said, where carpinchos are plentiful, there is little fear of the jaguar; possibly, however, a jaguar which has tasted human flesh, may afterward become dainty, and like the lions of South Africa, and the tigers of India, acquire the dreadful character of man-eaters, from preferring that food to all others. It is not many years ago since a very large jaguar found his way into a church in Santa Fé; soon afterward a very corpulent padre entering, was at once killed by him: his equally stout coadjutor, wondering what had detained the padre, went to look after him, and also fell a victim to the jaguar; a third priest, marveling greatly at the unaccountable absence of the others, sought them, and the jaguar having by this time acquired a strong clerical taste, made at him also, but he, being fortunately of the slender order, dodged the animal from pillar to post, and happily made his escape; the beast was destroyed by being shot from a corner of the building, which was unroofed, and thus paid the penalty of his sacrilegious propensities.
On the Parana they have killed many wood-cutters, and have even entered vessels by night. One dark evening the mate of a vessel, hearing
a heavy but peculiar footstep on deck, went up to see what it was, and was immediately met by a jaguar, who had come on board, seeking what he could devour: a severe struggle ensued, assistance arrived, and the brute was killed, but the man lost the use of the arm which had been ground between his teeth.
The Gauchos say that the jaguar, when wandering about at night, is much tormented by the foxes yelping as they follow him; this may perhaps serve to alarm his prey, but must be as teasing to him as the attentions of swallows are to an owl, who happens to be taking a daylight promenade; and if owls ever swear, it is under those circumstances. Mr. Darwin, when hunting on the banks of the Uruguay, was shown three well-known trees to which the jaguars constantly resort, for the purpose, it is said, of sharpening their claws. Every one must be familiar with the manner in which cats, with outstretched legs and extended claws, will card the legs of chairs and of men; so with the jaguar; and of these trees the bark was worn quite smooth in front; on each side there were deep grooves, extending in an oblique line nearly a yard in length. The scars were of different ages, and the inhabitants could always tell when a jaguar was in the neighborhood, by his recent autograph on one of these trees.
A FASHIONABLE FORGER.
I am an attorney and a bill discounter. As it is my vocation to lend money at high interest to extravagant people, my connection principally lies among “fools,” sometimes among rogues, “of quality.” Mine is a pursuit which a prejudiced world either holds in sovereign contempt, or visits with envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness; but to my mind, there are many callings, with finer names, that are no better. It gives me two things which I love—money and power; but I can not deny that it brings with it a bad name. The case lies between character and money, and involves a matter of taste. Some people like character; I prefer money.
If I am hated and despised, I chuckle over the “per contra.” I find it pleasant for members of a proud aristocracy to condescend from their high estate to fawn, feign, flatter; to affect even mirthful familiarity in order to gain my good-will. I am no Shylock. No client can accuse me of desiring either his flesh or his blood. Sentimental vengeance is no item in my stock in trade. Gold and bank-notes satisfy my “rage;” or, if need be, a good mortgage. Far from seeking revenge, the worst defaulter I ever had dealings with can not deny that I am always willing to accept a good post-obit.
I say again, I am daily brought in contact with all ranks of society, from the poverty-stricken patentee to the peer; and I am no more surprised at receiving an application from a duchess than from a pet opera-dancer. In my ante-room wait, at this moment, a crowd of borrowers. Among the men, beardless folly and mustached craft are most prominent: there is a handsome young fellow, with an elaborate cane and wonderfully vacant countenance, who is anticipating, in feeble follies, an estate that has been in the possession of his ancestors since the reign of Henry the Eighth. There is a hairy, high-nosed, broken-down non-descript, in appearance some thing between a horse-dealer and a pugilist. He is an old Etonian. Five years ago he drove his four-in-hand; he is now waiting to beg a sovereign, having been just discharged from the Insolvent Court, for the second time. Among the woman, a pretty actress, who, a few years since, looked forward to a supper of steak and onions, with bottled stout, on a Saturday night, as a great treat, now finds one hundred pounds a month insufficient to pay her wine-merchant and her confectioner. I am obliged to deal with each case according to its peculiarities. Genuine undeserved Ruin seldom knocks at my door. Mine is a perpetual battle with people who imbibe trickery at the same rate as they dissolve their fortunes. I am a hard man, of course. I should not be fit for my pursuit if I were not; but when, by a remote chance, honest misfortune pays me a visit, as Rothschild amused himself at times by giving a beggar a guinea, so I occasionally treat myself to the luxury of doing a kind action.
My favorite subjects for this unnatural generosity, are the very young, or the poor, innocent, helpless people, who are unfit for the war of life. Many among my clients (especially those tempered in the “ice-brook” of fashion and high life—polished and passionless) would be too much for me, if I had not made the face, the eye, the accent, as much my study as the mere legal and financial points of discount. To show what I mean, I will relate what happened to me not long since:
One day, a middle-aged man, in the usual costume of a West-end shopman, who had sent in his name as Mr. Axminster, was shown into my private room. After a little hesitation, he said, “Although you do not know me, living at this end of the town, I know you very well by reputation, and that you discount bills. I have a bill here which I want to get discounted. I am in the employ of Messrs. Russle and Smooth. The bill is drawn by one of our best customers, the Hon. Miss Snape, niece of Lord Blimley, and accepted by Major Munge; whom, no doubt, you know by name. She has dealt with us for some years, is very, very extravagant; but always pays.” He put the acceptance—which was for two hundred pounds—into my hands.
I looked at it as scrutinizingly as I usually do at such paper. The major’s signature was familiar to me; but having succeeded to a great estate, he has long ceased to be a customer. I instantly detected a forgery; by whom? was the question. Could it be the man before me?—experience told me it was not.
Perhaps there was something in the expression of my countenance which Mr. Axminster did not like, for he said, “It is good for the amount, I presume?”
I replied, “Pray, sir, from whom did you get this bill?”
“From Miss Snape herself.”
“Have you circulated any other bills made by the same drawer?”
“O yes!” said the draper, without hesitation; “I have paid away a bill for one hundred pounds to Mr. Sparkle, the jeweler, to whom Miss Snape owed twenty pounds. They gave me the difference.”
“And how long has that bill to run now?”
“About a fortnight.”
“Did you endorse it?”
“I did,” continued the shopman. “Mr. Sparkle required me to do so, to show that the bill came properly into his possession.”
“This second bill, you say, is urgently required to enable Miss Snape to leave town?”
“Yes; she is going to Brighton for the winter.”
I gave Mr. Axminster a steady, piercing look of inquiry. “Pray, sir,” I said, “could you meet that one hundred pounds bill, supposing it should not be paid by the acceptor?”
“Meet it?” The poor fellow wiped from his forehead the perspiration which suddenly broke out at the bare hint of a probability that the bill would be dishonored: “Meet it? O no! I am a married man, with a family, and have nothing but my salary to depend on.”
“Then, the sooner you get it taken up, and the less you have to do with Miss Snape’s bill affairs, the better.”
“She has always been punctual hitherto.”
“That may be.” I pointed to the cross-writing on the document, and said deliberately, “This bill is a forgery!”
At these words the poor man turned pale. He snatched up the document; and, with many incoherent protestations, was rushing toward the door, when I called to him, in an authoritative tone, to stop. He paused. His manner indicating not only doubt, but fear. I said to him, “Don’t flurry yourself; I only want to serve you. You tell me that you are a married man with children, dependent on daily labor for daily bread; and that you have done a little discounting for Miss Snape out of your earnings. Now, although I am a bill discounter, I don’t like to see such men victimized. Look at the body of this bill: look at the signature of your lady customer, the drawer. Don’t you detect the same fine, thin, sharp-pointed handwriting in the words, ‘Accepted, Dymmock Munge.’”
The man, convinced against his will, was at first overcome. When he recovered, he raved: he would expose the Honorable Miss Snape, if it cost him his bread: he would go at once to the police office.
I stopped him, by saying, roughly, “Don’t be a fool. Any such steps would seal your ruin. Take my advice; return the bill to the lady, saying simply that you can not get it discounted. Leave the rest to me, and I think the bill you have endorsed to Sparkle will be paid.” Comforted by this assurance, Axminster, fearfully changed from the nervous, but smug, hopeful man of the morning, departed.
It now remained for me to exert what skill I own, to bring about the desired result. I lost no time in writing a letter to the Honorable Miss Snape, of which the following is a copy:
“Madam—A bill, purporting to be drawn by you, has been offered to me for discount. There is something wrong about it; and, though a stranger to you, I advise you to lose no time in getting it back into your own hands.—D.D.”
I intended to deal with the affair quietly, and without any view to profit. The fact is, that I was sorry—you may laugh—but I really was sorry to think that a young girl might have given way to temptation under pressure of pecuniary difficulties. If it had been a man’s case, I doubt whether I should have interfered.
By the return of post, a lady’s maid entered my room, profusely decorated with ringlets, lace, and perfumed with patchouli. She brought a letter from her mistress. It ran thus:
“Sir—I can not sufficiently express my thanks for your kindness in writing to me on the subject of the bills; of which I had also heard a few hours previously. As a perfect stranger to you, I can not estimate your kind consideration at too high a value. I trust the matter will be explained; but I should much like to see you. If you would be kind enough to write a note as soon as you receive this, I will order it to be sent to me at once to Tyburn-square. I will wait on you at any hour on Friday you may appoint. I believe that I am not mistaken in supposing that you transact business for my friend Sir John Markham, and you will therefore know the inclosed to be his handwriting. Again thanking you most gratefully, allow me to remain your much and deeply obliged,
“Juliana Snape.”
This note was written upon delicate French paper, embossed with a coat of arms. It was in a fancy envelope: the whole richly perfumed, and redolent of rank and fashion. Its contents were an implied confession of forgery.
Silence, or three lines of indignation, would have been the only innocent answer to my letter. But Miss Snape thanked me. She let me know, by implication, that she was on intimate terms with a name good on a West-end bill. My answer was, that I should be alone on the following afternoon at five.
At the hour fixed, punctual to a moment, a brougham drew up at the corner of the street next to my chambers. The Honorable Miss Snape’s card was handed in. Presently, she entered, swimming into my room, richly yet simply dressed in the extreme of Parisian good taste. She was pale—or rather colorless. She had fair hair, fine teeth, and a fashionable voice. She threw herself gracefully into the chair I handed to her, and began by uncoiling a string of phrases, to the effect that her visit was merely to consult me on “unavoidable pecuniary difficulties.”
According to my mode, I allowed her to talk; putting in only an occasional word of question, that seemed rather a random observation than a significant query. At length, after walking round
and round the subject, like a timid horse in a field, round a groom with a sieve of oats, she came nearer and nearer the subject. When she had fairly approached the point, she stopped, as if courage had failed her. But she soon recovered, and observed—“I can not think why you should take the trouble to write so to me, a perfect stranger.” Another pause—“I wonder no one ever suspected me before.”
Here was a confession and a key to character. The cold gray eye, the thin compressed lips, which I had had time to observe, were true indexes to the “lady’s” inner heart:—selfish, calculating, utterly devoid of conscience; unable to conceive the existence of spontaneous kindness; utterly indifferent to any thing except discovery; and almost indifferent to that, because convinced that no serious consequences could affect a lady of her rank and influence.
“Madam,” I replied, “as long as you dealt with tradesmen accustomed to depend on aristocratic customers, your rank and position, and their large profits, protected you from suspicion; but you have made a mistake in descending from your vantage ground to make a poor shopman your innocent accomplice—a man who will be keenly alive to any thing that may injure his wife or children. His terrors—but for my interposition—would have ruined you. Tell me, how many of these things have you put afloat?”
She seemed a little taken aback by this speech; but was wonderfully firm. She passed her white, jeweled hand over her eyes, seemed calculating, and then whispered, with a confiding look of innocent helplessness, admirably assumed:
“About as many as amount to twelve hundred pounds.”
“And what means have you for meeting them?”
At this question, so plainly put, her face flushed. She half-rose from her chair, and exclaimed, in the true tone of aristocratic hauteur, “Really, sir, I do not know what right you have to ask me that question.”
I laughed a little, though not very loud. It was rude, I own; but who could have helped it? I replied, speaking low, but slowly and distinctly, “You forget. I did not send for you: you came to me. You have forged bills to the amount of twelve hundred pounds. Yours is not the case of a ruined merchant, or an ignorant over-tempted clerk. In your case a jury” (she shuddered at that word) “would find no extenuating circumstances; and if you should ever fall into the hands of justice, you will be convicted, degraded, clothed in a prison dress, and transported for life. I do not want to speak harshly; but I insist that you find means to take up the bill which Mr. Axminster has so unwittingly indorsed!”
The Honorable Miss Snape’s grand manner melted away. She wept. She seized and pressed my hand. She cast up her eyes, full of tears, and went through the part of a repentant victim with great fervor. She would do any thing; any thing in the world to save the poor man. Indeed, she had intended to appropriate part of the two hundred pound bill to that purpose.
She forgot her first statement, that she wanted the money to go out of town. Without interrupting, I let her go on and degrade herself by a simulated passion of repentance, regret, and thankfulness to me, under which she hid her fear and her mortification at being detected. I at length put an end to a scene of admirable acting, by recommending her to go abroad immediately, to place herself out of reach of any sudden discovery; and then lay her case fully before her friends, who would, no doubt, feel bound to come forward with the full amount of the forged bills. “But,” she exclaimed, with an entreating air, “I have no money; I can not go without money!” To that observation I did not respond; although I am sure she expected that I should, check-book in hand, offer her a loan.
I do not say so without reason; for, the very next week, this honorable young lady came again; and, with sublime assurance and a number of very charming, winning speeches (which might have had their effect upon a younger man), asked me to lend her one hundred pounds, in order that she might take the advice I had so obligingly given her, and retire into private life for a certain time in the country.
I do meet with a great many impudent people in the course of my calling—I am not very deficient in assurance myself—but this actually took away my breath.
“Really, madam,” I answered, “you pay a very ill compliment to my gray hairs; and would fain make me a very ill return for the service I have done you, when you ask me to lend a hundred pounds to a young lady who owns to having forged to the extent of one thousand two hundred pounds, and to owing eight hundred pounds besides. I wished to save a personage of your years and position from a disgraceful career; but I am too good a trustee for my children to lend money to any body in such a dangerous position as yourself.”
“Oh!” she answered, quite unabashed, without a trace of the fearful, tender pleading of the previous week’s interview—quite as if I had been an accomplice, “I can give you excellent security.”
“That alters the case; I can lend any amount on good security.”
“Well, sir, I can get the acceptances of three friends of ample means.”
“Do you mean to tell me, Miss Snape, that you will write down the names of three parties who will accept a bill for one hundred pounds for you?”
Yes, she could, and did actually write down the names of three distinguished men. Now I knew for certain that not one of those noblemen would have put his name to a bill on any account whatever for his dearest friend; but, in her unabashed self-confidence, she thought of passing another forgery on me. I closed the conference by saying, “I can not assist you;” and she retired with the air of an injured person. In the course of a few days I heard from Mr. Axminster, that his liability had been duly honored.
In my active and exciting life, one day extinguishes the recollection of the events of the preceding day; and, for a time, I thought no more about the fashionable forger. I had taken it for granted that, heartily frightened, although not repenting, she had paused in her felonious pursuits.
My business, one day, led me to the establishment of one of the most wealthy and respectable legal firms in the city, where I am well known, and, I believe, valued; for at all times I am most politely, I may say most cordially received. Mutual profits create a wonderful freemasonry between those who have not any other sympathy or sentiment. Politics, religion, morality, difference of rank, are all equalized and republicanized by the division of an account. No sooner had I entered the sanctum, than the senior partner, Mr. Preceps, began to quiz his junior, Mr. Jones, with, “Well, Jones must never joke friend Discount any more about usury. Just imagine,” he continued, addressing me, “Jones has himself been discounting a bill for a lady; and a deuced pretty one, too. He sat next her at dinner in Grosvenor-square last week. Next day she gave him a call here, and he could not refuse her extraordinary request. Gad, it is hardly fair for Jones to be poaching on your domains of West-end paper!”
Mr. Jones smiled quietly, as he observed, “Why, you see, she is the niece of one of our best clients; and, really, I was so taken by surprise, that I did not know how to refuse.”
“Pray,” said I, interrupting his excuses, “does your young lady’s name begin with S? Has she not a very pale face, and cold gray eye?”
The partners stared.
“Ah! I see it is so; and can at once tell you that the bill is not worth a rush.”
“Why, you don’t mean—?”
“I mean simply that the acceptance is, I’ll lay you a wager, a forgery.”
“A forgery!”
“A forgery,” I repeated, as distinctly as possible.
Mr. Jones hastily, and with broken ejaculations, called for the cash-box. With trembling hands he took out the bill, and followed my finger with eager, watchful eyes, as I pointed out the proofs of my assertion.
A long pause was broken by my mocking laugh, for, at the moment, my sense of politeness could not restrain my satisfaction at the signal defeat which had attended the first experiment of these highly respectable gentlemen in the science of usury.
The partners did not have recourse to the police. They did not propose a consultation with either Mr. Forrester or Mr. Field: but they took certain steps, under my recommendation; the result of which was that at an early day, an aunt of the Honorable Miss Snape was driven, to save so near a connection from transportation, to sell out some fourteen hundred pounds of stock, and all the forgeries were taken up.
One would have thought that the lady who had thus so narrowly escaped, had had enough; but forgery, like opium-eating, is one of those charming vices which is never abandoned, when once adopted. The forger enjoys not only the pleasure of obtaining money so easily, but the triumph of be-fooling sharp men of the world. Dexterous penmanship is a source of the same sort of pride as that which animates the skillful rifleman, the practiced duelist, or well-trained billiard-player. With a clean Gillott he fetches down a capitalist, at three or six months, for a cool hundred or a round thousand; just as a Scrope drops over a stag at ten, or a Gordon Cumming a monstrous male elephant at a hundred paces.
As I before observed, my connection especially lies among the improvident—among those who will be ruined—who are being ruined—and who have been ruined. To the last class belongs Francis Fisherton, once a gentleman, now without a shilling or a principle; but rich in mother-wit—in fact a farceur, after Paul de Kock’s own heart. Having in by-gone days been one of my willing victims, he occasionally finds pleasure and profit in guiding others through the gate he frequented, as long as able to pay the tolls. In truth he is what is called a “discount agent.”
One day I received a note from him, to say that he would call on me at three o’clock the next day, to introduce a lady of family, who wanted a bill “done” for one hundred pounds. So ordinary a transaction merely needed a memorandum in my diary, “Tuesday, 3 p.m.; F.F., £100 Bill.” The hour came and passed; but no Frank, which was strange—because every one must have observed, that, however dilatory people are in paying, they are wonderfully punctual when they expect to receive money.
At five o’clock, in rushed my Jackal. His story, disentangled from oaths and ejaculations, amounted to this:—In answer to one of the advertisements he occasionally addresses “To the Embarrassed,” in the columns of the “Times,” he received a note from a lady, who said she was anxious to get a “bill done”—the acceptance of a well-known man of rank and fashion. A correspondence was opened, and an appointment made. At the hour fixed, neatly shaved, brushed, gloved, booted—the revival, in short, of that high-bred Frank Fisherton, who was so famous.
“In his hot youth, when Crockford’s was the thing,” glowing with only one glass of brandy “just to steady his nerves,” he met the lady at a West-end pastry-cook’s.
After a few words (for all the material questions had been settled by correspondence) she stepped into her brougham; and invited Frank to take a seat beside her. Elated with a compliment of late years so rare, he commenced planning the orgies which were to reward him for weeks of enforced fasting, when the coachman, reverentially touching his hat, looked down from his seat for orders.
“To ninety-nine, George-street, St. James,” cried Fisherton, in his loudest tones.
In an instant, the young lady’s pale face changed to scarlet, and then to ghastly green.
In a whisper, rising to a scream, she exclaimed, “Good heavens! you do not mean to that man’s house” (meaning me). “Indeed, I can not go to him, on any account; he is a most horrid man, I am told, and charges most extravagantly.”
“Madam,” answered Frank, in great perturbation, “I beg your pardon, but you have been grossly misinformed. I have known that excellent man these twenty years, and have paid him hundreds on hundreds; but never so much by ten per cent, as you offered me for discounting your bill.”
“Sir, I can not have any thing to do with your friend.” Then, violently pulling the check-string, “Stop,” she gasped: “and will you have the goodness to get out?”
“And so I got out,” continued Fisherton, “and lost my time; and the heavy investment I made in getting myself up for the assignation; new primrose gloves, and a shilling to the hair-dresser—hang her! But, did you ever know any thing like the prejudices that must prevail against you? I am disgusted with human nature. Could you lend me half a sovereign till Saturday?”
I smiled; I sacrificed the half-sovereign and let him go, for he is not exactly the person to whom it was advisable to intrust all the secrets relating to the Honorable Miss Snape.
Since that day I look each morning in the police reports, with considerable interest; but, up to the present hour, the Honorable Miss Snape has lived and thrived in the best society.
TO BE READ AT DUSK.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
One, two, three, four, five. There were five of them.
Five couriers, sitting on a bench outside the convent on the summit of the Great St. Bernard in Switzerland, looking at the remote heights, stained by the setting sun, as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top, and had not yet had time to sink into the snow.
This is not my simile. It was made for the occasion by the stoutest courier, who was a German. None of the others took any more notice of it than they took of me, sitting on another bench on the other side of the convent door, smoking my cigar, like them, and—also like them—looking at the reddened snow, and at the lonely shed hard by, where the bodies of belated travelers, dug out of it, slowly wither away, knowing no corruption in that cold region.
The wine upon the mountain top soaked in as we looked; the mountain became white; the sky, a very dark blue; the wind rose; and the air turned piercing cold. The five couriers buttoned their rough coats. There being no safer man to imitate in all such proceedings than a courier, I buttoned mine.
The mountain in the sunset had stopped the five couriers in a conversation. It is a sublime sight, likely to stop conversation. The mountain being now out of the sunset, they resumed. Not that I had heard any part of their previous discourse; for, indeed, I had not then broken away from the American gentleman, in the travelers’ parlor of the convent, who, sitting with his face to the fire, had undertaken to realize to me the whole progress of events which had led to the accumulation by the Honorable Ananias Dodger of one of the largest acquisitions of dollars ever made in our country.
“My God!” said the Swiss courier, speaking in French, which I do not hold (as some authors appear to do) to be such an all-sufficient excuse for a naughty word, that I have only to write it in that language to make it innocent; “if you talk of ghosts—”
“But I don’t talk of ghosts,” said the German.
“Of what then?” asked the Swiss.
“If I knew of what then,” said the German, “I should probably know a great deal more.”
It was a good answer, I thought, and it made me curious. So, I moved my position to that corner of my bench which was nearest to them and leaning my back against the convent-wall, heard perfectly, without appearing to attend.
“Thunder and lightning!” said the German, warming, “when a certain man is coming to see you, unexpectedly; and, without his own knowledge, sends some invisible messenger, to put the idea of him in your head all day, what do you call that? When you walk along a crowded street—at Frankfort, Milan, London, Paris—and think that a passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and then that another passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and so begin to have a strange foreknowledge that presently you’ll meet your friend Heinrich—which you do, though you believed him at Trieste—what do you call that?”
“It’s not uncommon either,” murmured the Swiss and the other three.
“Uncommon!” said the German. “It’s as common as cherries in the Black Forest. It’s as common as maccaroni at Naples. And Naples reminds me! When the old Marchesa Senzanima shrieks at a card party on the Chiaja—as I heard and saw her, for it happened in a Bavarian family of mine, and I was overlooking the service that evening—I say, when the old Marchesa starts up at the card-table, white through her rouge, and cries, ‘My sister in Spain is dead! I felt her cold touch on my back!’—and when that sister is dead at the moment—what do you call that?”
“Or when the blood of San Gennaro liquefies at the request of the clergy—as all the world knows that it does regularly once a year, in my native city,” said the Neapolitan courier, after a pause, with a comical look, “what do you call that?”
“That!” cried the German. “Well! I think I know a name for that.”
“Miracle?” said the Neapolitan, with the same sly face.
The German merely smoked and laughed; and they all smoked and laughed.
“Bah!” said the German, presently. “I speak of things that really do happen. When I
want to see the conjurer, I pay to see a professed one, and have my money’s worth. Very strange things do happen without ghosts. Ghosts! Giovanni Baptista, tell your story of the English bride. There’s no ghost in that, but something full as strange. Will any man tell me what?”
As there was a silence among them, I glanced around. He whom I took to be Baptista was lighting a fresh cigar. He presently went on to speak. He was a Genoese, as I judged.
“The story of the English bride?” said he. “Basta! one ought not to call so slight a thing a story. Well, it’s all one. But it’s true. Observe me well, gentlemen, it’s true. That which glitters is not always gold; but what I am going to tell is true.”
He repeated this more than once.
Ten years ago, I took my credentials to an English gentleman at Long’s Hotel, in Bond-street, London, who was about to travel—it might be for one year, it might be for two. He approved of them; likewise of me. He was pleased to make inquiry. The testimony that he received was favorable. He engaged me by the six months, and my entertainment was generous.
He was young, handsome, very happy. He was enamored of a fair young English lady, with a sufficient fortune, and they were going to be married. It was the wedding trip, in short, that we were going to take. For three months’ rest in the hot weather (it was early summer then) he had hired an old palace on the Riviera, at an easy distance from my city, Genoa, on the road to Nice. Did I know that palace? Yes; I told him I knew it well. It was an old palace, with great gardens. It was a little bare, and it was a little dark and gloomy, being close surrounded by trees; but it was spacious, ancient, grand, and on the sea shore. He said it had been so described to him exactly, and he was well pleased that I knew it. For its being a little bare of furniture, all such places were. For its being a little gloomy, he had hired it principally for the gardens, and he and my mistress would pass the summer weather in their shade.
“So all goes well, Baptista?” said he.
“Indubitably, signor; very well.”
We had a traveling chariot for our journey, newly built for us, and in all respects complete. All we had was complete; we wanted for nothing. The marriage took place. They were happy. I was happy, seeing all so bright, being so well situated, going to my own city, teaching my language in the rumble to the maid, la bella Carolina, whose heart was gay with laughter: who was young and rosy.
The time flew. But I observed—listen to this, I pray!—(and here the courier dropped his voice)—I observed my mistress sometimes brooding in a manner very strange; in a frightened manner; in an unhappy manner; with a cloudy, uncertain alarm upon her. I think that I began to notice this when I was walking up hills by the carriage side, and master had gone on in front. At any rate, I remember that it impressed itself upon my mind one evening in the south of France, when she called to me to call master back; and when he came back, and walked for a long way, talking encouragingly and affectionately to her, with his hand upon the open window, and hers in it. Now and then, he laughed in a merry way, as if he were bantering her out of something. By-and-by, she laughed, and then all went well again.
It was curious. I asked la bella Carolina, the pretty little one, Was mistress unwell? No. Out of spirits? No. Fearful of bad roads, or brigands? No. And what made it more mysterious was, the pretty little one would not look at me in giving answer, but would look at the view.
But, one day she told me the secret.
“If you must know,” said Carolina, “I find, from what I have overheard, that mistress is haunted.”
“How haunted?”
“By a dream.”
“What dream?”
“By a dream of a face. For three nights before her marriage, she saw a face in a dream—always the same face, and only One.”
“A terrible face?”
“No. The face of a dark, remarkable-looking man, in black, with black hair and a gray mustache—a handsome man, except for a reserved and secret air. Not a face she ever saw, or at all like a face she ever saw. Doing nothing in the dream but looking at her fixedly, out of darkness.”
“Does the dream come back?”
“Never. The recollection of it, is all her trouble.”
“And why does it trouble her?”
Carolina shook her head.
“That’s master’s question,” said la bella. “She don’t know. She wonders why, herself. But I heard her tell him, only last night, that if she was to find a picture of that face in our Italian house (which she is afraid she will), she did not know how she could ever bear it.”
Upon my word I was fearful after this (said the Genoese courier), of our coming to the old palazzo, lest some such ill-starred picture should happen to be there. I knew there were many there; and, as we got nearer and nearer to the place, I wished the whole gallery in the crater of Vesuvius. To mend the matter, it was a stormy dismal evening when we, at last, approached that part of the Riviera. It thundered; and the thunder of my city and its environs, rolling among the high hills, is very loud. The lizards ran in and out of the chinks in the broken stone wall of the garden, as if they were frightened; the frogs bubbled and croaked their loudest; the sea-wind moaned, and the wet trees dripped; and the lightning—body of San Lorenzo, how it lightened!
We all know what an old palazzo in or near Genoa is—how time and the sea air have blotted it—how the drapery painted on the outer walls
has peeled off in great flakes of plaster—how the lower windows are darkened with rusty bars of iron—how the courtyard is overgrown with grass—how the outer buildings are dilapidated—how the whole pile seems devoted to ruin. Our palazzo was one of the true kind. It had been shut up close for months. Months?—years! It had an earthy smell, like a tomb. The scent of the orange-trees on the broad back terrace, and of the lemons ripening on the wall, and of some shrubs that grew around a broken fountain, had got into the house somehow, and had never been able to get out again. There it was, in every room, an aged smell, grown faint with confinement. It pined in all the cupboards and drawers. In the little rooms of communication between great rooms, it was stifling. If you turned a picture—to come back to the pictures—there it still was, clinging to the wall behind the frame, like a sort of bat.
The lattice-blinds were close shut, all over the house. There were two ugly, gray old women in the house, to take care of it; one of them with a spindle, who stood winding and mumbling in the doorway, and who would as soon have let in the devil as the air. Master, mistress, la bella Carolina, and I, went all through the palazzo. I went first, though I have named myself last, opening the windows and the lattice-blinds, and shaking down on myself splashes of rain, and scraps of mortar, and now and then a dozing musquito, or a monstrous, fat, blotchy, Genoese spider.
When I had let the evening light into a room, master, mistress, and la bella Carolina entered. Then, we looked round at all the pictures, and I went forward again into another room. Mistress secretly had great fear of meeting with the likeness of that face—we all had; but there was no such thing. The Madonna and Bambino, San Francisco, San Sebastiano, Venus, Santa Caterina, Angels, Brigands, Friars, Temples at Sunset, Battles, White Horses, Forests, Apostles, Doges, all my old acquaintance many times repeated? yes. Dark, handsome man in black, reserved and secret, with black hair and gray mustache, looking fixedly at mistress out of darkness? no.
At last we got through all the rooms and all the pictures, and came out into the gardens. They were pretty well kept, being rented by a gardener, and were large and shady. In one place, there was a rustic theatre, open to the sky; the stage a green slope: the coulisses, three entrances upon a side, sweet-smelling leafy screens. Mistress moved her bright eyes, even there, as if she looked to see the face come in upon the scene: but all was well.
“Now, Clara,” master said, in a low voice, “you see that it is nothing? You are happy.”
Mistress was much encouraged. She soon accustomed herself to that grim palazzo, and would sing, and play the harp, and copy the old pictures, and stroll with master under the green trees and vines, all day. She was beautiful. He was happy. He would laugh and say to me, mounting his horse for his morning ride before the heat:
“All goes well, Baptista!”
“Yes, signore, thank God; very well!”
We kept no company. I took la bella to the Duomo and Annunciata, to the Café, to the Opera, to the village Festa, to the Public Garden, to the Day Theatre, to the Marionetti. The pretty little one was charmed with all she saw. She learnt Italian—heavens! miraculously! Was mistress quite forgetful of that dream? I asked Carolina sometimes. Nearly, said la bella—almost. It was wearing out.
One day master received a letter, and called me.
“Baptista!”
“Signore.”
“A gentleman who is presented to me will dine here to-day. He is called the Signor Dellombra. Let me dine like a prince.”
It was an odd name. I did not know that name. But, there had been many noblemen and gentlemen pursued by Austria on political suspicions, lately, and some names had changed. Perhaps this was one. Altro! Dellombra was as good a name to me as another.
When the Signor Dellombra came to dinner (said the Genoese courier in the low voice, into which he had subsided once before), I showed him into the reception-room, the great sala of the old palazzo. Master received him with cordiality, and presented him to mistress. As she rose, her face changed, she gave a cry, and fell upon the marble floor.
Then, I turned my head to the Signor Dellombra, and saw that he was dressed in black, and had a reserved and secret air, and was a dark remarkable-looking man, with black hair and a gray mustache.
Master raised mistress in his arms, and carried her to her own room, where I sent la bella Carolina straight. La bella told me afterward that mistress was nearly terrified to death, and that she wandered in her mind about her dream, all night.
Master was vexed and anxious—almost angry, and yet full of solicitude. The Signor Dellombra was a courtly gentleman, and spoke with great respect and sympathy of mistress’s being so ill. The African wind had been blowing for some days (they had told him at his hotel of the Maltese Cross), and he knew that it was often hurtful. He hoped the beautiful lady would recover soon. He begged permission to retire, and to renew his visit when he should have the happiness of hearing that she was better. Master would not allow of this, and they dined alone.
He withdrew early. Next day he called at the gate, on horseback, to inquire for mistress. He did so two or three times in that week.
What I observed myself, and what la bella Carolina told me, united to explain to me that master had now set his mind on curing mistress of her fanciful terror. He was all kindness, but he was sensible and firm. He reasoned with her, that to encourage such fancies was to invite melancholy, if not madness. That it rested with herself to be herself. That if she once resisted her strange weakness, so successfully as to receive
the Signor Dellombra as an English lady would receive any other guest, it was forever conquered. To make an end, the Signor came again, and mistress received him without marked distress (though with constraint and apprehension still), and the evening passed serenely. Master was so delighted with this change, and so anxious to confirm it, that the Signor Dellombra became a constant guest. He was accomplished in pictures, books, and music; and his society, in any grim palazzo, would have been welcome.
I used to notice, many times, that mistress was not quite recovered. She would cast down her eyes and droop her head, before the Signor Dellombra, or would look at him with a terrified and fascinated glance, as if his presence had some evil influence or power upon her. Turning from her to him, I used to see him in the shaded gardens, or the large half-lighted sala, looking, as I might say, “fixedly upon her out of darkness.” But, truly, I had not forgotten la bella Carolina’s words describing the face in the dream.
After his second visit I heard master say:
“Now see, my dear Clara, it’s over! Dellombra has come and gone, and your apprehension is broken like glass.”
“Will he—will he ever come again?” asked mistress.
“Again? Why, surely, over and over again! Are you cold?” (She shivered).
“No, dear—but—he terrifies me: are you sure that he need come again?”
“The surer for the question, Clara!” replied master, cheerfully.
But, he was very hopeful of her complete recovery now, and grew more and more so every day. She was beautiful. He was happy.
“All goes well, Baptista?” he would say to me again.
“Yes, signore, thank God; very well.”
We were all (said the Genoese courier, constraining himself to speak a little louder), we were all at Rome for the Carnival. I had been out, all day, with a Sicilian, a friend of mine and a courier, who was there with an English family. As I returned at night to our hotel, I met the little Carolina, who never stirred from home alone, running distractedly along the Corso.
“Carolina! What’s the matter?”
“O Baptista! Oh, for the Lord’s sake! where is my mistress?”
“Mistress, Carolina?”
“Gone since morning—told me, when master went out on his day’s journey, not to call her, for she was tired, with not resting in the night (having been in pain), and would lie in bed until the evening; then get up refreshed. She is gone!—she is gone! Master has come back, broken down the door, and she is gone! My beautiful, my good, my innocent mistress!”
The pretty little one so cried, and raved, and tore herself, that I could not have held her, but for her swooning on my arm as if she had been shot. Master came up—in manner, face, or voice, no more the master that I knew, than I was he. He took me (I laid the little one upon her bed in the hotel, and left her with the chamber-women), in a carriage, furiously through the darkness, across the desolate Campagna. When it was day, and we stopped at a miserable post-house, all the horses had been hired twelve hours ago, and sent away in different directions. Mark me!—by the Signor Dellombra, who had passed there in a carriage, with a frightened English lady crouching in one corner.
I never heard (said the Genoese courier, drawing a long breath) that she was ever traced beyond that spot. All I know is, that she vanished into infamous oblivion, with the dreaded face beside her that she had seen in her dream.
“What do you call that?” said the German courier, triumphantly; “Ghosts! There are no ghosts there! What do you call this, that I am going to tell you? Ghosts? There are no ghosts here!”
I took an engagement once (pursued the German courier) with an English gentleman, elderly and a bachelor, to travel through my country, my Fatherland. He was a merchant who traded with my country and knew the language, but who had never been there since he was a boy—as I judge, some sixty years before.
His name was James, and he had a twin-brother John, also a bachelor. Between these brothers there was a great affection. They were in business together at Goodman’s Fields, but they did not live together. Mr. James dwelt in Poland-street, turning out of Oxford-street, London. Mr. John resided by Epping Forest.
Mr. James and I were to start for Germany in about a week. The exact day depended on business. Mr. John came to Poland-street (where I was staying in the house), to pass that week with Mr. James. But, he said to his brother on the second day, “I don’t feel very well, James. There’s not much the matter with me; but I think I am a little gouty. I’ll go home and put myself under the care of my old housekeeper, who understands my ways. If I get quite better, I’ll come back and see you before you go. If I don’t feel well enough to resume my visit where I leave it off, why you will come and see me before you go.” Mr. James, of course, said he would, and they shook hands—both hands, as they always did—and Mr. John ordered out his old-fashioned chariot and rumbled home.
It was on the second night after that—that is to say, the fourth in the week—when I was awoke out of my sound sleep by Mr. James coming into my bedroom in his flannel-gown, with a lighted candle. He sat upon the side of my bed, and looking at me, said:
“Wilhelm, I have reason to think I have got some strange illness upon me.”
I then perceived that there was a very unusual expression in his face.
“Wilhelm,” said he, “I am not afraid or ashamed to tell you, what I might be afraid or ashamed to tell another man. You come from a sensible country, where mysterious things are inquired into, and are not settled to have been weighed and measured or to have been unweighable
and immeasurable—or in either case to have been completely disposed of, for all time—ever so many years ago. I have just now seen the phantom of my brother.”
I confess (said the German courier) that it gave me a little tingling of the blood to hear it.
“I have just now seen,” Mr. James repeated, looking full at me, that I might see how collected he was, “the phantom of my brother John. I was sitting up in bed, unable to sleep, when it came into my room, in a white dress, and, regarding me earnestly, passed up to the end of the room, glanced at some papers on my writing-desk, turned, and, still looking earnestly at me as it passed the bed, went out at the door. Now, I am not in the least mad, and am not in the least disposed to invest that phantom with an external existence out of myself. I think it is a warning to me that I am ill; and I think I had better be bled.”
I got out of bed directly (said the German courier) and began to get on my clothes, begging him not to be alarmed, and telling him that I would go myself to the doctor. I was just ready, when we heard a loud knocking and ringing at the street door. My room being an attic at the back, and Mr. James’s being the second-floor room in the front, we went down to his room, and put up the window, to see what was the matter.
“Is that Mr. James?” said a man below, falling back to the opposite side of the way to look up.
“It is,” said Mr. James; “and you are my brother’s man, Robert.”
“Yes, sir. I am sorry to say, sir, that Mr. John is ill. He is very bad, sir. It is even feared that he may be lying at the point of death. He wants to see you, sir. I have a chaise here. Pray come to him. Pray lose no time.”
Mr. James and I looked at one another. “Wilhelm,” said he, “this is strange. I wish you to come with me!” I helped him to dress, partly there and partly in the chaise; and no grass grew under the horses’ iron shoes between Poland-street and the Forest.
Now, mind! (said the German courier). I went with Mr. James into his brother’s room, and I saw and heard myself what follows.
His brother lay upon his bed, at the upper end of a long bed-chamber. His old housekeeper was there, and others were there: I think three others were there, if not four, and they had been with him since early in the afternoon. He was in white, like the figure—necessarily so, because he had his night-dress on. He looked like the figure—necessarily so, because he looked earnestly at his brother when he saw him come into the room.
But, when his brother reached the bed-side, he slowly raised himself in bed, and looking full upon him, said these words:
“James, you have seen me before, to-night, and you know it!”
And so died!
I waited, when the German courier ceased, to hear something said of this strange story. The silence was unbroken. I looked round, and the five couriers were gone: so noiselessly that the ghostly mountain might have absorbed them into its eternal snows. By this time, I was by no means in a mood to sit alone in that awful scene, with the chill air coming solemnly upon me—or, if I may tell the truth, to sit alone anywhere. So I went back into the convent-parlor, and, finding the American gentleman still disposed to relate the biography of the Honorable Ananias Dodger, heard it all out.