CHAPTER XXII.—Mr. Bucket.
Allegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln's Inn Fields, though the evening is hot; for, both Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows are wide open, and the room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy. These may not be desirable characteristics when November comes with fog and sleet, or January with ice and snow; but they have their merits in the sultry long vacation weather. They enable Allegory, though it has cheeks like peaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for calves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool to-night.
Plenty of dust comes in at Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows, and plenty more has generated among his furniture and papers. It lies thick every where. When a breeze from the country that has lost its way, takes fright, and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it flings as much dust in the eyes of Allegory as the law—or Mr. Tulkinghorn, one of its trustiest representatives—may scatter, on occasion, in the eyes of the laity.
In his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into which his papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of earth, animate and inanimate, are resolving, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of the open windows, enjoying a bottle of old port. For, though a hard-grained man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields, which is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as he has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken brought in from the coffee-house, he descends with a candle to the echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and, heralded by a remote reverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back, encircled by an earthly atmosphere, and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to find itself so famous, and fills the whole room with the fragrance of southern grapes.
Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys his wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and seclusion, it shuts him up the closer. More impenetrable than ever, he sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy; pondering, at that twilight hour, on all the mysteries he knows, associated with darkening woods in the country, and vast blank shut-up houses in town; and perhaps sparing a thought or two for himself, and his family history, and his money, and his will—all a mystery to every one—and that one bachelor friend of his, a man of the same mould, and a lawyer too, who lived the same kind of life until he was seventy-five years old, and then, suddenly conceiving (as it is supposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave his gold watch to his hair-dresser one summer evening, and walked leisurely home to the Temple, and hanged himself.
But Mr. Tulkinghorn is not alone to-night, to ponder at his usual length. Seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly and uncomfortably drawn a little away from it, sits a bald, mild, shining man, who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the lawyer bids him fill his glass.
"Now, Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "to go over this odd story again."
"If you please, sir."
"You told me, when you were so good as to step round here, last night—"
"For which I must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir; but I remembered that you had taken a sort of an interest in that person, and I thought it possible that you might—just—wish—to—"
Mr. Tulkinghorn is not the man to help him to any conclusion, or to admit any thing as to any possibility concerning himself. So Mr. Snagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, "I must ask you to excuse the liberty, sir, I am sure."
"Not at all," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "You told me, Snagsby, that you put on your hat and came round without mentioning your intention to your wife. That was prudent, I think, because it's not a matter of such importance that it requires to be mentioned."
"Well, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby, "you see my little woman is—not to put too fine a point upon it—inquisitive. She's inquisitive. Poor little thing, she's liable to spasms, and it's good for her to have her mind employed. In consequence of which, she employs it—I should say upon every individual thing she can lay hold of, whether it concerns her or not—especially not. My little woman has a very active mind, sir."
Mr. Snagsby drinks, and murmurs with an admiring cough behind his hand. "Dear me, very fine wine indeed!"
"Therefore you kept your visit to yourself, last night?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "And to-night, too?"
"Yes, sir, and to-night, too. My little woman is at present in—not to put too fine a point upon it—in a pious state, or in what she considers such, and attends the Evening Exertions (which is the name they go by) of a reverend party of the name of Chadband. He has a great deal of eloquence at his command, undoubtedly, but I am not quite favorable to his style myself. That's neither here nor there. My little woman being engaged in that way, made it easier for me to step round in a quiet manner."
Mr. Tulkinghorn assents. "Fill your glass, Snagsby."
"Thank you, sir, I am sure," returns the stationer, with his cough of deference. "This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!"
"It is a rare wine now," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It is fifty years old."
"Is it indeed, sir? But I am not surprised to hear it, I am sure. It might be—any age almost." After rendering this general tribute to the port, Mr. Snagsby in his modesty coughs an apology behind his hand for drinking any thing so precious.
"Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty smallclothes, and leaning quietly back in his chair.
"With pleasure, sir."
Then, with fidelity, though with some prolixity, the law stationer repeats Joe's statement made to the assembled guests at his house. On coming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great start, and breaks off with—"Dear me, sir, I wasn't aware there was any other gentleman present!"
Mr. Snagsby is dismayed to see, standing with an attentive face between himself and the lawyer, at a little distance from the table, a person with a hat and stick in his hand, who was not there when he himself came in, and has not since entered by the door or by either of the windows. There is a press in the room, but its hinges have not creaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor. Yet this third person stands there, with his attentive face, and his hat and stick in his hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and quiet listener. He is a steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of about the middle age. Except that he looks at Mr. Snagsby as if he were going to take his portrait, there is nothing remarkable about him at first sight but his ghostly manner of appearing.
"Don't mind this gentleman," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, in his quiet way. "This is only Mr. Bucket."
"O indeed, sir?" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough that he is quite in the dark as to who Mr. Bucket may be.
"I wanted him to hear this story," says the lawyer, "because I have half a mind (for a reason) to know more of it, and he is very intelligent in such things. What do you say to this, Bucket?"
"It's very plain, sir. Since our people have moved this boy on, and he's not to be found on his old lay, if Mr. Snagsby don't object to go down with me to Tom-all-Alone's and point him out, we can have him here in less than a couple of hours' time. I can do it without Mr. Snagsby, of course; but this is the shortest way."
"Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby," says the lawyer in explanation.
"Is he indeed, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby, with a strong tendency in his clump of hair to stand on end.
"And if you have no real objection to accompany Mr. Bucket to the place in question," pursues the lawyer, "I shall feel obliged to you if you will do so."
In a moment's hesitation on the part of Mr. Snagsby, Bucket dips down to the bottom of his mind.
"Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy," he says. "You won't do that. It's all right as far as the boy's concerned. We shall only bring him here to ask him a question or so I want to put to him, and he'll be paid for his trouble, and sent away again. It'll be a good job for him. I promise you, as a man, that you shall see the boy sent away all right. Don't you be afraid of hurting him; you an't going to do that."
"Very well, Mr. Tulkinghorn!" cries Mr. Snagsby, cheerfully, and reassured, "since that's the case—"
"Yes! and lookee here, Mr. Snagsby," resumes Bucket, taking him aside by the arm, tapping him familiarly on the breast, and speaking in a confidential tone. "You're a man of the world, you know, and a man of business, and a man of sense. That's what you are."
"I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion," returns the stationer, with his cough of modesty, "but—"
"That's what you are, you know," says Bucket. "Now it an't necessary to say to a man like you, engaged in your business, which is a business of trust, and requires a person to be wide awake and have his senses about him, and his head screwed on right (I had an uncle in your business once)—it an't necessary to say to a man like you, that it's the best and wisest way to keep little matters like this quiet. Don't you see? Quiet!"
"Certainly, certainly," returns the stationer.
"I don't mind telling you," says Bucket, with an engaging appearance of frankness, "that, as far as I can understand it, there seems to be a doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a little property, and whether this female hasn't been up to some games respecting that property, don't you see!"
"O!" says Mr. Snagsby, but not appearing to see quite distinctly.
"Now, what you want," pursues Bucket, again tapping Mr. Snagsby on the breast in a comfortable and soothing manner, "is, that every person should have their rights according to justice. That's what you want."
"To be sure," returns Mr. Snagsby, with a nod.
"On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a—do you call it, in your business, customer or client? I forget how my uncle used to call it."
"Why, I generally say customer, myself," replies Mr. Snagsby.
"You're right!" returns Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him quite affectionately—"on account of which, and at the same time to oblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in confidence, to Tom-all-Alone's, and to keep the whole thing quiet ever afterward and never mention it to any one. That's about your intentions, if I understand you?"
"You are right, sir. You are right," says Mr. Snagsby.
"Then here's your hat," returns his new friend, quite as intimate with it as if he had made it; "and if you're ready, I am."
They leave Mr. Tulkinghorn, without a ruffle on the surface of his unfathomable depths, drinking his old wine; and go down into the streets.
"You don't happen to know a very good sort of person of the name of Gridley, do you?" says Bucket, in friendly converse as they descend the stairs.
"No," says Mr. Snagsby, considering, "I don't know any body of that name. Why?"
"Nothing particular," says Bucket; "only, having allowed his temper to get a little the better of him, and having been threatening some respectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant I have got against him—which it's a pity that a man of sense should do."
As they walk along, Mr. Snagsby observes, as a novelty, that however quick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some undefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply, at the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a police constable on his beat, Mr. Snagsby notices that both the constable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come toward each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and to gaze into space. In a few instances Mr. Bucket, coming behind some under-sized young man with a shining hat on, and his sleek hair twisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost without glancing at him touches him with his stick; upon which the young man, looking round, instantly evaporates. For the most part Mr. Bucket notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great mourning ring on his little finger, or the brooch, composed of not much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt.
When they come at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr. Bucket stops for a moment at the corner, and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the constable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own particular bull's-eye at his waist. Between his two conductors, Mr. Snagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, undrained, unventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water—though the roads are dry elsewhere—and reeking with such smells and sights that he, who has lived in London all his life, can scarce believe his senses. Branching from this street and its heaps of ruins, are other streets and courts so infamous that Mr. Snagsby sickens in body and mind, and feels as if he were going, every moment deeper down, into the infernal gulf.
"Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby," says Bucket, as a kind of shabby palanquin is borne toward them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. "Here's the fever coming up the street."
As the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of attraction, hovers round the three visitors, like a dream of horrible faces, and fades away up alleys and into ruins, and behind walls; and with occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning, thenceforth flits about them until they leave the place.
"Are those the fever-houses, Darby?" Mr Bucket coolly asks, as he turns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins.
Darby replies that "all them are," and further that in all, for months and months, the people "have been down by dozens," and have been carried out, dead and dying "like sheep with the rot." Bucket observing to Mr. Snagsby as they go on again, that he looks a little poorly, Mr. Snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't breathe the dreadful air.
There is inquiry made, at various houses, for a boy named Jo. As few people are known in Tom-all-Alone's by any Christian sign, there is much reference to Mr. Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or the Colonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or the Brick. Mr. Snagsby describes over and over again. There are conflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. Some think it must be Carrots; some say the Brick. The Colonel is produced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby and his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. Whenever they move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away, and flits about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and behind the walls, as before.
At last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough Subject, lays him down at night; and it is thought that the Tough Subject may be Jo. Comparison of notes between Mr. Snagsby and the proprietress of the house—a drunken, fiery face tied up in a black bundle, and flaring out of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog-hutch, which is her private apartment—leads to the establishment of this conclusion. Toughy has gone to the Doctor's to get a bottle of stuff for a sick woman, but will be here anon.
"And who have we got here to-night?" says Mr. Bucket, opening another door, and glaring in with his bull's-eye. "Two drunken men, eh? And two women? The men are sound enough," turning back each sleeper's arm from his face to look at him. "Are these your good men, my dears?"
"Yes, sir," returns one of the women. "They are our husbands."
"Brickmakers, eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"What are you doing here? You don't belong to London."
"No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire."
"Whereabouts in Hertfordshire?"
"Saint Albans."
"Come up on the tramp?"
"We walked up yesterday. There's no work down with us at present; but we have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I expect."
"That's not the way to do much good," says Mr. Bucket, turning his head in the direction of the unconscious figures on the ground.
"It an't, indeed," replies the woman with a sigh. "Jenny and me knows it full well."
The room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low that the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the blackened ceiling if he stood upright. It is offensive to every sense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted air. There are a couple of benches, and a higher bench by way of table. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit by the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken, is a very young child.
"Why, what age do you call that little creature?" says Bucket. "It looks as if it was born yesterday." He is not at all rough about it; and as he turns his light gently on the infant, Mr. Snagsby is strangely reminded of another infant, encircled with light, that he has seen in pictures.
"He is not three weeks old yet, sir," says the woman.
"Is he your child?"
"Mine."
The other woman, who was bending over it when they came in, stoops down again, and kisses it as it lies asleep.
"You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself," says Mr. Bucket.
"I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died."
"Ah Jenny, Jenny!" says the other woman to her; "better so. Much better to think of dead than alive, Jenny! Much better!"
"Why, you an't such an unnatural woman, I hope," returns Bucket, sternly, "as to wish your own child dead?"
"God knows you are right, master," she returns. "I am not. I'd stand between it and death, with my own life if I could, as true as any pretty lady."
"Then don't talk in that wrong manner," says Mr. Bucket, mollified again. "Why do you do it?"
"It's brought into my head, master," returns the woman, her eyes filling with tears, "when I look down at the child lying so. If it was never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, I should take on so. I know that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers—warn't I Jenny?—and I know how she grieved. But look round you, at this place. Look at them;" glancing at the sleepers on the ground. "Look at the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good turn. Think of the children that your business lays with often and often, and that you see grow up!"
"Well, well," says Mr. Bucket, "you train him respectable, and he'll be a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you know."
"I mean to try hard," she answers, wiping her eyes. "But I have been a thinking, being over-tired to-night, and not well with the ague, of all the many things that'll come in his way. My master will be against it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to fear his home, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever so much, and ever so hard, there's no one to help me; and if he should be turned bad, 'spite of all I could do, and the time should come when I should sit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed, an't it likely I should think of him as he lies in my lap now, and wish he had died as Jenny's child died."
"There, there!" says Jenny. "Liz, you're tired and ill. Let me take him."
In doing so she displaces the mother's dress, but quickly readjusts it over the wounded and bruised bosom where the baby has been lying.
"It's my dead child," says Jenny, walking up and down as she nurses, "that makes me love this child so dear, and it's my dead child that makes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its being taken away from her now. While she thinks that, I think what fortune would I give to have my darling back. But we mean the same thing, if we knew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor hearts!"
As Mr. Snagsby blows his nose, and coughs his cough of sympathy, a step is heard without. Mr. Bucket throws his light into the doorway, and says to Mr. Snagsby, "Now, what do you say to Toughy? Will he do?"
"That's Jo!" says Mr. Snagsby.
Jo stands amazed in the disc of light, like a ragged figure in a magic lantern, trembling to think that he has offended against the law in not having moved on far enough. Mr. Snagsby, however, giving him the consolatory assurance, "It's only a job you will be paid for, Jo," he recovers; and, on being taken outside by Mr. Bucket for a little private confabulation, tells his tale satisfactorily, though out of breath.
"I have squared it with the lad," says Mr. Bucket, returning, "and it's all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we're ready for you."
First, Jo has to complete his errand of good-nature by handing over the physic he has been to get, which he delivers with the laconic verbal direction that "it's to be all took d'rectly." Secondly Mr. Snagsby has to lay upon the table half-a-crown, his usual panacea for an immense variety of afflictions. Thirdly, Mr. Bucket has to take Jo by the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on before him: without which observance, neither the Tough Subject nor any other subject could be professionally conducted to Lincoln's Inn Fields. These arrangements completed, they give the women good-night, and come out once more into black and foul Tom-all-Alone's.
By the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, they gradually emerge from it; the crowd flitting, and whistling, and skulking about them, until they come to the verge, where restoration of the bull's-eyes is made to Darby. Here the crowd, like a concourse of imprisoned demons turns back, yelling and is seen no more. Through the clearer and fresher streets, never so clear and fresh to Mr. Snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride, until they come to Mr. Tulkinghorn's gate.
As they ascend the dim stairs (Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers being on the first floor), Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key of the outer door in his pocket, and that there is no need to ring. For a man so expert in most things of that kind, Bucket takes time to open the door, and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a note of preparation.
Howbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning, and so into Mr. Tulkinghorn's usual room—the room where he drank his old wine to-night. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned candlesticks are; and the room is tolerably light.
Mr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo, and appearing to Mr. Snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a little way into this room, when Jo starts, and stops.
"What's the matter?" says Bucket in a whisper.
"There she is!" cries Jo.
"Who?"
"The lady!"
A female figure, closely vailed, stands in the middle of the room, where the light falls upon it. It is quite still, and silent. The front of the figure is toward them, but it takes no notice of their entrance, and remains like a statue.
"Now, tell me," says Bucket aloud, "how you know that to be the lady."
"I know the wale," replies Jo, staring, "and the bonnet, and the gownd."
"Be quite sure of what you say, Tough," returns Bucket, narrowly observant of him. "Look again."
"I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look," says Jo, with starting eyes, "and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd."
"What about those rings you told me of?" asks Bucket.
"A sparkling all over here," says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his left hand on the knuckles of his right, without taking his eyes from the figure.
The figure removes the right hand glove, and shows the hand.
"Now, what do you say to that?" asks Bucket.
Jo shakes his head. "Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like that."
"What are you talking of?" says Bucket; evidently pleased though, and well pleased too.
"Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller," returns Jo.
"Why, you'll tell me I'm my own mother, next," says Mr. Bucket. "Do you recollect the lady's voice?"
"I think I does?" says Jo.
The figure speaks. "Was it at all like this. I will speak as long as you like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like this voice?"
Jo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. "Not a bit!"
"Then, what," retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, "did you say it was the lady for?"
"Cos," says Jo, with a perplexed stare, but without being at all shaken in his certainty, "Cos that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd. It is her and it an't her. It an't her hand, nor yet her rings, nor yet her woice. But that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore 'em, and its her height wot she wos, and she give me a sov'ring and hooked it."
"Well!" says Mr. Bucket, slightly, "we haven't got much good out of you. But, however, here's five shillings for you. Take care how you spend it, and don't get yourself into trouble." Bucket stealthily tells the coins from one hand into the other like counters—which is a way he has, his principal use of them being in these games of skill—and then puts them, in a little pile, into the boy's hand, and takes him out to the door; leaving Mr. Snagsby, not by any means comfortable under these mysterious circumstances, alone with the vailed figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn's coming into the room, the vail is raised, and a sufficiently good-looking Frenchwoman is revealed, though her expression is something of the intensest.
"Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, with his usual equanimity. "I will give you no further trouble about this little wager."
"You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at present placed?" said Mademoiselle.
"Certainly, certainly!"
"And to confer upon me the favor of your distinguished recommendation?"
"By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense."
"A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful."—"It shall not be wanting, Mademoiselle."—"Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude dear sir."—"Good-night." Mademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and Mr. Bucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of the ceremonies as it is to be any thing else, shows her down stairs, not without gallantry.
"Well, Bucket?" quoth Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return.
"It's all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There an't a doubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on. The boy was exact respecting colors and every thing. Mr. Snagsby, I promised you, as a man, that he should be sent away all right. Don't say it wasn't done!"
"You have kept your word, sir," returns the stationer; "and if I can be of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little woman will be getting anxious—"
"Thank you, Snagsby, no further use," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I am quite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already."
"Not at all, sir. I wish you good-night."
"You see, Mr. Snagsby," says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the door, and shaking hands with him over and over again, "what I like in you, is, that you're a man it's of no use pumping; that's what you are. When you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and it's done with and gone, and there's an end of it. That's what you do."
"That is certainly what I endeavor to do, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby.
"No, you don't do yourself justice. It an't what you endeavor to do," says Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him and blessing him in the tenderest manner, "it's what you do. That's what I estimate in a man in your way of business."
Mr. Snagsby makes a suitable response; and goes homeward so confused by the events of the evening, that he is doubtful of his being awake and out—doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he goes—doubtful of the reality of the moon that shines above him. He is presently reassured on these subjects, by the unchallengeable reality of Mrs. Snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect beehive of curl-papers and nightcap; who has dispatched Guster to the police station with official intelligence of her husband's being made away with, and who, within the last two hours, has passed through every stage of swooning with the greatest decorum. But, as the little woman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it!
[MONSTERS OF FAITH.]
We people in this western world, have, in our time, not less than those who went before us, been witnesses of many acts of eccentric and exaggerated faith. We have seen this virtue dressed in many a guise, tricked out in many a hue. We have seen it in the meanest and the highest.
But what is cold, dwarfed, European faith, when compared with the huge monstrous faith of the barbarous land of the sun? The two will no more bear comparison than will the Surrey Hills compare with the Himalayas, or the Thames and the Garonne bear being mentioned beside the Ganges and the Burrumpootra. The scenes I am about to relate are not selected for their rarity or for any peculiarity about them; they may be met with at any of the many festivals, or Poojahs, throughout India proper.
The village at which the festival I witnessed was held, was not very far distant from one of the leading cities of Bengal, a city numbering possibly half a million of inhabitants, with a highly populous country round about it for many a league. The reader will, therefore, readily imagine the crowding and rushing which took place from all sides, to witness the festival of a deity in whom all believed, for, away from the south, there are comparatively but few of any other faith than Hindooism.
It was high noon when I arrived on the ground in my palanquin; and by favor of the friendship of the British collector of Howdahpore I was admitted within the most privileged circle, and took up my stand beneath the pleasant shade of a wide-spreading Jambo tree. I had time and opportunity to note the place and the people; for the sacred operations had not as yet commenced. The spot we were assembled in was in an extensive valley lightly wooded at intervals, and commanding a picturesque view of a rather wide river which flowed on to Howdahpore, and was now busy with many boats loaded with passengers. On the river bank nearest to us, a number of bamboo and leaf sheds had been hastily erected, in which carousals and amusements of various kinds were in progress or preparation. Flowers decorated the ample doorways, and hung festooned from many a roof; while high above, wooing in vain a passing breeze and brightly glaring in the noon-day tropic sun, gay streamers drooped in burning listlessness. From the topmost summits of some of the loftiest trees—and they are lofty here—long tapering poles extended other flags and strips of colored cloth. In cool, shady nooks, where clumps of spreading jungle kindly grew, at other times the haunts of fiercest tigers, or worse, of cruel Thugs, small knots of Hindoo families of rank were grouped in silent watchfulness. The lordly Zemindar of the district; the exacting Tulukdhar, the terror of village ryots; the grinding Putindhar: all these were there in eastern feudal pomp.
Far as the eye could reach, the rich green valley teemed with human life. Thousands on thousands flocked from many a point, and pressed to where the gaudy flags and beating drums told of the approaching Poojah. The steady hum of the vast multitude seemed like the ocean's fall on some far distant shore. Grief, joy, pain, pleasure, prayers and songs, blended with howling madness, or cries of devotees, in one strange, stormy discord; the heat and glare, the many new and striking garbs, the sea of dusky visages and brightly glaring eyes, mixed with the varied gorgeous foliage, and flinging into contrast the lovely gentleness of distant hills and woods, made up a whole not easy to forget, yet difficult to paint.
But my attention was before long directed to some preparations in progress not far from where I stood. I had observed several huge poles standing at a great height, with ropes and some apparatus attached to them, the use of which I knew from report alone. Here I now remarked a great deal of bustling activity; a number of attendants were beating back the crowd in order to clear a space around one of the loftiest of the poles I have mentioned. This was a work of much difficulty, for the mob was both excited and dense. At length, however, they succeeded in the task, and finding the ground before me pretty clear, I advanced close to the scene of action. Round about the pole were a number of Fakirs or Ascetics, a sort of self-mutilated hermits, who hope and firmly believe that, by distorting their limbs into all sorts of impossible positions and shapes, they have insured the favor of some unpronounceable divinity, and with that a ready and certain passport to some future state about which they have not the most remote idea, which renders their devotion the more praiseworthy.
There was one miserable object, with his long matted locks of dirty red streaming over his shoulders, and one withered arm and hand held blighted high above his head, immovable. It had been forced into that unnatural position years ago, and what was then an act of free-will, was now a matter of necessity; the arm would no longer return to its true position, but pointed in its thin and bony haggardness to heaven. Another dark-eyed, dark-haired ascetic had held his hands for years so firmly clasped together, that the long talon-like nails were to be seen growing through the palms of his hands and appearing at the back. Some I saw with thick rope actually threaded through their flesh quite round their bodies, many times in bleeding coils; more than one young woman was there with her neck and shoulders thickly studded over with sharp short needles stuck firmly in the flesh. One man, a young man, too, had forced a sort of spear right through the fleshy part of his foot, with the thick wooden handle downward, on which he walked, quite indifferent to any sort of inconvenience. There was no lack of others, all self-tortured, maimed, and trussed, and skewered, as though about to be spitted and put down to the fire.
The object which all by one consent agreed to gaze at, was a young and pretty-looking girl, almost a child in manner, who sat upon the ground so sadly, yet so calm and almost happy, that I could not persuade myself one so young and gentle was about to be barbarously tortured. Yet so it was. It appeared that her husband had, months since, gone upon some distant, dangerous journey; that being long absent, and rumors raised in the native bazaar of his death, she, the anxious wife, had vowed to Siva, the protector of life, to undergo self-torture on his next festival if her loved husband's life should be spared. He had returned, and now, mighty in faith and love, this simple-minded, single-hearted creature gave up herself to pain such as the stoutest of our sex or race might shrink from. She sat looking fondly on her little infant as it lay asleep in the arms of an old nurse, all unconscious of the mother's sacrifice, and turning her eyes from that to her husband, who stood near in a wild, excited state, she gave the signal that she was ready. The stout-limbed, burly-bodied husband rushed like a tiger at such of the crowd as attempted to press too near the sacrificial girl: he had a staff in his hand, and with it played such a tune on bare and turbaned heads and ebony shoulders, as brought down many an angry malediction on the player. The nurse with the infant moved further away among the crowd of admiring spectators. Two or three persons, men and women, pressed forward to adjust the horrid-looking hooks. Was it possible, I thought, that those huge instruments of torture, heavy enough to hold an elephant, were to be forced into the flesh of that gentle girl! I felt sick as I saw the poor child stretched upon her face, and first one and then the other of those ugly, crooked pieces of iron forced slowly through the flesh and below the muscles of her back. They lifted her up, and as I watched her, I saw big drops of perspiration starting from her forehead; her small eyes seemed closed at first, and, for the moment, I fancied she had fainted; but as they raised her to her feet, and then quickly drew her up in the air high above us, hanging by those two horrid hooks, I saw her looking down quite placidly. She sought her husband out, and seeing him watching her eagerly, gave him a smile, and, waving her little hands, drew from her bosom small pieces of the sacred cocoa-nut and flung them amid the gazing crowd. To scramble for and obtain one of these precious fragments was deemed a fortunate thing, for they were supposed to contain all sorts of charmed powers.
And now the Poojah was fairly commenced. The ropes which carried the iron hooks were so arranged, that by pulling one end—which passed over the top of the pole—it swung round a plate of iron which set in motion the other rope holding the hooks and the living operator. Two men seized on this rope, and soon the poor girl was in rapid flight over the heads of the crowd, who cheered her on by a variety of wild cries, and shouts, and songs. Not that she seemed to need encouragement; her eyes were still bent toward her husband; I almost fancied she smiled as she caught his eye. There was no sign of pain, or shrinking, or yielding: she bore it as many a hero of the old world would have been proud to have done, scattering beneath her flowers and fruit among the busy throng.
I felt as though a heavy weight were off my mind when I perceived the whirling motion of the ropes first to slacken, and then to cease, and finally the girl, all bleeding, relieved from the cruel torture. They laid her on a mat beneath some shady trees: the women gave her a draught of cool water in a cocoa-nut shell. But her thoughts were not upon herself: she looked anxiously around, and could not be satisfied until her husband sat beside her, and their little swarthy infant was placed within her arms. The only care her deep and open wounds received was to have them rubbed with a little turmeric powder, and covered with the fresh tender leaf of a banana.
Leaving this family group, I turned back to watch the further proceedings around the huge pole, where there was once more a great bustle and pressing among the crowd. This time the operator, or sufferer, whichever would be the most fitting term, was a man of middle age, and of the lowest ranks of the laboring class. He appeared to be perfectly indifferent to any thing like suffering, as the two operators seized the flesh of his back, and another roughly thrust through it two hooks. In another minute he was whirling through the air as rapidly as the attendants could force him; still he seemed anxious to travel faster, and by signs and cries urged them to increased speed. The mob was delighted with this exhibition of perfect endurance and enthusiasm, and testified their approbation in a variety of modes. This man remained swinging for fully twenty minutes, at the end of which time he was released: somewhat less excited, I fancied, than when he was first hoisted in the air. I failed to learn his story, but it had reference, beyond a doubt, to some escape from danger, real or imaginary, and, of course, imputed to the direct interposition of the powerful Siva, or some equally efficacious deputy. The medical treatment of this devotee was on the ruder scale, and would have shocked the feelings and science of some of our army surgeons, to say nothing of civil practitioners. The root of turmeric was again employed, in fine powder, but placed in the wounds most hastily, and, by way of forcing it thoroughly in, some one stood on his back, and trod in the powder with his heel.
I saw one other man hoisted up. He had taken the vow in order to save the life of a much-loved sister's child; and as he swung round and round in stoical indifference, the sister, a young creature with her little infant, sat looking at him as if she would willingly have borne the suffering in his stead. Doubtless there was a love linking these poor creatures together in their ignorance; which, mighty as it was, would have done honor to any highly-gifted dwellers in the west. And, it must be remembered, their sacrifice was for the past; it was one of gratitude, and not of hope or fear for the future. Their prayers had been heard; and, although they knew not of that undying Providence which had listened to their voice and spared the young child's life, they turned to such stone and wooden deities as their forefathers had set up, and devoutly kept their vow.
There were other victims yet to be self-offered; but I had had enough, and the heat, and the noise, and the many strange effluvia were growing so rank and overpowering, that I prepared to retreat. As I returned through the dense crowd which made way for me, I perceived an aged woman preparing for a swing as stoically as any of the younger devotees who had gone before her. A tall, powerful-looking man was standing by her side, watching the preparations with considerable interest. He was her son; and, as I learnt, the cause of her present appearance in public. It had been some seven or eight years previously that the vow had been made to the stone deity; which, as they believed, had acted as a miracle and saved his life. It would have been fulfilled at once, but first poverty, and then ill-health, had stood in the way of its performance; and now, after this long lapse being able to pay the necessary fees to the priests, she had left her distant home to carry out the never-to-be-forgotten vow. As I moved away in the distance, I heard the shouts of the enraptured multitude raised in honor of the old lady's fortitude; cry after cry floated on the breeze, and died away in the din of drums, and pipes, and bells.
For miles the country round about was covered with festivity and uproar. Hundreds of fanatic companies were reveling in religious festive rites. In one leaf and bamboo shed, larger than the rest, I noticed, as I looked in unperceived, the young self-offered wife of that day, as gay and unconcerned by pain as any of the party; I might have fancied she had but just been married, instead of hanging in the air upon cruel hooks.
[LIFE AND DEATH OF PAGANINI.]
Genius—talent, whatever its extent—can not always count upon popularity. Susceptibility of the highest conceptions, of the most sublime creations, frequently fails in securing the attention of the multitude. How to attain this most coveted point? It would be difficult to arrive at any precise conclusion, from the fact that it applies to matters totally differing from each other; it is, however, perhaps possible to define the aggregation of qualities required to move the public in masses, by calling it sympathetic wonderment, and its originality is one of its absolute conditions. Many names, doubtless, recall talents of the first order, and personalities of the highest value; yet, notwithstanding their having been duly appreciated by the intelligent and enlightened classes, they have not always called forth those outbursts of enthusiasm, which were manifested toward the truly prodigious artist who is the object of this notice.
Nicolo Paganini, the most extraordinary musical genius of the 19th century, was born at Genoa, on the 18th of February, 1784. His father, Antoine Paganini, a commercial broker, or simple post clerk, according to some biographers, was passionately fond of music, and played upon the mandoline. His penetration soon discovered the aptitude of his son for this art, and he resolved that study should develope it. His excessive severity had probably led to contrary results to those he expected, had not the younger Paganini been endowed with the firm determination of becoming an artist. From the age of six years he was a musician, and played the violin. The ill treatment to which he was subjected during this period of his youth, appears to have exercised a fatal influence over his nervous and delicate constitution. From his first attempts he was imbued with the disposition to execute feats of strength and agility upon his instrument; and his instinct urged him to attempt the most extraordinary things.
His father's lessons soon became useless, and Servetto, a musician of the theatre, at Genoa, became his teacher; but even he was not possessed of sufficient ability to benefit this predestined artist. Paganini received his instructions for a short period only, and he was placed under Giacomo Costa, director of music, and principal violinist of the churches of Genoa, under whose care he progressed rapidly. He had now attained his eighth year, when he wrote his Sonata, which he unfortunately took no care of, and has been lost among many other of his productions.
Having reached his ninth year, the young virtuoso appeared in public, for the first time, in a performance at the large theatre of his native town; and this extraordinary child played variations of his own composition on the French air, la Carmagnole, amid the frenzied acclamations of an enthusiastic audience. About this period of his life the father was advised, by judicious friends, to place the boy under good masters of the violin and composition; and he shortly after took him to Parma, where Alexander Rolla then resided, so celebrated for his performance as conductor of the orchestra, and composer. Paganini was now twelve years of age. The following anecdote, related by M. Schottky, and which Paganini published in a Vienna journal, furnishes interesting details of the master's first interview with the young artist: "On arriving at Rolla's house," he said, "we found him ill, and in bed. His wife conducted us into a room adjoining the one where the sick man lay, in order to concert with her husband, who, it appeared, was not at all disposed to receive us. Perceiving upon the table of the chamber into which we were ushered, a violin, and the last concerto of Rolla, I took up the violin, and played the piece at first sight. Surprised at what he heard, the composer inquired the name of the virtuoso he had just heard. When he heard the virtuoso was only a mere lad, he would not give credence to the fact unless by ocular demonstration. Thus satisfied, he told me, that he could teach me nothing, and recommended me to take lessons on composition from Paër." Even now, Paganini was occupied in discovering new effects on his instrument. It was, however, only after his return to Genoa, that Paganini wrote his first compositions for the violin. This music was so difficult that he was obliged to study it himself with increasing perseverance, and to make constant efforts to solve problems unknown to all other violinists.
Quitting Parma, at the commencement of 1797, Paganini made his first professional tour, with his father, of all the principal towns in Lombardy, and commenced a matchless reputation. On his return to Genoa, and after having in solitude made the efforts necessary for the development of his talent, he began to feel the weight of the chain by which he was held by his father, and determined to release himself from the ill treatment to which he was still subjected under the paternal roof. A favorable opportunity alone was required to favor his design. This soon presented itself. The fête of St. Martin was celebrated annually at Lucca by a musical festival, to which persons flocked from every part of Italy. As this period approached, Paganini entreated his father to permit him to attend it, accompanied by his elder brother. His demand was at first met with a peremptory refusal; but the solicitations of the son, and the prayers of the mother, finally prevailed, and the heart of the young artist, at liberty for the first time, bounded with joy, and he set out agitated by dreams of success and happiness. At Lucca he was received with enthusiasm. Encouraged by this propitious début, he visited Pisa, and some other towns, in all of which his success was unequivocal. Paganini had not yet attained his fifteenth year. This is not the age of prudence. His moral education, besides, had been grossly neglected, and the severity which assailed his more youthful years, was not calculated to awaken him to the dangers of a free life: and he formed dangerous connections. Paganini, in this manner, frequently lost the produce of several concerts in one night, and was consequently often in a state of great embarrassment, and frequently reduced to part with his violin. In this condition he found himself at Leghorn, and was indebted to the kindness of a French merchant (M. Livron), a distinguished amateur, for the loan of a violin, an excellent Guarneri. When the concert had concluded, Paganini brought it back to its owner, when this gentleman exclaimed, "Never will I profane strings which your fingers have touched! that instrument is now yours." This is the violin Paganini since used in all his concerts.
Adventures of every kind signalize this period of Paganini's early days; the enthusiasm of art, love, and gaming, divided his time, despite the warnings of a delicate constitution, which proclaimed the necessity of great care. Heedless of every thing, he continued his career of dissipation, until the prostration of his faculties forced a respite. He would then lie by for several weeks, in a state of absolute repose, until, with energies refreshed, he recommenced his artistic career and wandering life. It was to be feared that this dissolute life would, ultimately, deprive the world of his marvelous talent, when an unforeseen and important circumstance, related by himself, ended his fatal passion for gaming.
"I shall never forget," he said, "that I, one day, placed myself in a position which was to decide my future. The Prince of —— had, for some time, coveted the possession of my violin—the only one I possessed at that period, and which I still have. He, on one particular occasion, was extremely anxious that I should mention the sum for which I would dispose of it; but, not wishing to part with my instrument, I declared I would not sell it for 250 gold Napoleons. Some time after, the prince said to me that I was, doubtless, only in jest in asking such a sum, but that he would be willing to give me 2,000 francs. I was, at this moment, in the greatest want of money to meet a debt of honor I had incurred at play, and I was almost tempted to accept the proffered amount, when I received an invitation to a party that evening at a friend's house. All my capital consisted of thirty francs, as I had disposed of all my jewels, watch, rings, and brooches, &c., I resolved on risking this last resource; and, if fortune proved fickle, to sell my violin to the prince and proceed to St. Petersburg, without instrument or luggage, with the view of re-establishing my affairs; my thirty francs were reduced to three, when, suddenly, my fortune took a sudden turn; and, with the small remains of my capital, I won 160 francs. This amount saved my violin, and completely set me up. From that day I abjured gaming—to which I had sacrificed a part of my youth—convinced that a gamester is an object of contempt to all well-regulated minds."
Although he was still in the full prime of youth, Paganini devoted his talent steadily to success and profit, when, in one of those hallucinations to which all great artists are subject, the violin lost its attractions in his eyes. A lady of rank having fallen desperately in love with him, and reciprocated by him, he withdrew with her to an estate she possessed in Tuscany. This lady played the guitar, and Paganini imbibed a taste for the instrument, and applied himself as sedulously to its practice as he had formerly done with the violin. He soon discovered new resources; and during a period of three years, he divided all the energies of his mind between its study, and agricultural pursuits, for which the lady's estate afforded him ample opportunities. But Paganini's former penchant for the violin returned, and he decided on resuming his travels. On his return to Genoa, in 1804, he occupied himself solely with composition. It appears, too, that at this period he gave instruction on the violin to Catherine Calcagno, born at Genoa, in 1797, who, at the age of fifteen, astounded Italy by the boldness of her style; all traces of her seem lost after 1816. Toward the middle of 1805, Paganini left Genoa, to undertake a new tour in Italy. The first town he visited was Lucca, the scene of his first successes. Here he again created so great a sensation by the concerto he performed at a nocturnal festival, in a convent chapel, that the monks were obliged to leave their stalls, in order to repress the applause which burst forth, despite the sanctity of the place. He was then twenty-one years of age. The principality of Lucca and Piombino had been organized in the month of March, of the same year, in favor of the Princess Eliza, sister of Napoleon, and the wife of Prince Bacciochi. The court had fixed its residence in the town of Lucca. The great reputation of the violinist induced the princess to offer him the posts of director of her private music, and conductor of the Opera orchestra, which he accepted. The princess, who had appreciated the originality of his talent, excited him to extend his discoveries of novel effects upon his instrument. To convince him of the interest he had inspired her with, she granted him the grade of captain in the Royal Gendarmerie, so that he might be admitted with his brilliant costume at all the great court receptions. Seeking to vary the effect of his instrument at the court concerts, he removed the second and third strings, and composed a dialogue sonata for the first and fourth strings. He has related this circumstance himself nearly in the same terms:
"At Lucca I directed the orchestra when the reigning family honored the Opera with their presence. I was often also called upon to play at court: and then, fortnightly, I organized concerts, and announced to the court a novelty under the title of Scène amoureuse. Curiosity rose to the highest pitch; but the surprise of all present at court was extreme, when I entered the saloon with a violin with only two strings. I had only retained the first and the fourth. The former was to express the sentiments of a young girl; the other was to express the passionate language of a lover. I had composed a kind of dialogue, in which the most tender accents followed the outbursts of jealousy. At one time, chords representing most tender appeals; at another, plaintive reproaches, cries of joy and anger, felicity and pain. Then followed the reconciliation; and the lovers, more persuaded than ever, executed a pas de deux, which terminated in a brilliant coda. This novelty was eminently successful. The Princess Eliza lauded me to the skies; and said to me, in the most gracious manner possible, 'You have just performed impossibilities—would not a single string suffice for your talent?' I promised to make the attempt. This idea delighted me; and, some weeks after, I composed my military sonata, entitled Napoleon, which I performed on the 25th of August, before a numerous and brilliant court. Its success far surpassed my expectations. My predilection for the G string dates from this period."
In the summer of 1808, Paganini obtained leave to travel, and quitted Lucca, never more to return. As the sister of Napoleon had become Grand Duchess of Tuscany, she fixed her residence at Florence, with all her court, and where the great artist retained his position. He went to Leghorn, where, seven years previously, he had met with so much success. He has related, with much humor, a series of tribulations which happened to him upon the occasion of his first concert there. "A nail," he said, "had run into my heel, and I came on limping, at which the audience laughed. At the moment I was about to commence my concerto, the candles of my desk fell out. (Another laugh.) At the end of the first few bars of the solo, my first string broke, which increased the hilarity of the audience; but I played the piece on the three strings—the grins quickly changed into acclamations of applause." This broken string frequently occurred afterward; and Paganini has been accused of using it as a means of success, having previously practiced upon the three strings, pieces which appear to require the use of the first string.
From Leghorn he went to Turin, where Paganini was first attacked with the bowel complaint, which subsequently so debilitated his health, as frequently to cause long interruptions to his travels, and his series of concerts.
Being at Milan in the spring of 1813, he witnessed, at the theatre of La Scala, the ballet of Il noce di Benevento (the Drowned One of Benevento). It was from this ballet Paganini took the theme of his celebrated variations, le Streghe (the Witches), from the air being that to which witches appeared. Here he was again seized with a return of his former malady, and several months elapsed before he could appear in public. It was only on the 29th of October following, he was enabled to give his first concert, exciting a sensation which the journals of Italy and Germany made known to the whole world.
In the month of October, 1814, he went to Bologna, when he saw Rossini for the first time, and commenced a friendship which became strengthened at Rome in 1817, and at Paris in 1831.
In the year 1817, he arrived at Rome, and found Rossini there busy in producing his Cenerentola. Several concerts he gave here during the Carnival excited the greatest enthusiasm. From this time, Paganini formed the project of leaving Italy to visit the principal cities in Germany and France; and in the year 1819, he arrived at Naples. It is a very remarkable circumstance, that he appeared here in a manner unworthy of his great name; for, instead of giving his first concerts at St. Carlo, he modestly commenced at the theatre of the Fondo.
On his arrival at Naples, Paganini found several artists indisposed toward him. They doubted the reality of the prodigies attributed to him, and awaited a failure. To put his talent to the test, the young composer, Danna, was engaged, recently from the Conservatory, to write a quartet, containing every species of difficulty, convinced that the great violinist would not vanquish them. He was, therefore, invited to a musical re-union, where the piece was immediately given to him to play at first sight. Understanding the snare that was laid for him, he merely glanced at it, and played it as if he had been familiar with it. Amazed and confounded at what they had heard, the highest approbation was awarded to him, and he was proclaimed a miracle.
It was during this sojourn at Naples that Paganini met with one of the most singular adventures of his extraordinary life. An alarming relapse of his malady took place; and, satisfied that any current of air was injurious to him, he took an apartment in the part of the town called Petrajo under Saint Elme; but meeting here that which he most sought to avoid, and his health daily becoming worse, it was reported that he was consumptive. At Naples, the opinion prevails that consumption is contagious. His landlord, alarmed at having in his house one who was supposed to be dying of this malady, had the inhumanity to turn him into the street, with all he possessed. Fortunately, the violoncellist, Ciandelli, the friend of Paganini, happened to be passing, and, incensed at the act of cruelty he was witness to, and which might have proved fatal to the great artist, belabored the barbarian unmercifully with a stick he carried, and then had his friend conveyed to a comfortable lodging, where every attention was paid to him.
Between 1820 and 1828, he visited Milan, Rome, Naples, and Trieste, and on the 2d of March, 1828, he proceeded to Vienna.
On the 29th of March, the first concert of this artist threw the Viennese population into an indescribable paroxysm of enthusiasm. "The first note he played on his Guarneri" (says M. Schilling, in his poetical style, in his Lexique Universel de Musique)—indeed, from his first step into the room—his reputation was decided in Germany. The Vienna journals were unlimited in hyperbolical expressions of admiration; and all admitted his performance to be incomparable. Verses appeared in every publication—medals were struck—the name of Paganini engrossing all; and, as M. Schottky remarks, every thing was à la Paganini. Cooks designated certain productions after him; and any extraordinary stroke of billiards was compared to a bow movement of the artist. His portrait appeared on snuff-boxes and cigar-cases; his bust surmounted the walking-sticks of the fashionable men. After a concert given for the benefit of the poor, the magistrate of Vienna presented to Paganini the large gold medal of St. Salvator, and the emperor conferred upon him the title of virtuoso of his private band.
After an uninterrupted series of triumphs, during three years, the celebrated artist arrived at Paris, and gave his first concert at the Opera, the 9th of March, 1831. His studies for the violin, which had been published there for some time—a species of enigma which had perplexed every violinist—the European fame of the artist—his travels and triumphs—raised the curiosity of the artists and the public. It were impossible to describe the enthusiasm his first concert created—it was universal frenzy. The same enthusiasm prevailed during his entire stay in Paris.
Toward the middle of May he left this city and proceeded to London—where he was expected with the utmost impatience, but not with that artistic and perceptive interest with which he had been received at Paris.
After an absence of six years, Paganini again set foot on his native soil. The wealth he had amassed in his European tour, placed him in a position of great independence; and among the various properties he purchased, was a charming country-house in the environs of Parma, called la Villa Gajona—here he decided on residing.
In 1836, speculators induced him to lend the aid of his name and talent for establishing a casino, of which music was the pretext, but gambling the real object. This establishment, which was situate in the most fashionable locality of Paris, was opened with considerable splendor at the end of November, 1837, under the name of Casino Paganini; but the government refused to authorize its opening as a gambling-house, and the speculators were reduced to give concerts, which far exceeded the expenses of the undertaking. The declension of his health was manifest, and his wasted strength precluded the possibility of his playing at the casino. A lawsuit was commenced against him, which he lost; and the judges, without having heard his defense, condemned him to pay 50,000f. to the creditors of the speculation, and he was deprived of his liberty until that amount was paid.
When this decision was pronounced, Paganini was dying—his malady, which was phthisis of the larynx, had increased since the commencement of 1839. The medical men advised him to proceed to Marseilles, the climate of which they considered favorable to his health. He followed this advice, and traveled by slow stages to the southern extremity. Despite his extreme weakness, he went to hear a requiem, by Cherubini, for male voices; finally, on the 21st of June, he attended in one of the churches at Marseilles, to take part in a solemn mass, by Beethoven. However, the love of change, inherent in all valetudinarians, induced him to return to Genoa by sea, fully impressed the voyage would recruit his health. Vain hope! In the commencement of October of the same year, he wrote from his native city to M. Galafre, a painter, an esteemed friend: "Being in much worse health than I was at Marseilles, I have resolved on passing the winter at Nice." Nice was destined to be his last abode. The progress of his malady was rapid—his voice became almost extinct, and dreadful fits of coughing, which daily became more frequent, and, finally, reduced him to a shadow. The sinking of his features, a certain token of approaching death, was visible in his face. An Italian writer has furnished us with a most touching description of his last moments, in the following terms:
"On the last night of his existence, he appeared unusually tranquil—he had slept a little: when he awoke, he requested that the curtains of his bed should be drawn aside to contemplate the moon, which, at its full, was advancing calmly in the immensity of the pure heavens. At this solemn hour, he seemed desirous to return to Nature all the soft sensations which he was then possessed of; stretching forth his hand toward his enchanted violin—to the faithful companion of his travels—to the magician which had robbed care of its stings—he sent to heaven, with its last sounds, the last sigh of a life which had been all melody."
The great artist expired on the 27th of May, 1840, at the age of 56, leaving to his only son, Achille, an immense fortune, and the title of Baron, which had been conceded him in Germany. All had not ended with the man whose life was as extraordinary as his talent. Whether from the effect of certain popular rumors, or whether from Paganini having died without receiving the last rites of his church, he had left doubts of his faith; his remains were refused interment in consecrated ground by the Bishop of Nice. Vainly did his friends solicit permission to celebrate a solemn service for his eternal rest; the bishop remained inexorable, but proffered an authentic act of decease, with permission to remove the body wheresoever they pleased. This was not accepted, and the matter was brought before the tribunals. All this time, the body was remaining in one of the rooms of the hospital at Nice; it was afterward removed by sea from the lazaretto of Villa Franca, near that city, to a country spot named Polcevera, near Genoa, which belonged to the inheritance of the illustrious artist. At length, the friends of the deceased obtained permission from the bishop of Parma to bring the body into the Duchy, to remove it to the Villa Gajona, and to inter it in the village church. This funeral homage was rendered to the remains of this celebrated man, in the month of May, 1845, but without pomp, in conformity with the orders which had emanated from the government.
By his will, made on the 27th of April, 1837, and opened the 1st of June, 1840, Paganini left to his son, legitimized by deeds of law, a fortune estimated at two millions (£80,000 sterling), out of which two legacies were to be paid, of fifty and sixty thousand francs, to his two sisters, leaving to the mother of his son, Achille, an annuity of 1,200 francs. Independently of his wealth, Paganini possessed a collection of valuable instruments; his large Guarneri, the only instrument which accompanied him in his travels, he bequeathed to the town of Genoa, not being desirous that an artist should possess it after him.
[NUMBER NINETEEN IN OUR STREET.]
Number Nineteen in our street is a gloomy house, with a blistered door and a cavernous step; with a hungry area and a desolate frontage. The windows are like prison-slips, only a trifle darker, and a good deal dirtier, and the kitchen-offices might stand proxies for the Black Hole of Calcutta, barring the company and the warmth. For as to company, black beetles, mice, and red ants, are all that are ever seen of animated nature there, and the thermometer rarely stands above freezing-point. Number Nineteen is a lodging-house, kept by a poor old maid, whose only friend is her cat, and whose only heirs will be the parish. With the outward world, excepting such as slowly filter through the rusty opening of the blistered door, Miss Rebecca Spong has long ceased to have dealings. She hangs a certain piece of card-board, with "Lodgings to Let," printed in school-girl print, unconscious of straight lines, across it; and this act of public notification, coupled with anxious peepings over the blinds of the parlor front, is all the intercourse which she and the world of men hold together. Every now and then, indeed, a mangy cab may be seen driving up to her worn-out step; and dingy individuals, of the kind who travel about with small square boxes, covered with marbled paper, and secured with knotted cords of different sizes, may be witnessed taking possession of Nineteen, in a melancholy and mysterious way. But even these visitations, unsatisfactory as most lodging-house keepers would consider them, are few and far between; for somehow the people who come and go never seem to have any friends or relations whereby Miss Spong may improve her "connection." You never see the postman stop at that desolate door; you never hear a visitor's knock on that rusty lion's head; no unnecessary traffic of social life ever takes place behind those dusty blinds; it might be the home of a select party of Trappists, or the favorite hiding-place of coiners, for all the sunshine of external humanity that is suffered to enter those interior recesses. If a murder had been committed in every room, from the attics to the cellar, a heavier spell of solitude and desolation could not rest on its floors.
One dreary afternoon in November, a cab stopped at Number Nineteen. It was a railway cab, less worn and ghastly than those vehicles in general, but not bringing much evidence of gayety or wealth for all that. Its inmates were a widow and a boy of about fifteen; and all the possessions they had with them were contained in one trunk of very moderate dimensions, a cage with a canary-bird twittering inside, some pots of flowers, and a little white rabbit, one of the comical "lop-eared" kind. There was something very touching in these evidences of the fresh country life which they had left for the dull atmosphere and steaming fogs of the metropolis. They told a sad tale of old associations broken, and old loves forsworn; of days of comfort and prosperity exchanged for the dreariness of poverty; and freedom, love, and happiness, all snapped asunder for the leaden chain of suffering to be forged instead. One could not help thinking of all those two hapless people must have gone through before they could have summoned courage to leave their own dear village, where they had lived so many years in that local honorableness of the clergyman's family; throwing themselves out of the society which knew and loved them, that they might enter a harsh world, where they must make their own position, and earn their own living, unaided by sympathy, honor, or affection. They looked as if they themselves thought something of this, too, when they took possession of the desolate second floor; and the widow sat down near her son, and taking his hand in hers, gave vent to a flood of tears, which ended by unmanning the boy as well. And then they shut up the window carefully, and nothing more was seen of them that night.
Mrs. Lawson, the widow, was a mild, lady-like person, whose face bore the marks of recent affliction, and whose whole appearance and manners were those of a loving, gentle, unenergetic, and helpless woman, whom sorrow could well crush beyond all power of resistance. The boy was a tall, thin youth, with a hectic flush and a hollow cough, eyes bright and restless, and as manifestly nervous as his mother was the reverse in temperament—anxious and restless, and continually taxing his strength beyond its power, making himself seriously ill in his endeavors to save his beloved mother some small trouble. They seemed to be very tenderly attached one to the other, and to supply to each all that was wanting in each: the mother's gentleness soothing down her boy's excitability, and the boy's nervousness rousing the mother to exertion. They were interesting people—so lonely, apparently so unfit to "rough it," in the world; the mother so gentle in temper, and the son so frail in constitution—two people who ought to have been protected from all ill and all cares, yet who had such a bitter cup to empty, such a harsh fate to fulfill.
They were very poor. The mother used to go out with a small basket on her arm, which could hold but scanty supplies for two full-grown people. Yet this was the only store they had; for no baker, no butcher, no milkman, grocer, or poulterer, ever stopped at the area gate of Miss Rebecca Spong; no purveyor of higher grade than a cat's-meat-man was ever seen to hand provisions into the depths of Number Nineteen's darkness. The old maid herself was poor; and she, too, used to do her marketing on the basket principle; carrying home, generally at night, odd scraps from the open stalls in Tottenham Court Road, which she had picked up as bargains, and dividing equally between herself and her fagged servant-of-all-work the wretched meal which would not have been too ample for one. She therefore could not help her lodgers, and they all scrambled on over the desolate places of poverty as they best might. In general, tea, sugar, bread, a little rice, a little coffee as a change, a scrap of butter which no cow that ever yielded milk would have acknowledged—these were the usual items of Mrs. Lawson's marketing, on which she and her young son were to be nourished. And on such poor fare as this was that pale boy expected to become a hearty man? The mother could not, did not expect it. Else why were the tears in her eyes so often as she returned? and why did she hang over her son, and caress him fondly, as if in deprecation, when she brought him his wretched meal, seeming to lament, to blame herself, too, that she had not been able to provide him any thing better? Poor things! poor things!
Mrs. Lawson seemed at last to get some employment. She had been seeking for it long—to judge by her frequent absences from home, and the weary look of disappointment she wore when she returned. But at last the opening was found, and she set to work in earnest. She used to go out early in the morning, and not return until late in the evening, and then she looked pale and tired, as one whose energies had been overtasked all the day; but she had found no gold-mine. The scanty meals were even scantier than before, and her shabby mourning was getting shabbier and duller. She was evidently hard-worked for very little pay; and their condition was not improved, only sustained by her exertions. Things seemed to be very bad with them altogether, and with little hope of amendment; for poor Mrs. Lawson had been "brought up as a lady," and so was doubly incapable—by education as well as by temperament—of gaining her own living. She was now employed as daily governess in the family of a city tradesman—people, who though they were kindly-natured enough, had as much as they could do in keeping their own fortunes afloat without giving any substantial aid to others, and who had therefore engaged her at the lowest possible salary, such as was barely sufficient to keep her and her son from absolute want.
The boy had long been very busy. He used to sit by the window all the day, earnestly employed with paper and scissors; and I wondered what fascinating occupation he had found to chain him for so many hours by those chinks and draughts; for he was usually enveloped in shawls, and blankets were hung about his chair, and every tender precaution taken that he should not increase his sickness by exposure even to the ordinary changes in the temperature of a dwelling-room. But now, in spite of his terrible cough, in spite of his hurried breathing, he used to sit for hours on hours by the dusky window, cutting and cutting at that eternal paper, as if his very life depended on his task. But he used to gather up the cuttings carefully, and hide all out of sight before his mother came home—sometimes nearly caught before quite prepared, when he used to show as much trepidation as if committing a crime.
This went on for some time, and at last he went out. It was fortunately a fine day—a clear, cold, January day; but he had no sooner breathed the brisk frosty air than a terrible fit of coughing seemed to threaten his frail existence. He did not turn back though; and I watched him slowly pass down the street, holding on by the rails, and every now and then stopping to take breath. I saw a policeman speak to him in a grave, compassionating way, as if—seeing that he was so young and feeble, and so much a stranger, that he was asking his way to Oxford-street, while going in a totally contrary direction—he was advising him to go home, and to let some one else do his business—his father perhaps; but the boy only smiled, and shook his head in a hopeful way; and so he went from my sight, though not from my thoughts.
This continued daily, sometimes Herbert bringing home a small quantity of money, sometimes only disappointment; and these were terrible trials! At last, the mother was made acquainted with her son's new mode of life, by the treasured 5s. which the poor boy thrust into her hand one evening, with a strange shy pride that brought all the blood into his face, while he kissed her with impetuosity to smother her reproaches. She asked him how he had got so much money—so much! and then he told her how, self-taught, he had learned to cut out figures—dogs and landscapes—in colored paper, which he had taken to the bazaars and stationers' shops, and there disposed of—for a mere trifle truly. "For this kind of thing is not fashionable, mother, though I think the Queen likes them," he said; "and of course, if not fashionable, I could not get very much for them." So he contented himself, and consoled her, for the small payment of sixpence or a shilling, which perhaps was all he could earn by three or four days' work.
The mother gently blamed him for his imprudence in exposing himself as he had done to the wet and cold—and, alas! these had told sadly on his weakened frame; but Herbert was so happy to-night, that she could not damp his pleasure, even for maternal love; so she reserved the lecture which must be given until to-morrow. And then his out-door expeditions were peremptorily forbidden; and Miss Spong was called up to strengthen the prohibition—which she did effectually by offering, in her little, quick, nervous way, to take Herbert's cuttings to the shops herself, and thus to spare him the necessity of doing so. Poor Mrs. Lawson went up to the little woman, and kissed her cheek like a sister, as she spoke; while Miss Spong, so utterly unused as she had been for years to the smallest demonstration of affection, looked at first bewildered and aghast, and finally sank down on the chair in a childish fit of crying. I can not say how much the sight of that poor little old maid's tears affected me! They seemed to speak of such long years of heart-loneliness—such loving impulses strangled by the chill hand of solitude—such weary familiarity with that deadness of life wherein no sympathy is bestowed, no love awakened—that I felt as one witnessing a dead man recalled to life, after all that made life pleasant had fled. What a sorrowful house that Number Nineteen was! From the desolate servant-of-all-work at her first place from the Foundling, to the half-starved German in the attics, every inmate of the house seemed to have nothing but the bitter bread of affliction to eat—nothing but the salt waters of despair to drink.
And now began another epoch in the Lawson history, which shed a sad but most beautiful light over the fading day of that young life.
A girl of about fourteen—she might have been a year or so younger—was once sent from one of the stationer's shops to conclude some bargain with the sick paper-cutter. I saw her slender figure bound up the desolate steps with the light tread of youth, as if she had been a divine being entering the home of human sorrow. She was one of those saintly children who are sometimes seen blooming like white roses, unstained by time or by contact. Her hair hung down her neck in long, loose curls, among which the sunlight seemed to have fairly lost itself, they were so golden bright; her eyes were large, and of that deep, dark gray which is so much more beautiful, because so much more intellectual, than any other color eyes can take; her lips were fresh and youthful; and her figure had all that girlish grace of fourteen which combines the unconscious innocence of the child with the exquisite modesty of the maiden. She soon became the daily visitor of the Lawsons—pupil to Herbert.
The paper-cutting was not wholly laid aside though; in the early morning, and in the evening, and often late into the night, the thin, wan fingers were busy about their task; but the middle of the day was snatched like an hour of sleep in the midst of pain—garnered up like a fountain of sweet waters in the wilderness; for then it was that little Jessie came for her Latin lesson, which she used to learn so well, and take such pleasure in, and be doubly diligent about, because poor Herbert Lawson was ill, and vexation would do him harm. Does it seem strange that a stationer's daughter should be so lovely, and should learn Latin? And there those two children used to sit for three dear hours of the day; she, leaning over her book, her sweet young face bent on her task with a look of earnest intellectuality in it, that made her like some sainted maid of olden time; and he watching her every movement, and listening to every syllable, with a rapt interest such as only very early youth can feel. How happy he used to look! How his face would lighten up, as if an angel's wing had swept over it, when the two gentle taps at the door heralded young Jessie! How his boyish reverence, mixed with boyish care, gave his wasted features an expression almost unearthly, as he hung over her so protectingly, so tenderly, so adoringly! It was so different from a man's love! There was something so exquisitely pure and spiritual in it—something so reverential and so chivalrous—it would have been almost a sin to have had that love grow out into a man's strong passion! The flowers she brought him—and seldom did a day pass without a fresh supply of violets, and, when the weather was warmer, of primroses and cowslips, from her gentle hand—all these were cherished more than gold would have been cherished; the books she lent him were never from his side; if she touched one of the paltry ornaments on the chimney-piece, that ornament was transferred to his own private table; and the chair she used was always kept apart, and sacred to her return.
It was very beautiful to watch all these manifestations: for I did watch them, first from my own window, then in the house, in the midst of the lonely family, comforting when I could not aid, and sharing in the griefs I could not lessen. Under the new influence, the boy gained such loveliness and spiritualism, that his face had an angelic character, which, though it made young Jessie feel a strange kind of loving awe for the sick boy, betokened to me, and to his mother, that his end was not far off.
He was now too weak to sit up, excepting for a small part of the day; and I feared that he would soon become too weak to teach, even in his gentle way, and with such a gentle pupil. But the Latin exercises still held their place; the books lying on the sofa instead of on the table, and Jessie sitting by him on a stool, where he could overlook her as she read: this was all the change; unless, indeed, that Jessie read aloud more than formerly, and not always out of a Latin book. Sometimes it was poetry, and sometimes it was the Bible that she read to him; and then he used to stop her, and pour forth such eloquent, such rapturous remarks on what he had heard, that Jessie used to sit and watch him like a young angel holding converse with a spirit. She was beginning to love him very deeply in her innocent, girlish, unconscious way; and I used to see her bounding step grow sad and heavy as, day by day, her brother-like tutor seemed to be sinking from earth so fast.
Thus passed the winter, poor Mrs. Lawson toiling painfully at her task, and Herbert falling into death in his; but with such happiness in his heart as made his sufferings divine delights, and his weakness, the holy strength of heaven.
He could do but little at his paper-cutting now, but still he persevered; and his toil was well repaid, too, when he gave his mother the scanty payment which he received at the end of the week, and felt that he had done his best—that he had helped her forward—that he was no longer an idler supported by her sorrow—but that he had braced the burden of labor on to his own shoulders also, weak as they were, and had taken his place, though dying, among the manful workers of the world. Jessie brought a small weekly contribution also, neatly sealed up in fair white paper; and of these crumpled scraps Herbert used to cut angels and cherubs' heads, which he would sit and look at for hours together; and then he would pray as if in a trance—so earnest and heartfelt was it—while tears of love, not grief, would stream down his face, as his lips moved in blessings on that young maiden child.
It came at last. He had fought against it long and bravely; but death is a hard adversary, and can not be withstood, even by the strongest. It came, stealing over him like an evening cloud over a star—leaving him still beautiful, while blotting out his light—softening and purifying, while slowly obliterating his place. Day by day, his weakness increased; day by day, his pale hands grew paler, and his hollow cheek more wan. But the love in his boy's heart hung about his sick bed as flowers that have an eternal fragrance from their birth.
Jessie was ever a daily visitor, though no longer now a scholar; and her presence had all the effect of religion on the boy—he was so calm, and still, and holy, while she was there. When she was gone, he was sometimes restless, though never peevish; but he would get nervous, and unable to fix his mind on any thing, his sick head turning incessantly to the window, as if vainly watching for a shadowy hope, and his thin fingers plucking ceaselessly at his bedclothes, in restless, weary, unsoothed sorrow. While she sat by him, her voice sounding like low music in his ears, and her hands wandering about him in a thousand offices of gentle comforting, he was like a child sinking softly to sleep—a soul striving upward to its home, beckoned on by the hands of the holier sister before it.
And thus he died—in the bright spring-time of the year, in the bright spring-time of his life. Love had been the cradle song of his infancy, love was the requiem of his youth. His was no romantic fable, no heroic epic; adventures, passions, fame, made up none of its incidents; it was simply the history of a boy's manful struggling against fate—of the quiet heroism of endurance, compensated by inward satisfaction, if not by actual happiness.
True, his career was in the low-lying paths of humanity; but it was none the less beautiful and pure, for it is not deeds, it is their spirit, which makes men noble, or leaves them stained. Had Herbert Lawson been a warrior, statesman, hero, philosopher, he would have shown no other nature than that which gladdened the heart of his widowed mother, and proved a life's instruction to Jessie Hamilton, in his small deeds of love and untaught words of faith in the solitude of that lodging-house. Brave, pure, noble then, his sphere only would have been enlarged, and with his sphere the weight and power of his character; but the spirit would have been the same, and in the dying child it was as beautiful as it would have been in the renowned philosopher.
We have given this simple story—simple in all its bearings—as an instance of how much real heroism is daily enacted, how much true morality daily cherished, under the most unfavorable conditions. A widow and her young son cast on the world without sufficient means of living—a brave boy battling against poverty and sickness combined, and doing his small endeavor with manful constancy—a dying youth, whose whole soul is penetrated with love, as with a divine song; all these are elements of true human interest, and these are circumstances to be found in every street of a crowded city. And to such as these is the divine mission of brotherly charity required; for though poverty may not be relieved by reason of our inability, suffering may always be lightened by our sympathy. It takes but a word of love, a glance of pity, a gentle kiss of affection—it takes but an hour of our day, a prayer at night, and we may walk through the sick world and the sorrowful as angels dropping balm and comfort on the wounded. The cup of such human love as this poured freely out will prove in truth "twice blessed," returning back to our hearts the peace we have shed on others. Alas! alas! how thick the harvest and how few the reapers!
[GOSSIP ABOUT GREAT MEN.]
One can not help taking an interest in great men. Even their pettiest foibles—their most ordinary actions—their by-play—their jokes—are eagerly commemorated. Their haunts—their homes—the apartments in which they have studied—their style of dress—and, above all, their familiar conversation, are treasured up in books, and fascinate all readers. Trifles help to decipher the character of a man, often more than his greatest actions. What is a man's daily life—his private conversations—his familiar deportment? These, though they make but a small figure in his history, are often the most characteristic and genuine things in a man's life. With what interest do we think of blind, glorious John Milton, when writing Paradise Lost, sitting at "the old organ behind the faded green hangings," his dimmed eyes rolling in vain to find the day; of Richardson, in his back-shop, writing Pamela; of Cowper and his tame hares; of Byron and Newstead Abbey; of Burns, in his humble cottage home; of Voltaire, in his retreat of Ferney, by the shores of Lake Leman; of Sir Walter Scott, in his study at Abbotsford; of Dr. Johnson, in his retreat in Bolt Court; of Shakspeare, and the woods of Charlecote; of Pope, and his house at Twickenham; of Swift, and his living at Laracor. We are never tired of reading of such things, identified as they are with genius, and consecrated by their association with the names of great men.
We take an interest in even smaller things. Everybody remembers Goldsmith's bloom-colored coat; George Fox's "leathern hull;" Milton's garb of coarse gray; Magliabecchi's great brown vest down to his knees, his broad-brimmed hat, and patched black mantle, and his cravat full of snuff-droppings; Pope's velvet cap, tye-wig, and sword; and Buffon, with his hair in curl-papers while sitting at his desk. We curiously remember Oliver Cromwell's warts; Wilks's squint; Scott's limp; Byron's club-foot; Pope's little crooked figure, like a note of interrogation; Johnson's rotundity and rheum; Charles Lamb's spindle-shanks in gaiters; and all manner of personal peculiarities of distinguished men.
The appetites, tastes, idiosyncracies, prejudices, foibles, and follies of great men, are well known. Perhaps we think too much of them; but we take interest in all that concerns them, even the pettiest details. It is often these that give an interest to their written life. What were Boswell's Johnson, that best of biographies, were it wanting in its gossip and small talk?
An interesting chapter might be written about the weaknesses of great men. For instance, they have been very notorious for their strange fits of abstraction. The anecdote of Archimedes will be remembered, who rushed through the streets of Syracuse al fresco, crying Eureka! and at the taking of the city was killed by a soldier, while tracing geometrical lines on sand. Socrates, when filled with some idea, would stand for hours fixed like a statue. It is recorded of him that he stood amidst the soldiers in the camp at Potidea, in rooted abstraction, listening to his "prophetic or supernatural voice." Democritus shut himself up for days together in a little apartment in his garden. Dante was subject to fits of abstraction, in which he often quite forgot himself. One day, he found an interesting book, which he had long sought for, in a druggist's shop at Sienna, and sat reading there till night came on.
Bude, whom Erasmus called the wonder of France, was a thoroughly absent man. One day his domestics broke into his study with the intelligence that his house was on fire. "Go inform my wife," said he; "you know I do not interfere in household affairs!" Scaliger only slept for a few hours at a time, and passed whole days without thinking of food. Sully, when his mind was occupied with plans of reform, displayed extraordinary fits of forgetfulness. One day, in winter, when on his way to church, he observed, "How very cold it is to-day!" "Not more cold than usual," said one of his attendants. "Then I must have the ague," said Sully. "Is it not more probable that you are too scantily dressed?" he was asked. On lifting his tunic the secret was at once discovered. He had forgotten all his under clothing but his breeches!
Mrs. Bray tells a somewhat familiar story of the painter Stothard. When invited on one occasion to dine with the poet Rogers, on reaching the house in St. James's Place, he complained of cold, and, chancing to place his hand on his neck, he found he had forgotten to put on his cravat, when he hastily returned home to complete his attire.
Buffon was very fond of dress. He assumed the air of the grand signeur; sported jewels and finery; wore rich lace and velvets; and was curled and scented to excess—wearing his hair en papillotte while at his studies. Pope, too, was a little dandy in a bag-wig and a sword; and his crooked figure enveloped in fashionable garments, gave him the look of an over-dressed monkey. Voltaire, also, was fond of magnificent attire, and usually dressed in an absurd manner. Diderot once traveled from St. Petersburg to Paris in his morning-gown and nightcap; and in this guise promenaded the streets and public places of the towns on his route. He was often taken for a madman. While composing his works, he used to walk about at a rapid pace, making huge strides, and sometimes throwing his wig in the air when he had struck out a happy idea. One day, a friend found him in tears—"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "what is the matter?" "I am weeping," answered Diderot, "at a story that I have just composed!"
Young, the poet, composed his Night Thoughts with a skull before him, in which he would sometimes place a lighted candle; and he occasionally sought his sepulchral inspiration by wandering among the tombs at midnight. Mrs. Radcliffe courted the horrors with which she filled her gloomy romances, by supping on half-raw beefsteaks, plentifully garnished with onions. Dryden used to take physic before setting himself to compose a new piece. Kant, the German philosopher, while lecturing, had the habit of fixing his attention upon one of his auditors who wore a garment without a button in a particular place. One day, the student had the button sewed on. Kant, on commencing his lecture, fixed his eyes on the usual place. The button was there! Fancy the consternation of the philosopher, whose ideas had become associated with that buttonless garment. His lecture that day was detestable: he was quite unhinged by the circumstance.
Too many authors have been fond of the bottle. Rabelais said, "Eating and drinking are my true sources of inspiration. See this bottle! It is my true and only Helicon, my cabalistic fountain, my sole enthusiasm. Drinking, I deliberate; and deliberating, I drink." Ennius, Eschylus, and Cato, all got their inspiration while drinking. Mezerai had always a large bottle of wine beside him, among his books. He drank of it at each page that he wrote. He turned the night into day; and never composed except by lamp-light, even in the day time. All his windows were darkened; and it was no unusual thing for him to show a friend to the door with a lamp, though outside it was broad daylight! On the contrary, Varillas, the historian, never wrote except at full mid-day. His ideas, he imagined, grew and declined with the sun's light.
Sir William Blackstone is said to have composed his Commentaries with a bottle of wine on the table, from which he drank largely at intervals: and Addison, while composing, used to pace to and fro the long drawing-room of Holland House, with a glass of sherry at each end, and rewarded himself by drinking one in case of a felicitous inspiration.
While Goldsmith wrote his Vicar of Wakefield, he kept drinking at Madeira, "to drown care," for the duns were upon him. When Johnson called to relieve him, he sent away the bottle, and took the manuscript to the bookseller, bringing back some money to the author. Goldsmith's first use of the money was, to call in the landlady to have a glass of punch with him. Goldie was guilty of very strange tricks. He once broke his shin by exhibiting to the company how much better he could jump over a stick than puppets.
The intemperance of poets is but too painfully illustrated in the lives of Parnell, Otway, Sheffield, Savage, Churchill, Prior, Dryden, Cowley, Burns, Coleridge, Lamb, and others. There is nothing more painful in Burns's letters, than those in which he confesses his contrition after his drunken bouts, and vows amendment for the future. His letter to Mrs. Dunlop on this subject will be remembered. Lamb, too, in a letter to Mr. Carey, painted next morning in vivid terrors. Byron says—
Get very drunk; and when
You wake with headache, you shall see what then.
Here is Lamb's graphic picture: "I protest," said he, to Mr. Carey, the translator of Dante; "I know not in what words to invest my sense of the shameful violation of hospitality which I was guilty of on that fatal Wednesday. Let it be blotted from the calendar. Had it been committed at a layman's house—say a merchant's, or a manufacturer's, or a cheesemonger's, or a greengrocer's—or, to go higher, a barrister's, a member of parliament's, a rich banker's, I should have felt alleviation—a drop of self-pity. But to be seen deliberately to go out of the house of a clergyman, drunk!... With feverish eyes on the succeeding dawn, I opened upon the faint light, enough to distinguish, in a strange chamber, not immediately to be recognized, garters, hose, waistcoat, neckerchief, arranged in dreadful order and proportion, which I knew was not mine own! 'Tis the common symptom, on awaking, I judge my last night's condition from. A tolerable scattering on the floor I hail as being too probably my own, and if the candlestick be not removed, I assail myself. But this finical arrangement—this finding every thing in the morning in exact diametrical rectitude, torments me. By whom was I divested? burning blushes! not by the fair hand of nymphs—the Buffian graces! Remote whispers suggested that I coached it home in triumph. Far be that from waking pride in me, for I was unconscious of the locomotion. That a young Newton accompanied a reprobate old Telemachus; that, Trojan-like, he bore his charge upon his shoulders, while the wretched incubus, in glimmering sense, hiccoughed drunken snatches of flying on the bat's wings after sunset.... Occasion led me through Great Russell-street, yesterday: I gazed at the great knocker. My feeble hands in vain essayed to lift it. I dreaded that Argus Portitor, who doubtless lanterned me out on that prodigious night. I called the Elginian marbles; they were cold to my suit. I shall never again, I said, on the wide gates unfolding, say, without fear of thrusting back, in a light but a peremptory air, 'I am going to Mr. Cary's.'"
Lamb was also a great smoker at one period of his life. But he determined to give it up, as he found it led to drinking—to "drinking egg-flip hot, at the Salutation"—so he wrote his "Farewell to Tobacco," and gave it up—returning to it again, but finally abandoning it. In a letter to Wordsworth, he said: "Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for these five years; and you know how difficult it is from refraining to pick one's lips even, when it has become a habit. I have had it in my head to write this poem [Farewell to Tobacco] these two years; but tobacco stood in its own light, when it gave me headaches that prevented my singing its praises."
Once, in the height of Lamb's smoking fever, he was puffing the smoke of strong, coarse tobacco from a clay pipe, in the company of Dr. Parr, who whiffed only the finest weed, when the latter, addressing Lamb, asked: "Dear me, sir, how is it that you have acquired so prodigious a smoking power?" "I have acquired it," answered Lamb, "by toiling after it, as some men toil after virtue."
It was from frequenting the society of Dr. Parr, that Robert Hall, the famous preacher, when at Cambridge, acquired the habit of smoking. He smoked in self-defense. Some one asked him why he had commenced such an odious habit. "Oh," said Hall, "I am qualifying myself for the society of a Doctor of Divinity; and this (holding up the pipe) is the test of my admission." A friend found him busy with his pipe one day, blowing huge clouds of smoke. "Ah," said the new comer, "I find you again at your old idol." "Yes," said Hall, "burning it!" But his friends were anxious that he should give up the practice, and one of them presented him with Adam Clarke's pamphlet on The Use and Abuse of Tobacco, to read. He read the pamphlet, and returned it to the lender saying, as if to preclude discussion—"Thank you, sir, for Adam Clarke's pamphlet. I can't refute his arguments, and I can't give up smoking."
Among other smokers of distinction, may be named the poet Milton, whose nightcap was a pipe of tobacco and a glass of pure water. But he was exceedingly moderate in the indulgence of this "vice." Sir Walter Raleigh, who introduced the use of this weed into England, smoked frequently; and the anecdote of his servant, who emptied a bucket of water on him, thinking he was on fire, because he saw the smoke issuing from his mouth, is very well known. Many other poets and literary men have smoked. Carlyle, at this day, blows a tremendous cloud.
Southey's indulgence at bed-time, was a glass of hot rum punch, enriched with a little black current jelly. Byron wrote under the influence of gin and water. Coleridge took immoderate quantities of opium. Gluck, the musical composer, wrote with a bottle of Champagne beside him—Sacchini, when his wife was by his side, and his numerous cats gamboling about him.
Other authors have found relaxation in other ways. Thus Daguesseau, when he wanted relaxation from the study of jurisprudence and history, betook himself to a pair of compasses and a book of mathematics. Richelieu amused himself by playing with cats, and studying their tricks. Cowper had his tame hares. Sir Walter Scott was always attended by his favorite dogs. Professor Wilson, at this day, is famous for his terriers.
Alfieri, like Luther and Milton, found the greatest solace and inspiration in music. "Nothing," said he, "so moves my heart, and soul and intellect, and rouses my very faculties, like music—and especially the music of woman's voice. Almost all my tragedies have been conceived under the immediate emotion caused by music." Voltaire took pleasure in the Opera, (not so Thomas Carlyle, as you may have seen), and there dictated some of his most brilliant letters.
But the foibles of men of genius are endless; and would be a curious subject for some Disraeli, in a future volume of the Curiosities of Literature, to depict at length, if the subject be indeed worth the required amount of pains and labor.