The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 / A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics

by Various

IX.

HOW SHALL WE BE AMUSED?

"One, two, three, four,—this makes the fifth accident on the Fourth of July, in the two papers I have just read," said Jenny.

"A very moderate allowance," said Theophilus Thoro, "if you consider the Fourth as a great national saturnalia, in which every boy in the land has the privilege of doing whatever is right in his own eyes."

"The poor boys!" said Mrs. Crowfield. "All the troubles of the world are laid at their door."

"Well," said Jenny, "they did burn the city of Portland, it appears. The fire arose from fire-crackers, thrown by boys among the shavings of a carpenter's shop,—so says the paper."

"And," said Rudolph, "we surgeons expect a harvest of business from the Fourth, as surely as from a battle. Certain to be woundings, fractures, possibly amputations, following the proceedings of our glorious festival."

"Why cannot we Americans learn to amuse ourselves peaceably, like other nations?" said Bob Stephens. "In France and Italy, the greatest national festivals pass off without fatal accident, or danger to any one. The fact is, in our country we have not learned how to be amused. Amusement has been made of so small account in our philosophy of life, that we are raw and unpractised in being amused. Our diversions, compared with those of the politer nations of Europe, are coarse and savage,—and consist mainly in making disagreeable noises and disturbing the peace of the community by rude uproar. The only idea an American boy associates with the Fourth of July is that of gunpowder in some form, and a wild liberty to fire off pistols in all miscellaneous directions, and to throw fire-crackers under the heels of horses, and into crowds of women and children, for the fun of seeing the stir and commotion thus produced. Now take a young Parisian boy and give him a fête, and he conducts himself with greater gentleness and good breeding, because he is part of a community in which the art of amusement has been refined and perfected, so that he has a thousand resources beyond the very obvious one of making a great banging and disturbance.

"Yes," continued Bob Stephens, "the fact is, that our grim old Puritan fathers set their feet down resolutely on all forms of amusement; they would have stopped the lambs from wagging their tails, and shot the birds for singing, if they could have had their way; and in consequence of it, what a barren, cold, flowerless life is our New England existence! Life is all, as Mantalini said, one 'demd horrid grind.' 'Nothing here but working and going to church,' said the German emigrants,—and they were about right. A French traveller, in the year 1837, says that attending the Thursday-evening lectures and church prayer-meetings was the only recreation of the young people of Boston; and we can remember the time when this really was no exaggeration. Think of that, with all the seriousness of our Boston east winds to give it force, and fancy the provision for amusement in our society! The consequence is, that boys who have the longing for amusement strongest within them, and plenty of combativeness to back it, are the standing terror of good society, and our Fourth of July is a day of fear to all invalids and persons of delicate nervous organization, and of real, appreciable danger of life and limb to every one."

"Well, Robert," said my wife, "though I agree with you as to the actual state of society in this respect, I must enter my protest against your slur on the memory of our Pilgrim fathers."

"Yes," said Theophilus Thoro, "the New-Englanders are the only people, I believe, who take delight in vilifying their ancestry. Every young hopeful in our day makes a target of his grandfather's gravestone, and fires away, with great self-applause. People in general seem to like to show that they are well-born, and come of good stock; but the young New-Englanders, many of them, appear to take pleasure in insisting that they came of a race of narrow-minded, persecuting bigots.

"It is true, that our Puritan fathers saw not everything. They made a state where there were no amusements, but where people could go to bed and leave their house doors wide open all night, without a shadow of fear or danger, as was for years the custom in all our country villages. The fact is, that the simple early New England life, before we began to import foreigners, realized a state of society in whose possibility Europe would scarcely believe. If our fathers had few amusements, they needed few. Life was too really and solidly comfortable and happy to need much amusement.

"Look over the countries where people are most sedulously amused by their rulers and governors. Are they not the countries where the people are most oppressed, most unhappy in their circumstances, and therefore in greatest need of amusement? It is the slave who dances and sings, and why? Because he owns nothing, and can own nothing, and may as well dance and forget the fact. But give the slave a farm of his own, a wife of his own, and children of his own, with a school-house and a vote, and ten to one he dances no more. He needs no amusement, because he is happy.

"The legislators of Europe wished nothing more than to bring up a people who would be content with amusements, and not ask after their rights or think too closely how they were governed. 'Gild the dome of the Invalides,' was Napoleon's scornful prescription, when he heard the Parisian population were discontented. They gilded it, and the people forgot to talk about anything else. They were a childish race, educated from the cradle on spectacle and show, and by the sight of their eyes could they be governed. The people of Boston, in 1776, could not have been managed in this way, chiefly because they were brought up in the strict schools of the fathers."

"But don't you think," said Jenny, "that something might be added and amended in the state of society our fathers established here in New England? Without becoming frivolous, there might be more attention paid to rational amusement."

"Certainly," said my wife, "the State and the Church both might take a lesson from the providence of foreign governments, and make liberty, to say the least, as attractive as despotism. It is a very unwise mother that does not provide her children with play-things."

"And yet," said Bob, "the only thing that the Church has yet done is to forbid and to frown. We have abundance of tracts against dancing, whist-playing, ninepins, billiards, operas, theatres,—in short, anything that young people would be apt to like. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church refused to testify against slavery, because of political diffidence, but made up for it by ordering a more stringent crusade against dancing. The theatre and opera grow up and exist among us like plants on the windy side of a hill, blown all awry by a constant blast of conscientious rebuke. There is really no amusement young people are fond of, which they do not pursue, in a sort of defiance of the frown of the peculiarly religious world. With all the telling of what the young shall not do, there has been very little telling what they shall do.

"The whole department of amusements—certainly one of the most important in education—has been by the Church made a sort of outlaws' ground, to be taken possession of and held by all sorts of spiritual ragamuffins; and then the faults and short-comings resulting from this arrangement have been held up and insisted on as reasons why no Christian should ever venture into it.

"If the Church would set herself to amuse her young folks, instead of discussing doctrines and metaphysical hair-splitting, she would prove herself a true mother, and not a hard-visaged step-dame. Let her keep this department, so powerful and so difficult to manage, in what are morally the strongest hands, instead of giving it up to the weakest.

"I think, if the different churches of a city, for example, would rent a building where there should be a billiard-table, one or two ninepin-alleys, a reading-room, a garden and grounds for ball-playing or innocent lounging, that they would do more to keep their young people from the ways of sin than a Sunday school could. Nay, more: I would go further. I would have a portion of the building fitted up with scenery and a stage, for the getting up of tableaux or dramatic performances, and thus give scope for the exercise of that histrionic talent of which there is so much lying unemployed in society.

"Young people do not like amusements any better for the wickedness connected with them. The spectacle of a sweet little child singing hymns, and repeating prayers, of a pious old Uncle Tom dying for his religion, has filled theatres night after night, and proved that there really is no need of indecent or improper plays to draw full houses.

"The things that draw young people to places of amusement are not at first gross things. Take the most notorious public place in Paris,—the Jardin Mabille, for instance,—and the things which give it its first charm are all innocent and artistic. Exquisite beds of lilies, roses, gillyflowers, lighted with jets of gas so artfully as to make every flower translucent as a gem; fountains where the gas-light streams out from behind misty wreaths of falling water and calla-blossoms; sofas of velvet turf, canopied with fragrant honeysuckle; dim bowers overarched with lilacs and roses; a dancing ground under trees whose branches bend with a fruitage of many-colored lamps; enchanting music and graceful motion; in all these there is not only no sin, but they are really beautiful and desirable; and if they were only used on the side and in the service of virtue and religion, if they were contrived and kept up by the guardians and instructors of youth, instead of by those whose interest it is to demoralize and destroy, young people would have no temptation to stray into the haunts of vice.

"In Prussia, under the reign of Frederick William II., when one good, hard-handed man governed the whole country like a strict schoolmaster, the public amusements for the people were made such as to present a model for all states. The theatres were strictly supervised, and actors obliged to conform to the rules of decorum and morality. The plays and performances were under the immediate supervision of men of grave morals, who allowed nothing corrupting to appear; and the effect of this administration and restraint is to be seen in Berlin even to this day. The public gardens are full of charming little resorts, where, every afternoon, for a very moderate sum, one can have either a concert of good music, or a very fair dramatic or operatic performance. Here whole families may be seen enjoying together a wholesome and refreshing entertainment,—the mother and aunts with their knitting, the baby, the children of all ages, and the father,—their faces radiant with that mild German light of contentment and good-will which one feels to be characteristic of the nation. When I saw these things, and thought of our own outcast, unprovided boys and young men, haunting the streets and alleys of cities, in places far from the companionship of mothers and sisters, I felt as if it would be better for a nation to be brought up by a good strict schoolmaster king than to try to be a republic."

"Yes," said I, "but the difficulty is to get the good schoolmaster king. For one good shepherd, there are twenty who use the sheep only for their flesh and their wool. Republics can do all that kings can,—witness our late army and Sanitary Commission. Once fix the idea thoroughly in the public mind that there ought to be as regular and careful provision for public amusement as there is for going to church and Sunday school, and it will be done. Central Park in New York is a beginning in the right direction, and Brooklyn is following the example of her sister city. There is, moreover, an indication of the proper spirit in the increased efforts that are made to beautify Sunday-school rooms, and make them interesting, and to have Sunday-school fêtes and picnics,—the most harmless and commendable way of celebrating the Fourth of July. Why should saloons and bar-rooms be made attractive by fine paintings, choice music, flowers, and fountains, and Sunday-school rooms be four bare walls? There are churches whose broad aisles represent ten and twenty millions of dollars, and whose sons and daughters are daily drawn to circuses, operas, theatres, because they have tastes and feelings, in themselves perfectly laudable and innocent, for the gratification of which no provision is made in any other place."

"I know one church," said Rudolph, "whose Sunday-school room is as beautifully adorned as any haunt of sin. There is a fountain in the centre, which plays into a basin surrounded with shells and flowers; it has a small organ to lead the children's voices, and the walls are hung with oil-paintings and engravings from the best masters. The festivals of the Sabbath school, which are from time to time held in this place, educate the taste of the children, as well as amuse them; and, above all, they have through life the advantage of associating with their early religious education all those ideas of taste, elegance, and artistic culture which too often come through polluted channels.

"When the amusement of the young shall become the care of the experienced and the wise, and the floods of wealth that are now rolling over and over, in silent investments, shall be put into the form of innocent and refined pleasures for the children and youth of the state, our national festivals may become days to be desired, and not dreaded.

"On the Fourth of July, our city fathers do in a certain dim wise perceive that the public owes some attempt at amusement to its children, and they vote large sums, principally expended in bell-ringing, cannons, and fireworks. The sidewalks are witness to the number who fall victims to the temptations held out by grog-shops and saloons; and the papers, for weeks after, are crowded with accounts of accidents. Now, a yearly sum expended to keep up, and keep pure, places of amusement which hold out no temptation to vice, but which excel all vicious places in real beauty and attractiveness, would greatly lessen the sum needed to be expended on any one particular day, and would refine and prepare our people to keep holidays and festivals appropriately."

"For my part," said Mrs. Crowfield, "I am grieved at the opprobrium which falls on the race of boys. Why should the most critical era in the life of those who are to be men, and to govern society, be passed in a sort of outlawry,—a rude warfare with all existing institutions? The years between ten and twenty are full of the nervous excitability which marks the growth and maturing of the manly nature. The boy feels wild impulses, which ought to be vented in legitimate and healthful exercise. He wants to run, shout, wrestle, ride, row, skate; and all these together are often not sufficient to relieve the need he feels of throwing off the excitability that burns within.

"For the wants of this period what safe provision is made by the Church, or by the State, or any of the boy's lawful educators? In all the Prussian schools amusements are as much a part of the regular school-system as grammar or geography. The teacher is with the boys on the play-ground, and plays as heartily as any of them. The boy has his physical wants anticipated. He is not left to fight his way, blindly stumbling, against society, but goes forward in a safe path, which his elders and betters have marked out for him.

"In our country, the boy's career is often a series of skirmishes with society. He wants to skate, and contrives ingeniously to dam the course of a brook, and flood a meadow which makes a splendid skating-ground. Great is the joy for a season, and great the skating. But the water floods the neighboring cellars. The boys are cursed through all the moods and tenses,—boys are such a plague! The dam is torn down with emphasis and execration. The boys, however, lie in wait some cold night, between twelve and one, and build it up again; and thus goes on the battle. The boys care not whose cellar they flood, because nobody cares for their amusement. They understand themselves to be outlaws, and take an outlaw's advantage.

"Again, the boys have their sleds; and sliding down hill is splendid fun. But they trip up some grave citizen, who sprains his shoulder. What is the result? Not the provision of a safe, good place, where boys may slide down hill without danger to any one, but an edict forbidding all sliding, under penalty of fine.

"Boys want to swim: it is best they should swim; and if city fathers, foreseeing and caring for this want, should think it worth while to mark off some good place, and have it under such police surveillance as to enforce decency of language and demeanor, they would prevent a great deal that now is disagreeable in the unguided efforts of boys to enjoy this luxury.

"It would be cheaper in the end, even if one had to build sliding-piles, as they do in Russia, or to build skating-rinks, as they do in Montreal,—it would be cheaper for every city, town, and village to provide legitimate amusement for boys, under proper superintendence, than to leave them, as they are now left, to fight their way against society.

"In the boys' academies of our country, what provision is made for amusement? There are stringent rules, and any number of them, to prevent boys making any noise that may disturb the neighbors; and generally the teacher thinks that, if he keeps the boys still, and sees that they get their lessons, his duty is done. But a hundred boys ought not to be kept still. There ought to be noise and motion among them, in order that they may healthily survive the great changes which Nature is working within them. If they become silent, averse to movement, fond of indoor lounging and warm rooms, they are going in far worse ways than any amount of outward lawlessness could bring them to.

"Smoking and yellow-covered novels are worse than any amount of hullabaloo; and the quietest boy is often a poor, ignorant victim, whose life is being drained out of him before it is well begun. If mothers could only see the series of books that are sold behind counters to boarding-school boys, whom nobody warns and nobody cares for,—if they could see the poison, going from pillow to pillow, in books pretending to make clear the great, sacred mysteries of our nature, but trailing them over with the filth of utter corruption! These horrible works are the inward and secret channel of hell, into which a boy is thrust by the pressure of strict outward rules, forbidding that physical and out-of-door exercise and motion to which he ought rather to be encouraged, and even driven.

"It is melancholy to see that, while parents, teachers, and churches make no provision for boys in the way of amusement, the world, the flesh, and the Devil are incessantly busy and active in giving it to them. There are ninepin-alleys, with cigars and a bar. There are billiard-saloons, with a bar, and, alas! with the occasional company of girls who are still beautiful, but who have lost the innocence of womanhood, while yet retaining many of its charms. There are theatres, with a bar, and with the society of lost women. The boy comes to one and all of these places, seeking only what is natural and proper he should have,—what should be given him under the eye and by the care of the Church, the school. He comes for exercise and amusement,—he gets these, and a ticket to destruction besides,—and whose fault is it?"

"These are the aspects of public life," said I, "which make me feel that we never shall have a perfect state till women vote and bear rule equally with men. State housekeeping has been, hitherto, like what any housekeeping would be, conducted by the voice and knowledge of man alone.

"If women had an equal voice in the management of our public money, I have faith to believe that thousands which are now wasted in mere political charlatanism would go to provide for the rearing of the children of the state, male and female. My wife has spoken for the boys; I speak for the girls also. What is provided for their physical development and amusement? Hot, gas-lighted theatric and operatic performances, beginning at eight, and ending at midnight; hot, crowded parties and balls; dancing with dresses tightly laced over the laboring lungs,—these are almost the whole story. I bless the advent of croquet and skating. And yet the latter exercise, pursued as it generally is, is a most terrible exposure. There is no kindly parental provision for the poor, thoughtless, delicate young creature,—not even the shelter of a dressing-room with a fire, at which she may warm her numb fingers and put on her skates when she arrives on the ground, and to which she may retreat in intervals of fatigue; so she catches cold, and perhaps sows the seed which with air-tight stoves and other appliances of hot-house culture may ripen into consumption.

"What provision is there for the amusement of all the shop girls, seamstresses, factory girls, that crowd our cities? What for the thousands of young clerks and operatives? Not long since, in a respectable old town in New England, the body of a beautiful girl was drawn from the river in which she had drowned herself,—a young girl only fifteen, who came to the city, far from home and parents, and fell a victim to the temptation which brought her to shame and desperation. Many thus fall every year who are never counted. They fall into the ranks of those whom the world abandons as irreclaimable.

"Let those who have homes and every appliance to make life pass agreeably, and who yet yawn over an unoccupied evening, fancy a lively young girl all day cooped up at sewing in a close, ill-ventilated room. Evening comes, and she has three times the desire for amusement and three times the need of it that her fashionable sister has. And where can she go? To the theatre, perhaps, with some young man as thoughtless as herself, and more depraved; then to the bar for a glass of wine, and another; and then, with a head swimming and turning, who shall say where else she may be led? Past midnight and no one to look after her,—and one night ruins her utterly and for life, and she as yet only a child!

"John Newton had a very wise saying: 'Here is a man trying to fill a bushel with chaff. Now if I fill it with wheat first, it is better than to fight him.' This apothegm contains in it the whole of what I would say on the subject of amusements."

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AN ITALIAN RAIN-STORM.

The coast-road between Nice and Genoa,—known throughout the world for its unrivalled beauty of scenery, the altitudes to which it climbs, and the depths to which it dives,—now on the olive-clad heights, now close down upon the shore shaded by palm or carob-trees, now stretching inland amid orange-grounds and vineyards, now rounding some precipitous point that hangs hundreds of feet over the Mediterranean,—is generally seen with all the advantage of an unclouded sky above, and a sea as blue beneath.

It was the fortune of a certain party of four to behold it under the unusual aspect of bad weather. They set out in the diligence one winter evening, expecting to arrive at Genoa by the same time next day, according to ordinary course. But no one unaccustomed to the effect of rain, continuous rain, in mountainous districts, can conceive the wonders worked by a long succession of wet days. The arrival was retarded six hours, and the four found themselves in Genova la superba somewhere about midnight. However, this was only the commencement of the pouring visitation; and the roads had been rendered merely so "heavy" as to make the horses contumacious when dragging the ponderous vehicle up hill, which contumacy had occasioned the delay in question. Despite the hopes entertained that the weather would clear, the rain set in; and during no interval did it hold up, with the exception of a short period, which permitted one gentleman of the party of four to visit on business two bachelor brothers, manufacturers in Genoa. The residence of these brothers being in rather an out-of-the-way quarter of the city, and being very peculiar in itself, the gentleman advised the rest of his party to accompany him on this visit.

The four, only too glad to find themselves able to get out of doors, set forth on foot through the steep and narrow streets of Genoa, which make driving in a carriage a fatigue, and walking a feat of great excitement, especially when mud prevails. Trucks, ponderously laden with bales of goods, and pushed along at a reckless rate of speed by mahogany-complexioned men; dashing coaches, impelled by drivers hallooing when close upon you with distracting loudness and abruptness; mules coming onward with the blundering obtuseness peculiar to their tribe, or with their heads fastened to doorways, and their flanks extending across the street, affording just space enough for the passenger to slide behind their heels; a busy, jostling crowd of people hurrying to and fro, with no definite current, but streaming over any portion of the undistinguishable carriage-way and foot-way,—all combine to make Genoese pedestrianism a work only less onerous than driving.

Choosing the minor trouble, our party trusted to their own legs; and, after picking their way through sludge and mire, along murky alleys that branched off into wharves and quays, and up slippery by-ways that looked like paved staircases without regular steps, the four emerged upon an open space in front of a noble church. Leaving this on their left hand, they turned short into a place that wore something the appearance of a stable-yard,—with this difference, that there were neither steeds nor stabling to be seen; but instead there were blank walls, enclosing a kind of court adjoining a huge old mansion, and beyond there was a steep descent leading down to the sea-side.

On ringing a bell that hung beside a gate in the wall enclosure, the door opened apparently of itself, and a dismal scream ensued. The scream proceeded from a sea-gull, peering out of a kind of pen formed by a wooden paling in one corner of a grass-grown patch, half cabbage-garden, half excavated earth and rock; and the mysterious opening of the door was explained by a connecting cord pulled by some unseen hand within a smaller house that stood near to the huge old mansion. From the house appeared, advancing towards us, the two bachelor brothers, who welcomed our friend and his three companions with grave Italian courtesy. Understanding the curiosity the four felt to see their premises, they did the honors of their place, with a minuteness as politely considerate towards the strangers as it was gratifying to the interest felt by them.

First the visitors were led by the bachelor brothers to see the huge old mansion, which they called the Palazzo. Let no one who has seen an ordinary Genoese palace, magnificent with gilding, enriched by priceless pictures, supplied with choice books, and adorned with gorgeous furniture, figure to himself any such combination in the palazzo in question. This was a vast pile of building, that would make five moderate-sized dwelling-houses, one in the roof, and the other four in the habitable portion of the edifice. A general air of ramshackledness pervaded the exterior, while the interior presented an effect of interminable ranges of white-washed walls, divided off into numberless apartments of various sizes, from a saloon on the piano nobile, or principal floor, measuring more than forty feet long, to small square attic rooms that were little more than cupboards. But this attic story was not all composed of chambers thus dimensioned. Among its apartments were rooms that might have accommodated a banqueting assemblage, had diners been so inclined; while among the accommodations comprised in this garret range was a kitchen, with spacious dressers, stoves, closets, and a well of water some hundred and odd feet deep. It was impossible for the imagination to refrain from picturing the troops of ghosts which doubtless occupied these upper chambers of the old palazzo, and held nightly vigil, undisturbed, amid the silence and solitude of their neglected spaces. Through one of the dwarf windows that pierced at intervals all sides of the mansion, just beneath the lofty roof, and which gave light to the attic story, we were directed to look by the emphatic words of the elder bachelor brother,—"Ma, veda che vista c' è!"

The view thence was indeed well worthy his praise; and he himself formed an appropriate companion-picture to the scene. Bluish-gray eyes, a fairer complexion than usually belongs to men of his clime and country, a look of penetration, combined with an expression of quiet content, were surmounted by a steeple-crowned hat that might have become a Dutch burgomaster, or one of Teniers's land-proprietors, rather than a denizen of a southern city. Yet the association which his face, figure, and costume had with some of George Cruikshank's illustrations of German tales afforded pictorial harmony with the range of ghostly rooms we were viewing. He "marshalled us the way that we should go," by leading us down a steep flight of steps, which landed us on the piano nobile. This, for the present, was tenanted by a set of weavers, to whom the principal floor of the palazzo had been let for a short term. They had proved but turbulent occupants, being in a constant state of refractoriness against their landlords, the bachelor brothers, who seemed to be somewhat in awe of them. On the present occasion, for instance, the brothers apologized for being unable to show us the grand saloon, as the weavers (whom we could hear, while he spoke, singing in a loud, uproarious, insurgent kind of way, that might well have drawn three souls out of one of their own craft, and evidently made the souls of their two landlords quail) did not like to be disturbed.

Their contumacious voices, mingled with the clamor of their looms, died off in the distance, while we proceeded down the back staircase to the ground-floor. We at first fancied that this apparently surreptitious proceeding was perhaps traceable to the awe entertained by the bachelor brothers for their unruly tenants; but we were relieved from the sense of acting in a style bordering on poltroonery, by finding that the principal staircase had been boarded up to preserve its marble steps and sides from injury. On arriving at the foot we found ourselves in a spacious hall, opposite the approach to the grand staircase, which looked like an archway built for giants, toweringly defined above the scaffold-planks by which it was barricaded. Many doors opened from this hall, to each of which, in turn, one of the bachelor brothers applied successive keys from a ponderous bunch that he held in his hand. These doors led to vast suites of apartments, all unfurnished, like the upper rooms, with the exception of one suite, which the brothers had lent to a friend of theirs, and which was sparely supplied with some old Italian furniture, of so antique a fashion that each article might have been a family heirloom ever since the times of that famous Genoese gentleman, Christopher Columbus. One peculiarity the four remarked, which spoke volumes for the geniality of the climate: in all this huge rambling edifice they saw only one room which could boast of a fireplace. The sun's warmth evidently supplied all the heat necessary, and—as might be conjectured from its other peculiarities as well as this—anything like what the English call "the joys and comforts of the domestic hearth" seemed an impossible attainment in this dreary old palazzo. The social amenities must wither in its desolate atmosphere, and dwindle to chill shadows, like the ghosts that haunt the attic story.

To complete the air of saddening vacancy that clung like a damp to the really arid white walls, when the brothers led us down a wide staircase to the vaulted space beneath the basement, we came upon some hundreds of small bird-cages, containing each a miserable linnet, titmouse, or finch, condemned to chirp out its wretched existence in this airless underground region. In reply to our pitying exclamation, we were told that the bachelors' friend who occupied the corner apartment on the ground-floor was a great sportsman, and devotedly fond of la caccia; that these unhappy little prisoners were employed by him in the season as decoy-birds; that they were kept in these dungeons during the other months of the year; and that they were blinded to make them sing better and be more serviceable at the period when he needed them. As we looked shudderingly at these forlorn little creatures, and expressed our commiseration at their fate, the younger brother stepped forward, and, examining one of the cages, in which sat hunched up in one corner a stiff lump of feathers, coolly announced that "this goldfinch" was dead.

It was with a feeling of relief that we left the death-released bird, and the vaults beneath the old palazzo, to return once more to the fresh air and the breathing-space of the broad earth and sky. Our next visit was to the bachelor brothers' factory, which was for the fabrication of wax candles. Adjoining this was a terrace-plot of ground, dotted over with what looked like Liliputian tombstones. We were beginning to wonder whether this were a cemetery for the dead birds,—speculating on the probability that these might be the monumental tributes placed over their graves by the sportsman friend of the two brothers,—when the elder informed us that this was the place they used for bleaching the wax, and that the square stones we saw were the supports on which rested the large flat stands whereon it was laid to whiten in the sun. From this terrace-plot of ground,—which projected in a narrowish green ledge, skirted by a low ivy-grown wall, over the sea,—we beheld a prospect of almost matchless beauty. Before us stretched a wide expanse of Mediterranean waters; to the extreme left was just visible the bold rocky point of Porto Fino; to the right extended westward a grand line of picturesque coast, including the headlands of Capo di Noli and Capo delle Mele; and near at hand lay the harbor of Genoa, with its shipping, its amphitheatre of palaces, surmounted by the high ground above, and crowned by the fortressed summits beyond.

We were roused from the absorbing admiration which this majestic sea and land view had excited, by one of the four asking whether there were any access to the palazzo from this terrace. Whereupon the brothers showed us a winding turret staircase, which led by a subterranean passage into one of the lower vaulted rooms. Nothing more like a place in a wonderful story-book ever met us in real life; and while we were lost in a dream of romantic imaginings, one of the brothers was engaged in giving a prosaic relation of how the old palazzo had come into their family by a lawsuit, which terminated in their favor, and left them possessors of this unexpected property. During the narrative a brood of adolescent chickens had come near to where we stood listening on the green plot, and eyed us with expectant looks, as if accustomed to be fed or noticed. The elder brother indulged the foremost among the poultry group—a white bantam cock of courageous character—by giving him his foot to assault. Valiantly the little fellow flew at, and spurred, and pecked the boot and trousers; again and again he returned to the charge, while the blue-gray eyes beamed smilingly down from beneath the steeple-crowned hat, as the old man humored the bird's pugnacious spirit.

Presently a shy little girl of some ten or twelve years came peering out at the strangers from beneath a row of evergreen oaks that ornamented the back of the dwelling-house overlooking the terrace. There she stood at the foot of the ilexes, shading her eyes with one hand, (for the sun coyly gleamed through the rain-clouds at that moment,) while the other was employed in restraining the lumbering fondness of two large bull-dogs, that gambolled heavily round her. She was introduced to us as the daughter of the younger of the two brothers; who proved after all to be no bachelor, but a widower. One ponderous brindled brute poked his black muzzle against the child with such a weight of affection that we expected to see her overturned on the sward; but she seemed to have complete control over her canine favorites, and to live with them and a large macaw she had up stairs in her own room (we afterwards found it perched there, when taken to see the upper floor of the bachelor residence), as her familiars and sole associates,—like some enchanted princess in a fairy-tale.

On entering the house from the terrace, we found ourselves in its kitchen, which strongly resembled a cavern made habitable. It was hewn out of the rock on which the dwelling stood; and it only required the presence of the black man and the old woman who figure in Gil Blas's story to give, to the life, the cooking-department of the robbers' cave there. As we ascended a rude stone staircase that led from it, we heard the lowing of cows; and, turning, we saw two of these animals comfortably stalled in a side recess, not far from the rocky ledge on which the culinary apparatus for dressing the food of the establishment was deposited. Mounting into the parlor, we discovered a good-sized apartment, its windows looking out through the foliage of the ilexes over the sea, skirted by the extensive coast view. Behind was the dining-room; on each side were the brothers' bedrooms; and leading from a small entrance-hall at the back was a large billiard-room. This opened on a small garden nook, in which were orange-trees and camellias, full of bud and blossom,—from which some of the flowers were gathered for us by the Italian brethren, on our taking leave and thanking them for the unusual treat we had had in going over their curious abode.

The transient gleam of sunshine that had shone forth while we were there was the only intermission vouchsafed by the rain, which afterwards poured down with a steady vehemence and pertinacity seldom seen on the Ligurian Riviera. The effects of this rare continuance of wet weather were soon made impressively perceptible to the four as they emerged upon the open road, after passing the Lighthouse of Genoa and the long straggling suburbs of San Pier d'Arena, Pegli, and Voltri. The horses splashed through channels of water which filled the spongy ruts, smoking, and toiling, and plunging on; while the whoops and yells of the postilion urging them forward, together with the loud smacks of his whip, made a savage din. This was farther increased as we crashed along a ledge road, cut in a cliff overhanging the sea;—the waves tearing up from beneath with a whelming roar; the rocks jutting forth in points, every one of which was a streaming water-spout; the rain pelting, the wind rushing, the side-currents pouring and dashing. These latter, ordinarily but small rills, carrying off the drainage of the land by gentle course, were now swollen to rough cataracts, leaping with furious rapidity from crag to crag in deluges of turbid water, discolored to a dingy yellow-brown by the heaps of earth and stone which they dislodged and brought down with them, and hurled hither and thither over the precipitous projections, and occasionally flung athwart the highway. At one spot, where a heap of such stones—large, flat slabs—had been tossed upon the road, and a few of their companions were in the very act of plunging down after them, our postilion drew up to guide his cattle among those already fallen; and, raising his voice above the thunder of the sea-waves, rain, wind, and waters, shouted out in broad Genoese to the falling ones, "Halloo, you there, up above! Stop a bit, will you? Wait a moment, you up there!" Then, driving on carefully till he had steered by the largest of the fragments that lay prostrate, he turned back his head, shook his whip at it, and apostrophised it with, "Ah, you big pig! I've passed you, for this time!"

The first change of horses took place at a village close down on the sea-shore, where some fishermen were busily employed hauling up the last of a row of boats that lay upon the beach. Every available hand, not occupied in aiding the conductor and postilion to unharness the diligence horses and put to the fresh team, was enlisted in the service of the boat-hauling. Young gentlemen out for an evening's amusement, attired in sacks or tarpaulins thrown over their shoulders, while their nether garments were rolled up tightly into a neat twist that encircled the top of each thigh, were frisking about a line of men with weather-beaten countenances and blown hair, who tugged bare-legged at the sides of the fishing-boat, half in the water and half out. Occasionally one of these young gentry, feeling perhaps that he had aided sufficiently in the general work, betook himself to a doorway near, dripping and shaking himself, and looking out through the sheeted rain at his companions, who were still in the excitement of whisking round the heaving and tugging fishermen, while the waves rose high, the spray dashed up in mist over their grizzled heads and beards, and the wind whistled sharply amid the deeper tumult of the sea and torrent waters. To heighten the grim wildness of the scene, the shades of evening were closing round, and by the time the four travellers were off again and proceeding on their way, darkness was fast setting in.

Nightfall found them toiling up a steep ascent that diverges inland for a few miles, winding round the estate of some inflexible proprietor, upon whom nothing can prevail to permit the high-road to take its passage through his land, there bordering the sea-side. Up the ascent we labored, and down the descent we lunged, the wheels lodging in deep mire at every moment, and threatening to abide in the deeper holes and furrows which the water-courses (forced from their due channels by overflowing and by obstructive fallen masses) had cut and dug into the road as they strayed swiftly over it.

By the time the next stage was reached, the conductor consulted the four on the advisability of stopping to sleep, instead of proceeding on such a tempestuous night, the like of which, for perilous effects, he said he had but once before encountered during the whole of the sixteen years he had been in office on this road. The three coupé passengers, consisting of two ladies—sisters—and a ruddy-faced, cheerful gentleman in a velvet travelling-cap, who made it a principle, like Falstaff, to take things easily, and "not to sweat extraordinarily," warmly approved the conductor's proposal as a sensible one; and even the alert gentleman in the banquette agreed that it would be more prudent to remain at the first good inn the diligence came to. This, the conductor replied, was at Savona, one stage farther, as the place they now were at was a mere boat-building hamlet, that scarcely boasted an inn at all,—certainly not "good beds." A group of eager, bronzed faces were visible by lamp-light, assembled round the conductor, listening to him as he held this conference with his coach-passengers; and at its close the bronze-faced crowd broke into a rapid outburst of Genoese dialect, which was interrupted by our conductor's making his way through them all, and disappearing round the corner of the small piazza wherein the diligence stood to have its horses changed. After some moments' pause,—not in the rain, or wind, or sea-waves, for they kept pouring and rushing and roaring on,—but in the hurly-burly of rapid talk, which ceased, owing to the talkers' hurrying off in pursuit of the vanished conductor, he returned, saying, "Andiamo a Savona." It soon proved that he had been to ascertain the feasibility of what the group of bronze-faced men had proposed, namely, that they would undertake to convey the diligence (without its horses, its "outsides," and its "insides") bodily over a high, steep, slippery mule-bridge, which crossed a torrent near at hand, now swollen to an unfordable depth and swiftness. The four beheld this impassable stream, boiling and surging and sweeping on to mingle itself with the madly leaping sea-waves out there in the dim night-gloom to the left, as they descended from the diligence and prepared to go on foot across something that looked like a rudely-constructed imitation of the Rialto Bridge at Venice, seen through a haze of darkness, slanting rain, faintly-beaming coach-lamps, pushing and heaving men, panting led horses, passengers muffled up and umbrellaed, conductor leading and directing. Then came the reharnessing of the horses, the reassembling of the passengers, the remounting of the "insides," the reclambering to his seat of the alert banquette "outside" (after a hearty interchange of those few brief, smiling words with his coupé companions which, between English friends, say so much in so little utterance at periods of mutual anxiety and interest), the payment of the agreed-for sum by the conductor to the bronze-faced pushers and heavers, amid a violent renewal of the storm of Genoese jargon, terminated by an authoritative word from the payer as he swung himself up into his place by a leathern strap dangling from the coach-side, a smart crack of the postilion's whip, a forward plunge of the struggling horses, an onward jerk of the diligence, and the final procedure into the wet and dark and roar of the wild night.

The gas and stir of Savona came as welcome tokens of repose to the toilsome journey; and the four alighted at one of the hotels there with an inexpressible sense of relief. His fellow-travellers were warned, however, by the alert gentleman, that they must hold themselves in readiness to start before dawn next morning, as the conductor wished to avail himself of the first peep of daylight in passing several torrents on the road which lay beyond Savona. Velvet-cap assented with a grunt; one of the sisters—all briskness at night, but fit for nothing of a morning—proposed not to go to bed at all; while the other—quite used up at night, but "up to everything" of a morning—undertook to call the whole party in time for departure.

This she did,—ordering coffee, seeing that some was swallowed by the sister who had been unwillingly roused from the sleep she had willingly offered to forego overnight, collecting cloaks, baskets, and travelling-rugs, and altogether looking so wakeful and ready that she wellnigh drove her drowsy sister to desperation.

The preannounced torrents proved as swollen as were expected; so that the passengers had to unpack themselves from the heaps of wrappings stowed snugly round their feet and knees, and issue forth into the keen morning air, armed with difficultly-put-up umbrellas, to traverse certain wooden foot-bridges, in the midst of which they could not help halting to watch the lightened diligence dragged splashingly through the deep and rapid streams, expecting, at every lunge it made into the water-dug gullies, to see it turn helplessly over on its side in the very midst of them. Nevertheless, no such accident occurred; and the four jogged on, along soaking, soppy, drenched roads, that seemed never to have known dust or drought. At one saturated village, they saw a dripping procession of people under crimson umbrellas, shouldering two rude coffins of deal boards, which were borne to the door of a church that stood by the wayside,—where the train waited in a kind of moist dejection to be admitted, and to look dispiritedly after the passing diligence. The alert gentleman heard from what the conductor gathered from an old woman wrapped in a many-colored gaudy-patterned scarf of chintz, which, wet through, covered her head and shoulders clingingly, that this was the funeral of a poor peasant-man and his wife, who had both died suddenly and both on the same day. The old woman held up her brown, shrivelled hands, and gesticulated pityingly with them in the pouring rain, as she mumbled her hurried tale of sorrow; while the postilion involuntarily slackened pace, that her words might be heard where he and the conductor sat.

The horses were suffered to creep on at their own snail pace, while the influence of the funeral scene lasted; but soon the long lash was plied vivaciously again, and we came to another torrent, more deep, more rapid, more swollen than any previous one. Fortunately for us, a day or two before there had been a postilion nearly drowned in attempting to drive through this impassable ford; and still more fortunately for us, this postilion chanced to have a relation who was a servant in the household of Count Cavour, then prime-minister to King Victor Emanuel. "Papa Camillo's" servant's kinsman's life being endangered, an order had come from Turin only a few hours before our diligence arrived at the bank of the dangerous stream,—now swollen into a swift, broad river,—decreeing that the new road and bridge, lately in course of construction on this spot, should be opened immediately for passage to and fro. The road was more like a stone-quarry than a carriageable public highway, so encumbered was it with granite fragments, heaped ready for top-dressing and finishing; and the bridge led on to a raised embankment, coming to a sudden fissure, where the old coach-road crossed it. Still, our conductor, finding that some few carts and one diligence had actually passed over the ground, set himself to the work of getting ours also across. First, the insides and outsides were abstracted from the coach,—which they had by this time come to regard as quite an extraneous part of their travelling, not so much a "conveyance" as something to be conveyed,—and the four took their way over the stones, amused at this new and most unexpected obstacle to their progress. Hastening across the fissure, they went and placed themselves (always under umbrellas) beside a troop of little vagabond boys,—who had come to see the fun, and had secured good front places on the opposite bank,—to view the diligence brought down the sharp declivity of the embankment to the old road below. The spectators beheld the jolting vehicle come slowly and gratingly along, like a sturdy recusant, holding back, until the straining horses had tugged it by main force to the brink of the fissure. Here the animals stopped, snorted, eyed the sheer descent with twitching ears and quivering skins, as though they said in equine language, "We're surely not required to drag it down this!" They were soon relieved from their doubt, by being taken out of the traces, patted, and gently led down the embankment, leaving their burdensome charge behind. There it stuck, helplessly alone,—even more thoroughly belying its own name than diligences usually do,—perched on the edge of a declivity of the height of a tall house, stock still, top-heavy with piled luggage, deserted by its passengers, abandoned of its friend in the velvet cap, a motionless and apparently objectless coach. How it was to be dislodged and conveyed down the "vast abrupt" became matter of conjecture to the four, when presently some men came to the spot with a large coil of cable-cord, which they proceeded to pass through the two hindmost side-windows of the diligence, threading it like a bead on a string; and then they gradually lowered the lumbering coach down the side of the descent, amid the evvivas of the vagabond boys, led by an enthusiastic "Bravissimo!" from Velvet-cap.

This incident occupied much time; and though the travellers made some progress during the afternoon, the gray shades of twilight were gathering over and deepening the gloom of the already gray sky and gray landscape,—deadened to that color from their naturally brilliant hues by the prevailing wet,—as the travellers stopped to change horses again at the entrance of the town of Oneglia. Here, while the conductor ran into a house to make purchase of a loaf about half a yard in length and a corpulent bottle of wine, the four saw another funeral train approaching. This time it was still more dreary, being attended by a show of processional pomp, inexpressibly forlorn and squalid. The coffin was palled with a square of rusty black velvet, whence all the pile had long been worn, and which the soaking rain now helped age to embrown and make flabby; a standard cross was borne by an ecclesiastical official, who had on a quadrangular cap surmounted by a centre tuft; two priests followed, sheltered by umbrellas, their sacerdotal garments dabbled and draggled with mud, and showing thick-shod feet beneath the dingy serge and lawn that flapped above them, as they came along at a smart pace, suggestive of anything but solemnity. As little of that effect was there in the burial-hymn which they bawled, rather than chanted, in a careless, off-hand style, until they reached the end of the street and of the town, when the bawlers suddenly ceased, took an abrupt leave of the coffin and its bearers, fairly turned on their heels, accompanied by the official holy standard-bearer, and went back at a brisk trot, having, it seems, fulfilled the functions required of them. Obsequies more heartless in their manner of performance, it was never the fate of the four to behold. The impression left by this sight assorted well with the deep and settled murkiness that dwelt like a thick veil on all around. Even the cheery tones of Velvet-cap's voice lost their elasticity, and the sprightliness of the sister's spirits, that invariably rose with the coming on of night, failed under the depressing influence of that rain-hastened funeral and that "set-in" rainy evening. As for the sister whose spirits fell with the fall of day, she was fast lapsing into a melancholy condition of silence and utter "giving-up."

Rattling over the pavement of the long, straggling town,—plashing along a few miles of level road,—struggling up hill,—rattling through another pavemented town,—striking into the country again,—we came to another long ascent. As we toiled to the top, a postilion, having the care of five return horses, joined company with ours, the two men walking up hill together, while their beasts paced slowly on, with drooping heads and smoking sides. Now and then, when the road was less steep, and levelled into trotting-ground, the postilions climbed to their seats,—ours on his rightful box-seat, the other on an impromptu one, which he made for himself upon a sack of corn slung beneath the front windows of the coupé,—and while our horses fell into an easy jog, we could see the return ones go on before at a swagging run, with their loosened harness tossing and hanging from them as they took their own course, now on one side of the way, now on the other, according to the promptings of their unreined fancy.

Suddenly, at a turn of the road, we came upon an undistinguishable something, which, when our eyes could pierce through and beyond the immediate light afforded by our diligence-lamp, we discovered to be another diligence leaning heavily over a ditch, while its conductor and postilion were at their horses' heads, endeavoring to make them extricate it from its awkward position. This, however, was a feat beyond the poor beasts' strength; and our conductor, after a few "Sacramentos" at this new delay, got down and ran to see what could be done to help them out of the scrape. It had been occasioned partly by the carelessness of the conductor, who, unlike ours, (for the latter was a man of good sense and judgment, self-possessed, and perfectly attentive to the duties of his office,) had neglected to light the diligence-lamp, and partly by the obstinacy of a drunken postilion, who insisted on keeping too close to the ditch side of the road, while he instinctively avoided the precipice side. Nearly two mortal hours was our diligence detained, during which time our cattle were taken from their traces and harnessed to those of the half-overturned coach, in various attempts to dislodge it. The first resulted in a further locking of the wheel against a projecting point of rock, and an additional bundling sideways of the leaning diligence; the second was made by attaching the horses to the back of it, while the men set their strength to the wheels, endeavoring to push them round by main force in aid of the straining team. The weight of the heavily-loaded coach resisted their efforts to move it; and then the passengers were requested to descend. Out into the rain and mud and darkness they came, warned by our conductor, in his prompt, thoughtful way, to beware of stumbling over the precipitous cliff, which dropped straight from the roadside there, hundreds of feet down, into the sea. We could hear the dash of the waves far below, as our conductor's voice sounded out clear and peremptory, uttering the timely reminder; we could hear the words of two French commis-voyageurs, coming from the ditch-sunk diligence, making some facetious remark, one to the other, about their present adventure being very much like some of Alexandre Dumas's Impressions de Voyage; we could hear the cries and calls of the men refastening the horses, and preparing to push anew at the wheels; we could distinguish a domestic party dismounting from the back portion of the other diligence, consisting of a father and mother with their baby and the bonne; we could see the little white cap covered up carefully with a handkerchief by the young mother, while the father held an umbrella over their heads, and conducted them to the counterpart portion of our diligence, where the family took refuge during the fresh attempts to drag theirs forth.

Then there came a tap against our coupé window, and an unmistakably British accent was heard to say: "Anglais? Anglais?" Tap—tap—tap. "Any English here?"

Velvet-cap let the window down, and answered in his cheerfullest tone, "Yes."

This reply seemed to rejoice the heart of the inquirer, who immediately rejoined, "Oh!—Well, I really wished to know if there were any one here who could understand me. These fellows don't comprehend one word that I say; and I can't speak one word of their jabber. Just listen to them! What a confounded row they keep up! Parcel of stupid brutes! If I could only have made myself understood, I could have told them how to get it out in a minute. Confounded thing this, ain't it? Kept last night, too, by something of the same kind of accident; and I couldn't get those stupid fellows to make out what I meant, and give me my carpet-bag."

Polite condolences from Velvet-cap.

"I say, are these your Italian skies? Is Nice no better than this? By George, I didn't come here for this, though!"

Assurances of the unusually bad weather this season from Velvet-cap.

"No, but just hark! what a confounded row and jabber those fellows keep up."

A simultaneous "Ee-ye-ho! ee-yuch-yuch!" came from the striving men at this moment, and our British acquaintance, with a hasty "Good night!" hurried off to see the result. It was this time a successful one; the leaning diligence was plucked out, restored to an upright position, and its passengers were reassembled. Once more on its way, our conductor returned to his own coach; and, with the help of our postilion, reharnessed our horses. But the difficulty now was to start them. Tired with their unexpected task of having to tug at another and a stuck-fast diligence,—made startlish with having to stand in the rain and chill night air, in the open road, while the debates were going on as to the best method of attaching them to the sunken vehicle,—when once put back into their own traces, they took to rearing and kicking instead of proceeding. It is by no means amusing to sit in a diligence behind five plunging horses, on a cliff-road,—one edge of which overhangs the sea, and the other consists of a deep ditch or water-way, beneath a sheer upright rock,—"when rain and wind beat dark December"; and even after whip and whoop had succeeded in prevailing on the rearers and kickers to "take the road" again, that road proved so unprecedentedly bad as almost to render futile the struggles of the poor beasts. They did their best; they strained their haunches, they bent their heads forward, they actually made leaps of motion, in trying to lug the clogged wheels on through the sludge and clammy soil; but this was a mauvais pas, where the cantonniers' good offices in road-mending had been lately neglected, and it seemed almost an impossibility to get through with our tired cattle. However, the thing was achieved, and the town of San Remo at length reached.

Here, with a change of horses, it was now our turn to have a drunken postilion; whom our conductor, after seizing him by the collar with both hands, permitted to mount to his high seat and gather up the reins, there being no other driver to be had. Smacking his long whip with an energy that made the night-echoes resound far and wide, galloping his horses up hill at a rate that swayed the coach to and fro and threatened speedy upsetting, screaming and raving like a wild Indian uttering his battle-cry, our charioteer pursued his headlong course, until brought to a stop by something that suddenly obstructed his career.

A voice before us shouted out, "We must all go back to San Remo!"

A silence ensued; and then our conductor got down, running forward to see what was the matter. The three in the coupé saw their alert friend of the banquette descend; which caused Velvet-cap to bestir himself, and let down the window. Not obtaining any satisfactory information by looking out into the darkness and confusion, he opened the door also, and called to some one to help him forth. Whereupon he found himself in the arms of the maudlin postilion; who, taking him doubtless for some foreign lady passenger in great alarm, hugged him affectionately, stuttering out, "N'ayez pas peur! Point de danger! point de danger!"

"Get off with you, will you?" was the ejaculation from Velvet-cap, as he pushed away the man, and went in search of his alert friend.

The latter soon came running back to the coach-side, bidding the sisters get out quickly and come and look at what was well worth seeing.

It was indeed! There lay a gigantic mass of earth, stones, and trees, among which were several large blocks of solid rock, hurled across the road, showing a jagged outline against the night-sky, like an interposing mountain-barrier but just recently dropped in their path. The whole had fallen not an hour ago; and it was matter of congratulation to the four, that it had not done so at the very moment their diligence passed beneath.

There was nothing to be done but what the voice (which proved to be that of the conductor belonging to the other diligence) had proposed, namely, to go back to San Remo.

Here the travellers of both diligences soon arrived; the four, as they passed to their rooms, hearing the British accent on the landing, in disconsolate appeal to a waiter: "Oh!—look here,—sack, you know, sack, sack!"

"Oui, monsieur; votre sac de nuit. Il est en bas,—en bas, sur la diligence. On le montera bientôt."

The lady whose spirits rose at night was flitting about, brisk as a bee, getting morsels of bread and dipping them into wine to revive her sister; who, worn out with fatigue and exhaustion, sat in a collapsed and speechless state on a sofa.

Next morning, however, she was herself again, and able to note the owner of the British accent, who had certainly obtained his desired carpet-bag, since there he was, at the coupé window, brushed and beaming, addressing Velvet-cap with, "Excuse me, as an Englishman; but, could you oblige me with change for a napoleon? I want it to pay my bill with. They could get some from the next shop, if these jabbering fellows would but understand, and go and try."

The morning-animated sister was now also able to observe upon the more promising aspect of the weather, which was evidently clearing up; for it not only did not rain, but showed streaks of brightness over the sea, in lines between the hitherto unbroken gray clouds. She adverted to the pleasant look of the cap-lifting cantonniers, as they stood drawn up and nodding encouragement at the diligence, near the mass of earth which had fallen overnight; and which they, by dint of several hours' hard work from long before dawn, had sufficiently dug away to admit of present passage. She said how comforting the sight of their honest weather-lined faces was, bright with the touch of morning and early good-humor.

This brought a muttered rejoinder from the other sister; who, huddled up in one corner, still half asleep, remarked that the faces of the cantonniers were surely far more comforting when visible by the light of the diligence-lamp, coming to bring succor amid darkness and danger.

"But it is precisely because they are never to be seen during the darkness, when danger is increased by there rarely being help at hand, that I dread and dislike night," returned Morning-lover.

"How oppressive the scent of those truffles is, the first thing after breakfast!" exclaimed Night-favorer.

"I had not yet perceived it," replied Morning-lover. "Last evening, indeed, after a whole day's haunting with it, the smell of that hamper of truffles which the conductor took up at Finale was almost insupportable; but now, in the fresh morning air, it is anything but disagreeable. I shall never hereafter encounter the scent of truffles without being forcibly reminded of all the incidents of this journey. That smell seems absolutely interwoven with images of torrent-crossing, cliff-falling, pouring rain, and roaring waves."

The talk fell upon associations of sense with events and places; sounds, sights, and scents, intimately connected with and vividly recalling certain occurrences of our lives. We had missed the glimpse of the baby face and little white cap from the back of the diligence that preceded us during the first portion of the day, owing to our coach having been delayed at Ventimiglia by some peculiar arrangement which required the team that had dragged us up a steep ascent to stop and bait,—merely resting instead of changing, before we went on again.

The Pont St. Louis, with the picturesque ravine it crosses, had been passed, and the pretty town of Mentone was full in view, when we caught sight of the other diligence, some way on the road before us, brought once more to a stand-still, while a crowd of persons surrounded it, and its passengers were to be seen, in the distance, descending, with the baby cap among them. At this instant, an excited French official darted out from a doorway by the side of the road near us, raising his arms distractedly, and throwing his sentences up at the conductor, who understood him to say that there was no going on; that a whole garden had come tumbling down across the road just at the entrance to Mentone, and prevented passing.

We drove on to the spot, and found it was indeed so; the grounds of a villa, skirting the highway on a terrace-ledge, had been loosened by the many days' rain, and had fallen during the forenoon, a heap of ruins,—shrubs, plants, garden-walls, flowers, borders, railings,—one mass of obstruction.

With a glance at the coupé passengers, another French official (the newly-appointed frontier custom-house being close at hand) stepped forward to suggest that the "insides" could be accommodated, during the interim required for the cantonniers to do their work, at a lately-built hotel he pointed to; but the four agreed to spend the time in walking round by the path above the obstruction, so as to see its whole extent.

The wet, percolating and penetrating through the softer soil, gradually accumulates a weight of water behind and beneath the harder and rockier portions, which dislodges them from their places, pushes them forward, and finally topples them over headlong. This is generally prevented where terrace-walls are built up, by leaving holes here and there in the structure, which allow the wet to drain through innocuously; but if, as in the present instance, this caution be neglected, many days' successive rain is almost sure to produce the disaster in question. It had a woful look,—all those garden elegances cast there, flung out upon the high-road, like discarded rubbish; pots of selected flowers, favorite seats, well-worn paths, carefully-tended beds, trailing climbers, torn and snapped branches, all lying to be shovelled away as fast as the road-menders could ply their pickaxes and spades.

At length this task was accomplished; the diligences were hauled over the broken ground (their contents being also "hauled over" at the custom-house); the passengers (after the important ceremonial of handing their passports for inspection, and having them handed back by personages who kept their countenances wonderfully) were in again and off again.

But one more torrent to cross,—where the foremost coach had nearly been overset, and where the occupants of the hindmost one, profiting by example, got out and walked over the footbridge, in time to behold the owner of the British accent wave his hat triumphantly from the coupé with a hearty (English) "Huzza!" as the vehicle recovered, by a violent lurch to the left, from an equally violent one to the right, issuing scathless from the last flood that lay in the way,—and then both diligences began at a leisurely pace to crawl up a long ascent of road, bordered on each side by olive-grounds;—until the view opened to a fine stretch of prospect, now colored and vivified by a glance of the afternoon sun,—the diminutive peninsular kingdom of Monaco, lying down in the very sea, bright, and green, and fairy-like; the bold barren crag of the Turbia rock frowning sternly in front, with its antique Roman tower and modern Italian church; the rocky heights above to the right, with their foreground of olive-trees, vine-trellises, and orange-groves, interspersed with country-houses; while through all wound the ever-climbing road, a white thread in the distance, with the telegraphic poles, dwindled to pin-like dimensions, indicating its numberless turns and bends.

As the sun sank over the far western lines of the Estrelle Mountains, and the sky faded into grayish purple, succeeded by an ever-deepening suffusion of black, unpierced by a single star, the high reach of road above Villafranca Bay was passed; and, on our turning the corner of the last intervening upland, full in view came the many lights of Nice, with its castled rock, its minarets and cupolas, its stretch of sea, its look of sheltered repose;—all most welcome to sight, after our sensational journey on the Cornice Road in a great rain.

---

INCIDENTS OF THE PORTLAND FIRE.

Never had Portland looked more beautiful than when the sunrise-gun boomed across the waters, announcing the ninetieth anniversary of our independence. The sun, which on another day should look down on the city's desolation, rose unclouded over the houses, that stood forth from the foliage of the embowering elms, or nestled in their shadow; over the quaintness of the old-fashioned churches and the beauty of the more modern temples; over the stately public edifices, and the streets everywhere decked with flags and thronged with crowds of happy, well-dressed people. Of course, the popular satisfaction expressed itself in the report of pistols, guns, and fire-crackers; and all through the day the usual amusements went on, and in the afternoon almost everybody was on the street.

A few minutes before five o'clock, when the festivity was at its wildest, the alarm of fire rang out. Every circumstance was favorable for a conflagration,—the people scattered, the city dry and heated by a July sun, and a high southwesterly wind blowing. It needed only the exciting cause in the shape of a fire-cracker, and lo! half the city was doomed.

My youngest brother, at the first sound of the bell, came and begged me to take him to the fire; so I went, to please him. Poor child! I little thought that by twelve o'clock at night there would be no place at home to lay the little head.

We found the fire near Brown's sugar-house, where there was a large crowd already assembled. But, though the smoke and masses of flame were rising only from one house, the wind was blowing a perfect gale; and a foreboding of the calamity impending seemed to possess the spectators. There was none of the usual noise, and men appeared to look at the burning house with a feeling of awe. We did not stop there at all; and some idea of the rapid progress of the fire may be gathered from the fact, that about four squares distant, where, on the way up, we could see one fire, on our return we saw three,—two lighted by sparks from the first. We slowly retraced our way, and met people on every side quickening their steps in the direction of the fire.

About seven o'clock, mother and I thought it would be wise to pack up our silver and valuables; for it seemed as if we were directly in the path of the conflagration. Down Fore Street, and from Fore to Free, it was rushing on. The southwestern heavens were entirely shut from our view by the flames and smoke; cinders, ashes, and blazing embers were falling like rain down Middle Street, and across to Congress, as far as the eye could see. The scene was terrible; but it was soon surpassed in fearfulness, for the work of desolation was not half completed. The Irish population were the chief sufferers up to this hour. It was heart-rending to see the women rushing hither and thither, trying to save their few possessions. Here, a poor creature was dragging a mattress, followed by several little crying children, her face the picture of despair; there, another, with her family, stood over the remnants of her scanty stock. A poor woman, who was in the habit of working for us, lived near the corner of Cross and Fore Streets. She had five children and a sick husband to care for. Almost all her energies were bent in getting them to a place of safety; and the few little things which she succeeded in rescuing from the flames were afterwards stolen from her by some one of the many wretches who gathered the spoils that awful night.

It soon became evident that we must decide upon some plan of action, in case it should come to the worst. We had two married sisters,—one living in India Street, the other at the west end of the city. As the former had no family, and was alone, even her husband being away, and as the latter had three children, and a house full of company, we decided that, if we must move, it should be to India Street. We sent off one team, and my youngest brother with it, before the fire was anywhere near us; and then, while my two little sisters assisted mother in getting things together, I worked with my brother and cousin, hanging wet blankets against the walls, pouring water on the roof, and taking other precautionary measures. But all was useless. On came the fire with a steady sweep. We saw that it was idle to combat it longer, and turned all our energies to saving what we could. Our home was to be ours no longer. The dear old roof-tree, under which had assembled so many loved ones, now gone forever,—where the eyes of all our home circle first saw the light of life,—where three of that number closed theirs in death,—the centre of the hopes and joys of a lifetime,—was to be abandoned to the flames. It was like tearing our heart-strings to leave it so; but there was no time for lingering. With streaming eyes and aching hearts we started out, taking what we could in our hands. There was by this time no vehicle to be obtained in which we could ride; and, supporting my mother, my sisters clinging to us in silent terror, we were borne along with the crowd down Middle Street to India. I cannot remember any incidents of that walk. The hurrying throng around me, the flying sparks, and the roar of the engines, seem like the confusion of a dream.

Our sister, who met us at the door, felt perfectly secure, and had done nothing towards packing. I gave her an account of our proceedings, thinking each moment of some precious thing I might have brought away. We went to the front door, and looked out on the scene before us. The fire seemed to come on the wings of the wind. Middle Street was ablaze; Wood's marble hotel was in flames, together with the beautiful dwelling opposite. The fire leaped from house to house, and, if for a moment checked, it was but to rush on in wilder fury. Churches, one by one, were seized by the flame, and crumbled into ruin before it. No human power could arrest its fierce progress. In vain the firemen put forth a strength almost superhuman: their exertions seemed but to add to its fury. Explosion after explosion gave greater terror to the scene: buildings were successively blown up in the useless effort to bar its pathway; the fire leaped the chasm and sped on. Fugitives of every age and condition were hurrying through the streets, laden with everything imaginable,—especially looking-glasses, which seem the one important thing to be saved during a fire. My brother and cousin had not yet made their appearance, nor had we seen anything of my brother-in-law, from the other end of the city. But we knew they must be at their places of business, which were now in the heart of the burning district. Swiftly the destruction hurried towards us; and people were now seen bringing in their goods and seeking shelter on our premises. O what heart-broken faces surrounded us that fearful night! Friends, and people we had never seen, alike threw themselves on our kindness; and I must say that a spirit of humanity and good-will seemed everywhere prevalent among the citizens. We were now ourselves tortured by suspense. Could we escape, or should we again have to seek refuge from the flames? Surely the work of destruction would stop before it reached India Street? The hot breath of the maddening fire, and its lurid glare, were the only response. O, if the wind would only change! But a vane, glistening like gold in the firelight, steadfastly pointed to the southeast. For one moment it veered, and our hearts almost stood still with hope; but it swung back, and a feeling of despair settled upon us.

Our house was full. One poor lady, with a little baby only a week old, lay on a sofa in one of the rooms; near her, bent over in a rocking-chair, sat an old woman who had not been out of her house for five years, with a look of hopeless bewilderment on her wrinkled face. But people were now beginning to move from our house. India Street was almost blocked up. Every kind of vehicle that went upon wheels, from a barouche to a wheelbarrow, passed by laden with furniture.

At this moment my brother and brother-in-law approached, blackened almost beyond recognition. It was not until C—— spoke that I really knew him.

"We must be calm and collected, and save what we can. John is trying to get a team to carry mother up to L——'s; the rest of us will have to go to the graveyard. But John may not be successful, so you stay here, and see if you can get any one to take mother: they may do it for you, when they wouldn't for a man."

I stood on the edge of the sidewalk, clinging to the horse-post, and appealed in vain to wagons going by.

"Won't you take a lady and children away from here?"

"I can't, ma'am, not if you was to give me twenty-five dollars,—not if you was to give me five hundred. I'm taking a load for a gentleman now."

So it was in every case. Very many were worse off than we were,—had not even a man to help. One well-known citizen was appealed to for help, in the early part of the evening, by a poor woman,—a sort of dependant of his family. He took her and her daughter, with their effects, outside the city, and returned to find India Street on fire and no means of getting through the crowd to his house, which was burned, with all that was not saved by the exertions of his wife. They had visiting them a lady whose child lay dead in the house, awaiting burial. The mother took the little corpse in her arms and carried it herself up to the other end of the city!

While I was making these vain attempts, John drove up in a light, open-topped buggy. We hurriedly got mother and E—— into it, and gave into their charge the jewelry and silver, and they drove away. I could not but tremble for their safety. The road seemed impassable, so dense was the struggling crowd. On every side the fire was raging. Looking up India Street it was one sheet of flame, and equally so before us. It looked like a world on fire, for we could see no smoke,—it was too near for that,—and the heat was terribly intense.

There was no time to be lost. Both our servants and M——'s were away spending the Fourth, so we had to depend entirely on ourselves. Our back fence was soon torn down, and we all worked as we never had before. We saved a good deal, but not one half of what we brought from our house in the first place. We had thrown things out of the window, and C—— and J—— worked hard dragging them out of the yard, until, scorched and almost suffocated, they were compelled to desist. The flames were upon us so quickly, it seemed incredible that they could have seized the house so soon after we thought we were in danger.

"Thank God, we are all safe!" cried M——, sinking upon the ground in the graveyard, where we took refuge. She tried to look cheerful; but the sight before her—her house in flames—and the thought of her husband's absence overcame her, and she burst into tears. I laid the two little girls upon the grass; and, wearied out, they soon fell asleep. It was a strange scene in that quiet old cemetery, where the dead of more than a century had lain undisturbed in their graves. Where only the reverent tread of the mourner, or of some visitor carefully threading his way among the grassy mounds, was wont to be known, crowds of frantic people were hurrying across; while here and there were family groups clustered together, watching the destruction of their property.

How long the remaining hours seemed! Would the daylight never come? The children slept on, and we four talked in low tones of the morrow.

At length, faint, rosy lights began to streak the eastern horizon, and slowly the day dawned. The sun rose unclouded above the hills, sending down his beams upon the desolation which the night had wrought, lighting up the islands and the blue waters, flecked with sail-boats.

Not less welcome to us, J—— now also appeared,—with a hay-cart, whose driver he had engaged to come and remove us. Our goods were put into it; we took our places among them, and, as soon as the tardy oxen could carry us, were safe in my sister's house, living over again in words that fearful night, and relating to each other some of those incidents of the fire which can never all be told. A little friend of ours, when leaving her home, took in her arms her doll, nearly as large as herself; obliged to flee a second time, her mother told her it was useless to try and save the doll, and she must leave it there. With many tears she laid it on the sofa, feeling, no doubt, as if she were leaving a human being to be burnt. The next day, a friend brought to her the identical dolly, which had been found in the graveyard! The little one's joy may be imagined.

One of the women in the Irish quarter picked up her big pig in her arms and carried it to a place of safety, then returned to take care of her children and furniture. A woman went by our house in the early part of the evening bent nearly double beneath the weight of a trunk strapped upon her back. We saw women that night with loads under which almost any man would have staggered in ordinary circumstances.

Before we were supposed to be in danger, I walked out with a young friend to see what progress the fire was making. At a corner we observed a woman with a child about eight years old, talking, in great agitation, to a lady, and evidently urging her to accede to some request. My companion suggested that we should see if we could aid her in any way. As we approached, the lady had taken the child by the hand, with the words, "What is your address?" which was given. We inquired if we could be of any service. "No, thank you," was the reply. "I asked that lady to take care of my daughter. I keep store on that street over there. My husband is out of town, and I don't know what I shall do!"—and, wringing her hands, she hurried away. I have wondered since what was the fate of the little girl thus intrusted to the care of strangers; for the lady went in the direction, afterwards swept by the fire.

One family, whose house the flames did not reach until near two o'clock in the morning, behaved with great coolness. The head of the household lay ill. It was their first care to provide for him. Then they went deliberately about, gathering up their valuables, taking just what they wanted. They secured a wagon to carry away their things. Their house, meanwhile, had been full of refugees from the flames. One of the young ladies, going for the last time through the deserted rooms, found, on a sofa in the parlor, a sick woman, utterly unable to move. At first, she felt almost in despair at sight of this poor creature, so near meeting a fearful fate. But quickly recovering her presence of mind, she called in men from the street, and, by their united efforts, they carried her out, and forced a passing wagon to take her to a safe place. A young lady, who lived at a little distance from this family, was spending the night at the other end of the city. They sat up till half past twelve, and she was then in the act of retiring, never dreaming that her home was in danger, when a loaded wagon stopped at the door, and out stepped her sister and child. She went back in the same vehicle, and worked till twelve the next day, getting things out of the house, collecting and guarding them till they could be removed.

There was, of course, the usual difference shown amongst people in such circumstances,—energy and coolness contrasted with imbecility and frantic excitement. A friend who moved three times, with her husband so ill that he had to be carried from place to place, never once forgot to administer his medicine at regular intervals,—with a steady hand pouring out the drops by the light of the fire.

A gentleman was carrying some of his books, preceded by an assistant, who also had his arms full. The latter walked so rapidly that his employer could not keep up with him. He called upon him to slacken his pace; but, as no attention was paid to this, the gentleman dropped his books upon the ground, and, running forward, knocked him down, determined to be obeyed, fire or no fire.

But all were not so cool. One man, seeing the flames advancing in the direction of his house, rushed thither to save his property. He worked with might and main, but, when the house was nearly emptied, became aware of the fact that it was his neighbor's. By this time his own dwelling was on fire, from which he saved scarcely anything. I know one person who passed through his hall perfectly empty-handed, while all around him were bundles and boxes, which were consumed in the fire; another walked out of his house with a package of envelopes in his hand, leaving, close by, an article worth thirty dollars.

I must mention one of many instances of unselfishness that came under my observation. A gentleman was comfortably established in a house which he had recently bought and furnished, expecting there to enjoy the pleasures of a home. One half of the house he had rented; but the husband of the woman to whom it was let was not in town. Their dwelling shared the fate of those around them, being burnt. He first set to work to save his own things; but, struck by the forlorn condition of his tenant, he did his best to save her effects, even to the detriment of his own; for when they were examined, the greater portion of them was found to be hers. Time has not exhausted the truth and beauty of the saying, that "in the night the stars shine forth," and the stars did not pale even in the terrible light of the fire that consumed half a city.

---

MY LITTLE BOY.

There were nine of us, all told, when mother died; myself, the eldest, aged twenty, a plain and serious woman, well fitted by nature and circumstance to fill the place made vacant by death.

I cannot remember when I was young. Indeed, when I hear other women recount the story of their early days, I think I had no childhood, for mine was like no other.

Mother was married so young, that at the age when most women begin to think seriously of marriage she had around her a numerous brood, of which I was less the elder sister than the younger mother. She was delicate by nature, and peevish by reason of her burdens, and I think could never have been a self-reliant character; so she fretted and sighed through life, and when death came, unawares, she seemed not sorry for the refuge.

She called me to her bed one day in a tone so cheerful that I wondered, and when I saw the calm and brightness in her face, hope made me glad, "Margaret," she said, "you have been a good daughter. I never did you justice until this illness opened my eyes. You have shamed me by your patience and your sacrifices so gently borne. You are more fit to be a mother than I ever was; and I leave the children to your care without a fear. It is not likely you will ever marry, and I die content, knowing that you will do your duty."

After this came many sad days,—the parting, the silent form which death had made majestic, the funeral hymns, the tolling bell, the clods upon the coffin-lid; and when the sun shone out and the birds sang again, it seemed to me I had dreamed it all, and that the sun could not shine nor the birds sing above a grave on which the grass had not yet had time to grow. But I had not dreamed, nor had I time for dreaming. Mother was dead, and eight children claimed from me a mother's care,—the youngest a wailing babe but seven days old, whom I came to cherish and love as my little boy.

When I had settled down, and grown accustomed to the vacuum which never could be filled for me, I thought a great deal upon mother's last words. I was proud of the trust she reposed in me, and I meant to be faithful to it. I wondered much why she had thought it likely I should never marry; for I was a woman with strong instincts, and, amid all the toil and care of my barren life, I had seen afar, through gleaming mists, the mountains of hope arise, and beyond the heat and dust and labor of duty caught glimpses of green ways made pleasant by quiet waters.

I do not think my burden seemed heavier now that mother no longer helped me to bear it; for my sense of responsibility had been increased by her complaining spirit. Her discouraging views of life held in check the reins of my eager fancy: it seemed wrong to enjoy a happiness I could not share with her. Now I no longer felt this restraint; but, knowing that somehow she had missed this happiness for which I waited, the knowledge invested her memory with a tender pity, and tempered my pleasure with a feeling akin to pain.

I was never idle. Behind the real work of life, my fancy wrought on, unknown and unsuspected by the world; my lamp of joy, fed by the sweet oil of hope, was ready for the lighting, and I was content to wait.

My little boy throve bravely. Every morning I awoke him with a kiss; and, perhaps because each day seemed but a continuation of the other, time stood still for him. He was for me the incarnation of all loveliness. The fair face, and blond hair, and brown, brooding eyes, were beautiful as an angel's, and goodness set its seal on his perfections. He gave me no trouble: grief brings age, joy confirms youth, and I and my little boy grew young together. He was with me everywhere, lightening my labor with his prattling tongue, helping me with his sweet, hindering ways; and when the kisses had been many that had waked him many morns, he stood beside me, my little boy, hardly a hand's breadth lower than myself.

The world had changed for all but him and me. My father had wandered off to foreign parts; sisters and brothers, one by one, had gone forth to conquer kingdoms and reign in their own right, and one young sister, just on the border-land of maiden fancies, (O friends, I write this line with tears!) turned from earth and crossed the border-land of heaven.

But he and I remained alone in the old homestead, and walked together sweetly down the years.

If I came upon disappointment, I had not sought it, neither did I fall by it; but that which was my future slid by me and became the past, so gently that I scarce remember where one ended or the other began; and though all other lovers failed me, one true remained, to whom I ever would be true. The future did not look less fair; nay, I deemed it more full of promise than ever. It was as though I had passed from my old stand-point of observation to a more easterly window; and the prospect was not the less enchanting that I looked upon it over the shoulder of my little boy. We talked much of it together; and though he had the nearer view, it was my practised vision that saw pathways of beauty not yet suspected by him.

But we were still happy in the present, and did not speculate much upon the future. The rolling years brought him completeness, and to the graces of person were added the gifts of wisdom and knowledge. The down that shaded his cheek, like the down upon a ripe peach, had darkened and strengthened to the symbol of manhood, and his words had the clear ring of purpose. For there was a cloud upon the horizon which at first was no bigger than a man's hand, but it grew until it filled the land with darkness, and the fair prospect on which I had so loved to gaze was hidden behind the storm. My little boy and I looked into each other's faces, and he cried, "Margaret, I must go!"

I did not say nay,—for the tears which were not in my eyes were in my voice, and to speak was to betray them,—but I turned about to make him ready.

In these days my little boy's vision was finer than my own; and when we stood together, looking from our orient window, he saw keener and farther than I had ever done; for my eyes now looked through a veil of tears, while his, like the eagle's, penetrated the cloud to the sunshine behind it. He was full of the dream of glory; and his words, fraught with purpose and power, stirred me like a trumpet. I caught the inspiration that thrilled his soul; for we had walked so long together that all paths pursued by him must find me ever at his side.

One day I was summoned to meet a visitor; and going, a tall figure in military dress gave me a military salute. It was my little boy, who, half abashed at his presumption, drew himself up, and sought refuge from shyness in valor. It was not a sight to make me smile, though I smiled to please my warrior, who, well pleased, displayed his art, to show how fields were won. Won! He had no thought of loss; for youth and hope dream not of defeat, and he talked of how the war was to be fought and ended, and all should be well.

I kissed my little boy good night; and he slept peacefully, dreaming of fields of glory, as Jacob dreamed and saw a heavenly vision.

He went; and then it seemed as if there had been with him one fair long summer day, and this was the evening thereof; and my heart was heavy within me.

But many letters reached me from the distant field,—long and loving letters, full of hope, portraying all the poetry and beauty of camp-life, casting the grosser part aside; and to me at home, musing amid peaceful scenes, it seemed a great, triumphant march, which must crush, with its mere display of power, all wicked foes. But the sacrifice of blood was needed for the remission of sin, and these holiday troops—heroes in all save the art of war—lost the day, and, returning, brought back with their thinned ranks my little boy unharmed. Unharmed, thank God! but bronzed and bearded like the pard, and tarnished with the wear and burnished with the use of war.

How he talked and laughed, making light of danger, and, growing serious, said the fight had but begun,—the business of the nation must, for years, be war,—and that his strength and manhood, nay, his life if need be, should be given to his country. Then his words made me brave, and his looks made me proud. I blessed him with unfaltering lips; and above the hills of promise, which my little boy and I saw looking from our orient window, rose higher yet the mountains of truth, with the straight path of duty leading to the skies. But when he was gone again,—gone,—there fell a shadow of the coming night, and the evening and the morning were the second day.

His frequent letters dissipated the sense of danger, and brought me great comfort. War is not a literary art, and letters from the "imminent deadly breach," made it seem less deadly. His self-abnegation filled me with wonder. "It is well that few should be lost, that many may be saved," he wrote. In what school had this tender youth learned heroism, I asked myself, as I read his noble words and trembled at his courage.

My dreams and my gaze turned southward. No eastern beams lured me to that lookout so long endeared; for the eyes through which I once gazed looked through the smoke of battle, and hope and faith had fled with him, and left me but suspense.

Now came hot work. The enemy pressed sorely, and men's—ay, and women's—souls were tried. Long days of silence passed, days of sickening doubt, and then came the news of victory,—victory bought with precious blood and heavy loss. Over the ghastly hospital lists I hung, fearing and dreading to meet the name of my little boy, taking hope, as the list shortened, from the despair of others, and no mention. Thank God, who giveth us the victory!

And later, when details come in, I see in "official report" my little boy's name mentioned for meritorious and gallant conduct, and recommended for promotion. Ah! the groans of the dying are lost in the shouts of the victor; and, forgetting the evil because of this good, a woman's heart cried, Laus Deo!

After the battle, hardly fought and dearly purchased, my hero came home on furlough. War had developed him faster than the daily kisses of love had done; for my little boy—crowned with immortal youth for me—for all the world came from this rude embrace a man in stature and wisdom, a hero in valor and endurance, a leader beloved and revered.

But for all this I tucked him in o' nights, and shut off harmful draughts from him who oft had lain upon the sod, and for covering had but the cloudy sky.

These were blissful days,—marked in the past by white memories,—in which we talked of future plans, the future so near, yet to our vision so remote, and purposed this and that, not considering that Heaven disposes all things.

And when he must be off, I kissed him lightly; for success brings security, and I was growing accustomed to these partings; but he drew me to his breast, struck by some pang of coming evil, and called me mother. Ah! then my heart yearned over my little boy, and I would fain have stayed his going; but, dashing the tears from his eyes, he hurried away, nor looked behind him once.

All through the winter, which for him was summer, my heart lay lightly in its place, and I waited calmly the coming of the end. The struggle was almost over; the storm-cloud had rolled back, after deluging the land in blood; in this consecrated soil slavery was forever buried; the temple of freedom was reared in the name of all men, and the dove of peace sat brooding in its eaves.

All this my little boy had said must come to pass before he sheathed his sword; and this had come to pass.

He had marched "to the sea," my conquering hero, and was "coming up," crowned with new laurels. I was waiting the fulness of time, lulled with the fulness of content. Sherman had gathered his hosts for another combat,—the last,—and then the work would be done, and well done. Thus wrote my little boy; and my heart echoed his words, "well done."

This battle-day I worked out of doors from morning until night, seeking to bring order and beauty out of confusion and decay, striving to have all things ready when he came. My sleep was sweet that night, and I awoke with these words in my mind:—

"Lord, in the morning Thou shall hear
My voice ascending high."

The sun streamed in through the eastern window, and all the hills beyond were bathed in glory; the earth was fair to look upon, and happiness, descending from the skies, nestled in my heart.

I planted all this day, covering precious seed, thinking on their summer beauty; and, as the evening fell, I stood at the garden gate watching the way he must come for whose coming I longed with a longing that could not be uttered.

As I looked, idly speculating on his speed, a horseman dashed up in mad haste, his steed spent and flecked with foam. Men do not ride so hot with good tidings,—what need to make such haste with evil?

Still, no sense of loss, no shadow of the coming night. Peace covered my heart, and would not be scared away. Blind infatuation! that could not see.

"Was it not then a victory?" I cried; for sadness and defeat were written in his face.

"Nay, not that." The outstretched hand turned white with pity. "But this—"

Too kind to speak the words, at sight of which I fell, struck by a bolt that, riving his heart, through leagues of space had travelled straight to mine.

---

Months later, when the long night had passed away, and the dawn brought patience and resignation, one who saw him fall, gloriously, told me the story. I could bear it then; for in my soul's eclipse I had beheld him walking on the heavenly hills, and knew that there he was waiting for me.

He lies buried, at his own request, where he fell, on Southern soil.

O pilgrim to those sacred shrines, if in your wandering ye come upon a nameless grave, marked by a sunken sword, tread lightly above the slumbers of my little boy!

---

LAKE CHAMPLAIN.

Not thoughtless let us enter thy domain;
Well did the tribes of yore,
Who sought the ocean from the distant plain,
Call thee their country's door.[F]

And as the portals of a saintly pile
The wanderer's steps delay,
And, while he musing roams the lofty aisle,
Care's phantoms melt away

In the vast realm where tender memories brood
O'er sacred haunts of time,
That woo his spirit to a nobler mood
And more benignant clime,—

So in the fane of thy majestic hills
We meekly stand elate;
The baffled heart a tranquil rapture fills
Beside thy crystal gate:

For here the incense of the cloistered pines,
Stained windows of the sky,
The frescoed clouds and mountains' purple shrines,
Proclaim God's temple nigh.

Through wild ravines thy wayward currents glide,
Round bosky islands play;
Here tufted headlands meet the lucent tide,
There gleams the spacious bay;

Untracked for ages, save when crouching flew,
Through forest-hung defiles,
The dusky savage in his frail canoe,
To seek the thousand isles,

Or rally to the fragrant cedar's shade
The settler's crafty foe,
With toilsome march and midnight ambuscade
To lay his dwelling low.

Along the far horizon's opal wall
The dark blue summits rise,
And o'er them rifts of misty sunshine fall,
Or golden vapor lies.

And over all tradition's gracious spell
A fond allurement weaves;
Her low refrain the moaning tempest swells,
And thrills the whispering leaves.

To win this virgin land,—a kingly quest,—
Chivalric deeds were wrought;
Long by thy marge and on thy placid breast
The Gaul and Saxon fought.

What cheers of triumph in thy echoes sleep!
What brave blood dyed thy wave!
A grass-grown rampart crowns each rugged steep,
Each isle a hero's grave.

And gallant squadrons manned for border fray,
That rival standards bore,
Sprung from thy woods and on thy bosom lay,—
Stern warders of the shore.

How changed since he whose name thy waters bear,
The silent hills between,
Led by his swarthy guides to conflict there,
Entranced beheld the scene!

Fleets swiftly ply where lagged the lone batteau,
And quarries trench the gorge;
Where waned the council-fire, now steadfast glow
The pharos and the forge.

On Adirondack's lake-encircled crest
Old war-paths mark the soil,
Where idly bivouacks the summer guest,
And peaceful miners toil.

Where lurked the wigwam, cultured households throng;
Where rung the panther's yell
Is heard the low of kine, a blithesome song,
Or chime of village bell.

And when, to subjugate the peopled land,
Invaders crossed the sea,
Rushed from thy meadow-slopes a stalwart band,
To battle for the free.

Nor failed the pristine valor of the race
To guard the nation's life;
Thy hardy sons met treason face to face,
The foremost in the strife.

When locusts bloom and wild-rose scents the air,
When moonbeams fleck the stream,
And June's long twilights crimson shadows wear,
Here linger, gaze, and dream!