Ursa Major.
'Once, I went with a giant and a dwarf, to see a bear.'
'Fiddlestick! what a story to tell!' retorted Aunt Hepsibah, 'and these children, just as like's not, will believe every word of it.'
'O cousin Dick!' chirped those innocents, [strepitu avido, multum nido minuriente], 'tell us all about it; it sounds just like a fairy-tale!'
'Why, there isn't much to tell. Late one evening, not in a great wood, but a great city, I fell in with an old couple, a huge, hulking fellow, nearly eight feet high, with a heavy, loutish air, and the most pitiful little woman you ever saw, hardly taller than his knee. Her arms were not longer, than a baby's, and her poor little legs trotted along as fast as they could, to keep up with his sluggish stride. In a clownish, lubberly sort of way, he seemed to be taking good, kind care of her. They were on exhibition, it appeared, and (their own show being over for the night) were going, poor things, to see a certain famous performing bear.
'Of course, I went with them. We found the showroom nearly deserted. The bear, a monstrous fellow, bigger than Samson by half, lay on his back, his huge, hairy chest heaved up like a bullock's, and a great paw, holding lazily on to one of his bars. His owner, quite fatigued, and apparently a trifle in liquor, brightened up when he saw his strange audience, and at once volunteered to repeat the performance.
''This animal, gentlemen,' said he, 'is considerable tired, for I've been a workin' on him mighty hard to-day. He knows that he's done his work for the night, and I wouldn't go in with him again for a fifty-dollar bill, but I shall do it, seeing I've got such distinguished company,' and he made a sweeping obeisance, comprehending the giant, the dwarf, and my humble person.
'The performance was really quite remarkable; but I was more interested in observing my fellow visitors. The dwarf looked up with her bright little eyes, and the giant looked down with his great leaden ones, while the bear jumped over the man's head, and pretended to fight him and hug him, and finally, walking on his hind-feet, stooped down, and took his head into the horrid cavern of those great jaws. Out of breath, and red in the face, the enthusiastic operator wound up by plucking a handful of long hair from the flank of the much-enduring creature, and presented it to us, as a souvenir of our visit.'
'I say, when he had him in his mouth, it was 'bear and forbear,' wasn't it?' put in that scapegrace, Tom, who is always doing something of the sort.
'Silence! and don't interrupt the court, unless you can say something better than that. Well, let me tell you, I have been in very genteel society, without feeling any thing so human, so catholic, so pantheistical, (in the right sense,) as I did in making one of that queer company. The great lout of a giant, with not soul enough in him to fill out his circumference; the sad little dwarf, with not room enough for hers; the poor, patient, necromanted savage of a bear; the smart, steely, grog-loving, praise-loving keeper; the curious, bookish, indolent traveler. Expressions, all of the grand, never-weary Life-Intention, how widely variant! yet all children, and equally beloved, of the Infinite Father.
'In four of the five cases, it should seem, the creative energy had set about to fashion its supposed ultimate and perfect work, and with what result? At first blush, the failure seemed most conspicuous in my companions, especially the big and the little one; but a small introspection might, perhaps, have disclosed a deeper disappointment in a nobler aim. The bear was the only success among us. He was perfect in his line, though sadly at a disadvantage; ravished from his forest-world, and bedeviled with alien civilization. And note (as that splendid prig, Ruskin, would say) with what mathematical accuracy nature, in her less ambitious essays, goes to the proposed end. The bee's flight—a specimen wonder—is not straighter than her course. In her lower business, she needs no backers. Meddling only monsters her. It is only when she comes to the grand, resulting combination, for which she has so long been fussing and preparing—when she tries her hand ('her 'prentice han', I fear,) on man, that she falters, hesitates, and lastly compromises for something lamentably less than she bargained for.
'Her apparent purpose seems almost inevitably thwarted by some influence—shall we call it malign? or rather shall we consider (as perhaps we should in all short-comings) that 'tis only a matter of time and the comparative degree? a piece of circuition needed for variety of development, and, of necessity, to eventuate in forms fresher, more prononcés, nearer perfect than any thing we now wot or conceive of.
'To my thinking, the hitch is, that just at this point, she has got complicated with the wills and motions of intelligences already individualized and eliminated, and forever alienated from her immediate impulse. And if this be so, depend on it, the onus of the attempted perfection comes a good deal upon us. The mighty Mother, unsatisfied in her fantastic longings, and troubled generally [Greek: dia to tiktein], should be helped and not bothered by her children. We can remove vexations, can arrange conditions, keep the house quiet generally. At any rate, we can take such care as may be of the smaller young ones, help them up-stairs, or at least keep them from tumbling down again—we bigger babies that have crawled or been pushed a few steps up the awful stairway of the Inconceivable Ascending-Spiral.'
'I say, Dick, stop your metaphysics.'
'You are quite right, Tom, they are threadbare enough; but these happen to be physics. I don't mean such as you had to take last week, after that sleigh-ride. Well, I remember feeling this intense communism, this voltaic rapport with nature in a like way once before, on seeing a covey of strange creatures, Aztecs, Albinos, wild Africans, busied, by chance, in a game of romps together, the pure overflow of animal spirits. It was a curious scene. They made eerie faces at each other; they feigned assaults; they wove a maze, more fantastic and bizarre than any thing in Faust or Freysehutz. It was the mirth of Fauns, the mischief of Elves and Brownies. The glee, that lighted up those strange faces was not of this earth; but a thrill, pulsated through infinitude, of that joy of life which wells forever from the exhaustless fountain of the Central Heart; a scintillation, from how afar off! of the Immeasurable Love, of the Eternal Pity; though it seemed hardly more human than the play of kits and puppies, or than the anerithmon gelasma (the soulless, uncontrollable titter) of the tossed spring spray, or the blue, breezy ripple, for which overhaul your Prometheus, master Tom, and when found, make a note of it.'
'Well, that's not so bad,' allowed Hepsibah, a good deal mollified. Greek, I have observed, always has an excellent effect upon her.
'And it has a good moral, my dears,' said grandmother, 'I always like a good moral.'
'And was the bear always good to him?'
'Well, my dear, I am sorry to say that he had once bitten off three of his fingers. You may think this was proceeding to extremities; but, on the whole, I give him credit for great moderation. They will bite sometimes, however—me teste, who once in my proper person verified the old proverb, which I had always taken for a bit of unnatural history.'
'I know; 'been a bear, 'twould a bit you,' eh?'
'Your customary sagacity, Tom, is not at fault. Yes, the bear bit me.'
'Dick,' said my uncle, 'it strikes me, all this wouldn't make a bad magazine article, if you'd only leave out your confounded speculations; and Tom, as your cousin says, I wish you would stick a little closer to your classics.'
'Cousin Dick!'
'Well, little No-no!'
'You tell a real good story.'
'Do I? then come and pay me for it.'
'No-o! you sha-a-ant! aeou!! there now, tell us another; tell us about the bear that bit you?'
'There isn't much to tell about that either. It was on a steamer, in the Gulf. On the forecastle lay a stout oaken box, and in it—all his troubles to come—was a young bear. In the top of it was an inch auger-hole, and at this small port the poor devil used to keep his eye all day so pitifully, that I had compassion on him, saw he would get etiolated, and besought the captain to let him out.
''Not if I know it,' responded Dux, severely, 'he'd clear the decks in a minute! We had one aboard once before—a big rascal, in a cage, 'tween decks—and one dark, stormy night, he broke adrift and stowed himself away so snug that we never found him till next day. You may judge what a hurrah's nest there was, every body knowing this d——d bear was somewhere aboard, and afraid of running foul of him in the dark. No, no, better let him alone!'
'Howbeit, I over-persuaded him. We managed to get hold of a bit of chain fastened to his collar, bent a line on to it, gave him reasonable scope, belayed the bight, and knocked off one end of his box. Out he bolted! It was a change from that dark den to the glaring tropical sunshine, the blue sea foaming under the trades, the rolling masts, and the hundreds of curious eyes that surrounded him. Sensible to the last, he tried to go aloft, but the line soon brought him up. Down he came, and steered for'ard. The cooks and stewards, their hands on the combing, filled the fore-hatch. He made a dive for them, and they tumbled ignominiously down the hatchway. We laughed consumedly. Then he cruised aft, the dress-circle considerately widening. He came up to me, as if knowing his benefactor by instinct, looking curiously about him, and curling and retracting his flexile snout and lip, after the manner of his kind. Now, I had often dealt with bears, tame and semi-tame, had 'held Sackerson by the chain,' as often as Master Slender, had known them sometimes to strike or hug, (which they always do standing,) but had never known one to bite. So I didn't take the trouble to move, and—the first I knew—the villain had me by the leg!'
'Sarved yer right, for lettin' on him out,' interposed that grim utilist Jonas, our hired man. He had entered, pending the narrative, and stood, arrectis auribus, by the door.
'Mercy on us! didn't it hurt?'
'Yes; but not more than might easily be borne. It didn't seem like biting—more like the strong, hard grip of a vice than any thing else—puncture quite lost in constriction. My viznomy, I am told, was a study: supreme disgust, tempered with divine philosophy.'
'And how on earth did you get away from him?'
'By not trying to; kept as still as a mouse, till he had bitten all he wanted to, which took about a minute. Then he let go, and walked quietly off, to see if he couldn't bite somebody else. I afterward improved our acquaintance by giving him sugar-cane and a licking or two; but he was always an ill-conditioned brute, not amenable to reason, and when we came to New York, gave no end of trouble, by getting over the side and running up the North River on the ice—I dare say he scented the Catskills—the whole waterside whooping and hallooing in chase after him. Ah! I could tell you a better story than that, of a wild beast aboard a ship!'
'Do, then.'
'It was told me by an ancient mariner, who knows how many years ago? for I'm getting to be an old fellow myself, children.'
'What nonsense, Dick! talk about your being old.'
'Well, never mind. I'll try to give it to you in his own words. Said he:
"I never see a nigger turn white but once, and that was aboard of the old 'Emperor.' We was bound from Calcutta, to Boston, and had aboard an elephant, a big Bengal tiger, and a lot of other wild creturs, for a menagerie. Well, one forenoon, blowing a good topsail breeze, as it might be to-day, but more sea than wind, we was going large, and I up on the main-yard, turning in a splice. All to once, I heerd a strange noise, and looked down. There was the black cook, shinning of it up, making a great hullibaloo, and shaking the tormentors behind him—that's a big iron fork he has in the galley. His face was as white as a table-cloth. Close behind him was the tiger, who had got out of his cage somehow, and, snuffing the grub, had made tracks for the coppers.
"All the watch, by this time, was tumbling up the rigging, fore and aft. The tiger he tried two or three of the ratlins, but thought it onsafe, so he let himself down, mighty careful, to the deck. The companion-way was open, and he dived into the cabin. The captain lay asleep on the transom, and never waked up. The cretur didn't touch him, but come up agin, and poked his nose into, the door of the mate's room, that was a little on the jar. The mate see him, and gin him a kick in the face, and slammed the door agin him. That made him mad, and he tried to get in at the little window; but his head was so big, he couldn't begin. Did you ever mind what eyes them devils has? They've got a kind of cruel, murderin' look that no other beast has, that I ever see. Well, he give it up, and went aft. Then, a kind of a sick feelin' come over me; for, d'ye see, there was one man that couldn't leave no way!'
"The man at the wheel?'
"Ay, shipmet! He saw the tiger comin', for he turned as pale as death; but he didn't look at him, and never stirred tack or sheet. He stuck right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he did, for if he hadn't, we'd a broached to in five seconds, and that would a been wuss than the tiger. Well, the cussed beast went close up to him, and actually snuffed at him. You may judge what a relief it was to us when he left him, at last, and come for'ard. There was a sheep in the long-boat, and, as he was cruising about decks, he smelt it, and grabbed it, and was suckin' its blood in a jiffy; so we managed to get a slip-knot over him, and hauled taut on it from aloft. Then a young fellow went down with a line, and wound it round and round him, till he couldn't stir, and at last, with a heap of trouble, we got him stowed in his cage again, sheep and all; for he never let go on it.'
"And what was done for the man at the wheel?'
"Well, sir, nothing; he was only doing his duty."
'That was too bad! Now tell us another—tell us some more about shows?'
'Shows, chickabiddy? I've not seen any of late. The last was the What-Is-It.'
'Well, and what was it?'
'That is more than I can tell you. The proprietor is constantly asking the question, and has even gone to the expense of repeatedly advertising. I shouldn't wonder if, by this time, he had gotten a satisfactory response. I went and listened to the customary description. The silence that ensued was broken by a miserable skeptic, whose ill-regulated aspirations betrayed his insular prejudice, 'Vot is it? arf hanimal, eh? t'other day, I stuck a pin into him, and ses he, 'Dam yez!' Vot is it, eh?' Thus did this wretch, by implication, endeavor to unsettle the opinions of the audience, none too definite, perhaps, before.
'It is singular the distrust with which a thankless public has long come to regard the efforts of one whose aim it has ever been to combine instruction with amusement. Do you remember an itinerant expedition sent forth, years ago, by the same grand purveyor? There was a Car of Juggernaut, you may recollect, drawn by twenty little pigs of elephants. That show I also attended, and was well repaid for going. Near the entrance of the tent was a large cage, peopled with the gayest denizens of tropic life, macaws, cockatoos, paroquets—what know I?—a feathered iridescence, that sulked prehensile or perched paradisiacal in their iron house. Two youths entered; one paused admiringly. 'Come along, Jack,' remonstrated the other, hurrying him on by the arm, 'them darned things is only painted.' He wasn't going to see his friend imposed upon and his admiration extorted under false pretenses. Not if he knew it! Mr. B—— couldn't do him!
'Painted! Ay, Jonathan—and if Church or Kensett, look you, could only get at those pigments! could find the oil-and-color men that filled that order! ah me! what opaline skies! what amethystine day-breaks! what incarnadine sunsets we should have! The palette for that work was laid by angels, from tubes long hidden in the choicest crypts of the vast elaboratory, and those transcendent tints.
'Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on,'
Painted! to be sure.
'For this wicked specimen of infidelity, I was presently overpaid by a charming bit of belief. At the further end of the great tent was a case, containing divers wax effigies of eminent personages; the Czar, Prince Albert, General Spitzentuyfel—what know I? You may see them any day, (if you happen to have two York shillings,) at the sumptuous home to which they have returned from those travels. There they stood, side by side, an imposing company, forever shiny in the face, like Mrs. Wittitterly's page, and with eyes magnificently superior to any thing so sordid as speculation. All were finely befrogged, and ruched, and epauletted, and, for the most part, they sported moustaches. It happened that I had the latter adornment—a variety then—on my own mug.
While recognizing them—they were old acquaintances—I felt a gentle pull at my skirt, and looking down, was aware of a little tot, some three years old, who asked, pointing to the counterfeit presentments in the show-case: 'Did you come out o' there?' The innocent! he little knew what an extinguisher he was clapping on me. 'No, sonny,' said I, looking down on the little nose, itself a bit of wax, between two peaches. The soft impeachment proceeded—'Well, where do yer belong? do yer belong in with the bear?' for there was a plantigrade there too. But I reckon that will do for bears, this time.'
'I should think so! They'll be dreaming about 'em all night.'
'Dick, how much of all this is true?'
'The whole, barring a few verbal interpolations.'
'Wal, I've seed shows,' moralized Jonas, 'a good many on 'em; but I couldn't tell the yarns about 'em that Mr. Richard, here, does. He figurs on 'em considerable, I 'xpect.''