It is in fact a curious and edifying circumstance that the great ones of this earth, if they must be held responsible for much of its unwarranted luxury, have at the same time afforded us many shining examples, not only of that general and indiscriminate parsimony which induced old Frederic William, for instance, to feed his family on pork and cabbage, but also of that more refined and esoteric species of economy which it is our task to recognize and encourage. George III. was frugal in all things, but his particular saving appears to have been in carpets, for, summer or winter, he never permitted these effeminate devices upon his bedroom floor. His great-grandfather, George I., does not figure as an austere or self-denying character; but he, too, stinted bravely in one direction,—the family wash. In that beloved court of Hanover, which he exchanged so reluctantly for the glories of St. James, there was evidently no lack of well-fed, well-paid attendants. Looking down the list, we see seventy odd postilions and stable-men, twenty cooks with six assistants, seven “officers of the cellar,” twenty-four lackeys in livery, sixteen trumpeters and fiddlers,—and only two washerwomen. Think of it,—twenty-six people to cook, and only two to wash! “But one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!” Yet the chances are that, of all the officials in that snug, jolly, dirty little Hanoverian court, those two washerwomen alone led comparatively idle lives. When balanced with the arduous labors of the seven officers of the cellar, I am convinced their position was a sinecure.
Of much the same temper as royal George was that great Earl of Northumberland, whose expense-book, which may be consulted to-day, gives us a delightful insight into some of the curious methods of past housekeeping. Germany, be it confessed, has always been a trifle backward in the matter of cleanliness, but England, until within the last two centuries, was very nearly as conservative. Appalling stories are told of the fine ladies and gentlemen who glittered in the courts of the Tudors and Stuarts, and who, in their light-hearted indifference to dirt, very nearly rivaled the prowess of the Spanish Isabella, when she vowed away her clean linen until Ostend should fall, and gave the honor of her name to that delicate yellow tint which her garments assumed in the interval. The Earl of Northumberland, however, aspired to no such uneasy asceticism. He was simply the model housekeeper of his age. Every item of expenditure in his immense establishment was rigorously defined, and no less rigorously overlooked. With his own noble hands he wrote down the exact proportion of food, fuel, and candles which each body of retainers was expected to consume; and while the upper servants appear to have fared tolerably well, the commoner sort enjoyed an unbroken monotony of salt meat, black bread, and beer. But it is in the matter of tablecloths that his grace chiefly excelled, and that he merits an honorable mention in the ranks of esoteric parsimony. For his own needs, and for the service and pleasure of his many guests,—and let us remember that he kept open house after the hospitable fashion of his day,—eight of these valuable articles were deemed amply sufficient; while in the servants’ hall one cloth a month was the allowance. Granted, if you please, that in this rather effeminate age we have grown unduly fastidious about such trivialities; yet who, looking back through the long vista of years, can contemplate without a shudder the condition of that tablecloth when its month’s servitude was over?
It is easier, however, to jeer at the honorable efforts of mankind than to arrange our own economies on a strictly satisfactory basis. Beyond a rational and healthy impulse to save on others rather than on ourselves, few of us can boast of much enlightenment in the matter, and even our one unerring guide is, in a measure, neutralized by the consistent determination of others to exert their own saving powers on us. The out-and-out miser is at best a creature of little penetration. He cheats himself sorely throughout life, and gains a sort of shabby posthumous distinction only when he is long past enjoying it. The true economist is, if we may believe Mrs. Oliphant, a rara avis, as exceptional in his way as the true genius. She endeavors, indeed, with much humility, to describe for us such a character in “The Curate in Charge;” but, while laying all possible stress on Mrs. St. John’s extraordinary proficiency, she does not for a moment venture to hint at the secret of her power. “I don’t pretend to know how she did it,” confesses this discriminating authoress, “any more than I can tell you how Shakespeare wrote ‘Hamlet.’ It was quite easy to him and to her, but if one knew how, one would be as great a poet as he was, as great an economist as she.” This is a degree of perfection to which we may not well aspire. Shakespeare and Mrs. St. John lie equally beyond our humble imitation. We do not even feel ambitious of such excellence, but cherish the more contentedly those few finely selected frugalities, those car-fares and match-stumps, those postage stamps and half sheets of paper, those dimly-lighted rooms and evaded custom-house duties, which, while they may not leave us much richer at the year’s end, have yet a distinct ethical value of their own, and, breathing an indescribable air of conscious rectitude, serve to keep us in harmony with ourselves.
SCANDERBEG.
Clio is the most shamelessly unreliable of the Muses. She selects her favorites with the autocratic partiality of the Russian Catherine, decorates them with questionable honors, enriches them with other people’s spoils, admires them to her heart’s content, and thrusts them serenely to the front to receive the approbation of the world. Occasionally she wearies of one or the other, and flings him lightly down from the pedestal he has adorned so bravely. Occasionally, having a fine feminine sense of humor, she is pleased to play with our credulity, and, dressing up a man of straw, she assures us smilingly that he is real flesh and blood, and worthy of our sincerest admiration. And all this while, her best and noblest meet with stiffly measured praise, and her strong sons are passed indifferently by. It is at least amusing to think of the relative positions occupied by the true mountaineer Scanderbeg, and the mythical mountaineer William Tell. The one sleeps unremembered with scanty, hard-won fame; the other carries such a weight of laurels that poets, wearied with singing his praises, have been driven in despair to sing the praises of those who praise him, as Coleridge piped to the Duchess of Devonshire,—
“Splendor’s fondly fostered child,”
because, in a moment of mild enthusiasm, she addressed some well-meant but highly inefficient verses to the platform from which Tell did not shoot the tyrant Gessler.
If the heroic struggle for a national life is at all times the most engrossing picture the world’s history has to show us, where shall we look for a more vivid illustration of the theme than in the long and bitter contest between cross and crescent, between the steady, relentless encroachment of the Turkoman power, and the vain and dauntless courage which opposed it? The story of the early Ottomans is one of wasteful and inexorable conquest, unrelieved by any touches of humanity, or any impulses towards a higher civilization. To the ferocious and impetuous pride of the barbarian they added an almost inconceivable wariness and patience; they knew when to wait and when to strike; they were never unduly elated by victory, and never demoralized by defeat. That strange dream of their founder Othman which won for him his Cilician wife, the mysterious vision of the full moon resting in his bosom, and of the stately tree that sprang therefrom, must have dimly hinted to the savage chief of the glory that was to be. When in his sleep he placed Constantinople as a jewel upon his swarthy finger, he felt the coming of shrouded things, and, believing the prophecy would be fulfilled in his descendant, he saluted his bride as the mother of a mighty race of kings. It was this firm conviction of future greatness which made him seek for his son Orchan a fairer and nobler wife than could be found in the black tents of his followers; and, true to the instincts of his race, he despoiled an enemy to enrich his own hearth. A Greek captain, in command of the castle of Belecoma, was betrothed to the beautiful daughter of a neighboring Christian chief. On their marriage night Othman surprised the wedding party as they rode through the dark mountain passes. The short and desperate conflict which ensued could have but one bitter ending. “The bridegroom was slain, and his Greek bride, the Lotus-flower of Brusa, was swept off by the Turkoman robbers to their lair, to become the spouse of their leader’s son.”[4]
[4] The Early Ottomans, by Dean Church.