Saturday, 17th.—At last our days are come to have a family resemblance. I must even confess to a kind of monotony, a stereotypedness, in their lineaments. I grow to look upon all these extravagant novelties with sang froid, to ride through the streets reclining in my volante with rarely being amused, and never startled, that Spanish gentlemen sitting against the walls in rows, or standing at the corners in groups, one and all, smile and bow, as if I were an old friend. I am not a bit shocked to see negro and Creole and Spanish little boys standing in the doors or running about at play with more backs than shirts—in short, as innocent of clothing as their great-greatest-grandpapa was when, overtaken by that unfortunate after-dinner nap, and the angel performed the delicate surgical operation of taking the still crooked rib from his side, and was not obliged to waken him by unbuttoning his jacket. I can promenade the balcony of our hotel without any uncomfortable nervousness because all the upper and under clerks in the store opposite collect at once to gape and criticize and express in some way the admiration a Cuban gentleman is conscientiously bound to feel whenever he sees a wonder. I can see the lottery venders thrust their tickets into my hand at the corner of every street when going to church, in all public places and most private ones, without one puritanical spasm. I am obliged to find Sunday turned into a general holiday without thinking an earthquake is coming to-morrow, and to hear the ship’s bell and car’s whistle mingling with the church bell without expecting a consequent and immediate steam-boiler explosion. I have even ceased wondering at this eternity of sunshine, and find it is silly to keep expecting blindness from its piercing light. I forgot to inquire why it cannot scald these deliciously cool breezes, or why these strong airs, always blowing upon the sunshine, as if it were a great plateful of hot gumbo soup, cannot manage to cool it.
If it be true that many microscopic beings which are vegetables in the shade become ripened into animals in the sun, then what happens to animals that live in the sun as much as we do? what are we to ripen to? Angels naturally—but sadly sunburnt.
This evening, my first acquaintance with a Creole, and one who is not only willing, but proud, to own it. He speaks English hesitatingly and solves a difficult riddle—it is possible for a Creole countenance to express, not only intellectuality, but genius, even spirituality. How polite are these people! Being an amateur artist, he invited me to-morrow to his studio; offered at once to contribute to my portefolio, and to lend any pictures I may choose to copy while on the island. Conversation turning upon the famous cascarilla, a powder made of eggshells, and universally used on the skin by these ladies to make black white, all the gentlemen, strange to say, advocated its use. Upon this I expressed an intention of getting some immediately and using it liberally. Señor at once replied, “Oh, I shall be only too happy to send it to you!” and sure enough, after he left, a beautifully ornamented box of the ornament, found itself on my dressing-table.
You must never express a particular admiration for any thing one of these people possesses, or he will at once present it to you, from his plantation to his pipe; and the latter is the surer test of his politeness. The other day I asked Mr. R—— where I could find a bookstore keeping some little views of Havana. The same evening came a great book containing all I wished, beautifully executed. Last evening on the Cortena, he took out a little microscope to examine some parasitic flowers I had gathered from the walls of the Cathedral (all the old walls of buildings are covered with such plants). I could not help exclaiming at the great power and convenience of the little instrument, when, what should come this morning but Mr. R—— with a bright new microscope in his hand, begging I would do him the favor to accept it!
With all our interest in this Creole, I could not help a sensation of relief, when he rose to bid us good-night. It is so difficult talking with a foreigner who can only comprehend your simplest words, which express your simplest ideas. You feel like a child talking to a child, knowing all the time that you are without the innocence or beauty of children. And this repression of thought, instead of repressing the voice, gives one an unconquerable instinct to raise it to its highest pitch. One seems to think that an immense quantity of sound will hide an immense lack of sense; that they do not understand because they do not hear; that one is not so dumb as they are deaf.
Sunday, March 18th.—For the first time the heat is oppressive, enervating. We did not even summon courage for the early mass, the only religious service in a city which can boast one distinguishing peculiarity—it practises as much as it preaches, for it almost never preaches at all. What is better than the Cortina when you talk of fresh airs, and fresh shade, and fresh silence? So for the Cortina we set out, stopping by the way at the Cathedral. Here we find half a dozen sincere-looking devotees kneeling in different parts of the quaint, cool, serene temple; humble their birth, no doubt, as well as posture, for they kneel upon the bare marble, with no mat and no appearance of discomfort. When prayers are said and crossing done, they depart, silent and unnoticed as they enter; and we, with only the gratification of curiosity where worship should be, do the same.
Arrived at the promenade, we find an insinuating mist and an unusual event, a south wind, legitimatizing all this languor. Everybody in Havana pouts when the wind hails from the equator, and shivers when it comes out of a temperate zone. Both changes are so slight that a Northerner, accustomed as he is to the fiercely rapid changes at home, observes nothing different from usual. The ordinary wind here, which baffles all the scorching proclivities of this sunshine; which comes fresh and unworn over the salt and laboring seas; which makes this island an Eden of never-failing green,—this strong and pure, and gentle, as all that is strong should be, angel of mercy, is always an east wind. I am glad that I came to Havana to learn that the sole errand of an east wind in the world is not to manufacture influenzas, consumptions, gout-twinges, blue devils, and growlery-mongers.
To-night a long conversation with Father C—— who has just returned from an expedition to the interior for the purpose of collecting contributions for “me chur-r-r-rch” in Ireland. We talked of the Eucharist, of confessions, of indulgences, of rites and popes; in half an hour I learned more of Romanism from a Romanist’s point of view, than in a liberal share of twenty-eight years of my former life. He confessed that the corruptions of the church forced on the Reformation. I am sure the wary priest rather more than half expected to convert me, and I amused myself down in my sleeve at his amiable hallucination, while at the same time I reflected how surely the fogs of prejudice and sectarianism clear away before the inevitably advancing sun of knowledge.