Damascus. It seems to me now as if it were the great event of my life. It came to such a pass in after years that I could have identified any line in the Chronicle of Gargantua, and I also was the suggester, father, and founder in London of the Rabelais Club, in which were many of the best minds of the time, but beyond it all and brighter than all was that first revelation.
It should be remembered that I had already perused Sterne, much of Swift, and far more comic and satiric literature than is known to boys, and, what is far more remarkable, had thoroughly taken it all into my cor cordium by much repetition and reflection.
Mr. Hunt in time put me up to a great deal of very valuable or curious belletristic fair-lettered or black-lettered reading, far beyond my years, though not beyond my intelligence and love. We had been accustomed to pass to our back-gate of the school through Blackberry Alley—
“Blackberry Alley, now Duponceau Street,
A rose by any name will smell as sweet”—
which was tenanted principally by social evils. He removed to the corner of Seventh and Chestnut Streets. Under our schoolroom there was a gambling den. I am not aware that these surroundings had any effect whatever upon the pupils. Among the pupils in Seventh Street was one named Emile Tourtelôt. We called him Oatmeal Turtledove. I had another friend who was newly come from Connecticut. His uncle kept a hotel and often gave him Havanna cigars. We often took long walks together out of town and smoked them. He taught me the song—
“On Springfield mountains there did dwell,”
with much more quaint rural New England lore.
About this time my grandfather Leland died. I wept sadly on hearing it. My father, who went to Holliston to attend the funeral, brought me back a fine collection of
Indian stone relics and old American silver coins, for he had been in his way an antiquarian. Bon sang ne peut mentir. I had also the certificate of some Society or Order of Revolutionary soldiers to which he had belonged. One of his brothers had, as an officer, a membership of the hereditary Order of the Cincinnati. This passed to another branch of the family.
For many years the principal regular visitor at our house was Mr. Robert Stewart, a gentleman of good family and excellent education, who had during the wars with Napoleon made an adventurous voyage to France, and subsequently passed most of his life as Consul or diplomatic agent in Cuba. He had brought with him from Cuba a black Ebo-African slave named Juan. As the latter seemed to be discontented in Philadelphia, Mr. Stewart, who was kindness itself, offered to send him back freed to Cuba or Africa, and told him he might buy a modest outfit of clothing, such as suited his condition. The negro went to a first-class tailor and ordered splendid clothes, which were sent back, of course. The vindictive Ebo was so angry at this, that one summer afternoon, while Mr. Stewart slept, the former fell on him with an axe and knife, mangled his head horribly, cut the cords of his hand, &c., and thought he had killed him. But hearing his victim groan, he was returning, when he met another servant, who said, “Juan, where are you going?” He replied, “Me begin to kill Mars’ Stewart—now me go back finish him!” He was, of course, promptly arrested. Mr. Stewart recovered, but was always blind of one eye, and his right hand was almost useless. Mr. Stewart had in his diplomatic capacity seen many of the pirates who abounded on the Spanish Main in those days. He was an admirable raconteur, abounding in reminiscences. His son William inherited from an uncle a Cuban estate worth millions of dollars, and lived many years in Paris. He was a great patron of (especially Spanish) art.