not a few clergymen, and most other highly representative good men take in having a high character is the exquisite secret consciousness of its being utterly undeserved. They love acting. Let no man say that the love of the drama is founded on the artificial or sham. I have heard the Reverend Histriomastix war and batter this on the pulpit; but the utterance per se was an actual, living lie. He was acting while he preached. Love or hunger is not more an innate passion than acting. The child in the nursery, the savage by the Nyanza or in Alaska, the multitude of great cities, all love to bemask and seem what they are not. Crush out carnivals and masked balls and theatres, and lo, you! the disguising and acting and masking show themselves in the whole community. Mawworm and Aminidab Sleek then play a rôle in every household, and every child becomes a wretched little Roscius. Verily I say unto you, the fewer actors the more acting; the fewer theatres the more stages, and the worse. Lay it to heart, study it deeply, you who believe that the stage is an open door to hell, for the chances are ninety and nine to one that if this be true you will end by consciously or unconsciously keeping a private little gate thereunto. Beloved, put this in thy pipe and fumigate it, that acting in some form is a human instinct which cannot be extinguished, which never has been and never will be; and this being so, is it not better, with Dr. Bellows, to try to put it into proper form than to crush it? Truly it has been proved that with this, as with a certain other unquenchable penchant of humanity, when you suppress a score of professionals you create a thousand zealous amateurs. There was never in this world a stage on which mere acting was
more skillfully carried out than in all England under Cromwell, or in Philadelphia under the Quakers. Eccentric dresses, artificial forms of language, separate and “peculiar” expressions of character unlike those of “the world,” were all only giving a form to that craving for being odd and queer which forms the soul of masking and acting. Of course people who act all the time object to the stage. Le diable ne veut pas de miroir.
The gypsy of society not always, but yet frequently, retains a keen interest in his wild ancestry. He keeps up the language; it is a delightful secret; he loves now and then to take a look at “the old thing.” Closely allied to the converted sinners are the aficionados, or the ladies and gentlemen born with unconquerable Bohemian tastes, which may be accounted for by their having been themselves gypsies in preëxistent lives. No one can explain how or why it is that the aficion comes upon them. It is in them. I know a very learned man in England, a gentleman of high position, one whose name is familiar to my readers. He could never explain or understand why from early childhood he had felt himself drawn towards the wanderers. When he was only ten years old he saved up all his little store of pence wherewith to pay a tinker to give him lessons in Romany, in which tongue he is now a Past Grand. I know ladies in England and in America, both of the blood and otherwise, who would give up a ball of the highest flight in society, to sit an hour in a gypsy tent, and on whom a whispered word of Romany acts like wild-fire. Great as my experience has been I can really no more explain the intensity of this yearning, this rapport, than I can fly. My own fancy for gypsydom is faint and feeble compared
to what I have found in many others. It is in them like the love for opium, for music, for love itself, or for acting. I confess that there is to me a nameless charm in the strangely, softly flowing language, which gives a sweeter sound to every foreign word which it adopts, just as the melody of a forest stream is said to make more musical the songs of the birds who dwell beside it. Thus Wentzel becomes Wenselo and Anselo; Arthur, Artaros; London, Lundra; Sylvester, Westaros. Such a phrase as “Dordi! dovelo adoi?” (See! what is that there?) could not be surpassed for mere beauty of sound.
It is apropos of living double lives, and playing parts, and the charm of stealing away unseen, like naughty children, to romp with the tabooed offspring of outlawed neighbors, that I write this, to introduce a letter from a lady, who has kindly permitted me to publish it. It tells its own story of two existences, two souls in one. I give it as it was written, first in Romany, and then in English:—
Febmunti 1st.
Miro Kamlo Pal,—Tu tevel mishto ta shun te latcherdum me akovo kūrikus tacho Romany tan akai adré o gav. Buti kāmaben lis sas ta dikk mori foki apopli; buti kushti ta shun moro jib. Mi-duvel atch apā mande, sī ne shomas pash naflo o Gorginess, vonk’ akovo vias. O waver divvus sa me viom fon a swell saleskro hāben, dikdom me dui Romani chia beshin alay apré a longo skamin adré --- Square. Kālor yākkor, kālor balyor, lullo diklas apré i sherria, te lender trushnia aglal lender piria. Mi-duvel, shomas pāsh divio sār kamaben ta dikav lender! Avo! kairdum o wardomengro hatch i graia te sheldom avrī, “Come here!” Yon penden te me sos a rāni ta dūkker te vian sig adosta. Awer me saldom te pendom adré Romanis: “Sarishān miri dearis! Tute don’t jin mandy’s a Romany!” Yon nastis patser lende kania nera yakkor. “Mi-duvel! Sā se tiro nav? putchde yeck. “Miro nav se Britannia Lee.” Kenna-sig yon diktas te me sos tachi, te penden amengi lender navia shanas M. te D. Lis sos duro pā lende ta jin sā a Romani rāni astis jiv amen Gorgios, te dikk sa Gorgious, awer te vel kushti Romani ajā, te tevel buoino lakis kāloratt. Buti rakkerdém apré mori foki, buti nevvi, buti savo sos rumado, te beeno, te puredo, savo sos vino fon o puro tem, te būtikumi aja kekkeno sos rakkerben sa gudli. M. pende amengi, “Mandy don’t jin how tute can jiv among dem Gorgies.” Pukerdom anpāli: “Mandy dont jiv, mandy mérs kairin amen lender.” Yon mangades mande ta well ta dikk a len, adré lendes kér apré o chūmba kai atchena pa o wen. Pende M., “Av miri pen ta hā a bitti sār mendi. Tute jins the chais are only kérri arātti te Kūrrkus.”
Sunday sala miri pen te me ghion adoi te latchedon o ker. O tan sos bitto, awer sā i Romanis pende, dikde boro adosta paller jivin adré o wardo. M. sos adoi te lakis roms dye, a kūshti pūri chai. A. sar shtor chavia. M. kerde hāben sā mendui viom adoi. I pūri dye sos mishto ta dikk mande, yoi kāmde ta jin sār trūstal mande. Rakkerdem buti ajā, te yoi pende te yoi né kekker latchde a Romani rāni denna mande. Pendom me ke laki shan adré society kūmi Romani rānia, awer i galderli Gorgios ne jinena lis.
Yoi pende sā miri pen dikde simlo Lusha Cooper, te siggerde lākis kāloratt būtider denna me. “Tute don’t favor the Coopers, miri dearie! Tute pens tiri dye rummerd a mush navvered Smith. Wās adovo the Smith as lelled kellin te kurin booths pāsher Lundra Bridge? Sos tute beeno adré Anglaterra?” Pūkkerdom me ke puri dye sār jināv me trūstal miri kokeri te simensi. Tu jinsa shan kek Gorgies sā longi-bavoli apré genealogies, sā i puri Romani dyia. Vonka foki nāstis chin lende adré lilia, rikkerena lende aduro adré lendros sherria. Que la main droit perd recueille la gauche.
“Does tute jin any of the ---’s?” pende M. “Tute dikks sim ta ---’s juva.” “Ne kekker, yois too pauno,’ pens A. “It’s chomani adré the look of her,” pende M.
Dikkpāli miro pal. Tu jinsa te --- sos i chi savo dudikabinde mānūsh, navdo --- būti wongur. Vānka yoi sos lino apré, o Beshomengro pende ta kér laki chiv apré a shuba sims Gorgios te adenne lelled lāki adré a tan sar desh te dui gorgi chaia. --- astissa pen i chai savo chordé lestis lovvo. Vānka yoi vias adré o tan, yoi ghias sig keti laki, te pende: “Jināva me lāki talla lākis longi vangusti, te rinkeni mui. Yoi sos stardi dui beshya, awer o Gorgio kekker las leski vongur pāli.”
Savo-chirus mendi rākkerden o wuder pirido, te trin manushia vian adré. . . . Pali lenders sarishans, M. shelde avrī: “Av ta misali, rikker yer skammins longo tute! Mrs. Lee, why didn’t tute bring yer rom?” “Adenna me shom kek rumadi.” “Mi-duvel, Britannia!” pende --- “M. pende amengy te tu sos rumado.” “M. didn’t dukker tacho vonka yoi dukkerd adovo. Yois a dinneli,” pendom me. Te adenne sar mendi saden atūt M. Hāben sos kushto, loim a kani, ballovas te puvengros, te kushto curro levina. Liom mendi kushto paiass dré moro pūro Romany dromus. Rinkenodiro sos, kérde mande pāsh ta ruv, shomas sā kushto-bākno ta atch yecker apopli men mori foki. Sos “Britannia!” akai, te “Britannia!” doi, te sār sā adré o púro cheirus, vonka chavi shomas. Ne patserava me ta Dante chinde:—
“Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi dei tempi felici.”Talla me shomas kūshto-bākno ta pen apré o puro chirus. Sar lende piden miro kāmaben Romaneskaes, sar gudlo; talla H. Yov pende nastis kér lis, pā yuv kennā lias tabūti. Kushto dikin Romnichal yuv. Tu tevel jin lesti sārakai pā Romani, yuv se sa kālo. Te avec l’air indefinnissable du vrai Bohemien. Yuv patserde me ta piav miro sastopen wavescro chirus. Kanā shomas pā misali, geero vias keti ian; dukkeriben kamde yov. Hunali sos i pūri dye te pendes amergi, “Beng lel o pūro jūkel for wellin vānka mendi shom hāin, te kennā tu shan akai, miri Britannia Yov ne tevel lel kek kūshto bak. Mandy’ll pen leste a wafedo dukkerin.” Adoi A. putcherde mengy, “Does tute dūkker or sā does tute kér.” “Miri pen, mandy’ll pen tute tacho. Mandy dukkers te dudikabins te kérs būti covvas. Shom a tachi Romani chovihani.” “Tacho! tacho!” saden butider. Miri pen te me rikkerdem a boro matto-morricley pā i chavis. Yon beshden alay apré o purj, hāis lis. Rinkeno picture sas, pendom dikkav mande te miri penia te pralia kennā shomas bitti. Latcherdom me a tāni kāli chavi of panj besh chorin levina avrī miro curro. Dikde, sār lakis bori kāli yakka te kāli balia simno tikno Bacchante, sa yoi prasterde adrom.
Pendom parako pā moro kūshto-bākeno chirus—“kushto bak” te “kūshto divvus.” Mendi diom moro tachopen ta well apopli, te kān viom kérri. Patserāva dikk tute akai tallá o prasterin o ye graia. Kūshto bāk te kūshto rātti.
Sarja tiro pen,
Britannia Lee.
TRANSLATION.
February 1st.
My dear Friend,—You will be glad to learn that I, within the week, found a real Romany family (place) here in this town. Charming it was to find our folk again; pleasant it was to listen to our tongue. The Lord be on me! but I was half sick of Gentiles and their ways till this occurred. The other day, as I was returning from a highly aristocratic breakfast, where we had winter strawberries with the crême de la crême, I saw two gypsy women sitting on a bench in --- Square. Black eyes, black hair, red kerchiefs on their heads, their baskets on the ground before their feet. Dear Lord! but I was half wild with delight at seeing them. Aye, I made the coachman stop the horses, and cried aloud, “Come here!” They thought I was a lady to fortune-tell, and came quickly. But I laughed, and said in Romany, “How are you, my dears? You don’t know that I am a gypsy.” They could not trust their very ears or eyes! At length one said, “My God! what is your name?” “My name’s Britannia Lee,” and, at a glance, they saw that I was to be trusted, and a Romany. Their names, they said, were M. and D. It was hard (far) for them to understand how a Romany lady could live among Gentiles, and look so Gorgious, and yet be a true gypsy withal, and proud of her dark blood. Much they talked about our people; much news I heard,—much as to who was married and born and buried, who was come from the old country, and much more. Oh, never was such news so sweet to me! M. said, “I don’t know how you can live among the Gentiles.” I answered, “I don’t live; I die, living in their houses with them.” They begged me then to come and see them in their home, upon the hill, where they are wintering. M. said, “Come, my sister, and eat a little with us. You know that the women are only at home at night and on Sunday.”
Sunday morning, sister and I went there, and found the house. It was a little place, but, as they said, after the life in wagons it seemed large. M. was there, and her husband’s mother, a nice old woman; also A., with four children. M. was cooking as we entered. The old mother was glad to see us; she wished to know all about us. All talked, indeed, and that quite rapidly, and she said that I was the first Romany lady [279] she had ever seen. I said to her that in society are many gypsy ladies to be found, but that the wretched Gentiles do not know it.
She said that my sister looked like Lusha Cooper, and showed her dark blood more than I do. “You don’t favor the Coopers, my dearie. You say your mother married a Smith. Was that the Smith who kept a dancing and boxing place near London Bridge? Were you born in England?” I told the old mother all I knew about myself and my relations. You know that no Gorgios are so long-winded on genealogies as old mothers in Rom. When people don’t write them down in their family Bibles, they carry them, extended, in their heads. Que la main droit perd recueille la gauche.
“Do you know any of the ---’s?” said M. “You look like ---’s wife.” “No; she’s too pale,” said A. “It’s something in the look of her,” said M.
Reflect, my brother. You know that --- was the woman who “cleaned out” a man named --- of a very large sum [280] by “dukkeripen” and “dudikabin.” “When she was arrested, the justice made her dress like any Gorgio, and placed her among twelve Gentile women. The man who had been robbed was to point out who among them had stolen his money. When she came into the room, he went at once to her, and said, ‘I know her by her long skinny fingers and handsome face.’ She was imprisoned for two years, but the Gorgio never recovered his money.”
What time we reasoned thus, the door undid, and three men entered. After their greetings, M. cried, “Come to table; bring your chairs with you!” “Mrs. Lee, why didn’t you bring your husband?” “Because I am not married.” “Lord! Britannia! Why, M. told me that you were.” “Ah, M. didn’t fortune right when she fortuned that. She’s a fool,” quoth I. And then we all laughed like children. The food was good: chickens and ham and fried potatoes, with a glass of sound ale. We were gay as flies in summer, in the real old Romany way. ’T was “Britannia” here, “Britannia” there, as in the merry days when we were young. Little do I believe in Dante’s words,—
“Nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi dei tempi felici.”“There is no greater grief
Than to remember by-gone happy days.”For it is always happiness to me to think of good old times when I was glad. All drank my health, Romaneskaes, together, with a shout,—all save H., who said he had already had too much. Good-looking gypsy, that! You’d know him anywhere for Romany, he is so dark,—avec l’air indéfinissable du vrai Bohemien. He promised to drink my health another time.
As we sat, a gentleman came in below, wishing to have his fortune told. I remember to have read that the Pythoness of Delphian oracle prepared herself for dukkerin, or presaging, by taking a few drops of cherry-laurel water. (I have had it prescribed for my eyes as R aq. laur. cerasi. fiat lotio,—possibly to enable me to see into the future.) Perhaps it was the cherry-brandy beloved of British matrons and Brighton school-girls, taken at Mutton’s. Mais revenons à nos moutons. The old mother had taken, not cherry-laurel water, nor even cherry-brandy, but joly good ale, and olde, which, far from fitting her to reveal the darksome lore of futurity, had rendered her loath to leave the festive board of the present. Wrathful was the sybil, furious as the Vala when waked by Odin, angry as Thor when he missed his hammer, to miss her merriment. “May the devil take the old dog for coming when we are eating, and when thou art here, my Britannia! Little good fortune will he hear this day. Evil shall be the best I’ll promise him.” Thus spake the sorceress, and out she went to keep her word. Truly it was a splendid picture this of “The Enraged Witch,” as painted by Hexenmeister von Teufel, of Höllenstadt,—her viper eyes flashing infernal light and most unchristian fire, shaking les noirs serpents de ses cheveux, as she went forth. I know how, in an instant, her face was beautiful with welcome, smiling like a Neapolitan at a cent; but the poor believer caught it hot, all the same, and had a sleepless night over his future fate. I wonder if the Pythoness of old, when summoned from a petit souper, or a holy prophet called out of bed of a cold night, to decide by royal command on the fate of Israel, ever “took it out” on the untimely king by promising him a lively, unhappy time of it. Truly it is fine to be behind the scenes and see how they work the oracle. For the gentleman who came to consult my witch was a man of might in the secrets of state, and one whom I have met in high society. And, oh! if he had known who it was that was up-stairs, laughing at him for a fool!
While she was forth, A. asked me, “Do you tell fortunes, or what?” “My sister,” I replied, “I’ll tell thee the truth. I do tell fortunes. I keep a house for the purchase of stolen goods. I am largely engaged in making counterfeit money and all kinds of forgery. I am interested in burglary. I lie, swear, cheat, and steal, and get drunk on Sunday. And I do many other things. I am a real Romany witch.” This little confession of faith brought down the house. “Bravo! bravo!” they cried, laughing.
Sister and I had brought a great tipsy-cake for the children, and they were all sitting under a table, eating it. It was a pretty picture. I thought I saw in it myself and all my sisters and brothers as we were once. Just such little gypsies and duckling Romanys! And now! And then! What a comedy some lives are,—yea, such lives as mine! And now it is you who are behind the scenes; anon, I shall change with you. Va Pierre, vient Pierette. Then I surprised a little brown maiden imp of five summers stealing my beer, and as she was caught in the act, and tore away shrieking with laughter, she looked, with her great black eyes and flowing jetty curling locks, like a perfect little Bacchante.
Then we said, “Thank you for the happy time!” “Good luck!” and “Good day!” giving our promises to come again. So we went home all well. I hope to see you at the races here. Good luck and good-night also to you.
Always your friend,
Britannia Lee
I have somewhat abbreviated the Romany text of this letter, and Miss Lee herself has somewhat polished and enlarged the translation, which is strictly fit and proper, she being a very different person in English from what she is in gypsy, as are most of her kind. This letter may be, to many, a strange lesson, a quaint essay, a social problem, a fable, an epigram, or a frolic,—just as they choose to take it. To me it is a poem. Thou, my friend, canst easily understand why all that is wild and strange, out-of-doors, far away by night, is worthy of being Tennysoned or Whitmanned. If there be given unto thee stupendous blasted trees, looking in the moonlight like the pillars of a vast and ghostly temple; the fall of cataracts down awful rocks; the wind wailing in wondrous language or whistling Indian melody all night on heath, rocks, and hills, over ancient graves and through lonely caves, bearing with it the hoot of the night-owl; while over all the stars look down in eternal mystery, like eyes reading the great riddle of the night which thou knowest not,—this is to thee like Ariel’s song. To me and to us there are men and women who are in life as the wild river and the night-owl, as the blasted tree and the wind over ancient graves. No man is educated until he has arrived at that state of thought when a picture is quite the same as a book, an old gray-beard jug as a manuscript, men, women, and children as libraries. It was but yester morn that I read a cuneiform inscription
printed by doves’ feet in the snow, finding a meaning where in by-gone years I should have seen only a quaint resemblance. For in this by the ornithomanteia known of old to the Chaldean sages I saw that it was neither from arrow-heads or wedges which gave the letters to the old Assyrians. When thou art at this point, then Nature is equal in all her types, and the city, as the forest, full of endless beauty and piquancy,—in sæcula sæculorum.
I had written the foregoing, and had enveloped and directed it to be mailed, when I met in a lady-book entitled “Magyarland” with the following passages:—
“The gypsy girl in this family was a pretty young woman, with masses of raven hair and a clear skin, but, notwithstanding her neat dress and civilized surroundings, we recognized her immediately. It is, in truth, not until one sees the Romany translated to an entirely new form of existence, and under circumstances inconsistent with their ordinary lives, that one realizes how completely different they are from the rest of mankind in form and feature. Instead of disguising, the garb of civilization only enhances the type, and renders it the more apparent. No matter what dress they may assume, no matter what may be their calling, no matter whether they are dwellers in tents or houses, it is impossible for gypsies to disguise their origin. Taken from their customary surroundings, they become at once an anomaly and an anachronism, and present such an instance of the absurdity of attempting to invert the order of nature that we feel more than ever how utterly different they are from the human race; that there is a key to their strange life which we do not possess,—a secret free masonry that renders them more isolated than the veriest savages dwelling in the African wilds,—and a hidden mystery hanging over them and their origin that we shall never comprehend. They are indeed a people so entirely separate and distinct that, in whatever clime or quarter of the globe they may be met with, they are instantly recognized; for with them forty centuries of association with civilized races have not succeeded in obliterating one single sign.”