Caper-Sauce: A Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things.

by Fanny Fern

Now, if this was a preconcerted bashfulness, it worked admirably, for we could get nothing that was not immediately before us, unless some philanthropic fellow-sufferer, in pity, sent a pie spinning à la Ravel, down the table. Well, at any rate we had our money's worth of fun, and could bear it much better than if the parlor had been resplendent with mirrors, sofas, tête-à-têtes, and "grand pianos," which so often pave the way for a terrible disappointment as to everything else. We expected little, and got less; but those imperturbable, ghostly girls cost me, many a time and oft during the rest of my journey, a button or a hook and eye, as the picture came up before me.

Talk of Lake George. It is to Lake Champlain what a pretty, little, simpering, pink-and-white doll of a girl is to a magnificent woman, the royal sweep of whose robe about her faultless limbs as she moves, sets all the pulses wild. In mercy to us the clouds parted, and the bright sun broke through at last. You should have seen it then—the queenly Lake Champlain—with the bold, dark islands that seemed to float upon its silvery smoothness, with the heavy rain-clouds gathering up their forces, and gliding majestically away in the distance, leaving a sky as soft and blue as ever arched over Eden. On one side the broad, green, cultivated fields, stretched away fair in the sunlight; on the other, pile upon pile, were the huge, dark mountains, up whose steep sides the soft mist was wreathing itself in a thousand fantastic, graceful shapes. It was a moment such as all of us have sometimes known, when pleasure is so intense as to become almost pain; when language fails; when the eye fills, and there seems more "Bible" between the blue covers of sea and sky than you ever looked upon, or listened to before, and everywhere you turned, a voice—"the still small voice"—seemed saying, all this I made for you—for you. Now you might thunder the "terrors of the law" in my ears ten months, and it would not move me; but I feel like the veriest wretch alive, when I so intensely enjoy that for which my daily life is so paltry a return.

The boat in which we performed this trip was a Yankee boat, called "The America," and it was enough to rouse one's patriotism to go through it; the shining neatness of its decks and cabins; its efficient and well-mannered stewardess, always on hand, yet never in the way, understanding, as if by intuition, what everybody wanted; the nice, hot, orderly supper, with waiters that had ears, and knew how to use their feet. I was glad it was named "The America." I was as proud of the beautiful boat as if I had laid her keel. But all pleasures must have an end; and our destination being Montreal, we were soon to leave thrifty, go-ahead Yankee-land and all its peculiarities behind. As we passed the pretty town of Burlington, the residence of the poet "Saxe," we all waved him our most cordial good wishes, which we trust the winds bore him safely.

Upon leaving the boat for the cars, which were to take us to Montreal—Imprimis, a hideous, cavernous looking depot, with one poor, miserable lamp to help us break our necks by—a great talk of "custom-house officers examining trunks," and "smuggling," etc. What a jabbering of French when we took our seat in the cars! and what exorbitant fares for travelling through such a gloomy, God-forsaken, pine-stump, log-cabin looking country! Sleep came to my relief on a safe shoulder, after I had relieved myself by the above speech. At last we reached the funny, foreign, forlorn, cushionless ferry-boat that was to land us in Montreal, and as true as preaching, in got that woman with the seven babies, who had traveled with us all day, calm as an oyster in its shell, though the whole seven were screeching alternately and eternally, poor little toads, and still continued screeching, with some real or imaginary pain under their aprons. I did hope the poor things were going to bed somewhere; but no, there they sat, bolt upright in the ferry-boat, all in a row—those miserable seven—with their mouths wide open, sending forth the discordant-est cries, and that prolific female never even perspired! but sat with her fat hands folded over her belt, calmly accepting her conjugal destiny! And this is Montreal, said I, as they stood me up on the pier with the trunks, and half deafened with the French jabber about me, I essayed to climb up into a thing (a cross between a New York omnibus and a "Black Maria") that was waiting to convey us to the hotel. And this is Montreal. Well, I shouldn't care if it was Sodom and Gomorrah, if there's only a bed in it. When I mention that our destination was "The Donegana House," every traveller will understand that to be but another name for sumptuous fare and the most assiduous attention at the hands of the handsome landlord and his well-disciplined corps of servants.

In all honesty, I cannot say that I like Montreal. It may be a very substantially built town—I believe that is what they say of it—but one likes beauty as well as strength, and my eye ached for something ornamental in the way of flower-gardens, or, in fact, in any other way. Red coats there were in plenty, but they did not supply the deficiency. Then the never-ceasing bell-ringing, from early dawn to sunset, would soon drive me as mad as our "glorious Fourth" does every year, when gunpowder and bells and cannon have it all their own way, till one is tempted to wish one never had any "forefathers."

Of course the first thing that we saw at Montreal, as also at Quebec, was "New York Ledger Out," all over the Canadian walls; and nobody can compute the thousands they said were sold there, so that I may get a boxed ear for saying what I have about Montreal, and as there is a possibility of it, I might as well be cuffed for half a dozen things as one, and so I'll go on and free my mind. And to begin with, I confess that I never could understand that curious piece of female mechanism, an English woman, who is shocked almost into fits at the way American women move, act, and have their independent being generally; who can get along with nothing but yea and nay, thee and thou, and the most formal, walk-on-a-crack strait-lacedness of demeanor and speech, and iced at that; who is ready to hold up hands of holy horror at the idea of an American parent or guardian allowing a young girl to be left alone with her lover one second before marriage; and yet these pattern icicles will strip (I know it is a shocking word, but it is the only one that will express my meaning), upon going to a ball, or the theatre, with a freedom that would make any decent American woman crimson with shame. I have seen this again and again, and yet the prudes lecture American women upon the proprieties. Truly, great is English propriety! I saw the same English latitude in dress at the theatre in Montreal, where were assembled, with other ladies, many of the wives, daughters, and sweethearts of the English officers. Of course, in a New York theatre the awful voice of fashion would vote a ball-room dress "vulgar;" and even at the opera, where fashion goes to yawn, and whisper, and ogle, ladies, as a general thing, wear their bonnets and opera cloaks, but the fair Montrealites, having but few places of public amusement, made the most of this, and of their personal charms also, and the result was stunning, even to the eye of that model of impropriety, an American woman. Mesdames, let us have no more lectures from English lips on "American female improprieties," till you pick this big beam out of your own eyes. As to the English officers, they were magnificent specimens of manhood; tall, broad-chested, straight-limbed, healthy, muscular, lovable looking men, not at all dependent for their attractiveness either upon epaulette or uniform, with fine bass voices, and a jolly laugh that was a regular heart-warmer to hear.

Of course we saw the magnificent cathedral in Montreal. I did not think it necessary, as did a fellow-traveller, one Sir Statistic, who forever had some unhappy wretch by the button, asking about "feet" and "inches," with pencil, paper, and "guide-book"—how I hate a guide-book! I did not think it necessary to inquire how many square feet there were in this immense building; I knew that there was one pair of feet in it that were not square, and that had to support the body to which they belonged till they ached for want of a seat, as heretic feet should, I suppose, from a Montreal point of view, though the locked empty pews were very tantalizing. The sermon was in French, and if the eye of my old teacher should fall on this, I beg to say to her ladyship, that notwithstanding "she never could tell how that girl was ever going to learn French," and notwithstanding "that girl" has never rubbed up said French since she left school, yet she was able to understand the sermon, as also the French signs and labels so abundant in Montreal, as also some French remarks about herself, all the while looking as stupid as she very well knows "that girl" can. But to return to the cathedral. I hold up both hands for the largest liberty of conscience for everybody, and though I could not understand why one set of priests took such tender care of the hind lappets of another set of priests, spreading them reverently over the backs of their chairs for them, whenever they sat down, or why candles were burned in broad daylight, or why some kept sitting, and others kept kneeling, and bowing, and crossing themselves, or why some glided perpetually in and out from behind the altar, or why some swung incense, or why some were dressed in red and white, and some in black, and some in black and white, yet I was glad that this was a country where everybody could worship the way it best pleased him, and I have seen quite too much to condemn in other sects and faiths, to wish to interfere with this. The "confession boxes," some for English sins, some for French sins, some for Spanish sins, labelled each with the name of the human "father" into whose ears they were to be poured, gave me a long fit of thinking. My sins are many, but it is not there I would unburden my soul. Still, let all these religious problems work themselves out. For the priests, I must say, in all candor, that I have never seen a body of men—and I scanned them closely whenever and wherever I met them—with more purity, serenity, and perfect good-humored content expressed in their faces. Their life being active and out of doors, may in part explain this; but alas for the nuns! immured in those tomb-like walls; their cheerfullest employment listening to the moans of the sick and the groans of the dying, in the hospital wards under their roofs. I saw them come into chapel two and two, with downcast eyes, and pallid faces, shrouded by the black hood of renunciation, and kneeling on the floor chant their prayers. Oh, the unnaturalness of such seclusion for a woman! If they could but leave outside the walls, upon entering, their human feelings, and really be the cold statues they look; but God help them, they do not; they are but women still, and some of them young, and one look into their faces told the story. Nothing could exceed the neatness of the nunnery we visited, or the apartments and bedding in them for the sick and disabled. One man whom we saw there had been strapped into his chair like an infant for twenty-five years, and there he sat, with a rosary between his helpless fingers, scarcely living, and yet, perhaps, with many a year of patient waiting for release before him. The outer door of the convent was opened for us by a young novice, whose sweet face, framed in pure white muslin bands, was beautiful to see. Poor child, sighed I, and in another moment I thought of the gay, bedizened misery in Broadway, and I said to myself, as I lingered to take another look at her, perhaps 'tis better so, and left her with a lighter heart.

I should not do justice to Montreal were I to omit to mention the drive of the place, "round the mountain." A New York gentleman whom we met in Montreal took us round, and I was glad I saw the city at parting to such good advantage; distance brightened it up wonderfully, and the St. Lawrence sparkled as gayly and as innocently in the sunlight, as if its waters did not play the mischief with every traveller who tasted them. There are many fine country-seats round the mountain. We saw, too, a "haunted house" in this ride, and verily, the occupant was a ghost of taste, and had selected for himself most comfortable quarters, commanding as lovely a view as you or I or any other ghost would ever wish to see. I proposed leaving my card for him, with a view to better acquaintance, but the rest of the party were in flesh-and-blood humor, and evidently preferred returning to the manifold creature comforts to be had of our host of the Donegana House. We left next morning for Quebec, of which more anon. My kingdom for a horse-blanket on that misty morning over the ferry! Instead we had two priests, buttoned up to their heels in long black robes, which I wanted most furiously to borrow, for I was shaking with cold, and New York cold and Montreal and Quebec cold, let me tell you, are two quite different things. When you get such a cough fastened on your lungs there as I did, you may believe it.

I liked Quebec much better than Montreal. Of its splendid site it is unnecessary to speak, everybody having either seen it or read of it, and yet how tame seem all descriptions, when, standing upon the ramparts, one tries to take in at a glance the splendid panorama before him. Every inch of ground is historical, and imagination runs riot as you look at the spot where the gallant Burr bore off from the enemy the dead body of the brave Montgomery, or gaze at the monuments erected to Wolfe and Montcalm. The sentinels, pacing up and down with their measured tread, aid in keeping up the illusion; and as the wind whistles past, you start involuntarily, as if expecting a shower of bullets past your ears. And speaking of bullets, the little urchins who lie perdu on the battle-field, watching for unwary travellers, have an inexhaustible stock of them, which they assure you, with precociously grave faces, funny to see, were "actually found there," with their wan, dirty little paws; also they exhibit some shining little pebbles, baptized by them "diamonds," all of which we of course pocketed, and paid for, as if there were no humbug in the little speculators; bigger boys than they have told worse fibs in the same line of business—poor little Barnums!

The most unimaginative person could easily fancy himself in a foreign country in Quebec. The motley population—the long, black-robed priests, serving as a foil to the scarlet coats of the officers, and the white uniform worn by the band; the loose-trousered, rolling sailors; the Frenchy, peasant-looking country people, driving into market with their produce in the most ancient of lumbering-looking vehicles, with bright red raspberries, in shining little birch-bark baskets. The healthy-looking female Quebec-ites, with their fanciful dark straw hats, with a fall of black lace about their rosy faces, wonderfully enhancing the brightness of bright eyes, and making even dull ones, if any such there are, look coquettish under this pretty head-dress, so much more comfortable than our little minikin bonnets, and worn alike by mothers and daughters. Their dresses almost even with their ankles, and little or no crinoline, but such healthy, rosy faces, such luxuriant locks, and the universal little band of black velvet round the throat, of which the French women are so fond. I am sure I did not see an ugly woman in Quebec, nor one that, to my eye, was not sensibly and prettily habited, and such little fat loves of children, chattering French with their nurses. The people were as picturesque as the place, and nobody scrutinized you as they do in New York, fixing a stony stare upon you (I speak of the New York women), till they have found out everything you have on, how it is made and trimmed, and then comment upon the same to their next elbow neighbor. Every healthy and contented-looking female soul of them seemed to have business of their own, and to mind it. Now and then, to be sure, an officer or a private would take a look in passing, and sometimes we heard them say "Anglice," and that is where they did not hit it, at least with the ladies of the party, spite of light hair and eyes. A gentleman at the hotel where we stayed, said, "Those ladies are English," looking at myself and daughter. English! when we talked and laughed, ate and drank, got up and sat down, without ever once looking into a book of etiquette to see if it was "proper!"