Here comes an Italian, balancing a shelf-load of plaster Cupids and Venuses, and dove-circled vases. How mournfully his dark eyes look out from beneath his tasseled cap, as he lifts his burden from his head for a momentary reprieve. They tell of weary feet, a heavy heart, and a light purse. They tell, with a silent reproach, that our hearts are as cold as our clime. Oh! not all, good Pietro! For your sake, I’ll make myself mistress of that sleeping child; though, truth to say, the sculptor who moulded it has most wofully libelled Nature. Would I could see the sunny skies upon which your dark eyes first opened, and all the glorious forms that beauty wears in your vine-clad home beyond the seas.
How the pedestrians hurry along!—merchants to their cares and their counting-rooms, and shop-girls and seamstresses to their prisons. Here comes a group of pale-faced city children, on their way to school. God bless the little unfortunates! Their little feet should be crushing the strawberries, ripe and sweet, on some sunny hillslope, where breath of now-mown hay and clover blossoms would give roses to their cheeks and strength and grace to their cramped and half-developed limbs. Poor little creatures! they never saw a patch of blue sky bigger than their satchels, or a blade of grass that dared to grow without permission from the mayor, aldermen, and common council. Poor little skeletons! tricked out like the fashion-prints, and fed on diluted skim-milk and big dictionaries—I pity you.
A hand-organ! ground by a modern Peter Schlemel, and accompanied by a woman whose periphery it would be vain to compute by inches, singing,
“I’d be a butterfly.”
Ye gods and graces! if ye heed her prayer, grant that she alight not on my two-lips! Now she is warbling,
“Home! sweet home,”
as if she wasn’t making it for me, this minute, a perfect place of torment! Avaunt! thou libel upon feminity!—creep into corduroys, and apply for the office of town crier.
A funeral! That is nothing uncommon in a densely populated city; so, nobody turns to look, as it winds along, slowly, as will the sad future to that young husband—that father of an hour. Sad legacy to him, those piles of tiny robes, and dainty little garments, whose elaborate and delicate embroidery was purchased at such a fearful price. Nature will have her revenge for a reckless disregard of her laws; so, there she lies, the young mother, with the long looked for babe upon her girlish breast. Sad comment upon a foolish vanity.
What have we here?—A carriage at the door? Ah! I recollect; there was a wedding at that house last night—lights flashing, music swelling—white arms gleaming through tissue textures, and merry voices breaking in upon my slumbers late in the small hours.
Ah, yes—and this is the bride’s leave-taking. How proud and important that young husband looks, as he stands on the steps, with the bride’s travelling shawl upon his arm, giving his orders to the coachman! Now he casts an impatient glance back through the open door into the hall, half jealous of the tear sparkling in the young wife’s eye, as the mother presses her tenderly to her breast, as the father lays the hand of blessing on her sunny head, and brothers and sisters, half glad, half sad, offer their lips for a good-bye kiss.