Ah! here we are at the pier, at last. And now they emerge, our night-travellers, from state-room and cabin, into the fresh cool air of the morning. Venus and Apollo! what a crew. Solemn as a hearse, surly as an Englishman, blue as an indigo-bag! There’s a poor shivering babe, twitched from a warm bed by an ignorant young mother, to encounter the chill air of morning, with only a flimsy covering of lace and embroidery—there’s a languid southern belle, creeping out, à la tortoise, and turning up her little aristocratic nose as if she sniffed a pestilence—there’s an Irish bride (green as Erin) in a pearl-coloured silk dress surmounted by a coarse blanket shawl—there’s a locomotive hour-glass (alias a dandy), a blue-eyed, cravat-choked, pantaloon be-striped, vest-garnished, disgusting “institution!” (give him and his quizzing glass plenty of sea-room)—and there’s a clergyman, God bless his care-worn face, with a valise full of salted-down sermons and the long-coveted “leave of absence”—there’s an editor, kicking a newsboy for bringing “coals to Newcastle” in the shape of “extras”—and there’s a good-natured, sunshiny “family man,” carrying the baby, and the carpet-bag, and the travelling shawl, lest his pretty little wife should get weary—and there’s a poor bonnetless emigrant, stunned by the Babel sounds, inquiring, despairingly, the name of some person whom nobody knows or cares for—and last, but not least, there’s the wiry old maid “Martha,” asking “thim porters on the pier,” with tears in her faded green eyes, to be “keerful of her bandbox and umberil.”
On they go. Oh, how much of joy—how much of sorrow, in each heart’s unwritten history.
A GOTHAM REVERIE.
Babel, what a place!—what a dust—what a racket—what a whiz-buzz! What a throng of human beings! “Jew and Gentile, bond and free;” every nation the sun ever shone upon, here represented. What pampered luxury—what squalid misery, on the same pavé. What unwritten histories these myriad hearts might unfold. How much of joy, how much of sorrow, how much of crime. Now, queenly beauty sweeps past, in sin’s gay livery. Cursed be he who first sent her forth, to walk the earth, with her woman’s brow shame-branded. Fair mother—pure wife—frown scornfully at her if you can; my heart aches for her. I see one who once slept sweet and fair on a mother’s loving breast. I see one whose bitterest tear may never wash her stain away. I see one on whom mercy’s gate is for ever shut, by her own unrelenting, unforgiving sex. I see one who was young, beautiful, poor and friendless. They who make long prayers, and wrap themselves up in self-righteousness, as with a garment, turn a deaf ear, as she pleads for the bread of honest toil. Earth looks cold, and dark, and dreary; feeble feet stumble wearily on life’s rugged, thorny road. Oh, judge her not harshly, pure but frigid censor; who shall say that with her desolation—her temptation—your name too might not have been written “Magdalen.”
SICKNESS COMES TO YOU IN THE CITY.
How unmercifully the heavy cart-wheels rattle over the stony pavements; how unceasing the tramp of busy, restless feet; how loud and shrill the cries of mirth and traffic. You turn heavily to your heated pillow, murmuring, “Would God it were night!” The pulse of the great city is stilled at last; and balmy sleep, so coveted, seems about to bless you—when hark! a watchman’s rattle is sprung beneath your window, evoking a score of stentorian voices, followed by a clanging bell, and a rushing engine, announcing a conflagration. Again you turn to your sleepless pillow; your quivering nerves and throbbing temples sending to your pale lips this prayer, “Would to God it were morning!”
Death comes, and releases you. You are scarcely missed. Your next-door neighbour, who has lived within three feet of you for three years, may possibly recollect having seen the doctor’s chaise before your door, for some weeks past; then, that the front blinds were closed; then, that a coffin was carried in; and he remarks to his wife, as he takes up the evening paper, over a comfortable dish of tea, that “he shouldn’t wonder if neighbour Grey were dead,” and then they read your name and age in the bill of mortality, and wonder “what disease you died of;” and then the servant removes the tea-tray, and they play a game of whist, and never think of you again, till they see the auctioneer’s flag floating before your door.
The house is sold; and your neighbour sees your widow and little ones pass out over the threshold in tears and sables (grim poverty keeping them silent company); but what of that? The world is full of widows and orphans; one can’t always be thinking of a charnel-house; and so he returns to his stocks and dividends, and counting-room, and ledger, in a philosophical state of serenity.
Some time after, he is walking with a friend; and meets a lady in rusty mourning, carrying a huge bundle, from which “slop work” is seen protruding (a little child accompanies her, with its feet out at the toes). She has a look of hopeless misery on her fine but sad features. She is a lady still (spite of her dilapidated wardrobe and her bundle). Your neighbour’s companion touches his arm, and says, “Good God! isn’t that Grey’s widow?” He glances at her carelessly, and answers, “Should n’t wonder;” and invites him home to dine on trout, cooked in claret, and hot-house peaches, at half a dollar a-piece.
SICKNESS COMES TO YOU IN THE COUNTRY.