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Have you ever watched a man going down? It is an interesting study, and a unique one, for the reason that no other animal has language by which to express the various stages at which he arrives before dropping out of the Procession of Life. Nor has any animal so many contrivances with which to dodge and play at hide and seek with Death. The earthly affection which abides in man, seems to overmaster all the other emotions—faith, hope, everything,—and he who firmly believes in a future existence is found as frantic in his efforts to delay its coming, as the veriest agnostic. Then faith seems to be a theological treasure of this earth, rather than a treasure of the future. The man with no tie to bind his soul to this planet is as reluctant to leave it as he who has the strongest ties of friendship, love and fatherhood. All mankind seem to have that dread of it which their children have of being put in a dark closet. But I am not going to investigate the mysterious dread of death, or the even more mysterious attachment to life. I am merely recalling to my memory men whom I have seen stagger awhile and then fall out of the line of life. There is no more pathetic sight to me, than a man when he first finds that he is failing. Like a child, he cannot understand it. This strange feeling that he has never had before; that pain that must come from this or that—they are all so new to him. He cannot realize that he is failing, and least of all can he realize the dread truth that it is time for him to fail. To a man's own mind he is always at that mythical stage, his "prime," as long as health lasts. It is piteous to hear his excuses for his failing body—it was this imprudence, it was that cold, it was too much or too little exercise—he cannot understand that it is the herald of the Messenger, and that a little way off through the mist he might see the Messenger himself holding the Lotus flower in his hand. It is more piteous still to see him, like a captured animal, seeking some way of escape through the bars. He must get a horse—it is only exercise he wants; he must have a longer vacation—it is only rest he wants; he must have more society—it is only recreation he needs; he must have less society—it is only quiet he requires. His blindness is inexplicable. He will walk in a garden and point out to you a tree that cannot last longer than such a time; he will point to a worn-out beast of burden that must die at such a time; he knows the death date of everything that springs from earth except himself. In his blind hope he grasps at the worst of straws. No new universal panacea comes out that he does not seize on it, and that he is not sure, for a little while is doing him good. At last he weakens in the struggle and is taken to the rear. The procession of Life moves on; he never joins it again. If all this had happened to only one man, the World would be in tears. As it happens to all men, the World hardly gives it a thought. But to him, that One Man is all the world, and it is hard to get his thoughts away from himself. As the Procession of Life passes on, and the hum of its marching columns grows fainter on his ears, let us hope that there may come to him that unworldly quiet that Death pityingly sends in advance, and amid which Hope steals noiselessly away from the bedside to make room for Faith. And in which he may take the pale flower from the hand of the Messenger, and following him through the dawn of a new birth, see another Hand, holding out to him the purple amaranth of Eternal Life.
OBSERVATIONS OF RETIRED VETERAN VIII
Rest! Ah, what a delicious word to the sick and wearied man. Rest in mind and body! How unsatisfactory appear the gaudy pictures of the dreamer of Patmos compared with the simple words of the Master, "I will give you rest." I can hardly say why I selected Hampton for rest. I knew nobody here, and had never been here. But somehow I had taken up the impression that it was one of those old East Virginia towns that had been blown ashore by the tempest of civil war and lay stranded on the beach of the briny ocean of life. And that was the sort of place that quiet was to be found in. My first night was a happy confirmation of my choice. Standing on the wharf at which lay a little steamer, the scene was beautiful. The new moon hung in the west and cast its glittering line over the water for miles and miles away. Thick in the little harbor lay the slender masts of vessels with steady lights glowing in their rigging. Across the narrow bay stood the Normal School with its three stories brightly lighted, and further away was the gigantic Soldiers' Home with a thousand lights burning. To the east was the long bridge across Hampton creek, with every few minutes a lighted omnibus or a pair of carnage lamps going leisurely across. Further yet was a railroad train lighted and flying across the trestle bridge. At the opening of the little bay were fisher boats, coming in with all sail spread, the loud laughter and chaffing of the men easily heard at this distance. Turning inland, you see a broad street, with shade trees on each side casting dark shadows. The lights twinkle its whole length and at one point there is a bright spot—a pretty, white hotel with a treble deck of verandahs. That is my home for many days to come and there I am to be at rest. The call of the bugle sounds on the night air; it is the "taps" at the Soldiers' Home; the salt water is beating with lazy monotone against the shore; the fisherman have tied up their boats; the last omnibus has crossed the bridge; the young moon is getting to her bed and I turn my face toward the long street and the bright hotel. A man of high-toned and poetic mind would here insert something about his thoughts turning to his mountain home. Alas! mine are turned with eager curiosity to what my breakfast tomorrow would be, reflecting as I do that I am now in the land, or rather water, of oysters, soft crabs and fish. After all, of what common clay we are made!
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The redeeming feature of ill-health, to me, has been that for the last few months I have been thrown with many invalids and enjoyed their confidence to the fullest, (and sometimes the most, to some extent). There seems to be a sort of free-masonry among sick people by which they at once become friendly and familiar. There is, also, if you only knew it, an aristocracy of ill-health; that is, a man with two complaints stands much higher with his fellow invalids than a man with one; and a man who has been sick for five years stands immeasurably higher than a mere cadet who has not been sick six months. Having only a two years' standing, I was forced to bear the contempt which I received from chronic cases, but I repaid it with interest on some evidently shoddy invalids, who were trying to work their way into society on an attack of only a few weeks duration. I remember one case, however, in which our whole aristocratic circle was swept into insignificance by a little lady, whom I saw after I left Hampton, and who didn't weigh ninety pounds. She had been an invalid, she said, for fifteen years, and while I do not recollect precisely her afflictions, it appears to me that she had had chronic trichnia spiralis for that length of time, with intermittent cerebro spinal meningitis tending towards hydrophobia. This imposing patient cowed the whole invalid circle. But one man showed the slightest resistance, and that was old man Smith, who had been very proud of his chronic liver complaint. He told me in confidence the next day that he believed "the whole story was a —— ——." It is due to the company, however, to say that the narration was received with polite expressions of sympathy and wonder, while there was at the same time a silent conviction that it was of this complication of diseases that Ananias died. If a lady could rout us, however, it was not permitted to a man. When another of these aristocratic invalids, one of those "four giant shows under one canvas," came along, varying in sex from the first mentioned, he was speedily brought to grief. At supper, the first evening of his arrival, one of our circle having asked him with incautious politeness "how he was?" the new arrival opened on us with a sonorous discourse filled with chronic afflictions mixed up with pious reflections. I think he would have established his claims to high rank had not a consumptive-looking boarder with a haggard face taken advantage of a pause in the speech, and without looking up from his plate, remarked in a squeaky voice, "The remainder of the service will be concluded at the grave." The interruption was a bombshell. I have said that there is a free-masonry among invalids; I might add that it almost amounts to the old co-operation plan. I have been offered advice without limit and even medicine from my fellow sufferers. I have also been furnished with a list of their own attending physicians, all of whom have performed remarkable cures. It is a full and complete list of fifty-eight physicians in good professional standing, and I will dispose of it at a moderate compensation to any apothecary or undertaker who desires to purchase.
Where was I? Oh, speaking of invalids! Sickness is to be dreaded with many because of death, but from the high moral plane from which I regard it, it is chiefly objectionable on account of the lying it gives rise to. Directly a man gets well on the way down hill, the good natured world gets this lie photographed, and each man presents him a copy—"Why, I never saw you looking better in my life!" For the first few copies that are presented him the poor devil is grateful; of the next few he is suspicious, and thereafter he is worried, vexed and profane. If you remonstrate against the truth of the assurance and call attention to the prominent skeleton which you are presenting to the public eye, the good natured liar looks you unflinchingly in the eye while he presents you with another lithograph bearing this inscription: "Oh, I didn't mean that you were fatter, I meant that your skin is clearer and your eyes are brighter." Not having a sample of your former skin, nor another pair of eyes handy to confute him with, this well-meaning liar walks off triumphantly. I, myself, however, am no better than the rest of them, though my presenting the lithograph cost me dearly one day. In one of the towns where I stopped, a young girl came to the hotel the shadow of what she had been. I suppose one evening I must have felt unusually chipper and kindly myself, for, coming up on the porch where she was sitting, I dashed off the old lithograph, "Why you are looking so much better." Her eyes—I never saw eyes that had so much of the other world and so little of this in them—turned on me with a half kind, half reproachful look, and at once filled with tears. She merely said gently, "Thank you," and got up and walked away. God forgive me, that I should have interrupted a soul so near to setting sail, to pay a lithographed and lying compliment. Three weeks later, in another town, I was told that she had gone on the last long voyage. I have burned my lithographs.
OBSERVATIONS OF A RETIRED VETERAN IX
At Afton in the Blue Ridge Mountains. There now, sit still, I am not going to commence about "lifting their eternal heads;" indeed I am not. Did it ever strike you, though, how different a man talks when he gets a pen in his hand; how impossible it is for a man to keep his feet on the ground and use a reasonably plain English without absurd adjectives, when he is writing descriptions of scenery. It is a miserable piece of affectation, you know; and they know you know, but they do it all the same. It comes, I presume, from a desire to assert the possession of imagination. The vulgar name for it is "flowery" and I am not certain that it is not a good name, for the chief business of flowers is to please the senses. You will find it popular with three classes of orators—commencement orators, political orators, and pulpit orators. The first use it because they know no better; the second, from the belief that it will catch those who know no better; and third because they find that a bright coat of paint to a religious sign post is particularly attractive to the female members of the congregation. With the first class, it is ignorance; with the second, business, and with the third, a mild, but well defined form of insincerity. You will find, too, that, with few exceptions, flowery ministers are—little else. I do not mean a forcibly drawn picture; that is a wholly different thing; I mean gaudy, flowery word painting. I remember at Trinity church in Staunton once, a description by a minister named Tucker, of a sacrifice made by the Jews at Jerusalem. Do you know, though that was years ago, I can see to-day the scene the man drew standing out in memory. It was powerful, but there was not a particle of prismatic coloring about it. It was a bas-relief cut on granite—full of power, enduring, and with a touch of eternity about it. Such picture-drawing is not flowery and does not wither.
I know that the popular subjects of interest in the mountains are sunrise and sunset, but for something really worth writing about, and much more rare, give me a fog spread out at the feet like a white carpet. Ah! that is something worth seeing. The valley, a mile below, is hidden in the gauzy sea, and the tops of mountain spurs here and there peep out like little islands. The white, silent sea is spread for miles and miles. Underneath it is life, an invisible wagon rumbles, a horse neighs, a man calls to his neighbor, but the surface is calm, still, level. You would not be surprised to see a steamer come puffing from behind one of the islands. The wind presses the sea into billows which shift to and fro as water would. Away down on a wagon road you hear the tinkling of bells and a Hock of sheep emerge from a rift in the mist and turning disappear in another cloud of it. The fog parts again and a white top wagon, with four horses, is seen toiling slowly along. The driver cracks his whip and the sea of mist slowly rolls over him again. Another shifting, and a little farmhouse appears, with a man riding from under the trees. He rides into the mist and the farmhouse disappears. A railroad train rushes out of a bank of white wool and into another, in complete silence. The white sea gets uneasy under the wind, and the sun begins to brighten up the clouds above. Then the woolen surface begins to move. A mountain spur makes its appearance clear against the sky; the farm houses silently glide from under the sea; a flock of sheep, whose shepherd dog's bark you have heard from under the mist, is revealed. The sea is fast being blown away. The sun comes out. The whole landscape is changed and the great billows of mist that have covered it are now thin strips of white cloud driven across the blue sky. Once more you see spread out at your feet the valley, checkered with farms and orchards, and dotted with farmhouses shining in the sun. The miracle of nature is over. Let the enthusiasts have their sunrise and sunset; lovers their moonlight; but as for me, give me a mountain fog.