Another mythologic story is grandly depicted in a paper in the residence of Dr. John Lovett Morse, at Taunton, Mass. ([Plates LXV] to [LXX.]) This paper was described to me as illustrating the fifth book of Virgil's Æneid. When the handsome photographs came, we tried to verify them. But a reading of the entire Æneid failed to identify any of them, except that the one shown in [Plate LXIX] might be intended to represent the Trojan women burning the ships of Æneas. Who were the two personages leaping from the cliff? Virgil did not mention them.
A paper in Country Life in America for April, 1905, describing the "Hermitage," Andrew Jackson's home near Nashville, Tennessee, spoke of the "unique" paper on the lower hall, depicting the adventures of Ulysses on the Island of Calypso. The illustration showed the same scenes that we had been hunting for in Virgil. The caption stated that it "was imported from Paris by Jackson. It pictures the story of Ulysses at the Island of Calypso. There are four scenes, and in the last Calypso's maidens burn the boat of Ulysses."
So we turned to the Odyssey. There again we were disappointed. Nobody jumps off cliffs in the Odyssey, Ulysses' boat is not burned, neither does Cupid, who appeared in every photograph, figure in the scenes between Ulysses and Calypso.
Next we took to the mythologies; and in one we found a reference to Fenelon's Adventures of Telemachus, which sends Telemachus and Mentor to Calypso's island in search of Ulysses, and describes their escape from the goddess's isles and wiles by leaping into the sea and swimming to a vessel anchored near. Here at last were our two cliff jumpers! And in long-forgotten Telemachus was found every scene depicted on the walls.
It is a strange commentary on the intellectual indolence of the average human mind, that these two remarkable sets of paper should so completely have lost their identity, and that the misnomers given them by some forgetful inhabitant should in each case have been accepted without question by those who came after him. Other owners of this paper have known what the scenes really were; for I have had "Telemachus paper" reported, from Kennebunk, Maine, and from the home of Mr. Henry DeWitt Freeland at Sutton, Massachusetts. The paper is evidently of French origin, and is mentioned as a Parisian novelty by one of Balzac's characters in The Celibates, the scene of which was laid about 1820.
In the Freeland house at Sutton, there are also some scenes from Napoleon's campaign in Egypt. An inscription reads, "Le 20 mars, 1800, 100,000 Francais commandu par le brave Kleber ont vancu 200,000 Turcs, dans le plaines de l'Heliopili."
Among the historical papers, we have "Mourning at the Tomb of Washington," and Lord Cornwallis presenting his sword to Washington. The former was a melancholy repetition of columns and arches, each framing a monument labelled "Sacred to Washington," surmounted by an urn and disconsolate eagle, and supported on either side by Liberty and Justice mourning. Crossed arms and flags in the foreground, and a circular iron fence about the monument completed the picture, which was repeated in straight rows, making with its somber gray and black the most funereal hall and stairway imaginable.
Papers representing places with truthful details were numerous and popular, as "The Bay of Naples," "The Alhambra," "Gallipoli," "On the Bosporus." A striking paper represents the River Seine at Paris. This paper has a brilliant coloring and the scenes are carried entirely round the room; nearly all the principal buildings in Paris are seen. On one side of the room you will notice the Column Vendôme, which shows that the paper was made after 1806. The horses in the arch of the Carousel are still in place. As these were sent back to Venice in 1814, the paper must have been made between these dates.
On the walls of a house in Federal Street, which was once occupied by H. K. Oliver, who wrote the hymn called "Federal Street," is the River Seine paper with important public buildings of Paris along its bank; several other houses have this same paper, and half a dozen duplicates have been sent me from various parts of New England.
I have heard of a paper at Sag Harbor, Long Island, in which old New York scenes were pictured, but of this I have not been fortunate enough to secure photographs.