And he cooled down; he hadn’t called me “dear Samantha” before, for over fourteen years; but truly danger is a blister that draws love to the outside. He almost worships me, but like other married men, he conceals it a good deal of the time. His affectionate mean had softened up my own feelins too, so I didn’t stay to Denmark only jest long enough to see some very beautiful crockery, and a large collection of exceedinly curious curiosities from Greenland, and then Josiah and me (at his request) went and took a lunch at a little tarvern right in the buildin’.
I felt kinder disappointed about not stayin’ no longer in Denmark, on account of Hamlet (he come from that neighborhood, you know) and I always did think so much of him, and Ophelia too. I have often heerd Thomas J. read about ’em; and I’ve always thought if they had been let alone they would have done well, for she seemed to think everything of him, and he of her. I got to thinkin’ over her affection and her disappointment while I was eatin’ my dinner. Thinks’es I, love is too sacred and holy a emotion to be dickered and fooled with; it is a great emotion, and ort to be treated greatly and reverently; but their haint a single emotion in the hull line of emotions that is so meddled and fooled round with as this is. Folks that have it seem to be ashamed of it, and other folks make fun of ’em for havin’ it. Curious! you haint ashamed of havin’ gratitude, or pity, or generosity in your heart, and other folks don’t make light of you for havin’ ’em; but when it comes to love, which is the holiest of all, the shadder of the Infinite, the symbol of all that is heavenly and glorious, the brightest reflection we catch on earth of the Divine Nature, folks giggle at it and snicker; curious, very! But I always felt sorry for Ophelia and Hamlet.
Then we sot sail for Egypt. There was a heavy lookin’ wall and gateway, and on each side was a big square column, or pillow, though some tippin’. Over the gate was the flags of Egypt and the United States, green and yeller, red, white, and blue, minglin’ together jest as friendly as the green earth, and red and yeller sunsets, with stars a shinin’ through ’em ever did; and some of the curiousest lookin’ writin’ I ever did see. On each side, amongst lots of other ornaments and things, was two as ancient lookin’ females as I ever see on a bust, and these words printed out in good noble writin’: “The oldest people of the world sends its morning greeting to the youngest Nation.”
As we went in, two Egyptians met us, dressed in their national costume, as loose and baggy as a meal bag, and Josiah looked admirinly at ’em, and says he, “How remarkable they do hold their age, Samantha; they don’t look much older than I do;” and says he in a still more respectful tone, “they must be pretty nigh onto two hundred.”
“What makes you think so, Josiah Allen?” says I.
“Why” says he “you see it wrote out there ‘the oldest people in the world’, and we have ’em here over a hundred.”
Says I, “Josiah Allen if it wasn’t for me how little your tower would elevate you, and inform you;” says I, “it don’t mean them, it means most probable them old wimmen up there on a bust, or mebby it means old sphynx—the old lady who takes care of the pyramids—you know she is old as the hills, and older than lots of ’em.”
Says he “I wonder if that is her handwritin’ clear up over the gateway! I should think she was old by that; I should jest as lives go down to the creek and read duck’s tracks and slate stuns.”
And we see a bust of Pharioh, who was drownded in the Red Sea. A good lookin’ man for one that was twenty-two hundred and fifty years old, and was plagued so much, and went through with what he did. And in another room of the Court we see the man that built one of the pyramids, Cephenes by name,—a feller six thousand years old. Good land! As I looked on him, I felt as if Josiah and me was two of the very smallest drops in a mighty ocian that hadn’t no beginnin’ nor no endin’, no bottom and no shore. I felt almost choked up, and exceedinly curious. From Egypt we went straight into Turkey, and there we saw lots of beautiful articles them Turkeys had made out of olive-wood, and etcetery. We saw pipes with long stems for smokin’ water; Josiah said he’d love to try one of ’em, and I believe he would if it hadn’t been for me. There was a Turkish Bazzar on the grounds where they go to smoke ’em; but I told him almost coldly, that he had better go home and smoke the penstock that he draws water with from the canal; and he give up the idee.
And there was handsome silks of all colors; there was one piece of a soft grey color, that I told Josiah I would love dearly to have a dress of it, and after I said that, that man hurried me along so I didn’t hardly see anything—I s’pose he wanted to git the idee out of my head, for he never seemed easy a minute till he got me out of Turkey back into Portugal. I never felt intimately acquainted with this Nation—I knew our port come from Portugal, and that they raised considerable cork—but I found many handsome things there; splendid paper of all sorts, writin’ paper, and elegant bound books, and some printin’ on satin, invitations to bull fights, and other choice amusements. I told Josiah I should think they would have to be printed on satin to git anybody started to ’em. And jest as I was sayin’ this, a good-lookin’ woman says to me: “Splendid stationery, isn’t it?”