V. Chevillere to B. Randolph.
(In continuation.)"10 o'clock P. M.
"About ten o'clock this morning the bells began to ring, from Trinity to St. John's. A forest of steeples seemed to have let loose their artillery at once upon us tardy Christians. These gongs seemed to take effect in about fifteen minutes, for simultaneously the houses poured out their thronging occupants, until the streets literally swarmed with these church-going people.
"'Whither shall we bend our steps?' said I; 'here are various routes to heaven; which do you choose, Episcopal, Methodist, or Presbyterian?'
"'Not any one of the three,' said he.
"'Indeed! Perhaps Jewishly inclined?'
"'No; I thought that you were aware of my partiality for the close-communion Baptists,' said he, with mock gravity.
"'But seriously, Lamar, you accused me of wishing to drag you to some conventicle or other; choose for us both; indeed for three, for here comes Damon.'
"'Then,' said he, 'I choose the most celebrated preacher! you will thus be most likely to see a certain demure little runaway.'
"'And there,' said I, 'you will be most likely to see her friend, with Arthur by her side.'
"Damon now coming up, was asked by me where he would choose to spend the forenoon of the day.
"'I can't tell exactly,' replied he, 'for the truth is, I feel pretty much like a fish out of water even of week days; but Sunday I'm completely dished; I was thinking of walking out into the country, and bantering somebody for a foot-race.'
"I proposed that we should all go and hear Dr. ——, and forthwith led the way, my two companions following on, much like truant boys on their return march to school. We entered a low white church, I don't recollect where exactly, but on the western side of Broadway. The preacher was already in the pulpit, and the aisles and pews on the lower floor were crammed with hearers, insomuch that we were compelled to seek seats in the small gallery, where with great difficulty we found them.
"The preacher, who had already begun, was a commanding-looking gentleman, clothed in black, and, like most of our dissenting clergymen, without gown or surplice; his features were large and well-formed; his forehead lofty beyond any thing I have ever seen, but falling back at the top until it was lost in little short bristly curls; his attitudes were lofty and dignified. He had, as I said before, announced the portion of Scripture which he was attempting to elucidate, before we entered the church. The subject seemed to be, the practicability and means of a direct revelation from God! When he spoke of the Great Spirit who rules our destinies revealing himself, and his manner of doing it, he was almost sublime. I must try to recollect a few passages for your edification, but you must remember that they are transposed into my own language.
"He painted in vivid and striking colours, the utter incapacity of man to conceive identically of such a being as God. 'The little puny brain of man,' said he, 'which you may hold in the hollow of your hand, cannot contain a true conception of God in all his majesty! the little arteries and fibres of our poor heads would rend and burst asunder with such an idea.
"'To form one single correct thought of so great a Spirit, you must first conceive of those things which surround him; as, when we view a painting of some earthly object, there must first be a background to relieve the eye. So when you would conceive of that great Being truly and fully, you must be able to realize the duration of eternity, obliterate the little periods of time and chronology, which require a starting and a resting-place in our human minds,—soar out of the reach of the sickly atmospheres which surround these little planets, and stand erect in the broad and fathomless light of God's own atmosphere! Could the human eye see with such rays, and stretch its glances over the great waves and boundless oceans of light in which he dwells, one single ray of it would blast your optic nerves.
"'Even here upon earth, if we are suddenly brought from a dark dungeon into the bright rays of his reflected glory, our little optical machinery quails and dances with the shock; but take that same creature from his gloomy dungeon, and place him in the glassy sea of light in which God dwells! The utter horrors of such a moment, if they did not instantly explode the soul into its elements, would be worse than the terrors of convulsions, and earthquakes, and the black and fathomless chasms of the sea. And yet! some of us desire in our hearts a direct revelation to ourselves from this sublime Being! Know you what you desire? You desire that God should stretch out his mighty power, and draw away the friendly veil of the heavens, and burst upon an astounded world in all his fearful attributes! Before such an immediate presence, the sun and moon would become dark in contrast. The natural laws which he has given us for our protection, of gravitation, electricity, and magnetism, would burst loose from their reflected positions, and all animate and inanimate nature would fall before their First Great Cause! We cannot have direct physical intercourse with God. We are physically incompetent to encounter him, either in his goodness or in his wrath.
"You say in your hearts, that there is mystery in this revelation of the Bible! Can mystery be separable from sublime or profound greatness, when viewed through human powers? Are not height, and depth, and space, and air, all mysterious to your minds, when beyond the reach of the eye? Is not darkness alone profoundly mysterious? mysterious in its effects and in its properties! Can any mind analyze darkness? Is it positive or negative? Does it extend through eternal and measureless space? or is it only a creative property dependent upon the functions of the eye? Our darkness is to one part of creation light, and our light their darkness.
"Is measureless space a positive creation, or a negative nonentity! No human intellect can fathom these subjects; not from any of their delusive properties, but from our limited capacities! These then are but the beginning of those things which interpose between us and our great and sublime Creator!
"You can now, perhaps, form some idea of the difficulties of revealing God to man!
"What would you have with a more powerful and sublime revelation than this? Would you disorganize the minds of the whole human family, by opening to them frightful volumes which would craze and bewilder, rather than direct them? Do you complain of mystery, and yet call upon God for more?
"But the greatest difficulty between us and a direct revelation from our Creator, has yet to be considered.
"This revelation of the Bible was necessarily conveyed to us through the medium of human language. Now let us examine what this human language is. It is a system of words or signs, which convey to our minds the ideas of things. These words only represent such ideas as we ourselves have formed from the things we have seen, and their various combinations. How then can these signs and symbols convey identical ideas of God and his attributes? All the imperfections of this revelation then are confessedly owing to our imperfections, both as it regards mind and language.
"I have given you but a faint outline of this powerful and vehement speaker's discourse. During its delivery I once or twice turned to Lamar and the Kentuckian, to see how they were affected. The former had insensibly risen during the fervency of the preacher's eloquence, and stood leaning over the balustrade, drinking in the sounds of a voice which are truly powerful though not musical, until he came to a pause; he then sank into his seat, a grim smile passing over his pale sickly features, clearly showing to those who knew him, how intently he had listened. Damon chewed tobacco at a prodigious rate, and the more eloquent the speaker became, the more energetic was the action of his jaws. His eye was wild and savage, like that of a forest animal when it suddenly finds itself in the midst of a settlement. He sometimes cracked his fingers together, for the same purpose, I suppose, that he used to crack his whip when travelling on horseback, to give emphasis and round his periods.
"But I had not long to consider these effects upon different characters, for at this moment Lamar pointed over the balustrade at two moving figures on the lower floor. You already guess, if you are any thing of a Yankee, what these were. Lamar and I simultaneously arose to our feet and gazed at the heads which filled up every crevice, as a veteran soldier would have gazed at so many bristling bayonets upon an impregnable bastion. We soon heard the steps of a carriage let down, and then the rolling of the wheels. Lamar bit his lip till the blood almost started from it. Whether the pressure was increased by his having seen that Arthur joined the ladies near the door, I shall not undertake to say.
"The sermon now being over we had merely to throw ourselves into the tide of human figures which moved down stairs, to be carried safely to the bottom.
"When there, Damon drew one long and whistling breath, and an inarticulate sound not unlike the snort of a whale.
"'I'm flambergasted! if that ain't what I call goin the whole cretur, he'd go to Congress from old Kentuck as easy as I could put a gin sling under my jacket. O Christopher! what a stump speech he could make, if he would only turn his hand to it, instead of wasting his wind here among the old wives!'
"'Well, Lamar, what did you think of him?'
"'Think of him! (rousing himself from a brown study), I never knew before that I had nerves in the hairs of my head.'
"'And where did you now obtain that precious piece of anatomical news?'
"'In the church, to be sure! Were not my locks dancing all the while to the music of that eccentric man's voice? The cold chills ran over me, as if I had been under the influence of miasma.'
"I watched Damon through an unusually long silence, while he several times snapped his fingers and took a fresh chew of tobacco.
"'I'll tell you what it is, that's what I call a real tear-down sneezer,' ejaculated he; 'he's a bark-well and hold-fast too; he doesn't honey it up to 'em, and mince his words—he lets it down upon 'em hot and heavy; he knocks down and drags out; first he gives it to 'em in one eye and then in 'tother, then in the gizzard, and at last he gits your head under his arm, and then I reckon he feathers it in, between the lug and the horn; he gives a feller no more chance nor a 'coon has in a black jack.'
"'Then you give him more credit for sincerity than you usually do men of his cloth,' said I.
"'Yes, yes! there's no whippin the devil round the stump with him; he jumps right at him, tooth and toe-nail, and I'm flambergasted if I don't think he rather worsted the Old Boy this morning; and he's the best match I ever saw him have, he looks so stout and soldier-like; and then his eye! Did you see his eye, stranger? I'm shot if he didn't look as if he could'a jumped right a-straddle of the devil's neck, and just run his thumbs in, and scooped out his two eyes, as easy as I would scoop an oyster out of his shell.'
"'You don't go to church often when you are at home?'
"'No; but I would go, if we had such a Samson as this; he raises old Kentuck in me in a minute. I feel full of fight, and ready for any thing now! But our old parson! he's an entirely different cut in the jib. He whines it out to us like an old woman in the last of pea-time; he doesn't thunder it down to 'em like this chap, and like old Hickory did the grape-shot at New-Orleans.'
"We had now arrived at that point of the street where we were to separate. Damon abruptly informed us of his intention to return soon to Baltimore. I asked him if he was not pleased with New-York.
"'O, yes;' said he, 'it's a real Kentuck of a place, a man can do here what he likes; they don't look at the cut of a feller's coat, but at the cut of his jib. I could wear my coat upside down here, and my hat smashed all into a gin-shop, and nobody has time to turn round and look at me. Yes, yes, stranger, they are a whole-souled people, and I like 'em, but I have staid long enough.'
"Here we separated for the day. Lamar intends to try and prevail upon him to accompany us to the theatre, and the Italian opera. I have great curiosity to see him at the latter place. Pedrotti, they say, can tame a tiger with her melodious and touching voice. As you may suppose, I am anxious to hear it myself, and to see its effects upon one so unschooled in the music of luxurious and effeminate Italy.
"I have written you more at length than I intended, but I could not do otherwise in return for your amusing, friendly, and satisfactory epistle. We shall meet again, as in days of yore, and then we will gather up all these scribblings, and enjoy these scenes again. In the mean time, believe that I wish you success in your present suit, for the sake of three of us,—but more particularly and selfishly that of
CHAPTER XVIII.
V. Chevillere to B. Randolph.
"New-York, 18—.
"Dear Chum,"Events which seem to me worth recording, crowd upon us so fast now, that it is almost impossible to give you, according to promise, even a profile view of our movements.
"This morning, about the same hour at which we went to church yesterday, we strolled down Wall-street (and we seemed the only strollers there) to see the Shylocks in their dens, if any such could be found. I was instantly struck with the concentrated looks, and absorbed countenances of all the persons we met. Most of them were running in and out of the banks, with their little bank books in their hands, making mental calculations of notes to be taken up, deposites where made, and how much. Brokers were standing behind their counters, ready to commence their brisk, and (in this country) almost unhazardous game. Many of them amass immense fortunes; it is not at all uncommon for one of these houses to loan to a state several millions at once.
"We went upon 'change at the hour of twelve. There, in the large room of the rotunda, or circular part of the exchange, merchants, and brokers, and bankers, and moneyed men meet, pretty much after the same fashion as our jockeys and racers upon the turf. The light falls from the dome upon these faces, and reveals the best study for a picture I have ever seen. The seller and the sellee, the shaver and the shavee, or diamond cut diamond, as Damon expresses it:—bear with me but a moment while I go over these dull details, and in return I will tell you something more of the lady with the black mantle.
"The most predominant expression that I saw upon 'change was affectation; the affectation of business; not the silly school-boy affectation which wears off with the improving mind, but that which is first put on by business men, to disguise the real operations of the mind, and which afterward grows into a confirmed habit, and is seen deeply set in wrinkles, long after the first exciting cause has disappeared.
"This symptom, among the moneyed men, varies according to character and strength of mind in the individual. One man I saw standing with his back against a window, his thumbs stuck into the armholes of his waistcoat, his quill toothpick tight between his teeth,—his features large and fleshy, his complexion between a copper and an apoplectic dapple of blue and red,—his teeth large, white, and flat, his eye small and gray, and his head grizzled; he had evidently been a free, but what is called a temperate liver. I tried to trace back through the wrinkles in this man's face, what the emotions were which in his younger days he had attempted to engrave upon it, and which long habit had now made part of his nature; but I should first attempt to describe the expression itself. His upper lip was turned into a curl of contempt; his eye was thrown a little down, and the eyelid raised high, so as to show much of the white of the eye, as when a person is in the attitude of profound thought upon some far distant subject. This man had, I thought, the best chosen affectation; it expressed profound abstraction in one direction, when he was no doubt really abstracted in another.
"His right-hand neighbour had not been so fortunate in his selection of a vizor for the moneyed masquerade. He had chosen comedy; and attempted to hide pounds, shillings, and pence under a comic visage. It was not well chosen. His business-laugh was too horrid. It displayed teeth, gums, and throat, and was too affectedly sincere. He too frequently passed his glances quickly round from one face to the other, to see if they enjoyed the sport. This species of affectation had its origin in a settled contempt for the sense of his associates, and an exalted conception of his own, and especially of his powers to amuse. He frequently drew the corners of his mouth towards his ears, by a voluntary motion, without exercising the corresponding risible muscles; elevating his eyebrows at the same time in a knowing way. Do this yourself, and you will have the expression instantly. His only additional comic resource consisted in sticking one thumb directly under his chin, like a pillar. This man is celebrated on 'change for telling what he considers a good story.
"Another description of affectation here seen, and by far the most common, is the affectation of decision, firmness, stability, and concentrated purpose.
"Various methods, I saw, had been practised through long lives to attain this safe look. Some, to whom it was not natural to do so, pushed out the under jaw, like a person who (to use a Southern term) is jimber-jawed. Others carried the head on one side, drew up the muscles at the outer angle of one eye, and kept the nostrils distended. Others clenched the teeth, looked fierce and steady, and habitually patted one foot upon the floor, as if in high-spirited impatience. Some looked pensive and sad, and occasionally drew long sighs. Beware of these, if you ever trade in the money-market.
"The most ludicrous of all moneyed whims is a desire to make others suppose that you think yourself poor. A heartless man begging for sympathy is, of all kinds of affectation, the most contemptible. But the most dangerous of all others, and the most apt to deceive a candid and upright mind, is the affectation of being unaffected. Such is the sin of those who affect bold, independent, and reckless looks. If good fortune had not made them brokers, bad fortune (they seem to say) might have made them robbers.
"There is yet another class to describe—the sincere and the honest. These are easily descried. Something like an electric intelligence passes from the eye of one honest man to that of another. These are usually modest, retiring, and humble. I speak of real humility, which is best displayed in a respect for the understanding of other men; a desire to place one's companions at their ease; and a tenderness and sympathy towards the failings of the bankrupt, the vicious, and the unfortunate generally.
"Not that these indications occur only on 'change; they may be seen in the pulpit, at the bar, at the bedside, and behind the counter. As you read my descriptions, try to produce the expression upon your face; then call up some individual of your acquaintance, who may have sat for such a picture—poor, indeed, in its finish, but if it convey to you the idea, my ambition is satisfied. This is a severe test, but I think you may muster up dramatis personæ for all the characters.
"As I am now upon this subject, permit me to make one or two general remarks.
"I have learned to hold no intimacy with those men who are harsh and uncompromising towards unfortunates and criminals. These feelings often arise from the identical weaknesses, or faults, which drove their victims to ruin. You have, doubtless, seen two slaves quarrel because one belonged to a rich and the other to a poor man.
"As one well-fed dog is sure to be snarlish to a poorer brother—poor human nature—this currish principle is but too true when applied to us.
"There is none who appears so virtuously indignant at crime as the man who is a rogue in his heart. A horse-stealer who has blundered into better fortune is scandalized at his former craft; and a sheep-stealer can weep in the very face of the lamb which another has stolen.
"Those ladies, the purity of whose characters is most questionable, are uniformly the first to cease visiting an openly suspected sister.
"But I see plainly that if I go on, the subject must become too revolting; at all events I must give it to you in broken doses; and by the time Arthur introduces me into the human catacombs, where the living are soul-dead, you will be ready to take another view of those dark and dismal abodes, and attempt further observations of humanity in its darker developments.
"A malignant disease, as Arthur thinks, has broken out in the portions of the city alluded to; if so, I will remain with him. This is the time to see fearful sights; and we Southerns, you know, have looked the grim monster too often in the face in this shape to be easily frightened from a cherished purpose.
"Damon begins to be very uneasy under these reports of sudden deaths, and black infections sweeping through the air."
V. Chevillere to B. Randolph.
(In continuation.)"New-York, 18—.
"I have seen her, Randolph, and seen her far more captivating and beautiful than ever!
"Yesterday, after I had finished the former part of this letter, I met, on my way down to dinner, Arthur and young Hazlehurst. The latter had come expressly to invite Lamar and myself to spend the evening at their house. As you may suppose, it was not refused; we pressed them to go in with us, as they had not yet dined, to which they finally consented.
"I find Hazlehurst an intelligent young man, but with many erroneous opinions concerning the south, of which he must be disabused. He imagines us to be a generous and hospitable people, but in a rather semi-barbarous state.
"As this very subject occupied our attention in presence of the ladies, I prefer giving you an imperfect sketch of the discourse. I must not omit a table lecture of Lamar's on nicotiana, however impatient you may be to hear more of a certain fair one.
"The subject of tobacco was introduced simultaneously with the segars, after most of the company had retired. One having been offered to young Hazlehurst, he declined it, saying that he did not use tobacco in any shape.
"'Not use tobacco! not smoke!' said Lamar; 'why, sir, you have yet to experience one of the most calm, delightful, and soothing pleasures of which human nerves are sensible.'
"'I have always understood,' said the other, 'that the stimulus leaves one far more miserable than if he had not applied it.'
"'Then you labour under some mistake,' said Lamar; 'and if you will permit, and your doctorships will forbear laughter, I will explain to you the effects of a fine segar upon my system, and "suit the action to the word."
"'When a man takes a genuine, dappled Havana segar in his mouth, places his legs upon a hair cushioned chair, his head thrown back on that upon which he sits, or against the wall; his arms folded upon his chest,—the following phenomena occur:
"'First stage. He becomes heroic and chivalrous, or perhaps eloquent; if the last, and thinks himself alone, you will see him wave his hand in the most graceful and captivating style of oratory. His eye is the soul of imaginary eloquence, his features are all swelled out until they seem grand—gloomy—and profound; his nostrils pant and show their red lining, like a fiery and blooded steed. He rolls out thick volumes of smoke, and puffs it from him like a forty-two-pounder. He draws down his feet, and raises his head and looks after it, as if victory or conviction had been hurled upon its clouds. Perhaps some one laughs at him, as you laugh now at me.
"'He replaces his legs, leans back his head again; the second stage is come; he smiles, perhaps, at the laurels just won; he closes his eyes, delightful visions of green meadows and lawns, fragrant flowers, meandering streams, limpid brooks, beautiful nymphs, twilight amid tall and venerable trees, and lengthening shadows, flit before his imagination. His face now is towards the heavens; his features are calm and serene; he wafts the smoke gently upward in long continued columns, and wreaths, and garlands; his hands fall by his side—the diminished stump falls from his hand.
"'And now, in the third stage, he is in a revery. A servant touches him three times, and tells him a gentleman wants to see him; he kicks his shins; servant retreats. Eyes being still closed, he draws a long sigh or two, but full, pleasant, and satisfactory. Servant returns; shakes him by the shoulder; he jumps up and throws an empty bottle at his head, as I do this one, at that grinning fellow there (making a mock effort), and then the trance is over.
"'Now where are the bad effects, except upon Cato's shins, if he should happen to be the man?'
"We all applauded Lamar for his treat, with three hearty cheers, in a small way.
"I am sorry to see a little sly, stealthy, unmentionable coldness arising between Lamar and Arthur. I first discovered it in little acts of what the world calls politeness, but which I call formality, towards each other. They are unconscious of it, as yet, for it seems to have sprung up by irresistible mutual repulsion between them: deep seated self appears to have warned each of a dangerous rival in the other. These are little secret selfishnesses of the soul, which lie deep, dark, and still, running in an unseen current, far below the soundings of the self-searching consciousness. How mysterious is the mind of man! We may draw up the flood-gates, and let loose the dammed-up waters in order to find some secret at the bottom; but the flood rolls by, and the secret still lies buried as profoundly as before. At some future day, when the thunder and the storms shall come, these secrets may, perhaps, be washed up to the surface, like wonders of the deep, when least expected!
"At about eight o'clock, Lamar and I sallied out to find Mrs. Hazlehurst's house in Broadway; amid music from clarionet, violin, and kent bugle. These were stationed in the balconies of the different museums. Carriages were just setting down their company at the old Park Theatre. Little blind and lame boys sat about the iron railing at St. Paul's church, grinding hand-organs, and making music little better than so many grindstones—all for a miserable pittance which they collect in the shape of pennies, perhaps to the amount of a dozen a day.
"Negroes were screaming 'ice-cream' at the top of their lungs, though it is now becoming cold in the evenings and mornings. At every corner some old huckster sang out 'Hot corn! hot corn!' though the regular season of 'roasting-ears,' has long since passed by. Little tables of fruit, cakes, and spruce-beer were strewed along the walks and under the awnings, which often remain extended during the night.
"We at length found the house, and entered with palpitating hearts. I had a sort of presentiment that I was to meet Miss St. Clair, from what the lively Isabel had said.
"When we entered the saloon she was nowhere to be seen! my disappointment was no doubt visible, for I saw an arch smile upon Isabel's countenance, and, I must say, a very singular one upon that of her brother. The idea first struck me that he is either now, or has been, a suitor of the absent lady! Was there a lurking jealousy at the bottom of my own heart, at the very time that I was fishing up green monsters from Lamar's mental pandemonium? Randolph, Oh! the human heart is deceitful above all things; and it oftener deceives ourselves than others. We have radiated rays of light for our mental vision outwards which we may extend ad infinitum, but once turn our observations inwards, and it is like inverting the telescope.
"We were presented to the lady of the mansion immediately upon our entrance. She is benignant and bland, yet aristocratic withal. She discovers a warm heart towards the South, probably from an idea of a kindred aristocratic feeling in us. The two are, however, very different in their developments. It is necessary here to have many more bulwarks between this class and those below them than is needful with us; as there is here a regular gradation in the divisions of society. The end of one and the beginning of the next are so merged, that it would be impossible to separate them without these barriers. What are they? you would ask. They consist in little formalities,—rigid adherence to fashion in its higher flights,—exhibition of European and Oriental luxuries, et cetera, et cetera.
"We were presented to the company in general; most of the fashionable ladies were sitting or standing around a fine-toned upright piano-forte, at which two of the party were executing, in a very finished style of fashionable elegance, some of Rossini's compositions, accompanied by a gentleman on the flute. And in good truth, they produced scientific and fashionable music; but, Randolph, it was not to my taste. You know that I have cultivated music as a science, from my earliest youth; that I am an enthusiast here, and not altogether a bungler in my own execution. I have now discovered either that I lack taste, or that the fashionable world is therein deficient. You shall decide between us at another time.
"Lamar very soon contrived (how, heaven only knows) to throw me completely in the shade; but the first evidence I had of it was his sitting bolt upright between the gay Isabel and her mother. He had already betrayed them into laughter,—not fashionable laughter, for I saw the old lady wiping the tears from her eyes. It is almost impossible for any one to adhere long to conventional forms, when he is of the party,—so manly, generous, and sincere is he. My chagrin at not finding myself situated equally to my heart's content did not escape him, and he perhaps discovered my awkwardness, for he attempted to draw me into a discussion concerning the provincial rivalry of the North and South. I evaded his friendly hand, but soon the younger lady renewed the attack.
"'Come, Mr. Chevillere, you will tell us what peculiarities you have observed, as existing between the northern and southern ladies as to polish,—fashion,—education,—any thing! This gentleman is so wonderfully free from prejudices and rivalry, that he declares the instant he beholds a beautiful woman, he forgets that she has a local habitation upon earth. You, sir, I hope, are not so catholic an admirer of beauty?'
"'I too, madam, am always disarmed of local prejudices when I see a beautiful northern lady; but that is not what you wish me to answer. If I understood you right, I suppose you wish to know whether any peculiarity in fashion, habits, or manners strikes us at first sight disagreeably.'
"'Precisely. Your general opinion of us.'
"'I am glad to be able to say, then, that with regard to this city I am a perfect enthusiast. Every thing is arranged as I would have it. Nature appears to be the criterion here in matters of taste; utility and improvement seem to prompt the efforts of your men of talents, and that delightful politeness to prevail, which consists in placing all well-meaning persons at their ease, without useless conventional forms.'
"I hate this formal speech-making, Randolph, across a room at people, so I thought I would be myself at once. I therefore continued my remarks for the remainder of the evening rather more in a nonchalant way, and as an introduction to a more free and easy tone to the company. I asked Lamar to repeat his lecture of the day, on smoking. Hazlehurst, as soon as he heard the subject mentioned, began to describe it to a party of young ladies who stood round the piano. Their curiosity was excited immediately; and though Lamar frowned at me, the ladies entreated until he was forced to comply.
"He set the room in a perfect roar of laughter, and then a delightful confusion prevailed. Lamar did not repeat exactly the same things which he had treated us with at the dinner-table, but he preserved the stages, dwelling a much shorter time on the heroic, and much longer on the two latter.
"He introduced a heroine into his shades and bowers, and painted Isabel as he saw her at the Springs; so, at least, I suspect from a certain mantling of the colour into her cheeks.
"'Then,' said he, speaking of the third stage, 'his hands fall by his side, his eyes are closed, he sighs profoundly, but comfortably and somnolently; perhaps he is married; his wife steals gently up and kisses him. 'My dear, the milliner's bill has come.'—'O dam the miller!' In a short time she returns—'My dear, my pin money is out: come now, you are not asleep, I know: and that is not all—the carriage wants painting; the house wants repairs; the children want toys; servants want wages.' He rolls his head over on one shoulder, opens his eyes, and fixes them in a deliberate stare, as I do now, upon Miss Isabel.' This last idea became either too sentimental or too ludicrous for Lamar; and he jumped up in an unsuppressed fit of laughter. You know Lamar, therefore I need not tell you that this is a very imperfect sketch of the manner in which he acted the ludicrous and careless, but hen-pecked, husband. I do not wonder that he laughed, when he looked at Isabel, for her face was indescribably arch and sanctimonious.
"Hilarity and glee seemed now to be the order of the evening with all except poor Arthur. I thought that Lamar would actually sow the seeds of a future quarrel, while discussing something relating to the West. How introduced I do not know, unless Lamar was talking of Damon. However, Arthur stated one fact which surprised us all, and of which we had been all equally ignorant. He stated that Kentucky had one more college than any other State in the Union; half as many as all New-England; and more than North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, united.
"While these things were going on, I heard a gentle and scarcely perceptible step behind me, on the carpet; and seeing the other gentlemen rise, I mechanically rose also—to be electrified by the vision of Miss St. Clair. She was pale and trembling, but far more beautiful than I had ever seen her. It was not the beauty of the waxen figure, or the picture; it was the beauty of feeling, sensibility, and tenderness. You have seen that little plant which shrinks at the rude touch of man, Randolph; that should be her emblem.
"She glided into a rather darkened recess of the room, near where I stood, and seated herself alone, as if to be out of the reach of observation; yet by some means I was seated by her side, almost as dumb as a statue. I even longed for more of Lamar's delineations, if for nothing else but to see her smile again, and light up those features which nature evidently made to smile. Her hair was still parted over the forehead in the Grecian manner; a single ringlet stole down behind her ear. Her dress was simplicity itself, exceedingly plain and tasteful.
"I need not tell Miss St. Clair how much gratified I am at again meeting her in a circle composed almost entirely of my friends and my friends' friends; but, if I have been rightly informed, we are more indebted to accident than to any benevolent designs on her part for this meeting.
"'A strange accident indeed, my being here. Not less so than your own. But you are not a believer in accidents.'
"How beautiful a little act sometimes appears, Randolph, when it sits upon the countenance of one so artless by nature that you can see all the machinery which she imagines is so completely hidden, as a child often hides its eyes and vainly supposes itself unseen. This ruse, intended to draw me into some argument about accidents, and to avoid the real case at issue, really amused me; I was willing, however, to follow her lead for a time. 'Accidents,' said I, 'seem to us, at first sight, to be without the usual train of cause and effect; but, if they were all placed in my hands, I think I could govern the destinies of the world, so long as I could control my own destiny.'
"'I do not understand you, sir,' said she, with the simplest cunning imaginable; feigning deep interest, though her countenance would not join in the plot.
"'The condition,' I continued, 'and the present circumstances of every individual now in this room might be traced back to some accident which has happened—to the person, his father, or his grandfather; the death of one friend, the marriage of another, may affect the destinies of the persons themselves and all connected with them.'
"Ah, Randolph! there was a tender chord touched. Did you ever see a person shot through and through? The countenance expresses a whole age of misery in an instant. The soul is conscious of it before the body. One will even ask whether he is shot—while his countenance proclaims death more forcibly than a hundred tongues could utter it. There is a writhing, convulsive, retreating misery; part of which I saw I had inflicted upon this gentle being. This mystery must be solved. The system on which she is treated by those around her is false.
"You have, perhaps, seen a whole family after the death of one of its members, religiously observe profound silence on the subject. Should any one rudely or even gently mention the deceased, all are instantly horrified. Each fears that the feelings of all the rest have been shocked. At this moment, a calm and judicious friend, when the ice is once broken, may cure all this amiable weakness by steadily and tenderly persevering. I was determined to try the experiment in this case. A bold measure, when you consider the person and the circumstances.
"'Miss St. Clair,' said I, after she had recovered her composure; 'allow me to ask whether your family is related to that of General St. Clair?'
"'I believe not,' she composedly answered.
"'Has your father been long dead?'
"'Not a very long time: and the loss is the greater, as I have never known the value of a brother or a sister.'
"'You do not seem to labour under the usual disadvantages of step-daughters.'
"'Never was step-father more devoted and affectionate than mine, in his own peculiar way; and with that I am quite contented.'
"Now, Randolph, you know that impertinence had no share in dictating these questions, but could impertinence have gone farther? what ramification could I next attempt? Here was nearly the whole genealogical tree, but farther down there was no hope of touching the true branch.
"Her own gentle heart alone remained to be suspected. How could I suspect it, Randolph? so young, so pure, so gentle, so beautiful! Alas! that is but a poor protection against suitors. Besides, she is said to be rich. Must the question be asked? I resolved upon it! Was I not justifiable in doing so? Am I not an avowed suitor? at least have I not shown myself ready to become so? The opportunity was good; the company were all engaged in little coteries around the saloon. My previous questions seemed rather to have tranquillized her than otherwise; it was a trying moment! but no other step could be gained until this obstacle was surmounted. I therefore proceeded to make one or two anxious inquiries, critical as it regards my happiness, but which a lover cannot confide even to the ear of Randolph.
"My object was to know whether I had aught to fear from rivalry. Her lips moved, but no sound issued from them. I resumed; 'Believe me, that this pain would not have been inflicted, if my supposed relation to yourself had not imboldened me to ask whether any other man were so happy as to render me miserable.'
"'I see no impropriety in answering your question, though it can avail nothing; my affections are now as they have always been—disengaged.'
"These words were wafted along the vestibule of my ear, like some gentle breathings of magic; you have heard the soft vibrations of the Æolian harp, as a gentle summer breeze bore them along the air, redolent of the rich perfumes of summer flowers, and attuned to the wild music of songsters without.
"Sweeter, far sweeter, was her voice; a silvery voice is at all times the organ of the heart, but when it dies away in a thrilling whisper from the profoundness of the internal struggle, the ardent sympathy of the hearer is involuntary. Tragedians understand this language of the heart, insomuch that custom has now established the imitation, in deep-toned pathos.
"She placed emphasis on the word affections; why was this, unless her hand is engaged without them? This idea flashed upon me with electric force; you can well imagine how suddenly it broke asunder the links of the delicious revery of which I have attempted to give you a glimpse. Another more painful question than any of the former now became absolutely necessary; consequently I resumed: 'I think that I know Miss St. Clair sufficiently well to presume with a good deal of certainty that her hand is not pledged where her heart cannot accompany it?'
"'My hand, sir, is like my affections.'
"Her head now hung down a little, and her eye sought the carpet; my own expressive glances, sanguine as they perhaps had occasionally been, were themselves much softened and humbled; but again I summoned my scattered thoughts to the charge.
"'Will Miss St. Clair grant me an interview on the morrow, or some other day more convenient to herself?'
"The words had hardly escaped my mouth, when Isabel stood before us. Lamar was soon by her side. I also arose.
"'My dear Frances,' said she, taking my seat, and locking her hand where I would have given kingdoms to have had mine; 'we are talking of making up a little equestrian party to the Passaic Falls. Will you be of the company? Pray join us, like a dear girl; it is only fifteen miles.'
"The lady addressed shook her head gravely. Isabel arose, and turning to me, 'I leave the case in your hands, sir, and you are a poor diplomatist for a southern, if you do not succeed in persuading her to go.'
"I was much alarmed to hear many ladies calling for shawls and bonnets. I was not long, therefore, in urging the case, for it was emphatically my case.
"'I cannot go,' said she; 'in the first place, I have not been on horseback since my boarding-school days; and in the next place, I could not undergo the fatigue.'
"'But if all these objections could be obviated?' I eagerly inquired.
"'Then I should certainly be pleased to go, and still more pleased to gratify others by going.'
"To make the story a short one, as my letter has already become too long, she finally consented that I should drive her in a cabriolet, provided her father, who was not present, thought it proper for her to go.
"I reported progress to Isabel, who looked sly and arch; her brother was as solemn as a tombstone. I do not say this in triumph, Randolph, for God knows I have little cause as yet. I merely state the fact in all plainness and honesty, that you may have the whole case before you.
"'This augurs well for you, Mr. Chevillere,' whispered the lively girl.
"'I am not so certain of that,' said I.
"Finally, we agreed to go, 'weather permitting,' as they say at country sales, on the day after to-morrow.
"I did not urge this interview any farther, for a reason which you will easily perceive. What has become of you? I write two pages to your one now. Is the North more prolific than the South in incidents?
"Your Friend and Chum,
CHAPTER XIX.
V. Chevillere to B. Randolph.
"New-York, 18—.
"Dear Friend,"Certainly I must be one of the most unfortunate fellows that ever lived. And none the less so because the bitter strokes come upon me in the midst of apparent prosperity; but before I tell you of one disappointment, I must tell you of the things which preceded it, in the order of their occurrence.
"On the evening after the assemblage of our little party at Hazlehurst's, Lamar, Damon, and myself went to the Italian Opera; and to please Lamar no less than Damon, we took seats in the pit.
"The assemblage was brilliant beyond any thing I have seen, in the two lower tiers of boxes. All the fashion, and wealth, and beauty of this fair city seemed to be assembled around us, with their gay plumage and foreign head-attire, and opera-glasses. As a shading to this gay picture, there were the gentlemen, with enormous whiskers and mustaches curling sentimentally and greasily over the upper lip; their teeth glistening through the bristles, ghastly as Peale's mummy itself.
"The passion for hairy visages is a singular characteristic of this phrenological age. Large and frizzled locks puffed out on each side of the head to hide the absence of development are easily enough accounted for; but this supererogatory disfiguration of ugly faces is altogether unaccountable on the same principles.
"'I'll be dad shamed if it ain't all cowardice, and I hate to see it practised,' said Damon.
"There is, perhaps, more truth in this remark than you would at first suppose. No man is so desirous to appear fierce, courageous, and even piratical as he that is a dastard in his heart. Indeed most men are fond of making a parade of those qualifications with which they are least endowed by nature.
"There is one bewhiskered class, however, from whom we ought to expect better things; I mean young and thoughtless men, who are led away by fashion; many of whom have rubbed through the walls, if not through the studies, of college; and whose taste ought to have been more refined by associating with gentlemen, however great their stolidity or idleness.
"Finally, as to whiskers, I have seen most of the American naval and military heroes; and I cannot now recall a single one of them who ever wore remarkable whiskers, or bristles on the upper lip. Nor have I ever seen a polished southern gentleman remarkable for either. There is one fact which, if generally known, would root out the evil at its source; and that is, that men who flourish large whiskers are very apt to become bald!
"'O! corn-stalks and jews-harps!' said Damon, after worrying on his seat during the performance of the overture by the orchestra; 'will they tune their banjoes all night, and never get to playin?'
"'That is called fine Italian music,' said Lamar.
"'Yes! yes!' replied he, 'there's 'four-and-twenty fiddlers' sure enough! but I rather suspicion that it would puzzle some of our Kentuck gals to dance a reel to that music. O my grandmother! what jaunty heels they would have to sling after such elbow-greese as that. But you are stuffing me with soft corn—I see you are by your laughing. They know better than to pass that for music; no, no, catch a weasel asleep!'
"The opera now commenced, and I must own that I saw more of Damon than I did of the play. He was struck dumb with astonishment; seemed scarcely to believe his own senses, but looking round the house after an unusual silence, and seeing the audience serious and apparently attentive, he burst into a cachinnation.
"'Well,' said he, with a long breath, 'I wish I may be tetotally smashed in a cider-mill, if that don't out-Cherokee old Kentuck; why that ain't a chaw-tobacco better nor Cherokee! Just wait a minute, and they'll raise the whoop, it's likely; and if they do, if I don't give them a touch of Kentuck pipes that'll make them think somebody's busted their biler. Look! some of the men have got rings in their ears too; and leather skinned. Now I'm snagged if I was to meet that feller in a Mississip cane-brake, and my rifle on my arm, if I wouldn't be apt to let the wind through his whistle cross-ways.'
"'Not if he was to speak to you, and tell you he was a Christian like yourself?'
"'Speak to me! he would do a devilish sight better to play dummy: for sure as he spoke, I should let fly at him, because I wouldn't know but he belonged to some of those far away tribes of Black-feet, or the likes of that.'
"'But you do not really think that they look and speak any thing like the western savages, Damon?' said I.
"'I'm smashed if I don't bet that I can put blankets and leggins on the whole tribe, and pass them through the Cherokee nation for friendly Black-feet.'
"The incomparable Prima Donna (as she is called here) now made her first appearance; her voice is exquisite, Randolph, and her execution beyond the conception of an unsophisticated student.
"The music is pleasing to the ear, and may touch an Italian heart, but it found no response from mine. I tell this to you in all sincerity and confidence, but it would lower a man, I fear, to say so in the fashionable circles.
"'Well, Damon, would the Italian ladies pass for squaws?'
"'No, no; they are better than the men, and they are right pretty too, if they didn't talk such outlandish gibberish; but that dark skinn'd man there, I swear Pete Ironsides would kick him if he was to go in my stable; for he hates an Injin, as I do an allegator; poor Pete! I reckon he thinks I'm skulped.'
"'Pete is well cared for, I will guaranty,' said Lamar, very pathetically.
"'Look! look!' exclaimed Damon; 'what's that under the green umbrella there, at the front of the stage among the lights?'
"'That is the prompter, to put them right when they go wrong.'
"'Yes, yes! I see, I see!' continued he; 'he gives them a wink every now and then.'
"In the operas it is very frequently the case that one of the subordinate characters comes to the front of the stage after the principals have made their exit, and explains what rare sport is coming.
"'What does that fellow slip out here every now and then like a dropped stitch for?'
"We explained to him the meaning of it, as well as we understood it ourselves.
"'Ay, ay! I see it now; he is the Nota Bene!'
"We found great difficulty in getting Damon to understand, with his shrewd natural view of things, that an opera was nothing more than a common play; the parts being sung, instead of spoken.
"'Now I wish my head may be knocked into a cocked-hat, if a man had told this to me of the Yorkers in old Kentuck, if I wouldn't have thought he was spinnin long yarns; there is no sense in it, nor there's no fun in it, as they all take it up there in the pews; if so moutbe now that they were all of my way of thinking, and would only join in a leetle touch of the warwhoop, why we might show them fellers a little of the real Cherokee, that I rather suspicion they haven't seen.'
"'Why, what would you do, Damon?'
"'Jist set them four-and-twenty fiddlers to playin of something like Christian reels; hand the gals down on the floor; then I reckon there would be a little sort of a regular hand-round! Confound their jimmy simequivers, and their supple elbows! Smash me, if they don't think the whole cream of the ball lies in rattlin the bones of their elbows. Give me your long sweeping bow hands, that saws the music right in under your ribs, and sets your legs to dancin, whether they will or not. Do you think them fellers ever made anybody feel in the humour for a hand-round?'
"'I can't say that I think they ever did.'
"'No, nor they never will! they may set people's teeth on a wire edge, or make their flesh crawl, or set them into an ague fit with their shakin, and grindin, and squawkin. And now I think of it, the whole business sounds more like grinding ramrods in an armory, than any thing I ever come across; there's the squeakin of the wheels, that would go for them goose guzzles them fellers are pipin on. The ramrods on the grindstones will go for the fiddles,—only I don't see any fire flyin out of the catgut, but I've been watchin sharp for it some time. Then there's the old leather bellows groanin and gruntin away, jist like those two fellers seesawin there, on them two big-bellied fiddles, and the leather bands flappin every time they come round, keeps the time for the whole concern.'
"'Well, have you seen any fire yet?' after a long pause.
"'Yes, plenty of it! they make it fly out of my eyes, if they don't out of the catguts; confound them, I say, they keep me all the time drawin down first one eye and then another, first one corner of my mouth and then another, jist as if a horse was on a dead strain, and you were bowing your neck and stickin your leg straight in the ground, and then strainin with all your might as if you could help him; but this is worse! a confounded sight worse! for every now and then all the fiddlers and trumpeters comes rattlin down their tinklin quivers, like a four-horse load of china, goin to the devil down a steep hill at the rate of ten knots an hour; and then it all dies away agin, as if horses, wagon, and chinaware had all gone over a bank as high as a church steeple. Then! I begin to draw a long breath agin, and feel a little comfortable. But here's a dyin away sound! hop and come agin, rising and whooping, until the whole team's going full tilt, pull dick, pull devil, here they go again! old Nick take the hindmost. See their elbows now, how they move out and in, out and in, like spinning jinnies. And see that feller that sets at the top of the mob, on the high chair in the middle, how his head goes. See how he looks at that book before him, as if that stuff could be put down there in black and white.'
"'It is all down there, Damon.'
"'Come, come, now, strangers, you have stuffed me enough! I can't swallow that exactly neither! All the lawyers in Philadelphia couldn't write down half the wriggle-ma-rees one of them chaps has made since I set here! Smash my apple-cart, if I wouldn't like jist to see a goosequill goin at the rate of one of them elbows. Ink would fly like mud at a scrub-race, and when it was done it would look like my copy-book used to do at school; more stops than words.'
"'But you keep your eye on the orchestra all the while; why not look on the stage?'
"'I do, I do; and that puzzles me the blamedest,—how they all come out square at the stops, fiddlers and all. Every now and then they seem to git into a fair race, and one feller's eye is poppin out of his head, and the veins on the woman's neck is ready to burst, and the fiddlers and the pipers and the trumpeters are all puffin and blowin, like our Kentuck jockeys at a pony sweepstakes; and then all at once, jist as there begins to be a little sport, to see who has the wind and the bottom, their heads begin to move first one side and then the other all so kind, and ready to make a draw game of it, blabbering all the time; till the trumpeter sees they're pretty well blown, then he begins to come down a little with his toot! toot! toot! That's to call all hands off, you see, and they slip down as easy and as quiet as if it had all been in fun. Then they all clear out but one, and he watches his chance till they're all gone. Then he comes here to the front, and flaps his wings and crows over them, as if he had done some great things, if we hadn't been here to show fair play.'
"I am sure, Randolph, that I give you but a poor idea of the reality, but you must supply the deficiencies by your imagination. Damon talked incessantly, and I enjoyed it far more than I could have done the opera, even if I had been a perfect Italian scholar. I find that I must defer the account of our disappointment till another time, when I will tell you some matters of interest.
"Truly yours,
"V. Chevillere."