One of our boarders--perhaps more than one was concerned in it--sent
in some questions to me, the other day, which, trivial as some of
them are, I felt bound to answer.
1.--Whether a lady was ever known to write a letter covering only a
single page?
To this I answered, that there was a case on record where a lady had
but half a sheet of paper and no envelope; and being obliged to send
through the post-office, she covered only one side of the paper
(crosswise, lengthwise, and diagonally).
2.--What constitutes a man a gentleman?
To this I gave several answers, adapted to particular classes of
questioners.
a. Not trying to be a gentleman.
b. Self-respect underlying courtesy.
c. Knowledge and observance of the fitness of things in social
intercourse.
d. f. s. d. (as many suppose.)
3.--Whether face or figure is most attractive in the female sex?
Answered in the following epigram, by a young man about town:
Quoth Tom, "Though fair her features be,
It is her figure pleases me."
"What may her figure be?" I cried.
"One hundred thousand!" he replied.
When this was read to the boarders, the young man John said he
should like a chance to "step up" to a figger of that kind, if the
girl was one of the right sort.
The landlady said them that merried for money didn't deserve the
blessin' of a good wife. Money was a great thing when them that had
it made a good use of it. She had seen better days herself, and
knew what it was never to want for anything. One of her cousins
merried a very rich old gentleman, and she had heerd that he said he
lived ten year longer than if he'd staid by himself without anybody
to take care of him. There was nothin' like a wife for nussin' sick
folks and them that couldn't take care of themselves.
The young man John got off a little wink, and pointed slyly with his
thumb in the direction of our diminutive friend, for whom he seemed
to think this speech was intended.
If it was meant for him, he did n't appear to know that it was.
Indeed, he seems somewhat listless of late, except when the
conversation falls upon one of those larger topics that specially
interest him, and then he grows excited, speaks loud and fast,
sometimes almost savagely,--and, I have noticed once or twice,
presses his left hand to his right side, as if there were something
that ached, or weighed, or throbbed in that region.
While he speaks in this way, the general conversation is
interrupted, and we all listen to him. Iris looks steadily in his
face, and then he will turn as if magnetized and meet the amber eyes
with his own melancholy gaze. I do believe that they have some kind
of understanding together, that they meet elsewhere than at our
table, and that there is a mystery, which is going to break upon us
all of a sudden, involving the relations of these two persons. From
the very first, they have taken to each other. The one thing they
have in common is the heroic will. In him, it shows itself in
thinking his way straightforward, in doing battle for "free trade
and no right of search" on the high seas of religious controversy,
and especially in fighting the battles of his crooked old city. In
her, it is standing up for her little friend with the most queenly
disregard of the code of boarding-house etiquette. People may say
or look what they like,--she will have her way about this sentiment
of hers.
The Poor Relation is in a dreadful fidget whenever the Little
Gentleman says anything that interferes with her own infallibility.
She seems to think Faith must go with her face tied up, as if she
had the toothache,--and that if she opens her mouth to the quarter
the wind blows from, she will catch her "death o' cold."
The landlady herself came to him one day, as I have found out, and
tried to persuade him to hold his tongue.--The boarders was gettin'
uneasy,--she said,--and some of 'em would go, she mistrusted, if he
talked any more about things that belonged to the ministers to
settle. She was a poor woman, that had known better days, but all
her livin' depended on her boarders, and she was sure there was n't
any of 'em she set so much by as she did by him; but there was them
that never liked to hear about sech things, except on Sundays.
The Little Gentleman looked very smiling at the landlady, who smiled
even more cordially in return, and adjusted her cap-ribbon with an
unconscious movement,--a reminiscence of the long-past pairing-time,
when she had smoothed her locks and softened her voice, and won her
mate by these and other bird-like graces.--My dear Madam,--he
said,--I will remember your interests, and speak only of matters to
which I am totally indifferent.--I don't doubt he meant this; but a
day or two after, something stirred him up, and I heard his voice
uttering itself aloud, thus:
-It must be done, Sir!--he was saying,--it must be done! Our
religion has been Judaized, it has been Romanized, it has been
Orientalized, it has been Anglicized, and the time is at hand when
it must be AMERICANIZED! Now, Sir, you see what Americanizing is in
politics;--it means that a man shall have a vote because he is a
man,--and shall vote for whom he pleases, without his neighbor's
interference. If he chooses to vote for the Devil, that is his
lookout;--perhaps he thinks the Devil is better than the other
candidates; and I don't doubt he's often right, Sir. Just so a
man's soul has a vote in the spiritual community; and it doesn't do,
Sir, or it won't do long, to call him "schismatic" and "heretic" and
those other wicked names that the old murderous Inquisitors have
left us to help along "peace and goodwill to men"!
As long as you could catch a man and drop him into an oubliette, or
pull him out a few inches longer by machinery, or put a hot iron
through his tongue, or make him climb up a ladder and sit on a board
at the top of a stake so that he should be slowly broiled by the
fire kindled round it, there was some sense in these words; they led
to something. But since we have done with those tools, we had
better give up those words. I should like to see a Yankee
advertisement like this!--(the Little Gentleman laughed fiercely as
he uttered the words,--)
--Patent thumb-screws,--will crush the bone in three turns.
--The cast-iron boot, with wedge and mallet, only five dollars!
--The celebrated extension-rack, warranted to stretch a man six
inches in twenty minutes,--money returned, if it proves
unsatisfactory.
I should like to see such an advertisement, I say, Sir! Now, what's
the use of using the words that belonged with the thumb-screws, and
the Blessed Virgin with the knives under her petticoats and sleeves
and bodice, and the dry pan and gradual fire, if we can't have the
things themselves, Sir? What's the use of painting the fire round a
poor fellow, when you think it won't do to kindle one under him,--as
they did at Valencia or Valladolid, or wherever it was?
--What story is that?--I said.
Why,--he answered,--at the last auto-da-fe, in 1824 or '5, or
somewhere there,--it's a traveller's story, but a mighty knowing
traveller he is,--they had a "heretic" to use up according to the
statutes provided for the crime of private opinion. They could n't
quite make up their minds to burn him, so they only hung him in a
hogshead painted all over with flames!
No, Sir! when a man calls you names because you go to the ballot-
box and vote for your candidate, or because you say this or that is
your opinion, he forgets in which half of the world he was born,
Sir! It won't be long, Sir, before we have Americanized religion as
we have Americanized government; and then, Sir, every soul God sends
into the world will be good in the face of all men for just so much
of His "inspiration" as "giveth him understanding"!--None of my
words, Sir! none of my words!
--If Iris does not love this Little Gentleman, what does love look
like when one sees it? She follows him with her eyes, she leans
over toward him when he speaks, her face changes with the changes of
his speech, so that one might think it was with her as with
Christabel,--
That all her features were resigned
To this sole image in her mind.
But she never looks at him with such intensity of devotion as when
he says anything about the soul and the soul's atmosphere, religion.
Women are twice as religious as men;--all the world knows that.
Whether they are any better, in the eyes of Absolute Justice, might
be questioned; for the additional religious element supplied by sex
hardly seems to be a matter of praise or blame. But in all common
aspects they are so much above us that we get most of our religion
from them,--from their teachings, from their example,--above all,
from their pure affections.
Now this poor little Iris had been talked to strangely in her
childhood. Especially she had been told that she hated all good
things,--which every sensible parent knows well enough is not true
of a great many children, to say the least. I have sometimes
questioned whether many libels on human nature had not been a
natural consequence of the celibacy of the clergy, which was
enforced for so long a period.
The child had met this and some other equally encouraging statements
as to her spiritual conditions, early in life, and fought the battle
of spiritual independence prematurely, as many children do. If all
she did was hateful to God, what was the meaning of the approving or
else the disapproving conscience, when she had done "right" or
"wrong"? No "shoulder-striker" hits out straighter than a child
with its logic. Why, I can remember lying in my bed in the nursery
and settling questions which all that I have heard since and got out
of books has never been able to raise again. If a child does not
assert itself in this way in good season, it becomes just what its
parents or teachers were, and is no better than a plastic image.--
How old was I at the time?--I suppose about 5823 years old,--that
is, counting from Archbishop Usher's date of the Creation, and
adding the life of the race, whose accumulated intelligence is a
part of my inheritance, to my own. A good deal older than Plato,
you see, and much more experienced than my Lord Bacon and most of
the world's teachers.--Old books, as you well know, are books of
the world's youth, and new books are fruits of its age. How many of
all these ancient folios round me are like so many old cupels! The
gold has passed out of them long ago, but their pores are full of
the dross with which it was mingled.
And so Iris--having thrown off that first lasso which not only
fetters, but chokes those whom it can hold, so that they give
themselves up trembling and breathless to the great soul-subduer,
who has them by the windpipe had settled a brief creed for herself,
in which love of the neighbor, whom we have seen, was the first
article, and love of the Creator, whom we have not seen, grew out of
this as its natural development, being necessarily second in order
of time to the first unselfish emotions which we feel for the
fellow-creatures who surround us in our early years.
The child must have some place of worship. What would a young girl
be who never mingled her voice with the songs and prayers that rose
all around her with every returning day of rest? And Iris was free
to choose. Sometimes one and sometimes another would offer to carry
her to this or that place of worship; and when the doors were
hospitably opened, she would often go meekly in by herself. It was
a curious fact, that two churches as remote from each other in
doctrine as could well be divided her affections.
The Church of Saint Polycarp had very much the look of a Roman
Catholic chapel. I do not wish to run the risk of giving names to
the ecclesiastical furniture which gave it such a Romish aspect; but
there were pictures, and inscriptions in antiquated characters, and
there were reading-stands, and flowers on the altar, and other
elegant arrangements. Then there were boys to sing alternately in
choirs responsive to each other, and there was much bowing, with
very loud responding, and a long service and a short sermon, and a
bag, such as Judas used to hold in the old pictures, was carried
round to receive contributions. Everything was done not only
"decently and in order," but, perhaps one might say, with a certain
air of magnifying their office on the part of the dignified
clergymen, often two or three in number. The music and the free
welcome were grateful to Iris, and she forgot her prejudices at the
door of the chapel. For this was a church with open doors, with
seats for all classes and all colors alike,--a church of zealous
worshippers after their faith, of charitable and serviceable men and
women, one that took care of its children and never forgot its poor,
and whose people were much more occupied in looking out for their
own souls than in attacking the faith of their neighbors. In its
mode of worship there was a union of two qualities,--the taste and
refinement, which the educated require just as much in their
churches as elsewhere, and the air of stateliness, almost of pomp,
which impresses the common worshipper, and is often not without its
effect upon those who think they hold outward forms as of little
value. Under the half-Romish aspect of the Church of Saint
Polycarp, the young girl found a devout and loving and singularly
cheerful religious spirit. The artistic sense, which betrayed
itself in the dramatic proprieties of its ritual, harmonized with
her taste. The mingled murmur of the loud responses, in those
rhythmic phrases, so simple, yet so fervent, almost as if every
tenth heart-beat, instead of its dull tic-tac, articulated itself as
"Good Lord, deliver us! "--the sweet alternation of the two choirs,
as their holy song floated from side to side, the keen young voices
rising like a flight of singing-birds that passes from one grove to
another, carrying its music with it back and forward,--why should
she not love these gracious outward signs of those inner harmonies
which none could deny made beautiful the lives of many of her
fellow-worshippers in the humble, yet not inelegant Chapel of Saint
Polycarp?
The young Marylander, who was born and bred to that mode of worship,
had introduced her to the chapel, for which he did the honors for
such of our boarders as were not otherwise provided for. I saw them
looking over the same prayer-book one Sunday, and I could not help
thinking that two such young and handsome persons could hardly
worship together in safety for a great while. But they seemed to
mind nothing but their prayer-book. By-and-by the silken bag was
handed round.--I don't believe she will; so awkward, you know;-
besides, she only came by invitation. There she is, with her hand
in her pocket, though,--and sure enough, her little bit of silver
tinkled as it struck the coin beneath. God bless her! she has n't
much to give; but her eye glistens when she gives it, and that is
all Heaven asks.--That was the first time I noticed these young
people together, and I am sure they behaved with the most charming
propriety,--in fact, there was one of our silent lady-boarders with
them, whose eyes would have kept Cupid and Psyche to their good
behavior. A day or two after this I noticed that the young
gentleman had left his seat, which you may remember was at the
corner diagonal to that of Iris, so that they have been as far
removed from each other as they could be at the table. His new seat
is three or four places farther down the table. Of course I made a
romance out of this, at once. So stupid not to see it! How could
it be otherwise?--Did you speak, Madam? I beg your pardon. (To my
lady-reader.)
I never saw anything like the tenderness with which this young girl
treats her little deformed neighbor. If he were in the way of going
to church, I know she would follow him. But his worship, if any, is
not with the throng of men and women and staring children.
I, the Professor, on the other hand, am a regular church-goer. I
should go for various reasons if I did not love it; but I am happy
enough to find great pleasure in the midst of devout multitudes,
whether I can accept all their creeds or not. One place of worship
comes nearer than the rest to my ideal standard, and to this it was
that I carried our young girl.
The Church of the Galileans, as it is called, is even humbler in
outside pretensions than the Church of Saint Polycarp. Like that,
it is open to all comers. The stranger who approaches it looks down
a quiet street and sees the plainest of chapels,--a kind of wooden
tent, that owes whatever grace it has to its pointed windows and the
high, sharp roofs--traces, both, of that upward movement of
ecclesiastical architecture which soared aloft in cathedral-spires,
shooting into the sky as the spike of a flowering aloe from the
cluster of broad, sharp-wedged leaves below. This suggestion of
medieval symbolism, aided by a minute turret in which a hand-bell
might have hung and found just room enough to turn over, was all of
outward show the small edifice could boast. Within there was very
little that pretended to be attractive. A small organ at one side,
and a plain pulpit, showed that the building was a church; but it
was a church reduced to its simplest expression:
Yet when the great and wise monarch of the East sat upon his throne,
in all the golden blaze of the spoils of Ophir and the freights of
the navy of Tarshish, his glory was not like that of this simple
chapel in its Sunday garniture. For the lilies of the field, in
their season, and the fairest flowers of the year, in due
succession, were clustered every Sunday morning over the preacher's
desk. Slight, thin-tissued blossoms of pink and blue and virgin
white in early spring, then the full-breasted and deep-hearted roses
of summer, then the velvet-robed crimson and yellow flowers of
autumn, and in the winter delicate exotics that grew under skies of
glass in the false summers of our crystal palaces without knowing
that it was the dreadful winter of New England which was rattling
the doors and frosting the panes,--in their language the whole year
told its history of life and growth and beauty from that simple
desk. There was always at least one good sermon,--this floral
homily. There was at least one good prayer,--that brief space when
all were silent, after the manner of the Friends at their devotions.
Here, too, Iris found an atmosphere of peace and love. The same
gentle, thoughtful faces, the same cheerful but reverential spirit,
the same quiet, the same life of active benevolence. But in all
else how different from the Church of Saint Polycarp! No clerical
costume, no ceremonial forms, no carefully trained choirs. A
liturgy they have, to be sure, which does not scruple to borrow from
the time-honored manuals of devotion, but also does not hesitate to
change its expressions to its own liking.
Perhaps the good people seem a little easy with each other;--they
are apt to nod familiarly, and have even been known to whisper
before the minister came in. But it is a relief to get rid of that
old Sunday--no,--Sabbath face, which suggests the idea that the
first day of the week is commemorative of some most mournful event.
The truth is, these brethren and sisters meet very much as a family
does for its devotions, not putting off their humanity in the least,
considering it on the whole quite a delightful matter to come
together for prayer and song and good counsel from kind and wise
lips. And if they are freer in their demeanor than some very
precise congregations, they have not the air of a worldly set of
people. Clearly they have not come to advertise their tailors and
milliners, nor for the sake of exchanging criticisms on the
literary character of the sermon they may hear. There is no
restlessness and no restraint among these quiet, cheerful
worshippers. One thing that keeps them calm and happy during the
season so evidently trying to many congregations is, that they join
very generally in the singing. In this way they get rid of that
accumulated nervous force which escapes in all sorts of fidgety
movements, so that a minister trying to keep his congregation still
reminds one of a boy with his hand over the nose of a pump which
another boy is working,--this spirting impatience of the people is
so like the jets that find their way through his fingers, and the
grand rush out at the final Amen! has such a wonderful likeness to
the gush that takes place when the boy pulls his hand away, with
immense relief, as it seems, to both the pump and the officiating
youngster.
How sweet is this blending of all voices and all hearts in one
common song of praise! Some will sing a little loud, perhaps,--and
now and then an impatient chorister will get a syllable or two in
advance, or an enchanted singer so lose all thought of time and
place in the luxury of a closing cadence that he holds on to the
last semi-breve upon his private responsibility; but how much more
of the spirit of the old Psalmist in the music of these imperfectly
trained voices than in the academic niceties of the paid performers
who take our musical worship out of our hands!
I am of the opinion that the creed of the Church of the Galileans is
not laid down in as many details as that of the Church of Saint
Polycarp. Yet I suspect, if one of the good people from each of
those churches had met over the bed of a suffering fellow-creature,
or for the promotion of any charitable object, they would have found
they had more in common than all the special beliefs or want of
beliefs that separated them would amount to. There are always many
who believe that the fruits of a tree afford a better test of its
condition than a statement of the composts with which it is dressed,
though the last has its meaning and importance, no doubt.
Between these two churches, then, our young Iris divides her
affections. But I doubt if she listens to the preacher at either
with more devotion than she does to her little neighbor when he
talks of these matters.
What does he believe? In the first place, there is some deep-rooted
disquiet lying at the bottom of his soul, which makes him very
bitter against all kinds of usurpation over the right of private
judgment. Over this seems to lie a certain tenderness for humanity
in general, bred out of life-long trial, I should say, but sharply
streaked with fiery lines of wrath at various individual acts of
wrong, especially if they come in an ecclesiastical shape, and
recall to him the days when his mother's great-grandmother was
strangled on Witch Hill, with a text from the Old Testament for her
halter. With all this, he has a boundless belief in the future of
this experimental hemisphere, and especially in the destiny of the
free thought of its northeastern metropolis.
--A man can see further, Sir,--he said one day,--from the top of
Boston State House, and see more that is worth seeing, than from all
the pyramids and turrets and steeples in all the places in the
world! No smoke, Sir; no fog, Sir; and a clean sweep from the Outer
Light and the sea beyond it to the New Hampshire mountains! Yes,
Sir,--and there are great truths that are higher than mountains and
broader than seas, that people are looking for from the tops of
these hills of ours;--such as the world never saw, though it might
have seen them at Jerusalem, if its eyes had been open!--Where do
they have most crazy people? Tell me that, Sir!
I answered, that I had heard it said there were more in New England
than in most countries, perhaps more than in any part of the world.
Very good, Sir,--he answered.--When have there been most people
killed and wounded in the course of this century?
During the wars of the French Empire, no doubt,--I said.
That's it! that's it!--said the Little Gentleman;--where the battle
of intelligence is fought, there are most minds bruised and broken!
We're battling for a faith here, Sir.
The divinity-student remarked, that it was rather late in the
world's history for men to be looking out for a new faith.
I did n't say a new faith,--said the Little Gentleman;--old or new,
it can't help being different here in this American mind of ours
from anything that ever was before; the people are new, Sir, and
that makes the difference. One load of corn goes to the sty, and
makes the fat of swine,--another goes to the farm-house, and becomes
the muscle that clothes the right arms of heroes. It is n't where a
pawn stands on the board that makes the difference, but what the
game round it is when it is on this or that square.
Can any man look round and see what Christian countries are now
doing, and how they are governed, and what is the general condition
of society, without seeing that Christianity is the flag under which
the world sails, and not the rudder that steers its course? No,
Sir! There was a great raft built about two thousand years ago,--
call it an ark, rather,--the world's great ark! big enough to hold
all mankind, and made to be launched right out into the open waves
of life,--and here it has been lying, one end on the shore and one
end bobbing up and down in the water, men fighting all the time as
to who should be captain and who should have the state-rooms, and
throwing each other over the side because they could not agree about
the points of compass, but the great vessel never getting afloat
with its freight of nations and their rulers;--and now, Sir, there
is and has been for this long time a fleet of "heretic" lighters
sailing out of Boston Bay, and they have been saying, and they say
now, and they mean to keep saying, "Pump out your bilge-water,
shovel over your loads of idle ballast, get out your old rotten
cargo, and we will carry it out into deep waters and sink it where
it will never be seen again; so shall the ark of the world's hope
float on the ocean, instead of sticking in the dock-mud where it is
lying!"
It's a slow business, this of getting the ark launched. The Jordan
was n't deep enough, and the Tiber was n't deep enough, and the
Rhone was n't deep enough, and the Thames was n't deep enough, and
perhaps the Charles is n't deep enough; but I don't feel sure of
that, Sir, and I love to hear the workmen knocking at the old blocks
of tradition and making the ways smooth with the oil of the Good
Samaritan. I don't know, Sir,--but I do think she stirs a little,--
I do believe she slides;--and when I think of what a work that is
for the dear old three-breasted mother of American liberty, I would
not take all the glory of all the greatest cities in the world for
my birthright in the soil of little Boston!
--Some of us could not help smiling at this burst of local
patriotism, especially when it finished with the last two words.
And Iris smiled, too. But it was the radiant smile of pleasure
which always lights up her face when her little neighbor gets
excited on the great topics of progress in freedom and religion, and
especially on the part which, as he pleases himself with believing,
his own city is to take in that consummation of human development to
which he looks forward.
Presently she looked into his face with a changed expression,--the
anxiety of a mother that sees her child suffering.
You are not well,--she said.
I am never well,--he answered.--His eyes fell mechanically on the
death's-head ring he wore on his right hand. She took his hand as
if it had been a baby's, and turned the grim device so that it
should be out of sight. One slight, sad, slow movement of the head
seemed to say, "The death-symbol is still there!"
A very odd personage, to be sure! Seems to know what is going on,--
reads books, old and new,--has many recent publications sent him,
they tell me, but, what is more curious, keeps up with the everyday
affairs of the world, too. Whether he hears everything that is said
with preternatural acuteness, or whether some confidential friend
visits him in a quiet way, is more than I can tell. I can make
nothing more of the noises I hear in his room than my old
conjectures. The movements I mention are less frequent, but I often
hear the plaintive cry,--I observe that it is rarely laughing of
late;--I never have detected one articulate word, but I never heard
such tones from anything but a human voice.
There has been, of late, a deference approaching to tenderness, on
the part of the boarders generally so far as he is concerned. This
is doubtless owing to the air of suffering which seems to have
saddened his look of late. Either some passion is gnawing at him
inwardly, or some hidden disease is at work upon him.
--What 's the matter with Little Boston?--said the young man John to
me one day.--There a'n't much of him, anyhow; but 't seems to me he
looks peakeder than ever. The old woman says he's in a bad way, 'n'
wants a puss to take care of him. Them pusses that take care of old
rich folks marry 'em sometimes,--'n' they don't commonly live a
great while after that. No, Sir! I don't see what he wants to die
for, after he's taken so much trouble to live in such poor
accommodations as that crooked body of his. I should like to know
how his soul crawled into it, 'n' how it's goin' to get out. What
business has he to die, I should like to know? Let Ma'am Allen (the
gentleman with the diamond) die, if he likes, and be (this is a
family-magazine); but we a'n't goin' to have him dyin'. Not by a
great sight. Can't do without him anyhow. A'n't it fun to hear him
blow off his steam?
I believe the young fellow would take it as a personal insult, if
the Little Gentleman should show any symptoms of quitting our table
for a better world.
--In the mean time, what with going to church in company with our
young lady, and taking every chance I could get to talk with her, I
have found myself becoming, I will not say intimate, but well
acquainted with Miss Iris. There is a certain frankness and
directness about her that perhaps belong to her artist nature. For,
you see, the one thing that marks the true artist is a clear
perception and a firm, bold hand, in distinction from that imperfect
mental vision and uncertain touch which give us the feeble pictures
and the lumpy statues of the mere artisans on canvas or in stone. A
true artist, therefore, can hardly fail to have a sharp, well-
defined mental physiognomy. Besides this, many young girls have a
strange audacity blended with their instinctive delicacy. Even in
physical daring many of them are a match for boys; whereas you will
find few among mature women, and especially if they are mothers, who
do not confess, and not unfrequently proclaim, their timidity. One
of these young girls, as many of us hereabouts remember, climbed to
the top of a jagged, slippery rock lying out in the waves,--an ugly
height to get up, and a worse one to get down, even for a bold young
fellow of sixteen. Another was in the way of climbing tall trees
for crows' nests,--and crows generally know about how far boys can
"shin up," and set their household establishments above that high-
water mark. Still another of these young ladies I saw for the first
time in an open boat, tossing on the ocean ground-swell, a mile or
two from shore, off a lonely island. She lost all her daring, after
she had some girls of her own to look out for.
Many blondes are very gentle, yielding in character, impressible,
unelastic. But the positive blondes, with the golden tint running
through them, are often full of character. They come, probably
enough, from those deep-bosomed German women that Tacitus portrayed
in such strong colors. The negative blondes, or those women whose
tints have faded out as their line of descent has become
impoverished, are of various blood, and in them the soul has often
become pale with that blanching of the hair and loss of color in the
eyes which makes them approach the character of Albinesses.
I see in this young girl that union of strength and sensibility
which, when directed and impelled by the strong instinct so apt to
accompany this combination of active and passive capacity, we call
genius. She is not an accomplished artist, certainly, as yet; but
there is always an air in every careless figure she draws, as it
were of upward aspiration,--the elan of John of Bologna's Mercury,--
a lift to them, as if they had on winged sandals, like the herald of
the Gods. I hear her singing sometimes; and though she evidently is
not trained, yet is there a wild sweetness in her fitful and
sometimes fantastic melodies,--such as can come only from the
inspiration of the moment,--strangely enough, reminding me of those
long passages I have heard from my little neighbor's room, yet of
different tone, and by no means to be mistaken for those weird
harmonies.
I cannot pretend to deny that I am interested in the girl. Alone,
unprotected, as I have seen so many young girls left in boarding-
houses, the centre of all the men's eyes that surround the table,
watched with jealous sharpness by every woman, most of all by that
poor relation of our landlady, who belongs to the class of women
that like to catch others in mischief when they themselves are too
mature for indiscretions, (as one sees old rogues turn to thief-
catchers,) one of Nature's gendarmerie, clad in a complete suit of
wrinkles, the cheapest coat-of-mail against the shafts of the great
little enemy,--so surrounded, Iris spans this commonplace household-
life of ours with her arch of beauty, as the rainbow, whose name she
borrows, looks down on a dreary pasture with its feeding flocks and
herds of indifferent animals.
These young girls that live in boarding-houses can do pretty much as
they will. The female gendarmes are off guard occasionally. The
sitting-room has its solitary moments, when any two boarders who
wish to meet may come together accidentally, (accidentally, I said,
Madam, and I had not the slightest intention of Italicizing the
word,) and discuss the social or political questions of the day, or
any other subject that may prove interesting. Many charming
conversations take place at the foot of the stairs, or while one of
the parties is holding the latch of a door,--in the shadow of
porticoes, and especially on those outside balconies which some of
our Southern neighbors call "stoops," the most charming places in
the world when the moon is just right and the roses and honeysuckles
are in full blow,--as we used to think in eighteen hundred and never
mention it.
On such a balcony or "stoop," one evening, I walked with Iris. We
were on pretty good terms now, and I had coaxed her arm under mine,-
-my left arm, of course. That leaves one's right arm free to defend
the lovely creature, if the rival--odious wretch! attempt, to ravish
her from your side. Likewise if one's heart should happen to beat a
little, its mute language will not be without its meaning, as you
will perceive when the arm you hold begins to tremble, a
circumstance like to occur, if you happen to be a good-looking young
fellow, and you two have the "stoop" to yourselves.
We had it to ourselves that evening. The Koh-inoor, as we called
him, was in a corner with our landlady's daughter. The young fellow
John was smoking out in the yard. The gendarme was afraid of the
evening air, and kept inside, The young Marylander came to the door,
looked out and saw us walking together, gave his hat a pull over his
forehead and stalked off. I felt a slight spasm, as it were, in the
arm I held, and saw the girl's head turn over her shoulder for a
second. What a kind creature this is! She has no special interest
in this youth, but she does not like to see a young fellow going off
because he feels as if he were not wanted.
She had her locked drawing-book under her arm.--Let me take it,--I
said.
She gave it to me to carry.
This is full of caricatures of all of us, I am sure,--said I.
She laughed, and said,--No,--not all of you.
I was there, of course?
Why, no,--she had never taken so much pains with me.
Then she would let me see the inside of it?
She would think of it.
Just as we parted, she took a little key from her pocket and handed
it to me. This unlocks my naughty book,--she said,--you shall see
it. I am not afraid of you.
I don't know whether the last words exactly pleased me. At any
rate, I took the book and hurried with it to my room. I opened it,
and saw, in a few glances, that I held the heart of Iris in my hand.
--I have no verses for you this month, except these few lines
suggested by the season.
MIDSUMMER.
Here! sweep these foolish leaves away,
I will not crush my brains to-day!
Look! are the southern curtains drawn?
Fetch me a fan, and so begone!
Not that,--the palm-tree's rustling leaf
Brought from a parching coral-reef!
Its breath is heated;--I would swing
The broad gray plumes,--the eagle's wing.
I hate these roses' feverish blood!
Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud,
A long-stemmed lily from the lake,
Cold as a coiling water-snake.
Rain me sweet odors on the air,
And wheel me up my Indian chair,
And spread some book not overwise
Flat out before my sleepy eyes.
--Who knows it not,--this dead recoil
Of weary fibres stretched with toil,
The pulse that flutters faint and low
When Summer's seething breezes blow?
O Nature! bare thy loving breast
And give thy child one hour of rest,
One little hour to lie unseen
Beneath thy scarf of leafy green!
So, curtained by a singing pine,
Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine,
Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay
In sweeter music dies away. |
