Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850
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Title: Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850
Author: Various
Release date: March 19, 2012 [eBook #39190]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, VOL. 1. NO 1, JUNE 1850 ***
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HARPER'S
NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
VOLUME I.
JUNE TO NOVEMBER, 1850.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
329 & 331 PEARL STREET,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
MDCCCL
ADVERTISEMENT.
The Publishers take great pleasure in presenting herewith the first
volume of the NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. It was projected and commenced in
the belief, that it might be made the means of bringing within the reach
of the great mass of the American people, an immense amount of useful
and entertaining reading matter, to which, on account of the great
number and expense of the books and periodicals in which it originally
appears, they have hitherto had no access. The popularity of the work
has outstripped their most sanguine expectations. Although but six
months have elapsed since it was first announced, it has already
attained a regular monthly issue of more than FIFTY THOUSAND COPIES, and
the rate of its increase is still unchecked. Under these circumstances,
the Publishers would consider themselves failing in duty, as well as in
gratitude, to the public, if they omitted any exertion within their
power to increase its substantial value and its attractiveness. It will
be their aim to present, in a style of typography unsurpassed by any
similar publication in the world, every thing of general interest and
usefulness which the current literature of the times may contain. They
will seek, in every article, to combine entertainment with instruction,
and to enforce, through channels which attract rather than repel
attention and favor, the best and most important lessons of morality and
of practical life. They will spare neither labor nor expense in any
department of the work; freely lavishing both upon the editorial aid,
the pictorial embellishments, the typography, and the general literary
resources by which they hope to give the Magazine a popular circulation,
unequaled by that of any similar periodical ever published in the world.
And they are satisfied that they may appeal with confidence to the
present volume, for evidence of the earnestness and fidelity with which
they will enter upon the fulfillment of these promises for the future.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
A Bachelor's Reverie. By IK. MARVEL 620
A Child's Dream of a Star 73
A Chip from a Sailor's Log 478
Adventure in a Turkish Harem 321
Adventure with a Snake 415
Aerial voyage of Barral and Bixio 499
A few words on Corals 251
A Five Days' Tour in the Odenwald. By WILLIAM HOWITT 448
A Giraffe Chase 329
Alchemy and Gunpowder 195
American Literature 37
American Vanity 274
A Midnight Drive 820
Amusements of the Court of Louis XV 97
Andrew Carson's Money: A Story of Gold 503
Anecdote of a Singer 779
Anecdotes of Dr. Chalmers 696
Anecdote of Lord Clive 554
A Night in the Bell Inn. A Ghost Story. 252
A Paris Newspaper 181
A Pilgrimage to the Cradle of Liberty 721
Archibald Alison (with Portrait) 134
A Shilling's Worth of Science 597
Assyrian Sects 454
A Tale of the good Old Times 52
Atlantic Waves 786
A True Ghost Story 801
A Tuscan Vintage 600
A Word at the Start 1
Bathing--Its Utility. By Dr. MOORE 215
Battle with Life (Poetry) 731
Benjamin West. By LEIGH HUNT 194
Biographical Sketch of Zachary Taylor 298
Borax Lagoons of Tuscany 397
Burke and the Painter Barry 807
Charlotte Corday 262
Chemical Contradictions 736
Christ-hospital Worthies. By LEIGH HUNT 200
Conflict with an Elephant 352
Death of Cromwell (Poetry) 257
Descent into the Crater of a Volcano 838
Diplomacy--Lord Chesterfield 246
Doing (Poetry) 268
Dr. Johnson: his Religious Life and Death 71
Early History of the Use of Coal 656
Early Rising 52
Earth's Harvests (Poetry) 297
Ebenezer Elliott 349
Education in America 209
Elephant Shooting in South Africa 393
Encounter with a Lioness 303
Eruptions of Mount Etna 35
Fashions for Early Summer 142
Fashions for July 287
Fashions for August 431
Fashions for early Autumn 575
Fashions for Autumn 719
Fashions for November 863
Fate Days, and other Superstitions 729
Father and Son 243
Fearful Tragedy--A Man-eating Lion 471
Fifty Years ago. By LEIGH HUNT 180
Fortunes of the Gardener's Daughter 832
Francis Jeffrey 66
Galileo and his Daughter 347
Genius 65
Ghost Stories: Mademoiselle Clairon 83
Glimpses of the East. By ALBERT SMITH 198
Globes, and how they are Made 165
Greenwich Weather-wisdom 265
Habits of the African Lion 480
Have great Poets become impossible? 340
History of Bank Note Forgeries 745
How to kill Clever Children 789
How to make Home unhealthy. By HARRIET MARTINEAU 601
How We Went Whaling 844
Hydrophobia 846
Ignorance of the English 205
Illustrations of Cheapness. Lucifer Matches 75
Industry of the Blind 848
Jenny Lind. By FREDRIKA BREMER 657
Jewish Veneration 119
Lack of Poetry in America 403
Lady Alice Daventry; or, the Night of Crime 642
Ledru Rollin 476
Leigh Hunt Drowning 202
Lettice Arnold. By Mrs. MARSH 13, 168, 353
Lines. By ROBERT SOUTHEY 206
Literary and Scientific Miscellany 556
Lord Jeffrey's Account of the Origin of the Edinburgh
Review--Character of Sir Robert Peel--The Ownership of Land--A
Self-Taught Artist--Conversation of Literary Men--Rewards of
Literature--Schamyl the Prophet of the Caucasus--The Colossal
Statue--Wordsworth's Prose-Writings--Anecdotes of Beranger--The
Paris Academy of Inscriptions.
LITERARY NOTICES.
Bryant's Letters of a Traveler; Bayard Taylor's Eldorado, 140.
Standish the Puritan; Talbot and Vernon, 141. Smyth's Unity of
the Human Races, 284. Talvi's Literature of the Slavic Nations;
Greeley's Hints toward Reforms, 288. Antonina Martinet's Solution
of Great Problems; Lossing's Field Book, 286, 427, 837.
Lamartine's Past Present and Future of the French Republic;
Lardner's Railway Economy; The Lone Dove; Mezzofanti's Method
applied to the Study of the French Language; The Ojibway
Conquest; Buffum's Six Months in the Gold Mines; The World as it
is and as it appears; Drake's Diseases of the Interior Valley of
North America, 286. Campbell's Life and Letters, 425. Life and
Correspondence of Andrew Combe, 426. Dr. Johnson's Religious Life
and Death; Sydney Smith's Sketches of Moral Philosophy; The
Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil, 427. Mrs. Child's Rebels;
Davies's Logic and Utility of Mathematics; The Gallery of
Illustrious Americans; The Phantom World; Christopher under
Canvas; Byrne's Dictionary of Mechanics; Griffith's Marine and
Naval Architecture, 428. Duggin's Specimens of Bridges, etc. on
the U.S. Railroads; M'Clintock's Second Book in Greek; Baird's
Impressions of the West Indies, and North America; Fleetwood's
Life of Christ; The Shoulder Knot; Supplement to Forester's Fish
and Fishing; The Morning Watch; Debates in the Convention of
California; The Mothers of the Wise and Good, 429. Carlyle's
Latter-Day Pamphlets, 430, 571. The Illustrated Domestic Bible;
Earnestness; Amy Harrington; The Vale of Cedars; Chronicles and
Characters of the Stock Exchange; Wah-to-yah, and the Taos Trail;
Poems by H. Ladd Spencer; Talvi's Heloise; The Initials; The
Lorgnette, 430. Tennyson's In Memoriam, 570. Abbott's History of
Darius; Fowler's English Language in its Elements and forms;
Julia Howard; Cumming's Five Years of a Hunter's Life; Moore's
Health, Disease, and Remedy; Wright's Perforations of the
Latter-day Pamphlets; Lanman's Haw-Ho-Noo, 571. Leigh Hunt's
Autobiography; U.S. Railroad Guide and Steamboat Journal; Ware's
Hints to Young Men; The Iris; Irving's Conquest of Granada, 572.
Life and Times of Gen. John Lamb, Progress of the Northwest;
Everett's Bunker Hill Oration; Walker's Phi Beta Kappa Oration;
Bayard Taylor's American Legend; Ungewitter's Europe, Past and
Present; Downing's Architecture of Country Houses, 573. Jarvis's
Don Quixote; Halliwell's Shakspeare; Meyer's Universum; The Night
Side of Nature; Giles's Thoughts on Life; Hill's Lectures on
Surgery; The National Temperance Offering, 574. Rural Hours;
Robinson's Greek and English Lexicon; The Berber, 713. Works of
Joseph Bellamy; Adelaide Lindsay; Mayhew's Popular Education;
Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning; After Dinner Table Talk;
Cooper's Deer Slayer; Stockton's Sermon on the Death of Zachary
Taylor; Raymond's Relations of the American Scholar to his
Country and his Times, 714. Loomis's Recent Progress of
Astronomy; Loomis's Mathematical Course; Autobiography of Goethe;
Braithwaite's Retrospect; Mrs. Ellett's Domestic History of the
Revolution; Lives of Eminent Literary and Scientific Men;
Johnson's Cicero; Lady Willoughby's Diary; The Young Woman's Book
of Health, 715. Whittier's Songs of Labor; Nicholson's Poems of
the Heart; The Mariner's Vision; Collins's edition of AEsop's
Fables; Seba Smith's New Elements of Geometry, 716. Buckingham's
Specimens of Newspaper Literature; Edward Everett's Orations and
Speeches, 717. Echoes of the Universe; Memoir of Anne Boleyn; The
Lily and the Totem; Reminiscences of Congress; Mental Hygiene,
718. Williams's Religious Progress; Poetry of Science; Footprints
of the Creator; Pre-Adamite Earth, 857. Household Surgery; Gray's
Poetical Works; Memoirs of Chalmers; History of Propellers and
Steam Navigation; The Country Year-Book; Success in Life; Alton
Locke, 858. The Builder's, and the Cabinet-maker and Upholster's
Companion; Lessons from the History of Medical Delusions; Lexicon
of Terms used in Natural History; Lamartine's Additional Memoirs,
and Genevieve; Rose's Chemical Tables; Pendennis; Stockhardt's
Principles of Chemistry; Petticoat Government; Etchings to the
Bridge of Sighs, 859. Bartlett's Natural Philosophy; Church's
Calculus; Lonz Powers; Abbott's History of Xerxes; Alexander's
Dictionary of Weights and Measures; America Discovered; Dwight's
Christianity Revived in the East; Grahame, 860. George Castriot;
The Last of the Mohicans; Johnston's Relations of Science and
Agriculture; Descriptive Geography of Palestine; Life of
Commodore Talbot; American Biblical Repository; North American
Review, 861. Methodist Quarterly Review; Christian Review;
Brownson's Quarterly, 862.
Little Mary--A tale of the Irish Famine 518
Lizzie Leigh. By CHARLES DICKENS 38
Longfellow 74
Lord Byron, Wordsworth, and Lamb 293
Lord Coke and Lord Bacon 239
Madame Grandin 135
Married Men 106
Maurice Tiernay. By CHARLES LEVER 2, 219, 329, 487, 627, 790
Memoirs of the First Duchess of Orleans 56
Memories of Miss Jane Porter. By Mrs. S.C. HALL 433
Men and Women 89
Metal in Sea Water 71
Milking in Australia 37
Mirabeau. Anecdote of his Private Life. 648
MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS.
DOMESTIC.
GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.--The invasion of Cuba, 275. Mr. Webster's
letter on the delivery of fugitive slaves; Reply of Hon. Horace
Mann, 275. Prof. Stuart's pamphlet, 275. The Nashville
Convention, 275. New Southern Paper at Washington, 275.
Connecticut resolutions in favor of the Compromise Bill, 275.
Dinner to Senator Dickenson, 275. Dinner to Hon. Edward Gilbert,
of California, 276. Constitutional conventions in Ohio and
Michigan; Governors Crittenden and Wright, 276. Anniversary of
the Battle of Bunker Hill, 276. Seizure of a vessel for violation
of the neutrality act, 276. Death of President Taylor; succession
of Mr. Fillmore, and the new Cabinet, 416. Release of the Contoy
prisoners, 417. Incorrect rumor of an insult to the U.S. Minister
to Spain, 417, 703. Fire in Philadelphia, 417. Will saltpetre
explode, 417. Cholera at the West, 417. Professor Webster's
confession, 418. The Collins steamers, 418. Mr. Squier's
researches in Central America, 418. Measures for a direct trade
from the South to Liverpool, 418. Free School System in New York,
418. Medal to Colonel Fremont, 418. U.S. Boundary Commission,
418. State Convention in New Mexico, 419. Fourth of July
Addresses at various places, 420. Celebration of the Capture of
Stony Point, 420. Affairs at Liberia, 420. American claims on
Portugal, 424. Courtesies between the Corporations of Buffalo and
Toronto, 563. Suffering the growth of the Canada thistle made
penal in Wisconsin, 563. Report of the West Point Board of
Visitors, 563. Project for shortening the passage of the
Atlantic, 563. Gen. Quitman's letter, 702. Re-election of Mr.
Rusk as Senator from Texas, indicating a disposition to accept
the U.S. proposals, 702. Arrival of a Turkish Commissioner, 702.
Changes in the Cabinet, 702. Mr. Conrad's letter to his
constituents on the slavery question, 702. Execution of Prof.
Webster, 703. Arrival of Jenny Lind, 703. Opening of the Gallery
of the Art Union, 704. Passage of the Pacific from Liverpool, the
shortest ever made, 707. Whig State Convention at Syracuse;
Convention of the seceders at Utica; Letter of Washington Hunt,
849. Anti-Renters' convention at Albany, 849. Feeling at the
South in relation to the admission of California, 850. Hon. C.J.
Jenkins on disunion, 850. New Collins steamers, Arctic and
Baltic, 850. Property in N.Y. City, 850. Swedish colony in
Illinois, 850. Working of the Fugitive Slave Bill, 850. Jenny
Lind's concerts, 850. New York a Catholic Archepiscopal See, 850.
The Boundary Bill in Texas; Mr. Kaufman's letter, 851. Policy of
Government in relation to the transit of the Isthmus, 851.
Earthquake at Cleveland, 851.
CONGRESSIONAL.--The Compromise Bill in the Senate, 275. Webster's
speech on the Bill, 416. The Galphin Claim, 416. Final action of
the Senate on the Compromise Bill, 561. Protest of Southern
Senators against the admission of California, 561. Proposals to
Texas, in relation to the boundary, 562. Discussion in the House
on the Appropriation Bill, 562. President's Message on Texas and
New Mexico, with Webster's letter to Gov. Bell, of Texas, 562.
Nominations to the Cabinet, 563. Passage of the Texas Bill, and
analysis of the votes, 700. Passage of the California Bill; of
the Fugitive Slave Bill; of Bill abolishing the Slave-trade in
the District, 701. Passage of the Appropriation Bills, with
provisions for abolishing flogging in the navy, and granting
bounties to soldiers; Adjournment of Congress, 849.
ELECTIONS.--In Virginia for members of constitutional convention;
contest between the eastern and western sections, 463. In
Missouri, partial success of the Whigs, 463. In North Carolina,
success of the Democrats, 463. In Indiana, giving the Democrats
the control of the legislature and constitutional convention,
463. In Vermont, success of the Whigs, 703. Election of Hon.
Solomon Foot as Senator, 850.
CALIFORNIA, NEW MEXICO, AND OREGON.--Tax on foreigners, 276.
Excitement at the delay of admission to the Union, 276. Riot at
Panama, 276. Fires at San Francisco, 419. Gold, 419. Indian
hostilities, 419. Bill for the admission of California as a state
into the Union, passed the Senate, and protest of Southern
Senators, 561. Line of stages between Independence, Mo., and
Santa Fe, 563. Continued discoveries of gold, 566. Disturbances
with Foreigners and Indians, 566. Steam communication between San
Francisco and China, 566. Rumors of gold in Oregon, 566.
Resignation of Gov. Lane, 566. News from the Boundary Commission,
702. Disturbances on account of Sutter's claims, 705. Cholera on
board steamers, 706. New rumors of gold in Oregon, 706. Arrival
of Senators from New Mexico; conflict of authorities; Indian
outrages, 706. State of affairs in California, up to Sept. 15,
851. In Oregon to Sept. 2, 852.
MEXICO AND SOUTH AMERICA.--Presidential Election in Mexico,
Cholera; Right of Way across the Isthmus, 418. Ravages of the
Indians in Mexico, 566. Transit of the Isthmus; Opening of the
Port of San Juan, 851. Steamers proposed between Valparaiso and
Panama, 851.
LITERARY.--Agassiz and Smyth on the Unity of the Human Race;
Address of Professor Lewis; Bishop Hughes on Socialism. Walter
Colton's book on California; Professor Davies's Logic and Utility
of Mathematics, 276. Bartlett's Natural Philosophy; Mansfield on
American Education, 277. De Quincey's writings: Poems by
Longfellow, Whittier, and Lowell; Giles's Christian Thoughts on
Life; Bristed's Reply to Mann; Gould's Comedy, The Very Age, 277.
Historical Society in Trinity College, Hartford, 420. March's
Reminiscences of Congress, 564. Torrey's translation of Neander,
564. Life of Randolph, 565. Kendall's work on the Mexican War,
565. Commencement Exercises at various Colleges, 565. G.P.R.
James's Lectures, 704. Andrews's Latin Lexicon, 704. Hildreth's
new volume of American History, 705. Dr. Wainwright's Our Saviour
with Prophets and Apostles; Miss McIntosh's Evenings at Donaldson
Manor, 853.
SCIENTIFIC.--Paine's Water-gas, 277, 564. Forshey's Essay on the
deepening of the channel of the Mississippi, 563. Professor
Page's experiments in electro-magnetism, 564. Mathiot's
experiment's at illuminating with hydrogen, 564. Meeting of the
American Scientific Association at New Haven, 564. Astronomical
Expedition under Lieutenant Gillis; Humboldt's Notice of American
Science, 705.
PERSONAL.--Arrival of G.P.R. James, 419. Arrival of Gen.
Dembinski, 419. Emerson, Prescott, Hudson, Garibaldi, 420. Hon.
D.D. Barnard, 563. Henry Clay at Newport, 563. Intelligence from
the Franklin Expedition, 564. Messrs. Lawrence and Rives at the
Royal Agricultural Society, 567. Messrs. Duer, Spaulding, and
Ashmun, decline re-election to Congress, 702. Ammin Bey, 702.
Jenny Lind, 703. Nomination of George N. Briggs for re-election
as Governor of Mass., 850. Hamlet the fugitive Slave, 850.
Archbishop Hughes, 851. Bishop Onderdonk, 851. G.P.R. James and
the Whig Review, 853.
DEATHS.--Adam Ramage; S. Margaret Fuller, 420. Commodore Jacob
Jones, 563. Mr. Nes; Professor Webster; Dr. Judson; Bishop H.B.
Bascom; John Inman, 703. Gen. Herard, ex-President of Haiti, 706.
FOREIGN.
ENGLAND.--Birth of Prince Arthur, 123. Mr. Gibson's motion in
Parliament to abolish all taxes on knowledge; bearing of these
taxes; motion negatived; evasion of the excise on paper by the
publisher of the "Greenock Newscloth," 124. Education Bill
introduced, discussed, and postponed, 124. Defeat of ministers on
unimportant measures, 124. Preparations for Industrial
Exhibition, 125, 280, 852, 853. Expeditions in search of Sir John
Franklin, 125, 855. The Greek quarrel, 277. Consequent action of
Russia and Austria in relation to British subjects, 278.
University reform, 278. Imprisonment of British colored seamen at
Charleston, 278. Sinecures in the ecclesiastical courts, 278.
Motion in Parliament to give the Australian colonies the full
management of their own affairs, lost, 278. Bill passed reducing
the parliamentary franchise in Ireland, and speech of Sir James
Graham in its favor, 279. Various bills for Sanitary and Social
reform, 279. Bill to abolish the Viceroyalty in Ireland, 280.
Commission of inquiry into the state of the Universities, 280.
Death of Sir Robert Peel, 420. Discussions on the Greek question;
remarkable speeches of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell,
421. Sunday labor in the Post-office, 421. Bill lost for
protecting free sugar; Intra-mural interments Bill passed, 422.
Assault on the Queen, 422. Wrecks in the Northern Atlantic; wreck
of the Orion, 422. The Rothschild case, 566. Foreign policy of
ministers sustained, 566. Sundry Bills for social and political
reform lost, 567. Grants to the Duke of Cambridge and the
Princess Mary, 567. Explosion of a coal-mine, 567. Gen. Haynau
mobbed, 706. Prorogation of Parliament, 706. Lord Brougham's
vagaries, 706. Extent of railways in Great Britain, 707. The
Times and Gen. Haynau, 852. The Arctic Expedition, 852. Cotton in
Siberia, 852. Lord Clarendon in Ireland, 852. Queen's University
and the bishops, 852, 855. Shipwrecks, 853. The Sea Serpent in
Ireland, 853. Punishment of naval officers for carelessness, 853.
Amount of Irish crop, 855. Cunard steamers, 855.
FRANCE.--Contest in Paris for election of Member of Assembly;
election of Eugene Sue, 122. Mutiny in the 11th Infantry, 122.
Destruction of the suspension-bridge at Angers, and terrible loss
of life, 122. Arrest of M. Proudhon, 123. Capture of Louis Pellet, a
notorious murderer, 123. Bill for restricting the suffrage, 283.
Stringent proceedings against the Press, 283. Recall of the
French embassador to England, 283. Increase voted to the salary
of the President, 424. New laws for the restriction of the Press,
424. Walker's attempt to assassinate Louis Napoleon, 424. M.
Thiers's visit to Louis Philippe, 424. Tax on feuilletons, 569.
The President's tour, 707. Death of Louis Philippe, and notice of
his life, 708. Decision of a majority of the departments in favor
of a revision of the constitution, 709. Duel between MM. Chavoix
and Dupont, 711. Death of Balzac, and notice of his life and
works, 711. The President's plans; revision of the Constitution,
856.
GERMANY.--Convocations at Frankfort and Berlin, 284. Attempt on
the life of the King of Prussia, 284. Dissolution of the Saxon
Chambers, and of the Wurtemberg Diet, 424. Peace Convention at
Frankfort, 424, 712. Restrictions on the Press in Prussia, 424.
Fresh hostilities in Schleswig-Holstein, Battle of Idstedt, 570.
Proceedings of Austria, respecting the Act of Confederation, 712.
Inundations in Belgium, 712. General Krogh rewarded by the
Emperor of Russia for his bravery at the battle of Idstedt, 712.
Extension of telegraphs, 855. Hungarian musicians expelled from
Vienna, 855. Colossal statue completed, 855. Revolutions in Hesse
Cassel and Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 856.
ITALY, SPAIN, PORTUGAL.--The Pope's return, and adhesion to the
Absolutists, 128. State of affairs in Italy, 284. Intrigues in
Spain, 284. Rain after a five years' drought, 284. Explosion of a
powder-mill, 284. Claims of the United States on Portugal, and
consequent difficulties, 424, 569. Birth and death of an heir to
the Spanish Crown, 569. Disturbances in Piedmont, 712. Disquiets
in Rome, 712. Inundation in Lombardy, 855. Prisons at Naples,
855.
INDIA, AND THE EAST.--Disturbances among the Affredies; their
villages destroyed by Sir Charles Napier, 128. Arrangements of
the Pasha of Egypt for shortening the passage across the desert,
128. Establishment of a new journal in China, 129. Permission
granted the Jews for building a temple on Mount Zion, 129.
University in New South Wales, 129. Terrible explosion at
Benares, 570. Sickness at Canton, 570. The great diamond, 570.
Revolt at Bantam, 570. Sulphur mines in Egypt, 856.
LITERARY.--Postponement of the French Exhibition of Paintings,
129. Goethe's Manuscripts, 423. Mr. Hartley's bequests set aside,
423. History of Spain, by St. Hilaire, 568. Sir Robert Peel's
MSS., 568, 712. Miss Strickland's forthcoming Lives of the Queens
of Scotland, 569. Bulwer's new novel, 710. Copyright of
foreigners, 710. Sale of the Paintings of the King of Holland,
710. Lamartine's Confidences, 710. Notice of Ticknor's Spanish
Literature in the Morning Chronicle, 710. The North British
Review, 711. Sale of the Barbarigo Gallery at Venice, 711. A new
singer, 711. New edition of Owen's Works, 853. Copyrights paid to
American Authors, 854. Theological Faculties in Germany, 854.
Translation of Dante and Ovid into Hebrew, 854. Books issued,
126, 282, 422, 564, 710.
SCIENTIFIC.--Papers read by Murchison and Lepsius before the
Geological Society, 125. Before the Royal Society, by O'Brien,
Faraday, and Mantell, 125. The _Pelorosaurus_, 125. Lead for
statues, 126. Operations of Mr. Layard, 126, 280, 854. Discovery
of ancient Roman coins in the Duchy of Oldenburg, 128. Opening of
the submarine telegraph between Dover and Calais, 129.
Experimental slips dropped from balloons, 129. Box Tunnel,
London, 129. Transplantation of a full grown tree, 129. Glass
pipes for gas, 129. International railway commission, 129.
Russian expedition for exploring the Northern Ural, 129.
Invention for extinguishing tires, 280. Experiments on light and
heat, 281. Discovery of a new comet, 281. Unswathing a mummy,
423. Society for investigating epidemics; for observations in
Meteorology, 423. Depredations on Assyrian and Egyptian
antiquities, 568. Apparatus to render sea-water drinkable, 568.
Improved mode of producing iron, 569. Prof. Johnston on American
Agriculture, 569. Telegraphic wire between Dover and Calais, 711.
Iron unsuitable for vessels of war, 853. New submarine telegraph,
853. The atmopyre, 854. A new star, 854. The Britannia bridge,
855. Ascent of Mount Blanc, 855.
SOCIAL.--Great project for agricultural emigration, 129. English
criminal cases, 129. Building for the Industrial exhibition, 567.
Lord Campbell on the Sunday Letter Bill, 707. Extension of the
Franchise in Ireland, 707. Introduction of laborers into the West
Indies, 707. Tenant-right conference in Dublin, 707. Peace
Congress at Frankfort, 424, 712.
PERSONAL.--Monument to Jeffrey, 125. Absence of mind of Bowles,
133. Degree of Doctor of Music conferred upon Meyerbeer, 422.
Gutzlaff, Corbould, Gibson, 422. Baptism of the infant prince,
422. Accident to Rogers, 423. Monument to Wordsworth, 423. Sir
Robert Peel's injunction to his family not to accept titles or
pensions, 567. Barral and Bixio's balloon ascent, and Poitevin's
horseback ascent, 568. Poverty of Guizot, 568. Meinhold fined for
libel, 569. Guizot's refusal to accept a seat in the Council of
Public Instruction, 569. Bulwer a candidate for the House of
Commons; his new play, 569. Ovation to Leibnitz and Humboldt,
569. Haynau mobbed, 706. Movements of the Queen, 707. Duel
between MM. Chavoix and Dupont, 711. Viscount Fielding embraces
Catholicism, 855. Prospective liberation of Kossuth, 855.
DEATHS.--Wordsworth, Bowles, 125; Sir James Bathurst, Madame
Dulcken, Sir Archibald Galloway, Admiral Hills, Dr. Prout, Madame
Tussaud, 127; Dr. Potts, inventor of the hydraulic pile-driver,
129. Gay Lussac, 282; M.P. Souyet, the Emperor of China, Earl of
Roscommon, Sir James Sutherland, Mrs. Jeffrey, 283; Sir Robert
Peel, 420; Duke of Cambridge, 422; Dr. Burns, Dr. Gray, Rev. W.
Kirby, B. Simmons, 568; Neander, 569; Louis Philippe, 708;
Balzac, 711; Sir Martin Archer Shee, 711. Gale the aeronaut, 854.
Moorish Domestic Life 161
Morning in Spring 87
Moscow after the Conflagration 137
Mrs. Hemans 116
My Novel; or Varieties in English Life. By SIR EDWARD
BULWER LYTTON 659, 761
My Wonderful Adventures in Skitzland 258
Neander. A Biographical Sketch 510
Obstructions to the use of the Telescope 699
Ode to the Sun. By HUNT 189
Papers on Water, No. 1 50
Physical Education 106
Peace (Poetry). By CHAS. DRYDEN. 194
Pilgrimage to the Home of Sir Thomas More. By Mrs. S.C. HALL 289
Portrait of Charles I. By VANDYCK 137
Poverty of the English Bar 218
Presence of Mind. By DE QUINCEY 467
Rapid Growth of America 237
Recollections of Dr. Chalmers 383
Recollections of Eminent Men. By LEIGH HUNT 184
Recollections of Thomas Campbell 345
Scenery on the Erie Railroad 213
Scenes in Egypt 210
Shooting Stars and Meteoric Showers 439
Short Cuts Across the Globe 79
Singular Proceedings of the Sand Wasp. By WILLIAM HOWITT 592
Sir Robert Peel. A Biographical Sketch 405
Sketches of English Character--The Old Squire--The Young
Squire. By WILLIAM HOWITT 460
Sketches of Life. By a Radical 803
Snakes and Serpent Charmers 680
Sonnet on the Death of Wordsworth 218
Sonetto 72
Sonnets from the Italian 114
Sophistry of Anglers. By LEIGH HUNT 164
Sorrows and Joys (Poetry) 627
Spider's Silk 824
Sponges 406
Steam 50
Steam Bridge of the Atlantic 411
Story of a Kite 750
Summer Pastime (Poetry) 524
Sydney Smith 584
Sydney Smith on Moral Philosophy 107
Terrestrial Magnetism 651
The American Revolution. By GUIZOT 178
The Appetite for News 249
The Approach of Christmas (Poetry) 454
The Australian Colonies 118
The Blind Sister 826
The Brothers Cheeryble 551
The Chapel by the Shore 74
The Character of Burns. By ELLIOTT 114
The Chemistry of a Candle 524
The Circassian Priest Warrior and his White Horse (Poetry) 98
The Communist Sparrow--An Anecdote of Cuvier 317
The Corn Law Rhymer 135
The Countess 816
The Death of an Infant (Poetry) 183
The Disasters of a Man who wouldn't trust his Wife. By WILLIAM
HOWITT 512
The Doom of the Slaver 846
The Enchanted Baths 139
The Enchanted Rock 639
The English Peasant. By HOWITT 483
The Every-Day Married Lady 777
The Every-Day Young Lady 742
The Flower Gatherer 78
The Force of Fear 640
The Genius of George Sand. The Comedy of Francois le Champi 95
The Gentleman Beggar. An Attorney's Story 588
The German Meistersingers 81
The Haunted House in Charnwood Forest 472
The Household Jewels (Poetry) 692
The Imprisoned Lady 551
The Iron Ring 808
The Laboratory in the Chest 673
The Light of Home 842
The Literary Profession--Authors and Publishers 548
The Little Hero of Haarlem 414
The Magic Maze 684
The Mania for Tulips in Holland 758
The Miner's Daughters. A Tale of the Peak 150
The Modern Argonauts (Poetry) 120
The Mother's First Duty 105
The Mysterious Preacher 452
The Old Church-yard Tree--A Prose-poem 483
The Old Man's Bequest. A Story of Gold 387
The Old Well in Languedoc 521
The Oldest Inhabitant of the Place de Greve 749
The Orphan's Voyage Home (Poetry) 272
The Paris Election 116
The Planet-Watchers of Greenwich 233
The Pleasures of Illness 697
The Pope at Home again 117
The Power of Mercy 395
The Prodigal's Return 836
The Quakers during the American War. By HOWITT 595
The Railway (Poetry) 826
The Railway Station (Poetry) 163
The Railway Works at Crewe 408
The Return of Pope Pius IX. to Rome 90
The Rev. William Lisle Bowles 86
The Salt Mines of Europe 759
The Schoolmaster of Coleridge and Lamb. By LEIGH HUNT 207
The Snowy Mountains in New Zealand 65
The State of the World before Adam 754
The Steel Pen. Illustration of Cheapness 677
The Sun 689
The Tea Plant 693
The Two Guides of the Child 672
The Two Thompsons 479
The Young Advocate 304
The Uses of Sorrow (Poetry) 193
The Wahr-Wolf 797
The Wife of Kong Tolv. A Fairy Tale 324
Thomas Babington Macaulay 136
Thomas Carlyle. By GEORGE GILFILLAN 586
Thomas de Quincey, the "English Opium Eater" 145
Thomas Moore 248
Trial and Execution of Mad. Roland 732
Truth 137
Tunnel of the Alps 77
Two-handed Dick, the Stockman. A Tale of Adventure in Australia 190
Ugliness Redeemed--A Tale of a London Dust-Heap 455
Unsectarian Education in England 100
Villainy Outwitted 781
Wallace and Fawdon (Poetry). By LEIGH HUNT 400
What becomes of all the clever Children? 402
What Horses Think of Men. From the Raven in the Happy Family 593
When the Summer Comes 780
William H. Prescott 138
William Pitt. By S.T. COLERIDGE 202
William Wordsworth 103
Women in the East 10
Work! An Anecdote 88
Wordsworth--His Character and Genius. By GEORGE GILFILLAN 577
Wordsworth's Posthumous Poem 546
Writing for Periodicals 553
Young Poet's Plaint. By ELLIOTT 113
Young Russia--State of Society in the Russian Empire 269
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PORTRAIT OF ARCHIBALD ALISON 134
PORTRAIT OF THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 136
PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT 138
THE PYRAMIDS 210
SECTION OF THE GREAT PYRAMID 211
THE GREAT HALL AT KARNAK 212
VIEW FROM PIERMONT (ERIE RAILROAD) 213
VALLEY OF THE NEVERSINK (FROM THE ERIE RAILROAD) 214
STARUCCA VIADUCT (ERIE RAILROAD) 215
PORTRAIT OF SIR THOMAS MORE 289
BOX CONTAINING THE SKULL OF MORE 289
CLOCK HOUSE AT CHELSEA 290
HOUSE OF SIR THOMAS MORE 292
CHELSEA CHURCH 293
TOMB OF SIR THOMAS MORE 294
HOUSE OF ROPER, MORE'S SON-IN-LAW 295
SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER 296
PORTRAIT OF ZACHARY TAYLOR 298
PORTRAIT OF JANE PORTER 433
JANE PORTER'S COTTAGE AT ESHER 437
TOMB OF JANE PORTER'S MOTHER 438
SHOOTING STARS (SIX ILLUSTRATIONS) 439
INITIAL LETTER. METEORIC SHOWERS IN GREENLAND. METEORS AT THE
FALLS OF NIAGARA. FALLING STARS AMONG THE CORDILLERAS. THE
NOVEMBER METEORS. DIAGRAM.
NEANDER IN THE LECTURE ROOM 510
PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 577
WORDSWORTH'S HOME AT RYDAL MOUNT 581
PORTRAIT OF SYDNEY SMITH 584
PORTRAIT OF THOMAS CARLYLE 586
REVOLUTIONARY MEMORIALS (FIFTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS) 721
INITIAL LETTER. MONUMENT AT CONCORD. MONUMENT AT LEXINGTON. NEAR
VIEW OF LEXINGTON MONUMENT. PORTRAIT OF JONATHAN HARRINGTON.
WASHINGTON'S HEAD-QUARTERS AT CAMBRIDGE. THE RIEDESEL HOUSE AT
CAMBRIDGE. AUTOGRAPH OF THE BARONESS RIEDESEL. BUNKER HILL
MONUMENT. CHANTREY'S STATUE OF WASHINGTON. MATHER'S VAULT.
HANDWRITING OF COTTON MATHER. SPEAKER'S DESK AND WINTHROP'S
CHAIR. PHILIP'S SAMP-PAN. CHURCH'S SWORD.
PORTRAIT OF MADAME ROLAND 732
FASHIONS FOR EARLY SUMMER (SIX ILLUSTRATIONS) 143
BALL AND VISITING DRESSES. STRAW HATS FOR PROMENADE. STRAW
BONNET. TULIP BONNET. LACE JACQUETTE.
FASHIONS FOR SUMMER (THREE ILLUSTRATIONS) 287
CARRIAGE COSTUME. BRIDAL DRESS. RIDING DRESS.
FASHIONS FOR LATER SUMMER (FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS) 435
PROMENADE DRESS. PELERINES. LITTLE GIRL'S COSTUME. HOME DRESS.
BALL DRESS.
FASHIONS FOR EARLY AUTUMN (FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS) 573
PROMENADE DRESS. COSTUME FOR A YOUNG LADY. MORNING CAPS. MORNING
COSTUME.
FASHIONS FOR AUTUMN (THREE ILLUSTRATIONS) 718
EVENING COSTUME. MORNING COSTUME. PROMENADE DRESS.
FASHIONS FOR NOVEMBER (THREE ILLUSTRATIONS) 863
PROMENADE AND CARRIAGE COSTUME. MORNING COSTUME. OPERA COSTUME.
HARPER'S
NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
NO. I--JUNE, 1850--VOL. I.
A WORD AT THE START.
HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, of which this is the initial number, will
be published every month, at the rate of three dollars per annum. Each
number will contain as great an amount and variety of reading matter,
and at least as many pictorial illustrations, and will be published in
the same general style, as the present.
The design of the Publishers, in issuing this work, is to place within
the reach of the great mass of the American people the unbounded
treasures of the Periodical Literature of the present day. Periodicals
enlist and absorb much of the literary talent, the creative genius, the
scholarly accomplishment of the present age. The best writers, in all
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Nature, the highest Poetry and the most brilliant Wit, have, within the
last ten years, found their way to the public eye and the public heart.
This devotion to Periodical writing is rapidly increasing. The leading
authors of Great Britain and of France, as well as of the United States,
are regular and constant contributors to the Periodicals of their
several countries. The leading statesmen of France have been for years
the leading writers in her journals. LAMARTINE has just become the
editor of a newspaper. DICKENS has just established a weekly journal of
his own, through which he is giving to the world some of the most
exquisite and delightful creations that ever came from his magic pen.
ALISON writes constantly for Blackwood. LEVER is enlisted in the Dublin
University Magazine. BULWER and CROLY publish their greatest and most
brilliant novels first in the pages of the Monthly Magazines of England
and of Scotland. MACAULAY, the greatest of living Essayists and
Historians, has enriched the Edinburgh Review with volumes of the most
magnificent productions of English Literature. And so it is with all the
living authors of England. The ablest and the best of their productions
are to be found in Magazines. The wealth and freshness of the Literature
of the Nineteenth Century are embodied in the pages of its Periodicals.
The Weekly and Daily Journals of England, France, and America, moreover,
abound in the most brilliant contributions in every department of
intellectual effort. The current of Political Events, in an age of
unexampled political activity, can be traced only through their columns.
Scientific discovery, Mechanical inventions, the creations of Fine Art,
the Orations of Statesmen, all the varied intellectual movements of this
most stirring and productive age, find their only record upon these
multiplied and ephemeral pages.
It is obviously impossible that all these sources of instruction and of
interest should be accessible to any considerable number even of the
reading public, much less that the great mass of the people of this
country should have any opportunity of becoming familiar with them. They
are scattered through scores and hundreds of magazines and journals,
intermingled with much that is of merely local and transient interest,
and are thus hopelessly excluded from the knowledge and the reach of
readers at large.
The Publishers of the NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE intend to remedy this evil,
and to place every thing of the Periodical Literature of the day, which
has permanent value and commanding interest, in the hands of all who
have the slightest desire to become acquainted with it. Each number will
contain 144 octavo pages, in double columns: the volumes of a single
year, therefore, will present nearly two thousand pages of the choicest
and most attractive of the Miscellaneous Literature of the Age. The
MAGAZINE will transfer to its pages as rapidly as they may be issued all
the continuous tales of DICKENS, BULWER, CROLY, LEVER, WARREN, and other
distinguished contributors to British Periodicals: articles of
commanding interest from all the leading Quarterly Reviews of both Great
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The MAGAZINE is not intended exclusively for any class of readers, or
for any kind of reading. The Publishers have at their command the
exhaustless resources of current Periodical Literature in all its
departments. They have the aid of Editors in whom both they and the
public have long since learned to repose full and implicit confidence.
They have no doubt that, by a careful, industrious, and intelligent use
of these appliances, they can present a Monthly Compendium of the
periodical productions of the day which no one who has the slightest
relish for miscellaneous reading, or the slightest desire to keep
himself informed of the progress and results of the literary genius of
his own age, would willingly be without. And they intend to publish it
at so low a rate, and to give to it a value so much beyond its price,
that it shall make its way into the hands or the family circle of every
intelligent citizen of the United States.
[From the Dublin University Magazine.]
MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.
CHAPTER I. "THE DAYS OF THE GUILLOTINE."
Neither the tastes nor the temper of the age we live in are such as to
induce any man to boast of his family nobility. We see too many
preparations around us for laying down new foundations, to think it a
suitable occasion for alluding to the ancient edifice. I will,
therefore, confine myself to saying, that I am not to be regarded as a
mere Pretender because my name is not chronicled by Burke or Debrett. My
great-grandfather, after whom I am called, served on the personal staff
of King James at the Battle of the Boyne, and was one of the few who
accompanied the monarch on his flight from the field, for which act of
devotion he was created a peer of Ireland, by the style and title of
Timmahoo--Lord Tiernay of Timmahoo the family called it--and a very
rich-sounding and pleasant designation has it always seemed to me.
The events of the time--the scanty intervals of leisure enjoyed by the
king, and other matters, prevented a due registry of my ancestors'
claims; and, in fact, when more peaceable days succeeded it, it was
judged prudent to say nothing about a matter which might revive unhappy
recollections, and open old scores, seeing that there was now another
king on the throne "who knew not Joseph;" and so, for this reason and
many others, my great-grandfather went back to his old appellation of
Maurice Tiernay, and was only a lord among his intimate friends and
cronies of the neighborhood.
That I am simply recording a matter of fact, the patent of my ancestors'
nobility now in my possession will sufficiently attest: nor is its
existence the less conclusive, that it is inscribed on the back of his
commission as a captain in the Shanabogue Fencibles--the well-known
"Clear-the-way-boys"--a proud title, it is said, to which they imparted
a new reading at the memorable battle afore-mentioned.
The document bears the address of a small public house called the Nest,
on the Kells Road, and contains in one corner a somewhat lengthy score
for potables, suggesting the notion that his majesty sympathized with
vulgar infirmities, and found, as the old song says, "that grief and
sorrow are dry."
The prudence which for some years sealed my grandfather's lips, lapsed,
after a time, into a careless and even boastful spirit, in which he
would allude to his rank in the peerage, the place he ought to be
holding, and so on; till at last some of the government people,
doubtless taking a liking to the snug house and demesne of Timmahoo,
denounced him as a rebel, on which he was arrested and thrown into jail,
where he lingered for many years, and only came out at last to find his
estate confiscated and himself a beggar.
There was a small gathering of Jacobites in one of the towns of
Flanders, and thither he repaired; but how he lived, or how he died, I
never learned. I only know that his son wandered away to the east of
Europe, and took service in what was called Trenck's Pandours--as jolly
a set of robbers as ever stalked the map of Europe, from one side to
the other. This was my grandfather, whose name is mentioned in various
chronicles of that estimable corps, and who was hanged at Prague
afterward for an attempt to carry off an archduchess of the empire, to
whom, by the way, there is good reason to believe he was privately
married. This suspicion was strengthened by the fact that his infant
child, Joseph, was at once adopted by the imperial family, and placed as
a pupil in the great military school of Vienna. From thence he obtained
a commission in the Maria Theresa Hussars, and subsequently, being sent
on a private mission to France, entered the service of Louis XVI., where
he married a lady of the queen's household--a Mademoiselle de la
Lasterie--of high rank and some fortune; and with whom he lived happily
till the dreadful events of 17--, when she lost her life, beside my
father, then fighting as a Garde du Corps, on the stair-case at
Versailles. How he himself escaped on that day, and what were the next
features in his history, I never knew; but when again we heard of him,
he was married to the widow of a celebrated orator of the Mountain, and
he himself an intimate friend of St. Just and Marat, and all the most
violent of the Republicans.
My father's history about this period is involved in such obscurity, and
his second marriage followed so rapidly on the death of his first wife,
that, strange as it may seem, I never knew who was my mother--the lineal
descendant of a house, noble before the Crusades, or the humble
"bourgeoise" of the Quartier St. Denis. What peculiar line of political
action my father followed I am unable to say, nor whether he was
suspected with or without due cause: but suspected he certainly was, and
at a time when suspicion was all-sufficient for conviction. He was
arrested, and thrown into the Temple, where I remember I used to visit
him every week; and whence I accompanied him one morning, as he was led
forth with a string of others to the Place de la Greve, to be
guillotined. I believe he was accused of royalism; and I know that a
white cockade was found among his effects, and in mockery was fastened
on his shoulder on the day of his execution. This emblem, deep dyed with
blood, and still dripping, was taken up by a bystander, and pinned on my
cap, with the savage observation, "Voila, it is the proper color; see
that you profit by the way it became so." As with a bursting heart, and
a head wild with terror, I turned to find my way homeward, I felt my
hand grasped by another--I looked up, and saw an old man, whose
threadbare black clothes and emaciated appearance bespoke the priest in
the times of the Convention.
"You have no home now, my poor boy," said he to me; "come and share
mine."
I did not ask him why. I seemed to have suddenly become reckless as to
every thing present or future. The terrible scene I had witnessed had
dried up all the springs of my youthful heart; and, infant as I was, I
was already a skeptic as to every thing good or generous in human
nature. I followed him, therefore, without a word, and we walked on,
leaving the thoroughfares and seeking the less frequented streets, till
we arrived in what seemed a suburban part of Paris--at least the houses
were surrounded with trees and shrubs; and at a distance I could see the
hill of Montmartre and its wind-mills--objects well known to me by many
a Sunday visit.
Even after my own home, the poverty of the Pere Michel's household was
most remarkable: he had but one small room, of which a miserable
settle-bed, two chairs, and a table constituted all the furniture; there
was no fire-place, a little pan for charcoal supplying the only means
for warmth or cookery; a crucifix and a few colored prints of saints
decorated the whitewashed walls; and, with a string of wooden beads, a
cloth skull-cap, and a bracket with two or three books, made up the
whole inventory of his possessions; and yet, as he closed the door
behind him, and drew me toward him to kiss my cheek, the tears glistened
in his eyes with gratitude as he said,
"Now, my dear Maurice, you are at home."
"How do you know that I am called Maurice?" said I, in astonishment.
"Because I was an old friend of your poor father, my child; we came from
the same country--we held the same faith, had the same hopes, and may
one day yet, perhaps, have the same fate."
He told me that the closest friendship had bound them together for years
past, and in proof of it showed me a variety of papers which my father
had intrusted to his keeping, well aware, as it would seem, of the
insecurity of his own life.
"He charged me to take you home with me, Maurice, should the day come
when this might come to pass. You will now live with me, and I will be
your father, so far at least as humble means will suffer me."
I was too young to know how deep my debt of gratitude ought to be. I had
not tasted the sorrows of utter desertion; nor did I know from what a
hurricane of blood and anarchy fortune had rescued me; still I accepted
the Pere's benevolent offer with a thankful heart, and turned to him at
once as to all that was left to me in the world.
All this time, it may be wondered how I neither spoke nor thought of my
mother, if she were indeed such; but for several weeks before my
father's death I had never seen her, nor did he ever once allude to her.
The reserve thus imposed upon me remained still, and I felt as though it
would have been like a treachery to his memory were I now to speak of
her whom, in his life-time I had not dared to mention.
The Pere lost no time in diverting my mind from the dreadful events I
had so lately witnessed. The next morning, soon after daybreak, I was
summoned to attend him to the little church of St. Blois, where he said
mass. It was a very humble little edifice, which once had been the
private chapel of a chateau, and stood in a weed-grown, neglected
garden, where broken statues and smashed fountains bore evidence of the
visits of the destroyer. A rude effigy of St. Blois, upon whom some
profane hand had stuck a Phrygian cap of liberty, and which none were
bold enough to displace, stood over the doorway; besides, not a vestige
of ornament or decoration existed. The altar, covered with a white
cloth, displayed none of the accustomed emblems; and a rude crucifix of
oak was the only symbol of the faith remaining. Small as was the
building, it was even too spacious for the few who came to worship. The
terror which prevailed on every side--the dread that devotion to
religion should be construed into an adherence to the monarchy, that
submission to God should be interpreted as an act of rebellion against
the sovereignty of human will, had gradually thinned the numbers, till
at last the few who came were only those whose afflictions had steeled
them against any reverses, and who were ready martyrs to whatever might
betide them. These were almost exclusively women--the mothers and wives
of those who had sealed their faith with their blood in the terrible
Place de la Greve. Among them was one whose dress and appearance,
although not different from the rest, always created a movement of
respect as she passed in or out of the chapel. She was a very old lady,
with hair white as snow, and who led by the hand a little girl of about
my own age; her large dark eyes and brilliant complexion giving her a
look of unearthly beauty in that assemblage of furrowed cheeks, and eyes
long dimmed by weeping. It was not alone that her features were
beautifully regular, or that their lines were fashioned in the very
perfection of symmetry, but there was a certain character in the
expression of the face so different from all around it, as to be almost
electrical in effect. Untouched by the terrible calamities that weighed
on every heart, she seemed, in the glad buoyancy of her youth, to be at
once above the very reach of sorrow, like one who bore a charmed fate,
and whom Fortune had exempted from all the trials of this life. So at
least did I read those features, as they beamed upon me in such a
contract to the almost stern character of the sad and sorrow-struck
faces of the rest.
It was a part of my duty to place a foot-stool each morning for the
"Marquise," as she was distinctively called, and on these occasions it
was that I used to gaze upon that little girl's face with a kind of
admiring wonder that lingered in my heart for hours after. The bold look
with which she met mine, if it at first half abashed, at length
encouraged me; and as I stole noiselessly away, I used to feel as though
I carried with me some portion of that high hope which bounded within
her own heart. Strange magnetism! it seemed as though her spirit
whispered to me not to be down-hearted or depressed--that the sorrows
of life came and went as shadows pass over the earth--that the season of
mourning was fast passing, and that for us the world would wear a
brighter and more glorious aspect.
Such were the thoughts her dark eyes revealed to me, and such the hopes
I caught up from her proud features.
It is easy to color a life of monotony; any hue may soon tinge the outer
surface, and thus mine speedily assumed a hopeful cast; not the less
decided, that the distance was lost in vague uncertainty. The nature of
my studies--and the Pere kept me rigidly to the desk--offered little to
the discursiveness of fancy. The rudiments of Greek and Latin, the lives
of saints and martyrs, the litanies of the church, the invocations
peculiar to certain holy days, chiefly filled up my time, when not
sharing those menial offices which our poverty exacted from our own
hands.
Our life was of the very simplest; except a cup of coffee each morning
at daybreak, we took but one meal; our drink was always water. By what
means even the humble fare we enjoyed was procured, I never knew, for I
never saw money in the Pere's possession, nor did he ever appear to buy
any thing.
For about two hours in the week I used to enjoy entire liberty, as the
Pere was accustomed every Saturday to visit certain persons of his flock
who were too infirm to go abroad. On these occasions he would leave me
with some thoughtful injunction about reflection or pious meditation,
perhaps suggesting, for my amusement, the life of St. Vincent de Paul,
or some other of those adventurous spirits whose missions among the
Indians are so replete with heroic struggles; but still with free
permission for me to walk out at large and enjoy myself as I liked best.
We lived so near the outer Boulevard that I could already see the open
country from our windows; but fair and enticing as seemed the sunny
slopes of Montmartre--bright as glanced the young leaves of spring in
the gardens at its foot--I ever turned my steps into the crowded city,
and sought the thoroughfares where the great human tide rolled fullest.
There were certain spots which held a kind of supernatural influence
over me--one of these was the Temple, another was the Place de la Greve.
The window at which my father used to sit, from which, as a kind of
signal, I have so often seen his red kerchief floating, I never could
pass now, without stopping to gaze at; now, thinking of him who had been
its inmate, now, wondering who might be its present occupant. It needed
not the onward current of population that each Saturday bore along, to
carry me to the Place de la Greve. It was the great day of the
guillotine, and as many as two hundred were often led out to execution.
Although the spectacle had now lost every charm of excitement to the
population, from its frequency, it had become a kind of necessity to
their existence, and the sight of blood alone seemed to slake that
feverish thirst for vengeance which no sufferings appeared capable of
satiating. It was rare, however, when some great and distinguished
criminal did not absorb all the interest of the scene. It was at that
period when the fierce tyrants of the Convention had turned upon each
other, and sought, by denouncing those who had been their bosom friends,
to seal their new allegiance to the people. There was something
demoniacal in the exultation with which the mob witnessed the fate of
those whom, but a few weeks back, they had acknowledged as their guides
and teachers. The uncertainty of human greatness appeared the most
glorious recompense to those whose station debarred them from all the
enjoyments of power, and they stood by the death-agonies of their former
friends with a fiendish joy that all the sufferings of their enemies had
never yielded.
To me the spectacles had all the fascination that scenes of horror
exercise over the mind of youth. I knew nothing of the terrible
conflict, nothing of the fierce passions enlisted in the struggle,
nothing of the sacred names so basely polluted, nothing of that
remorseless vengeance with which the low-born and degraded were still
hounded on to slaughter. It was a solemn and a fearful sight, but it was
no more; and I gazed upon every detail of the scene with an interest
that never wandered from the spot whereon it was enacted. If the parade
of soldiers, of horse, foot, and artillery, gave these scenes a
character of public justice, the horrible mobs, who chanted ribald
songs, and danced around the guillotine, suggested the notion of popular
vengeance; so that I was lost in all my attempts to reconcile the
reasons of these executions with the circumstances that accompanied
them.
Not daring to inform the Pere Michel of where I had been, I could not
ask him for any explanation; and thus was I left to pick up from the
scattered phrases of the crowd what was the guilt alleged against the
criminals. In many cases the simple word "Chouan," of which I knew not
the import, was all I heard; in others jeering allusions to former rank
and station would be uttered; while against some the taunt would imply
that they had shed tears over others who fell as enemies of the people,
and that such sympathy was a costly pleasure to be paid for but with a
life's-blood. Such entire possession of me had these awful sights taken,
that I lived in a continual dream of them. The sound of every cart-wheel
recalled the dull rumble of the hurdle--every distant sound seemed like
the far-off hum of the coming multitude--every sudden noise suggested
the clanking drop of the guillotine! My sleep had no other images, and I
wandered about my little round of duties pondering over this terrible
theme.
Had I been less occupied with my own thoughts, I must have seen that
Pere Michel was suffering under some great calamity. The poor priest
became wasted to a shadow; for entire days long he would taste of
nothing; sometimes he would be absent from early morning to late at
night, and when he did return, instead of betaking himself to rest, he
would drop down before the crucifix in an agony of prayer, and thus
spend more than half the night. Often and often have I, when feigning
sleep, followed him as he recited the litanies of the breviary, adding
my own unuttered prayers to his, and beseeching for a mercy whose object
I knew not.
For some time his little chapel had been closed by the authorities; a
heavy padlock and two massive seals being placed upon the door, and a
notice, in a vulgar handwriting, appended, to the effect, that it was by
the order of the Commissary of the Department. Could this be the source
of the Pere's sorrow? or did not his affliction seem too great for such
a cause? were questions I asked myself again and again.
In this state were matters, when one morning, it was a Saturday, the
Pere enjoined me to spend the day in prayer, reciting particularly the
liturgies for the dead, and all those sacred offices for those who have
just departed this life.
"Pray unceasingly, my dear child--pray with your whole heart, as though
it were for one you loved best in the world. I shall not return,
perhaps, till late to-night; but I will kiss you then, and to-morrow we
shall go into the woods together."
The tears fell from his cheek to mine as he said this, and his damp hand
trembled as he pressed my fingers. My heart was full to bursting at his
emotion, and I resolved faithfully to do his bidding. To watch him, as
he went, I opened the sash, and as I did so, the sound of a distant
drum, the well-known muffled roll, floated on the air, and I remembered
it was the day of the guillotine--that day in which my feverish spirit
turned, as it were in relief, to the reality of blood. Remote as was
the part of the city we lived in, to escape from the hideous imaginings
of my overwrought brain, I could still mark the hastening steps of the
foot-passengers, as they listened to the far-off summons, and see the
tide was setting toward the fatal Place de Greve. It was a lowering,
heavy morning, overcast with clouds, and on its loaded atmosphere sounds
moved slowly and indistinctly; yet I could trace through all the din of
the great city, the incessant roll of the drums, and the loud shouts
that burst forth, from time to time, from some great multitude.
Forgetting every thing, save my intense passion for scenes of terror, I
hastened down the stairs into the street, and at the top of my speed
hurried to the place of execution. As I went along, the crowded streets
and thronged avenues told of some event of more than common interest;
and in the words which fell from those around me I could trace that some
deep Royalist plot had just been discovered, and that the conspirators
would all on that day be executed. Whether it was that the frequent
sight of blood was beginning to pall upon the popular appetite, or that
these wholesale massacres interested less than the sight of individual
suffering, I know not; but certainly there was less of exultation, less
of triumphant scorn in the tone of the speakers. They talked of the
coming event, as of a common occurrence, which, from mere repetition,
was gradually losing interest.
"I thought we had done with these Chouans," said a man in a blouse, with
a paper cap on his head. "Pardie! they must have been more numerous than
we ever suspected."
"That they were, citoyen," said a haggard-looking fellow, whose features
showed the signs of recent strife; "they were the millions who gorged
and fed upon us for centuries--who sipped the red grape of Bourdeaux,
while you and I drank the water of the Seine."
"Well, their time is come now," cried a third.
"And when will ours come?" asked a fresh-looking, dark-eyed girl, whose
dress bespoke her trade of _bouquetiere_--"Do you call this our time, my
masters, when Paris has no more pleasant sight than blood, nor any music
save the 'ca ira' that drowns the cries at the guillotine? Is this our
time, when we have lost those who gave us bread, and got in their place
only those who would feed us with carnage?"
"Down with her! down with the Chouan! a bas la Royaliste!" cried the
pale-faced fellow; and he struck the girl with his fist upon the face,
and left it covered with blood.
"To the lantern with her!--to the Seine!" shouted several voices; and
now, rudely seizing her by the shoulders, the mob seemed bent upon
sudden vengeance; while the poor girl, letting fall her basket, begged,
with clasped hands, for mercy.
"See here, see here, comrades," cried a fellow, stooping down among the
flowers, "she is a Royalist: here are lilies hid beneath the rest."
What sad consequences this discovery might have led to, there is no
knowing; when, suddenly, a violent rush of the crowd turned every
thought into a different direction. It was caused by a movement of the
Gendarmerie a cheval, who were clearing the way for the approaching
procession. I had just time to place the poor girl's basket in her
hands, as the onward impulse of the dense mob carried me forward. I saw
her no more. A flower--I know not how it came there--was in my bosom,
and seeing that it was a lily, I placed it in my cap for concealment.
The hoarse clangor of the bassoons--the only instruments which played
during the march--now told that the procession was approaching; and then
I could see, above the heads of the multitude, the leopard-skin helmets
of the dragoons, who led the way. Save this I could see nothing, as I
was borne along in the vast torrent toward the place of execution.
Slowly as we moved, our progress was far more rapid than that of the
procession, which was often obliged to halt from the density of the mob
in front. We arrived, therefore, at the Place a considerable time
before it; and now I found myself beside the massive wooden railing
placed to keep off the crowd from the space around the guillotine.
It was the first time I had ever stood so close to the fatal spot, and
my eyes devoured every detail with the most searching intensity. The
colossal guillotine itself, painted red, and with its massive ax
suspended aloft--the terrible basket, half filled with sawdust,
beneath--the coarse table, on which a rude jar and a cap were
placed--and, more disgusting than all, the lounging group, who, with
their newspapers in hand, seemed from time to time to watch if the
procession were approaching. They sat beneath a misshapen statue of
wood, painted red like the guillotine. This was the goddess of Liberty.
I climbed one of the pillars of the paling, and could now see the great
cart, which, like a boat upon wheels, came slowly along, dragged by six
horses. It was crowded with people, so closely packed that they could
not move their bodies, and only waved their hands, which they did
incessantly. They seemed, too, as if they were singing; but the deep
growl of the bassoons, and the fierce howlings of the mob, drowned all
other sounds. As the cart came nearer, I could distinguish the faces,
amid which were those of age and youth--men and women--bold-visaged boys
and fair girls--some, whose air bespoke the very highest station, and
beside them, the hardy peasant, apparently more amazed than terrified at
all he saw around him. On they came, the great cart surging heavily,
like a bark in a stormy sea; and now it cleft the dense ocean that
filled the Place, and I could descry the lineaments wherein the
stiffened lines of death were already marked. Had any touch of pity
still lingered in that dense crowd, there might well have been some show
of compassion for the sad convoy, whose faces grew ghastly with terror
as they drew near the horrible engine.
Down the furrowed cheek of age the heavy tears coursed freely, and sobs
and broken prayers burst forth from hearts that until now had beat high
and proudly.
"There is the Duc d'Angeac," cried a fellow, pointing to a venerable old
man, who was seated at the corner of the cart, with an air of calm
dignity; "I know him well, for I was his perruquier."
"His hair must be content with sawdust this morning, instead of powder,"
said another; and a rude laugh followed the ruffian jest.
"See! mark that woman with the long dark hair--that is La Bretonville,
the actress of the St. Martin."
"I have often seen her represent terror far more naturally," cried a
fashionably-dressed man, as he stared at the victim through his
opera-glass.
"Bah!" replied his friend, "she despises her audience, _voila tout_.
Look, Henri, if that little girl beside her be not Lucille of the
Pantheon."
"Parbleu! so it is. Why, they'll not leave a pirouette in the Grand
Opera. Pauvre petite, what had you to do with politics?"
"Her little feet ought to have saved her head any day."
"See how grim that old lady beside her looks: I'd swear she is more
shocked at the company she's thrown into, than the fate that awaits her.
I never saw a glance of prouder disdain than she has just bestowed on
poor Lucille."
"That's the old Marquise d'Estelles, the very essence of our old
nobility. They used to talk of their mesalliance with the Bourbons as
the first misfortune of their house."
"Pardie! they have lived to learn deeper sorrows."
I had by this time discovered her they were speaking of, whom I
recognized at once as the old marquise of the chapel of St. Blois. My
hands nearly gave up their grasp as I gazed on those features, which so
often I had seen fixed in prayer, and which now--a thought paler,
perhaps--wore the self-same calm expression. With what intense agony I
peered into the mass, to see if the little girl, her grand-daughter,
were with her; and, oh! the deep relief I felt as I saw nothing but
strange faces on every side. It was terrible to feel, as my eyes ranged
over that vast mass, where grief and despair, and heart-sinking terror
were depicted, that I should experience a spirit of joy and
thankfulness; and yet I did so, and with my lips I uttered my gratitude
that she was spared! But I had not time for many reflections like this;
already the terrible business of the day had begun, and the prisoners
were now descending from the cart, ranging themselves, as their names
were called, in a line below the scaffold. With a few exception, they
took their places in all the calm of seeming indifference. Death had
long familiarized itself to their minds in a thousand shapes. Day by day
they had seen the vacant places left by those led out to die, and if
their sorrows had not rendered them careless of life, the world itself
had grown distasteful to them. In some cases a spirit of proud scorn was
manifested to the very last; and, strange inconsistency of human nature!
the very men whose licentiousness and frivolity first evoked the
terrible storm of popular fury, were the first to display the most
chivalrous courage in the terrible face of the guillotine. Beautiful
women, too, in all the pride of their loveliness, met the inhuman stare
of that mob undismayed. Nor were these traits without their fruits. This
noble spirit--this triumphant victory of the well-born and the
great--was a continual insult to the populace, who saw themselves
defrauded of half their promised vengeance, and they learned that they
might kill, but they could never humiliate them. In vain they dipped
their hands in the red life-blood, and, holding up their dripping
fingers, asked, "How did it differ from that of the canaille?" Their
hearts gave the lie to the taunt for they witnessed instances of
heroism from gray hairs and tender womanhood, that would have shamed
the proudest deeds of their new-born chivalry!
"Charles Gregoire Courcelles!" shouted out a deep voice from the
scaffold.
"That is my name," said a venerable-looking old gentleman, as he arose
from his seat, adding, with a placid smile, "but, for half a century my
friends have called me the Duc de Riancourt."
"We have no dukes nor marquises; we know of no titles in France,"
replied the functionary. "All men are equal before the law."
"If it were so, my friend, you and I might change places; for you were
my steward, and plundered my chateau."
"Down with the royalist--away with the aristocrat!" shouted a number of
voices from the crowd.
"Be a little patient, good people," said the old man, as he ascended the
steps with some difficulty; "I was wounded in Canada, and have never yet
recovered. I shall probably be better a few minutes hence."
There was something of half simplicity in the careless way the words
were uttered that hushed the multitude, and already some expressions of
sympathy were heard; but as quickly the ribald insults of the hired
ruffians of the Convention drowned these sounds, and "Down with the
royalist" resounded on every side, while two officials assisted him to
remove his stock and bare his throat. The commissary, advancing to the
edge of the platform, and, as it were, addressing the people, read in a
hurried, slurring kind of voice, something that purported to be the
ground of the condemnation. But of this not a word could be heard. None
cared to hear the ten-thousand-time told tale of suspected royalism, nor
would listen to the high-sounding declamation that proclaimed the
virtuous zeal of the government--their untiring energy--their glorious
persistence in the cause of the people. The last words were, as usual,
responded to with an echoing shout, and the cry of "Vive la Republique"
rose from the great multitude.
"Vive le Roi!" cried the old man, with a voice heard high above the
clamor; but the words were scarce out when the lips that muttered them
were closed in death; so sudden was the act, that a cry burst forth from
the mob, but whether in reprobation or in ecstasy I knew not.
I will not follow the sad catalogue, wherein nobles and peasants,
priests, soldiers, actors, men of obscure fortune, and women of lofty
station succeeded each other, occupying for a brief minute every eye,
and passing away for ever. Many ascended the platform without a word;
some waved a farewell toward a distant quarter, where they suspected a
friend to be--others spent their last moments in prayer, and died in the
very act of supplication. All bore themselves with a noble and proud
courage; and now some five or six alone remained, of whose fate none
seemed to guess the issue, since they had been taken from the Temple by
some mistake, and were not included in the list of the commissary. There
they sat, at the foot of the scaffold, speechless and stupefied--they
looked as though it were matter of indifference to which side their
steps should turn--to the jail or the guillotine. Among these was the
marquise, who alone preserved her proud self-possession, and sat in all
her accustomed dignity; while close beside her an angry controversy was
maintained as to their future destiny--the commissary firmly refusing to
receive them for execution, and the delegate of the Temple, as he was
styled, as flatly asserting that he would not re-conduct them to prison.
The populace soon grew interested in the dispute, and the most violent
altercations arose among the partisans of each side of the question.
Meanwhile, the commissary and his assistants prepared to depart. Already
the massive drapery of red cloth was drawn over the guillotine, and
every preparation made for withdrawing, when the mob, doubtless
dissatisfied that they should be defrauded of any portion of the
entertainment, began to climb over the wooden barricades, and, with
furious cries and shouts, threatened vengeance upon any who would screen
the enemies of the people.
The troops resisted the movement, but rather with the air of men
entreating calmness, than with the spirit of soldiery. It was plain to
see on which side the true force lay.
"If you will not do it, the people will do it for you," whispered the
delegate to the commissary; "and who is to say where they will stop when
their hands once learn the trick!"
The commissary grew lividly pale, and made no reply.
"See there!" rejoined the other; "they are carrying a fellow on their
shoulders yonder; they mean him to be executioner."
"But I dare not--I can not--without my orders."
"Are not the people sovereign?--whose will have we sworn to obey, but
theirs?"
"My own head would be the penalty if I yielded."
"It will be, if you resist--even now it is too late."
And as he spoke he sprang from the scaffold, and disappeared in the
dense crowd that already thronged the space within the rails.
By this time, the populace were not only masters of the area around, but
had also gained the scaffold itself, from which many of them seemed
endeavoring to harangue the mob; others contenting themselves with
imitating the gestures of the commissary and his functionaries. It was a
scene of the wildest uproar and confusion--frantic cries and screams,
ribald songs and fiendish yellings on every side. The guillotine was
again uncovered, and the great crimson drapery, torn into fragments, was
waved about like flags, or twisted into uncouth head-dresses. The
commissary failing in every attempt to restore order peaceably, and
either not possessing a sufficient force, or distrusting the temper of
the soldiers, descended from the scaffold, and gave the order to march.
This act of submission was hailed by the mob with the most furious yell
of triumph. Up to that very moment, they had never credited the bare
possibility of a victory; and now they saw themselves suddenly masters
of the field--the troops, in all the array of horse and foot, retiring
in discomfiture. Their exultation knew no bounds; and, doubtless, had
there been among them those with skill and daring to profit by the
enthusiasm, the torrent had rushed a longer and more terrific course
than through the blood-steeped clay of the Place de la Greve.
"Here is the man we want," shouted a deep voice. "St. Just told us,
t'other day, that the occasion never failed to produce one; and see,
here is 'Jean Gougon;' and though he's but two feet high, his fingers
can reach the pin of the guillotine."
And he held aloft on his shoulders a misshapen dwarf, who was well known
on the Pont Neuf, where he gained his living by singing infamous songs,
and performing mockeries of the service of the mass. A cheer of welcome
acknowledged this speech, to which the dwarf responded by a mock
benediction, which he bestowed with all the ceremonious observance of an
archbishop. Shouts of the wildest laughter followed this ribaldry, and
in a kind of triumph they carried him up the steps, and deposited him on
the scaffold.
Ascending one of the chairs, the little wretch proceeded to address the
mob, which he did with all the ease and composure of a practiced public
speaker. Not a murmur was heard in that tumultuous assemblage, as he,
with a most admirable imitation of Hebert, then the popular idol,
assured them that France was, at that instant, the envy of surrounding
nations; and that, bating certain little weaknesses on the score of
humanity--certain traits of softness and over-mercy--her citizens
realized all that ever had been said of angels. From thence he passed on
to a mimicry of Marat, of Danton, and of Robespierre--tearing off his
cravat, baring his breast, and performing all the oft-exhibited antics
of the latter, as he vociferated, in a wild scream, the well-known
peroration of a speech he had lately made--"If we look to a glorious
morrow of freedom, the sun of our slavery must set in blood!"
However amused by the dwarf's exhibition, a feeling of impatience began
to manifest itself among the mob, who felt that, by any longer delay, it
was possible time would be given for fresh troops to arrive, and the
glorious opportunity of popular sovereignty be lost in the very hour of
victory.
"To work--to work, Master Gougon!" shouted hundreds of rude voices; "we
can not spend our day in listening to oratory."
"You forget, my dear friends," said he blandly, "that this is to me a
new walk in life I have much to learn, ere I can acquit myself worthily
to the republic."
"We have no leisure for preparatory studies, Gougon," cried a fellow
below the scaffold.
"Let me, then, just begin with monsieur," said the dwarf, pointing to
the last speaker; and a shout of laughter closed the sentence.
A brief and angry dispute now arose as to what was to be done, and it is
more than doubtful how the debate might have ended, when Gougon, with a
readiness all his own, concluded the discussion by saying,
"I have it, messieurs, I have it. There is a lady here, who, however
respectable her family and connections, will leave few to mourn her
loss. She is, in a manner, public property, and if not born on the soil,
at least a naturalized Frenchwoman. We have done a great deal for her,
and in her name, for some time back, and I am not aware of any singular
benefit she has rendered us. With your permission, then, I'll begin with
_her_."
"Name, name--name her," was cried by thousands.
"_La voila_," said he, archly, as he pointed with his thumb to the
wooden effigy of Liberty above his head.
The absurdity of the suggestion was more than enough for its success. A
dozen hands were speedily at work, and down came the Goddess of Liberty!
The other details of an execution were hurried over with all the speed
of practiced address, and the figure was placed beneath the drop. Down
fell the ax, and Gougon, lifting up the wooden head, paraded it about
the scaffold, crying,
"Behold! an enemy of France. Long live the republic, one and
'indivisible.'"
Loud and wild were the shouts of laughter from this brutal mockery; and
for a time it almost seemed as if the ribaldry had turned the mob from
the sterner passions of their vengeance. This hope, if one there ever
cherished it, was short-lived; and again the cry arose for blood. It was
too plain, that no momentary diversion, no passing distraction, could
withdraw them from that lust for cruelty, that had now grown into a
passion.
And now a bustle and movement of those around the stairs showed that
something was in preparation; and in the next moment the old marquise
was led forward between two men.
"Where is the order for this woman's execution?" asked the dwarf,
mimicking the style and air of the commissary.
"We give it: it is from us," shouted the mob, with one savage roar.
Gougon removed his cap, and bowed a token of obedience.
"Let us proceed in order, messieurs," said he, gravely; "I see no priest
here."
"Shrive her yourself, Gougon; few know the mummeries better!" cried a
voice.
"Is there not one here can remember a prayer, or even a verse of the
offices," said Gougon, with a well-affected horror in his voice.
"Yes, yes, I do," cried I, my zeal overcoming all sense of the mockery
in which the words were spoken; "I know them all by heart, and can
repeat them from 'lux beatissima' down to 'hora mortis;'" and as if to
gain credence for my self-laudation, I began at once to recite in the
sing-song tone of the seminary,
"Salve, mater salvatoris,
Fons salutis, vas honoris:
Scala coeli porta et via
Salve semper, O, Maria!"
It is possible I should have gone on to the very end, if the uproarious
laughter which rung around had not stopped me.
"There's a brave youth!" cried Gougon, pointing toward me, with mock
admiration. "If it ever come to pass--as what may not in these strange
times?--that we turn to priest-craft again, thou shalt be the first
archbishop of Paris. Who taught thee that famous canticle?"
"The Pere Michel," replied I, in no way conscious of the ridicule
bestowed upon me; "the Pere Michel of St. Blois."
The old lady lifted up her head at these words, and her dark eyes rested
steadily upon me; and then, with a sign of her hand, she motioned to me
to come over to her.
"Yes; let him come," said Gougon, as if answering the half-reluctant
glances of the crowd. And now I was assisted to descend, and passed
along over the heads of the people till I was placed upon the scaffold.
Never can I forget the terror of that moment, as I stood within a few
feet of the terrible guillotine, and saw beside me the horrid basket,
splashed with recent blood.
"Look not at these things, child," said the old lady, as she took my
hand and drew me toward her, "but listen to me, and mark my words well."
"I will, I will," cried I, as the hot tears rolled down my cheeks.
"Tell the Pere--you will see him to-night--tell him that I have changed
my mind, and resolved upon another course, and that he is not to leave
Paris. Let them remain. The torrent runs too rapidly to last. This can
not endure much longer. We shall be among the last victims! You hear me,
child?"
"I do, I do," cried I, sobbing. "Why is not the Pere Michel with you
now?"
"Because he is suing for my pardon; asking for mercy, where its very
name is a derision. Kneel down beside me, and repeat the 'angelus.'"
I took off my cap, and knelt down at her feet, reciting, in a voice
broken by emotion, the words of the prayer. She repeated each syllable
after me, in a tone full and unshaken, and then stooping, she took up
the lily which lay in my cap. She pressed it passionately to her lips;
two or three times passionately. "Give it to her; tell her I kissed it
at my last moment. Tell her--"
"This 'shrift' is beyond endurance. Away, holy father," cried Gougon,
as he pushed me rudely back, and seized the marquise by the wrist. A
faint cry escaped her. I heard no more; for, jostled and pushed about by
the crowd, I was driven to the very rails of the scaffold. Stepping
beneath these, I mingled with the mob beneath; and burning with
eagerness to escape a scene, to have witnessed which would almost have
made my heart break, I forced my way into the dense mass, and, by
squeezing and creeping, succeeded at last in penetrating to the verge of
the Place. A terrible shout, and a rocking motion of the mob, like the
heavy surging of the sea, told me that all was over; but I never looked
back to the fatal spot, but having gained the open streets, ran at the
top of my speed toward home.
(_To be continued._)
[From Bender's Monthly Miscellany.]
WOMEN IN THE EAST.
BY AN ORIENTAL TRAVELER.
Within the gay kiosk reclined,
Above the scent of lemon groves,
Where bubbling fountains kiss the wind,
And birds make music to their loves,
She lives a kind of faery life,
In sisterhood of fruits and flowers,
Unconscious of the outer strife
That wears the palpitating hours.
_The Hareem._ R.M. MILNES.
There is a gentle, calm repose breathing through the whole of this poem,
which comes soothingly to the imagination wearied with the strife and
hollowness of modern civilization. Woman in it is the inferior being;
but it is the inferiority of the beautiful flower, or of the fairy birds
of gorgeous plumage, who wing their flight amid the gardens and bubbling
streams of the Eastern palace. Life is represented for the Eastern women
as a long dream of affection; the only emotions she is to know are those
of ardent love and tender maternity. She is not represented as the
companion to man in his life battle, as the sharer of his triumph and
his defeats: the storms of life are hushed at the entrance of the
hareem; _there_ the lord and master deposits the frown of unlimited
power, or the cringing reverence of the slave, and appears as the
watchful guardian of the loved one's happiness. Such a picture is
poetical, and would lead one to say, alas for human progress, if the
Eastern female slave is thus on earth to pass one long golden
summer--her heart only tied by those feelings which keep it young--while
her Christian sister has these emotions but as sun-gleams to lighten and
make dark by contrast, the frequent gloom of her winter life.
But although the conception is poetical, to one who has lived many years
in the East, it appears a conception, not a description of the real
hareem life, even among the noble and wealthy of those lands. The
following anecdote may be given us the other side of the picture. The
writer was a witness of the scene, and he offers it as a consolation to
those of his fair sisters, who, in the midst of the troubles of
common-place life, might be disposed to compare their lot with that of
the inmate of the mysterious and happy home drawn by the poet.
It was in a large and fruitful district of the south of India that I
passed a few years of my life. In this district lived, immured in his
fort, one of the native rajahs, who, with questionable justice, have
gradually been shorn of their regal state and authority, to become
pensioners of the East India Company. The inevitable consequence of such
an existence, the forced life of inactivity with the traditions of the
bold exploits of his royal ancestors, brilliant Mahratta chieftains, may
be imagined. The rajah sunk into a state of slothful dissipation, varied
by the occasional intemperate exercise of the power left him within the
limits of the fortress, his residence. This fort is not the place which
the word would suggest to the reader, but was rather a small native town
surrounded by fortifications. This town was peopled by the descendants
of the Mahrattas, and by the artisans and dependents of the rajah and
his court. Twice a year the English resident and his assistants were
accustomed to pay visits of ceremony to the rajah, and had to encounter
the fatiguing sights of dancing-girls, beast-fights, and _music_, if the
extraordinary assemblage of sounds, which in the East assume the place
of harmony, can be so called.
We had just returned from one of these visits, and were grumbling over
our headaches, the dust, and the heat, when, to our surprise, the
rajah's vabul or confidential representative was announced. As it was
nine o'clock in the evening this somewhat surprised us. He was, however,
admitted, and after a short, hurried obeisance, he announced "that he
must die! that there had been a sudden revolt of the hareem, and that
when the rajah knew it, he would listen to no explanations, but be sure
to imprison and ruin all round him; and that foremost in the general
destruction would be himself, Veneat-Rao, who had always been the child
of the English Sahibs, who were his fathers--that they were wise above
all natives, and that he had come to them for help!" All this was
pronounced with indescribable volubility, and the appearance of the
speaker announced the most abject fear. He was a little wizened Brahmin,
with the thin blue lines of his caste carefully painted on his wrinkled
forehead. His dark black eyes gleamed with suppressed impotent rage, and
in his agitation he had lost all that staid, placid decorum which we had
been accustomed to observe in him when transacting business. When urged
to explain the domestic disaster which had befallen his master, he
exclaimed with ludicrous pathos, "By Rama! women are devils; by them all
misfortunes come upon men! But, sahibs, hasten with me; they have
broken through the guard kept on the hareem door by two old sentries;
they ran through the fort and besieged my house; they are now there, and
refuse to go back to the hareem. The rajah returns to-morrow from his
hunting--what can I say? I must die! my children, who will care for
them? what crime did my father commit that I should thus be disgraced?"
Yielding to these entreaties, and amused at the prospect of a novel
scene, we mounted our horses and cantered to the fort. The lights were
burning brightly in the bazaars as we rode through them, and except a
few groups gathered to discuss the price of rice and the want of rain,
we perceived no agitation till we reached the Vakeel's house. Arrived
here we dismounted, and on entering the square court-yard a scene of
indescribable confusion presented itself. The first impression it
produced on me was that of entering a large aviary in which the birds,
stricken with terror, fly madly to and fro against the bars. Such was
the first effect of our entrance. Women and girls of all ages, grouped
about the court, in most picturesque attitudes, started up and fled to
its extreme end; only a few of the more matronly ladies stood their
ground, and with terribly screeching voices, declaimed against some one
or something, but for a long time we could, in this Babel of female
tongues, distinguish nothing. At last we managed to distinguish the
rajah's name, coupled with epithets most disrespectful to royalty. This,
and that they, the women, begged instantly to be put to death, was all
that the clamor would permit us to understand. We looked appealingly at
Veneat Rao, who stood by, wringing his hands. However, he made a
vigorous effort, and raising his shrill voice, told them that the sahibs
had come purposely to listen to, and redress their grievances, and that
they would hold durbar (audience) then and there.
This announcement produced a lull, and enabled us to look round us at
the strange scene. Scattered in various parts of the court were these
poor prisoners, who now for the first time for many years tasted
liberty. Scattered about were some hideous old women, partly guardians
of the younger, partly remains, we were told, of the rajah's father's
seraglio. Young children moved among them looking very much frightened.
But the group which attracted our attention and admiration consisted of
about twenty really beautiful girls, from fourteen to eighteen years of
age, of every country and caste, in the various costume and ornament of
their races; these were clustering round a fair and very graceful
Mahratta girl, whose tall figure was seen to great advantage in the
blaze of torchlight. Her muslin vail had half fallen from her face,
allowing us to see her large, soft, dark eyes, from which the tears were
fast falling, as in a low voice she addressed her fellow-sufferers.
There was on her face a peculiar expression of patient endurance of
ill, inexpressibly touching. This is not an unfrequent character in the
beauty of Asiatic women; the natural result of habits of fear, and the
entire submission to the will of others.
Her features were classically regular, with the short rounded chin, the
long graceful neck, and that easy port of head so seldom seen except in
the women of the East. Her arms were covered with rich bracelets, and
were of the most perfect form; her hands long and tapering, the palms
and nails dyed with the "henna." No barbarously-civilized restraint
rendered her waist a contradiction of natural beauty; a small, dark
satin bodice, richly embroidered, covered a bosom which had hardly
attained womanly perfection; a zone of gold held together the full
muslin folds of the lower portion of her dress, below which the white
satin trowsers reached, without concealing a faultless ankle and foot,
uncovered, except by the heavy anklet and rings which tinkled at every
step she took. After the disturbance that our entrance had caused, had
in a measure subsided, the children, who were richly dressed and loaded
with every kind of fantastic ornament, came sidling timidly round us,
peering curiously with their large black eyes, at the unusual sight of
white men.
Considerably embarrassed at the very new arbitration which we were about
to undertake, B. and I consulted for a little while, after which,
gravely taking our seats, and Veneat Rao having begged them to listen
with respectful attention, I, at B.'s desire, proceeded to address them,
telling them,
"That we supposed some grave cause must have arisen for them to desert
the palace of the rajah, their protector, during his absence, and by
violently overpowering the guard, incur his serious anger (here my eye
caught a sight of the said guard, consisting of two blear-eyed,
shriveled old men, and I nearly lost all solemnity of demeanor) that if
they complained of injustice, we supposed that it must have been
committed without his highness's knowledge, but that if they would
quietly return to the hareem we would endeavor to represent to their
master their case, and entreat him to redress their grievance."
I spoke this in Hindusthani, which, as the _lingua franca_ of the
greater part of India, I thought was most likely to be understood by the
majority of my female audience. I succeeded perfectly in making myself
understood, but was not quite so successful in convincing them that it
was better that they should return to the rajah's palace. After rather a
stormy discussion, the Mahratta girl, whom we had so much admired on our
entrance, stepped forward, and, bowing lowly before us, and crossing her
arms, in a very sweet tone of voice proceeded to tell her story, which,
she said, was very much the history of them all. The simple, and at
times picturesque expressions lose much by translation.
"Sir, much shame comes over me, that I, a woman, should speak before
men who are not our fathers, husbands, nor brothers, who are strangers,
of another country and religion; but they tell us that you English
sahibs love truth and justice, and protect the poor.
"I was born of Gentoo parents--rich, for I can remember the bright,
beautiful jewels which, as a child, I wore on my head, arms, and feet,
the large house and gardens where I played, and the numerous servants
who attended me.
"When I had reached my eighth or ninth year I heard them talk of my
betrothal,[1] and of the journey which we were, previous to the
ceremony, to take to some shrine in a distant country. My father, who
was advancing in years, and in bad health, being anxious to bathe in the
holy waters, which should give him prolonged life and health.
[1] The usual age for the ceremony among the wealthy India.
"The journey had lasted for many days, and one evening after we had
halted for the day I accompanied my mother when she went to bathe in a
tank near to our encampment. As I played along the bank and picked a few
wild flowers that grew under the trees I observed an old woman advancing
toward me. She spoke to me in a kind voice, asked me my name? who were
my parents? where we were going? and when I had answered her these
questions she told me that if I would accompany her a little way she
would give me some prettier flowers than those I was gathering, and that
her servant should take me back to my people.
"I had no sooner gone far enough to be out of sight and hearing of my
mother than the old woman threw a cloth over my head, and taking me up
in her arms, hurried on for a short distance. There I could distinguish
men's voices, and was sensible of being placed in a carriage, which was
driven off at a rapid pace. No answer was returned to my cries and
entreaties to be restored to my parents, and at sunrise I found myself
near hills which I had never before seen, and among a people whose
language was new to me.
"I remained with these people, who were not unkind to me, three or four
years; and I found out that the old woman who had carried me off from my
parents, was an emissary sent from the rajah's hareem to kidnap, when
they could not be purchased, young female children whose looks promised
that they would grow up with the beauty necessary for the gratification
of the prince's passions.
"Sahibs! I have been two years an inmate of the rajah's hareem--would to
God I had died a child in my own country with those I loved, than that I
should have been exposed to the miseries we suffer. The splendor which
surrounds us is only a mockery. The rajah, wearied and worn out by a
life of debauchery, takes no longer any pleasure in our society, and is
only roused from his lethargy to inflict disgrace and cruelties upon
us. We, who are of Brahmin caste, for his amusement, are forced to learn
the work of men--are made to carry in the gardens of the hareem a
palanquin, to work as goldsmiths--and, may our gods pardon us, to mingle
with the dancing-girls of the bazaar. His attendants deprive us even of
our food, and we sit in the beautiful palace loaded with jewels, and
suffer from the hunger not felt even by the poor Pariah.
"Sahibs! you who have in your country mothers and sisters, save us from
this cruel fate, and cause us to be restored to our parents; do not send
us back to such degradation, but rather let us die by your orders."
As with a voice tremulous with emotion, she said these words, she threw
herself at our feet, and burst into an agony of weeping.
Deeply moved by the simple expression of such undeserved misfortune, we
soothed her as well as we were able, and promising her and her
companions to make every effort with the rajah for their deliverance, we
persuaded Rosambhi, the Mahratta girl (their eloquent pleader), to
induce them to return for the night to the palace. Upon a repetition of
our promise they consented, to the infinite relief of Veneat Rao, who
alternately showered blessings on us, and curses on all womankind, as he
accompanied us back to the Residency.
And now we had to set about the deliverance of these poor women. This
was a work of considerable difficulty.
It was a delicate matter interfering with the rajah's domestic concerns,
and we could only commission Veneat Rao to communicate to his highness
the manner in which we had become implicated with so unusual an
occurrence as a revolt of his seraglio; we told him to express to his
highness our conviction that his generosity had been deceived by his
subordinates. In this we only imitated the profound maxim of European
diplomacy, and concealed our real ideas by our expressions. This to the
rajah. On his confidential servant we enforced the disapprobation the
resident felt at the system of kidnapping, of which his highness was the
instigator, and hinted at that which these princes most dread--an
investigation.
This succeeded beyond our expectation, and the next morning a message
was sent from the palace, intimating that the charges were so completely
unfounded, that the rajah was prepared to offer to his revolted women,
the choice of remaining in the hareem, or being sent back to their
homes.
Again they were assembled in Veneat Rao's house, but this time in much
more orderly fashion, for their vails were down, and except occasionally
when a coquettish movement showed a portion of some face, we were
unrewarded by any of the bright eyes we had admired on the previous
visit. The question was put to them one by one, and all with the
exception of a few old women, expressed an eager wish not to re-enter
the hareem.
After much troublesome inquiry, we discovered their parents, and were
rewarded by their happy and grateful faces, as we sent them off under
escort to their homes. It was painful to reflect what their fate would
be; they left us rejoicing at what they thought would be a happy change,
but we well knew that no one would marry them, knowing that they had
been in the rajah's hareem, and that they would either lead a life of
neglect, or sink into vice, of which the liberty would be the only
change from that, which by our means they had escaped.
In the inquiries we made into the circumstances of this curious case, we
found that their statements were true.
Large sums were paid by the rajah to his creatures, who traveled to
distant parts of the country, and wherever they could meet with parents
poor enough, bought their female children from them, or when they met
with remarkable beauty such as Rosambhi's, did not hesitate to carry the
child off, and by making rapid marches, elude any vigilance of pursuit
on the part of the parents.
The cruelties and degradations suffered by these poor girls are hardly
to be described. We well know how degraded, even in civilized countries
the pursuit of sensual pleasures renders men, to whom education and the
respect they pay the opinion of society, are checks; let us imagine the
conduct of the eastern prince, safe in the retirement of his court,
surrounded by those dependents to whom the gratification of their
master's worst passions was the sure road to favor and fortune.
Besides the sufferings they had to endure from him, the women of the
hareem were exposed to the rapacities of those who had charge of them,
and Rosambhi did not exaggerate, when she described herself and her
companions as suffering the pangs of want amid the splendors of a
palace.
This is the reverse of the pleasing picture drawn by the poet of the
Eastern woman's existence--but, though less pleasing, it is true--nor
need we describe her in the lower ranks of life in those countries,
where, her beauty faded, she has to pass a wearisome existence, the
servant of a rival, whose youthful charms have supplanted her in her
master's affections. The calm happiness of advancing age is seldom
hers--she is the toy while young--the slave, or the neglected servant,
at best, when, her only merit in the eyes of her master, physical
beauty, is gone.
Let her sister in the western world, in the midst of her joys, think
with pity on these sufferings, and when sorrow's cloud seems darkest,
let her not repine, but learn resignation to her lot, as she compares it
with the condition of the women of the East; let her be grateful that
she lives in an age and land where woman is regarded as the helpmate and
consolation of man, by whom her love is justly deemed the prize of his
life.
[From The Ladies' Companion.]
LETTICE ARNOLD.
By the Author of "TWO OLD MEN'S TALES," "EMILIA WYNDHAM," &c.
CHAPTER I.
"It is the generous spirit, who when brought
Unto the task of common life, hath wrought
Even upon the plan which pleased the childish thought
* * * * *
Who doomed to go in company with pain,
And fear, and ruin--miserable train!--
Makes that necessity a glorious gain,
By actions that would force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate.
* * * * *
More gifted with self-knowledge--even more pure
As tempted more--more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness."
WORDSWORTH. _Happy Warrior._
"No, dearest mother, no! I can not. What! after all the tenderness,
care, and love I have received from you, for now one-and-twenty years,
to leave you and my father, in your old age, to yourselves! Oh, no! Oh,
no!"
"Nay, my child," said the pale, delicate, nervous woman, thus addressed
by a blooming girl whose face beamed with every promise for future
happiness, which health and cheerfulness, and eyes filled with warm
affections could give, "Nay, my child, don't talk so. You must not talk
so. It is not to be thought of." And, as she said these words with
effort, her poor heart was dying within her, not only from sorrow at the
thought of the parting from her darling, but with all sorts of dreary,
undefined terrors at the idea of the forlorn, deserted life before her.
Abandoned to herself and to servants, so fearful, so weak as she was,
and with the poor, invalided, and crippled veteran, her husband, a
martyr to that long train of sufferings which honorable wounds, received
in the service of country, too often leave behind them, a man at all
times so difficult to sooth, so impossible to entertain--and old age
creeping upon them both; the little strength she ever had, diminishing;
the little spirit she ever possessed, failing; what should she do
without this dear, animated, this loving, clever being, who was, in one
word, every thing to her?
But she held to her resolution--no martyr ever more courageously than
this trembling, timid woman. A prey to ten thousand imaginary fears,
and, let alone the imaginary terrors, placed in a position where the
help she was now depriving herself of was really so greatly needed.
"No, my dear," she repeated, "don't think of it; don't speak of it. You
distress me very much. Pray don't, my dearest Catherine."
"But I should be a shocking creature, mamma, to forsake you; and, I am
sure, Edgar would despise me as much as I should myself, if I could
think of it. I can not--I ought not to leave you."
The gentle blue eye of the mother was fixed upon the daughter's
generous, glowing face. She smothered a sigh. She waited a while to
steady her faltering voice. She wished to hide, if possible, from her
daughter the extent of the sacrifice she was making.
At last she recovered herself sufficiently to speak with composure, and
then she said:
"To accept such a sacrifice from a child, I have always thought the most
monstrous piece of selfishness of which a parent could be guilty. My
love, this does not come upon me unexpectedly. I have, of course,
anticipated it. I knew my sweet girl could not be long known and seen
without inspiring and returning the attachment of some valuable man. I
have resolved--and God strengthen me in this resolve," she cast up a
silent appeal to the fountain of strength and courage--"that nothing
should tempt me to what I consider so base. A parent accept the
sacrifice of a life in exchange for the poor remnant of her own! A
parent, who has had her own portion of the joys of youth in her day,
deprive a child of a share in her turn! No, my dearest love,
never--never! I would die, and I will die first."
But it was not death she feared. The idea of death did not appall her.
What she dreaded was melancholy. She knew the unsoundness of her own
nerves; she had often felt herself, as it were, trembling upon the
fearful verge of reason, when the mind, unable to support itself, is
forced to rest upon another. She had known a feeling, common to many
very nervous people, I believe, as though the mind would be overset when
pressed far, if not helped, strengthened, and cheered by some more
wholesome mind; and she shrank appalled from the prospect.
But even this could not make her waver in her resolution. She was a
generous, just, disinterested woman; though the exigencies of a most
delicate constitution, and most susceptible nervous system, had too
often thrown upon her--from those who did not understand such things,
and whose iron nerves and vigorous health rendered sympathy at such
times impossible--the reproach of being a tedious, whimsical, selfish
hypochondriac.
Poor thing, she knew this well. It was the difficulty of making herself
understood; the want of sympathy, the impossibility of rendering needs,
most urgent in her case, comprehensible by her friends, which had added
so greatly to the timorous cowardice, the fear of circumstances, of
changes, which had been the bane of her existence.
And, therefore, this kind, animated, affectionate daughter, whose
tenderness seemed never to weary in the task of cheering her; whose
activity was never exhausted in the endeavor to assist and serve her;
whose good sense and spirit kept every thing right at home, and more
especially kept those terrible things, the servants, in order--of whom
the poor mother, like many other feeble and languid people, was so
foolishly afraid; therefore, this kind daughter was as the very spring
of her existence; and the idea of parting with her was really dreadful.
Yet she hesitated not. So did that man behave, who stood firm upon the
rampart till he had finished his observation, though his hair turned
white with fear. Mrs. Melwyn was an heroic coward of this kind.
She had prayed ardently, fervently, that day, for courage, for
resolution, to complete the dreaded sacrifice, and she had found it.
"Oh, Lord! I am thy servant. Do with me what thou wilt. Trembling in
spirit, the victim of my infirmity--a poor, selfish, cowardly being, I
fall down before Thee. Thou hast showed me what is right--the sacrifice
I ought to make. Oh, give me strength in my weakness to _be_ faithful to
complete it!"
Thus had she prayed. And now resolved in heart, the poor sinking spirit
failing her within but, as I said, steadying her voice with an almost
heroic constancy, she resisted her grateful and pious child's
representation: "I have told Edgar--dear as he is to me--strong as are
the claims his generous affection gives him over me--that I will not--I
can not forsake you."
"You must not call it forsake," said the mother, gently. "My love, the
Lord of life himself has spoken it: 'Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.'"
"And so he is ready to do," cried Catherine, eagerly. "Yes, mother, he
desires nothing better--he respects my scruples--he has offered, dear
Edgar! to abandon his profession and come and live here, and help me to
take care of you and my father. Was not that beautiful?" and the tears
stood in her speaking eyes.
"Beautiful! generous! devoted! My Catherine will be a happy woman;" and
the mother smiled. A ray of genuine pleasure warmed her beating heart.
This respect in the gay, handsome young officer for the filial scruples
of her he loved was indeed beautiful! But the mother knew his spirit too
well to listen to this proposal for a moment.
"And abandon his profession? No, my sweet child, that would never, never
do."
"But he says he is independent of his profession--that his private
fortune, though not large, is enough for such simple, moderate people as
he and I are. In short, that he shall be miserable without me, and all
that charming stuff, mamma; and that he loves me better, for what he
calls, dear fellow, my piety to you. And so, dear mother, he says if you
and my father will but consent to take him in, he will do his very best
in helping me to make you comfortable; and he is so sweet-tempered, so
reasonable, so good, so amiable, I am quite sure he would keep his
promise, mamma." And she looked anxiously into her mother's face waiting
for an answer. The temptation was very, very strong.
Again those domestic spectres which had so appalled her poor timorous
spirit rose before her. A desolate, dull fireside--her own tendency to
melancholy--her poor maimed suffering, and, alas, too often peevish
partner--encroaching, unmanageable servants. The cook, with her
careless, saucy ways--the butler so indifferent and negligent--and her
own maid, that Randall, who in secret tyrannized over her, exercising
the empire of fear to an extent which Catherine, alive as she was to
these evils, did not suspect. And again she asked herself, if these
things were disagreeable now, when Catherine was here to take care of
her, what would they be when she was left alone?
And then such a sweet picture of happiness presented itself to tempt
her--Catherine settled there--settled there forever. That handsome,
lively young man, with his sweet, cordial ways and polite observance of
every one, sitting by their hearth, and talking, as he did, to the
general of old days and military matters, the only subject in which this
aged military man took any interest, reading the newspaper to him, and
making such lively, pleasant comments as he read! How should _she_ ever
get through the debates, with her breath so short, and her voice so
indistinct and low? The general would lose all patience--he hated to
hear her attempt to read such things, and always got Catherine or the
young lieutenant-colonel to do it.
Oh! it was a sore temptation. But this poor, dear, good creature
resisted it.
"My love," she said, after a little pause, daring which this noble
victory was achieved--laugh if you will at the expression, but it _was_
a noble victory over self--"my love," she said, "don't tempt your poor
mother beyond her strength. Gladly, gladly, as far as we are concerned,
would we enter into this arrangement; but it must not be. No, Catherine;
Edgar must not quit his profession. It would not only be a very great
sacrifice I am sure now, but it would lay the foundation of endless
regrets in future. No, my darling girl, neither his happiness nor your
happiness shall be ever sacrificed to mine. A life against a few
uncertain years! No--no."
The mother was inflexible. The more these good children offered to give
up for her sake, the more she resolved to suffer no such sacrifice to be
made.
Edgar could not but rejoice. He was an excellent young fellow, and
excessively in love with the charming Catherine, you may be sure, or he
never would have thought of offering to abandon a profession for her
sake in which he had distinguished himself highly--which opened to him
the fairest prospects, and of which he was especially fond--but he was
not sorry to be excused. He had resolved upon this sacrifice, for there
is something in those who truly love, and whose love is elevated almost
to adoration by the moral worth they have observed in the chosen one,
which revolts at the idea of lowering the tone of that enthusiastic
goodness and self-immolation to principle which has so enchanted them.
Edgar could not do it. He could not attempt to persuade this tender,
generous daughter, to consider her own welfare and his, in preference
to that of her parents. He could only offer, on his own part, to make
the greatest sacrifice which could have been demanded from him. Rather
than part from her what would he not do? Every thing was possible but
that.
However, when the mother positively refused to accept of this act of
self-abnegation, I can not say that he regretted it. No: he thought Mrs.
Melwyn quite right in what she said; and he loved and respected both her
character and understanding very much more than he had done before.
* * * * *
That night Mrs. Melwyn was very, very low indeed. And when she went up
into her dressing-room, and Catherine, having kissed her tenderly, with
a heart quite divided between anxiety for her, and a sense of happiness
that would make itself felt in spite of all, had retired to her room,
the mother sat down, poor thing, in the most comfortable arm-chair that
ever was invented, but which imparted no comfort to her; and placing
herself by a merry blazing fire, which was reflected from all sorts of
cheerful pretty things with which the dressing-room was adorned, her
feet upon a warm, soft footstool of Catherine's own working, her elbow
resting upon her knee, and her head upon her hand, she, with her eyes
bent mournfully upon the fire, began crying very much. And so she sat a
long time, thinking and crying, very sorrowful, but not in the least
repenting. Meditating upon all sorts of dismal things, filled with all
kinds of melancholy forebodings, as to how it would, and must be, when
Catherine was really gone, she sank at last into a sorrowful reverie,
and sate quite absorbed in her own thoughts, till she--who was extremely
punctual in her hour of going to bed--for reasons best known to herself,
though never confided to any human being, namely, that her maid disliked
very much sitting up for her--started as the clock in the hall sounded
eleven and two quarters, and almost with the trepidation of a chidden
child, rose and rang the bell. Nobody came. This made her still more
uneasy. It was Randall's custom not to answer her mistress's bell the
first time, when she was cross. And poor Mrs. Melwyn dreaded few things
in this world more than cross looks in those about her, especially in
Randall; and that Randall knew perfectly well.
"She must be fallen asleep in her chair, poor thing. It was very
thoughtless of me," Mrs. Melwyn did not say, but would have said, if
people ever did speak to themselves aloud.
Even in this sort of mute soliloquy she did not venture to say, "Randall
will be very ill-tempered and unreasonable." She rang again; and then,
after a proper time yielded to the claims of offended dignity, it
pleased Mrs. Randall to appear.
"I am very sorry, Randall. Really I had no idea how late it was. I was
thinking about Miss Catherine, and I missed it when it struck ten. I
had not the least idea it was so late," began the mistress in an
apologizing tone, to which Randall vouchsafed not an answer, but looked
like a thunder cloud--as she went banging up and down the room, opening
and shutting drawers with a loud noise, and treading with a rough heavy
step; two things particularly annoying, as she very well knew, to the
sensitive nerves of her mistress. But Randall settled it with
herself--that as her mistress had kept her out of bed an hour and a half
longer than usual, for no reason at all but just to please herself, she
should find she was none the better for it.
The poor mistress bore all this with patience for some time. She would
have gone on bearing the roughness and the noise, however disagreeable,
as long as Randall liked; but her soft heart could not bear those glum,
cross looks, and this alarming silence.
"I was thinking of Miss Catherine's marriage, Randall. That was what
made me forget the hour. What shall I do without her?"
"Yes, that's just like it," said the insolent abigail; "nothing ever can
content some people. Most ladies would be glad to settle their daughters
so well; but some folk make a crying matter of every thing. It would be
well for poor servants, when they're sitting over the fire, their bones
aching to death for very weariness, if _they'd_ something pleasant to
think about. They wouldn't be crying for nothing, and keeping all the
world out of their beds, like those who care for naught but how to
please themselves."
Part of this was said, part muttered, part thought; and the poor timid
mistress--one of whose domestic occupations it seemed to be to study the
humors of her servants--heard a part and divined the rest.
"Well, Randall, I don't quite hear all you are saying; and perhaps it is
as well I do not; but I wish you would give me my things and make haste,
for I'm really very tired, and I want to go to bed."
"People can't make more haste than they can."
And so it went on. The maid-servant never relaxing an atom of her
offended dignity--continuing to look as ill-humored, and to do every
thing as disagreeably as she possibly could--and her poor victim, by
speaking from time to time in an anxious, most gentle, and almost
flattering manner, hoping to mollify her dependent; but all in vain.
"I'll teach her to keep me up again for nothing at all," thought
Randall.
And so the poor lady, very miserable in the midst of all her luxuries,
at last gained her bed, and lay there not able to sleep for very
discomfort. And the abigail retired to her own warm apartment, where she
was greeted with a pleasant fire, by which stood a little nice chocolate
simmering, to refresh her before she went to bed--not much less
miserable than her mistress, for she was dreadfully out of humor--and
thought no hardship upon earth could equal that she endured--forced to
sit up in consequence of another's whim when she wanted so sadly to go
to bed.
* * * * *
While, thus, all that the most abundant possession of the world's goods
could bestow, was marred by the weakness of the mistress and the
ill-temper of the maid--the plentiful gifts of fortune rendered
valueless by the erroneous facility upon one side, and insolent love of
domination on the other; how many in the large metropolis, only a few
miles distant, and of which the innumerable lights might be seen
brightening, like an Aurora, the southern sky; how many laid down their
heads supperless that night! Stretched upon miserable pallets, and
ignorant where food was to be found on the morrow to satisfy the
cravings of hunger; yet, in the midst of their misery, more miserable,
also, because they were not exempt from those pests of existence--our
own faults and infirmities.
And even, as it was, how many poor creatures _did_ actually lay down
their heads that night, far less miserable than poor Mrs. Melwyn. The
tyranny of a servant is noticed by the wise man, if I recollect right,
as one of the most irritating and insupportable of mortal miseries.
* * * * *
Two young women inhabited one small room of about ten feet by eight, in
the upper story of a set of houses somewhere near Mary-le-bone street.
These houses appear to have been once intended for rather substantial
persons, but have gradually sunk into lodging-houses for the very poor.
The premises look upon an old grave-yard; a dreary prospect enough, but
perhaps preferable to a close street, and are filled, with decent but
very poor people. Every room appears to serve a whole family, and few of
the rooms are much larger than the one I have described.
It was now half-past twelve o'clock, and still the miserable dip tallow
candle burned in a dilapidated tin candlestick. The wind whistled with
that peculiar wintry sound which betokens that snow is falling; it was
very, very cold; the fire was out; and the girl who sat plying her
needle by the hearth, which was still a little warmer than the rest of
the room, had wrapped up her feet in an old worn-out piece of flannel,
and had an old black silk wadded cloak thrown over her to keep her from
being almost perished. The room was scantily furnished, and bore an air
of extreme poverty, amounting almost to absolute destitution. One by one
the little articles of property possessed by its inmates had disappeared
to supply the calls of urgent want. An old four-post bedstead, with
curtains of worn-out serge, stood in one corner; one mattress, with two
small thin pillows, and a bolster that was almost flat; three old
blankets, cotton sheets of the coarsest description upon it: three
rush-bottomed chairs, an old claw-table, very ancient dilapidated chest
of drawers--at the top of which were a few battered band-boxes--a
miserable bit of carpet before the fire-place; a wooden box for coals; a
little low tin fender, a poker, or rather half a poker; a shovel and
tongs, much the worse for wear, and a very few kitchen utensils, was all
the furniture in the room. What there was, however, was kept clean; the
floor was clean, the yellow paint was clean; and, I forgot to say, there
was a washing-tub set aside in one corner.
The wind blew shrill, and shook the window, and the snow was heard
beating against the panes; the clock went another quarter, but still the
indefatigable toiler sewed on. Now and then she lifted up her head, as a
sigh came from that corner of the room where the bed stood, and some one
might be heard turning and tossing uneasily upon the mattress--then she
returned to her occupation and plied her needle with increased
assiduity.
The workwoman was a girl of from eighteen to twenty, rather below the
middle size, and of a face and form little adapted to figure in a story.
One whose life, in all probability, would never be diversified by those
romantic adventures which _real_ life in general reserves to the
beautiful and the highly-gifted. Her features were rather homely, her
hair of a light brown, _without_ golden threads through it, her hands
and arms rough and red with cold and labor; her dress ordinary to a
degree--her clothes being of the cheapest materials--but then, these
clothes were so neat, so carefully mended where they had given way; the
hair was so smooth, and so closely and neatly drawn round the face; and
the face itself had such a sweet expression, that all the defects of
line and color were redeemed to the lover of expression, rather than
beauty.
She did not look patient, she did not look resigned; she _could_ not
look cheerful exactly. She looked earnest, composed, busy, and
exceedingly kind. She had not, it would seem, thought enough of self in
the midst of her privations, to require the exercise of the virtues of
patience and resignation; she was so occupied with the sufferings of
others that she never seemed to think of her own.
She was naturally of the most cheerful, hopeful temper in the
world--those people without selfishness usually are. And, though sorrow
had a little lowered the tone of her spirits to composure, and work and
disappointment had faded the bright colors of hope; still hope was not
entirely gone, nor cheerfulness exhausted. But, the predominant
expression of every word, and look, and tone, and gesture, was
kindness--inexhaustible kindness.
I said she lifted up her head from time to time, as a sigh proceeded
from the bed, and its suffering inhabitant tossed and tossed: and at
last she broke silence and said,
"Poor Myra, can't you get to sleep?"
"It is so fearfully cold," was the reply; "and when _will_ you have
done, and come to bed?"
"One quarter of an hour more, and I shall have finished it. Poor Myra,
you are so nervous, you never can get to sleep till all is shut up--but
have patience, dear, one little quarter of an hour, and then I will
throw my clothes over your feet, and I hope you will be a little
warmer."
A sigh for all answer; and then the _true_ heroine--for she was
extremely beautiful, or rather had been, poor thing, for she was too wan
and wasted to be beautiful now--lifted up her head, from which fell a
profusion of the fairest hair in the world, and leaning her head upon
her arm, watched in a sort of impatient patience the progress of the
indefatigable needle-woman.
"One o'clock striking, and you hav'n't done yet, Lettice? how slowly you
_do_ get on."
"I can not work fast and neatly too, dear Myra. I can not get through as
some do--I wish I could. But my hands are not so delicate and nimble as
yours, such swelled clumsy things," she said, laughing a little, as she
looked at them--swelled, indeed, and all mottled over with the cold! "I
can not get over the ground nimbly and well at the same time. You are a
fine race-horse, I am a poor little drudging pony--but I will make as
much haste as I possibly can."
Myra once more uttered an impatient, fretful sigh, and sank down again,
saying, "My feet are so dreadfully cold!"
"Take this bit of flannel then, and let me wrap them up."
"Nay, but you will want it."
"Oh, I have only five minutes more to stay, and I can wrap the carpet
round my feet."
And she laid down her work and went to the bed, and wrapped her sister's
delicate, but now icy feet, in the flannel; and then she sat down; and
at last the task was finished. And oh, how glad she was to creep to that
mattress, and to lay her aching limbs down upon it! Hard it might be,
and wretched the pillows, and scanty the covering, but little felt she
such inconveniences. She fell asleep almost immediately, while her
sister still tossed and murmered. Presently Lettice, for Lettice it was,
awakened a little, and said, "What is it, love? Poor, poor Myra! Oh,
that you could but sleep as I do."
And then she drew her own little pillow from under her head, and put it
under her sister's, and tried to make her more comfortable; and she
partly succeeded, and at last the poor delicate suffering creature fell
asleep, and then Lettice slumbered like a baby.
CHAPTER II.
"Oh, blest with temper whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day:
* * * * And can hear
Sighs for a sister with unwounded ear."
POPE.--_Characters of Women._
Early in the morning, before it was light, while the wintry twilight
gleamed through the curtainless window, Lettice was up, dressing
herself by the scanty gleam cast from the street lamps into the room,
for she could not afford the extravagance of a candle.
She combed and did up her hair with modest neatness; put on her brown
stuff only gown, and then going to the chest of drawers--opening one
with great precaution, lest she should make a noise, and disturb Myra,
who still slumbered --drew out a shawl, and began to fold it as if to
put it on.
Alas! poor thing, as she opened it, she became first aware that the
threadbare, time-worn fabric had given way in two places. Had it been in
one, she might have contrived to conceal the injuries of age: but it was
in two.
She turned it; she folded and unfolded: it would not do. The miserable
shawl seemed to give way under her hands. It was already so excessively
shabby that she was ashamed to go out in it; and it seemed as if it was
ready to fall to pieces in sundry other places, this dingy, thin, brown,
red, and green old shawl. Mend it would not: besides, she was pressed
for time; so, with the appearance of considerable reluctance, she put
her hand into the drawer, and took out another shawl.
This was a different affair. It was a warm, and not very old, plaid
shawl, of various colors, well preserved and clean looking, and, this
cold morning, _so_ tempting.
Should she borrow it? Myra was still asleep, but she would be horridly
cold when she got up, and she would want her shawl, perhaps; but then
Lettice must go out, and must be decent, and there seemed no help for
it.
But if she took the shawl, had she not better light the fire before she
went out? Myra would be so chilly. But then, Myra seldom got up till
half-past eight or nine, and it was now not seven.
An hour and a half's, perhaps two hour's, useless fire would never do.
So after a little deliberation, Lettice contented herself with "laying
it," as the housemaids say; that is, preparing the fire to be lighted
with a match: and as she took out coal by coal to do this, she perceived
with terror how very, very low the little store of fuel was.
"We must have a bushel in to-day," she said. "Better without meat and
drink than fire, in such weather as this."
However, she was cheered with the reflection that she should get a
little more than usual by the work that she had finished. It had been
ordered by a considerate and benevolent lady, who, instead of going to
the ready-made linen warehouses for what she wanted, gave herself a good
deal of trouble to get at the poor workwomen themselves who supplied
these houses, so that they should receive the full price for their
needle-work, which otherwise must of necessity be divided.
What she should get she did not quite know, for she had never worked for
this lady before; and some ladies, though she always got more from
private customers than from the shops, would beat her down to the last
penny, and give her as little as they possibly could.
Much more than the usual price of such matters people can not, I
suppose, habitually give; they should, however, beware of driving hard
bargains with the very poor.
* * * * *
Her bonnet looked dreadfully shabby, as poor little Lettice took it out
from one of the dilapidated band-boxes that stood upon the chest of
drawers; yet it had been carefully covered with a sheet of paper, to
guard it from the injuries of the dust and the smoke-loaded air.
The young girl held it upon her hand, turning it round, and looking at
it, and she could not help sighing when she thought of the miserably
shabby appearance she should make; and she going to a private house,
too: and the errand!--linen for the trousseau of a young lady who was
going to be married.
What a contrast did the busy imagination draw between all the fine
things that young lady was to have and her own destitution! She must
needs be what she was--a simple-hearted, God-fearing, generous girl, to
whom envious comparisons of others with herself were as impossible as
any other faults of the selfish--not to feel as if the difference was,
to use the common word upon such occasions, "very hard."
She did not take it so. She did not think that it was very _hard_ that
others should be happy and have plenty, because she was poor and had
nothing. They had not robbed _her_. What they had was not taken from
_her_. Nay, at this moment their wealth was overflowing toward her. She
should gain in her little way by the general prosperity. The thought of
the increased pay came into her mind at this moment in aid of her good
and simple-hearted feelings, and she brightened up, and shook her
bonnet, and pulled out the ribbons, and made it look as tidy as she
could; bethinking herself that if it possibly could be done, she would
buy a bit of black ribbon, and make it a little more spruce when she got
her money.
And now the bonnet is on, and she does not think it looks so _very_ bad,
and Myra's shawl, as reflected in the little threepenny glass, looks
quite neat. Now she steals to the bed in order to make her apologies to
Myra about the shawl and fire, but Myra still slumbers. It is half-past
seven and more, and she must be gone.
The young lady for whom she made the linen lived about twenty miles from
town, but she had come up about her things, and was to set off home at
nine o'clock that very morning. The linen was to have been sent in the
night before, but Lettice had found it impossible to get it done. It
must _per force_ wait till morning to be carried home. The object was to
get to the house as soon as the servants should be stirring, so that
there would be time for the things to be packed up and accompany the
young lady upon her return home.
Now, Lettice is in the street. Oh, what a morning it was! The wind was
intensely cold the snow was blown in buffets against her face; the
street was slippery: all the mud and mire turned into inky-looking ice.
She could scarcely stand; her face was blue with the cold; her hands, in
a pair of cotton gloves, so numbed that she could hardly hold the parcel
she carried.
She had no umbrella. The snow beat upon her undefended head, and
completed the demolition of the poor bonnet; but she comforted herself
with the thought that its appearance would now be attributed to the bad
weather having spoiled it. Nay (and she smiled as the idea presented
itself), was it not possible that she might be supposed to have a better
bonnet at home?
So she cheerfully made her way; and at last she entered
Grosvenor-square, where lamps were just dying away before the splendid
houses, and the wintry twilight discovered the garden, with its trees
plastered with dirty snow, while the wind rushed down from the Park
colder and bitterer than ever. She could hardly get along at all. A few
ragged, good-for-nothing boys were almost the only people yet to be seen
about; and they laughed and mocked at her, as, holding her bonnet down
with one hand, to prevent its absolutely giving way before the wind, she
endeavored to carry her parcel, and keep her shawl from flying up with
the other.
The jeers and the laughter were very uncomfortable to her. The things
she found it the most difficult to reconcile herself to in her fallen
state were the scoffs, and the scorns, and the coarse jests of those
once so far, far beneath her; so far, that their very existence, as a
class, was once almost unknown, and who were now little, if at all,
worse off than herself.
The rude brutality of the coarse, uneducated, and unimproved Saxon, is a
terrible grievance to those forced to come into close quarters with
such.
At last, however, she entered Green-street, and raised the knocker, and
gave one timid, humble knock at the door of a moderate-sized house, upon
the right hand side as you go up to the Park.
Here lived the benevolent lady of whom I have spoken, who took so much
trouble to break through the barriers which in London separate the
employers and the employed, and to assist the poor stitchers of her own
sex, by doing away with the necessity of that hand, or those many hands,
through which their ware has usually to pass, and in each of which
something of the recompense thereof must of necessity be detained.
She had never been at the house before; but she had sometimes had to go
to other genteel houses, and she had too often found the insolence of
the pampered domestics harder to bear than even the rude incivility of
the streets.
So she stood feeling very uncomfortable; still more afraid of the effect
her bonnet might produce upon the man that should open the door, than
upon his superiors.
But "like master, like man," is a stale old proverb, which, like many
other old saws of our now despised as _childish_ ancestors, is full of
pith and truth.
The servant who appeared was a grave, gray-haired man, of somewhat above
fifty. He stooped a little in his gait, and had _not_ a very fashionable
air; but his countenance was full of kind meaning, and his manner so
gentle, that it seemed respectful even to a poor girl like this.
Before hearing her errand, observing how cold she looked, he bade her
come in and warm herself at the hall stove; and shutting the door in the
face of the chill blast, that came rushing forward as if to force its
way into the house, he then returned to her, and asked her errand.
"I come with the young lady's work. I was so sorry that I could not
possibly get it done in time to send it in last night; but I hope I have
not put her to any inconvenience. I hope her trunks are not made up. I
started almost before it was light this morning."
"Well, my dear, I hope not; but it was a pity you could not get it done
last night. Mrs. Danvers likes people to be exact to the moment and
punctual in performing promises, you must know. However, I'll take it up
without loss of time, and I dare say it will be all right."
"Is it come at last?" asked a sweet, low voice, as Reynolds entered the
drawing-room. "My love, I really began to be frightened for your pretty
things, the speaker went on, turning to a young lady who was making an
early breakfast before a noble blazing fire, and who was no other a
person than Catherine Melwyn.
"Oh, madam! I was not in the least uneasy about them, I was quite sure
they would come at last."
"I wish, my love," said Mrs. Danvers, sitting down by the fire, "I could
have shared in your security. Poor creatures! the temptation is
sometimes so awfully great. The pawnbroker is dangerously near. So easy
to evade all inquiry by changing one miserably obscure lodging for
another, into which it is almost impossible to be traced. And, to tell
the truth, I had not used you quite well, my dear; for I happened to
know nothing of the previous character of these poor girls, but that
they were certainly very neat workwomen; and they were so out of all
measure poor, that I yielded to temptation. And that you see, my love,
had its usual effect of making me suspicious of the power of temptation
over others."
Mrs. Danvers had once been one of the loveliest women that had ever been
seen: the face of an angel, the form of the goddess of beauty herself;
manners the softest, the most delightful. A dress that by its exquisite
good taste and elegance enhanced every other charm, and a voice so sweet
and harmonious that it made its way to every heart.
Of all this loveliness the sweet, harmonious voice alone remained. Yet
had the sad eclipse of so much beauty been succeeded by a something so
holy, so saint-like, so tender, that the being who stood now shorn by
sorrow and suffering of all her earthly charms, seemed only to have
progressed nearer to heaven by the exchange.
Her life had, indeed, been one shipwreck, in which all she prized had
gone down. Husband, children, parents, sister, brother--all!--every one
gone. It had been a fearful ruin. That she could not survive this wreck
of every earthly joy was expected by all her friends: but she had lived
on. She stood there, an example of the triumph of those three: faith,
hope, and charity, but the greatest of these was charity.
In faith she rested upon the "unseen," and the world of things "seen"
around her shrunk into insignificance. In hope she looked forward to
that day when tears should be wiped from all eyes, and the lost and
severed meet to part never again. In charity--in other words, love--she
filled that aching, desolate heart with fresh affections, warm and
tender, if not possessing the joyous gladness of earlier days.
Every sorrowing human being, every poor sufferer, be they who they
might, or whence they might, found a place in that compassionate heart.
No wonder it was filled to overflowing: there are so many sorrowing
sufferers in this world.
She went about doing good. Her whole life was one act of pity.
Her house was plainly furnished. The "mutton chops with a few greens and
potatoes"--laughed at in a recent trial, as if indifference to one's own
dinner were a crime--might have served her. She often was no better
served. Her dress was conventual in its simplicity. Every farthing she
could save upon herself was saved for her poor.
You must please to recollect that she stood perfectly alone in the
world, and that there was not a human creature that could suffer by this
exercise of a sublime and universal charity. Such peculiar devotion to
one object is only permitted to those whom God has severed from their
kind, and marked out, as it were, for the generous career.
Her days were passed in visiting all those dismal places in this great
city, where lowly want "repairs to die," or where degradation and
depravity, the children of want, hide themselves. She sat by the bed of
the inmate of the hospital, pouring the soft balm of her consolations
upon the suffering and lowly heart. In such places her presence was
hailed as the first and greatest of blessings. Every one was melted, or
was awed into good behavior by her presence. The most hardened of
brandy-drinking nurses was softened and amended by her example.
The situation of the young women who have to gain their livelihood by
their needle had peculiarly excited her compassion, and to their welfare
she more especially devoted herself. Her rank and position in society
gave her a ready access to many fine ladies who had an immensity to be
done for them: and to many fine dress-makers who had this immensity to
do.
She was indefatigable in her exertions to diminish the evils to which
the young ladies--"improvers," I believe, is the technical term--are in
too many of these establishments exposed. She it was who got the
work-rooms properly ventilated, and properly warmed. She it was who
insisted upon the cruelty and the wretchedness of keeping up these poor
girls hour after hour from their natural rest, till their strength was
exhausted; the very means by which they were to earn their bread taken
away; and they were sent into decline and starvation. She made fine
ladies learn to allow more time for the preparation of their dresses;
and fine ladies' dress makers to learn to say, "No."
One of the great objects of her exertions was to save the poor
plain-sewers from the necessary loss occasioned by the middlemen. She
did not say whether the shops exacted too much labor, or not, for their
pay; with so great a competition for work, and so much always lying
unsold upon their boards, it was difficult to decide. But she spared no
trouble to get these poor women employed direct by those who wanted
sewing done; and she taught to feel ashamed of themselves those indolent
fine ladies who, rather than give themselves a little trouble to
increase a poor creature's gains, preferred going to the ready-made
shops, "because the other was such a bore."
In one of her visits among the poor of Mary-lebone, she had accidentally
met with these two sisters, Lettice Arnold and Myra. There was something
in them both above the common stamp, which might be discerned in spite
of their squalid dress and miserable chamber; but she had not had time
to inquire into their previous history--which, indeed, they seemed
unwilling to tell. Catherine, preparing her wedding clothes, and well
knowing how anxious Mrs. Danvers was to obtain work, had reserved a good
deal for her; and Mrs. Danvers had entrusted some of it to Lettice, who
was too wretchedly destitute to be able to give any thing in the form of
a deposit. Hence her uneasiness when the promised things did not appear
to the time.
And hence the rather grave looks of Reynolds, who could not endure to
see his mistress vexed.
"Has the workwoman brought her bill with her, Reynolds?" asked Mrs.
Danvers.
"I will go and ask."
"Stay, ask her to come up; I should like to inquire how she is going on,
and whether she has any other work in prospect."
Reynolds obeyed; and soon the door opened, and Lettice, poor thing, a
good deal ashamed of her own appearance, was introduced into this warm
and comfortable breakfast-room, where, however, as I have said, there
was no appearance of luxury, except the pretty, neat breakfast, and the
blazing fire.
"Good morning, my dear," said Mrs. Danvers, kindly; "I am sorry you have
had such a wretched walk this morning. Why did you not come last night?
Punctuality, my dear, is the soul of business, and if you desire to form
a private connection for yourself, you will find it of the utmost
importance to attend to it. This young lady is just going off, and there
is barely time to put up the things."
Catherine had her back turned to the door, and was quietly continuing
her breakfast. She did not even look round as Mrs. Danvers spoke, but
when a gentle voice replied:
"Indeed, madam, I beg your pardon. Indeed, I did my very best, but--"
She started, looked up, and rose hastily from her chair. Lettice
started, too, on her side, as she did so; and, advancing a few steps,
exclaimed, "Catherine!"
"It must--it is--it is you!" cried Catherine hastily, coming forward and
taking her by the hand. She gazed with astonishment at the worn and
weather-beaten face, the miserable attire, the picture of utter
wretchedness before her. "You!" she kept repeating, "Lettice! Lettice
Arnold! Good Heavens! where are they all? Where is your father? Your
mother? Your sister?"
"Gone!" said the poor girl. "Gone--every one gone but poor Myra!"
"And she--where is _she_? The beautiful creature, that used to be the
pride of poor Mrs. Price's heart. How lovely she was! And you, dear,
dear Lettice, how can you, how have you come to this?"
Mrs. Danvers stood like one petrified with astonishment while this
little scene was going on. She kept looking at the two girls, but said
nothing.
"Poor, dear Lettice!" Catherine went on in a tone of the most
affectionate kindness, "have you come all through the streets and alone
this most miserable morning? And working--working for me! Good Heavens!
how has all this come about?"
"But come to the fire first," she continued, taking hold of the almost
frozen hand.
Mrs. Danvers now came forward.
"You seem to have met with an old acquaintance, Catherine. Pray come to
the fire, and sit down and warm yourself; and have you breakfasted?"
Lettice hesitated. She had become so accustomed to her fallen condition,
that it seemed to her that she could no longer with propriety sit down
to the same table with Catherine.
Catherine perceived this, and it shocked and grieved her excessively.
"Do come and sit down," she said, encouraged by Mrs. Danvers's
invitation, "and tell us, have you breakfasted? But though you have, a
warm cup of tea this cold morning must be comfortable."
And she pressed her forward, and seated her, half reluctant, in an
arm-chair that stood by the fire: then she poured out a cup of tea, and
carried it to her, repeating,
"Won't you eat? Have you breakfasted?"
The plate of bread-and-butter looked delicious to the half-starved girl:
the warm cup of tea seemed to bring life into her. She had been silent
from surprise, and a sort of humiliated embarrassment; but now her
spirits began to revive, and she said, "I never expected to have seen
you again, Miss Melwyn!"
"_Miss Melwyn!_ What does that mean? Dear Lettice, how has all this come
about?"
"My father was ill the last time you were in Nottinghamshire, do you not
recollect, Miss Melwyn? He never recovered of that illness; but it
lasted nearly two years. During that time, your aunt, Mrs. Montague,
died; and her house was sold, and new people came; and you never were at
Castle Rising afterward."
"No--indeed--and from that day to this have never chanced to hear any
thing of its inhabitants. But Mrs. Price, your aunt, who was so fond of
Myra, what is become of her?"
"She died before my poor father."
"Well; but she was rich. Did she do nothing?"
"Every body thought her rich, because she spent a good deal of money;
but hers was only income. Our poor aunt was no great economist--she made
no savings."
"Well; and your mother? I can not understand it. No; I can not
understand it," Catherine kept repeating. "So horrible! dear, dear
Lettice--and your shawl is quite wet, and so is your bonnet, poor, dear
girl. Why did you not put up your umbrella?"
"For a very good reason, dear Miss Melwyn; because I do not possess
one."
"Call me Catherine, won't you? or I will not speak to you again." But
Mrs. Danvers's inquiring looks seemed now to deserve a little attention.
She seemed impatient to have the enigma of this strange scene solved.
Catherine caught her eye, and, turning from her friend, with whom she
had been so much absorbed as to forget every thing else, she said:
"Lettice Arnold is a clergyman's daughter, ma'am."
"I began to think something of that sort," said Mrs. Danvers; "but, my
dear young lady, what can have brought you to this terrible state of
destitution?"
"Misfortune upon misfortune, madam. My father was, indeed, a clergyman,
and held the little vicarage of Castle Rising. There Catherine," looking
affectionately up at her, "met me upon her visits to her aunt, Mrs.
Montague."
"We have known each other from children," put in Catherine.
The door opened, and Reynolds appeared--
"The cab is waiting, if you please, Miss Melwyn."
"Oh, dear! oh, dear! I can't go just this moment. Bid the man wait."
"It is late already," said Reynolds, taking out his watch. "The train
starts in twenty minutes."
"Oh, dear! oh, dear! and when does the next go? I can't go by this. Can
I, dear Mrs. Danvers? It is impossible."
"Another starts in an hour afterward."
"Oh! that will do--tell Sarah to be ready for that. Well, my dear, go
on, go on--dear Lettice, you were about to tell us how all this
happened--but just another cup of tea. Do you like it strong?"
"I like it any way," said Lettice, who was beginning to recover her
spirits, "I have not tasted any thing so comfortable for a very long
time."
"Dear me! dear me!"
"You must have suffered very much, I fear, my dear young lady," said
Mrs. Danvers, in a kind voice of interest, "before you could have sunk
to the level of that miserable home where I found you."
"Yes," said Lettice. "Every one suffers very much, be the descent slow
or rapid, when he has to fall so far. But what were my sufferings to
poor Myra's!"
"And why were your sufferings as nothing in comparison with poor
Myra's?"
"Ah, madam, there are some in this world not particularly favored by
nature or fortune, who were born to be denied; who are used to it from
their childhood--it becomes a sort of second nature to them, as it were.
They scarcely feel it. But a beautiful girl, adored by an old relation,
accustomed to every sort of indulgence and luxury! They doated upon the
very ground she trod on. Oh! to be cast down to such misery, that _is_
dreadful."
"I don't see--I don't know," said Catherine, who, like the world in
general, however much they might admire, and however much too many might
flatter Myra, greatly preferred Lettice to her sister.
"I don't know," said she, doubtingly.
"Ah! but you would know if you could see!" said the generous girl. "If
you could see what she suffers from every thing--from things that I do
not even feel, far less care for--you would be so sorry for her."
Mrs. Danvers looked with increasing interest upon the speaker. She
seemed to wish to go on with the conversation about this sister, so much
pitied; so she said, "I believe what you say is very true. Very true,
Catherine, in spite of your skeptical looks. Some people really do
suffer very much more than others under the same circumstances of
privation."
"Yes, selfish people like Myra," thought Catherine, but she said
nothing.
"Indeed, madam, it is so. They seem to feel every thing so much more.
Poor Myra--I can sleep like a top in our bed, and she very often can not
close her eyes--and the close room, and the poor food. I can get
along--I was made to rough it, my poor aunt always said--but Myra!"
"Well but," rejoined Catherine, "do pray tell us how you came to this
cruel pass? Your poor father--"
"His illness was very lingering and very painful--and several times a
surgical operation was required. My mother could not bear--could any of
us?--to have it done by the poor blundering operator of that remote
village. To have a surgeon from Nottingham was very expensive; and then
the medicines; and the necessary food and attendance. The kindest and
most provident father can not save much out of one hundred and ten
pounds a year, and what was saved was soon all gone."
"Well, well," repeated Catherine, her eyes fixed with intense interest
upon the speaker.
"His deathbed was a painful scene," Lettice went on, her face displaying
her emotion, while she with great effort restrained her tears: "he
trusted in God; but there was a fearful prospect before us, and he could
not help trembling for his children. Dear, dear father! he reproached
himself for his want of faith, and would try to strengthen us, 'but the
flesh,' he said, 'was weak.' He could not look forward without anguish.
It was a fearful struggle to be composed and confiding--he could not
help being anxious. It was for us, you know, not for himself."
"Frightful!" cried Catherine, indignantly; "frightful! that a man of
education, a scholar, a gentleman, a man of so much activity in doing
good, and so much power in preaching it, should be brought to this. One
hundred and ten pounds a year, was that all? How could you exist?"
"We had the house and the garden besides, you know, and my mother was
such an excellent manager; and my father! No religious of the severest
order was ever more self-denying, and there was only me. My aunt Price,
you know, took Myra--Myra had been delicate from a child, and was so
beautiful, and she was never made to rough it, my mother and my aunt
said. Now I seemed made expressly for the purpose," she added, smiling
with perfect simplicity.
"And his illness, so long! and so expensive!" exclaimed Catherine, with
a sort of cry.
"Yes, it was--and to see the pains he took that it should not be
expensive. He would be quite annoyed if my mother got any thing nicer
than usual for his dinner. She used to be obliged to make a mystery of
it; and we were forced almost to go down upon our knees to get him to
have the surgeon from Nottingham. Nothing but the idea that his life
would be more secure in such hands could have persuaded him into it. He
knew how important that was to us. As for the pain which the bungling
old doctor hard by would have given him, he would have borne that rather
than have spent money. Oh, Catherine! there have been times upon times
when I have envied the poor. They have hospitals to go to; they are not
ashamed to ask for a little wine from those who have it; they can beg
when they are in want of a morsel of bread. It is natural. It is
right--they feel it to be right. But oh! for those, as they call it,
better born, and educated to habits of thought like those of my poor
father!... Want is, indeed, like an armed man, when he comes into
_their_ dwellings."
"Too true, my dear young lady," said Mrs. Danvers, whose eyes were by
this time moist; "but go on, if it does not pain you too much, your
story is excessively interesting. There is yet a wide step between where
your relation leaves us, and where I found you."
"We closed his eyes at last in deep sorrow. Excellent man, he deserved a
better lot! So, at least, it seems to me--but who knows? Nay, he would
have reproved me for saying so. He used to say of _himself_, so
cheerfully, 'It's a rough road, but it leads to a good place.' Why could
he not feel this for his wife and children? He found that so very
difficult!"
"He was an excellent and a delightful man," said Catherine. "Well?"...
"Well, my dear, when he had closed his eyes, there was his funeral. We
_could_ not have a parish funeral. The veriest pauper has a piety toward
the dead which revolts at that. We did it as simply as we possibly
could, consistently with common decency; but they charge so enormously
for such things: and my poor mother would not contest it. When I
remonstrated a little, and said I thought it was right to prevent others
being treated in the same way, who could no better afford it than we
could, I shall never forget my mother's face: 'I dare say--yes, you are
right, Lettice; quite right--but not this--not _his_. I can not debate
that matter. Forgive me, dear girl; it is weak--but I can not.'
"This expense exhausted all that was left of our little money: only a
few pounds remained when our furniture had been sold, and we were
obliged to give up possession of that dear, dear, little parsonage, and
we were without a roof to shelter us. You remember it, Catherine!"
"Remember it! to be sure I do. That sweet little place. The tiny house,
all covered over with honey-suckles and jasmines. How sweet they _did_
smell. And your flower-garden, Lettice, how you used to work in it. It
was that which made you so hale and strong, aunt Montague said. She
admired your industry so, you can't think. She used to say you were
worth a whole bundle of fine ladies."
"Did she?" and Lettice smiled again. She was beginning to look cheerful,
in spite of her dismal story. There was something so inveterately
cheerful in that temper, that nothing could entirely subdue it. The
warmth of her generous nature it was that kept the blood and spirits
flowing.
"It was a sad day when we parted from it. My poor mother! How she kept
looking back--looking back--striving not to cry; and Myra was drowned in
tears."
"And what did you do?"
"I am sure I don't know; I was so sorry for them both; I quite forget
all the rest."
"But how came you to London?" asked Mrs. Danvers. "Every body, without
other resource, seem to come to London. The worst place, especially for
women, they can possibly come to. People are so completely lost in
London. Nobody dies of want, nobody is utterly and entirely destitute
of help or friends, except in London."
"A person we knew in the village, and to whom my father had been very
kind, had a son who was employed in one of the great linen-warehouses,
and he promised to endeavor to get us needle-work; and we flattered
ourselves, with industry, we should, all three together, do pretty well.
So we came to London, and took a small lodging, and furnished it with
the remnant of our furniture. We had our clothes, which, though plain
enough, were a sort of little property, you know. But when we came to
learn the prices they actually paid for work, it was really frightful!
Work fourteen hours a day apiece, and we could only gain between three
and four shillings a week each--sometimes hardly that. There was our
lodging to pay, three shillings a week, and six shillings left for
firing and food for three people; this was in the weeks of _plenty_. Oh!
it was frightful!"
"Horrible!" echoed Catherine.
"We could not bring ourselves down to it at once. We hoped and flattered
ourselves that by-and-by we should get some work that would pay better;
and when we wanted a little more food, or in very cold days a little
more fire, we were tempted to sell or pawn one article after another. At
last my mother fell sick, and then all went; she died, and she _had_ a
pauper's funeral," concluded Lettice, turning very pale.
They were all three silent. At last Mrs. Danvers began again.
"That was not the lodging I found you in?"
"No, madam, that was too expensive. We left it, and we only pay
one-and-sixpence a week for this, the furniture being our own."
"The cab is at the door, Miss Melwyn," again interrupted Reynolds.
"Oh, dear! oh, dear! I can't go, indeed, Mrs. Danvers, I can't go;" with
a pleading look, "may I stay one day longer?"
"Most gladly would I keep you, my dearest love; but your father and
mother.... And they will have sent to meet you."
"And suppose they have, John must go back, but stay, stay, Sarah shall
go and take all my boxes, and say I am coming to-morrow; that will do."
"And you travel alone by railway? Your mother will never like that."
"I am ashamed," cried Catherine, with energy, "to think of such mere
conventional difficulties, when here I stand in the presence of real
misery. Indeed, my dear Mrs. Danvers, my mother will be quite satisfied
when she hears why I staid. I must be an insensible creature if I could
go away without seeing more of dear Lettice."
Lettice looked up so pleased, so grateful, so happy.
"Well, my love, I think your mother will not be uneasy, as Sarah goes;
and I just remember Mrs. Sands travels your way to-morrow, so she will
take care of you; for taken care of you must be, my pretty Catherine,
till you are a little less young, and somewhat less handsome."
And she patted the sweet, fall, rosy cheek.
Catherine was very pretty indeed, if you care to know that, and so it
was settled.
And now, Lettice having enjoyed a happier hour than she had known for
many a long day, began to recollect herself, and to think of poor Myra.
She rose from her chair, and taking up her bonnet and shawl, which
Catherine had hung before the fire to dry, seemed preparing to depart.
Then both Catherine and Mrs. Danvers began to think of her little bill,
which had not been settled yet. Catherine felt excessively awkward and
uncomfortable at the idea of offering her old friend and companion
money; but Mrs. Danvers was too well acquainted with real misery, had
too much approbation for that spirit which is not above _earning_, but
is above begging, to have any embarrassment in such a case.
"Catherine, my dear," she said, "you owe Miss Arnold some money. Had you
not better settle it before she leaves?"
Both the girls blushed.
"Nay, my dears," said Mrs. Danvers, kindly; "why this? I am sure,"
coming up to them, and taking Lettice's hand, "I hold an honest hand
here, which is not ashamed to labor, when it has been the will of God
that it shall be by her own exertions that she obtains her bread, and
part of the bread of another, if I mistake not. What you have nobly
earned as nobly receive. Humiliation belongs to the idle and the
dependent, not to one who maintains herself."
The eyes of Lettice glistened, and she could not help gently pressing
the hand which held hers.
Such sentiments were congenial to her heart. She had never been able to
comprehend the conventional distinctions between what is honorable or
degrading, under the fetters of which so many lose the higher principles
of independence--true honesty and true honor. To work for her living had
never lessened her in her own eyes; and she had found, with a sort of
astonishment, that it was to sink her in the eyes of others. To deny
herself every thing in food, furniture, clothing, in order to escape
debt, and add in her little way to the comforts of those she loved, had
ever appeared to her noble and praiseworthy. She was as astonished, as
many such a heart has been before her, with the course of this world's
esteem, too often measured by what people _spend_ upon themselves,
rather than by what they spare. I can not get that story in the
newspaper--the contempt expressed for the dinner of one mutton chop,
potatoes, and a few greens--out of my head.
Catherine's confusion had, in a moment of weakness, extended to Lettice.
She had felt ashamed to be paid as a workwoman by one once her friend,
and in social rank her equal; but now she raised her head, with a noble
frankness and spirit.
"I am very much obliged to you for recollecting it, madam, for in truth
the money is very much wanted; and if--" turning to her old friend, "my
dear Catherine can find me a little more work, I should be very greatly
obliged to her."
Catherine again changed color. Work! she was longing to offer her money.
She had twenty pounds in her pocket, a present from her godmother, to
buy something pretty for her wedding. She was burning with desire to put
it into Lettice's hand.
She stammered--she hesitated.
"Perhaps you _have_ no more work just now," said Lettice. "Never mind,
then; I am sure when there is an opportunity, you will remember what a
pleasure it will be to me to work for you; and that a poor needlewoman
is very much benefited by having private customers."
"My dear, dear Lettice!" and Catherine's arms were round her neck. She
could not help shedding a few tears.
"But to return to business," said Mrs. Danvers, "for I see Miss Arnold
is impatient to be gone. What is your charge, my dear? These slips are
tucked and beautifully stitched and done."
"I should not get more than threepence, at most fourpence, at the shops
for them. Should you think ninepence an unreasonable charge? I believe
it is what you would pay if you had them done at the schools."
"Threepence, fourpence, ninepence! Good Heavens!" cried Catherine; "so
beautifully done as these are; and then your needles and thread, you
have made no charge for them."
"We pay for those ourselves," said Lettice.
"But my dear," said Mrs. Danvers, "what Catherine would have to pay for
this work, if bought from a linen warehouse, would at least be fifteen
pence, and not nearly so well done, for these are beautiful. Come, you
must ask eighteen pence; there are six of them; nine shillings, my
dear."
The eyes of poor Lettice quite glistened. She could not refuse. She felt
that to seem over delicate upon this little enhancement of price would
be really great moral indelicacy. "Thank you," said she, "you are very
liberal; but it must only be for this once. If I am to be your
needlewoman in ordinary, Catherine, I must only be paid what you would
pay to others."
She smiled pleasantly as she said this; but Catherine could not answer
the smile. She felt very sad as she drew the nine shillings from her
purse, longing to make them nine sovereigns. But she laid the money at
last before Lettice upon the table.
Lettice took it up, and bringing out an old dirty leathern purse, was
going to put it in.
"At least, let me give you a better purse," said Catherine, eagerly,
offering her own handsome one, yet of a strong texture, for it was her
business purse.
"They would think I had stolen it," said Lettice, putting it aside. "No,
thank you, dear, kind Catherine. Consistency in all things; and my old
leather convenience seems to me much more consistent with my bonnet than
your beautiful one. Not but that I shall get myself a decent bonnet
_now_, for really this is a shame to be seen. And so, good-by; and
farewell, madam. When you _have_ work, you won't forget me, will you,
dear?"
"Oh, Catherine has plenty of work," put in Mrs. Danvers, "but somehow
she is not quite herself this morning"--again looking at her very
kindly. "You can not wonder, Miss Arnold, that she is much more agitated
by this meeting than you can be. My dear, there are those
pocket-handkerchiefs to be marked, which we durst not trust to an
unknown person. That will be a profitable job. My dear, you would have
to pay five shillings apiece at Mr. Morris's for having them embroidered
according to that pattern you fixed upon, and which I doubt not your
friend and her sister can execute. There are six of them to be done."
"May I look at the pattern? Oh, yes! I think I can do it. I will take
the greatest possible pains. Six at five shillings each! Oh! madam!--Oh,
Catherine!--what a benefit this will be."
Again Catherine felt it impossible to speak. She could only stoop down,
take the poor hand, so roughened with hardships, and raise it to her
lips.
The beautiful handkerchiefs were brought.
"I will only take one at a time, if you please. These are too valuable
to be risked at our lodgings. When I have done this, I will fetch
another, and so on. I shall not lose time in getting them done, depend
upon it," said Lettice, cheerfully.
"Take two, at all events, and then Myra can help you."
"No, only one at present, at least, thank you."
She did not say what she knew to be very true, that Myra could not help
her. Myra's fingers were twice as delicate as her own; and Myra, before
their misfortunes, had mostly spent her time in ornamental work--her
aunt holding plain sewing to be an occupation rather beneath so
beautiful and distinguished a creature. Nevertheless, when work became
of so much importance to them all, and fine work especially, as gaining
so much better a recompense in proportion to the time employed, Myra's
accomplishments in this way proved very useless. She had not been
accustomed to that strenuous, and, to the indolent, painful effort,
which is necessary to do any thing _well_. To exercise self-denial,
self-government, persevering industry, virtuous resistance against
weariness, disgust, aching fingers and heavy eyes--temptations which
haunt the indefatigable laborer in such callings, she was incapable of:
the consequence was, that she worked in a very inferior manner. While
Lettice, as soon as she became aware of the importance of this
accomplishment as to the means of increasing her power of adding to her
mother's comforts, had been indefatigable in her endeavors to accomplish
herself in the art, and was become a very excellent workwoman.
CHAPTER III.
"Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite,
As ever sullied the fair face of light."--POPE.
And now she is upon her way home. And oh! how lightly beats that honest
simple heart in her bosom: and oh! how cheerily sits her spirit upon its
throne. How happily, too, she looks about at the shops, and thinks of
what she shall buy; not what she can possibly do without; not of the
very cheapest and poorest that is to be had for money, but upon what she
shall _choose_!
Then she remembers the fable of the Maid and the Milk-pail, and grows
prudent and prosaic; and resolves that she will not spend her money till
she has got it. She begins to limit her desires, and to determine that
she will only lay out six shillings this morning, and keep three in her
purse, as a resource for contingencies. Nay, she begins to grow a little
Martha-like and careful, and to dream about savings-banks; and putting
half-a-crown in, out of the way of temptation, when she is paid for her
first pocket-handkerchief.
Six shillings, however, she means to expend for the more urgent wants.
Two shillings coals; one shilling a very, very coarse straw bonnet;
fourpence ribbon to trim it with; one shilling bread, and sixpence
potatoes, a half-pennyworth of milk, and then, what is left?--one
shilling and a penny-half-penny. Myra shall have a cup of tea, with
sugar in it; and a muffin, that she loves so, and a bit of butter.
Four-pennyworth of tea, three-pennyworth of sugar, two-pennyworth of
butter, one penny muffin; and threepence-halfpenny remains in the good
little manager's hands.
She came up the dark stairs of her lodgings so cheerfully, followed by a
boy lugging up her coals, she carrying the other purchases herself--so
happy! quite radiant with joy--and opened the door of the miserable
little apartment.
It was a bleak wintry morning. Not a single ray of the sun could
penetrate the gray fleecy covering in which the houses were wrapped; yet
the warmth of the smoke and fires was sufficient so far to assist the
temperature of the atmosphere as to melt the dirty snow; which now kept
dripping from the roofs in dreary cadence, and splashing upon the
pavement below.
The room looked so dark, so dreary, so dismal! Such a contrast to the
one she had just left! Myra was up, and was dressed in her miserable,
half-worn, cotton gown, which was thrown round her in the most untidy,
comfortless manner. She could not think it worth while to care how
_such_ a gown was put on. Her hair was dingy and disordered; to be sure
there was but a broken comb to straighten it with, and who could do any
thing with _such_ a comb? She was cowering over the fire, which was now
nearly extinguished, and, from time to time, picking up bit by bit of
the cinders, as they fell upon the little hearth, putting them on
again--endeavoring to keep the fire alive. Wretchedness in the extreme
was visible in her dress, her attitude, her aspect.
She turned round as Lettice entered, and saying pettishly, "I thought
you never _would_ come back, and I do _so_ want my shawl," returned to
her former attitude, with her elbows resting upon her knees, and her
chin upon the palms of her hands.
"I have been a sad long time, indeed," said Lettice, good-humoredly;
"you must have been tired to death of waiting for me, and wondering what
I _could_ be about. But I've brought something back which will make you
amends. And, in the first place, here's your shawl," putting it over
her, "and thank you for the use of it--though I would not ask your
leave, because I could not bear to waken you. But I was _sure_ you would
lend it me--and now for the fire. For once in a way we _will_ have a
good one. There, Sim, bring in the coals, put them in that wooden box
there. Now for a good lump or two." And on they went; and the expiring
fire began to crackle and sparkle, and make a pleased noise, and a blaze
soon caused even that room to look a little cheerful.
"Oh dear! I am so glad we may for _once_ be allowed to have coal enough
to put a spark of life into us," said Myra.
Lettice had by this time filled the little old tin kettle, and was
putting it upon the fire, and then she fetched an old tea-pot with a
broken spout, a saucer without a cup, and a cup without a saucer; and
putting the two together, for they were usually divided between the
sisters, said:
"I have got something for you which I know you will like still better
than a blaze, a cup of tea. And to warm your poor fingers, see if you
can't toast yourself this muffin," handing it to her upon what was now a
two-pronged, but had once been a three-pronged fork.
"But what have you got for yourself?" Myra had, at least, the grace to
say.
"Oh! I have had _such_ a breakfast. And such a thing has happened! but I
can not and will not tell you till you have had your own breakfast,
poor, dear girl. You must be ravenous--at least, I should be in your
place--but you never seem so hungry as I am, poor Myra. However, I was
sure you could eat a muffin."
"That was very good-natured of you, Lettice, to think of it. It _will_
be a treat. But oh! to think that we should be brought to this--to think
a muffin--_one_ muffin--a treat!" she added dismally.
"Let us be thankful when we get it, however," said her sister: "upon my
word. Mrs. Bull has given us some very good coals. Oh, how the kettle
does enjoy them! It must be quite a treat to our kettle to feel
_hot_--poor thing! Lukewarm is the best it mostly attains to. Hear how
it buzzes and hums, like a pleased child."
And so she prattled, and put a couple of spoonfuls of tea into the
cracked tea-pot. There were but about six in the paper, but Myra liked
her tea strong, and she should have it as she pleased this once. Then
she poured out a cup, put in some milk and sugar, and, with a smile of
ineffable affection, presented it, with the muffin she had buttered, to
her sister. Myra _did_ enjoy it. To the poor, weedy, delicate thing, a
cup of good tea, with something to eat that she could relish, _was_ a
real blessing. Mrs. Danvers was right so far: things did really go much
harder with her than with Lettice; but then she made them six times
worse by her discontent and murmuring spirit, and Lettice made them six
times better by her cheerfulness and generous disregard of self.
While the one sister was enjoying her breakfast, the other, who really
began to feel tired, was very glad to sit down and enjoy the fire. So
she took the other chair, and, putting herself upon the opposite side of
the little table, began to stretch out her feet to the fender, and feel
herself quite comfortable. Three shillings in her purse, and three-pence
halfpenny to do just what she liked with! perhaps buy Myra a roll for
tea: there would be butter enough left.
Then she began her story. But the effect it produced was not exactly
what she had expected. Instead of sharing in her sister's thankful joy
for this unexpected deliverance from the most abject want, through the
discovery of a friend--able and willing to furnish employment herself,
and to recommend them, as, in her hopeful view of things, Lettice
anticipated, to others, and promising them work of a description that
would pay well, and make them quite comfortable--Myra began to draw a
repining contrast between Catherine's situation and her own.
The poor beauty had been educated by her silly and romantic old aunt to
look forward to making some capital match. "She had such a sweet pretty
face, and so many accomplishments of mind and manner," for such was the
way the old woman loved to talk. Accomplishments of mind and manner, by
the way, are indefinite things; any body may put in a claim for them on
the part of any one. As for the more positive acquirements which are to
be seen, handled, or heard and appreciated--such as dancing, music,
languages, and so forth, Myra had as slender a portion of those as
usually falls to the lot of indulged, idle, nervous girls. The poor
beauty felt all the bitterness of the deepest mortification at what she
considered this cruel contrast of her fate as compared to Catherine's.
She had been indulged in that pernicious habit of the mind--the making
claims. "With claims no better than her own" was her expression for
though Catherine had more money, every body said Catherine was _only_
pretty, which last sentence implied that there was another person of
Catherine's acquaintance, who was positively and extremely beautiful.
Lettice, happily for herself, had never been accustomed to make
"claims." She had, indeed, never distinctly understood whom such claims
were to be made upon. She could not quite see why it was very _hard_
that other people should be happier than herself. I am sure she would
have been very sorry if she had thought that every body was as
uncomfortable.
She was always sorry when she heard her sister talking in this manner,
partly because she felt it could not be quite right, and partly because
she was sure it did no good, but made matters a great deal worse; but
she said nothing. Exhortation, indeed, only made matters worse: nothing
offended Myra so much as an attempt to make her feel more comfortable,
and to reconcile her to the fate she complained of as so _hard_.
Even when let alone, it would often be some time before she recovered
her good humor; and this was the case now. I am afraid she was a little
vexed that Lettice and not herself had met with the good luck first to
stumble upon Catherine, and also a little envious of the pleasing
impression it was plain her sister had made. So she began to fall foul
of Lettice's new bonnet, and to say, in a captious tone,
"You got money enough to buy yourself a new bonnet, I see."
"Indeed, I did," Lettice answered with simplicity. "It was the very
first thing I thought of. Mine was such a wretched thing, and wetted
with the snow--the very boys hooted at it. Poor old friend!" said she,
turning it upon her hand, "you have lost even the shape and pretension
to be a bonnet. What must I do with thee? The back of the fire? Sad
fate! No, generous companion of my cares and labors, that shall _not_ be
thy destiny. Useful to the last, thou shalt _light_ to-morrow's fire;
and that will be the best satisfaction to thy generous manes."
"_My_ bonnet is not so _very_ much better," said Myra, rather sulkily.
"_Not_ so _very_ much, alas! but better, far better than mine. And,
besides, confess, please, my dear, that you had the last bonnet. Two
years ago, it's true; but mine had seen three; and then, remember, I am
going into grand company again to-morrow, and _must_ be decent."
This last remark did not sweeten Myra's temper.
"Oh! I forgot. Of course you'll keep your good company to yourself. I
am, indeed, not fit to be seen in it. But you'll want a new gown and a
new shawl, my dear, though, indeed, you can always take mine, as you did
this morning."
"Now, Myra!" said Lettice, "can you really be so naughty? Nay, you are
cross; I see it in your face, though you won't look at me. Now don't be
so foolish. Is it not all the same to us both? Are we not in one box? If
you wish for the new bonnet, take it, and I'll take yours: I don't care,
my dear. You were always used to be more handsomely dressed than me--it
must seem quite odd for you not to be so. I only want to be decent when
I go about the work, which I shall have to do often, as I told you,
because I dare not have two of these expensive handkerchiefs in my
possession at once. Dear me, girl! Have we not troubles enough? For
goodness' sake don't let us _make_ them. There, dear, take the bonnet,
and I'll take yours; but I declare, when I look at the two, this is so
horridly coarse, yours, old as it is looks the genteeler to my mind,"
laughing.
So thought Myra, and kept her own bonnet, Lettice putting upon it the
piece of new ribbon she had bought, and after smoothing and rubbing the
faded one upon her sister's, trimming with it her own.
* * * * *
The two friends in Green-street sat silently for a short time after the
door had closed upon Lettice; and then Catherine began.
"More astonishing things happen in the real world than one ever finds in
a book. I am sure if such a reverse of fortune as this had been
described to me in a story, I should at once have declared it to be
impossible. I could not have believed it credible that, in a society
such as ours--full of all sorts of kind, good-natured people, who are
daily doing so much for the poor--an amiable girl like this, the
daughter of a clergyman of the Church of England, could be suffered to
sink into such abject poverty."
"Ah! my dear Catherine, that shows you have only seen life upon one
side, and that its fairest side--as it presents itself in the country.
You can not imagine what a dreadful thing it may prove in large cities.
It can not enter into the head of man to conceive the horrible contrasts
of large cities--the dreadful destitution of large cities--the awful
solitude of a crowd. In the country, I think, such a thing hardly could
have happened, however great the difficulty is of helping those who
still preserve the delicacy and dignity with regard to money matters,
which distinguishes finer minds--but in London what _can_ be done? Like
lead in the mighty waters, the moneyless and friendless sink to the
bottom, Society in all its countless degrees closes over them: they are
lost in its immensity, hidden from every eye, and they perish as an
insect might perish; amid the myriads of its kind, unheeded by every
other living creature. Ah, my love! if your walks lay where mine have
done, your heart would bleed for these destitute women, born to better
hopes, and utterly shipwrecked."
"She was such a dear, amiable girl," Catherine went on, "so cheerful, so
sweet-tempered--so clever in all that one likes to see people clever
about! Her mother was a silly woman."
"So she showed, I fear, by coming to London," said Mrs. Danvers.
"She was so proud of Myra's beauty, and she seemed to think so little of
Lettice. She was always prophesying that Myra would make a great match;
and so did her aunt, Mrs. Price, who was no wiser than Mrs. Arnold; and
they brought up the poor girl to such a conceit of herself--to 'not to
do this,' and 'it was beneath her to do that'--and referring every
individual thing to her comfort and advancement, till, poor girl, she
could hardly escape growing, what she certainly did grow into, a very
spoiled, selfish creature. While dear Lettice in her simplicity--that
simplicity 'which thinketh no evil'--took it so naturally, that so it
was, and so it ought to be; that sometimes one laughed, and sometimes
one felt provoked, but one loved her above all things. I never saw such
a temper."
"I dare say," said Mrs. Danvers, "that your intention in staying in town
to-day was to pay them a visit, which, indeed, we had better do. I had
only a glance into their apartment the other day, but it occurred to me
that they wanted common necessaries. Ignorant as I was of who they were,
I was thinking to get them put upon Lady A----'s coal and blanket list,
but that can not very well be done now. However, presents are always
permitted under certain conditions, and the most delicate receive them;
and, really, this is a case to waive a feeling of that sort in some
measure. As you are an old friend and acquaintance, there can be no harm
in a few presents before you leave town."
"So I was thinking, ma'am, and I am very impatient to go and see them,
and find out what they may be most in want of."
"Well, my dear, I do not see why we should lose time, and I will order a
cab to take us, for it is rather too far to walk this terrible day."
They soon arrived at the place I have described, and, descending from
their cab, walked along in front of this row of lofty houses looking
upon the grave-yard, and inhabited by so much human misery. The doors of
most of the houses stood open, for they were all let in rooms, and the
entrance and staircase were common as the street. What forms of human
misery and degradation presented themselves during one short walk which
I once took there with a friend employed upon a mission of mercy!
Disease in its most frightful form, panting to inhale a little fresh
air. Squalid misery, the result of the gin-shop--decent misery ready to
starve. Women shut up in one room with great heartless, brutal,
disobedient boys--sickness resting untended upon its solitary bed.
Wailing infants--scolding mothers--human nature under its most abject
and degraded forms. No thrift, no economy, no attempt at cleanliness and
order. Idleness, recklessness, dirt, and wretchedness. Perhaps the very
atmosphere of towns; perhaps these close, ill-ventilated rooms; most
certainly the poisonous gin-shop, engender a relaxed state of nerves and
muscles, which deprives people of the spirits ever to attempt to make
themselves a little decent. Then water is so dear, and dirt so pervading
the very atmosphere. Poor things, they give it up; and acquiesce in,
and become accustomed to it, and "_avec un mal heur sourd dont l'on ne
se rend pas compte_," gradually sin
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