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diff --git a/37625.txt b/37625.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89bfa74 --- /dev/null +++ b/37625.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6909 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Our Old Home, Vol. 2, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Our Old Home, Vol. 2 + Annotated with Passages from the Author's Notebook + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: October 4, 2011 [EBook #37625] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR OLD HOME, VOL. 2 *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +[Illustration: _Lord Nelson._] + + + + + OUR OLD HOME + + BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + + ANNOTATED WITH PASSAGES + FROM THE AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK, + AND ILLUSTRATED + WITH PHOTOGRAVURES + + + VOLUME II + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + + MDCCCXCI + + + Copyright, 1863. + BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + Copyright, 1870. + BY SOPHIA HAWTHORNE. + + Copyright, 1883, 1890, + BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. + + _All rights reserved._ + + _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ + + Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. + + + + + CONTENTS + AND LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + [_Photogravures executed by A. W. Elson & Co., Boston._] + + + LORD NELSON + + NEAR OXFORD + BLENHEIM + THE THAMES AT OXFORD FROM FOLLY BRIDGE + MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD, FROM THE CHERWELL + + SOME OF THE HAUNTS OF BURNS + ROBERT BURNS + BURNS'S BIRTHPLACE, ALLOWAY PARISH, NEAR AYR + THE AULD BRIG O' DOON, AYR + ALLOWAY KIRK + + A LONDON SUBURB + A COUNTRY HOUSE + THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT + + UP THE THAMES + LONDON BRIDGE + TOWER OF LONDON, SHOWING TRAITORS' GATE + ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL + POETS' CORNER, WESTMINSTER ABBEY + + OUTSIDE GLIMPSES OF ENGLISH POVERTY + AN ENGLISH ALMSHOUSE + + CIVIC BANQUETS + + + + +OUR OLD HOME + + + + +VII. + +NEAR OXFORD + + +On a fine morning in September we set out on an excursion to +Blenheim,--the sculptor and myself being seated on the box of our +four-horse carriage, two more of the party in the dicky, and the others +less agreeably accommodated inside. We had no coachman, but two +postilions in short scarlet jackets and leather breeches with top-boots, +each astride of a horse; so that, all the way along, when not otherwise +attracted, we had the interesting spectacle of their up-and-down bobbing +in the saddle. It was a sunny and beautiful day, a specimen of the +perfect English weather, just warm enough for comfort,--indeed, a little +too warm, perhaps, in the noontide sun,--yet retaining a mere spice or +suspicion of austerity, which made it all the more enjoyable. + +The country between Oxford and Blenheim is not particularly interesting, +being almost level, or undulating very slightly; nor is Oxfordshire, +agriculturally, a rich part of England. We saw one or two hamlets, and I +especially remember a picturesque old gabled house at a turnpike gate, +and, altogether, the wayside scenery had an aspect of old-fashioned +English life; but there was nothing very memorable till we reached +Woodstock, and stopped to water our horses at the Black Bear. This +neighborhood is called New Woodstock, but has by no means the brand-new +appearance of an American town, being a large village of stone houses, +most of them pretty well time-worn and weather-stained. The Black Bear +is an ancient inn, large and respectable, with balustraded staircases, +and intricate passages and corridors, and queer old pictures and +engravings hanging in the entries and apartments. We ordered a lunch +(the most delightful of English institutions, next to dinner) to be +ready against our return, and then resumed our drive to Blenheim. + +The park gate of Blenheim stands close to the end of the village street +of Woodstock. Immediately on passing through its portals we saw the +stately palace in the distance, but made a wide circuit of the park +before approaching it. This noble park contains three thousand acres of +land, and is fourteen miles in circumference. Having been, in part, a +royal domain before it was granted to the Marlborough family, it +contains many trees of unsurpassed antiquity, and has doubtless been the +haunt of game and deer for centuries. We saw pheasants in abundance, +feeding in the open lawns and glades; and the stags tossed their antlers +and bounded away, not affrighted, but only shy and gamesome, as we drove +by. It is a magnificent pleasure-ground, not too tamely kept, nor +rigidly subjected within rule, but vast enough to have lapsed back into +nature again, after all the pains that the landscape-gardeners of Queen +Anne's time bestowed on it, when the domain of Blenheim was +scientifically laid out. The great, knotted, slanting trunks of the old +oaks do not now look as if man had much intermeddled with their growth +and postures. The trees of later date, that were set out in the Great +Duke's time, are arranged on the plan of the order of battle in which +the illustrious commander ranked his troops at Blenheim; but the ground +covered is so extensive, and the trees now so luxuriant, that the +spectator is not disagreeably conscious of their standing in military +array, as if Orpheus had summoned them together by beat of drum. The +effect must have been very formal a hundred and fifty years ago, but has +ceased to be so,--although the trees, I presume, have kept their ranks +with even more fidelity than Marlborough's veterans did. + +One of the park-keepers, on horseback, rode beside our carriage, +pointing out the choice views, and glimpses at the palace, as we drove +through the domain. There is a very large artificial lake (to say the +truth, it seemed to me fully worthy of being compared with the Welsh +lakes, at least, if not with those of Westmoreland), which was created +by Capability Brown, and fills the basin that he scooped for it, just as +if Nature had poured these broad waters into one of her own valleys. It +is a most beautiful object at a distance, and not less so on its +immediate banks; for the water is very pure, being supplied by a small +river, of the choicest transparency, which was turned thitherward for +the purpose. And Blenheim owes not merely this water scenery, but almost +all its other beauties, to the contrivance of man. Its natural features +are not striking; but Art has effected such wonderful things that the +uninstructed visitor would never guess that nearly the whole scene was +but the embodied thought of a human mind. A skillful painter hardly does +more for his blank sheet of canvas than the landscape-gardener, the +planter, the arranger of trees, has done for the monotonous surface of +Blenheim,--making the most of every undulation,--flinging down a +hillock, a big lump of earth out of a giant's hand, wherever it was +needed,--putting in beauty as often as there was a niche for +it,--opening vistas to every point that deserved to be seen, and +throwing a veil of impenetrable foliage around what ought to be +hidden;--and then, to be sure, the lapse of a century has softened the +harsh outline of man's labors, and has given the place back to Nature +again with the addition of what consummate science could achieve. + +After driving a good way, we came to a battlemented tower and adjoining +house, which used to be the residence of the Ranger of Woodstock Park, +who held charge of the property for the King before the Duke of +Marlborough possessed it. The keeper opened the door for us, and in the +entrance-hall we found various things that had to do with the chase and +woodland sports. We mounted the staircase, through several stories, up +to the top of the tower, whence there was a view of the spires of +Oxford, and of points much farther off,--very indistinctly seen, +however, as is usually the case with the misty distances of England. +Returning to the ground-floor, we were ushered into the room in which +died Wilmot, the wicked Earl of Rochester, who was Ranger of the Park in +Charles II.'s time. It is a low and bare little room, with a window in +front, and a smaller one behind; and in the contiguous entrance-room +there are the remains of an old bedstead, beneath the canopy of which, +perhaps, Rochester may have made the penitent end that Bishop Burnet +attributes to him. I hardly know what it is, in this poor fellow's +character, which affects us with greater tenderness on his behalf than +for all the other profligates of his day, who seem to have been neither +better nor worse than himself. I rather suspect that he had a human +heart which never quite died out of him, and the warmth of which is +still faintly perceptible amid the dissolute trash which he left +behind. + +Methinks, if such good fortune ever befell a bookish man, I should +choose this lodge for my own residence, with the top-most room of the +tower for a study, and all the seclusion of cultivated wildness beneath +to ramble in. There being no such possibility, we drove on, catching +glimpses of the palace in new points of view, and by and by came to +Rosamond's Well. The particular tradition that connects Fair Rosamond +with it is not now in my memory; but if Rosamond ever lived and loved, +and ever had her abode in the maze of Woodstock, it may well be believed +that she and Henry sometimes sat beside this spring. It gushes out from +a bank, through some old stone-work, and dashes its little cascade +(about as abundant as one might turn out of a large pitcher) into a +pool, whence it steals away towards the lake, which is not far removed. +The water is exceedingly cold, and as pure as the legendary Rosamond was +not, and is fancied to possess medicinal virtues, like springs at which +saints have quenched their thirst. There were two or three old women and +some children in attendance with tumblers, which they present to +visitors, full of the consecrated water; but most of us filled the +tumblers for ourselves, and drank. + +Thence we drove to the Triumphal Pillar which was erected in honor of +the Great Duke, and on the summit of which he stands, in a Roman garb, +holding a winged figure of Victory in his hand, as an ordinary man might +hold a bird. The column is I know not how many feet high, but lofty +enough, at any rate, to elevate Marlborough far above the rest of the +world, and to be visible a long way off; and it is so placed in +reference to other objects, that, wherever the hero wandered about his +grounds, and especially as he issued from his mansion, he must +inevitably have been reminded of his glory. In truth, until I came to +Blenheim, I never had so positive and material an idea of what Fame +really is--of what the admiration of his country can do for a successful +warrior--as I carry away with me and shall always retain. Unless he had +the moral force of a thousand men together, his egotism (beholding +himself everywhere, imbuing the entire soil, growing in the woods, +rippling and gleaming in the water, and pervading the very air with his +greatness) must have been swollen within him like the liver of a +Strasburg goose. On the huge tablets inlaid into the pedestal of the +column, the entire Act of Parliament, bestowing Blenheim on the Duke of +Marlborough and his posterity, is engraved in deep letters, painted +black on the marble ground. The pillar stands exactly a mile from the +principal front of the palace, in a straight line with the precise +centre of its entrance-hall; so that, as already said, it was the Duke's +principal object of contemplation. + +We now proceeded to the palace-gate, which is a great pillared archway, +of wonderful loftiness and state, giving admittance into a spacious +quadrangle. A stout, elderly, and rather surly footman in livery +appeared at the entrance, and took possession of whatever canes, +umbrellas, and parasols he could get hold of, in order to claim sixpence +on our departure. This had a somewhat ludicrous effect. There is much +public outcry against the meanness of the present Duke in his +arrangements for the admission of visitors (chiefly, of course, his +native countrymen) to view the magnificent palace which their +forefathers bestowed upon his own. In many cases, it seems hard that a +private abode should be exposed to the intrusion of the public merely +because the proprietor has inherited or created a splendor which +attracts general curiosity; insomuch that his home loses its sanctity +and seclusion for the very reason that it is better than other men's +houses. But in the case of Blenheim, the public have certainly an +equitable claim to admission, both because the fame of its first +inhabitant is a national possession, and because the mansion was a +national gift, one of the purposes of which was to be a token of +gratitude and glory to the English people themselves. If a man chooses +to be illustrious, he is very likely to incur some little inconveniences +himself, and entail them on his posterity. Nevertheless, his present +Grace of Marlborough absolutely ignores the public claim above +suggested, and (with a thrift of which even the hero of Blenheim himself +did not set the example) sells tickets admitting six persons at ten +shillings; if only one person enters the gate, he must pay for six; and +if there are seven in company, two tickets are required to admit them. +The attendants, who meet you everywhere in the park and palace, expect +fees on their own private account,--their noble master pocketing +the ten shillings. But, to be sure, the visitor gets his money's worth, +since it buys him the right to speak just as freely of the Duke of +Marlborough as if he were the keeper of the Cremorne Gardens.[1] + +[1] The above was written two or three years ago, or more; and the Duke +of that day has since transmitted his coronet to his successor, who, we +understand, has adopted much more liberal arrangements. There is seldom +anything to criticise or complain of, as regards the facility of +obtaining admission to interesting private houses in England. + +Passing through a gateway on the opposite side of the quadrangle, we had +before us the noble classic front of the palace, with its two projecting +wings. We ascended the lofty steps of the portal, and were admitted into +the entrance-hall, the height of which, from floor to ceiling, is not +much less than seventy feet, being the entire elevation of the edifice. +The hall is lighted by windows in the upper story, and, it being a +clear, bright day, was very radiant with lofty sunshine, amid which a +swallow was flitting to and fro. The ceiling was painted by Sir James +Thornhill in some allegorical design (doubtless commemorative of +Marlborough's victories), the purport of which I did not take the +trouble to make out,--contenting myself with the general effect, which +was most splendidly and effectively ornamental. + +We were guided through the show-rooms by a very civil person, who +allowed us to take pretty much our own time in looking at the pictures. +The collection is exceedingly valuable,--many of these works of Art +having been presented to the Great Duke by the crowned heads of England +or the Continent. One room was all aglow with pictures by Rubens; and +there were works of Raphael, and many other famous painters, any one of +which would be sufficient to illustrate the meanest house that might +contain it. I remember none of them, however (not being in a +picture-seeing mood), so well as Vandyck's large and familiar picture of +Charles I. on horseback, with a figure and face of melancholy dignity +such as never by any other hand was put on canvas. Yet, on considering +this face of Charles (which I find often repeated in half-lengths) and +translating it from the ideal into literalism, I doubt whether the +unfortunate king was really a handsome or impressive-looking man: a +high, thin-ridged nose, a meagre, hatchet face, and reddish hair and +beard,--these are the literal facts. It is the painter's art that has +thrown such pensive and shadowy grace around him. + +[Illustration: _Blenheim._] + +On our passage through this beautiful suite of apartments, we saw, +through the vista of open doorways, a boy of ten or twelve years old +coming towards us from the farther rooms. He had on a straw hat, a linen +sack that had certainly been washed and rewashed for a summer or two, +and gray trousers a good deal worn,--a dress, in short, which an +American mother in middle station would have thought too shabby for her +darling schoolboy's ordinary wear. This urchin's face was rather pale +(as those of English children are apt to be, quite as often as our own), +but he had pleasant eyes, an intelligent look, and an agreeable boyish +manner. It was Lord Sunderland, grandson of the present Duke, and +heir--though not, I think, in the direct line--of the blood of the great +Marlborough, and of the title and estate. + +After passing through the first suite of rooms, we were conducted +through a corresponding suite on the opposite side of the entrance-hall. +These latter apartments are most richly adorned with tapestries, wrought +and presented to the first Duke by a sisterhood of Flemish nuns; they +look like great, glowing pictures, and completely cover the walls of +the rooms. The designs purport to represent the Duke's battles and +sieges; and everywhere we see the hero himself, as large as life, and as +gorgeous in scarlet and gold as the holy sisters could make him, with a +three-cornered hat and flowing wig, reining in his horse, and extending +his leading-staff in the attitude of command. Next to Marlborough, +Prince Eugene is the most prominent figure. In the way of upholstery, +there can never have been anything more magnificent than these +tapestries; and, considered as works of Art, they have quite as much +merit as nine pictures out of ten. + +One whole wing of the palace is occupied by the library, a most noble +room, with a vast perspective length from end to end. Its atmosphere is +brighter and more cheerful than that of most libraries: a wonderful +contrast to the old college libraries of Oxford, and perhaps less sombre +and suggestive of thoughtfulness than any large library ought to be; +inasmuch as so many studious brains as have left their deposit on the +shelves cannot have conspired without producing a very serious and +ponderous result. Both walls and ceiling are white, and there are +elaborate doorways and fireplaces of white marble. The floor is of oak, +so highly polished that our feet slipped upon it as if it had been New +England ice. At one end of the room stands a statue of Queen Anne in her +royal robes, which are so admirably designed and exquisitely wrought +that the spectator certainly gets a strong conception of her royal +dignity; while the face of the statue, fleshy and feeble, doubtless +conveys a suitable idea of her personal character.[2] The marble of this +work, long as it has stood there, is as white as snow just fallen, and +must have required most faithful and religious care to keep it so. As +for the volumes of the library, they are wired within the cases, and +turn their gilded backs upon the visitor, keeping their treasures of wit +and wisdom just as intangible as if still in the unwrought mines of +human thought. + +[2] In front of St. Paul's there is a statue of Queen Anne, which looks +rather more majestic, I doubt not, than that fat old dame ever did.--II. +97. + +I remember nothing else in the palace, except the chapel, to which we +were conducted last, and where we saw a splendid monument to the first +Duke and Duchess, sculptured by Rysbrach, at the cost, it is said, of +forty thousand pounds. The design includes the statues of the deceased +dignitaries, and various allegorical flourishes, fantasies, and +confusions; and beneath sleep the great Duke and his proud wife, their +veritable bones and dust, and probably all the Marlboroughs that have +since died. It is not quite a comfortable idea that these mouldy +ancestors still inhabit, after their fashion, the house where their +successors spend the passing day; but the adulation lavished upon the +hero of Blenheim could not have been consummated, unless the palace of +his lifetime had become likewise a stately mausoleum over his +remains,--and such we felt it all to be, after gazing at his tomb. + +The next business was to see the private gardens. An old Scotch +under-gardener admitted us and led the way, and seemed to have a fair +prospect of earning the fee all by himself; but by and by another +respectable Scotchman made his appearance and took us in charge, proving +to be the head-gardener in person. He was extremely intelligent and +agreeable, talking both scientifically and lovingly about trees and +plants, of which there is every variety capable of English cultivation. +Positively, the Garden of Eden cannot have been more beautiful than +this private garden of Blenheim. It contains three hundred acres, and by +the artful circumlocution of the paths, and the undulations, and the +skillfully interposed clumps of trees, is made to appear limitless. The +sylvan delights of a whole country are compressed into this space, as +whole fields of Persian roses go to the concoction of an ounce of +precious attar. The world within that garden-fence is not the same weary +and dusty world with which we outside mortals are conversant; it is a +finer, lovelier, more harmonious Nature; and the Great Mother lends +herself kindly to the gardener's will, knowing that he will make evident +the half-obliterated traits of her pristine and ideal beauty, and allow +her to take all the credit and praise to herself. I doubt whether there +is ever any winter within that precinct,--any clouds, except the fleecy +ones of summer. The sunshine that I saw there rests upon my recollection +of it as if it were eternal. The lawns and glades are like the memory of +places where one has wandered when first in love. + +What a good and happy life might be spent in a paradise like this! And +yet, at that very moment, the besotted Duke (ah! I have let out a +secret which I meant to keep to myself; but the ten shillings must pay +for all) was in that very garden (for the guide told us so, and +cautioned our young people not to be too uproarious), and, if in a +condition for arithmetic, was thinking of nothing nobler than how many +ten-shilling tickets had that day been sold. Republican as I am, I +should still love to think that noblemen lead noble lives, and that all +this stately and beautiful environment may serve to elevate them a +little way above the rest of us. If it fail to do so, the disgrace falls +equally upon the whole race of mortals as on themselves; because it +proves that no more favorable conditions of existence would eradicate +our vices and weaknesses. How sad, if this be so! Even a herd of swine, +eating the acorns under those magnificent oaks of Blenheim, would be +cleanlier and of better habits than ordinary swine. + +Well, all that I have written is pitifully meagre, as a description of +Blenheim; and I hate to leave it without some more adequate expression +of the noble edifice, with its rich domain, all as I saw them in that +beautiful sunshine; for, if a day had been chosen out of a hundred +years, it could not have been a finer one. But I must give up the +attempt; only further remarking that the finest trees here were cedars, +of which I saw one--and there may have been many such--immense in girth, +and not less than three centuries old. I likewise saw a vast heap of +laurel, two hundred feet in circumference, all growing from one root; +and the gardener offered to show us another growth of twice that +stupendous size. If the Great Duke himself had been buried in that spot, +his heroic heart could not have been the seed of a more plentiful crop +of laurels. + +We now went back to the Black Bear, and sat down to a cold collation, of +which we ate abundantly, and drank (in the good old English fashion) a +due proportion of various delightful liquors. A stranger in England, in +his rambles to various quarters of the country, may learn little in +regard to wines (for the ordinary English taste is simple, though sound, +in that particular), but he makes acquaintance with more varieties of +hop and malt liquor than he previously supposed to exist. I remember a +sort of foaming stuff, called hop-champagne, which is very vivacious, +and appears to be a hybrid between ale and bottled cider. Another +excellent tipple for warm weather is concocted by mixing brown-stout or +bitter ale with ginger-beer, the foam of which stirs up the heavier +liquor from its depths, forming a compound of singular vivacity and +sufficient body. But of all things ever brewed from malt (unless it be +the Trinity Ale of Cambridge, which I drank long afterwards, and which +Barry Cornwall has celebrated in immortal verse), commend me to the +Archdeacon, as the Oxford scholars call it, in honor of the jovial +dignitary who first taught these erudite worthies how to brew their +favorite nectar. John Barleycorn has given his very heart to this +admirable liquor; it is a superior kind of ale, the Prince of Ales, with +a richer flavor and a mightier spirit than you can find elsewhere in +this weary world. Much have we been strengthened and encouraged by the +potent blood of the Archdeacon! + +A few days after our excursion to Blenheim, the same party set forth, in +two flies, on a tour to some other places of interest in the +neighborhood of Oxford. It was again a delightful day; and, in truth, +every day, of late, had been so pleasant that it seemed as if each must +be the very last of such perfect weather; and yet the long succession +had given us confidence in as many more to come. The climate of England +has been shamefully maligned, its sulkiness and asperities are not +nearly so offensive as Englishmen tell us (their climate being the only +attribute of their country which they never overvalue); and the really +good summer-weather is the very kindest and sweetest that the world +knows. + +We first drove to the village of Cumnor, about six miles from Oxford, +and alighted at the entrance of the church. Here, while waiting for the +keys, we looked at an old wall of the churchyard, piled up of loose gray +stones, which are said to have once formed a portion of Cumnor Hall, +celebrated in Mickle's ballad and Scott's romance. The hall must have +been in very close vicinity to the church,--not more than twenty yards +off; and I waded through the long, dewy grass of the churchyard, and +tried to peep over the wall, in hopes to discover some tangible and +traceable remains of the edifice. But the wall was just too high to be +overlooked, and difficult to clamber over without tumbling down some of +the stones; so I took the word of one of our party, who had been here +before, that there is nothing interesting on the other side. The +churchyard is in rather a neglected state, and seems not to have been +mown for the benefit of the parson's cow; it contains a good many +gravestones, of which I remember only some upright memorials of slate to +individuals of the name of Tabbs. + +Soon a woman arrived with the key of the church-door, and we entered the +simple old edifice, which has the pavement of lettered tombstones, the +sturdy pillars and low arches, and other ordinary characteristics of an +English country church. One or two pews, probably those of the gentle +folk of the neighborhood, were better furnished than the rest, but all +in a modest style. Near the high altar, in the holiest place, there is +an oblong, angular, ponderous tomb of blue marble, built against the +wall, and surmounted by a carved canopy of the same material; and over +the tomb, and beneath the canopy, are two monumental brasses, such as we +oftener see inlaid into a church pavement. On these brasses are engraved +the figures of a gentleman in armor, and a lady in an antique garb, each +about a foot high, devoutly kneeling in prayer; and there is a long +Latin inscription likewise cut into the enduring brass, bestowing the +highest eulogies on the character of Anthony Forster, who, with his +virtuous dame, lies buried beneath this tombstone. His is the knightly +figure that kneels above; and if Sir Walter Scott ever saw this tomb, he +must have had an even greater than common disbelief in laudatory +epitaphs, to venture on depicting Anthony Forster in such hues as +blacken him in the romance. For my part, I read the inscription in full +faith, and believe the poor deceased gentleman to be a much-wronged +individual, with good grounds for bringing an action of slander in the +courts above. + +But the circumstance, lightly as we treat it, has its serious moral. +What nonsense it is, this anxiety, which so worries us about our good +fame, or our bad fame, after death! If it were of the slightest real +moment, our reputations would have been placed by Providence more in our +own power, and less in other people's, than we now find them to be. If +poor Anthony Forster happens to have met Sir Walter in the other world, +I doubt whether he has ever thought it worth while to complain of the +latter's misrepresentations. + +We did not remain long in the church, as it contains nothing else of +interest; and, driving through the village, we passed a pretty large and +rather antique-looking inn, bearing the sign of the Bear and Ragged +Staff. It could not be so old, however, by at least a hundred years, as +Giles Gosling's time; nor is there any other object to remind the +visitor of the Elizabethan age, unless it be a few ancient cottages, +that are perhaps of still earlier date. Cumnor is not nearly so large a +village, nor a place of such mark, as one anticipates from its romantic +and legendary fame; but, being still inaccessible by railway, it has +retained more of a sylvan character than we often find in English +country towns. In this retired neighborhood the road is narrow and +bordered with grass, and sometimes interrupted by gates; the hedges grow +in unpruned luxuriance; there is not that close-shaven neatness and +trimness that characterize the ordinary English landscape. The whole +scene conveys the idea of seclusion and remoteness. We met no travelers, +whether on foot or otherwise. + +I cannot very distinctly trace out this day's peregrinations; but, after +leaving Cumnor a few miles behind us, I think we came to a ferry over +the Thames, where an old woman served as ferryman, and pulled a boat +across by means of a rope stretching from shore to shore. Our two +vehicles being thus placed on the other side, we resumed our +drive,--first glancing, however, at the old woman's antique cottage, +with its stone floor, and the circular settle round the kitchen +fireplace, which was quite in the mediaeval English style. + +We next stopped at Stanton Harcourt, where we were received at the +parsonage with a hospitality which we should take delight in describing, +if it were allowable to make public acknowledgment of the private and +personal kindnesses which we never failed to find ready for our needs. +An American in an English house will soon adopt the opinion that the +English are the very kindest people on earth, and will retain that idea +as long, at least, as he remains on the inner side of the threshold. +Their magnetism is of a kind that repels strongly while you keep beyond +a certain limit, but attracts as forcibly if you get within the magic +line. + +It was at this place, if I remember right, that I heard a gentleman ask +a friend of mine whether he was the author of "The Red Letter A;" and, +after some consideration (for he did not seem to recognize his own book, +at first, under this improved title), our countryman responded +doubtfully, that he believed so. The gentleman proceeded to inquire +whether our friend had spent much time in America,--evidently thinking +that he must have been caught young, and have had a tincture of English +breeding, at least, if not birth, to speak the language so tolerably, +and appear so much like other people. This insular narrowness is +exceedingly queer, and of very frequent occurrence, and is quite as much +a characteristic of men of education and culture as of clowns. + +Stanton Harcourt is a very curious old place. It was formerly the seat +of the ancient family of Harcourt, which now has its principal abode at +Nuneham Courtney, a few miles off. The parsonage is a relic of the +family mansion, or castle, other portions of which are close at hand; +for, across the garden, rise two gray towers, both of them picturesquely +venerable, and interesting for more than their antiquity. One of these +towers, in its entire capacity, from height to depth, constituted the +kitchen of the ancient castle, and is still used for domestic purposes, +although it has not, nor ever had, a chimney; or, we might rather say, +it is itself one vast chimney, with a hearth of thirty feet square, and +a flue and aperture of the same size. There are two huge fireplaces +within, and the interior walls of the tower are blackened with the smoke +that for centuries used to gush forth from them, and climb upward, +seeking an exit through some wide air-holes in the conical roof, full +seventy feet above. These lofty openings were capable of being so +arranged, with reference to the wind, that the cooks are said to have +been seldom troubled by the smoke; and here, no doubt, they were +accustomed to roast oxen whole, with as little fuss and ado as a modern +cook would roast a fowl. The inside of the tower is very dim and sombre +(being nothing but rough stone walls, lighted only from the apertures +above mentioned), and has still a pungent odor of smoke and soot, the +reminiscence of the fires and feasts of generations that have passed +away. Methinks the extremest range of domestic economy lies between an +American cooking-stove and the ancient kitchen, seventy dizzy feet in +height and all one fireplace, of Stanton Harcourt. + +Now--the place being without a parallel in England, and therefore +necessarily beyond the experience of an American--it is somewhat +remarkable that, while we stood gazing at this kitchen, I was haunted +and perplexed by an idea that somewhere or other I had seen just this +strange spectacle before. The height, the blackness, the dismal void, +before my eyes, seemed as familiar as the decorous neatness of my +grandmother's kitchen; only my unaccountable memory of the scene was +lighted up with an image of lurid fires blazing all round the dim +interior circuit of the tower. I had never before had so pertinacious an +attack, as I could not but suppose it, of that odd state of mind wherein +we fitfully and teasingly remember some previous scene or incident, of +which the one now passing appears to be but the echo and reduplication. +Though the explanation of the mystery did not for some time occur to me, +I may as well conclude the matter here. In a letter of Pope's, addressed +to the Duke of Buckingham, there is an account of Stanton Harcourt (as I +now find, although the name is not mentioned), where he resided while +translating a part of the "Iliad." It is one of the most admirable +pieces of description in the language,--playful and picturesque, with +fine touches of humorous pathos,--and conveys as perfect a picture as +ever was drawn of a decayed English country-house; and among other +rooms, most of which have since crumbled down and disappeared, he dashes +off the grim aspect of this kitchen,--which, moreover, he peoples with +witches, engaging Satan himself as head cook, who stirs the infernal +caldrons that seethe and bubble over the fires. This letter, and others +relative to his abode here, were very familiar to my earlier reading, +and, remaining still fresh at the bottom of my memory, caused the weird +and ghostly sensation that came over me on beholding the real spectacle +that had formerly been made so vivid to my imagination. + +Our next visit was to the church, which stands close by, and is quite as +ancient as the remnants of the castle. In a chapel or side aisle, +dedicated to the Harcourts, are found some very interesting family +monuments,--and among them, recumbent on a tombstone, the figure of an +armed knight of the Lancastrian party, who was slain in the Wars of the +Roses. His features, dress, and armor are painted in colors, still +wonderfully fresh, and there still blushes the symbol of the Red Rose, +denoting the faction for which he fought and died. His head rests on a +marble or alabaster helmet; and on the tomb lies the veritable helmet, +it is to be presumed, which he wore in battle,--a ponderous iron case, +with the visor complete, and remnants of the gilding that once covered +it. The crest is a large peacock, not of metal, but of wood. Very +possibly, this helmet was but an heraldic adornment of his tomb; and, +indeed, it seems strange that it has not been stolen before now, +especially in Cromwell's time, when knightly tombs were little +respected, and when armor was in request. However, it is needless to +dispute with the dead knight about the identity of his iron pot, and we +may as well allow it to be the very same that so often gave him the +headache in his lifetime. Leaning against the wall, at the foot of the +tomb, is the shaft of a spear, with a wofully tattered and utterly faded +banner appended to it,--the knightly banner beneath which he marshaled +his followers in the field. As it was absolutely falling to pieces, I +tore off one little bit, no bigger than a finger-nail, and put it into +my waistcoat pocket; but seeking it subsequently, it was not to be +found. + +On the opposite side of the little chapel, two or three yards from this +tomb, is another monument, on which lie, side by side, one of the same +knightly race of Harcourts and his lady. The tradition of the family is, +that this knight was the standard-bearer of Henry of Richmond in the +Battle of Bosworth Field; and a banner, supposed to be the same that he +carried, now droops over his effigy. It is just such a colorless silk +rag as the one already described. The knight has the order of the Garter +on his knee, and the lady wears it on her left arm,--an odd place enough +for a garter; but, if worn in its proper locality, it could not be +decorously visible. The complete preservation and good condition of +these statues, even to the minutest adornment of the sculpture, and +their very noses,--the most vulnerable part of a marble man, as of a +living one,--are miraculous. Except in Westminster Abbey, among the +chapels of the kings, I have seen none so well preserved. Perhaps they +owe it to the loyalty of Oxfordshire, diffused throughout its +neighborhood by the influence of the University, during the great Civil +War and the rule of the Parliament. It speaks well, too, for the upright +and kindly character of this old family, that the peasantry, among whom +they had lived for ages, did not desecrate their tombs, when it might +have been done with impunity. + +There are other and more recent memorials of the Harcourts, one of which +is the tomb of the last lord, who died about a hundred years ago. His +figure, like those of his ancestors, lies on the top of his tomb, clad, +not in armor, but in his robes as a peer. The title is now extinct, but +the family survives in a younger branch, and still holds this +patrimonial estate, though they have long since quitted it as a +residence. + +We next went to see the ancient fishponds appertaining to the mansion, +and which used to be of vast dietary importance to the family in +Catholic times, and when fish was not otherwise attainable. There are +two or three, or more, of these reservoirs, one of which is of very +respectable size,--large enough, indeed, to be really a picturesque +object, with its grass-green borders, and the trees drooping over it, +and the towers of the castle and the church reflected within the +weed-grown depths of its smooth mirror. A sweet fragrance, as it were, +of ancient time and present quiet and seclusion was breathing all +around; the sunshine of to-day had a mellow charm of antiquity in its +brightness. These ponds are said still to breed abundance of such fish +as love deep and quiet waters; but I saw only some minnows, and one or +two snakes, which were lying among the weeds on the top of the water, +sunning and bathing themselves at once. + +I mentioned that there were two towers remaining of the old castle: the +one containing the kitchen we have already visited; the other, still +more interesting, is next to be described. It is some seventy feet high, +gray and reverend, but in excellent repair, though I could not perceive +that anything had been done to renovate it. The basement story was once +the family chapel, and is, of course, still a consecrated spot. At one +corner of the tower is a circular turret, within which a narrow +staircase, with worn steps of stone, winds round and round as it climbs +upward, giving access to a chamber on each floor, and finally emerging +on the battlemented roof. Ascending this turret stair, and arriving at +the third story, we entered a chamber, not large, though occupying the +whole area of the tower, and lighted by a window on each side. It was +wainscoted from floor to ceiling with dark oak, and had a little +fireplace in one of the corners. The window-panes were small and set in +lead. The curiosity of this room is, that it was once the residence of +Pope, and that he here wrote a considerable part of the translation of +Homer, and likewise, no doubt, the admirable letters to which I have +referred above. The room once contained a record by himself, scratched +with a diamond on one of the window-panes (since removed for safekeeping +to Nuneham Courtney, where it was shown me), purporting that he had here +finished the fifth book of the "Iliad" on such a day. + +A poet has a fragrance about him, such as no other human being is gifted +withal; it is indestructible, and clings forevermore to everything that +he has touched. I was not impressed, at Blenheim, with any sense that +the mighty Duke still haunted the palace that was created for him; but +here, after a century and a half, we are still conscious of the presence +of that decrepit little figure of Queen Anne's time, although he was +merely a casual guest in the old tower, during one or two summer months. +However brief the time and slight the connection, his spirit cannot be +exorcised so long as the tower stands. In my mind, moreover, Pope, or +any other person with an available claim, is right in adhering to the +spot, dead or alive; for I never saw a chamber that I should like better +to inhabit,--so comfortably small, in such a safe and inaccessible +seclusion, and with a varied landscape from each window. One of them +looks upon the church, close at hand, and down into the green +churchyard, extending almost to the foot of the tower; the others have +views wide and far, over a gently undulating tract of country. If +desirous of a loftier elevation, about a dozen more steps of the turret +stair will bring the occupant to the summit of the tower,--where Pope +used to come, no doubt, in the summer evenings, and peep--poor little +shrimp that he was!--through the embrasures of the battlement. + +From Stanton Harcourt we drove--I forget how far--to a point where a +boat was waiting for us upon the Thames, or some other stream; for I am +ashamed to confess my ignorance of the precise geographical whereabout. +We were, at any rate, some miles above Oxford, and, I should imagine, +pretty near one of the sources of England's mighty river. It was little +more than wide enough for the boat, with extended oars, to +pass,--shallow, too, and bordered with bulrushes and water-weeds, which, +in some places, quite overgrew the surface of the river from bank to +bank. The shores were flat and meadow-like, and sometimes, the boatman +told us, are overflowed by the rise of the stream. The water looked +clean and pure, but not particularly transparent, though enough so to +show us that the bottom is very much weed-grown; and I was told that the +weed is an American production, brought to England with importations of +timber, and now threatening to choke up the Thames and other English +rivers. I wonder it does not try its obstructive powers upon the +Merrimack, the Connecticut, or the Hudson,--not to speak of the St. +Lawrence or the Mississippi! + +It was an open boat, with cushioned seats astern, comfortably +accommodating our party; the day continued sunny and warm, and perfectly +still; the boatman, well trained to his business, managed the oars +skillfully and vigorously: and we went down the stream quite as swiftly +as it was desirable to go, the scene being so pleasant, and the passing +hours so thoroughly agreeable. The river grew a little wider and deeper, +perhaps, as we glided on, but was still an inconsiderable stream: for it +had a good deal more than a hundred miles to meander through before it +should bear fleets on its bosom, and reflect palaces and towers and +Parliament houses and dingy and sordid piles of various structure, as it +rolled to and fro with the tide, dividing London asunder. Not, in truth, +that I ever saw any edifice whatever reflected in its turbid breast, +when the sylvan stream, as we beheld it now, is swollen into the Thames +at London. + +Once, on our voyage, we had to land, while the boatman and some other +persons drew our skiff round some rapids, which we could not otherwise +have passed; another time, the boat went through a lock. We, meanwhile, +stepped ashore to examine the ruins of the old nunnery of Godstowe, +where Fair Rosamond secluded herself, after being separated from her +royal lover. There is a long line of ruinous wall, and a shattered +tower at one of the angles; the whole much ivy-grown,--brimming over, +indeed, with clustering ivy, which is rooted inside of the walls. The +nunnery is now, I believe, held in lease by the city of Oxford, which +has converted its precincts into a barnyard. The gate was under lock and +key, so that we could merely look at the outside, and soon resumed our +places in the boat. + +At three o'clock or thereabouts (or sooner or later,--for I took little +heed of time, and only wished that these delightful wanderings might +last forever) we reached Folly Bridge, at Oxford. Here we took +possession of a spacious barge, with a house in it, and a comfortable +dining-room or drawing-room within the house, and a level roof, on which +we could sit at ease, or dance if so inclined. These barges are common +at Oxford,--some very splendid ones being owned by the students of the +different colleges, or by clubs. They are drawn by horses, like +canal-boats; and a horse being attached to our own barge, he trotted off +at a reasonable pace, and we slipped through the water behind him, with +a gentle and pleasant motion, which, save for the constant vicissitude +of cultivated scenery, was like no motion at all. It was life without +the trouble of living; nothing was ever more quietly agreeable. In this +happy state of mind and body we gazed at Christ Church meadows, as we +passed, and at the receding spires and towers of Oxford, and on a good +deal of pleasant variety along the banks: young men rowing or fishing; +troops of naked boys bathing, as if this were Arcadia, in the simplicity +of the Golden Age; country-houses, cottages, water-side inns, all with +something fresh about them, as not being sprinkled with the dust of the +highway. We were a large party now; for a number of additional guests +had joined us at Folly Bridge, and we comprised poets, novelists, +scholars, sculptors, painters, architects, men and women of renown, dear +friends, genial, outspoken, open-hearted Englishmen,--all voyaging +onward together, like the wise ones of Gotham in a bowl. I remember not +a single annoyance, except, indeed, that a swarm of wasps came aboard of +us and alighted on the head of one of our young gentlemen, attracted by +the scent of the pomatum which he had been rubbing into his hair. He was +the only victim, and his small trouble the one little flaw in our day's +felicity, to put us in mind that we were mortal. + +[Illustration: _The Thames, from Folly Bridge._] + +Meanwhile, a table had been laid in the interior of our barge, and +spread with cold ham, cold fowl, cold pigeon-pie, cold beef, and other +substantial cheer, such as the English love, and Yankees too,--besides +tarts, and cakes, and pears, and plums,--not forgetting, of course, a +goodly provision of port, sherry, and champagne, and bitter ale, which +is like mother's milk to an Englishman, and soon grows equally +acceptable to his American cousin. By the time these matters had been +properly attended to, we had arrived at that part of the Thames which +passes by Nuneham Courtney, a fine estate belonging to the Harcourts, +and the present residence of the family. Here we landed, and, climbing a +steep slope from the river-side, paused a moment or two to look at an +architectural object, called the Carfax, the purport of which I do not +well understand. Thence we proceeded onward, through the loveliest park +and woodland scenery I ever saw, and under as beautiful a declining +sunshine as heaven ever shed over earth, to the stately mansion-house. + +As we here cross a private threshold, it is not allowable to pursue my +feeble narrative of this delightful day with the same freedom as +heretofore; so, perhaps, I may as well bring it to a close. I may +mention, however, that I saw the library, a fine, large apartment, hung +round with portraits of eminent literary men, principally of the last +century, most of whom were familiar guests of the Harcourts. The house +itself is about eighty years old, and is built in the classic style, as +if the family had been anxious to diverge as far as possible from the +Gothic picturesqueness of their old abode at Stanton Harcourt. The +grounds were laid out in part by Capability Brown, and seemed to me even +more beautiful than those of Blenheim. Mason the poet, a friend of the +house, gave the design of a portion of the garden. Of the whole place I +will not be niggardly of my rude Transatlantic praise, but be bold to +say that it appeared to me as perfect as anything earthly can +be,--utterly and entirely finished, as if the years and generations had +done all that the hearts and minds of the successive owners could +contrive for a spot they dearly loved. Such homes as Nuneham Courtney +are among the splendid results of long hereditary possession; and we +Republicans, whose households melt away like new-fallen snow in a spring +morning, must content ourselves with our many counterbalancing +advantages,--for this one, so apparently desirable to the far-projecting +selfishness of our nature, we are certain never to attain. + +It must not be supposed, nevertheless, that Nuneham Courtney is one of +the great show-places of England. It is merely a fair specimen of the +better class of country-seats, and has a hundred rivals, and many +superiors, in the features of beauty, and expansive, manifold, redundant +comfort, which most impressed me. A moderate man might be content with +such a home,--that is all. + +And now I take leave of Oxford without even an attempt to describe +it,--there being no literary faculty, attainable or conceivable by me, +which can avail to put it adequately, or even tolerably, upon paper. It +must remain its own sole expression; and those whose sad fortune it may +be never to behold it have no better resource than to dream about gray, +weather-stained, ivy-grown edifices, wrought with quaint Gothic +ornament, and standing around grassy quadrangles, where +cloistered walks have echoed to the quiet footsteps of twenty +generations,--lawns and gardens of luxurious repose, shadowed with +canopies of foliage, and lit up with sunny glimpses through archways of +great boughs,--spires, towers, and turrets, each with its history and +legend,--dimly magnificent chapels, with painted windows of rare beauty +and brilliantly diversified hues, creating an atmosphere of richest +gloom,--vast college halls, high-windowed, oaken-paneled, and hung round +with portraits of the men, in every age, whom the university has +nurtured to be illustrious,--long vistas of alcoved libraries, where the +wisdom and learned folly of all time is shelved,--kitchens (we throw in +this feature by way of ballast, and because it would not be English +Oxford without its beef and beer), with huge fireplaces, capable of +roasting a hundred joints at once,--and cavernous cellars, where rows of +piled-up hogsheads seethe and fume with that mighty malt-liquor which is +the true milk of Alma Mater: make all these things vivid in your dream, +and you will never know nor believe how inadequate is the result to +represent even the merest outside of Oxford. + +[Illustration: _Magdalen College, Oxford._] + +We feel a genuine reluctance to conclude this article without making +our grateful acknowledgments, by name, to a gentleman whose overflowing +kindness was the main condition of all our sight-seeings and enjoyments. +Delightful as will always be our recollection of Oxford and its +neighborhood, we partly suspect that it owes much of its happy coloring +to the genial medium through which the objects were presented to us,--to +the kindly magic of a hospitality unsurpassed, within our experience, in +the quality of making the guest contented with his host, with himself, +and everything about him. He has inseparably mingled his image with our +remembrance of the Spires of Oxford. + + + + +VIII. + +SOME OF THE HAUNTS OF BURNS + + +We left Carlisle at a little past eleven, and within the half hour were +at Gretna Green. Thence we rushed onward into Scotland through a flat +and dreary tract of country, consisting mainly of desert and bog, where +probably the moss-troopers were accustomed to take refuge after their +raids into England. Anon, however, the hills hove themselves up to view, +occasionally attaining a height which might almost be called +mountainous. In about two hours we reached Dumfries, and alighted at the +station there. + +Chill as the Scottish summer is reputed to be, we found it an awfully +hot day, not a whit less so than the day before; but we sturdily +adventured through the burning sunshine up into the town, inquiring our +way to the residence of Burns. The street leading from the station is +called Shakespeare Street; and at its farther extremity we read "Burns +Street" on a corner-house,--the avenue thus designated having been +formerly known as "Mill-Hole Brae." It is a vile lane, paved with small, +hard stones from side to side, and bordered by cottages or mean houses +of whitewashed stone, joining one to another along the whole length of +the street. With not a tree, of course, or a blade of grass between the +paving-stones, the narrow lane was as hot as Tophet, and reeked with a +genuine Scotch odor, being infested with unwashed children, and +altogether in a state of chronic filth; although some women seemed to be +hopelessly scrubbing the thresholds of their wretched dwellings. I never +saw an outskirt of a town less fit for a poet's residence, or in which +it would be more miserable for any man of cleanly predilections to spend +his days. + +We asked for Burns's dwelling; and a woman pointed across the street to +a two-story house, built of stone, and whitewashed, like its neighbors, +but perhaps of a little more respectable aspect than most of them, +though I hesitate in saying so. It was not a separate structure, but +under the same continuous roof with the next. There was an inscription +on the door, bearing no reference to Burns, but indicating that the +house was now occupied by a ragged or industrial school. On knocking, we +were instantly admitted by a servant-girl, who smiled intelligently when +we told our errand, and showed us into a low and very plain parlor, not +more than twelve or fifteen feet square. A young woman, who seemed to be +a teacher in the school, soon appeared, and told us that this had been +Burns's usual sitting-room, and that he had written many of his songs +here. + +She then led us up a narrow staircase into a little bedchamber over the +parlor. Connecting with it, there is a very small room, or windowed +closet, which Burns used as a study; and the bedchamber itself was the +one where he slept in his later lifetime, and in which he died at last. +Altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable place for a pastoral and +rural poet to live or die in,--even more unsatisfactory than +Shakespeare's house, which has a certain homely picturesqueness that +contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness of the abode before us. +The narrow lane, the paving-stones, and the contiguity of wretched +hovels are depressing to remember; and the steam of them (such is our +human weakness) might almost make the poet's memory less fragrant. + +As already observed, it was an intolerably hot day. After leaving the +house, we found our way into the principal street of the town, which, it +may be fair to say, is of very different aspect from the wretched +outskirt above described. Entering a hotel (in which, as a Dumfries +guide-book assured us, Prince Charles Edward had once spent a night), we +rested and refreshed ourselves, and then set forth in quest of the +mausoleum of Burns. + +Coming to St. Michael's Church, we saw a man digging a grave, and, +scrambling out of the hole, he let us into the churchyard, which was +crowded full of monuments. Their general shape and construction are +peculiar to Scotland, being a perpendicular tablet of marble or other +stone, within a framework of the same material, somewhat resembling the +frame of a looking-glass; and, all over the churchyard, these sepulchral +memorials rise to the height of ten, fifteen, or twenty feet, forming +quite an imposing collection of monuments, but inscribed with names of +small general significance. It was easy, indeed, to ascertain the rank +of those who slept below; for in Scotland it is the custom to put the +occupation of the buried personage (as "Skinner," "Shoemaker," +"Flesher") on his tombstone. As another peculiarity, wives are buried +under their maiden names, instead of those of their husbands, thus +giving a disagreeable impression that the married pair have bidden each +other an eternal farewell on the edge of the grave. + +There was a foot-path through this crowded churchyard, sufficiently well +worn to guide us to the grave of Burns; but a woman followed behind us, +who, it appeared kept the key of the mausoleum, and was privileged to +show it to strangers. The monument is a sort of Grecian temple, with +pilasters and a dome, covering a space of about twenty feet square. It +was formerly open to all the inclemencies of the Scotch atmosphere, but +is now protected and shut in by large squares of rough glass, each pane +being of the size of one whole side of the structure. The woman unlocked +the door, and admitted us into the interior. Inlaid into the floor of +the mausoleum is the gravestone of Burns,--the very same that was laid +over his grave by Jean Armour, before this monument was built. Displayed +against the surrounding wall is a marble statue of Burns at the plough, +with the Genius of Caledonia summoning the ploughman to turn poet. +Methought it was not a very successful piece of work; for the plough was +better sculptured than the man, and the man, though heavy and cloddish, +was more effective than the goddess. Our guide informed us that an old +man of ninety, who knew Burns, certifies this statue to be very like the +original. + +The bones of the poet, and of Jean Armour, and of some of their +children, lie in the vault over which we stood. Our guide (who was +intelligent, in her own plain way, and very agreeable to talk withal) +said that the vault was opened about three weeks ago, on occasion of the +burial of the eldest son of Burns. The poet's bones were disturbed, and +the dry skull, once so brimming over with powerful thought and bright +and tender fantasies, was taken away, and kept for several days by a +Dumfries doctor. It has since been deposited in a new leaden coffin, and +restored to the vault. We learned that there is a surviving daughter of +Burns's eldest son, and daughters likewise of the two younger +sons,--and, besides these, an illegitimate posterity by the eldest son, +who appears to have been of disreputable life in his younger days. He +inherited his father's failings, with some faint shadow, I have also +understood, of the great qualities which have made the world tender of +his father's vices and weaknesses. + +We listened readily enough to this paltry gossip, but found that it +robbed the poet's memory of some of the reverence that was its due. +Indeed, this talk over his grave had very much the same tendency and +effect as the home-scene of his life, which we had been visiting just +previously. Beholding his poor, mean dwelling and its surroundings, and +picturing his outward life and earthly manifestations from these, one +does not so much wonder that the people of that day should have failed +to recognize all that was admirable and immortal in a disreputable, +drunken, shabbily clothed, and shabbily housed man, consorting with +associates of damaged character, and, as his only ostensible occupation, +gauging the whiskey, which he too often tasted. Siding with Burns, as we +needs must, in his plea against the world, let us try to do the world a +little justice too. It is far easier to know and honor a poet when his +fame has taken shape in the spotlessness of marble than when the actual +man comes staggering before you, besmeared with the sordid stains of his +daily life. For my part, I chiefly wonder that his recognition dawned so +brightly while he was still living. There must have been something very +grand in his immediate presence, some strangely impressive +characteristic in his natural behavior, to have caused him to seem like +a demigod so soon. + +As we went back through the churchyard, we saw a spot where nearly four +hundred inhabitants of Dumfries were buried during the cholera year; and +also some curious old monuments, with raised letters, the inscriptions +on which were not sufficiently legible to induce us to puzzle them out; +but, I believe, they mark the resting-places of old Covenanters, some of +whom were killed by Claverhouse and his fellow-ruffians. + +St. Michael's Church is of red freestone, and was built about a hundred +years ago, on an old Catholic foundation. Our guide admitted us into it, +and showed us, in the porch, a very pretty little marble figure of a +child asleep, with a drapery over the lower part, from beneath which +appeared its two baby feet. It was truly a sweet little statue; and the +woman told us that it represented a child of the sculptor, and that the +baby (here still in its marble infancy) had died more than twenty-six +years ago. "Many ladies," she said, "especially such as had ever lost a +child, had shed tears over it." It was very pleasant to think of the +sculptor bestowing the best of his genius and art to re-create his +tender child in stone, and to make the representation as soft and sweet +as the original; but the conclusion of the story has something that jars +with our awakened sensibilities. A gentleman from London had seen the +statue, and was so much delighted with it that he bought it of the +father-artist, after it had lain above a quarter of a century in the +church-porch. So this was not the real, tender image that came out of +the father's heart; he had sold that truest one for a hundred guineas, +and sculptured this mere copy to replace it. The first figure was +entirely naked in its earthly and spiritual innocence. The copy, as I +have said above, has a drapery over the lower limbs. But, after all, if +we come to the truth of the matter, the sleeping baby may be as fitly +reposited in the drawing-room of a connoisseur as in a cold and dreary +church-porch. + +We went into the church, and found it very plain and naked, without +altar decorations, and having its floor quite covered with unsightly +wooden pews. The woman led us to a pew, cornering on one of the side +aisles, and, telling us that it used to be Burns's family pew, showed us +his seat, which is in the corner by the aisle. It is so situated, that a +sturdy pillar hid him from the pulpit, and from the minister's eye; "for +Robin was no great friends with the ministers," said she. This +touch--his seat behind the pillar, and Burns himself nodding in +sermon-time, or keenly observant of profane things--brought him before +us to the life. In the corner-seat of the next pew, right before Burns, +and not more than two feet off, sat the young lady on whom the poet saw +that unmentionable parasite, which he has immortalized in song. We were +ungenerous enough to ask the lady's name, but the good woman could not +tell it. This was the last thing which we saw in Dumfries worthy of +record; and it ought to be noted that our guide refused some money which +my companion offered her, because I had already paid her what she deemed +sufficient. + +At the railway-station we spent more than a weary hour, waiting for +the train, which at last came up, and took us to Mauchline. We got into +an omnibus, the only conveyance to be had, and drove about a mile to the +village, where we established ourselves at the Loudoun Hotel, one of the +veriest country inns which we have found in Great Britain. The town of +Mauchline, a place more redolent of Burns than almost any other, +consists of a street or two of contiguous cottages, mostly whitewashed, +and with thatched roofs. It has nothing sylvan or rural in the immediate +village, and is as ugly a place as mortal man could contrive to make, or +to render uglier through a succession of untidy generations. The fashion +of paving the village street, and patching one shabby house on the +gable-end of another, quite shuts out all verdure and pleasantness; but, +I presume, we are not likely to see a more genuine old Scotch village, +such as they used to be in Burns's time, and long before, than this of +Mauchline. The church stands about midway up the street, and is built of +red freestone, very simple in its architecture, with a square tower and +pinnacles. In this sacred edifice, and its churchyard, was the scene of +one of Burns's most characteristic productions, "The Holy Fair." + +[Illustration: _Robert Burns._] + +Almost directly opposite its gate, across the village street, stands +Posie Nansie's inn, where the "Jolly Beggars" congregated. The latter is +a two-story, red-stone, thatched house, looking old, but by no means +venerable, like a drunken patriarch. It has small, old-fashioned +windows, and may well have stood for centuries,--though, seventy or +eighty years ago, when Burns was conversant with it, I should fancy it +might have been something better than a beggars' alehouse. The whole +town of Mauchline looks rusty and time-worn,--even the newer houses, of +which there are several, being shadowed and darkened by the general +aspect of the place. When we arrived, all the wretched little dwellings +seemed to have belched forth their inhabitants into the warm summer +evening: everybody was chatting with everybody, on the most familiar +terms; the bare-legged children gamboled or quarreled uproariously, and +came freely, moreover, and looked into the window of our parlor. When we +ventured out, we were followed by the gaze of the old town: people +standing in their doorways, old women popping their heads from the +chamber-windows, and stalwart men--idle on Saturday at e'en, after their +week's hard labor--clustering at the street-corners, merely to stare at +our unpretending selves. Except in some remote little town of Italy +(where, besides, the inhabitants had the intelligible stimulus of +beggary), I have never been honored with nearly such an amount of public +notice. + +The next forenoon my companion put me to shame by attending church, +after vainly exhorting me to do the like; and it being Sacrament Sunday, +and my poor friend being wedged into the farther end of a closely filled +pew, he was forced to stay through the preaching of four several +sermons, and came back perfectly exhausted and desperate. He was +somewhat consoled, however, on finding that he had witnessed a spectacle +of Scotch manners identical with that of Burns's "Holy Fair" on the very +spot where the poet located that immortal description. By way of further +conformance to the customs of the country, we ordered a sheep's head and +the broth, and did penance accordingly; and at five o'clock we took a +fly, and set out for Burns's farm of Moss Giel. + +Moss Giel is not more than a mile from Mauchline, and the road extends +over a high ridge of land, with a view of far hills and green slopes on +either side. Just before we reached the farm, the driver stopped to +point out a hawthorn, growing by the wayside, which he said was Burns's +"Lousie Thorn;" and I devoutly plucked a branch, although I have really +forgotten where or how this illustrious shrub has been celebrated. We +then turned into a rude gateway, and almost immediately came to the +farm-house of Moss Giel, standing some fifty yards removed from the +high-road, behind a tall hedge of hawthorn, and considerably +overshadowed by trees. The house is a whitewashed stone cottage, like +thousands of others in England and Scotland, with a thatched roof, on +which grass and weeds have intruded a picturesque, though alien, growth. +There is a door and one window in front, besides another little window +that peeps out among the thatch. Close by the cottage, and extending +back at right angles from it, so as to inclose the farm-yard, are two +other buildings of the same size, shape, and general appearance as the +house: any one of the three looks just as fit for a human habitation as +the two others, and all three look still more suitable for +donkey-stables and pigsties. As we drove into the farm-yard, bounded on +three sides by these three hovels, a large dog began to bark at us; and +some women and children made their appearance, but seemed to demur about +admitting us, because the master and mistress were very religious +people, and had not yet come back from the Sacrament at Mauchline. + +However, it would not do to be turned back from the very threshold of +Robert Burns; and as the women seemed to be merely straggling visitors, +and nobody, at all events, had a right to send us away, we went into the +back door, and, turning to the right, entered a kitchen. It showed a +deplorable lack of housewifely neatness, and in it there were three or +four children, one of whom, a girl eight or nine years old, held a baby +in her arms. She proved to be the daughter of the people of the house, +and gave us what leave she could to look about us. Thence we stepped +across the narrow mid-passage of the cottage into the only other +apartment below stairs, a sitting-room, where we found a young man +eating bread and cheese. He informed us that he did not live there, and +had only called in to refresh himself on his way home from church. This +room, like the kitchen, was a noticeably poor one, and, besides being +all that the cottage had to show for a parlor, it was a +sleeping-apartment, having two beds, which might be curtained off, on +occasion. The young man allowed us liberty (so far as in him lay) to go +up stairs. Up we crept, accordingly; and a few steps brought us to the +top of the staircase, over the kitchen, where we found the wretchedest +little sleeping-chamber in the world, with a sloping roof under the +thatch, and two beds spread upon the bare floor. This, most probably, +was Burns's chamber; or, perhaps, it may have been that of his mother's +servant-maid; and, in either case, this rude floor, at one time or +another, must have creaked beneath the poet's midnight tread. On the +opposite side of the passage was the door of another attic-chamber, +opening which, I saw a considerable number of cheeses on the floor. + +The whole house was pervaded with a frowzy smell, and also a dunghill +odor; and it is not easy to understand how the atmosphere of such a +dwelling can be any more agreeable or salubrious morally than it +appeared to be physically. No virgin, surely, could keep a holy awe +about her while stowed higgledy-piggledy with coarse-natured rustics +into this narrowness and filth. Such a habitation is calculated to make +beasts of men and women; and it indicates a degree of barbarism which I +did not imagine to exist in Scotland, that a tiller of broad fields, +like the farmer of Mauchline, should have his abode in a pigsty. It is +sad to think of anybody--not to say a poet, but any human +being--sleeping, eating, thinking, praying, and spending all his +home-life in this miserable hovel; but, methinks, I never in the least +knew how to estimate the miracle of Burns's genius, nor his heroic merit +for being no worse man, until I thus learned the squalid hindrances amid +which he developed himself. Space, a free atmosphere, and cleanliness +have a vast deal to do with the possibilities of human virtue. + +The biographers talk of the farm of Moss Giel as being damp and +unwholesome; but I do not see why, outside of the cottage-walls, it +should possess so evil a reputation. It occupies a high, broad ridge, +enjoying, surely, whatever benefit can come of a breezy site, and +sloping far downward before any marshy soil is reached. The high hedge, +and the trees that stand beside the cottage, give it a pleasant aspect +enough to one who does not know the grimy secrets of the interior; and +the summer afternoon was now so bright that I shall remember the scene +with a great deal of sunshine over it. + +Leaving the cottage, we drove through a field, which the driver told us +was that in which Burns turned up the mouse's nest. It is the inclosure +nearest to the cottage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a rather +remarkably unfertile one. A little farther on, the ground was whitened +with an immense number of daisies,--daisies, daisies everywhere; and in +answer to my inquiry, the driver said that this was the field where +Burns ran his ploughshare over the daisy. If so, the soil seems to have +been consecrated to daisies by the song which he bestowed on that first +immortal one. I alighted, and plucked a whole handful of these "wee, +modest, crimson-tipped flowers," which will be precious to many friends +in our own country as coming from Burns's farm, and being of the same +race and lineage as that daisy which he turned into an amaranthine +flower while seeming to destroy it.[3] + +[3] SOUTHPORT, _May 10th_. The grass has been green for a +month,--indeed, it has never been entirely brown, and now the trees and +hedges are beginning to be in foliage. Weeks ago the daisies bloomed, +even in the sandy grass-plot bordering on the promenade beneath our +front windows; and in the progress of the daisy, and towards its +consummation, I saw the propriety of Burns's epithet, "wee, modest, +_crimson-tipped_ flower,"--its little white petals in the bud being +fringed all round with crimson, which fades into pure white when the +flower blooms.--II. 419. + +From Moss Giel we drove through a variety of pleasant scenes, some of +which were familiar to us by their connection with Burns. We skirted, +too, along a portion of the estate of Auchinleck, which still belongs to +the Boswell family,--the present possessor being Sir James Boswell,[4] a +grandson of Johnson's friend, and son of the Sir Alexander who was +killed in a duel. Our driver spoke of Sir James as a kind, free-hearted +man, but addicted to horse-races and similar pastimes, and a little too +familiar with the wine-cup; so that poor Bozzy's booziness would appear +to have become hereditary in his ancient line. There is no male heir to +the estate of Auchinleck. The portion of the lands which we saw is +covered with wood and much undermined with rabbit-warrens; nor, though +the territory extends over a large number of acres, is the income very +considerable. + +[4] Sir James Boswell is now dead. + +By and by we came to the spot where Burns saw Miss Alexander, the Lass +of Ballochmyle. It was on a bridge, which (or, more probably, a bridge +that has succeeded to the old one, and is made of iron) crosses from +bank to bank, high in air over a deep gorge of the road; so that the +young lady may have appeared to Burns like a creature between earth and +sky, and compounded chiefly of celestial elements. But, in honest truth, +the great charm of a woman, in Burns's eyes, was always her womanhood, +and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in her. + +Our driver pointed out the course taken by the Lass of Ballochmyle, +through the shrubbery, to a rock on the banks of the Lugar, where it +seems to be the tradition that Burns accosted her. The song implies no +such interview. Lovers, of whatever condition, high or low, could desire +no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows: the river flowing over +its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine, sometimes hidden +deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the foot of high and +precipitous cliffs. This beautiful estate of Ballochmyle is still held +by the family of Alexanders, to whom Burns's song has given renown on +cheaper terms than any other set of people ever attained it. How slight +the tenure seems! A young lady happened to walk out, one summer +afternoon, and crossed the path of a neighboring farmer, who celebrated +the little incident in four or five warm, rude,--at least, not refined, +though rather ambitious,--and somewhat ploughman-like verses. Burns has +written hundreds of better things; but henceforth, for centuries, that +maiden has free admittance into the dream-land of Beautiful Women, and +she and all her race are famous. I should like to know the present head +of the family, and ascertain what value, if any, the members of it put +upon the celebrity thus won. + +We passed through Catrine, known hereabouts as "the clean village of +Scotland." Certainly, as regards the point indicated, it has greatly the +advantage of Mauchline, whither we now returned without seeing anything +else worth writing about. + +There was a rain-storm during the night, and, in the morning, the rusty, +old, sloping street of Mauchline was glistening with wet, while +frequent showers came spattering down. The intense heat of many days +past was exchanged for a chilly atmosphere, much more suitable to a +stranger's idea of what Scotch temperature ought to be. We found, after +breakfast, that the first train northward had already gone by, and that +we must wait till nearly two o'clock for the next. I merely ventured out +once, during the forenoon, and took a brief walk through the village, in +which I have left little to describe. Its chief business appears to be +the manufacture of snuff-boxes. There are perhaps five or six shops, or +more, including those licensed to sell only tea and tobacco; the best of +them have the characteristics of village stores in the United States, +dealing in a small way with an extensive variety of articles. I peeped +into the open gateway of the churchyard, and saw that the ground was +absolutely stuffed with dead people, and the surface crowded with +gravestones, both perpendicular and horizontal. All Burns's old +Mauchline acquaintance are doubtless there, and the Armours among them, +except Bonny Jean, who sleeps by her poet's side. The family of Armour +is now extinct in Mauchline. + +Arriving at the railway-station, we found a tall, elderly, comely +gentleman walking to and fro and waiting for the train. He proved to be +a Mr. Alexander,--it may fairly be presumed the Alexander of +Ballochmyle, a blood relation of the lovely lass. Wonderful efficacy of +a poet's verse, that could shed a glory from Long Ago on this old +gentleman's white hair! These Alexanders, by the by, are not an old +family on the Ballochmyle estate; the father of the lass having made a +fortune in trade, and established himself as the first landed proprietor +of his name in these parts. The original family was named Whitefoord. + +Our ride to Ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a cloudy +and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery, and causes a woful +diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we see. Much +of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly direction. We +reached Ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to the King's Arms +Hotel. In the intervals of showers I took peeps at the town, which +appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices; although there +are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking houses in the +by-streets, here and there, betokening an ancient place. The town lies +on both sides of the Ayr, which is here broad and stately, and bordered +with dwellings that look from their windows directly down into the +passing tide. + +I crossed the river by a modern and handsome stone bridge, and recrossed +it, at no great distance, by a venerable structure of four gray arches, +which must have bestridden the stream ever since the early days of +Scottish history. These are the "Two Briggs of Ayr," whose midnight +conversation was overheard by Burns, while other auditors were aware +only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream among the arches. The +ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved like a street, and +defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at the two ends, where +some mean old shops allow scanty room for the pathway to creep between. +Nothing else impressed me hereabouts, unless I mention that, during the +rain, the women and girls went about the streets of Ayr barefooted to +save their shoes. + +The next morning wore a lowering aspect as if it felt itself destined to +be one of many consecutive days of storm. After a good Scotch breakfast, +however, of fresh herrings and eggs, we took a fly, and started at a +little past ten for the banks of the Doon. On our way, at about two +miles from Ayr, we drew up at a roadside cottage, on which was an +inscription to the effect that Robert Burns was born within its walls. +It is now a public house; and, of course, we alighted and entered its +little sitting-room, which, as we at present see it, is a neat apartment +with the modern improvement of a ceiling. The walls are much +overscribbled with names of visitors, and the wooden door of a cupboard +in the wainscot, as well as all the other wood-work of the room, is cut +and carved with initial letters. So, likewise, are two tables, which, +having received a coat of varnish over the inscriptions, form really +curious and interesting articles of furniture. I have seldom (though I +do not personally adopt this mode of illustrating my humble name) felt +inclined to ridicule the natural impulse of most people thus to record +themselves at the shrines of poets and heroes. + +On a panel, let into the wall in a corner of the room, is a portrait of +Burns, copied from the original picture by Nasmyth. The floor of this +apartment is of boards, which are probably a recent substitute for the +ordinary flag-stones of a peasant's cottage. There is but one other room +pertaining to the genuine birthplace of Robert Burns: it is the kitchen, +into which we now went. It has a floor of flag-stones, even ruder than +those of Shakespeare's house,--though, perhaps, not so strangely cracked +and broken as the latter, over which the hoof of Satan himself might +seem to have been trampling. A new window has been opened through the +wall, towards the road; but on the opposite side is the little original +window, of only four small panes, through which came the first daylight +that shone upon the Scottish poet. At the side of the room, opposite the +fireplace, is a recess, containing a bed, which can be hidden by +curtains. In that humble nook, of all places in the world, Providence +was pleased to deposit the germ of richest human life which mankind then +had within its circumference. + +These two rooms, as I have said, make up the whole sum and substance of +Burns's birthplace: for there were no chambers, nor even attics; and the +thatched roof formed the only ceiling of kitchen and sitting-room, the +height of which was that of the whole house. The cottage, however, is +attached to another edifice of the same size and description, as +these little habitations often are; and, moreover, a splendid addition +has been made to it, since the poet's renown began to draw visitors to +the wayside alehouse. The old woman of the house led us through an +entry, and showed a vaulted hall, of no vast dimensions, to be sure, but +marvelously large and splendid as compared with what might be +anticipated from the outward aspect of the cottage. It contained a bust +of Burns, and was hung round with pictures and engravings, principally +illustrative of his life and poems. In this part of the house, too, +there is a parlor, fragrant with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a +noggin of whiskey is here quaffed to the memory of the bard, who +professed to draw so much inspiration from that potent liquor. + +[Illustration: _Burns's Birthplace._] + +We bought some engravings of Kirk Alloway, the Bridge of Doon, and the +monument, and gave the old woman a fee besides, and took our leave. A +very short drive farther brought us within sight of the monument, and to +the hotel, situated close by the entrance of the ornamental grounds +within which the former is inclosed. We rang the bell at the gate of the +inclosure, but were forced to wait a considerable time; because the old +man, the regular superintendent of the spot, had gone to assist at the +laying of the corner-stone of a new kirk. He appeared anon, and admitted +us, but immediately hurried away to be present at the concluding +ceremonies, leaving us locked up with Burns. + +The inclosure around the monument is beautifully laid out as an +ornamental garden, and abundantly provided with rare flowers and +shrubbery, all tended with loving care. The monument stands on an +elevated site, and consists of a massive basement story, three-sided, +above which rises a light and elegant Grecian temple,--a mere dome, +supported on Corinthian pillars, and open to all the winds. The edifice +is beautiful in itself; though I know not what peculiar appropriateness +it may have, as the memorial of a Scottish rural poet. + +The door of the basement story stood open; and, entering, we saw a bust +of Burns in a niche, looking keener, more refined, but not so warm and +whole-souled as his pictures usually do. I think the likeness cannot be +good. In the centre of the room stood a glass case, in which were +reposited the two volumes of the little Pocket Bible that Burns gave to +Highland Mary, when they pledged their troth to one another. It is +poorly printed on coarse paper. A verse of Scripture referring to the +solemnity and awfulness of vows is written within the cover of each +volume, in the poet's own hand; and fastened to one of the covers is a +lock of Highland Mary's golden hair. This Bible had been carried to +America by one of her relatives, but was sent back to be fitly treasured +here. + +There is a staircase within the monument, by which we ascended to the +top, and had a view of both Briggs of Doon: the scene of Tam O'Shanter's +misadventure being close at hand. Descending, we wandered through the +inclosed garden, and came to a little building in a corner, on entering +which, we found the two statues of Tam and Sutor Wat,--ponderous +stone-work enough, yet permeated in a remarkable degree with living +warmth and jovial hilarity. From this part of the garden, too, we again +beheld the old Brigg of Doon, over which Tam galloped in such imminent +and awful peril. It is a beautiful object in the landscape, with one +high, graceful arch, ivy-grown, and shadowed all over and around with +foliage. + +When we had waited a good while, the old gardener came, telling us that +he had heard an excellent prayer at laying the corner-stone of the new +kirk. He now gave us some roses and sweetbrier, and let us out from his +pleasant garden. We immediately hastened to Kirk Alloway, which is +within two or three minutes' walk of the monument. A few steps ascend +from the roadside, through a gate, into the old graveyard, in the midst +of which stands the kirk. The edifice is wholly roofless, but the +side-walls and gable-ends are quite entire, though portions of them are +evidently modern restorations. Never was there a plainer little church, +or one with smaller architectural pretensions; no New England +meeting-house has more simplicity in its very self, though poetry and +fun have clambered and clustered so wildly over Kirk Alloway that it is +difficult to see it as it actually exists. By the by, I do not +understand why Satan and an assembly of witches should hold their revels +within a consecrated precinct; but the weird scene has so established +itself in the world's imaginative faith that it must be accepted as an +authentic incident, in spite of rule and reason to the contrary. +Possibly, some carnal minister, some priest of pious aspect and +hidden infidelity, had dispelled the consecration of the holy edifice by +his pretense of prayer, and thus made it the resort of unhappy ghosts +and sorcerers and devils. + +[Illustration: _The Auld Brig o' Doon._] + +The interior of the kirk, even now, is applied to quite as impertinent a +purpose as when Satan and the witches used it as a dancing-hall; for it +is divided in the midst by a wall of stone-masonry, and each compartment +has been converted into a family burial-place. The name on one of the +monuments is Crawfurd; the other bore no inscription. It is impossible +not to feel that these good people, whoever they may be, had no business +to thrust their prosaic bones into a spot that belongs to the world, and +where their presence jars with the emotions, be they sad or gay, which +the pilgrim brings thither. They shut us out from our own precincts, +too,--from that inalienable possession which Burns bestowed in free gift +upon mankind, by taking it from the actual earth and annexing it to the +domain of imagination. And here these wretched squatters have lain down +to their long sleep, after barring each of the two doorways of the kirk +with an iron grate! May their rest be troubled, till they rise and let +us in! + +Kirk Alloway is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it +fills in our imagination before we see it. I paced its length, outside +of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more than +ten of them in breadth. There seem to have been but very few windows, +all of which, if I rightly remember, are now blocked up with mason-work +of stone. One mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the eastern gable, +might have been seen by Tam O'Shanter, blazing with devilish light, as +he approached along the road from Ayr; and there is a small and square +one, on the side nearest the road, into which he might have peered, as +he sat on horseback. Indeed, I could easily have looked through it, +standing on the ground, had not the opening been walled up. There is an +odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the gables, with the small bell +still hanging in it. And this is all that I remember of Kirk Alloway, +except that the stones of its material are gray and irregular. + +The road from Ayr passes Alloway Kirk, and crosses the Doon by a modern +bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. To reach the old +bridge, it appears to have made a bend, shortly after passing the kirk, +and then to have turned sharply towards the river. The new bridge is +within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither, and leaned +over its parapet to admire the beautiful Doon, flowing wildly and +sweetly between its deep and wooded banks. I never saw a lovelier scene; +although this might have been even lovelier if a kindly sun had shone +upon it. The ivy-grown, ancient bridge, with its high arch, through +which we had a picture of the river and the green banks beyond, was +absolutely the most picturesque object, in a quiet and gentle way, that +ever blessed my eyes. Bonny Doon, with its wooded banks, and the boughs +dipping into the water! The memory of them, at this moment, affects me +like the song of birds, and Burns crooning some verses, simple and wild, +in accordance with their native melody. + +[Illustration: _Alloway Kirk._] + +It was impossible to depart without crossing the very bridge of Tam's +adventure; so we went thither, over a now disused portion of the road, +and, standing on the centre of the arch, gathered some ivy-leaves from +that sacred spot. This done, we returned as speedily as might be to Ayr, +whence, taking the rail, we soon beheld Ailsa Craig rising like a +pyramid out of the sea. Drawing nearer to Glasgow, Ben Lomond hove in +sight, with a dome-like summit, supported by a shoulder on each side. +But a man is better than a mountain; and we had been holding +intercourse, if not with the reality, at least with the stalwart ghost +of one of Earth's memorable sons, amid the scenes where he lived and +sung. We shall appreciate him better as a poet, hereafter; for there is +no writer whose life, as a man, has so much to do with his fame, and +throws such a necessary light upon whatever he has produced. Henceforth, +there will be a personal warmth for us in everything that he wrote; and, +like his countrymen, we shall know him in a kind of personal way, as if +we had shaken hands with him, and felt the thrill of his actual voice. + + + + +IX. + +A LONDON SUBURB + + +One of our English summers looks, in the retrospect, as if it had been +patched with more frequent sunshine than the sky of England ordinarily +affords; but I believe that it may be only a moral effect,--a "light +that never was on sea or land,"--caused by our having found a +particularly delightful abode in the neighborhood of London. In order to +enjoy it, however, I was compelled to solve the problem of living in two +places at once,--an impossibility which I so far accomplished as to +vanish, at frequent intervals, out of men's sight and knowledge on one +side of England, and take my place in a circle of familiar faces on the +other, so quietly that I seemed to have been there all along. It was the +easier to get accustomed to our new residence, because it was not only +rich in all the material properties of a home, but had also the +home-like atmosphere, the household element, which is of too intangible +a character to be let even with the most thoroughly furnished +lodging-house. A friend had given us his suburban residence, with all +its conveniences, elegances, and snuggeries,--its drawing-rooms and +library, still warm and bright with the recollection of the genial +presences that we had known there,--its closets, chambers, kitchen, and +even its wine-cellar, if we could have availed ourselves of so dear and +delicate a trust,--its lawn and cosey garden-nooks, and whatever else +makes up the multitudinous idea of an English home,--he had transferred +it all to us, pilgrims and dusty wayfarers, that we might rest and take +our ease during his summer's absence on the Continent. We had long been +dwelling in tents, as it were, and morally shivering by hearths which, +heap the bituminous coal upon them as we might, no blaze could render +cheerful. I remember, to this day, the dreary feeling with which I sat +by our first English fireside, and watched the chill and rainy twilight +of an autumn day darkening down upon the garden; while the portrait of +the preceding occupant of the house (evidently a most unamiable +personage in his lifetime) scowled inhospitably from above the +mantelpiece, as if indignant that an American should try to make +himself at home there. Possibly it may appease his sulky shade to know +that I quitted his abode as much a stranger as I entered it. But now, at +last, we were in a genuine British home, where refined and warm-hearted +people had just been living their daily life, and had left us a summer's +inheritance of slowly ripened days, such as a stranger's hasty +opportunities so seldom permit him to enjoy. + +Within so trifling a distance of the central spot of all the world +(which, as Americans have at present no centre of their own, we may +allow to be somewhere in the vicinity, we will say, of St. Paul's +Cathedral), it might have seemed natural that I should be tossed about +by the turbulence of the vast London whirlpool. But I had drifted into a +still eddy, where conflicting movements made a repose, and, wearied with +a good deal of uncongenial activity, I found the quiet of my temporary +haven more attractive than anything that the great town could offer. I +already knew London well; that is to say, I had long ago satisfied (so +far as it was capable of satisfaction) that mysterious yearning--the +magnetism of millions of hearts operating upon one--which impels every +man's individuality to mingle itself with the immensest mass of human +life within his scope. Day after day, at an earlier period, I had +trodden the thronged thoroughfares, the broad, lonely squares, the +lanes, alleys, and strange labyrinthine courts, the parks, the gardens +and inclosures of ancient studious societies, so retired and silent amid +the city uproar, the markets, the foggy streets along the riverside, the +bridges,--I had sought all parts of the metropolis, in short, with an +unweariable and indiscriminating curiosity; until few of the native +inhabitants, I fancy, had turned so many of its corners as myself. These +aimless wanderings (in which my prime purpose and achievement were to +lose my way, and so to find it the more surely) had brought me, at one +time or another, to the sight and actual presence of almost all the +objects and renowned localities that I had read about, and which had +made London the dream-city of my youth. I had found it better than my +dream; for there is nothing else in life comparable (in that species of +enjoyment, I mean) to the thick, heavy, oppressive, sombre delight which +an American is sensible of, hardly knowing whether to call it a +pleasure or a pain, in the atmosphere of London. The result was, that I +acquired a home-feeling there, as nowhere else in the world,--though +afterwards I came to have a somewhat similar sentiment in regard to +Rome; and as long as either of those two great cities shall exist, the +cities of the Past and of the Present, a man's native soil may crumble +beneath his feet without leaving him altogether homeless upon earth. + +Thus, having once fully yielded to its influence, I was in a manner free +of the city, and could approach or keep away from it as I pleased. Hence +it happened that, living within a quarter of an hour's rush of the +London Bridge Terminus, I was oftener tempted to spend a whole summer +day in our garden than to seek anything new or old, wonderful or +commonplace, beyond its precincts. It was a delightful garden, of no +great extent, but comprising a good many facilities for repose and +enjoyment, such as arbors and garden-seats, shrubbery, flower-beds, +rose-bushes in a profusion of bloom, pinks, poppies, geraniums, +sweetpeas, and a variety of other scarlet, yellow, blue, and purple +blossoms, which I did not trouble myself to recognize individually, yet +had always a vague sense of their beauty about me. The dim sky of +England has a most happy effect on the coloring of flowers, blending +richness with delicacy in the same texture; but in this garden, as +everywhere else, the exuberance of English verdure had a greater charm +than any tropical splendor or diversity of hue. The hunger for natural +beauty might be satisfied with grass and green leaves forever. Conscious +of the triumph of England in this respect, and loyally anxious for the +credit of my own country, it gratified me to observe what trouble and +pains the English gardeners are fain to throw away in producing a few +sour plums and abortive pears and apples,--as, for example, in this very +garden, where a row of unhappy trees were spread out perfectly flat +against a brick wall, looking as if impaled alive, or crucified, with a +cruel and unattainable purpose of compelling them to produce rich fruit +by torture. For my part, I never ate an English fruit, raised in the +open air, that could compare in flavor with a Yankee turnip. + +The garden included that prime feature of English domestic scenery, a +lawn. It had been leveled, carefully shorn, and converted into a +bowling-green, on which we sometimes essayed to practice the +time-honored game of bowls, most unskillfully, yet not without a +perception that it involves a very pleasant mixture of exercise and +ease, as is the case with most of the old English pastimes. Our little +domain was shut in by the house on one side, and in other directions by +a hedge-fence and a brick wall, which last was concealed or softened by +shrubbery and the impaled fruit-trees already mentioned. Over all the +outer region, beyond our immediate precincts, there was an abundance of +foliage, tossed aloft from the near or distant trees with which that +agreeable suburb is adorned. The effect was wonderfully sylvan and +rural, insomuch that we might have fancied ourselves in the depths of a +wooded seclusion; only that, at brief intervals, we could hear the +galloping sweep of a railway-train passing within a quarter of a mile, +and its discordant screech, moderated by a little farther distance, as +it reached the Blackheath Station. That harsh, rough sound, seeking me +out so inevitably, was the voice of the great world summoning me forth. +I know not whether I was the more pained or pleased to be thus +constantly put in mind of the neighborhood of London; for, on the one +hand, my conscience stung me a little for reading a book, or playing +with children in the grass, when there were so many better things for an +enlightened traveler to do,--while, at the same time, it gave a deeper +delight to my luxurious idleness to contrast it with the turmoil which I +escaped. On the whole, however, I do not repent of a single wasted hour, +and only wish that I could have spent twice as many in the same way; for +the impression on my memory is, that I was as happy in that hospitable +garden as the English summer day was long. + +[Illustration: _A Country House._] + +One chief condition of my enjoyment was the weather. Italy has nothing +like it, nor America. There never was such weather except in England, +where, in requital of a vast amount of horrible east wind between +February and June, and a brown October and black November, and a wet, +chill, sunless winter, there are a few weeks of incomparable summer, +scattered through July and August, and the earlier portion of September, +small in quantity, but exquisite enough to atone for the whole year's +atmospherical delinquencies. After all, the prevalent sombreness may +have brought out those sunny intervals in such high relief that I see +them, in my recollection, brighter than they really were: a little light +makes a glory for people who live habitually in a gray gloom. The +English, however, do not seem to know how enjoyable the momentary gleams +of their summer are; they call it broiling weather, and hurry to the +seaside with red, perspiring faces, in a state of combustion and +deliquescence; and I have observed that even their cattle have similar +susceptibilities, seeking the deepest shade, or standing midleg deep in +pools and streams to cool themselves, at temperatures which our own cows +would deem little more than barely comfortable. To myself, after the +summer heats of my native land had somewhat effervesced out of my blood +and memory, it was the weather of Paradise itself. It might be a little +too warm; but it was that modest and inestimable superabundance which +constitutes a bounty of Providence, instead of just a niggardly enough. +During my first year in England, residing in perhaps the most ungenial +part of the kingdom, I could never be quite comfortable without a fire +on the hearth; in the second twelvemonth, beginning to get +acclimatized, I became sensible of an austere friendliness, shy, but +sometimes almost tender, in the veiled, shadowy, seldom smiling summer; +and in the succeeding years,--whether that I had renewed my fibre with +English beef and replenished my blood with English ale, or whatever were +the cause,--I grew content with winter and especially in love with +summer, desiring little more for happiness than merely to breathe and +bask. At the midsummer which we are now speaking of, I must needs +confess that the noontide sun came down more fervently than I found +altogether tolerable; so that I was fain to shift my position with the +shadow of the shrubbery, making myself the movable index of a sundial +that reckoned up the hours of an almost interminable day. + +For each day seemed endless, though never wearisome. As far as your +actual experience is concerned, the English summer day has positively no +beginning and no end. When you awake, at any reasonable hour, the sun is +already shining through the curtains; you live through unnumbered hours +of Sabbath quietude, with a calm variety of incident softly etched upon +their tranquil lapse; and at length you become conscious that it is +bedtime again, while there is still enough daylight in the sky to make +the pages of your book distinctly legible. Night, if there be any such +season, hangs down a transparent veil through which the bygone day +beholds its successor; or, if not quite true of the latitude of London, +it may be soberly affirmed of the more northern parts of the island, +that To-morrow is born before its Yesterday is dead. They exist together +in the golden twilight, where the decrepit old day dimly discerns the +face of the ominous infant; and you, though a mere mortal, may +simultaneously touch them both with one finger of recollection and +another of prophecy. I cared not how long the day might be, nor how many +of them. I had earned this repose by a long course of irksome toil and +perturbation, and could have been content never to stray out of the +limits of that suburban villa and its garden. If I lacked anything +beyond, it would have satisfied me well enough to dream about it, +instead of struggling for its actual possession. At least, this was the +feeling of the moment; although the transitory, flitting, and +irresponsible character of my life there, was perhaps the most +enjoyable element of all, as allowing me much of the comfort of house +and home, without any sense of their weight upon my back. The nomadic +life has great advantages, if we can find tents ready pitched for us at +every stage. + +So much for the interior of our abode,--a spot of deepest quiet, within +reach of the intensest activity. But, even when we stepped beyond our +own gate, we were not shocked with any immediate presence of the great +world. We were dwelling in one of those oases that have grown up (in +comparatively recent years, I believe) on the wide waste of Blackheath, +which otherwise offers a vast extent of unoccupied ground in singular +proximity to the metropolis. As a general thing, the proprietorship of +the soil seems to exist in everybody and nobody; but exclusive rights +have been obtained, here and there, chiefly by men whose daily concerns +link them with London, so that you find their villas or boxes standing +along village streets which have often more of an American aspect than +the elder English settlements. The scene is semi-rural. Ornamental trees +overshadow the sidewalks, and grassy margins border the wheel-tracks. +The houses, to be sure, have certain points of difference from those of +an American village, bearing tokens of architectural design, though +seldom of individual taste; and, as far as possible, they stand aloof +from the street, and separated each from its neighbor by hedge or fence, +in accordance with the careful exclusiveness of the English character, +which impels the occupant, moreover, to cover the front of his dwelling +with as much concealment of shrubbery as his limits will allow. Through +the interstices, you catch glimpses of well-kept lawns, generally +ornamented with flowers, and with what the English call rock-work, being +heaps of ivy-grown stones and fossils, designed for romantic effect in a +small way. Two or three of such village streets as are here described +take a collective name,--as, for instance, Blackheath Park,--and +constitute a kind of community of residents, with gateways, kept by a +policeman, and a semi-privacy, stepping beyond which, you find yourself +on the breezy heath. + +On this great, bare, dreary common I often went astray, as I afterwards +did on the Campagna of Rome, and drew the air (tainted with London smoke +though it might be) into my lungs by deep inspirations, with a strange +and unexpected sense of desert freedom. The misty atmosphere helps you +to fancy a remoteness that perhaps does not quite exist. During the +little time that it lasts, the solitude is as impressive as that of a +Western prairie or forest; but soon the railway shriek, a mile or two +away, insists upon informing you of your whereabout; or you recognize in +the distance some landmark that you may have known,--an insulated villa, +perhaps, with its garden-wall around it, or the rudimental street of a +new settlement which is sprouting on this otherwise barren soil. Half a +century ago, the most frequent token of man's beneficent contiguity +might have been a gibbet, and the creak, like a tavern sign, of a +murderer swinging to and fro in irons. Blackheath, with its highwaymen +and footpads, was dangerous in those days; and even now, for aught I +know, the Western prairie may still compare favorably with it as a safe +region to go astray in. When I was acquainted with Blackheath, the +ingenious device of garroting had recently come into fashion; and I can +remember, while crossing those waste places at midnight, and hearing +footsteps behind me, to have been sensibly encouraged by also hearing, +not far off, the clinking hoof-tramp of one of the horse-patrols who do +regular duty there. About sunset, or a little later, was the time when +the broad and somewhat desolate peculiarity of the heath seemed to me to +put on its utmost impressiveness. At that hour, finding myself on +elevated ground, I once had a view of immense London, four or five miles +off, with the vast Dome in the midst, and the towers of the two Houses +of Parliament rising up into the smoky canopy, the thinner substance of +which obscured a mass of things, and hovered about the objects that were +most distinctly visible,--a glorious and sombre picture, dusky, awful, +but irresistibly attractive, like a young man's dream of the great +world, foretelling at that distance a grandeur never to be fully +realized. + +While I lived in that neighborhood, the tents of two or three sets of +cricket-players were constantly pitched on Blackheath, and matches were +going forward that seemed to involve the honor and credit of communities +or counties, exciting an interest in everybody but myself, who cared not +what part of England might glorify itself at the expense of another. It +is necessary to be born an Englishman, I believe, in order to enjoy +this great national game; at any rate, as a spectacle for an outside +observer, I found it lazy, lingering, tedious, and utterly devoid of +pictorial effects. Choice of other amusements was at hand. Butts for +archery were established, and bows and arrows were to be let, at so many +shots for a penny,--there being abundance of space for a farther +flight-shot than any modern archer can lend to his shaft. Then there was +an absurd game of throwing a stick at crockery-ware, which I have +witnessed a hundred times, and personally engaged in once or twice, +without ever having the satisfaction to see a bit of broken crockery. In +other spots you found donkeys for children to ride, and ponies of a very +meek and patient spirit, on which the Cockney pleasure-seekers of both +sexes rode races and made wonderful displays of horsemanship. By way of +refreshment there was gingerbread (but, as a true patriot, I must +pronounce it greatly inferior to our native dainty), and ginger-beer, +and probably stancher liquor among the booth-keeper's hidden stores. The +frequent railway-trains, as well as the numerous steamers to Greenwich, +have made the vacant portions of Blackheath a play-ground and +breathing-place for the Londoners, readily and very cheaply accessible; +so that, in view of this broader use and enjoyment, I a little grudged +the tracts that have been filched away, so to speak, and individualized +by thriving citizens. One sort of visitors especially interested me: +they were schools of little boys or girls, under the guardianship of +their instructors,--charity schools, as I often surmised from their +aspect, collected among dark alleys and squalid courts; and hither they +were brought to spend a summer afternoon, these pale little progeny of +the sunless nooks of London, who had never known that the sky was any +broader than that narrow and vapory strip above their native lane. I +fancied that they took but a doubtful pleasure, being half affrighted at +the wide, empty space overhead and round about them, finding the air too +little medicated with smoke, soot, and graveyard exhalations, to be +breathed with comfort, and feeling shelterless and lost because grimy +London, their slatternly and disreputable mother, had suffered them to +stray out of her arms. + +[Illustration _The Houses of Parliament._] + +Passing among these holiday people, we come to one of the gateways of +Greenwich Park, opening through an old brick wall. It admits us from +the bare heath into a scene of antique cultivation and woodland +ornament, traversed in all directions by avenues of trees, many of which +bear tokens of a venerable age. These broad and well-kept pathways rise +and decline over the elevations, and along the bases of gentle hills, +which diversify the whole surface of the park. The loftiest and most +abrupt of them (though but of very moderate height) is one of the +earth's noted summits, and may hold up its head with Mont Blanc and +Chimborazo, as being the site of Greenwich Observatory, where, if all +nations will consent to say so, the longitude of our great globe begins. +I used to regulate my watch by the broad dial-plate against the +observatory wall, and felt it pleasant to be standing at the very centre +of Time and Space. + +There are lovelier parks than this in the neighborhood of London, richer +scenes of greensward and cultivated trees; and Kensington, especially, +in a summer afternoon, has seemed to me as delightful as any place can +or ought to be, in a world which, some time or other, we must quit. But +Greenwich, too, is beautiful,--a spot where the art of man has +conspired with Nature, as if he and the great mother had taken counsel +together how to make a pleasant scene, and the longest liver of the two +had faithfully carried out their mutual design. It has, likewise, an +additional charm of its own, because, to all appearance, it is the +people's property and play-ground in a much more genuine way than the +aristocratic resorts in closer vicinity to the metropolis. It affords +one of the instances in which the monarch's property is actually the +people's, and shows how much more natural is their relation to the +sovereign than to the nobility, which pretends to hold the intervening +space between the two: for a nobleman makes a paradise only for himself, +and fills it with his own pomp and pride; whereas the people are sooner +or later the legitimate inheritors of whatever beauty kings and queens +create, as now of Greenwich Park. On Sundays, when the sun shone, and +even on those grim and sombre days when, if it does not actually rain, the +English persist in calling it fine weather, it was too good to see how +sturdily the plebeians trod under their own oaks, and what fullness of +simple enjoyment they evidently found there. They were the people,--not +the populace,--specimens of a class whose Sunday clothes are a distinct +kind of garb from their week-day ones: and this, in England, implies +wholesome habits of life, daily thrift, and a rank above the lowest. I +longed to be acquainted with them, in order to investigate what manner +of folks they were, what sort of households they kept, their politics, +their religion, their tastes, and whether they were as narrow-minded as +their betters. There can be very little doubt of it; an Englishman is +English, in whatever rank of life, though no more intensely so, I should +imagine, as an artisan or petty shopkeeper, than as a member of +Parliament. + +The English character, as I conceive it, is by no means a very lofty +one; they seem to have a great deal of earth and grimy dust clinging +about them, as was probably the case with the stalwart and quarrelsome +people who sprouted up out of the soil, after Cadmus had sown the +dragon's teeth. And yet, though the individual Englishman is sometimes +preternaturally disagreeable, an observer standing aloof has a sense of +natural kindness towards them in the lump. They adhere closer to the +original simplicity in which mankind was created than we ourselves do; +they love, quarrel, laugh, cry, and turn their actual selves inside out +with greater freedom than any class of Americans would consider +decorous. It was often so with these holiday folks in Greenwich Park; +and, ridiculous as it may sound, I fancy myself to have caught very +satisfactory glimpses of Arcadian life among the Cockneys there, hardly +beyond the scope of Bow-Bells, picnicking in the grass, uncouthly +gamboling on the broad slopes, or straying in motley groups or by single +pairs of love-making youths and maidens, along the sun-streaked avenues. +Even the omnipresent policemen or park-keepers could not disturb the +beatific impression on my mind. One feature, at all events, of the +Golden Age was to be seen in the herds of deer that encountered you in +the somewhat remoter recesses of the park, and were readily prevailed +upon to nibble a bit of bread out of your hand. But, though no wrong had +ever been done them, and no horn had sounded nor hound bayed at the +heels of themselves or their antlered progenitors for centuries past, +there was still an apprehensiveness lingering in their hearts; so that +a slight movement of the hand or a step too near would send a whole +squadron of them scampering away, just as a breath scatters the winged +seeds of a dandelion. + +The aspect of Greenwich Park, with all those festal people wandering +through it, resembled that of the Borghese Gardens under the walls of +Rome, on a Sunday or Saint's day; but, I am not ashamed to say, it a +little disturbed whatever grimly ghost of Puritanic strictness might be +lingering in the sombre depths of a New England heart, among severe and +sunless remembrances of the Sabbaths of childhood, and pangs of remorse +for ill-gotten lessons in the catechism, and for erratic fantasies or +hardly suppressed laughter in the middle of long sermons. Occasionally, +I tried to take the long-hoarded sting out of these compunctious smarts +by attending divine service in the open air. On a cart outside of the +park-wall (and, if I mistake not, at two or three corners and secluded +spots within the park itself) a Methodist preacher uplifts his voice and +speedily gathers a congregation, his zeal for whose religious welfare +impels the good man to such earnest vociferation and toilsome gesture +that his perspiring face is quickly in a stew. His inward flame +conspires with the too fervid sun, and makes a positive martyr of him, +even in the very exercise of his pious labor; insomuch that he purchases +every atom of spiritual increment to his hearers by loss of his own +corporeal solidity, and, should his discourse last long enough, must +finally exhale before their eyes. If I smile at him, be it understood, +it is not in scorn; he performs his sacred office more acceptably than +many a prelate. These wayside services attract numbers who would not +otherwise listen to prayer, sermon, or hymn, from one year's end to +another, and who, for that very reason, are the auditors most likely to +be moved by the preacher's eloquence. Yonder Greenwich pensioner, +too,--in his costume of three-cornered hat, and old-fashioned, +brass-buttoned blue coat with ample skirts, which makes him look like a +contemporary of Admiral Benbow,--that tough old mariner may hear a word +or two which will go nearer his heart than anything that the chaplain of +the Hospital can be expected to deliver. I always noticed, moreover, +that a considerable proportion of the audience were soldiers, who came +hither with a day's leave from Woolwich,--hardy veterans in aspect, +some of whom wore as many as four or five medals, Crimean or East +Indian, on the breasts of their scarlet coats. The miscellaneous +congregation listen with every appearance of heartfelt interest; and, +for my own part, I must frankly acknowledge that I never found it +possible to give five minutes' attention to any other English preaching: +so cold and commonplace are the homilies that pass for such, under the +aged roofs of churches. And as for cathedrals, the sermon is an +exceedingly diminutive and unimportant part of the religious +services,--if, indeed, it be considered a part,--among the pompous +ceremonies, the intonations, and the resounding and lofty-voiced strains +of the choristers. The magnificence of the setting quite dazzles out +what we Puritans look upon as the jewel of the whole affair; for I +presume that it was our forefathers, the Dissenters in England and +America, who gave the sermon its present prominence in the Sabbath +exercises.[5] + +[5] We all, together with Mr. Squarey, went to Chester last Sunday, and +attended the cathedral service.... In America the sermon is the +principal thing; but here all this magnificent ceremonial of prayer and +chanted responses and psalms and anthems was the setting to a short, +meagre discourse, which would not have been considered of any account +among the elaborate intellectual efforts of New England ministers.--I. +466. + +The Methodists are probably the first and only Englishmen who have +worshiped in the open air since the ancient Britons listened to the +preaching of the Druids; and it reminded me of that old priesthood, to +see certain memorials of their dusky epoch--not religious, however, but +warlike--in the neighborhood of the spot where the Methodist was holding +forth. These were some ancient barrows, beneath or within which are +supposed to lie buried the slain of a forgotten or doubtfully remembered +battle, fought on the site of Greenwich Park as long ago as two or three +centuries after the birth of Christ. Whatever may once have been their +height and magnitude, they have now scarcely more prominence in the +actual scene than the battle of which they are the sole monuments +retains in history,--being only a few mounds side by side, elevated a +little above the surface of the ground, ten or twelve feet in diameter, +with a shallow depression in their summits. When one of them was opened, +not long since, no bones, nor armor, nor weapons were discovered, +nothing but some small jewels, and a tuft of hair,--perhaps from the +head of a valiant general, who, dying on the field of his victory, +bequeathed this lock, together with his indestructible fame, to after +ages. The hair and jewels are probably in the British Museum, where the +potsherds and rubbish of innumerable generations make the visitor wish +that each passing century could carry off all its fragments and relics +along with it, instead of adding them to the continually accumulating +burden which human knowledge is compelled to lug upon its back.[6] As +for the fame, I know not what has become of it. + +[6] The fact is, the world is accumulating too many materials for +knowledge. We do not recognize for rubbish what is really rubbish; and +under this head might be reckoned very many things one sees in the +British Museum: and, as each generation leaves its fragments and +potsherds behind it, such will finally be the desperate conclusion of +the learned.--II. 143. + +Yesterday I went out at about twelve, and visited the British Museum; an +exceedingly tiresome affair. It quite crushes a person to see so much at +once, and I wandered from hall to hall with a weary and heavy heart, +wishing (Heaven forgive me!) that the Elgin Marbles and the frieze of +the Parthenon were all burnt into lime, and that the granite Egyptian +statues were hewn and squared into building-stones, and that the mummies +had all turned to dust two thousand years ago; and, in fine, that all +the material relics of so many successive ages had disappeared with the +generations that produced them. The present is burdened too much with +the past. We have not time, in our earthly existence, to appreciate what +is warm with life, and immediately around us; yet we heap up these old +shells, out of which human life has long emerged, casting them off +forever. I do not see how future ages are to stagger onward under all +this dead weight, with the additions that will be continually made to +it.--II. 207. + +After traversing the park, we come into the neighborhood of Greenwich +Hospital, and will pass through one of its spacious gateways for the +sake of glancing at an establishment which does more honor to the heart +of England than anything else that I am acquainted with, of a public +nature. It is very seldom that we can be sensible of anything like +kindliness in the acts or relations of such an artificial thing as a +National Government. Our own government, I should conceive, is too much +an abstraction ever to feel any sympathy for its maimed sailors and +soldiers, though it will doubtless do them a severe kind of justice, as +chilling as the touch of steel. But it seemed to me that the Greenwich +pensioners are the petted children of the nation, and that the +government is their dry-nurse, and that the old men themselves have a +child-like consciousness of their position. Very likely, a better sort +of life might have been arranged, and a wiser care bestowed on them; +but, such as it is, it enables them to spend a sluggish, careless, +comfortable old age, grumbling, growling, gruff, as if all the foul +weather of their past years were pent up within them, yet not much more +discontented than such weather-beaten and battle-battered fragments of +human kind must inevitably be. Their home, in its outward form, is on a +very magnificent plan. Its germ was a royal palace, the full expansion +of which has resulted in a series of edifices externally more beautiful +than any English palace that I have seen, consisting of several +quadrangles of stately architecture, united by colonnades and +gravel-walks, and inclosing grassy squares, with statues in the centre, +the whole extending along the Thames. It is built of marble, or very +light-colored stone, in the classic style, with pillars and porticos, +which (to my own taste, and, I fancy, to that of the old sailors) +produce but a cold and shivery effect in the English climate. Had I been +the architect, I would have studied the characters, habits, and +predilections of nautical people in Wapping, Rotherhithe, and the +neighborhood of the Tower (places which I visited in affectionate +remembrance of Captain Lemuel Gulliver, and other actual or mythological +navigators), and would have built the hospital in a kind of ethereal +similitude to the narrow, dark, ugly, and inconvenient, but snug and +cosey homeliness of the sailor boarding-houses there. There can be no +question that all the above attributes, or enough of them to satisfy an +old sailor's heart, might be reconciled with architectural beauty and +the wholesome contrivances of modern dwellings, and thus a novel and +genuine style of building be given to the world. + +But their countrymen meant kindly by the old fellows in assigning them +the ancient royal site where Elizabeth held her court and Charles II. +began to build his palace. So far as the locality went, it was treating +them like so many kings; and, with a discreet abundance of grog, beer, +and tobacco, there was perhaps little more to be accomplished in behalf +of men whose whole previous lives have tended to unfit them for old age. +Their chief discomfort is probably for lack of something to do or think +about. But, judging by the few whom I saw, a listless habit seems to +have crept over them, a dim dreaminess of mood, in which they sit +between asleep and awake, and find the long day wearing towards bedtime +without its having made any distinct record of itself upon their +consciousness. Sitting on stone benches in the sunshine, they subside +into slumber, or nearly so, and start at the approach of footsteps +echoing under the colonnades, ashamed to be caught napping, and rousing +themselves in a hurry, as formerly on the midnight watch at sea. In +their brightest moments, they gather in groups and bore one another with +endless sea-yarns about their voyages under famous admirals, and about +gale and calm, battle and chase, and all that class of incident that has +its sphere on the deck and in the hollow interior of a ship, where their +world has exclusively been. For other pastime, they quarrel among +themselves, comrade with comrade, and perhaps shake paralytic fists in +furrowed faces. If inclined for a little exercise, they can bestir their +wooden legs on the long esplanade that borders by the Thames, +criticising the rig of passing ships, and firing off volleys of +malediction at the steamers, which have made the sea another element +than that they used to be acquainted with. All this is but cold comfort +for the evening of life, yet may compare rather favorably with the +preceding portions of it, comprising little save imprisonment on +shipboard, in the course of which they have been tossed all about the +world and caught hardly a glimpse of it, forgetting what grass and trees +are, and never finding out what woman is, though they may have +encountered a painted spectre which they took for her. A country owes +much to human beings whose bodies she has worn out and whose immortal +part she has left undeveloped or debased, as we find them here; and +having wasted an idle paragraph upon them, let me now suggest that old +men have a kind of susceptibility to moral impressions, and even (up to +an advanced period) a receptivity of truth, which often appears to come +to them after the active time of life is past. The Greenwich pensioners +might prove better subjects for true education now than in their +schoolboy days; but then where is the Normal School that could educate +instructors for such a class? + +There is a beautiful chapel for the pensioners, in the classic style, +over the altar of which hangs a picture by West. I never could look at +it long enough to make out its design; for this artist (though it pains +me to say it of so respectable a countryman) had a gift of frigidity, a +knack of grinding ice into his paint, a power of stupefying the +spectator's perceptions and quelling his sympathy, beyond any other +limner that ever handled a brush. In spite of many pangs of conscience, +I seize this opportunity to wreak a lifelong abhorrence upon the poor, +blameless man, for the sake of that dreary picture of Lear, an explosion +of frosty fury, that used to be a bugbear to me in the Athenaeum +Exhibition. Would fire burn it, I wonder? + +The principal thing that they have to show you, at Greenwich Hospital, +is the Painted Hall. It is a splendid and spacious room, at least a +hundred feet long and half as high, with a ceiling painted in fresco by +Sir James Thornhill. As a work of art, I presume, this frescoed canopy +has little merit, though it produces an exceedingly rich effect by its +brilliant coloring and as a specimen of magnificent upholstery. The +walls of the grand apartment are entirely covered with pictures, many of +them representing battles and other naval incidents that were once +fresher in the world's memory than now, but chiefly portraits of old +admirals, comprising the whole line of heroes who have trod the +quarter-decks of British ships for more than two hundred years back. +Next to a tomb in Westminster Abbey, which was Nelson's most elevated +object of ambition, it would seem to be the highest meed of a naval +warrior to have his portrait hung up in the Painted Hall; but, by dint +of victory upon victory, these illustrious personages have grown to be a +mob, and by no means a very interesting one, so far as regards the +character of the faces here depicted. They are generally commonplace, +and often singularly stolid; and I have observed (both in the Painted +Hall and elsewhere, and not only in portraits, but in the actual +presence of such renowned people as I have caught glimpses of) that the +countenances of heroes are not nearly so impressive as those of +statesmen,--except, of course, in the rare instances where warlike +ability has been but the one-sided manifestation of a profound genius +for managing the world's affairs. + +Nine tenths of these distinguished admirals, for instance, if their +faces tell truth, must needs have been blockheads, and might have +served better, one would imagine, as wooden figure-heads for their own +ships than to direct any difficult and intricate scheme of action from +the quarter-deck. It is doubtful whether the same kind of men will +hereafter meet with a similar degree of success; for they were +victorious chiefly through the old English hardihood, exercised in a +field of which modern science had not yet got possession. Rough valor +has lost something of its value since their days, and must continue to +sink lower and lower in the comparative estimate of warlike qualities. +In the next naval war, as between England and France, I would bet, +methinks, upon the Frenchman's head. + +It is remarkable, however, that the great naval hero of England--the +greatest, therefore, in the world, and of all time--had none of the +stolid characteristics that belong to his class, and cannot fairly be +accepted as their representative man. Foremost in the roughest of +professions, he was as delicately organized as a woman, and as painfully +sensitive as a poet. More than any other Englishman he won the love and +admiration of his country, but won them through the efficacy of +qualities that are not English, or, at all events, were intensified in +his case and made poignant and powerful by something morbid in the man, +which put him otherwise at cross-purposes with life. He was a man of +genius; and genius in an Englishman (not to cite the good old simile of +a pearl in the oyster) is usually a symptom of a lack of balance in the +general making-up of the character; as we may satisfy ourselves by +running over the list of their poets, for example, and observing how +many of them have been sickly or deformed, and how often their lives +have been darkened by insanity. An ordinary Englishman is the healthiest +and wholesomest of human beings; an extraordinary one is almost always, +in one way or another, a sick man. It was so with Lord Nelson. The +wonderful contrast or relation between his personal qualities, the +position which he held, and the life that he lived, makes him as +interesting a personage as all history has to show; and it is a pity +that Southey's biography--so good in its superficial way, and yet so +inadequate as regards any real delineation of the man--should have taken +the subject out of the hands of some writer endowed with more delicate +appreciation and deeper insight than that genuine Englishman possessed. +But Southey accomplished his own purpose, which, apparently, was to +present his hero as a pattern for England's young midshipmen. + +But the English capacity for hero-worship is full to the brim with what +they are able to comprehend of Lord Nelson's character. Adjoining the +Painted Hall is a smaller room, the walls of which are completely and +exclusively adorned with pictures of the great Admiral's exploits. We +see the frail, ardent man in all the most noted events of his career, +from his encounter with a Polar Bear to his death at Trafalgar, +quivering here and there about the room like a blue, lambent flame. No +Briton ever enters that apartment without feeling the beef and ale of +his composition stirred to its depths, and finding himself changed into +a hero for the nonce, however stolid his brain, however tough his heart, +however unexcitable his ordinary mood. To confess the truth, I myself, +though belonging to another parish, have been deeply sensible to the +sublime recollections there aroused, acknowledging that Nelson expressed +his life in a kind of symbolic poetry which I had as much right to +understand as these burly islanders.[7] Cool and critical observer as I +sought to be, I enjoyed their burst of honest indignation when a visitor +(not an American, I am glad to say) thrust his walking-stick almost into +Nelson's face, in one of the pictures, by way of pointing a remark; and +the by-standers immediately glowed like so many hot coals, and would +probably have consumed the offender in their wrath, had he not effected +his retreat. But the most sacred objects of all are two of Nelson's +coats, under separate glass cases. One is that which he wore at the +Battle of the Nile, and it is now sadly injured by moths, which will +quite destroy it in a few years, unless its guardians preserve it as we +do Washington's military suit by occasionally baking it in an oven. The +other is the coat in which he received his death-wound at Trafalgar. On +its breast are sewed three or four stars and orders of knighthood, now +much dimmed by time and damp, but which glittered brightly enough on the +battle-day to draw the fatal aim of a French marksman. The bullet-hole +is visible on the shoulder, as well as a part of the golden tassels of +an epaulet, the rest of which was shot away. Over the coat is laid a +white waistcoat, with a great blood-stain on it, out of which all the +redness has utterly faded, leaving it of a dingy yellow hue, in the +threescore years since that blood gushed out. Yet it was once the +reddest blood in England,--Nelson's blood! + +[7] Even the great sailor, Nelson, was unlike his countrymen in the +qualities that constituted him a hero; he was not the perfection of an +Englishman, but a creature of another kind,--sensitive, nervous, +excitable, and really more like a Frenchman.--II. 531. + +The hospital stands close adjacent to the town of Greenwich, which will +always retain a kind of festal aspect in my memory, in consequence of my +having first become acquainted with it on Easter Monday. Till a few +years ago, the first three days of Easter were a carnival season in this +old town, during which the idle and disreputable part of London poured +itself into the streets like an inundation of the Thames,--as unclean as +that turbid mixture of the offscourings of the vast city, and +overflowing with its grimy pollution whatever rural innocence, if any, +might be found in the suburban neighborhood. This festivity was called +Greenwich Fair, the final one of which, in an immemorial succession, it +was my fortune to behold. + +If I had bethought myself of going through the fair with a note-book and +pencil, jotting down all the prominent objects, I doubt not that the +result might have been a sketch of English life quite as characteristic +and worthy of historical preservation as an account of the Roman +Carnival. Having neglected to do so, I remember little more than a +confusion of unwashed and shabbily dressed people, intermixed with some +smarter figures, but, on the whole, presenting a mobbish appearance such +as we never see in our own country. It taught me to understand why +Shakespeare, in speaking of a crowd, so often alludes to its attribute +of evil odor. The common people of England, I am afraid, have no daily +familiarity with even so necessary a thing as a wash-bowl, not to +mention a bathing-tub. And, furthermore, it is one mighty difference +between them and us, that every man and woman on our side of the water +has a working-day suit and a holiday suit, and is occasionally as fresh +as a rose, whereas, in the good old country, the griminess of his labor +or squalid habits clings forever to the individual, and gets to be a +part of his personal substance. These are broad facts, involving great +corollaries and dependencies. There are really, if you stop to think +about it, few sadder spectacles in the world than a ragged coat, or a +soiled and shabby gown, at a festival. + +This unfragrant crowd was exceedingly dense, being welded together, as +it were, in the street through which we strove to make our way. On +either side were oyster-stands, stalls of oranges (a very prevalent +fruit in England, where they give the withered ones a guise of freshness +by boiling them), and booths covered with old sail-cloth, in which the +commodity that most attracted the eye was gilt gingerbread. It was so +completely enveloped in Dutch gilding that I did not at first recognize +an old acquaintance, but wondered what those golden crowns and images +could be. There were likewise drums and other toys for small children, +and a variety of showy and worthless articles for children of a larger +growth; though it perplexed me to imagine who, in such a mob, could have +the innocent taste to desire playthings, or the money to pay for them. +Not that I have a right to accuse the mob, on my own knowledge, of being +any less innocent than a set of cleaner and better dressed people might +have been; for, though one of them stole my pocket-handkerchief, I could +not but consider it fair game, under the circumstances, and was grateful +to the thief for sparing me my purse. They were quiet, civil, and +remarkably good-humored, making due allowance for the national +gruffness; there was no riot, no tumultuous swaying to and fro of the +mass, such as I have often noted in an American crowd; no noise of +voices, except frequent bursts of laughter, hoarse or shrill, and a +widely diffused, inarticulate murmur, resembling nothing so much as the +rumbling of the tide among the arches of London Bridge. What immensely +perplexed me was a sharp, angry sort of rattle, in all quarters, far off +and close at hand, and sometimes right at my own back, where it sounded +as if the stout fabric of my English surtout had been ruthlessly rent in +twain; and everybody's clothes, all over the fair, were evidently being +torn asunder in the same way. By and by, I discovered that this strange +noise was produced by a little instrument called "The Fun of the +Fair,"--a sort of rattle, consisting of a wooden wheel, the cogs of +which turn against a thin slip of wood, and so produce a rasping sound +when drawn smartly against a person's back. The ladies draw their +rattles against the backs of their male friends (and everybody passes +for a friend at Greenwich Fair), and the young men return the compliment +on the broad British backs of the ladies; and all are bound by +immemorial custom to take it in good part and be merry at the joke. As +it was one of my prescribed official duties to give an account of such +mechanical contrivances as might be unknown in my own country, I have +thought it right to be thus particular in describing the Fun of the +Fair. + +But this was far from being the sole amusement. There were theatrical +booths, in front of which were pictorial representations of the scenes +to be enacted within; and anon a drummer emerged from one of them, +thumping on a terribly lax drum, and followed by the entire _dramatis +personae_, who ranged themselves on a wooden platform in front of the +theatre. They were dressed in character, but wofully shabby, with very +dingy and wrinkled white tights, threadbare cotton-velvets, crumpled +silks, and crushed muslin, and all the gloss and glory gone out of their +aspect and attire, seen thus in the broad daylight and after a long +series of performances. They sang a song together, and withdrew into the +theatre, whither the public were invited to follow them at the +inconsiderable cost of a penny a ticket. Before another booth stood a +pair of brawny fighting-men, displaying their muscle, and soliciting +patronage for an exhibition of the noble British art of pugilism. There +were pictures of giants, monsters, and outlandish beasts, most +prodigious, to be sure, and worthy of all admiration, unless the artist +had gone incomparably beyond his subject. Jugglers proclaimed aloud the +miracles which they were prepared to work; and posture-makers dislocated +every joint of their bodies and tied their limbs into inextricable +knots, wherever they could find space to spread a little square of +carpet on the ground. In the midst of the confusion, while everybody was +treading on his neighbor's toes, some little boys were very solicitous +to brush your boots. These lads, I believe, are a product of modern +society,--at least, no older than the time of Gay, who celebrates their +origin in his "Trivia;" but in most other respects the scene reminded me +of Bunyan's description of Vanity Fair,--nor is it at all improbable +that the Pilgrim may have been a merry-maker here in his wild youth. + +It seemed very singular--though, of course, I immediately classified it +as an English characteristic--to see a great many portable +weighing-machines, the owners of which cried out continually and amain, +"Come, know your weight! Come, come, know your weight to-day! Come, know +your weight!" and a multitude of people, mostly large in the girth, were +moved by this vociferation to sit down in the machines. I know not +whether they valued themselves on their beef, and estimated their +standing as members of society at so much a pound; but I shall set it +down as a national peculiarity, and a symbol of the prevalence of the +earthly over the spiritual element, that Englishmen are wonderfully bent +on knowing how solid and physically ponderous they are. + +On the whole, having an appetite for the brown bread and the tripe and +sausages of life, as well as for its nicer cates and dainties, I enjoyed +the scene, and was amused at the sight of a gruff old Greenwich +pensioner, who, forgetful of the sailor-frolics of his young days, stood +looking with grim disapproval at all these vanities. Thus we squeezed +our way through the mob-jammed town, and emerged into the Park, where, +likewise, we met a great many merry-makers, but with freer space for +their gambols than in the streets. We soon found ourselves the targets +for a cannonade with oranges (most of them in a decayed condition), +which went humming past our ears from the vantage-ground of neighboring +hillocks, sometimes hitting our sacred persons with an inelastic thump. +This was one of the privileged freedoms of the time, and was nowise to +be resented, except by returning the salute. Many persons were running +races, hand in hand, down the declivities, especially that steepest one +on the summit of which stands the world-central Observatory, and (as in +the race of life) the partners were usually male and female, and often +caught a tumble together before reaching the bottom of the hill. +Hereabouts we were pestered and haunted by two young girls, the elder +not more than thirteen, teasing us to buy matches; and finding no market +for their commodity, the taller one suddenly turned a somerset before +our faces, and rolled heels over head from top to bottom of the hill on +which we stood. Then, scrambling up the acclivity, the topsy-turvy +trollop offered us her matches again, as demurely as if she had never +flung aside her equilibrium; so that, dreading a repetition of the feat, +we gave her sixpence and an admonition, and enjoined her never to do so +any more. + +The most curious amusement that we witnessed here--or anywhere else, +indeed--was an ancient and hereditary pastime called "Kissing in the +Ring." I shall describe the sport exactly as I saw it, although an +English friend assures me that there are certain ceremonies with a +handkerchief, which make it much more decorous and graceful. A +handkerchief, indeed! There was no such thing in the crowd, except it +were the one which they had just filched out of my pocket. It is one of +the simplest kinds of games, needing little or no practice to make the +player altogether perfect; and the manner of it is this: A ring is +formed (in the present case, it was of large circumference and thickly +gemmed around with faces, mostly on the broad grin), into the centre of +which steps an adventurous youth, and, looking round the circle, selects +whatever maiden may most delight his eye. He presents his hand (which +she is bound to accept), leads her into the centre, salutes her on the +lips, and retires, taking his stand in the expectant circle. The girl, +in her turn, throws a favorable regard on some fortunate young man, +offers her hand to lead him forth, makes him happy with a maidenly kiss, +and withdraws to hide her blushes, if any there be, among the simpering +faces in the ring; while the favored swain loses no time in transferring +her salute to the prettiest and plumpest among the many mouths that are +primming themselves in anticipation. And thus the thing goes on, till +all the festive throng are inwreathed and intertwined into an endless +and inextricable chain of kisses; though, indeed, it smote me with +compassion to reflect that some forlorn pair of lips might be left out, +and never know the triumph of a salute, after throwing aside so many +delicate reserves for the sake of winning it. If the young men had any +chivalry, there was a fair chance to display it by kissing the homeliest +damsel in the circle. + +To be frank, however, at the first glance, and to my American eye, they +looked all homely alike, and the chivalry that I suggest is more than I +could have been capable of, at any period of my life. They seemed to be +country-lasses, of sturdy and wholesome aspect, with coarse-grained, +cabbage-rosy cheeks, and, I am willing to suppose, a stout texture of +moral principle, such as would bear a good deal of rough usage without +suffering much detriment. But how unlike the trim little damsels of my +native land! I desire above all things to be courteous; but, since the +plain truth must be told, the soil and climate of England produce +feminine beauty as rarely as they do delicate fruit; and though +admirable specimens of both are to be met with, they are the hot-house +ameliorations of refined society, and apt, moreover, to relapse into the +coarseness of the original stock. The men are manlike, but the women are +not beautiful, though the female Bull be well enough adapted to the +male. To return to the lasses of Greenwich Fair, their charms were few, +and their behavior, perhaps, not altogether commendable; and yet it was +impossible not to feel a degree of faith in their innocent intentions, +with such a half-bashful zest and entire simplicity did they keep up +their part of the game. It put the spectator in good-humor to look at +them, because there was still something of the old Arcadian life, the +secure freedom of the antique age, in their way of surrendering their +lips to strangers, as if there were no evil or impurity in the world. As +for the young men, they were chiefly specimens of the vulgar sediment of +London life, often shabbily genteel, rowdyish, pale, wearing the +unbrushed coat, unshifted linen, and unwashed faces of yesterday, as +well as the haggardness of last night's jollity in a gin-shop. Gathering +their character from these tokens, I wondered whether there were any +reasonable prospect of their fair partners returning to their rustic +homes with as much innocence (whatever were its amount or quality) as +they brought to Greenwich Fair, in spite of the perilous familiarity +established by Kissing in the Ring. + +The manifold disorders resulting from the fair, at which a vast city was +brought into intimate relations with a comparatively rural district, +have at length led to its suppression; this was the very last +celebration of it, and brought to a close the broad-mouthed merriment of +many hundred years. Thus my poor sketch, faint as its colors are, may +acquire some little value in the reader's eyes from the consideration +that no observer of the coming time will ever have an opportunity to +give a better. I should find it difficult to believe, however, that the +queer pastime just described, or any moral mischief to which that and +other customs might pave the way, can have led to the overthrow of +Greenwich Fair; for it has often seemed to me that Englishmen of station +and respectability, unless of a peculiarly philanthropic turn, have +neither any faith in the feminine purity of the lower orders of their +countrywomen, nor the slightest value for it, allowing its possible +existence. The distinction of ranks is so marked, that the English +cottage damsel holds a position somewhat analogous to that of the negro +girl in our Southern States. Hence comes inevitable detriment to the +moral condition of those men themselves, who forget that the humblest +woman has a right and a duty to hold herself in the same sanctity as the +highest. The subject cannot well be discussed in these pages; but I +offer it as a serious conviction, from what I have been able to observe, +that the England of to-day is the unscrupulous old England of Tom Jones +and Joseph Andrews, Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random; and in our +refined era, just the same as at that more free-spoken epoch, this +singular people has a certain contempt for any fine-strained purity, any +special squeamishness, as they consider it, on the part of an ingenuous +youth. They appear to look upon it as a suspicious phenomenon in the +masculine character. + +Nevertheless, I by no means take upon me to affirm that English +morality, as regards the phase here alluded to, is really at a lower +point than our own. Assuredly, I hope so, because, making a higher +pretension, or, at all events, more carefully hiding whatever may be +amiss, we are either better than they, or necessarily a great deal +worse. It impressed me that their open avowal and recognition of +immoralities served to throw the disease to the surface, where it might +be more effectually dealt with, and leave a sacred interior not utterly +profaned, instead of turning its poison back among the inner vitalities +of the character, at the imminent risk of corrupting them all. Be that +as it may, these Englishmen are certainly a franker and simpler people +than ourselves, from peer to peasant; but if we can take it as +compensatory on our part (which I leave to be considered) that they owe +those noble and manly qualities to a coarser grain in their nature, and +that, with a finer one in ours, we shall ultimately acquire a marble +polish of which they are unsusceptible, I believe that this may be the +truth. + + + + +X. + +UP THE THAMES + + +The upper portion of Greenwich (where my last article left me loitering) +is a cheerful, comely, old-fashioned town, the peculiarities of which, +if there be any, have passed out of my remembrance. As you descend +towards the Thames the streets get meaner, and the shabby and sunken +houses, elbowing one another for frontage, bear the signboards of +beer-shops and eating-rooms, with especial promises of white-bait and +other delicacies in the fishing line. You observe, also, a frequent +announcement of "Tea Gardens" in the rear; although, estimating the +capacity of the premises by their external compass, the entire sylvan +charm and shadowy seclusion of such blissful resorts must be limited +within a small back-yard. These places of cheap sustenance and +recreation depend for support upon the innumerable pleasure-parties who +come from London Bridge by steamer, at a fare of a few pence, and who +get as enjoyable a meal for a shilling a head as the Ship Hotel would +afford a gentleman for a guinea. + +The steamers, which are constantly smoking their pipes up and down the +Thames, offer much the most agreeable mode of getting to London. At +least, it might be exceedingly agreeable, except for the myriad floating +particles of soot from the stove-pipe, and the heavy heat of midsummer +sunshine on the unsheltered deck, or the chill, misty air-draught of a +cloudy day, and the spiteful little showers of rain that may spatter +down upon you at any moment, whatever the promise of the sky; besides +which there is some slight inconvenience from the inexhaustible throng +of passengers, who scarcely allow you standing-room, nor so much as a +breath of unappropriated air, and never a chance to sit down. If these +difficulties, added to the possibility of getting your pocket picked, +weigh little with you, the panorama along the shores of the memorable +river, and the incidents and shows of passing life upon its bosom, +render the trip far preferable to the brief yet tiresome shoot along the +railway track. On one such voyage, a regatta of wherries raced past us, +and at once involved every soul on board our steamer in the +tremendous excitement of the struggle. The spectacle was but a moment +within our view, and presented nothing more than a few light skiffs, in +each of which sat a single rower, bare-armed, and with little apparel, +save a shirt and drawers, pale, anxious, with every muscle on the +stretch, and plying his oars in such fashion that the boat skimmed along +with the aerial celerity of a swallow. I wondered at myself for so +immediately catching an interest in the affair, which seemed to contain +no very exalted rivalship of manhood; but, whatever the kind of battle +or the prize of victory, it stirs one's sympathy immensely, and is even +awful, to behold the rare sight of a man thoroughly in earnest, doing +his best, putting forth all there is in him, and staking his very soul +(as these rowers appeared willing to do) on the issue of the contest. It +was the seventy-fourth annual regatta of the Free Watermen of Greenwich, +and announced itself as under the patronage of the Lord Mayor and other +distinguished individuals, at whose expense, I suppose, a prize-boat was +offered to the conqueror, and some small amounts of money to the +inferior competitors. + +[Illustration: _London Bridge._] + +The aspect of London along the Thames, below Bridge, as it is called, is +by no means so impressive as it ought to be, considering what peculiar +advantages are offered for the display of grand and stately architecture +by the passage of a river through the midst of a great city. It seems, +indeed, as if the heart of London had been cleft open for the mere +purpose of showing how rotten and drearily mean it had become. The shore +is lined with the shabbiest, blackest, and ugliest buildings that can be +imagined, decayed warehouses with blind windows, and wharves that look +ruinous; insomuch that, had I known nothing more of the world's +metropolis, I might have fancied that it had already experienced the +downfall which I have heard commercial and financial prophets predict +for it, within the century. And the muddy tide of the Thames, reflecting +nothing, and hiding a million of unclean secrets within its breast,--a +sort of guilty conscience, as it were, unwholesome with the rivulets of +sin that constantly flow into it,--is just the dismal stream to glide by +such a city. The surface, to be sure, displays no lack of activity, +being fretted by the passage of a hundred steamers and covered with a +good deal of shipping, but mostly of a clumsier build than I had been +accustomed to see in the Mersey: a fact which I complacently attributed +to the smaller number of American clippers in the Thames, and the less +prevalent influence of American example in refining away the +broad-bottomed capacity of the old Dutch or English models. + +About midway between Greenwich and London Bridge, at a rude +landing-place on the left bank of the river, the steamer rings its bell +and makes a momentary pause in front of a large circular structure, +where it may be worth our while to scramble ashore. It indicates the +locality of one of those prodigious practical blunders that would supply +John Bull with a topic of inexhaustible ridicule if his cousin Jonathan +had committed them, but of which he himself perpetrates ten to our one +in the mere wantonness of wealth that lacks better employment. The +circular building covers the entrance to the Thames Tunnel, and is +surmounted by a dome of glass, so as to throw daylight down into the +great depth at which the passage of the river commences. Descending a +wearisome succession of staircases, we at last find ourselves, still in +the broad noon, standing before a closed door, on opening which we +behold the vista of an arched corridor that extends into everlasting +midnight. In these days, when glass has been applied to so many new +purposes, it is a pity that the architect had not thought of arching +portions of his abortive tunnel with immense blocks of the lucid +substance, over which the dusky Thames would have flowed like a cloud, +making the sub-fluvial avenue only a little gloomier than a street of +upper London. At present, it is illuminated at regular intervals by jets +of gas, not very brilliantly, yet with lustre enough to show the damp +plaster of the ceiling and walls, and the massive stone pavement, the +crevices of which are oozy with moisture, not from the incumbent river, +but from hidden springs in the earth's deeper heart. There are two +parallel corridors, with a wall between, for the separate accommodation +of the double throng of foot-passengers, equestrians, and vehicles of +all kinds, which was expected to roll and reverberate continually +through the tunnel. Only one of them has ever been opened, and its +echoes are but feebly awakened by infrequent footfalls. + +Yet there seem to be people who spend their lives here, and who +probably blink like owls, when, once or twice a year, perhaps, they +happen to climb into the sunshine. All along the corridor, which I +believe to be a mile in extent, we see stalls or shops in little +alcoves, kept principally by women; they were of a ripe age, I was glad +to observe, and certainly robbed England of none of its very moderate +supply of feminine loveliness by their deeper than tomb-like interment. +As you approach (and they are so accustomed to the dusky gaslight that +they read all your characteristics afar off), they assail you with +hungry entreaties to buy some of their merchandise, holding forth views +of the tunnel put up in cases of Derbyshire spar, with a magnifying +glass at one end to make the vista more effective. They offer you, +besides, cheap jewelry, sunny topazes, and resplendent emeralds for +sixpence, and diamonds as big as the Kohinoor at a not much heavier +cost, together with a multifarious trumpery which has died out of the +upper world to reappear in this Tartarean bazaar. That you may fancy +yourself still in the realms of the living, they urge you to partake of +cakes, candy, ginger-beer, and such small refreshment, more suitable, +however, for the shadowy appetite of ghosts than for the sturdy +stomachs of Englishmen. The most capacious of the shops contains a +dioramic exhibition of cities and scenes in the daylight world, with a +dreary glimmer of gas among them all; so that they serve well enough to +represent the dim, unsatisfactory remembrances that dead people might be +supposed to retain from their past lives, mixing them up with the +ghastliness of their unsubstantial state. I dwell the more upon these +trifles, and do my best to give them a mockery of importance, because, +if these are nothing, then all this elaborate contrivance and mighty +piece of work has been wrought in vain. The Englishman has burrowed +under the bed of his great river, and set ships of two or three thousand +tons a-rolling over his head, only to provide new sites for a few old +women to sell cakes and ginger-beer! + +Yet the conception was a grand one; and though it has proved an absolute +failure, swallowing an immensity of toil and money, with annual returns +hardly sufficient to keep the pavement free from the ooze of +subterranean springs, yet it needs, I presume, only an expenditure three +or four (or, for aught I know, twenty) times as large, to make the +enterprise brilliantly successful. The descent is so great from the bank +of the river to its surface, and the tunnel dips so profoundly under the +river's bed, that the approaches on either side must commence a long way +off, in order to render the entrance accessible to horsemen or vehicles; +so that the larger part of the cost of the whole affair should have been +expended on its margins. It has turned out a sublime piece of folly; and +when the New-Zealander of distant ages shall have moralized sufficiently +among the ruins of London Bridge, he will bethink himself that somewhere +thereabout was the marvelous Tunnel, the very existence of which will +seem to him as incredible as that of the hanging gardens of Babylon. But +the Thames will long ago have broken through the massive arch, and +choked up the corridors with mud and sand and with the large stones of +the structure itself, intermixed with skeletons of drowned people, the +rusty ironwork of sunken vessels, and the great many such precious and +curious things as a river always contrives to hide in its bosom; the +entrance will have been obliterated, and its very site forgotten beyond +the memory of twenty generations of men, and the whole neighborhood be +held a dangerous spot on account of the malaria; insomuch that the +traveler will make but a brief and careless inquisition for the traces +of the old wonder, and will stake his credit before the public, in some +Pacific Monthly of that day, that the story of it is but a myth, though +enriched with a spiritual profundity which he will proceed to unfold. + +Yet it is impossible (for a Yankee, at least) to see so much magnificent +ingenuity thrown away, without trying to endow the unfortunate result +with some kind of usefulness, though perhaps widely different from the +purpose of its original conception. In former ages, the mile-long +corridors, with their numerous alcoves, might have been utilized as a +series of dungeons, the fittest of all possible receptacles for +prisoners of state. Dethroned monarchs and fallen statesmen would not +have needed to remonstrate against a domicile so spacious, so deeply +secluded from the world's scorn, and so admirably in accordance with +their thenceforward sunless fortunes. An alcove here might have suited +Sir Walter Raleigh better than that darksome hiding-place communicating +with the great chamber in the Tower, pacing from end to end of which he +meditated upon his "History of the World." His track would here have +been straight and narrow, indeed, and would therefore have lacked +somewhat of the freedom that his intellect demanded; and yet the length +to which his footsteps might have traveled forth and retraced themselves +would partly have harmonized his physical movement with the grand curves +and planetary returns of his thought, through cycles of majestic +periods. Having it in his mind to compose the world's history, methinks +he could have asked no better retirement than such a cloister as this, +insulated from all the seductions of mankind and womankind, deep beneath +their mysteries and motives, down into the heart of things, full of +personal reminiscences in order to the comprehensive measurement and +verification of historic records, seeing into the secrets of human +nature,--secrets that daylight never yet revealed to mortal,--but +detecting their whole scope and purport with the infallible eyes of +unbroken solitude and night. And then the shades of the old mighty men +might have risen from their still profounder abodes and joined him in +the dim corridor, treading beside him with an antique stateliness of +mien, telling him in melancholy tones, grand, but always melancholy, of +the greater ideas and purposes which their most renowned performances so +imperfectly carried out; that, magnificent successes in the view of all +posterity, they were but failures to those who planned them. As Raleigh +was a navigator, Noah would have explained to him the peculiarities of +construction that made the ark so seaworthy; as Raleigh was a statesman, +Moses would have discussed with him the principles of laws and +government; as Raleigh was a soldier, Caesar and Hannibal would have held +debate in his presence, with this martial student for their umpire; as +Raleigh was a poet, David, or whatever most illustrious bard he might +call up, would have touched his harp, and made manifest all the true +significance of the past by means of song and the subtle intelligences +of music. + +Meanwhile, I had forgotten that Sir Walter Raleigh's century knew +nothing of gaslight, and that it would require a prodigious and wasteful +expenditure of tallow-candles to illuminate the tunnel sufficiently to +discern even a ghost. On this account, however, it would be all the +more suitable place of confinement for a metaphysician, to keep him from +bewildering mankind with his shadowy speculations; and, being shut off +from external converse, the dark corridor would help him to make rich +discoveries in those cavernous regions and mysterious by-paths of the +intellect, which he had so long accustomed himself to explore. But how +would every successive age rejoice in so secure a habitation for its +reformers, and especially for each best and wisest man that happened to +be then alive! He seeks to burn up our whole system of society, under +pretense of purifying it from its abuses! Away with him into the tunnel, +and let him begin by setting the Thames on fire, if he is able! + +If not precisely these, yet akin to these were some of the fantasies +that haunted me as I passed under the river: for the place is suggestive +of such idle and irresponsible stuff by its own abortive character, its +lack of whereabout on upper earth, or any solid foundation of realities. +Could I have looked forward a few years, I might have regretted that +American enterprise had not provided a similar tunnel, under the Hudson +or the Potomac, for the convenience of our National Government in times +hardly yet gone by. It would be delightful to clap up all the enemies of +our peace and Union in the dark together, and there let them abide, +listening to the monotonous roll of the river above their heads, or +perhaps in a state of miraculously suspended animation, until,--be it +after months, years, or centuries,--when the turmoil shall be all over, +the Wrong washed away in blood (since that must needs be the cleansing +fluid), and the Right firmly rooted in the soil which that blood will +have enriched, they might crawl forth again and catch a single glimpse +at their redeemed country, and feel it to be a better land than they +deserve, and die! + +I was not sorry when the daylight reached me after a much briefer abode +in the nether regions than, I fear, would await the troublesome +personages just hinted at. Emerging on the Surrey side of the Thames, I +found myself in Rotherhithe, a neighborhood not unfamiliar to the +readers of old books of maritime adventure. There being a ferry hard by +the mouth of the tunnel, I recrossed the river in the primitive fashion +of an open boat, which the conflict of wind and tide, together with the +swash and swell of the passing steamers, tossed high and low rather +tumultuously. This inquietude of our frail skiff (which, indeed, bobbed +up and down like a cork) so much alarmed an old lady, the only other +passenger, that the boatmen essayed to comfort her. "Never fear, +mother!" grumbled one of them; "we'll make the river as smooth as we can +for you. We'll get a plane, and plane down the waves!" The joke may not +read very brilliantly; but I make bold to record it as the only specimen +that reached my ears of the old, rough water-wit for which the Thames +used to be so celebrated. Passing directly along the line of the sunken +tunnel, we landed in Wapping, which I should have presupposed to be the +most tarry and pitchy spot on earth, swarming with old salts, and full +of warm, bustling, coarse, homely, and cheerful life. Nevertheless, it +turned out to be a cold and torpid neighborhood, mean, shabby, and +unpicturesque, both as to its buildings and inhabitants: the latter +comprising (so far as was visible to me) not a single unmistakable +sailor, though plenty of land-sharks, who get a half-dishonest +livelihood by business connected with the sea. Ale and spirit vaults +(as petty drinking-establishments are styled in England, pretending to +contain vast cellars full of liquor within the compass of ten feet +square above ground) were particularly abundant, together with apples, +oranges, and oysters, the stalls of fishmongers and butchers, and +slop-shops, where blue jackets and duck trousers swung and capered +before the doors. Everything was on the poorest scale, and the place +bore an aspect of unredeemable decay. From this remote point of London I +strolled leisurely towards the heart of the city; while the streets, at +first but thinly occupied by man or vehicle, got more and more thronged +with foot-passengers, carts, drays, cabs, and the all-pervading and +all-accommodating omnibus. But I lack courage, and feel that I should +lack perseverance, as the gentlest reader would lack patience, to +undertake a descriptive stroll through London streets; more especially +as there would be a volume ready for the printer before we could reach a +midway resting-place at Charing Cross. It will be the easier course to +step aboard another passing steamer, and continue our trip up the +Thames. + +The next notable group of objects is an assemblage of ancient walls, +battlements, and turrets, out of the midst of which rises prominently +one great square tower, of a grayish hue, bordered with white stone, and +having a small turret at each corner of the roof. This central structure +is the White Tower, and the whole circuit of ramparts and inclosed +edifices constitutes what is known in English history, and still more +widely and impressively in English poetry, as the Tower. A crowd of +river-craft are generally moored in front of it; but if we look sharply +at the right moment under the base of the rampart, we may catch a +glimpse of an arched water-entrance, half submerged, past which the +Thames glides as indifferently as if it were the mouth of a city-kennel. +Nevertheless, it is the Traitor's Gate, a dreary kind of triumphal +passage-way (now supposed to be shut up and barred forever), through +which a multitude of noble and illustrious personages have entered the +Tower and found it a brief resting-place on their way to heaven. Passing +it many times, I never observed that anybody glanced at this shadowy and +ominous trap-door, save myself. It is well that America exists, if it +were only that her vagrant children may be impressed and affected by +the historical monuments of England in a degree of which the native +inhabitants are evidently incapable. These matters are too familiar, too +real, and too hopelessly built in amongst and mixed up with the common +objects and affairs of life, to be easily susceptible of imaginative +coloring in their minds; and even their poets and romancers feel it a +toil, and almost a delusion, to extract poetic material out of what +seems embodied poetry itself to an American. An Englishman cares nothing +about the Tower, which to us is a haunted castle in dream-land. That +honest and excellent gentleman, the late Mr. G. P. R. James (whose +mechanical ability, one might have supposed, would nourish itself by +devouring every old stone of such a structure), once assured me that he +had never in his life set eyes upon the Tower, though for years an +historic novelist in London. + +Not to spend a whole summer's day upon the voyage, we will suppose +ourselves to have reached London Bridge, and thence to have taken +another steamer for a farther passage up the river. But here the +memorable objects succeed each other so rapidly that I can spare but a +single sentence even for the great Dome, though I deem it more +picturesque, in that dusky atmosphere, than St. Peter's in its clear +blue sky.[8] I must mention, however (since everything connected with +royalty is especially interesting to my dear countrymen), that I once +saw a large and beautiful barge, splendidly gilded and ornamented, and +overspread with a rich covering, lying at the pier nearest to St. Paul's +Cathedral; it had the royal banner of Great Britain displayed, besides +being decorated with a number of other flags; and many footmen (who are +universally the grandest and gaudiest objects to be seen in England at +this day, and these were regal ones, in a bright scarlet livery +bedizened with gold-lace, and white silk stockings) were in attendance. +I know not what festive or ceremonial occasion may have drawn out this +pageant; after all, it might have been merely a city-spectacle, +appertaining to the Lord Mayor; but the sight had its value in bringing +vividly before me the grand old times when the sovereign and nobles were +accustomed to use the Thames as the high street of the metropolis, and +join in pompous processions upon it; whereas, the desuetude of such +customs nowadays has caused the whole show of river-life to consist in a +multitude of smoke-begrimed steamers. An analogous change has taken +place in the streets, where cabs and the omnibus have crowded out a rich +variety of vehicles; and thus life gets more monotonous in hue from age +to age, and appears to seize every opportunity to strip off a bit of its +gold-lace among the wealthier classes, and to make itself decent in the +lower ones. + +[8] St. Paul's appeared to me unspeakably grand and noble, and the more +so from the throng and bustle continually going on around its base, +without in the least disturbing the sublime repose of its great dome, +and, indeed, of all its massive height and breadth. Other edifices may +crowd close to its foundation, and people may tramp as they like about +it; but still the great cathedral is as quiet and serene as if it stood +in the middle of Salisbury Plain. There cannot be anything else in its +way so good in the world as just this effect of St. Paul's in the very +heart and densest tumult of London. I do not know whether the church is +built of marble, or of whatever other white or nearly white material; +but in the time that it has been standing there, it has grown black with +the smoke of ages, through which there are, nevertheless, gleams of +white, that make a most picturesque impression on the whole. It is much +better than staring white; the edifice would not be nearly so grand +without this drapery of black.--II. 91. + +[Illustration: _Tower of London._] + +Yonder is Whitefriars, the old rowdy Alsatia, now wearing as decorous a +face as any other portion of London; and, adjoining it, the avenues and +brick squares of the Temple, with that historic garden, close upon +the river-side, and still rich in shrubbery and flowers, where the +partisans of York and Lancaster plucked the fatal roses, and scattered +their pale and bloody petals over so many English battle-fields. Hard +by, we see the long white front or rear of Somerset House, and, farther +on, rise the two new Houses of Parliament, with a huge unfinished tower +already hiding its imperfect summit in the smoky canopy,--the whole vast +and cumbrous edifice a specimen of the best that modern architecture can +effect, elaborately imitating the masterpieces of those simple ages when +men "builded better than they knew."[9] Close by it, we have a glimpse +of the roof and upper towers of the holy Abbey; while that gray, +ancestral pile on the opposite side of the river is Lambeth Palace, a +venerable group of halls and turrets, chiefly built of brick, but with +at least one large tower of stone.[10] In our course, we have passed +beneath half a dozen bridges, and, emerging out of the black heart of +London, shall soon reach a cleanly suburb, where old Father Thames, if I +remember, begins to put on an aspect of unpolluted innocence. And now we +look back upon the mass of innumerable roofs, out of which rise +steeples, towers, columns, and the great crowning Dome,--look back, in +short, upon that mystery of the world's proudest city, amid which a man +so longs and loves to be; not, perhaps, because it contains much that is +positively admirable and enjoyable, but because, at all events, the +world has nothing better. The cream of external life is there; and +whatever merely intellectual or material good we fail to find perfect in +London, we may as well content ourselves to seek that unattainable thing +no farther on this earth. + +[9] After coming out of the Abbey, we looked at the two Houses of +Parliament, directly across the way,--an immense structure, and +certainly most splendid, built of a beautiful warm-colored stone. The +building has a very elaborate finish, and delighted me at first; but by +and by I began to be sensible of a weariness in the effect, a lack of +variety in the plan and ornament, a deficiency of invention; so that +instead of being more and more interested the longer one looks, as is +the case with an old Gothic edifice, and continually reading deeper into +it, one finds that one has seen all in seeing a little piece, and that +the magnificent palace has nothing better to show one or to do for one. +It is wonderful how the old weather-stained and smoke-blackened Abbey +shames down this brand-newness; not that the Parliament Houses are not +fine objects to look at, too.--II. 105. + +[10] It stands immediately on the bank of the river, not far above the +bridge. We merely walked round it, and saw only an old stone tower or +two, partially renewed with brick, and a high connecting wall, within +which appeared gables and other portions of the palace, all of an +ancient plan and venerable aspect, though evidently much patched up and +restored in the course of the many ages since its foundation.--II. 193. + +[Illustration: _St. Paul's Cathedral._] + +The steamer terminates its trip at Chelsea, an old town endowed with a +prodigious number of pothouses, and some famous gardens, called the +Cremorne, for public amusement. The most noticeable thing, however, is +Chelsea Hospital, which, like that of Greenwich, was founded, I believe, +by Charles II. (whose bronze statue, in the guise of an old Roman, +stands in the centre of the quadrangle), and appropriated as a home for +aged and infirm soldiers of the British army. The edifices are of three +stories, with windows in the high roofs, and are built of dark, sombre +brick, with stone edgings and facings. The effect is by no means that of +grandeur (which is somewhat disagreeably an attribute of Greenwich +Hospital), but a quiet and venerable neatness. At each extremity of the +street-front there is a spacious and hospitably open gateway, lounging +about which I saw some gray veterans in long scarlet coats of an antique +fashion, and the cocked hats of a century ago, or occasionally a modern +foraging-cap. Almost all of them moved with a rheumatic gait, two or +three stumped on wooden legs, and here and there an arm was missing. +Inquiring of one of these fragmentary heroes whether a stranger could be +admitted to see the establishment, he replied most cordially, "Oh yes, +sir,--anywhere! Walk in and go where you please,--upstairs, or +anywhere!" So I entered, and, passing along the inner side of the +quadrangle, came to the door of the chapel, which forms a part of the +contiguity of edifices next the street. Here another pensioner, an old +warrior of exceedingly peaceable and Christian demeanor, touched his +three-cornered hat and asked if I wished to see the interior; to which I +assenting, he unlocked the door, and we went in. + +The chapel consists of a great hall with a vaulted roof, and over the +altar is a large painting in fresco, the subject of which I did not +trouble myself to make out. More appropriate adornments of the place, +dedicated as well to martial reminiscences as religious worship, are the +long ranges of dusty and tattered banners, that hang from their staves +all round the ceiling of the chapel. They are trophies of battles +fought and won in every quarter of the world, comprising the captured +flags of all the nations with whom the British lion has waged war since +James II.'s time,--French, Dutch, East Indian, Prussian, Russian, +Chinese, and American,--collected together in this consecrated spot, not +to symbolize that there shall be no more discord upon earth, but +drooping over the aisle in sullen, though peaceable, humiliation. Yes, I +said "American" among the rest; for the good old pensioner mistook me +for an Englishman, and failed not to point out (and, methought, with an +especial emphasis of triumph) some flags that had been taken at +Bladensburg and Washington. I fancied, indeed, that they hung a little +higher and drooped a little lower than any of their companions in +disgrace. It is a comfort, however, that their proud devices are already +indistinguishable, or nearly so, owing to dust and tatters and the kind +offices of the moths, and that they will soon rot from the banner-staves +and be swept out in unrecognized fragments from the chapel-door. + +It is a good method of teaching a man how imperfectly cosmopolitan he +is, to show him his country's flag occupying a position of dishonor in +a foreign land. But, in truth, the whole system of a people crowing over +its military triumphs had far better be dispensed with, both on account +of the ill-blood that it helps to keep fermenting among the nations, and +because it operates as an accumulative inducement to future generations +to aim at a kind of glory, the gain of which has generally proved more +ruinous than its loss. I heartily wish that every trophy of victory +might crumble away, and that every reminiscence or tradition of a hero, +from the beginning of the world to this day, could pass out of all men's +memories at once and forever. I might feel very differently, to be sure, +if we Northerners had anything especially valuable to lose by the fading +of those illuminated names. + +I gave the pensioner (but I am afraid there may have been a little +affectation in it) a magnificent guerdon of all the silver I had in my +pocket, to requite him for having unintentionally stirred up my +patriotic susceptibilities. He was a meek-looking, kindly old man, with +a humble freedom and affability of manner that made it pleasant to +converse with him. Old soldiers, I know not why, seem to be more +accostable than old sailors. One is apt to hear a growl beneath the +smoothest courtesy of the latter. The mild veteran, with his peaceful +voice, and gentle reverend aspect, told me that he had fought at a +cannon all through the Battle of Waterloo, and escaped unhurt; he had +now been in the hospital four or five years, and was married, but +necessarily underwent a separation from his wife, who lived outside of +the gates. To my inquiry whether his fellow-pensioners were comfortable +and happy, he answered, with great alacrity, "Oh yes, sir!" qualifying +his evidence, after a moment's consideration, by saying in an undertone, +"There are some people, your Honor knows, who could not be comfortable +anywhere." I did know it, and fear that the system of Chelsea Hospital +allows too little of that wholesome care and regulation of their own +occupations and interests which might assuage the sting of life to those +naturally uncomfortable individuals by giving them something external to +think about. But my old friend here was happy in the hospital, and by +this time, very likely, is happy in heaven, in spite of the bloodshed +that he may have caused by touching off a cannon at Waterloo. + +Crossing Battersea Bridge, in the neighborhood of Chelsea, I remember +seeing a distant gleam of the Crystal Palace, glimmering afar in the +afternoon sunshine like an imaginary structure,--an air-castle by chance +descended upon earth, and resting there one instant before it vanished, +as we sometimes see a soap-bubble touch unharmed on the carpet,--a thing +of only momentary visibility and no substance, destined to be +overburdened and crushed down by the first cloud-shadow that might fall +upon that spot. Even as I looked, it disappeared.[11] Shall I attempt a +picture of this exhalation of modern ingenuity, or what else shall I try +to paint? Everything in London and its vicinity has been depicted +innumerable times, but never once translated into intelligible images; +it is an "old, old story," never yet told, nor to be told. While writing +these reminiscences, I am continually impressed with the futility of +the effort to give any creative truth to my sketch, so that it might +produce such pictures in the reader's mind as would cause the original +scenes to appear familiar when afterwards beheld. Nor have other writers +often been more successful in representing definite objects +prophetically to my own mind. In truth, I believe that the chief delight +and advantage of this kind of literature is not for any real information +that it supplies to untraveled people, but for reviving the +recollections and reawakening the emotions of persons already acquainted +with the scenes described. Thus I found an exquisite pleasure, the other +day, in reading Mr. Tuckerman's "Month in England,"--a fine example of +the way in which a refined and cultivated American looks at the Old +Country, the things that he naturally seeks there, and the modes of +feeling and reflection which they excite. Correct outlines avail little +or nothing, though truth of coloring may be somewhat more efficacious. +Impressions, however, states of mind produced by interesting and +remarkable objects, these, if truthfully and vividly recorded, may work +a genuine effect, and, though but the result of what we see, go further +towards representing the actual scene than any direct effort to paint +it. Give the emotions that cluster about it, and, without being able to +analyze the spell by which it is summoned up, you get something like a +simulachre of the object in the midst of them. From some of the above +reflections I draw the comfortable inference, that, the longer and +better known a thing may be, so much the more eligible is it as the +subject of a descriptive sketch. + +[11] The Crystal Palace gleamed in the sunshine; but I do not think a +very impressive edifice can be built of glass,--light and airy, to be +sure, but still it will be no other than an overgrown conservatory. It +is unlike anything else in England; uncongenial with the English +character, without privacy, destitute of mass, weight, and shadow, +unsusceptible of ivy, lichens, or any mellowness from age.--II. 135. + +On a Sunday afternoon, I passed through a side-entrance in the +time-blackened wall of a place of worship, and found myself among a +congregation assembled in one of the transepts and the immediately +contiguous portion of the nave. It was a vast old edifice, spacious +enough, within the extent covered by its pillared roof and overspread by +its stone pavement, to accommodate the whole of church-going London, and +with a far wider and loftier concave than any human power of lungs could +fill with audible prayer. Oaken benches were arranged in the transept, +on one of which I seated myself, and joined, as well as I knew how, in +the sacred business that was going forward. But when it came to the +sermon, the voice of the preacher was puny, and so were his thoughts, +and both seemed impertinent at such a time and place, where he and all +of us were bodily included within a sublime act of religion, which could +be seen above and around us and felt beneath our feet. The structure +itself was the worship of the devout men of long ago, miraculously +preserved in stone without losing an atom of its fragrance and fervor; +it was a kind of anthem-strain that they had sung and poured out of the +organ in centuries gone by; and being so grand and sweet, the Divine +benevolence had willed it to be prolonged for the behoof of auditors +unborn. I therefore came to the conclusion, that, in my individual case, +it would be better and more reverent to let my eyes wander about the +edifice than to fasten them and my thoughts on the evidently uninspired +mortal who was venturing--and felt it no venture at all--to speak here +above his breath. + +The interior of Westminster Abbey (for the reader recognized it, no +doubt, the moment we entered) is built of rich brown stone; and the +whole of it--the lofty roof, the tall, clustered pillars, and the +pointed arches--appears to be in consummate repair. At all points where +decay has laid its finger, the structure is clamped with iron or +otherwise carefully protected; and being thus watched over,--whether as +a place of ancient sanctity, a noble specimen of Gothic art, or an +object of national interest and pride,--it may reasonably be expected to +survive for as many ages as have passed over it already. It was sweet to +feel its venerable quietude, its long-enduring peace, and yet to observe +how kindly and even cheerfully it received the sunshine of to-day, which +fell from the great windows into the fretted aisles and arches that laid +aside somewhat of their aged gloom to welcome it. Sunshine always seems +friendly to old abbeys, churches, and castles, kissing them, as it were, +with a more affectionate, though still reverential familiarity, than it +accords to edifices of later date. A square of golden light lay on the +sombre pavement of the nave, afar off, falling through the grand western +entrance, the folding leaves of which were wide open, and afforded +glimpses of people passing to and fro in the outer world, while we sat +dimly enveloped in the solemnity of antique devotion. In the south +transept, separated from us by the full breadth of the minster, there +were painted glass windows, of which the uppermost appeared to be a +great orb of many-colored radiance, being, indeed, a cluster of saints +and angels whose glorified bodies formed the rays of an aureole +emanating from a cross in the midst. These windows are modern, but +combine softness with wonderful brilliancy of effect. Through the +pillars and arches, I saw that the walls in that distant region of the +edifice were almost wholly incrusted with marble, now grown yellow with +time, no blank, unlettered slabs, but memorials of such men as their +respective generations deemed wisest and bravest. Some of them were +commemorated merely by inscriptions on mural tablets, others by +sculptured bas-reliefs, others (once famous, but now forgotten, generals +or admirals, these) by ponderous tombs that aspired towards the roof of +the aisle, or partly curtained the immense arch of a window. These +mountains of marble were peopled with the sisterhood of Allegory, winged +trumpeters, and classic figures in full-bottomed wigs; but it was +strange to observe how the old Abbey melted all such absurdities into +the breadth of its own grandeur, even magnifying itself by what would +elsewhere have been ridiculous. Methinks it is the test of Gothic +sublimity to overpower the ridiculous without deigning to hide it; and +these grotesque monuments of the last century answer a similar purpose +with the grinning faces which the old architects scattered among their +most solemn conceptions. + +From these distant wanderings (it was my first visit to Westminster +Abbey, and I would gladly have taken it all in at a glance) my eyes came +back and began to investigate what was immediately about me in the +transept. Close at my elbow was the pedestal of Canning's statue. Next +beyond it was a massive tomb, on the spacious tablet of which reposed +the full-length figures of a marble lord and lady, whom an inscription +announced to be the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle,--the historic Duke of +Charles I.'s time, and the fantastic Duchess, traditionally remembered +by her poems and plays. She was of a family, as the record on her tomb +proudly informed us, of which all the brothers had been valiant and all +the sisters virtuous. A recent statue of Sir John Malcolm, the new +marble as white as snow, held the next place; and near by was a mural +monument and bust of Sir Peter Warren. The round visage of this old +British admiral has a certain interest for a New-Englander, because it +was by no merit of his own (though he took care to assume it as such), +but by the valor and warlike enterprise of our colonial forefathers, +especially the stout men of Massachusetts, that he won rank and renown, +and a tomb in Westminster Abbey. Lord Mansfield, a huge mass of marble +done into the guise of a judicial gown and wig, with a stern face in the +midst of the latter, sat on the other side of the transept; and on the +pedestal beside him was a figure of Justice, holding forth, instead of +the customary grocer's scales, an actual pair of brass steelyards. It is +an ancient and classic instrument, undoubtedly; but I had supposed that +Portia (when Shylock's pound of flesh was to be weighed) was the only +judge that ever really called for it in a court of justice. Pitt and Fox +were in the same distinguished company; and John Kemble, in Roman +costume, stood not far off, but strangely shorn of the dignity that is +said to have enveloped him like a mantle in his lifetime. Perhaps the +evanescent majesty of the stage is incompatible with the long endurance +of marble and the solemn reality of the tomb; though, on the other +hand, almost every illustrious personage here represented has been +invested with more or less of stage-trickery by his sculptor. In truth, +the artist (unless there be a divine efficacy in his touch, making +evident a heretofore hidden dignity in the actual form) feels it an +imperious law to remove his subject as far from the aspect of ordinary +life as may be possible without sacrificing every trace of resemblance. +The absurd effect of the contrary course is very remarkable in the +statue of Mr. Wilberforce, whose actual self, save for the lack of +color, I seemed to behold, seated just across the aisle. + +This excellent man appears to have sunk into himself in a sitting +posture, with a thin leg crossed over his knee, a book in one hand, and +a finger of the other under his chin, I believe, or applied to the side +of his nose, or to some equally familiar purpose; while his exceedingly +homely and wrinkled face, held a little on one side, twinkles at you +with the shrewdest complacency, as if he were looking right into your +eyes, and twigged something there which you had half a mind to conceal +from him. He keeps this look so pertinaciously that you feel it to be +insufferably impertinent, and bethink yourself what common ground there +may be between yourself and a stone image, enabling you to resent it. I +have no doubt that the statue is as like Mr. Wilberforce as one pea to +another, and you might fancy, that, at some ordinary moment, when he +least expected it, and before he had time to smooth away his knowing +complication of wrinkles, he had seen the Gorgon's head, and whitened +into marble,--not only his personal self, but his coat and +small-clothes, down to a button and the minutest crease of the cloth. +The ludicrous result marks the impropriety of bestowing the age-long +duration of marble upon small, characteristic individualities, such as +might come within the province of waxen imagery. The sculptor should +give permanence to the figure of a great man in his mood of broad and +grand composure, which would obliterate all mean peculiarities; for, if +the original were unaccustomed to such a mood, or if his features were +incapable of assuming the guise, it seems questionable whether he could +really have been entitled to a marble immortality. In point of fact, +however, the English face and form are seldom statuesque, however +illustrious the individual. + +It ill becomes me, perhaps, to have lapsed into this mood of half-jocose +criticism in describing my first visit to Westminster Abbey, a spot +which I had dreamed about more reverentially, from my childhood upward, +than any other in the world, and which I then beheld, and now look back +upon, with profound gratitude to the men who built it, and a kindly +interest, I may add, in the humblest personage that has contributed his +little all to its impressiveness, by depositing his dust or his memory +there. But it is a characteristic of this grand edifice that it permits +you to smile as freely under the roof of its central nave as if you +stood beneath the yet grander canopy of heaven. Break into laughter, if +you feel inclined, provided the vergers do not hear it echoing among the +arches. In an ordinary church you would keep your countenance for fear +of disturbing the sanctities or proprieties of the place; but you need +leave no honest and decorous portion of your human nature outside of +these benign and truly hospitable walls. Their mild awfulness will take +care of itself. Thus it does no harm to the general impression, when you +come to be sensible that many of the monuments are ridiculous, and +commemorate a mob of people who are mostly forgotten in their graves, +and few of whom ever deserved any better boon from posterity. You +acknowledge the force of Sir Godfrey Kneller's objection to being buried +in Westminster Abbey, because "they do bury fools there!" Nevertheless, +these grotesque carvings of marble, that break out in dingy-white +blotches on the old freestone of the interior walls, have come there by +as natural a process as might cause mosses and ivy to cluster about the +external edifice; for they are the historical and biographical record of +each successive age, written with its own hand, and all the truer for +the inevitable mistakes, and none the less solemn for the occasional +absurdity. Though you entered the Abbey expecting to see the tombs only +of the illustrious, you are content at last to read many names, both in +literature and history, that have now lost the reverence of mankind, if +indeed they ever really possessed it. Let these men rest in peace. Even +if you miss a name or two that you hoped to find there, they may well be +spared. It matters little a few more or less, or whether Westminster +Abbey contains or lacks any one man's grave, so long as the Centuries, +each with the crowd of personages that it deemed memorable, have chosen +it as their place of honored sepulture, and laid themselves down under +its pavement. The inscriptions and devices on the walls are rich with +evidences of the fluctuating tastes, fashions, manners, opinions, +prejudices, follies, wisdoms, of the past, and thus they combine into a +more truthful memorial of their dead times than any individual +epitaph-maker ever meant to write. + +When the services were over, many of the audience seemed inclined to +linger in the nave or wander away among the mysterious aisles; for there +is nothing in this world so fascinating as a Gothic minster, which +always invites you deeper and deeper into its heart both by vast +revelations and shadowy concealments. Through the open-work screen that +divides the nave from the chancel and choir, we could discern the gleam +of a marvelous window, but were debarred from entrance into that more +sacred precinct of the Abbey by the vergers. These vigilant officials +(doing their duty all the more strenuously because no fees could be +exacted from Sunday visitors) flourished their staves, and drove us +towards the grand entrance like a flock of sheep. Lingering through one +of the aisles, I happened to look down, and found my foot upon a stone +inscribed with this familiar exclamation, "_O rare Ben Jonson!_" and +remembered the story of stout old Ben's burial in that spot, standing +upright,--not, I presume, on account of any unseemly reluctance on his +part to lie down in the dust, like other men, but because standing-room +was all that could reasonably be demanded for a poet among the +slumberous notabilities of his age. It made me weary to think of +it!--such a prodigious length of time to keep one's feet!--apart from +the honor of the thing, it would certainly have been better for Ben to +stretch himself at ease in some country churchyard. To this day, +however, I fancy that there is a contemptuous alloy mixed up with the +admiration which the higher classes of English society profess for their +literary men. + +Another day--in truth, many other days--I sought out Poets' Corner, and +found a sign-board and pointed finger directing the visitor to it, on +the corner house of a little lane leading towards the rear of the Abbey. +The entrance is at the southeastern end of the south transept, and it +is used, on ordinary occasions, as the only free mode of access to the +building. It is no spacious arch, but a small, lowly door, passing +through which, and pushing aside an inner screen that partly keeps out +an exceedingly chill wind, you find yourself in a dim nook of the Abbey, +with the busts of poets gazing at you from the otherwise bare stone-work +of the walls. Great poets, too; for Ben Jonson is right behind the door, +and Spenser's tablet is next, and Butler's on the same side of the +transept, and Milton's (whose bust you know at once by its resemblance +to one of his portraits, though older, more wrinkled, and sadder than +that) is close by, and a profile-medallion of Gray beneath it. A window +high aloft sheds down a dusky daylight on these and many other +sculptured marbles, now as yellow as old parchment, that cover the three +walls of the nook up to an elevation of about twenty feet above the +pavement. It seemed to me that I had always been familiar with the spot. +Enjoying a humble intimacy--and how much of my life had else been a +dreary solitude!--with many of its inhabitants, I could not feel myself +a stranger there. It was delightful to be among them. There was a +genial awe, mingled with a sense of kind and friendly presences about +me; and I was glad, moreover, at finding so many of them there together, +in fit companionship, mutually recognized and duly honored, all +reconciled now, whatever distant generations, whatever personal +hostility or other miserable impediment, had divided them far asunder +while they lived. I have never felt a similar interest in any other +tombstones, nor have I ever been deeply moved by the imaginary presence +of other famous dead people. A poet's ghost is the only one that +survives for his fellow-mortals, after his bones are in the dust,--and +he not ghostly, but cherishing many hearts with his own warmth in the +chillest atmosphere of life. What other fame is worth aspiring for? Or, +let me speak it more boldly, what other long-enduring fame can exist? We +neither remember nor care anything for the past, except as the poet has +made it intelligibly noble and sublime to our comprehension. The shades +of the mighty have no substance; they flit ineffectually about the +darkened stage where they performed their momentary parts, save when the +poet has thrown his own creative soul into them, and imparted a more +vivid life than ever they were able to manifest to mankind while they +dwelt in the body. And therefore--though he cunningly disguises himself +in their armor, their robes of state, or kingly purple--it is not the +statesman, the warrior, or the monarch that survives, but the despised +poet, whom they may have fed with their crumbs, and to whom they owe all +that they now are or have,--a name![12] + +[12] _September 30, 1855._ Poets' Corner has never seemed like a strange +place to me; it has been familiar from the very first; at all events, I +cannot now recollect the previous conception, of which the reality has +taken the place. I seem always to have known that somewhat dim corner, +with the bare brown stone-work of the old edifice aloft, and a window +shedding down its light on the marble busts and tablets, yellow with +time, that cover the three walls of the nook up to a height of about +twenty feet. Prior's is the largest and richest monument. It is +observable that the bust and monument of Congreve are in a distant part +of the Abbey. His duchess probably thought it a degradation to bring a +gentleman among the beggarly poets.--II. 153. + +_November 12, 1857._ We found our way to Poets' Corner, however, and +entered those holy precincts, which looked very dusky and grim in the +smoky light.... I was strongly impressed with the perception that very +commonplace people compose the great bulk of society in the home of the +illustrious dead. It is wonderful how few names there are that one cares +anything about a hundred years after their departure; but perhaps each +generation acts in good faith in canonizing its own men.... But the +fame of the buried person does not make the marble live,--the marble +keeps merely a cold and sad memory of a man who would else be forgotten. +No man who needs a monument ever ought to have one.--II. 565. + +[Illustration: _Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey._] + +In the foregoing paragraph I seem to have been betrayed into a flight +above or beyond the customary level that best agrees with me; but it +represents fairly enough the emotions with which I passed from Poets' +Corner into the chapels, which contain the sepulchres of kings and great +people. They are magnificent even now, and must have been inconceivably +so when the marble slabs and pillars wore their new polish, and the +statues retained the brilliant colors with which they were originally +painted, and the shrines their rich gilding, of which the sunlight still +shows a glimmer or a streak, though the sunbeam itself looks tarnished +with antique dust. Yet this recondite portion of the Abbey presents few +memorials of personages whom we care to remember. The shrine of Edward +the Confessor has a certain interest, because it was so long held in +religious reverence, and because the very dust that settled upon it was +formerly worth gold. The helmet and war-saddle of Henry V., worn at +Agincourt, and now suspended above his tomb, are memorable objects, but +more for Shakespeare's sake than the victor's own. Rank has been the +general passport to admission here. Noble and regal dust is as cheap as +dirt under the pavement. I am glad to recollect, indeed (and it is too +characteristic of the right English spirit not to be mentioned), one or +two gigantic statues of great mechanicians, who contributed largely to +the material welfare of England, sitting familiarly in their marble +chairs among forgotten kings and queens. Otherwise, the quaintness of +the earlier monuments, and the antique beauty of some of them, are what +chiefly gives them value. Nevertheless, Addison is buried among the men +of rank; not on the plea of his literary fame, however, but because he +was connected with nobility by marriage, and had been a Secretary of +State. His gravestone is inscribed with a resounding verse from +Tickell's lines to his memory, the only lines by which Tickell himself +is now remembered, and which (as I discovered a little while ago) he +mainly filched from an obscure versifier of somewhat earlier date. + +Returning to Poets' Corner, I looked again at the walls, and wondered +how the requisite hospitality can be shown to poets of our own and the +succeeding ages. There is hardly a foot of space left, although room has +lately been found for a bust of Southey and a full-length statue of +Campbell. At best, only a little portion of the Abbey is dedicated to +poets, literary men, musical composers, and others of the gentle artist +breed, and even into that small nook of sanctity men of other pursuits +have thought it decent to intrude themselves. Methinks the tuneful +throng, being at home here, should recollect how they were treated in +their lifetime, and turn the cold shoulder, looking askance at nobles +and official personages, however worthy of honorable interment +elsewhere. Yet it shows aptly and truly enough what portion of the +world's regard and honor has heretofore been awarded to literary +eminence in comparison with other modes of greatness,--this dimly +lighted corner (nor even that quietly to themselves) in the vast minster +the walls of which are sheathed and hidden under marble that has been +wasted upon the illustrious obscure. Nevertheless, it may not be worth +while to quarrel with the world on this account; for, to confess the +very truth, their own little nook contains more than one poet whose +memory is kept alive by his monument, instead of imbuing the senseless +stone with a spiritual immortality,--men of whom you do not ask, "Where +is he?" but, "Why is he here?" I estimate that all the literary people +who really make an essential part of one's inner life, including the +period since English literature first existed, might have ample +elbow-room to sit down and quaff their draughts of Castaly round +Chaucer's broad, horizontal tombstone. These divinest poets consecrate +the spot, and throw a reflected glory over the humblest of their +companions. And as for the latter, it is to be hoped that they may have +long outgrown the characteristic jealousies and morbid sensibilities of +their craft, and have found out the little value (probably not amounting +to sixpence in immortal currency) of the posthumous renown which they +once aspired to win. It would be a poor compliment to a dead poet to +fancy him leaning out of the sky and snuffing up the impure breath of +earthly praise. + +Yet we cannot easily rid ourselves of the notion that those who have +bequeathed us the inheritance of an undying song would fain be +conscious of its endless reverberations in the hearts of mankind, and +would delight, among sublimer enjoyments, to see their names emblazoned +in such a treasure-place of great memories as Westminster Abbey. There +are some men, at all events,--true and tender poets, moreover, and fully +deserving of the honor,--whose spirits, I feel certain, would linger a +little while about Poets' Corner, for the sake of witnessing their own +apotheosis among their kindred. They have had a strong natural yearning, +not so much for applause as sympathy, which the cold fortune of their +lifetime did but scantily supply; so that this unsatisfied appetite may +make itself felt upon sensibilities at once so delicate and retentive, +even a step or two beyond the grave. Leigh Hunt, for example, would be +pleased, even now, if he could learn that his bust had been reposited in +the midst of the old poets whom he admired and loved; though there is +hardly a man among the authors of to-day and yesterday whom the judgment +of Englishmen would be less likely to place there. He deserves it, +however, if not for his verse (the value of which I do not estimate, +never having been able to read it), yet for his delightful prose, his +unmeasured poetry, the inscrutable happiness of his touch, working soft +miracles by a life-process like the growth of grass and flowers. As with +all such gentle writers, his page sometimes betrayed a vestige of +affectation, but, the next moment, a rich, natural luxuriance overgrew +and buried it out of sight. I knew him a little, and (since, Heaven be +praised, few English celebrities whom I chanced to meet have +enfranchised my pen by their decease, and as I assume no liberties with +living men) I will conclude this rambling article by sketching my first +interview with Leigh Hunt. + +He was then at Hammersmith, occupying a very plain and shabby little +house, in a contiguous range of others like it, with no prospect but +that of an ugly village street, and certainly nothing to gratify his +craving for a tasteful environment, inside or out. A slatternly +maid-servant opened the door for us, and he himself stood in the entry, +a beautiful and venerable old man, buttoned to the chin in a black +dress-coat, tall and slender, with a countenance quietly alive all over, +and the gentlest and most naturally courteous manner. He ushered us into +his little study, or parlor, or both,--a very forlorn room, with poor +paper-hangings and carpet, few books, no pictures that I remember, and +an awful lack of upholstery. I touch distinctly upon these external +blemishes and this nudity of adornment, not that they would be worth +mentioning in a sketch of other remarkable persons, but because Leigh +Hunt was born with such a faculty of enjoying all beautiful things that +it seemed as if Fortune did him as much wrong in not supplying them as +in withholding a sufficiency of vital breath from ordinary men. All +kinds of mild magnificence, tempered by his taste, would have become him +well; but he had not the grim dignity that assumes nakedness as the +better robe. + +I have said that he was a beautiful old man. In truth, I never saw a +finer countenance, either as to the mould of features or the expression, +nor any that showed the play of feeling so perfectly without the +slightest theatrical emphasis. It was like a child's face in this +respect. At my first glimpse of him, when he met us in the entry, I +discerned that he was old, his long hair being white and his wrinkles +many; it was an aged visage, in short, such as I had not at all expected +to see, in spite of dates, because his books talk to the reader with +the tender vivacity of youth. But when he began to speak, and as he grew +more earnest in conversation, I ceased to be sensible of his age; +sometimes, indeed, its dusky shadow darkened through the gleam which his +sprightly thoughts diffused about his face, but then another flash of +youth came out of his eyes and made an illumination again. I never +witnessed such a wonderfully illusive transformation, before or since; +and, to this day, trusting only to my recollection, I should find it +difficult to decide which was his genuine and stable predicament,--youth +or age. I have met no Englishman whose manners seemed to me so +agreeable, soft, rather than polished, wholly unconventional, the +natural growth of a kindly and sensitive disposition without any +reference to rule, or else obedient to some rule so subtile that the +nicest observer could not detect the application of it. + +His eyes were dark and very fine, and his delightful voice accompanied +their visible language like music. He appeared to be exceedingly +appreciative of whatever was passing among those who surrounded him, and +especially of the vicissitudes in the consciousness of the person to +whom he happened to be addressing himself at the moment. I felt that no +effect upon my mind of what he uttered, no emotion, however transitory, +in myself, escaped his notice, though not from any positive vigilance on +his part, but because his faculty of observation was so penetrative and +delicate; and to say the truth, it a little confused me to discern +always a ripple on his mobile face, responsive to any slightest breeze +that passed over the inner reservoir of my sentiments, and seemed thence +to extend to a similar reservoir within himself. On matters of feeling, +and within a certain depth, you might spare yourself the trouble of +utterance, because he already knew what you wanted to say, and perhaps a +little more than you would have spoken. His figure was full of gentle +movement, though, somehow, without disturbing its quietude; and as he +talked, he kept folding his hands nervously, and betokened in many ways +a fine and immediate sensibility, quick to feel pleasure or pain, though +scarcely capable, I should imagine, of a passionate experience in either +direction. There was not an English trait in him from head to foot, +morally, intellectually, or physically. Beef, ale, or stout, brandy or +port-wine, entered not at all into his composition. In his earlier life, +he appears to have given evidences of courage and sturdy principle, and +of a tendency to fling himself into the rough struggle of humanity on +the liberal side. It would be taking too much upon myself to affirm that +this was merely a projection of his fancy world into the actual, and +that he never could have hit a downright blow, and was altogether an +unsuitable person to receive one. I beheld him not in his armor, but in +his peacefulest robes. Nevertheless, drawing my conclusion merely from +what I saw, it would have occurred to me that his main deficiency was a +lack of grit. Though anything but a timid man, the combative and +defensive elements were not prominently developed in his character, and +could have been made available only when he put an unnatural force upon +his instincts. It was on this account, and also because of the fineness +of his nature generally, that the English appreciated him no better, and +left this sweet and delicate poet poor, and with scanty laurels, in his +declining age. + +It was not, I think, from his American blood that Leigh Hunt derived +either his amiability or his peaceful inclinations; at least, I do not +see how we can reasonably claim the former quality as a national +characteristic, though the latter might have been fairly inherited from +his ancestors on the mother's side, who were Pennsylvania Quakers. But +the kind of excellence that distinguished him--his fineness, subtilty, +and grace--was that which the richest cultivation has heretofore tended +to develop in the happier examples of American genius, and which (though +I say it a little reluctantly) is perhaps what our future intellectual +advancement may make general among us. His person, at all events, was +thoroughly American, and of the best type, as were likewise his manners; +for we are the best as well as the worst mannered people in the world. + +Leigh Hunt loved dearly to be praised. That is to say, he desired +sympathy as a flower seeks sunshine, and perhaps profited by it as much +in the richer depth of coloring that it imparted to his ideas. In +response to all that we ventured to express about his writings (and, for +my part, I went quite to the extent of my conscience, which was a long +way, and there left the matter to a lady and a young girl, who happily +were with me), his face shone, and he manifested great delight, with a +perfect, and yet delicate, frankness, for which I loved him. He could +not tell us, he said, the happiness that such appreciation gave him; it +always took him by surprise, he remarked, for--perhaps because he +cleaned his own boots, and performed other little ordinary offices for +himself--he never had been conscious of anything wonderful in his own +person. And then he smiled, making himself and all the poor little +parlor about him beautiful thereby. It is usually the hardest thing in +the world to praise a man to his face; but Leigh Hunt received the +incense with such gracious satisfaction (feeling it to be sympathy, not +vulgar praise), that the only difficulty was to keep the enthusiasm of +the moment within the limit of permanent opinion. A storm had suddenly +come up while we were talking; the rain poured, the lightning flashed, +and the thunder broke; but I hope, and have great pleasure in believing, +that it was a sunny hour for Leigh Hunt. Nevertheless, it was not to my +voice that he most favorably inclined his ear, but to those of my +companions. Women are the fit ministers at such a shrine. + +He must have suffered keenly in his lifetime, and enjoyed keenly, +keeping his emotions so much upon the surface as he seemed to do, and +convenient for everybody to play upon. Being of a cheerful temperament, +happiness had probably the upper-hand. His was a light, mildly joyous +nature, gentle, graceful, yet seldom attaining to that deepest grace +which results from power; for beauty, like woman, its human +representative, dallies with the gentle, but yields its consummate favor +only to the strong. I imagine that Leigh Hunt may have been more +beautiful when I met him, both in person and character, than in his +earlier days. As a young man, I could conceive of his being finical in +certain moods, but not now, when the gravity of age shed a venerable +grace about him. I rejoiced to hear him say that he was favored with +most confident and cheering anticipations in respect to a future life; +and there were abundant proofs, throughout our interview, of an +unrepining spirit, resignation, quiet relinquishment of the worldly +benefits that were denied him, thankful enjoyment of whatever he had to +enjoy, and piety, and hope shining onward into the dusk,--all of which +gave a reverential cast to the feeling with which we parted from him. I +wish that he could have had one full draught of prosperity before he +died. As a matter of artistic propriety, it would have been delightful +to see him inhabiting a beautiful house of his own, in an Italian +climate, with all sorts of elaborate upholstery and minute elegances +about him, and a succession of tender and lovely women to praise his +sweet poetry from morning to night. I hardly know whether it is my +fault, or the effect of a weakness in Leigh Hunt's character, that I +should be sensible of a regret of this nature, when, at the same time, I +sincerely believe that he has found an infinity of better things in the +world whither he has gone. + +At our leave-taking he grasped me warmly by both hands, and seemed as +much interested in our whole party as if he had known us for years. All +this was genuine feeling, a quick, luxuriant growth out of his heart, +which was a soil for flower-seeds of rich and rare varieties, not +acorns, but a true heart, nevertheless. Several years afterwards I met +him for the last time at a London dinner-party, looking sadly broken +down by infirmities; and my final recollection of the beautiful old man +presents him arm in arm with, nay, if I mistake not, partly embraced and +supported by, another beloved and honored poet, whose minstrel-name, +since he has a week-day one for his personal occasions, I will venture +to speak. It was Barry Cornwall, whose kind introduction had first made +me known to Leigh Hunt.[13] + +[13] Barry Cornwall, Mr. Procter, called on me a week or more ago, but I +happened not to be in the office. Saturday last he called again, and as +I had crossed to Rock Park he followed me thither. A plain, +middle-sized, English-looking gentleman, elderly, with short white hair, +and particularly quiet in his manners. He talks in a somewhat low tone +without emphasis, scarcely distinct.... His head has a good outline, and +would look well in marble. I liked him very well. He talked +unaffectedly, showing an author's regard to his reputation, and was +evidently pleased to hear of his American celebrity. He said that in his +younger days he was a scientific pugilist, and once took a journey to +have a sparring encounter with the Game-Chicken. Certainly no one would +have looked for a pugilist in this subdued old gentleman. He is now +Commissioner of Lunacy, and makes periodical circuits through the +country, attending to the business of his office. He is slightly deaf, +and this may be the cause of his unaccented utterance,--owing to his not +being able to regulate his voice exactly by his own ear.... He is a good +man, and much better expressed by his real name, Procter, than by his +poetical one, Barry Cornwall.... He took my hand in both of his at +parting....--I. 498. + + + + +XI. + +OUTSIDE GLIMPSES OF ENGLISH POVERTY + + +Becoming an inhabitant of a great English town, I often turned aside +from the prosperous thoroughfares (where the edifices, the shops, and +the bustling crowd differed not so much from scenes with which I was +familiar in my own country), and went designedly astray among precincts +that reminded me of some of Dickens's grimiest pages. There I caught +glimpses of a people and a mode of life that were comparatively new to +my observation, a sort of sombre phantasmagoric spectacle, exceedingly +undelightful to behold, yet involving a singular interest and even +fascination in its ugliness. + +Dirt, one would fancy, is plenty enough all over the world, being the +symbolic accompaniment of the foul incrustation which began to settle +over and bedim all earthly things as soon as Eve had bitten the apple; +ever since which hapless epoch, her daughters have chiefly been engaged +in a desperate and unavailing struggle to get rid of it. But the dirt of +a poverty-stricken English street is a monstrosity unknown on our side +of the Atlantic. It reigns supreme within its own limits, and is +inconceivable everywhere beyond them. We enjoy the great advantage, that +the brightness and dryness of our atmosphere keep everything clean that +the sun shines upon, converting the larger portion of our impurities +into transitory dust which the next wind can sweep away, in contrast +with the damp, adhesive grime that incorporates itself with all surfaces +(unless continually and painfully cleansed) in the chill moisture of the +English air. Then the all-pervading smoke of the city, abundantly +intermingled with the sable snow-flakes of bituminous coal, hovering +overhead, descending, and alighting on pavements and rich architectural +fronts, on the snowy muslin of the ladies, and the gentlemen's starched +collars and shirt-bosoms, invests even the better streets in a +half-mourning garb. It is beyond the resources of Wealth to keep the +smut away from its premises or its own fingers' ends; and as for +Poverty, it surrenders itself to the dark influence without a struggle. +Along with disastrous circumstances, pinching need, adversity so +lengthened out as to constitute the rule of life, there comes a certain +chill depression of the spirits which seems especially to shudder at +cold water. In view of so wretched a state of things, we accept the +ancient Deluge not merely as an insulated phenomenon, but as a +periodical necessity, and acknowledge that nothing less than such a +general washing-day could suffice to cleanse the slovenly old world of +its moral and material dirt. + +Gin-shops, or what the English call spirit-vaults, are numerous in the +vicinity of these poor streets, and are set off with the magnificence of +gilded door-posts, tarnished by contact with the unclean customers who +haunt there. Ragged children come thither with old shaving-mugs, or +broken-nosed teapots, or any such make-shift receptacle, to get a little +poison or madness for their parents, who deserve no better requital at +their hands for having engendered them. Inconceivably sluttish women +enter at noonday and stand at the counter among boon-companions of both +sexes, stirring up misery and jollity in a bumper together, and quaffing +off the mixture with a relish. As for the men, they lounge there +continually, drinking till they are drunken,--drinking as long as they +have a halfpenny left,--and then, as it seemed to me, waiting for a +sixpenny miracle to be wrought in their pockets so as to enable them to +be drunken again. Most of these establishments have a significant +advertisement of "Beds," doubtless for the accommodation of their +customers in the interval between one intoxication and the next. I never +could find it in my heart, however, utterly to condemn these sad +revelers, and should certainly wait till I had some better consolation +to offer before depriving them of their dram of gin, though death itself +were in the glass; for methought their poor souls needed such fiery +stimulant to lift them a little way out of the smothering squalor of +both their outward and interior life, giving them glimpses and +suggestions, even if bewildering ones, of a spiritual existence that +limited their present misery. The temperance-reformers unquestionably +derive their commission from the Divine Beneficence, but have never been +taken fully into its counsels. All may not be lost, though those good +men fail. + +Pawnbrokers' establishments--distinguished by the mystic symbol of the +three golden balls,--were conveniently accessible; though what personal +property these wretched people could possess, capable of being estimated +in silver or copper, so as to afford a basis for a loan, was a problem +that still perplexes me. Old clothesmen, likewise, dwelt hard by, and +hung out ancient garments to dangle in the wind. There were butchers' +shops, too, of a class adapted to the neighborhood, presenting no such +generously fattened carcasses as Englishmen love to gaze at in the +market, no stupendous halves of mighty beeves, no dead hogs, or muttons +ornamented with carved bas-reliefs of fat on their ribs and shoulders, +in a peculiarly British style of art,--not these, but bits and gobbets +of lean meat, selvages snipt off from steaks, tough and stringy morsels, +bare bones smitten away from joints by the cleaver; tripe, liver, +bullocks' feet, or whatever else was cheapest and divisible into the +smallest lots. I am afraid that even such delicacies came to many of +their tables hardly oftener than Christmas. In the windows of other +little shops you saw half a dozen wizened herrings; some eggs in a +basket, looking so dingily antique that your imagination smelt them; +fly-speckled biscuits, segments of a hungry cheese, pipes and papers of +tobacco. Now and then a sturdy milk-woman passed by with a wooden yoke +over her shoulders, supporting a pail on either side, filled with a +whitish fluid, the composition of which was water and chalk and the milk +of a sickly cow, who gave the best she had, poor thing! but could +scarcely make it rich or wholesome, spending her life in some close +city-nook and pasturing on strange food. I have seen, once or twice, a +donkey coming into one of these streets with panniers full of +vegetables, and departing with a return cargo of what looked like +rubbish and street-sweepings. No other commerce seemed to exist, except, +possibly, a girl might offer you a pair of stockings or a worked collar, +or a man whisper something mysterious about wonderfully cheap cigars. +And yet I remember seeing female hucksters in those regions, with their +wares on the edge of the sidewalk and their own seats right in the +carriage-way, pretending to sell half-decayed oranges and apples, toffy, +Ormskirk cakes, combs, and cheap jewelry, the coarsest kind of crockery, +and little plates of oysters,--knitting patiently all day long, and +removing their undiminished stock in trade at nightfall. All +indispensable importations from other quarters of the town were on a +remarkably diminutive scale: for example, the wealthier inhabitants +purchased their coal by the wheelbarrow-load, and the poorer ones by the +peck-measure. It was a curious and melancholy spectacle, when an +overladen coal-cart happened to pass through the street and drop a +handful or two of its burden in the mud, to see half a dozen women and +children scrambling for the treasure-trove, like a flock of hens and +chickens gobbling up some spilt corn. In this connection I may as well +mention a commodity of boiled snails (for such they appeared to me, +though probably a marine production) which used to be peddled from door +to door, piping hot, as an article of cheap nutriment. + +The population of these dismal abodes appeared to consider the sidewalks +and middle of the street as their common hall. In a drama of low life, +the unity of place might be arranged rigidly according to the classic +rule, and the street be the one locality in which every scene and +incident should occur. Courtship, quarrels, plot and counterplot, +conspiracies for robbery and murder, family difficulties or +agreements,--all such matters, I doubt not, are constantly discussed or +transacted in this sky-roofed saloon, so regally hung with its sombre +canopy of coal-smoke. Whatever the disadvantages of the English climate, +the only comfortable or wholesome part of life, for the city poor, must +be spent in the open air. The stifled and squalid rooms where they lie +down at night, whole families and neighborhoods together, or sulkily +elbow one another in the daytime, when a settled rain drives them within +doors, are worse horrors than it is worth while (without a practical +object in view) to admit into one's imagination. No wonder that they +creep forth from the foul mystery of their interiors, stumble down from +their garrets, or scramble up out of their cellars, on the upper step of +which you may see the grimy housewife, before the shower is ended, +letting the raindrops gutter down her visage; while her children (an +impish progeny of cavernous recesses below the common sphere of +humanity) swarm into the daylight and attain all that they know of +personal purification in the nearest mud-puddle. It might almost make a +man doubt the existence of his own soul, to observe how Nature has +flung these little wretches into the street and left them there, so +evidently regarding them as nothing worth, and how all mankind acquiesce +in the great mother's estimate of her offspring. For, if they are to +have no immortality, what superior claim can I assert for mine? And how +difficult to believe that anything so precious as a germ of immortal +growth can have been buried under this dirt-heap, plunged into this +cesspool of misery and vice! As often as I beheld the scene, it affected +me with surprise and loathsome interest, much resembling, though in a +far intenser degree, the feeling with which, when a boy, I used to turn +over a plank or an old log that had long lain on the damp ground, and +found a vivacious multitude of unclean and devilish-looking insects +scampering to and fro beneath it. Without an infinite faith, there +seemed as much prospect of a blessed futurity for those hideous bugs and +many-footed worms as for these brethren of our humanity and co-heirs of +all our heavenly inheritance. Ah, what a mystery! Slowly, slowly, as +after groping at the bottom of a deep, noisome, stagnant pool, my hope +struggles upward to the surface, bearing the half-drowned body of a +child along with it, and heaving it aloft for its life, and my own life, +and all our lives. Unless these slime-clogged nostrils can be made +capable of inhaling celestial air, I know not how the purest and most +intellectual of us can reasonably expect ever to taste a breath of it. +The whole question of eternity is staked there. If a single one of those +helpless little ones be lost, the world is lost! + +The women and children greatly preponderate in such places; the men +probably wandering abroad in quest of that daily miracle, a dinner and a +drink, or perhaps slumbering in the daylight that they may the better +follow out their cat-like rambles through the dark. Here are women with +young figures, but old, wrinkled, yellow faces, tanned and blear-eyed +with the smoke which they cannot spare from their scanty fires,--it +being too precious for its warmth to be swallowed by the chimney. Some +of them sit on the doorsteps, nursing their unwashed babies at bosoms +which we will glance aside from, for the sake of our mothers and all +womanhood, because the fairest spectacle is here the foulest. Yet +motherhood, in these dark abodes, is strangely identical with what we +have all known it to be in the happiest homes. Nothing, as I remember, +smote me with more grief and pity (all the more poignant because +perplexingly entangled with an inclination to smile) than to hear a +gaunt and ragged mother priding herself on the pretty ways of her ragged +and skinny infant, just as a young matron might, when she invites her +lady friends to admire her plump, white-robed darling in the nursery. +Indeed, no womanly characteristic seemed to have altogether perished out +of these poor souls. It was the very same creature whose tender torments +make the rapture of our young days, whom we love, cherish, and protect, +and rely upon in life and death, and whom we delight to see beautify her +beauty with rich robes and set it off with jewels, though now +fantastically masquerading in a garb of tatters, wholly unfit for her to +handle. I recognized her, over and over again, in the groups round a +doorstep or in the descent of a cellar, chatting with prodigious +earnestness about intangible trifles, laughing for a little jest, +sympathizing at almost the same instant with one neighbor's sunshine and +another's shadow; wise, simple, sly, and patient, yet easily perturbed, +and breaking into small feminine ebullitions of spite, wrath, and +jealousy, tornadoes of a moment, such as vary the social atmosphere of +her silken-skirted sisters, though smothered into propriety by dint of a +well-bred habit. Not that there was an absolute deficiency of +good-breeding, even here. It often surprised me to witness a courtesy +and deference among these ragged folks, which, having seen it, I did not +thoroughly believe in, wondering whence it should have come. I am +persuaded, however, that there were laws of intercourse which they never +violated,--a code of the cellar, the garret, the common staircase, the +doorstep, and the pavement, which, perhaps, had as deep a foundation in +natural fitness as the code of the drawing-room. + +Yet again I doubt whether I may not have been uttering folly in the last +two sentences, when I reflect how rude and rough these specimens of +feminine character generally were. They had a readiness with their hands +that reminded me of Molly Seagrim and other heroines in Fielding's +novels. For example, I have seen a woman meet a man in the street, and, +for no reason perceptible to me, suddenly clutch him by the hair and +cuff his ears,--an infliction which he bore with exemplary patience, +only snatching the very earliest opportunity to take to his heels. Where +a sharp tongue will not serve the purpose, they trust to the sharpness +of their finger-nails, or incarnate a whole vocabulary of vituperative +words in a resounding slap, or the downright blow of a doubled fist. All +English people, I imagine, are influenced in a far greater degree than +ourselves by this simple and honest tendency, in cases of disagreement, +to batter one another's persons; and whoever has seen a crowd of English +ladies (for instance, at the door of the Sistine Chapel, in Holy Week) +will be satisfied that their belligerent propensities are kept in +abeyance only by a merciless rigor on the part of society. It requires a +vast deal of refinement to spiritualize their large physical endowments. +Such being the case with the delicate ornaments of the drawing-room, it +is less to be wondered at that women who live mostly in the open air, +amid the coarsest kind of companionship and occupation, should carry on +the intercourse of life with a freedom unknown to any class of American +females, though still, I am resolved to think, compatible with a +generous breadth of natural propriety. It shocked me, at first, to see +them (of all ages, even elderly, as well as infants that could just +toddle across the street alone) going about in the mud and mire, or +through the dusky snow and slosh of a severe week in winter, with +petticoats high uplifted above bare, red feet and legs; but I was +comforted by observing that both shoes and stockings generally +reappeared with better weather, having been thriftily kept out of the +damp for the convenience of dry feet within doors. Their hardihood was +wonderful, and their strength greater than could have been expected from +such spare diet as they probably lived upon. I have seen them carrying +on their heads great burdens under which they walked as freely as if +they were fashionable bonnets; or sometimes the burden was huge enough +almost to cover the whole person, looked at from behind,--as in Tuscan +villages you may see the girls coming in from the country with great +bundles of green twigs upon their backs, so that they resemble +locomotive masses of verdure and fragrance. But these poor English women +seemed to be laden with rubbish, incongruous and indescribable, such as +bones and rags, the sweepings of the house and of the street, a +merchandise gathered up from what poverty itself had thrown away, a heap +of filthy stuff analogous to Christian's bundle of sin. + +Sometimes, though very seldom, I detected a certain gracefulness among +the younger women that was altogether new to my observation. It was a +charm proper to the lowest class. One girl I particularly remember, in a +garb none of the cleanest and nowise smart, and herself exceedingly +coarse in all respects, but yet endowed with a sort of witchery, a +native charm, a robe of simple beauty and suitable behavior that she was +born in and had never been tempted to throw off, because she had really +nothing else to put on. Eve herself could not have been more natural. +Nothing was affected, nothing imitated; no proper grace was vulgarized +by an effort to assume the manners or adornments of another sphere. This +kind of beauty, arrayed in a fitness of its own, is probably vanishing +out of the world, and will certainly never be found in America, where +all the girls, whether daughters of the upper-tendom, the mediocrity, +the cottage, or the kennel, aim at one standard of dress and +deportment, seldom accomplishing a perfectly triumphant hit or an +utterly absurd failure. Those words, "genteel" and "ladylike," are +terrible ones, and do us infinite mischief, but it is because (at least, +I hope so) we are in a transition state, and shall emerge into a higher +mode of simplicity than has ever been known to past ages. + +In such disastrous circumstances as I have been attempting to describe, +it was beautiful to observe what a mysterious efficacy still asserted +itself in character. A woman, evidently poor as the poorest of her +neighbors, would be knitting or sewing on the doorstep, just as fifty +other women were; but round about her skirts (though wofully patched) +you would be sensible of a certain sphere of decency, which, it seemed +to me, could not have been kept more impregnable in the cosiest little +sitting-room, where the teakettle on the hob was humming its good old +song of domestic peace. Maidenhood had a similar power. The evil habit +that grows upon us in this harsh world makes me faithless to my own +better perceptions; and yet I have seen girls in these wretched streets, +on whose virgin purity, judging merely from their impression on my +instincts as they passed by, I should have deemed it safe, at the +moment, to stake my life. The next moment, however, as the surrounding +flood of moral uncleanness surged over their footsteps, I would not have +staked a spike of thistle-down on the same wager. Yet the miracle was +within the scope of Providence, which is equally wise and equally +beneficent (even to those poor girls, though I acknowledge the fact +without the remotest comprehension of the mode of it), whether they were +pure or what we fellow-sinners call vile. Unless your faith be +deep-rooted and of most vigorous growth, it is the safer way not to turn +aside into this region so suggestive of miserable doubt. It was a place +"with dreadful faces thronged," wrinkled and grim with vice and +wretchedness; and, thinking over the line of Milton here quoted, I come +to the conclusion that those ugly lineaments which startled Adam and +Eve, as they looked backward to the closed gate of Paradise, were no +fiends from the pit, but the more terrible fore-shadowings of what so +many of their descendants were to be. God help them, and us likewise, +their brethren and sisters! Let me add, that, forlorn, ragged, careworn, +hopeless, dirty, haggard, hungry, as they were, the most pitiful thing +of all was to see the sort of patience with which they accepted their +lot, as if they had been born into the world for that and nothing else. +Even the little children had this characteristic in as perfect +development as their grandmothers. + +The children, in truth, were the ill-omened blossoms from which another +harvest of precisely such dark fruitage as I saw ripened around me was +to be produced. Of course you would imagine these to be lumps of crude +iniquity, tiny vessels as full as they could hold of naughtiness; nor +can I say a great deal to the contrary. Small proof of parental +discipline could I discern, save when a mother (drunken, I sincerely +hope) snatched her own imp out of a group of pale, half-naked, +humor-eaten abortions that were playing and squabbling together in the +mud, turned up its tatters, brought down her heavy hand on its poor +little tenderest part, and let it go again with a shake. If the child +knew what the punishment was for, it was wiser than I pretend to be. It +yelled and went back to its playmates in the mud. Yet let me bear +testimony to what was beautiful, and more touching than anything that I +ever witnessed before in the intercourse of happier children. I allude +to the superintendence which some of these small people (too small, one +would think, to be sent into the street alone, had there been any other +nursery for them) exercised over still smaller ones. Whence they derived +such a sense of duty, unless immediately from God, I cannot tell; but it +was wonderful to observe the expression of responsibility in their +deportment, the anxious fidelity with which they discharged their unfit +office, the tender patience with which they linked their less pliable +impulses to the wayward footsteps of an infant, and let it guide them +whithersoever it liked. In the hollow-cheeked, large-eyed girl of ten, +whom I saw giving a cheerless oversight to her baby-brother, I did not +so much marvel at it. She had merely come a little earlier than usual to +the perception of what was to be her business in life. But I admired the +sickly-looking little boy, who did violence to his boyish nature by +making himself the servant of his little sister,--she too small to walk, +and he too small to take her in his arms,--and therefore working a kind +of miracle to transport her from one dirt-heap to another. Beholding +such works of love and duty, I took heart again, and deemed it not so +impossible, after all, for these neglected children to find a path +through the squalor and evil of their circumstances up to the gate of +heaven. Perhaps there was this latent good in all of them, though +generally they looked brutish, and dull even in their sports; there was +little mirth among them, nor even a fully awakened spirit of +blackguardism. Yet sometimes, again, I saw, with surprise and a sense as +if I had been asleep and dreaming, the bright, intelligent, merry face +of a child whose dark eyes gleamed with vivacious expression through the +dirt that incrusted its skin, like sunshine struggling through a very +dusty window-pane. + +In these streets the belted and blue-coated policeman appears seldom in +comparison with the frequency of his occurrence in more reputable +thoroughfares. I used to think that the inhabitants would have ample +time to murder one another, or any stranger, like myself, who might +violate the filthy sanctities of the place, before the law could bring +up its lumbering assistance. Nevertheless, there is a supervision; nor +does the watchfulness of authority permit the populace to be tempted to +any outbreak. Once, in a time of dearth, I noticed a ballad-singer going +through the street hoarsely chanting some discordant strain in a +provincial dialect, of which I could only make out that it addressed the +sensibilities of the auditors on the score of starvation; but by his +side stalked the policeman, offering no interference, but watchful to +hear what this rough minstrel said or sang, and silence him, if his +effusion threatened to prove too soul-stirring. In my judgment, however, +there is little or no danger of that kind: they starve patiently, sicken +patiently, die patiently, not through resignation, but a diseased +flaccidity of hope. If ever they should do mischief to those above them, +it will probably be by the communication of some destructive pestilence; +for, so the medical men affirm, they suffer all the ordinary diseases +with a degree of virulence elsewhere unknown, and keep among themselves +traditionary plagues that have long ceased to afflict more fortunate +societies. Charity herself gathers her robe about her to avoid their +contact. It would be a dire revenge, indeed, if they were to prove their +claims to be reckoned of one blood and nature with the noblest and +wealthiest, by compelling them to inhale death through the diffusion of +their own poverty-poisoned atmosphere. + +A true Englishman is a kind man at heart, but has an unconquerable +dislike to poverty and beggary. Beggars have heretofore been so strange +to an American that he is apt to become their prey, being recognized +through his national peculiarities, and beset by them in the streets. +The English smile at him, and say that there are ample public +arrangements for every pauper's possible need, that street charity +promotes idleness and vice, and that yonder personification of misery on +the pavement will lay up a good day's profit, besides supping more +luxuriously than the dupe who gives him a shilling. By and by the +stranger adopts their theory and begins to practice upon it, much to his +own temporary freedom from annoyance, but not entirely without moral +detriment or sometimes a too late contrition. Years afterwards, it may +be, his memory is still haunted by some vindictive wretch whose cheeks +were pale and hunger-pinched, whose rags fluttered in the east-wind, +whose right arm was paralyzed and his left leg shriveled into a mere +nerveless stick, but whom he passed by remorselessly because an +Englishman chose to say that the fellow's misery looked too perfect, was +too artistically got up, to be genuine. Even allowing this to be true +(as, a hundred chances to one, it was), it would still have been a clear +case of economy to buy him off with a little loose silver, so that his +lamentable figure should not limp at the heels of your conscience all +over the world.[14] To own the truth, I provided myself with several +such imaginary persecutors in England, and recruited their number with +at least one sickly-looking wretch whose acquaintance I first made at +Assisi, in Italy, and, taking a dislike to something sinister in his +aspect, permitted him to beg early and late, and all day long, without +getting a single baiocco. At my latest glimpse of him, the villain +avenged himself, not by a volley of horrible curses as any other Italian +beggar would, but by taking an expression so grief-stricken, want-wrung, +hopeless, and withal resigned, that I could paint his lifelike portrait +at this moment. Were I to go over the same ground again, I would listen +to no man's theories, but buy the little luxury of beneficence at a +cheap rate, instead of doing myself a moral mischief by exuding a stony +incrustation over whatever natural sensibility I might possess. + +[14] The natural man cries out against the philosophy that rejects +beggars. It is a thousand to one that they are impostors, but yet we do +ourselves a wrong by hardening our hearts against them.--II. 152. + +On the other hand, there were some mendicants whose utmost efforts I +even now felicitate myself on having withstood. Such was a phenomenon +abridged of his lower half, who beset me for two or three years +together, and, in spite of his deficiency of locomotive members, had +some supernatural method of transporting himself (simultaneously, I +believe) to all quarters of the city. He wore a sailor's jacket +(possibly, because skirts would have been a superfluity to his figure), +and had a remarkably broad-shouldered and muscular frame, surmounted by +a large, fresh-colored face, which was full of power and intelligence. +His dress and linen were the perfection of neatness. Once a day, at +least, wherever I went, I suddenly became aware of this trunk of a man +on the path before me, resting on his base, and looking as if he had +just sprouted out of the pavement, and would sink into it again and +reappear at some other spot the instant you left him behind. The +expression of his eye was perfectly respectful, but terribly fixed, +holding your own as by fascination, never once winking, never wavering +from its point-blank gaze right into your face, till you were completely +beyond the range of his battery of one immense rifled cannon. This was +his mode of soliciting alms; and he reminded me of the old beggar who +appealed so touchingly to the charitable sympathies of Gil Blas, taking +aim at him from the roadside with a long-barreled musket. The intentness +and directness of his silent appeal, his close and unrelenting attack +upon your individuality, respectful as it seemed, was the very flower of +insolence; or, if you give it a possibly truer interpretation, it was +the tyrannical effort of a man endowed with great natural force of +character to constrain your reluctant will to his purpose. Apparently, +he had staked his salvation upon the ultimate success of a daily +struggle between himself and me, the triumph of which would compel me to +become a tributary to the hat that lay on the pavement beside him. Man +or fiend, however, there was a stubbornness in his intended victim which +this massive fragment of a mighty personality had not altogether +reckoned upon, and by its aid I was enabled to pass him at my customary +pace hundreds of times over, quietly meeting his terribly respectful +eye, and allowing him the fair chance which I felt to be his due, to +subjugate me, if he really had the strength for it. He never succeeded, +but, on the other hand, never gave up the contest; and should I ever +walk those streets again, I am certain that the truncated tyrant will +sprout up through the pavement and look me fixedly in the eye, and +perhaps get the victory.[15] + +[15] Among the beggars of Liverpool, the hardest to encounter is a man +without any legs, and if I mistake not, likewise deficient in arms. You +see him before you all at once, as if he had sprouted half-way out of +the earth, and would sink down and reappear in some other place the +moment he has done with you. His countenance is large, fresh, and very +intelligent; but his great power lies in his fixed gaze, which is +inconceivably difficult to bear. He never once removes his eye from you +till you are quite past his range; and you feel it all the same, +although you do not meet his glance. He is perfectly respectful; but the +intentness and directness of his silent appeal is far worse than any +impudence. In fact, it is the very flower of impudence. I would rather +go a mile about than pass before his battery. I feel wronged by him, and +yet unutterably ashamed. There must be great force in the man to produce +such an effect. There is nothing of the customary squalidness of beggary +about him, but remarkable trimness and cleanliness.--I. 475. + +I should think all the more highly of myself, if I had shown equal +heroism in resisting another class of beggarly depredators, who +assailed me on my weaker side and won an easy spoil. Such was the +sanctimonious clergyman, with his white cravat, who visited me with a +subscription-paper, which he himself had drawn up, in a case of +heart-rending distress;--the respectable and ruined tradesman, going +from door to door, shy and silent in his own person, but accompanied by +a sympathizing friend, who bore testimony to his integrity, and stated +the unavoidable misfortunes that had crushed him down;[16]--or the +delicate and prettily dressed lady, who had been bred in affluence, but +was suddenly thrown upon the perilous charities of the world by the +death of an indulgent, but secretly insolvent father, or the commercial +catastrophe and simultaneous suicide of the best of husbands;--or the +gifted, but unsuccessful author, appealing to my fraternal sympathies, +generously rejoicing in some small prosperities which he was kind enough +to term my own triumphs in the field of letters, and claiming to have +largely contributed to them by his unbought notices in the public +journals. England is full of such people, and a hundred other varieties +of peripatetic tricksters, higher than these, and lower, who act their +parts tolerably well, but seldom with an absolutely illusive effect. I +knew at once, raw Yankee as I was, that they were humbugs, almost +without an exception,--rats that nibble at the honest bread and cheese +of the community, and grow fat by their petty pilferings,--yet often +gave them what they asked, and privately owned myself a simpleton. There +is a decorum which restrains you (unless you happen to be a +police-constable) from breaking through a crust of plausible +respectability, even when you are certain that there is a knave beneath +it. + +[16] It appears to be customary for people of decent station, but in +distressed circumstances, to go round among their neighbors and the +public, accompanied by a friend, who explains the case. I have been +accosted in the street in regard to one of these matters; and to-day +there came to my office a grocer, who had become security for a friend, +and who was threatened with an execution,--with another grocer for +supporter and advocate. The beneficiary takes very little active part in +the affair, merely looking careworn, distressed, and pitiable, and +throwing in a word of corroboration, or a sigh, or an acknowledgment, as +the case may demand.... The whole matter is very foreign to American +habits. No respectable American would think of retrieving his affairs by +such means, but would prefer ruin ten times over; no friend would take +up his cause; no public would think it worth while to prevent the small +catastrophe. And yet the custom is not without its good side, as +indicating a closer feeling of brotherhood, a more efficient sense of +neighborhood, than exists among ourselves, although, perhaps, we are +more careless of a fellow-creature's ruin, because ruin with us is by no +means the fatal and irretrievable event that it is in England.--I. 543. + +After making myself as familiar as I decently could with the poor +streets, I became curious to see what kind of a home was provided for +the inhabitants at the public expense, fearing that it must needs be a +most comfortless one, or else their choice (if choice it were) of so +miserable a life outside was truly difficult to account for. +Accordingly, I visited a great almshouse, and was glad to observe how +unexceptionably all the parts of the establishment were carried on, and +what an orderly life, full-fed, sufficiently reposeful, and undisturbed +by the arbitrary exercise of authority, seemed to be led there. +Possibly, indeed, it was that very orderliness, and the cruel necessity +of being neat and clean, and even the comfort resulting from these and +other Christian-like restraints and regulations, that constituted the +principal grievance on the part of the poor, shiftless inmates, +accustomed to a lifelong luxury of dirt and harum-scarumness. The wild +life of the streets has perhaps as unforgetable a charm, to those who +have once thoroughly imbibed it, as the life of the forest or the +prairie. But I conceive rather that there must be insuperable +difficulties, for the majority of the poor, in the way of getting +admittance to the almshouse, than that a merely aesthetic preference for +the street would incline the pauper class to fare scantily and +precariously, and expose their raggedness to the rain and snow, when +such a hospitable door stood wide open for their entrance. It might be +that the roughest and darkest side of the matter was not shown me, there +being persons of eminent station and of both sexes in the party which I +accompanied; and, of course, a properly trained public functionary would +have deemed it a monstrous rudeness, as well as a great shame, to +exhibit anything to people of rank that might too painfully shock their +sensibilities. + +The women's ward was the portion of the establishment which we +especially examined. It could not be questioned that they were treated +with kindness as well as care. No doubt, as has been already suggested, +some of them felt the irksomeness of submission to general rules of +orderly behavior, after being accustomed to that perfect freedom from +the minor proprieties, at least, which is one of the compensations of +absolutely hopeless poverty, or of any circumstances that set us fairly +below the decencies of life. I asked the governor of the house whether +he met with any difficulty in keeping peace and order among his inmates; +and he informed me that his troubles among the women were incomparably +greater than with the men. They were freakish, and apt to be +quarrelsome, inclined to plague and pester one another in ways that it +was impossible to lay hold of, and to thwart his own authority by the +like intangible methods. He said this with the utmost good-nature, and +quite won my regard by so placidly resigning himself to the inevitable +necessity of letting the women throw dust into his eyes. They certainly +looked peaceable and sisterly enough as I saw them, though still it +might be faintly perceptible that some of them were consciously playing +their parts before the governor and his distinguished visitors. + +This governor seemed to me a man thoroughly fit for his position. An +American, in an office of similar responsibility, would doubtless be a +much superior person, better educated, possessing a far wider range of +thought, more naturally acute, with a quicker tact of external +observation and a readier faculty of dealing with difficult cases. The +women would not succeed in throwing half so much dust into his eyes. +Moreover, his black coat, and thin, sallow visage, would make him look +like a scholar, and his manners would indefinitely approximate to those +of a gentleman. But I cannot help questioning whether, on the whole, +these higher endowments would produce decidedly better results. The +Englishman was thoroughly plebeian both in aspect and behavior, a bluff, +ruddy-faced, hearty, kindly, yeoman-like personage, with no refinement +whatever, nor any superfluous sensibility, but gifted with a native +wholesomeness of character which must have been a very beneficial +element in the atmosphere of the almshouse. He spoke to his pauper +family in loud, good-humored, cheerful tones, and treated them with a +healthy freedom that probably caused the forlorn wretches to feel as if +they were free and healthy likewise. If he had understood them a little +better, he would not have treated them half so wisely. We are apt to +make sickly people more morbid, and unfortunate people more miserable, +by endeavoring to adapt our deportment to their especial and individual +needs. They eagerly accept our well-meant efforts; but it is like +returning their own sick breath back upon themselves, to be breathed +over and over again, intensifying the inward mischief at every +reception. The sympathy that would really do them good is of a kind that +recognizes their sound and healthy parts, and ignores the part affected +by disease, which will thrive under the eye of a too close observer like +a poisonous weed in the sunshine. My good friend the governor had no +tendencies in the latter direction, and abundance of them in the former, +and was consequently as wholesome and invigorating as the west-wind with +a little spice of the north in it, brightening the dreary visages that +encountered us as if he had carried a sunbeam in his hand. He expressed +himself by his whole being and personality, and by works more than +words, and had the not unusual English merit of knowing what to do much +better than how to talk about it. + +[Illustration: _An English Almshouse._] + +The women, I imagine, must have felt one imperfection in their state, +however comfortable otherwise. They were forbidden, or at all events +lacked the means, to follow out their natural instinct of adorning +themselves; all were well dressed in one homely uniform of blue-checked +gowns, with such caps upon their heads as English servants wear. +Generally, too, they had one dowdy English aspect, and a vulgar type of +features so nearly alike that they seemed literally to constitute a +sisterhood. We have few of these absolutely unilluminated faces among +our native American population, individuals of whom must be singularly +unfortunate, if, mixing as we do, no drop of gentle blood has +contributed to refine the turbid element, no gleam of hereditary +intelligence has lighted up the stolid eyes, which their forefathers +brought from the Old Country. Even in this English almshouse, however, +there was at least one person who claimed to be intimately connected +with rank and wealth. The governor, after suggesting that this person +would probably be gratified by our visit, ushered us into a small +parlor, which was furnished a little more like a room in a private +dwelling than others that we entered, and had a row of religious books +and fashionable novels on the mantelpiece. An old lady sat at a bright +coal-fire, reading a romance, and rose to receive us with a certain +pomp of manner and elaborate display of ceremonious courtesy, which, in +spite of myself, made me inwardly question the genuineness of her +aristocratic pretensions. But, at any rate, she looked like a +respectable old soul, and was evidently gladdened to the very core of +her frost-bitten heart by the awful punctiliousness with which we +responded to her gracious and hospitable, though unfamiliar welcome. +After a little polite conversation, we retired; and the governor, with a +lowered voice and an air of deference, told us that she had been a lady +of quality, and had ridden in her own equipage, not many years before, +and now lived in continual expectation that some of her rich relatives +would drive up in their carriages to take her away. Meanwhile, he added, +she was treated with great respect by her fellow-paupers. I could not +help thinking, from a few criticisable peculiarities in her talk and +manner, that there might have been a mistake on the governor's part, and +perhaps a venial exaggeration on the old lady's, concerning her former +position in society; but what struck me was the forcible instance of +that most prevalent of English vanities, the pretension to aristocratic +connection, on one side, and the submission and reverence with which it +was accepted by the governor and his household, on the other. Among +ourselves, I think, when wealth and eminent position have taken their +departure, they seldom leave a pallid ghost behind them,--or, if it +sometimes stalks abroad, few recognize it. + +We went into several other rooms, at the doors of which, pausing on the +outside, we could hear the volubility, and sometimes the wrangling, of +the female inhabitants within, but invariably found silence and peace +when we stepped over the threshold. The women were grouped together in +their sitting-rooms, sometimes three or four, sometimes a larger number, +classified by their spontaneous affinities, I suppose, and all busied, +so far as I can remember, with the one occupation of knitting coarse +yarn stockings. Hardly any of them, I am sorry to say, had a brisk or +cheerful air, though it often stirred them up to a momentary vivacity to +be accosted by the governor, and they seemed to like being noticed, +however slightly, by the visitors. The happiest person whom I saw there +(and running hastily through my experiences, I hardly recollect to have +seen a happier one in my life, if you take a careless flow of spirits +as happiness) was an old woman that lay in bed among ten or twelve +heavy-looking females, who plied their knitting-work round about her. +She laughed, when we entered, and immediately began to talk to us, in a +thin, little, spirited quaver, claiming to be more than a century old; +and the governor (in whatever way he happened to be cognizant of the +fact) confirmed her age to be a hundred and four. Her jauntiness and +cackling merriment were really wonderful. It was as if she had got +through with all her actual business in life two or three generations +ago, and now, freed from every responsibility for herself or others, had +only to keep up a mirthful state of mind till the short time, or long +time (and, happy as she was, she appeared not to care whether it were +long or short), before Death, who had misplaced her name in his list, +might remember to take her away. She had gone quite round the circle of +human existence, and come back to the play-ground again. And so she had +grown to be a kind of miraculous old pet, the plaything of people +seventy or eighty years younger than herself, who talked and laughed +with her as if she were a child, finding great delight in her wayward +and strangely playful responses, into some of which she cunningly +conveyed a gibe that caused their ears to tingle a little. She had done +getting out of bed in this world, and lay there to be waited upon like a +queen or a baby. + +In the same room sat a pauper who had once been an actress of +considerable repute, but was compelled to give up her profession by a +softening of the brain. The disease seemed to have stolen the continuity +out of her life, and disturbed all healthy relationship between the +thoughts within her and the world without. On our first entrance, she +looked cheerfully at us, and showed herself ready to engage in +conversation; but suddenly, while we were talking with the century-old +crone, the poor actress began to weep, contorting her face with +extravagant stage-grimaces, and wringing her hands for some inscrutable +sorrow. It might have been a reminiscence of actual calamity in her past +life, or, quite as probably, it was but a dramatic woe, beneath which +she had staggered and shrieked and wrung her hands with hundreds of +repetitions in the sight of crowded theatres, and been as often +comforted by thunders of applause. But my idea of the mystery was, that +she had a sense of wrong in seeing the aged woman (whose empty vivacity +was like the rattling of dry peas in a bladder) chosen as the central +object of interest to the visitors, while she herself, who had agitated +thousands of hearts with a breath, sat starving for the admiration that +was her natural food. I appeal to the whole society of artists of the +Beautiful and the Imaginative,--poets, romancers, painters, sculptors, +actors,--whether or no this is a grief that may be felt even amid the +torpor of a dissolving brain! + +We looked into a good many sleeping-chambers, where were rows of beds, +mostly calculated for two occupants, and provided with sheets and +pillow-cases that resembled sackcloth. It appeared to me that the sense +of beauty was insufficiently regarded in all the arrangements of the +almshouse; a little cheap luxury for the eye, at least, might do the +poor folks a substantial good. But, at all events, there was the beauty +of perfect neatness and orderliness, which, being heretofore known to +few of them, was perhaps as much as they could well digest in the +remnant of their lives. We were invited into the laundry, where a great +washing and drying were in process, the whole atmosphere being hot and +vaporous with the steam of wet garments and bedclothes. This atmosphere +was the pauper-life of the past week or fortnight resolved into a +gaseous state, and breathing it, however fastidiously, we were forced to +inhale the strange element into our inmost being. Had the Queen been +there, I know not how she could have escaped the necessity. What an +intimate brotherhood is this in which we dwell, do what we may to put an +artificial remoteness between the high creature and the low one! A poor +man's breath, borne on the vehicle of tobacco-smoke, floats into a +palace-window and reaches the nostrils of a monarch. It is but an +example, obvious to the sense, of the innumerable and secret channels by +which, at every moment of our lives, the flow and reflux of a common +humanity pervade us all. How superficial are the niceties of such as +pretend to keep aloof! Let the whole world be cleansed, or not a man or +woman of us all can be clean. + +By and by we came to the ward where the children were kept, on entering +which, we saw, in the first place, several unlovely and unwholesome +little people lazily playing together in a court-yard. And here a +singular incommodity befell one member of our party. Among the children +was a wretched, pale, half-torpid little thing (about six years old, +perhaps, but I know not whether a girl or a boy), with a humor in its +eyes and face, which the governor said was the scurvy, and which +appeared to bedim its powers of vision, so that it toddled about +gropingly, as if in quest of it did not precisely know what. This +child--this sickly, wretched, humor-eaten infant, the offspring of +unspeakable sin and sorrow, whom it must have required several +generations of guilty progenitors to render so pitiable an object as we +beheld it--immediately took an unaccountable fancy to the gentleman just +hinted at. It prowled about him like a pet kitten, rubbing against his +legs, following everywhere at his heels, pulling at his coat-tails, and, +at last, exerting all the speed that its poor limbs were capable of, got +directly before him and held forth its arms, mutely insisting on being +taken up. It said not a word, being perhaps underwitted and incapable of +prattle. But it smiled up in his face,--a sort of woful gleam was that +smile, through the sickly blotches that covered its features,--and +found means to express such a perfect confidence that it was going to be +fondled and made much of, that there was no possibility in a human heart +of balking its expectation. It was as if God had promised the poor child +this favor on behalf of that individual, and he was bound to fulfill the +contract, or else no longer call himself a man among men. Nevertheless, +it could be no easy thing for him to do, he being a person burdened with +more than an Englishman's customary reserve, shy of actual contact with +human beings, afflicted with a peculiar distaste for whatever was ugly, +and, furthermore, accustomed to that habit of observation from an +insulated standpoint which is said (but, I hope, erroneously) to have +the tendency of putting ice into the blood. + +So I watched the struggle in his mind with a good deal of interest, and +am seriously of opinion that he did an heroic act, and effected more +than he dreamed of towards his final salvation, when he took up the +loathsome child and caressed it as tenderly as if he had been its +father. To be sure, we all smiled at him, at the time, but doubtless +would have acted pretty much the same in a similar stress of +circumstances. The child, at any rate, appeared to be satisfied with +his behavior; for when he had held it a considerable time, and set it +down, it still favored him with its company, keeping fast hold of his +forefinger till we reached the confines of the place. And on our return +through the court-yard, after visiting another part of the +establishment, here again was this same little Wretchedness waiting for +its victim, with a smile of joyful, and yet dull recognition about its +scabby mouth and in its rheumy eyes. No doubt, the child's mission in +reference to our friend was to remind him that he was responsible, in +his degree, for all the sufferings and misdemeanors of the world in +which he lived, and was not entitled to look upon a particle of its dark +calamity as if it were none of his concern: the offspring of a brother's +iniquity being his own blood-relation, and the guilt, likewise, a burden +on him, unless he expiated it by better deeds.[17] + +[17] _February 28, 1856._ "After this, we went to the ward [West Derby +Workhouse] where the children were kept, and, on entering this, we saw, +in the first place, two or three unlovely and unwholesome little imps, +who were lazily playing together. One of them (a child about six years +old, but I know not whether girl or boy) immediately took the strangest +fancy for me. It was a wretched, pale, half-torpid little thing, with a +humor in its eyes which the governor said was the scurvy. I never saw, +till a few moments afterwards, a child that I should feel less inclined +to fondle. But this little, sickly, humor-eaten fright prowled around +me, taking hold of my skirts, following at my heels, and at last held up +its hands, smiled in my face, and, standing directly before me, insisted +on my taking it up! Not that it said a word, for I rather think it was +underwitted, and could not talk; but its face expressed such perfect +confidence that it was going to be taken up and made much of, that it +was impossible not to do it. It was as if God had promised the child +this favor on my behalf, and that I must needs fulfill the contract. I +held my undesirable burden a little while; and, after setting the child +down, it still followed me, holding two of my fingers and playing with +them, just as if it were a child of my own. It was a foundling, and out +of all human kind it chose me to be its father! We went up stairs into +another ward; and, on coming down again, there was this same child +waiting for me, with a sickly smile round its defaced mouth, and in its +dim red eyes.... I never should have forgiven myself if I had repelled +its advances."--II. 184. + +All the children in this ward seemed to be invalids, and, going +upstairs, we found more of them in the same or a worse condition than +the little creature just described, with their mothers (or more probably +other women, for the infants were mostly foundlings) in attendance as +nurses. The matron of the ward, a middle-aged woman, remarkably kind and +motherly in aspect, was walking to and fro across the chamber--on that +weary journey in which careful mothers and nurses travel so continually +and so far, and gain never a step of progress--with an unquiet baby in +her arms. She assured us that she enjoyed her occupation, being +exceedingly fond of children; and, in fact, the absence of timidity in +all the little people was a sufficient proof that they could have had no +experience of harsh treatment, though, on the other hand, none of them +appeared to be attracted to one individual more than another. In this +point they differed widely from the poor child below stairs. They seemed +to recognize a universal motherhood in womankind, and cared not which +individual might be the mother of the moment. I found their tameness as +shocking as did Alexander Selkirk that of the brute subjects of his else +solitary kingdom. It was a sort of tame familiarity, a perfect +indifference to the approach of strangers, such as I never noticed in +other children. I accounted for it partly by their nerveless, unstrung +state of body, incapable of the quick thrills of delight and fear which +play upon the lively harp-strings of a healthy child's nature, and +partly by their woful lack of acquaintance with a private home, and +their being therefore destitute of the sweet home-bred shyness, which is +like the sanctity of heaven about a mother-petted child. Their condition +was like that of chickens hatched in an oven, and growing up without the +especial guardianship of a matron hen: both the chicken and the child, +methinks, must needs want something that is essential to their +respective characters. + +In this chamber (which was spacious, containing a large number of beds) +there was a clear fire burning on the hearth, as in all the other +occupied rooms; and directly in front of the blaze sat a woman holding a +baby, which, beyond all reach of comparison, was the most horrible +object that ever afflicted my sight. Days afterwards--nay, even now, +when I bring it up vividly before my mind's eye--it seemed to lie upon +the floor of my heart, polluting my moral being with the sense of +something grievously amiss in the entire conditions of humanity. The +holiest man could not be otherwise than full of wickedness, the chastest +virgin seemed impure, in a world where such a babe was possible. The +governor whispered me, apart, that, like nearly all the rest of them, it +was the child of unhealthy parents. Ah, yes! There was the mischief. +This spectral infant, a hideous mockery of the visible link which Love +creates between man and woman, was born of disease and sin. Diseased Sin +was its father, and Sinful Disease its mother, and their offspring lay +in the woman's arms like a nursing Pestilence, which, could it live and +grow up, would make the world a more accursed abode than ever +heretofore. Thank Heaven, it could not live! This baby, if we must give +it that sweet name, seemed to be three or four months old, but, being +such an unthrifty changeling, might have been considerably older. It was +all covered with blotches, and preternaturally dark and discolored; it +was withered away, quite shrunken and fleshless; it breathed only amid +pantings and gaspings, and moaned painfully at every gasp. The only +comfort in reference to it was the evident impossibility of its +surviving to draw many more of those miserable, moaning breaths; and it +would have been infinitely less heart-depressing to see it die, right +before my eyes, than to depart and carry it alive in my remembrance, +still suffering the incalculable torture of its little life. I can by +no means express how horrible this infant was, neither ought I to +attempt it. And yet I must add one final touch. Young as the poor little +creature was, its pain and misery had endowed it with a premature +intelligence, insomuch that its eyes seemed to stare at the by-standers +out of their sunken sockets knowingly and appealingly, as if summoning +us one and all to witness the deadly wrong of its existence. At least, I +so interpreted its look, when it positively met and responded to my own +awe-stricken gaze, and therefore I lay the case, as far as I am able, +before mankind, on whom God has imposed the necessity to suffer in soul +and body till this dark and dreadful wrong be righted. + +Thence we went to the school-rooms, which were underneath the chapel. +The pupils, like the children whom we had just seen, were, in large +proportion, foundlings. Almost without exception, they looked sickly, +with marks of eruptive trouble in their doltish faces, and a general +tendency to diseases of the eye. Moreover, the poor little wretches +appeared to be uneasy within their skins, and screwed themselves about +on the benches in a disagreeably suggestive way, as if they had +inherited the evil habits of their parents as an innermost garment of +the same texture and material as the shirt of Nessus, and must wear it +with unspeakable discomfort as long as they lived. I saw only a single +child that looked healthy; and on my pointing him out, the governor +informed me that this little boy, the sole exception to the miserable +aspect of his school-fellows, was not a foundling, nor properly a +workhouse child, being born of respectable parentage, and his father one +of the officers of the institution. As for the remainder,--the hundred +pale abortions to be counted against one rosy-cheeked boy,--what shall +we say or do? Depressed by the sight of so much misery, and uninventive +of remedies for the evils that force themselves on my perception, I can +do little more than recur to the idea already hinted at in the early +part of this article, regarding the speedy necessity of a new deluge. So +far as these children are concerned, at any rate, it would be a blessing +to the human race, which they will contribute to enervate and +corrupt,--a greater blessing to themselves, who inherit no patrimony but +disease and vice, and in whose souls, if there be a spark of God's life, +this seems the only possible mode of keeping it aglow,--if every one of +them could be drowned to-night, by their best friends, instead of being +put tenderly to bed. This heroic method of treating human maladies, +moral and material, is certainly beyond the scope of man's discretionary +rights, and probably will not be adopted by Divine Providence until the +opportunity of milder reformation shall have been offered us again and +again, through a series of future ages. + +It may be fair to acknowledge that the humane and excellent governor, as +well as other persons better acquainted with the subject than myself, +took a less gloomy view of it, though still so dark a one as to involve +scanty consolation. They remarked that individuals of the male sex, +picked up in the streets and nurtured in the workhouse, sometimes +succeed tolerably well in life, because they are taught trades before +being turned into the world, and, by dint of immaculate behavior and +good luck, are not unlikely to get employment and earn a livelihood. The +case is different with the girls. They can only go to service, and are +invariably rejected by families of respectability on account of their +origin, and for the better reason of their unfitness to fill +satisfactorily even the meanest situations in a well-ordered English +household. Their resource is to take service with people only a step or +two above the poorest class, with whom they fare scantily, endure harsh +treatment, lead shifting and precarious lives, and finally drop into the +slough of evil, through which, in their best estate, they do but pick +their slimy way on stepping-stones. + +From the schools we went to the bake-house, and the brew-house (for such +cruelty is not harbored in the heart of a true Englishman as to deny a +pauper his daily allowance of beer), and through the kitchens, where we +beheld an immense pot over the fire, surging and walloping with some +kind of a savory stew that filled it up to its brim. We also visited a +tailor's shop, and a shoemaker's shop, in both of which a number of men, +and pale, diminutive apprentices, were at work, diligently enough, +though seemingly with small heart in the business. Finally, the governor +ushered us into a shed, inside of which was piled up an immense quantity +of new coffins. They were of the plainest description, made of pine +boards, probably of American growth, not very nicely smoothed by the +plane, neither painted nor stained with black, but provided with a loop +of rope at either end for the convenience of lifting the rude box and +its inmate into the cart that shall carry them to the burial-ground. +There, in holes ten feet deep, the paupers are buried one above another, +mingling their relics indistinguishably. In another world may they +resume their individuality, and find it a happier one than here! + +As we departed, a character came under our notice which I have met with +in all almshouses, whether of the city or village, or in England or +America. It was the familiar simpleton, who shuffled across the +court-yard, clattering his wooden-soled shoes, to greet us with a howl +or a laugh, I hardly know which, holding out his hand for a penny, and +chuckling grossly when it was given him. All underwitted persons, so far +as my experience goes, have this craving for copper coin, and appear to +estimate its value by a miraculous instinct, which is one of the +earliest gleams of human intelligence while the nobler faculties are yet +in abeyance. There may come a time, even in this world, when we shall +all understand that our tendency to the individual appropriation of gold +and broad acres, fine houses, and such good and beautiful things as are +equally enjoyable by a multitude, is but a trait of imperfectly +developed intelligence, like the simpleton's cupidity of a penny. When +that day dawns,--and probably not till then,--I imagine that there will +be no more poor streets nor need of almshouses. + +I was once present at the wedding of some poor English people, and was +deeply impressed by the spectacle, though by no means with such proud +and delightful emotions as seem to have affected all England on the +recent occasion of the marriage of its Prince. It was in the Cathedral +at Manchester, a particularly black and grim old structure, into which I +had stepped to examine some ancient and curious wood-carvings within the +choir. The woman in attendance greeted me with a smile (which always +glimmers forth on the feminine visage, I know not why, when a wedding is +in question), and asked me to take a seat in the nave till some poor +parties were married, it being the Easter holidays, and a good time for +them to marry, because no fees would be demanded by the clergyman. I sat +down accordingly, and soon the parson and his clerk appeared at the +altar, and a considerable crowd of people made their entrance at a +side-door, and ranged themselves in a long, huddled line across the +chancel. They were my acquaintances of the poor streets, or persons in a +precisely similar condition of life, and were now come to their +marriage-ceremony in just such garbs as I had always seen them wear: the +men in their loafers' coats, out at elbows, or their laborers' jackets, +defaced with grimy toil; the women drawing their shabby shawls tighter +about their shoulders, to hide the raggedness beneath; all of them +unbrushed, unshaven, unwashed, uncombed, and wrinkled with penury and +care; nothing virgin-like in the brides, nor hopeful or energetic in the +bridegrooms;--they were, in short, the mere rags and tatters of the +human race, whom some east-wind of evil omen, howling along the streets, +had chanced to sweep together into an unfragrant heap. Each and all of +them, conscious of his or her individual misery, had blundered into the +strange miscalculation of supposing that they could lessen the sum of it +by multiplying it into the misery of another person. All the couples +(and it was difficult, in such a confused crowd, to compute exactly +their number) stood up at once, and had execution done upon them in the +lump, the clergyman addressing only small parts of the service to each +individual pair, but so managing the larger portion as to include the +whole company without the trouble of repetition. By this compendious +contrivance, one would apprehend, he came dangerously near making every +man and woman the husband or wife of every other; nor, perhaps, would he +have perpetrated much additional mischief by the mistake; but, after +receiving a benediction in common, they assorted themselves in their own +fashion, as they only knew how, and departed to the garrets, or the +cellars, or the unsheltered street-corners, where their honeymoon and +subsequent lives were to be spent. The parson smiled decorously, the +clerk and the sexton grinned broadly, the female attendant tittered +almost aloud, and even the married parties seemed to see something +exceedingly funny in the affair; but for my part, though generally apt +enough to be tickled by a joke, I laid it away in my memory as one of +the saddest sights I ever looked upon. + +Not very long afterwards, I happened to be passing the same venerable +cathedral, and heard a clang of joyful bells, and beheld a bridal party +coming down the steps towards a carriage and four horses, with a portly +coachman and two postilions, that waited at the gate. One parson and one +service had amalgamated the wretchedness of a score of paupers; a Bishop +and three or four clergymen had combined their spiritual might to forge +the golden links of this other marriage-bond. The bridegroom's mien had +a sort of careless and kindly English pride; the bride floated along in +her white drapery, a creature so nice and delicate that it was a luxury +to see her, and a pity that her silk slippers should touch anything so +grimy as the old stones of the churchyard avenue. The crowd of ragged +people, who always cluster to witness what they may of an aristocratic +wedding, broke into audible admiration of the bride's beauty and the +bridegroom's manliness, and uttered prayers and ejaculations (possibly +paid for in alms) for the happiness of both. If the most favorable of +earthly conditions could make them happy, they had every prospect of it. +They were going to live on their abundance in one of those stately and +delightful English homes, such as no other people ever created or +inherited, a hall set far and safe within its own private grounds, and +surrounded with venerable trees, shaven lawns, rich shrubbery, and +trimmest pathways, the whole so artfully contrived and tended that +summer rendered it a paradise, and even winter would hardly disrobe it +of its beauty; and all this fair property seemed more exclusively and +inalienably their own, because of its descent through many forefathers, +each of whom had added an improvement or a charm, and thus transmitted +it with a stronger stamp of rightful possession to his heir. And is it +possible, after all, that there may be a flaw in the title-deeds? Is, or +is not, the system wrong that gives one married pair so immense a +superfluity of luxurious home, and shuts out a million others from any +home whatever? One day or another, safe as they deem themselves, and +safe as the hereditary temper of the people really tends to make them, +the gentlemen of England will be compelled to face this question. + + + + +XII. + +CIVIC BANQUETS + + +It has often perplexed me to imagine how an Englishman will be able to +reconcile himself to any future state of existence from which the +earthly institution of dinner shall be excluded. Even if he fail to take +his appetite along with him (which it seems to me hardly possible to +believe, since this endowment is so essential to his composition), the +immortal day must still admit an interim of two or three hours during +which he will be conscious of a slight distaste, at all events, if not +an absolute repugnance, to merely spiritual nutriment. The idea of +dinner has so imbedded itself among his highest and deepest +characteristics, so illuminated itself with intellect and softened +itself with the kindest emotions of his heart, so linked itself with +Church and State, and grown so majestic with long hereditary customs and +ceremonies, that, by taking it utterly away, Death, instead of putting +the final touch to his perfection, would leave him infinitely less +complete than we have already known him. He could not be roundly happy. +Paradise, among all its enjoyments, would lack one daily felicity which +his sombre little island possessed. Perhaps it is not irreverent to +conjecture that a provision may have been made, in this particular, for +the Englishman's exceptional necessities. It strikes me that Milton was +of the opinion here suggested, and may have intended to throw out a +delightful and consolatory hope for his countrymen, when he represents +the genial archangel as playing his part with such excellent appetite at +Adam's dinner-table, and confining himself to fruit and vegetables only, +because, in those early days of her housekeeping, Eve had no more +acceptable viands to set before him. Milton, indeed, had a true English +taste for the pleasures of the table, though refined by the lofty and +poetic discipline to which he had subjected himself. It is delicately +implied in the refection in Paradise, and more substantially, though +still elegantly, betrayed in the sonnet proposing to "Laurence, of +virtuous father virtuous son," a series of nice little dinners in +midwinter; and it blazes fully out in that untasted banquet, which, +elaborate as it was, Satan tossed up in a trice from the kitchen-ranges +of Tartarus. + +Among this people, indeed, so wise in their generation, dinner has a +kind of sanctity quite independent of the dishes that may be set upon +the table; so that, if it be only a mutton-chop, they treat it with due +reverence, and are rewarded with a degree of enjoyment which such +reckless devourers as ourselves do not often find in our richest +abundance. It is good to see how stanch they are after fifty or sixty +years of heroic eating, still relying upon their digestive powers and +indulging a vigorous appetite; whereas an American has generally lost +the one and learned to distrust the other long before reaching the +earliest decline of life; and thenceforward he makes little account of +his dinner, and dines at his peril, if at all. I know not whether my +countrymen will allow me to tell them, though I think it scarcely too +much to affirm, that on this side of the water people never dine. At any +rate, abundantly as Nature has provided us with most of the material +requisites, the highest possible dinner has never yet been eaten in +America. It is the consummate flower of civilization and refinement; +and our inability to produce it, or to appreciate its admirable beauty +if a happy inspiration should bring it into bloom, marks fatally the +limit of culture which we have attained. + +It is not to be supposed, however, that the mob of cultivated Englishmen +know how to dine in this elevated sense. The unpolishable ruggedness of +the national character is still an impediment to them, even in that +particular line where they are best qualified to excel. Though often +present at good men's feasts, I remember only a single dinner, which, +while lamentably conscious that many of its higher excellences were +thrown away upon me, I yet could feel to be a perfect work of art. It +could not, without unpardonable coarseness, be styled a matter of animal +enjoyment, because, out of the very perfection of that lower bliss, +there had arisen a dream-like development of spiritual happiness. As in +the masterpieces of painting and poetry, there was a something +intangible, a final deliciousness that only fluttered about your +comprehension, vanishing whenever you tried to detain it, and compelling +you to recognize it by faith rather than sense. It seemed as if a +diviner set of senses were requisite, and had been partly supplied, for +the special fruition of this banquet, and that the guests around the +table (only eight in number) were becoming so educated, polished, and +softened, by the delicate influences of what they ate and drank, as to +be now a little more than mortal for the nonce. And there was that +gentle, delicious sadness, too, which we find in the very summit of our +most exquisite enjoyments, and feel it a charm beyond all the gayety +through which it keeps breathing its undertone. In the present case, it +was worth a heavier sigh to reflect that such a festal achievement--the +production of so much art, skill, fancy, invention, and perfect +taste--the growth of all the ages, which appeared to have been ripening +for this hour, since man first began to eat and to moisten his food with +wine--must lavish its happiness upon so brief a moment when other +beautiful things can be made a joy forever. Yet a dinner like this is no +better than we can get, any day, at the rejuvenescent Cornhill +Coffee-house, unless the whole man, with soul, intellect, and stomach, +is ready to appreciate it, and unless, moreover, there is such a harmony +in all the circumstances and accompaniments, and especially such a +pitch of well-according minds, that nothing shall jar rudely against the +guest's thoroughly awakened sensibilities. The world, and especially our +part of it, being the rough, ill-assorted, and tumultuous place we find +it, a beefsteak is about as good as any other dinner. + +The foregoing reminiscence, however, has drawn me aside from the main +object of my sketch, in which I purposed to give a slight idea of those +public, or partially public banquets, the custom of which so thoroughly +prevails among the English people, that nothing is ever decided upon, in +matters of peace and war, until they have chewed upon it in the shape of +roast-beef, and talked it fully over in their cups. Nor are these +festivities merely occasional, but of stated recurrence in all +considerable municipalities and associated bodies. The most ancient +times appear to have been as familiar with them as the Englishmen of +to-day. In many of the old English towns, you find some stately Gothic +hall or chamber in which the Mayor and other authorities of the place +have long held their sessions; and always, in convenient contiguity, +there is a dusky kitchen, with an immense fireplace where an ox might +lie roasting at his ease, though the less gigantic scale of modern +cookery may now have permitted the cobwebs to gather in its chimney. St. +Mary's Hall, in Coventry, is so good a specimen of an ancient +banqueting-room, that perhaps I may profitably devote a page or two to +the description of it. + +In a narrow street opposite to St. Michael's Church, one of the three +famous spires of Coventry, you behold a mediaeval edifice, in the +basement of which is such a venerable and now deserted kitchen as I have +above alluded to, and, on the same level, a cellar, with low stone +pillars and intersecting arches, like the crypt of a cathedral. Passing +up a well-worn staircase, the oaken balustrade of which is as black as +ebony, you enter the fine old hall, some sixty feet in length, and broad +and lofty in proportion. It is lighted by six windows of modern stained +glass, on one side, and by the immense and magnificent arch of another +window at the farther end of the room, its rich and ancient panes +constituting a genuine historical piece, in which are represented some +of the kingly personages of old times, with their heraldic blazonries. +Not withstanding the colored light thus thrown into the hall, and +though it was noonday when I last saw it, the paneling of black-oak, and +some faded tapestry that hung round the walls, together with the cloudy +vault of the roof above, made a gloom, which the richness only +illuminated into more appreciable effect. The tapestry is wrought with +figures in the dress of Henry VI.'s time (which is the date of the +hall), and is regarded by antiquaries as authentic evidence both for the +costume of that epoch, and, I believe, for the actual portraiture of men +known in history. They are as colorless as ghosts, however, and vanish +drearily into the old stitch-work of their substance when you try to +make them out. Coats of arms were formerly emblazoned all round the +hall, but have been almost rubbed out by people hanging their overcoats +against them, or by women with dishclouts and scrubbing-brushes, +obliterating hereditary glories in their blind hostility to dust and +spiders' webs. Full-length portraits of several English kings, Charles +II. being the earliest, hang on the walls; and on the dais, or elevated +part of the floor, stands an antique chair of state, which several royal +characters are traditionally said to have occupied while feasting here +with their loyal subjects of Coventry. It is roomy enough for a person +of kingly bulk, or even two such, but angular and uncomfortable, +reminding me of the oaken settles which used to be seen in old-fashioned +New England kitchens. + +Overhead, supported by a self-sustaining power, without the aid of a +single pillar, is the original ceiling of oak, precisely similar in +shape to the roof of a barn, with all the beams and rafters plainly to +be seen. At the remote height of sixty feet, you hardly discern that +they are carved with figures of angels, and doubtless many other +devices, of which the admirable Gothic art is wasted in the duskiness +that has so long been brooding there. Over the entrance of the hall, +opposite the great arched window, the party-colored radiance of which +glimmers faintly through the interval, is a gallery for minstrels; and a +row of ancient suits of armor is suspended from its balustrade. It +impresses me, too (for, having gone so far, I would fain leave nothing +untouched upon), that I remember, somewhere about these venerable +precincts, a picture of the Countess Godiva on horseback, in which the +artist has been so niggardly of that illustrious lady's hair, that, if +she had no ampler garniture, there was certainly much need for the good +people of Coventry to shut their eyes. After all my pains, I fear that I +have made but a poor hand at the description, as regards a transference +of the scene from my own mind to the reader's. It gave me a most vivid +idea of antiquity that had been very little tampered with; insomuch +that, if a group of steel-clad knights had come clanking through the +doorway, and a bearded and beruffed old figure had handed in a stately +dame, rustling in gorgeous robes of a long-forgotten fashion, unveiling +a face of beauty somewhat tarnished in the mouldy tomb, yet stepping +majestically to the trill of harp and viol from the minstrels' gallery, +while the rusty armor responded with a hollow ringing sound +beneath,--why, I should have felt that these shadows, once so familiar +with the spot, had a better right in St. Mary's Hall than I, a stranger +from a far country which has no Past. But the moral of the foregoing +description is to show how tenaciously this love of pompous dinners, +this reverence for dinner as a sacred institution, has caught hold of +the English character; since, from the earliest recognizable period, we +find them building their civic banqueting-halls as magnificently as +their palaces or cathedrals. + +I know not whether the hall just described is now used for festive +purposes, but others of similar antiquity and splendor still are. For +example, there is Barber Surgeons' Hall, in London, a very fine old +room, adorned with admirably carved wood-work on the ceiling and walls. +It is also enriched with Holbein's masterpiece, representing a grave +assemblage of barbers and surgeons, all portraits (with such extensive +beards that methinks one half of the company might have been profitably +occupied in trimming the other), kneeling before King Henry VIII. Sir +Robert Peel is said to have offered a thousand pounds for the liberty of +cutting out one of the heads from this picture, he conditioning to have +a perfect facsimile painted in.[18] The room has many other pictures of +distinguished members of the company in long-past times, and of some of +the monarchs and statesmen of England, all darkened with age, but +darkened into such ripe magnificence as only age could bestow. It is not +my design to inflict any more specimens of ancient hall-painting on the +reader; but it may be worth while to touch upon other modes of +stateliness that still survive in these time-honored civic feasts, where +there appears to be a singular assumption of dignity and solemn pomp by +respectable citizens who would never dream of claiming any privilege of +rank outside of their own sphere. Thus, I saw two caps of state for the +warden and junior warden of the company, caps of silver (real coronets +or crowns, indeed, for these city-grandees) wrought in open-work and +lined with crimson velvet. In a strong-closet, opening from the hall, +there was a great deal of rich plate to furnish forth the banquet-table, +comprising hundreds of forks and spoons, a vast silver punch-bowl, the +gift of some jolly king or other, and, besides a multitude of less +noticeable vessels, two loving-cups, very elaborately wrought in silver +gilt, one presented by Henry VIII., the other by Charles II. These cups, +including the covers and pedestals, are very large and weighty, although +the bowl-part would hardly contain more than half a pint of wine, which, +when the custom was first established, each guest was probably expected +to drink off at a draught. In passing them from hand to hand adown a +long table of compotators, there is a peculiar ceremony which I may +hereafter have occasion to describe. Meanwhile, if I might assume such a +liberty, I should be glad to invite the reader to the official +dinner-table of his Worship, the Mayor, at a large English seaport where +I spent several years. + +[18] In this room hangs the most valuable picture by Holbein now in +existence, representing the company of Barber Surgeons kneeling before +Henry VIII., and receiving their charter from his hands. The picture is +about six feet square. The king is dressed in scarlet, and quite +fulfills one's idea of his aspect. The Barber-Surgeons, all portraits, +are an assemblage of grave-looking personages, in dark costumes. The +company has refused five thousand pounds for this unique picture; and +the keeper of the Hall told me that Sir Robert Peel had offered a +thousand pounds for liberty to take out only one of the heads, that of a +person named Penn, he conditioning to have a perfect facsimile painted +in. I did not see any merit in this head over the others.--II. 200. + +The Mayor's dinner-parties occur as often as once a fortnight, and, +inviting his guests by fifty or sixty at a time, his Worship probably +assembles at his board most of the eminent citizens and distinguished +personages of the town and neighborhood more than once during his year's +incumbency, and very much, no doubt, to the promotion of good feeling +among individuals of opposite parties and diverse pursuits in life. A +miscellaneous party of Englishmen can always find more comfortable +ground to meet upon than as many Americans, their differences of opinion +being incomparably less radical than ours, and it being the sincerest +wish of all their hearts, whether they call themselves Liberals or what +not, that nothing in this world shall ever be greatly altered from what +it has been and is. Thus there is seldom such a virulence of political +hostility that it may not be dissolved in a glass or two of wine, +without making the good liquor any more dry or bitter than accords with +English taste. + +The first dinner of this kind at which I had the honor to be present +took place during assize-time, and included among the guests the judges +and the prominent members of the bar. Reaching the Town Hall at seven +o'clock, I communicated my name to one of several splendidly dressed +footmen, and he repeated it to another on the first staircase, by whom +it was passed to a third, and thence to a fourth at the door of the +reception-room, losing all resemblance to the original sound in the +course of these transmissions; so that I had the advantage of making my +entrance in the character of a stranger, not only to the whole company, +but to myself as well. His Worship, however, kindly recognized me, and +put me on speaking-terms with two or three gentlemen, whom I found very +affable, and all the more hospitably attentive on the score of my +nationality. It is very singular how kind an Englishman will almost +invariably be to an individual American, without ever bating a jot of +his prejudice against the American character in the lump. My new +acquaintances took evident pains to put me at my ease; and, in requital +of their good-nature, I soon began to look round at the general company +in a critical spirit, making my crude observations apart, and drawing +silent inferences, of the correctness of which I should not have been +half so well satisfied a year afterwards as at that moment. + +There were two judges present, a good many lawyers, and a few officers +of the army in uniform. The other guests seemed to be principally of the +mercantile class, and among them was a ship-owner from Nova Scotia, with +whom I coalesced a little, inasmuch as we were born with the same sky +over our heads, and an unbroken continuity of soil between his abode and +mine. There was one old gentleman, whose character I never made out, +with powdered hair, clad in black breeches and silk stockings, and +wearing a rapier at his side; otherwise, with the exception of the +military uniforms, there was little or no pretense of official costume. +It being the first considerable assemblage of Englishmen that I had +seen, my honest impression about them was that they were a heavy and +homely set of people, with a remarkable roughness of aspect and +behavior, not repulsive, but beneath which it required more familiarity +with the national character than I then possessed always to detect the +good breeding of a gentleman. Being generally middle-aged, or still +further advanced, they were by no means graceful in figure; for the +comeliness of the youthful Englishman rapidly diminishes with years, his +body appearing to grow longer, his legs to abbreviate themselves, and +his stomach to assume the dignified prominence which justly belongs to +that metropolis of his system. His face (what with the acridity of the +atmosphere, ale at lunch, wine at dinner, and a well-digested abundance +of succulent food) gets red and mottled, and develops at least one +additional chin, with a promise of more; so that, finally, a stranger +recognizes his animal part at the most superficial glance, but must take +time and a little pains to discover the intellectual. Comparing him with +an American, I really thought that our national paleness and lean habit +of flesh gave us greatly the advantage in an aesthetic point of view. It +seemed to me, moreover, that the English tailor had not done so much as +he might and ought for these heavy figures, but had gone on willfully +exaggerating their uncouthness by the roominess of their garments; he +had evidently no idea of accuracy of fit, and smartness was entirely out +of his line. But, to be quite open with the reader, I afterwards learned +to think that this aforesaid tailor has a deeper art than his brethren +among ourselves, knowing how to dress his customers with such individual +propriety that they look as if they were born in their clothes, the fit +being to the character rather than the form. If you make an Englishman +smart (unless he be a very exceptional one, of whom I have seen a few), +you make him a monster; his best aspect is that of ponderous +respectability. + +To make an end of these first impressions, I fancied that not merely the +Suffolk bar, but the bar of any inland county in New England, might +show a set of thin-visaged men looking wretchedly worn, sallow, deeply +wrinkled across the forehead, and grimly furrowed about the mouth, with +whom these heavy-cheeked English lawyers, slow-paced and fat-witted as +they must needs be, would stand very little chance in a professional +contest. How that matter might turn out, I am unqualified to decide. But +I state these results of my earliest glimpses at Englishmen, not for +what they are worth, but because I ultimately gave them up as worth +little or nothing. In course of time, I came to the conclusion that +Englishmen of all ages are a rather good-looking people, dress in +admirable taste from their own point of view, and, under a surface never +silken to the touch, have a refinement of manners too thorough and +genuine to be thought of as a separate endowment,--that is to say, if +the individual himself be a man of station, and has had gentlemen for +his father and grandfather. The sturdy Anglo-Saxon nature does not +refine itself short of the third generation. The tradesmen, too, and all +other classes, have their own proprieties. + +The only value of my criticisms, therefore, lay in their exemplifying +the proneness of a traveler to measure one people by the distinctive +characteristics of another,--as English writers invariably measure us, +and take upon themselves to be disgusted accordingly, instead of trying +to find out some principle of beauty with which we may be in conformity. + +In due time we were summoned to the table, and went thither in no solemn +procession, but with a good deal of jostling, thrusting behind, and +scrambling for places when we reached our destination. The legal +gentlemen, I suspect, were responsible for this indecorous zeal, which I +never afterwards remarked in a similar party. The dining-hall was of +noble size, and, like the other rooms of the suite, was gorgeously +painted and gilded and brilliantly illuminated. There was a splendid +table-service, and a noble array of footmen, some of them in plain +clothes, and others wearing the town-livery, richly decorated with +gold-lace, and themselves excellent specimens of the blooming young +manhood of Britain. When we were fairly seated, it was certainly an +agreeable spectacle to look up and down the long vista of earnest faces, +and behold them so resolute, so conscious that there was an important +business in hand, and so determined to be equal to the occasion. Indeed, +Englishman or not, I hardly know what can be prettier than a snow-white +tablecloth, a huge heap of flowers as a central decoration, bright +silver, rich china, crystal glasses, decanters of Sherry at due +intervals, a French roll and an artistically folded napkin at each +plate, all that airy portion of a banquet, in short, that comes before +the first mouthful, the whole illuminated by a blaze of artificial +light, without which a dinner of made-dishes looks spectral, and the +simplest viands are the best. Printed bills-of-fare were distributed, +representing an abundant feast, no part of which appeared on the table +until called for in separate plates. I have entirely forgotten what it +was, but deem it no great matter, inasmuch as there is a pervading +commonplace and identicalness in the composition of extensive dinners, +on account of the impossibility of supplying a hundred guests with +anything particularly delicate or rare. It was suggested to me that +certain juicy old gentlemen had a private understanding what to call +for, and that it would be good policy in a stranger to follow in their +footsteps through the feast. I did not care to do so, however, because, +like Sancho Panza's dip out of Camacho's caldron, any sort of potluck at +such a table would be sure to suit my purpose; so I chose a dish or two +on my own judgment, and, getting through my labors betimes, had great +pleasure in seeing the Englishmen toil onward to the end. + +They drank rather copiously, too, though wisely; for I observed that +they seldom took Hock, and let the Champagne bubble slowly away out of +the goblet, solacing themselves with Sherry, but tasting it warily +before bestowing their final confidence. Their taste in wines, however, +did not seem so exquisite, and certainly was not so various, as that to +which many Americans pretend. This foppery of an intimate acquaintance +with rare vintages does not suit a sensible Englishman, as he is very +much in earnest about his wines, and adopts one or two as his lifelong +friends, seldom exchanging them for any Delilahs of a moment, and +reaping the reward of his constancy in an unimpaired stomach, and only +so much gout as he deems wholesome and desirable. Knowing well the +measure of his powers, he is not apt to fill his glass too often. +Society, indeed, would hardly tolerate habitual imprudences of that +kind, though, in my opinion, the Englishmen now upon the stage could +carry off their three bottles, at need, with as steady a gait as any of +their forefathers. It is not so very long since the three-bottle heroes +sank finally under the table. It may be (at least, I should be glad if +it were true) that there was an occult sympathy between our temperance +reform, now somewhat in abeyance, and the almost simultaneous +disappearance of hard-drinking among the respectable classes in England. +I remember a middle-aged gentleman telling me (in illustration of the +very slight importance attached to breaches of temperance within the +memory of men not yet old) that he had seen a certain magistrate, Sir +John Linkwater, or Drinkwater,--but I think the jolly old knight could +hardly have staggered under so perverse a misnomer as this last,--while +sitting on the magisterial bench, pull out a crown-piece and hand it to +the clerk. "Mr. Clerk," said Sir John, as if it were the most +indifferent fact in the world, "I was drunk last night. There are my +five shillings." + +During the dinner, I had a good deal of pleasant conversation with the +gentlemen on either side of me. One of them, a lawyer, expatiated with +great unction on the social standing of the judges. Representing the +dignity and authority of the Crown, they take precedence, during +assize-time, of the highest military men in the kingdom, of the Lord +Lieutenant of the county, of the Archbishops, of the royal Dukes, and +even of the Prince of Wales. For the nonce, they are the greatest men in +England. With a glow of professional complacency that amounted to +enthusiasm, my friend assured me, that, in case of a royal dinner, a +judge, if actually holding an assize, would be expected to offer his arm +and take the Queen herself to the table. Happening to be in company with +some of these elevated personages, on subsequent occasions, it appeared +to me that the judges are fully conscious of their paramount claims to +respect, and take rather more pains to impress them on their ceremonial +inferiors than men of high hereditary rank are apt to do. Bishops, if it +be not irreverent to say so, are sometimes marked by a similar +characteristic. Dignified position is so sweet to an Englishman, that +he needs to be born in it, and to feel it thoroughly incorporated with +his nature from its original germ, in order to keep him from flaunting +it obtrusively in the faces of innocent by-standers. + +My companion on the other side was a thick-set, middle-aged man, uncouth +in manners, and ugly where none were handsome, with a dark, roughly hewn +visage, that looked grim in repose, and seemed to hold within itself the +machinery of a very terrific frown. He ate with resolute appetite, and +let slip few opportunities of imbibing whatever liquids happened to be +passing by. I was meditating in what way this grisly featured +table-fellow might most safely be accosted, when he turned to me with a +surly sort of kindness, and invited me to take a glass of wine. We then +began a conversation that abounded, on his part, with sturdy sense, and, +somehow or other, brought me closer to him than I had yet stood to an +Englishman. I should hardly have taken him to be an educated man, +certainly not a scholar of accurate training; and yet he seemed to have +all the resources of education and trained intellectual power at +command. My fresh Americanism, and watchful observation of English +characteristics, appeared either to interest or amuse him, or perhaps +both. Under the mollifying influences of abundance of meat and drink, he +grew very gracious (not that I ought to use such a phrase to describe +his evidently genuine good-will), and by and by expressed a wish for +further acquaintance, asking me to call at his rooms in London and +inquire for Sergeant Wilkins,--throwing out the name forcibly, as if he +had no occasion to be ashamed of it. I remembered Dean Swift's retort to +Sergeant Bettesworth on a similar announcement,--"Of what regiment, +pray, sir?"--and fancied that the same question might not have been +quite amiss, if applied to the rugged individual at my side. But I heard +of him subsequently as one of the prominent men at the English bar, a +rough customer, and a terribly strong champion in criminal cases; and it +caused me more regret than might have been expected, on so slight an +acquaintanceship, when, not long afterwards, I saw his death announced +in the newspapers. Not rich in attractive qualities, he possessed, I +think, the most attractive one of all,--thorough manhood. + +After the cloth was removed, a goodly group of decanters were set before +the Mayor, who sent them forth on their outward voyage, full freighted +with Port, Sherry, Madeira, and Claret, of which excellent liquors, +methought, the latter found least acceptance among the guests. When +every man had filled his glass, his Worship stood up and proposed a +toast. It was, of course, "Our gracious Sovereign," or words to that +effect; and immediately a band of musicians, whose preliminary tootings +and thrummings I had already heard behind me, struck up "God save the +Queen!" and the whole company rose with one impulse to assist in singing +that famous national anthem. It was the first time in my life that I had +ever seen a body of men, or even a single man, under the active +influence of the sentiment of Loyalty; for, though we call ourselves +loyal to our country and institutions, and prove it by our readiness to +shed blood and sacrifice life in their behalf, still the principle is as +cold and hard, in an American bosom, as the steel spring that puts in +motion a powerful machinery. In the Englishman's system, a force similar +to that of our steel spring is generated by the warm throbbings of human +hearts. He clothes our bare abstraction in flesh and blood,--at +present, in the flesh and blood of a woman,--and manages to combine +love, awe, and intellectual reverence, all in one emotion, and to embody +his mother, his wife, his children, the whole idea of kindred, in a +single person, and make her the representative of his country and its +laws. We Americans smile superior, as I did at the Mayor's table; and +yet, I fancy, we lose some very agreeable titillations of the heart in +consequence of our proud prerogative of caring no more about our +President than for a man of straw, or a stuffed scarecrow straddling in +a cornfield. + +But, to say the truth, the spectacle struck me rather ludicrously, to +see this party of stout middle-aged and elderly gentlemen, in the +fullness of meat and drink, their ample and ruddy faces glistening with +wine, perspiration, and enthusiasm, rumbling out those strange old +stanzas from the very bottom of their hearts and stomachs, which two +organs, in the English interior arrangement, lie closer together than in +ours. The song seemed to me the rudest old ditty in the world; but I +could not wonder at its universal acceptance and indestructible +popularity, considering how inimitably it expresses the national faith +and feeling as regards the inevitable righteousness of England, the +Almighty's consequent respect and partiality for that redoubtable little +island, and his presumed readiness to strengthen its defense against the +contumacious wickedness and knavery of all other principalities or +republics. Tennyson himself, though evidently English to the very last +prejudice, could not write half so good a song for the purpose. Finding +that the entire dinner-table struck in, with voices of every pitch +between rolling thunder and the squeak of a cart-wheel, and that the +strain was not of such delicacy as to be much hurt by the harshest of +them, I determined to lend my own assistance in swelling the triumphant +roar. It seemed but a proper courtesy to the first Lady in the land, +whose guest, in the largest sense, I might consider myself. Accordingly, +my first tuneful efforts (and probably my last, for I purpose not to +sing any more, unless it be "Hail Columbia" on the restoration of the +Union) were poured freely forth in honor of Queen Victoria. The Sergeant +smiled like the carved head of a Swiss nutcracker, and the other +gentlemen in my neighborhood, by nods and gestures, evinced grave +approbation of so suitable a tribute to English superiority; and we +finished our stave and sat down in an extremely happy frame of mind. + +Other toasts followed in honor of the great institutions and interests +of the country, and speeches in response to each were made by +individuals whom the Mayor designated or the company called for. None of +them impressed me with a very high idea of English post-prandial +oratory. It is inconceivable, indeed, what ragged and shapeless +utterances most Englishmen are satisfied to give vent to, without +attempting anything like artistic shape, but clapping on a patch here +and another there, and ultimately getting out what they want to say, and +generally with a result of sufficiently good sense, but in some such +disorganized mass as if they had thrown it up rather than spoken it. It +seemed to me that this was almost as much by choice as necessity. An +Englishman, ambitious of public favor, should not be too smooth. If an +orator is glib, his countrymen distrust him. They dislike smartness. The +stronger and heavier his thoughts, the better, provided there be an +element of commonplace running through them; and any rough, yet never +vulgar, force of expression, such as would knock an opponent down if it +hit him, only it must not be too personal, is altogether to their taste; +but a studied neatness of language, or other such superficial graces, +they cannot abide. They do not often permit a man to make himself a fine +orator of malice aforethought, that is, unless he be a nobleman (as, for +example, Lord Stanley, of the Derby family), who, as an hereditary +legislator and necessarily a public speaker, is bound to remedy a poor +natural delivery in the best way he can. On the whole, I partly agree +with them, and, if I cared for any oratory whatever, should be as likely +to applaud theirs as our own. When an English speaker sits down, you +feel that you have been listening to a real man, and not to an actor; +his sentiments have a wholesome earth-smell in them, though, very +likely, this apparent naturalness is as much an art as what we expend in +rounding a sentence or elaborating a peroration. + +It is one good effect of this inartificial style, that nobody in England +seems to feel any shyness about shoveling the untrimmed and untrimmable +ideas out of his mind for the benefit of an audience. At least, nobody +did on the occasion now in hand, except a poor little Major of +Artillery, who responded for the Army in a thin, quavering voice, with a +terribly hesitating trickle of fragmentary ideas, and, I question not, +would rather have been bayoneted in front of his batteries than to have +said a word. Not his own mouth, but the cannon's, was this poor Major's +proper organ of utterance. + +While I was thus amiably occupied in criticising my fellow-guests, the +Mayor had got up to propose another toast; and listening rather +inattentively to the first sentence or two, I soon became sensible of a +drift in his Worship's remarks that made me glance apprehensively +towards Sergeant Wilkins. "Yes," grumbled that gruff personage, shoving +a decanter of Port towards me, "it is your turn next;" and seeing in my +face, I suppose, the consternation of a wholly unpracticed orator, he +kindly added, "It is nothing. A mere acknowledgment will answer the +purpose. The less you say, the better they will like it." That being the +case, I suggested that perhaps they would like it best if I said nothing +at all. But the Sergeant shook his head. Now, on first receiving the +Mayor's invitation to dinner, it had occurred to me that I might +possibly be brought into my present predicament; but I had dismissed the +idea from my mind as too disagreeable to be entertained, and, moreover, +as so alien from my disposition and character that Fate surely could not +keep such a misfortune in store for me. If nothing else prevented, an +earthquake or the crack of doom would certainly interfere before I need +rise to speak. Yet here was the Mayor getting on inexorably,--and, +indeed, I heartily wished that he might get on and on forever, and of +his wordy wanderings find no end. + +If the gentle reader, my kindest friend and closest confidant, deigns to +desire it, I can impart to him my own experience as a public speaker +quite as indifferently as if it concerned another person. Indeed, it +does concern another, or a mere spectral phenomenon, for it was not I, +in my proper and natural self, that sat there at table or subsequently +rose to speak. At the moment, then, if the choice had been offered me +whether the Mayor should let off a speech at my head or a pistol, I +should unhesitatingly have taken the latter alternative. I had really +nothing to say, not an idea in my head, nor, which was a great deal +worse, any flowing words or embroidered sentences in which to dress out +that empty Nothing, and give it a cunning aspect of intelligence, such +as might last the poor vacuity the little time it had to live. But time +pressed; the Mayor brought his remarks, affectionately eulogistic of the +United States and highly complimentary to their distinguished +representative at that table, to a close, amid a vast deal of cheering; +and the band struck up "Hail Columbia," I believe, though it might have +been "Old Hundred," or "God save the Queen" over again, for anything +that I should have known or cared. When the music ceased, there was an +intensely disagreeable instant, during which I seemed to rend away and +fling off the habit of a lifetime, and rose, still void of ideas, but +with preternatural composure, to make a speech. The guests rattled on +the table, and cried, "Hear!" most vociferously, as if now, at length, +in this foolish and idly garrulous world, had come the long-expected +moment when one golden word was to be spoken; and in that imminent +crisis, I caught a glimpse of a little bit of an effusion of +international sentiment, which it might, and must, and should do to +utter. + +Well; it was nothing, as the Sergeant had said. What surprised me most +was the sound of my own voice, which I had never before heard at +declamatory pitch, and which impressed me as belonging to some other +person, who, and not myself, would be responsible for the speech: a +prodigious consolation and encouragement under the circumstances! I went +on without the slightest embarrassment, and sat down amid great +applause, wholly undeserved by anything that I had spoken, but well won +from Englishmen, methought, by the new development of pluck that alone +had enabled me to speak at all. "It was handsomely done!" quoth Sergeant +Wilkins; and I felt like a recruit who had been for the first time under +fire.[19] + +[19] Anybody may make an after-dinner speech who will be content to talk +onward without saying anything. My speech was not more than two or three +inches long; and, considering that I did not know a soul there, except +the Mayor himself, and that I am wholly unpracticed in all sorts of +oratory, and that I had nothing to say, it was quite successful. I +hardly thought it was in me, but, being once started, I felt no +embarrassment, and went through it as coolly as if I were going to be +hanged.--I. 429. + +I would gladly have ended my oratorical career then and there forever, +but was often placed in a similar or worse position, and compelled to +meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an +office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which +I might be crushed by no moral delinquency on my own part, but could not +shirk without cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various. +Once, though I felt it to be a kind of imposture, I got a speech by +heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty one, only I forgot +every syllable at the moment of need, and had to improvise another as +well as I could. I found it a better method to prearrange a few points +in my mind, and trust to the spur of the occasion, and the kind aid of +Providence, for enabling me to bring them to bear. The presence of any +considerable proportion of personal friends generally dumfounded me. I +would rather have talked with an enemy in the gate. Invariably, too, I +was much embarrassed by a small audience, and succeeded better with a +large one,--the sympathy of a multitude possessing a buoyant effect, +which lifts the speaker a little way out of his individuality, and +tosses him towards a perhaps better range of sentiment than his private +one. Again, if I rose carelessly and confidently, with an expectation of +going through the business entirely at my ease, I often found that I +had little or nothing to say; whereas, if I came to the charge in +perfect despair, and at a crisis when failure would have been horrible, +it once or twice happened that the frightful emergency concentrated my +poor faculties, and enabled me to give definite and vigorous expression +to sentiments which an instant before looked as vague and far off as the +clouds in the atmosphere. On the whole, poor as my own success may have +been, I apprehend that any intelligent man with a tongue possesses the +chief requisite of oratorical power, and may develop many of the others, +if he deems it worth while to bestow a great amount of labor and pains +on an object which the most accomplished orators, I suspect, have not +found altogether satisfactory to their highest impulses. At any rate, it +must be a remarkably true man who can keep his own elevated conception +of truth when the lower feeling of a multitude is assailing his natural +sympathies, and who can speak out frankly the best that there is in him, +when by adulterating it a little, or a good deal, he knows that he may +make it ten times as acceptable to the audience. + +This slight article on the civic banquets of England would be too +wretchedly imperfect without an attempted description of a Lord Mayor's +dinner at the Mansion House in London. I should have preferred the +annual feast at Guildhall, but never had the good fortune to witness it. +Once, however, I was honored with an invitation to one of the regular +dinners, and gladly accepted it,--taking the precaution, nevertheless, +though it hardly seemed necessary, to inform the City-King, through a +mutual friend, that I was no fit representative of American eloquence, +and must humbly make it a condition that I should not be expected to +open my mouth, except for the reception of his Lordship's bountiful +hospitality. The reply was gracious and acquiescent; so that I presented +myself in the great entrance-hall of the Mansion House, at half-past six +o'clock, in a state of most enjoyable freedom from the pusillanimous +apprehensions that often tormented me at such times. The Mansion House +was built in Queen Anne's days, in the very heart of old London, and is +a palace worthy of its inhabitant, were he really as great a man as his +traditionary state and pomp would seem to indicate. Times are changed, +however, since the days of Whittington, or even of Hogarth's Industrious +Apprentice, to whom the highest imaginable reward of lifelong integrity +was a seat in the Lord Mayor's chair. People nowadays say that the real +dignity and importance have perished out of the office, as they do, +sooner or later, out of all earthly institutions, leaving only a painted +and gilded shell like that of an Easter egg, and that it is only +second-rate and third-rate men who now condescend to be ambitious of the +Mayoralty. I felt a little grieved at this; for the original emigrants +of New England had strong sympathies with the people of London, who were +mostly Puritans in religion and Parliamentarians in politics, in the +early days of our country; so that the Lord Mayor was a potentate of +huge dimensions in the estimation of our forefathers, and held to be +hardly second to the prime minister of the throne. The true great men of +the city now appear to have aims beyond city greatness, connecting +themselves with national politics, and seeking to be identified with the +aristocracy of the country. + +In the entrance-hall I was received by a body of footmen dressed in a +livery of blue coats and buff breeches, in which they looked +wonderfully like American Revolutionary generals, only bedizened with +far more lace and embroidery than those simple and grand old heroes ever +dreamed of wearing. There were likewise two very imposing figures, whom +I should have taken to be military men of rank, being arrayed in scarlet +coats and large silver epaulets; but they turned out to be officers of +the Lord Mayor's household, and were now employed in assigning to the +guests the places which they were respectively to occupy at the +dinner-table. Our names (for I had included myself in a little group of +friends) were announced; and ascending the staircase, we met his +Lordship in the doorway of the first reception-room, where, also, we had +the advantage of a presentation to the Lady Mayoress. As this +distinguished couple retired into private life at the termination of +their year of office, it is inadmissible to make any remarks, critical +or laudatory, on the manners and bearing of two personages suddenly +emerging from a position of respectable mediocrity into one of +preeminent dignity within their own sphere. Such individuals almost +always seem to grow nearly or quite to the full size of their office. If +it were desirable to write an essay on the latent aptitude of ordinary +people for grandeur, we have an exemplification in our own country, and +on a scale incomparably greater than that of the Mayoralty, though +invested with nothing like the outward magnificence that gilds and +embroiders the latter. If I have been correctly informed, the Lord +Mayor's salary is exactly double that of the President of the United +States, and yet is found very inadequate to his necessary expenditure. + +There were two reception-rooms, thrown into one by the opening of wide +folding-doors; and though in an old style, and not yet so old as to be +venerable, they are remarkably handsome apartments, lofty as well as +spacious, with carved ceilings and walls, and at either end a splendid +fireplace of white marble, ornamented with sculptured wreaths of flowers +and foliage. The company were about three hundred, many of them +celebrities in politics, war, literature, and science, though I +recollect none preeminently distinguished in either department. But it +is certainly a pleasant mode of doing honor to men of literature, for +example, who deserve well of the public, yet do not often meet it face +to face, thus to bring them together under genial auspices, in +connection with persons of note in other lines. I know not what may be +the Lord Mayor's mode or principle of selecting his guests, nor whether, +during his official term, he can proffer his hospitality to every man of +noticeable talent in the wide world of London, nor, in fine, whether his +Lordship's invitation is much sought for or valued; but it seemed to me +that this periodical feast is one of the many sagacious methods which +the English have contrived for keeping up a good understanding among +different sorts of people. Like most other distinctions of society, +however, I presume that the Lord Mayor's card does not often seek out +modest merit, but comes at last when the recipient is conscious of the +bore, and doubtful about the honor. + +One very pleasant characteristic, which I never met with at any other +public or partially public dinner, was the presence of ladies. No doubt, +they were principally the wives and daughters of city magnates; and if +we may judge from the many sly allusions in old plays and satirical +poems, the city of London has always been famous for the beauty of its +women and the reciprocal attractions between them and the men of +quality. Be that as it might, while straying hither and thither through +those crowded apartments, I saw much reason for modifying certain +heterodox opinions which I had imbibed, in my Transatlantic newness and +rawness, as regarded the delicate character and frequent occurrence of +English beauty. To state the entire truth (being, at this period, some +years old in English life), my taste, I fear, had long since begun to be +deteriorated by acquaintance with other models of feminine loveliness +than it was my happiness to know in America. I often found, or seemed to +find, if I may dare to confess it, in the persons of such of my dear +countrywomen as I now occasionally met, a certain meagreness (Heaven +forbid that I should call it scrawniness!), a deficiency of physical +development, a scantiness, so to speak, in the pattern of their material +make, a paleness of complexion, a thinness of voice,--all of which +characteristics, nevertheless, only made me resolve so much the more +sturdily to uphold these fair creatures as angels, because I was +sometimes driven to a half-acknowledgment that the English ladies, +looked at from a lower point of view, were perhaps a little finer +animals than they. The advantages of the latter, if any they could +really be said to have, were all comprised in a few additional lumps of +clay on their shoulders and other parts of their figures. It would be a +pitiful bargain to give up the ethereal charm of American beauty in +exchange for half a hundred-weight of human clay! + +At a given signal we all found our way into an immense room, called the +Egyptian Hall, I know not why, except that the architecture was classic, +and as different as possible from the ponderous style of Memphis and the +Pyramids. A powerful band played inspiringly as we entered, and a +brilliant profusion of light shone down on two long tables, extending +the whole length of the hall, and a cross-table between them, occupying +nearly its entire breadth. Glass gleamed and silver glistened on an acre +or two of snowy damask, over which were set out all the accompaniments +of a stately feast. We found our places without much difficulty, and the +Lord Mayor's chaplain implored a blessing on the food,--a ceremony which +the English never omit, at a great dinner or a small one, yet consider, +I fear, not so much a religious rite as a sort of preliminary relish +before the soup. + +The soup, of course, on this occasion, was turtle, of which, in +accordance with immemorial custom, each guest was allowed two platefuls, +in spite of the otherwise immitigable law of table-decorum. Indeed, +judging from the proceedings of the gentlemen near me, I surmised that +there was no practical limit, except the appetite of the guests and the +capacity of the soup-tureens. Not being fond of this civic dainty, I +partook of it but once, and then only in accordance with the wise maxim, +always to taste a fruit, a wine, or a celebrated dish, at its indigenous +site; and the fountain-head of turtle-soup, I suppose, is in the Lord +Mayor's dinner-pot. It is one of those orthodox customs which people +follow for half a century without knowing why, to drink a sip of +rum-punch, in a very small tumbler, after the soup. It was excellently +well-brewed, and it seemed to me almost worth while to sup the soup for +the sake of sipping the punch. The rest of the dinner was catalogued in +a bill-of-fare printed on delicate white paper within an arabesque +border of green and gold. It looked very good, not only in the English +and French names of the numerous dishes, but also in the positive +reality of the dishes themselves, which were all set on the table to be +carved and distributed by the guests. This ancient and honest method is +attended with a good deal of trouble, and a lavish effusion of gravy, +yet by no means bestowed or dispensed in vain, because you have thereby +the absolute assurance of a banquet actually before your eyes, instead +of a shadowy promise in the bill-of-fare, and such meagre fulfillment as +a single guest can contrive to get upon his individual plate. I wonder +that Englishmen, who are fond of looking at prize-oxen in the shape of +butcher's meat, do not generally better estimate the aesthetic gormandism +of devouring the whole dinner with their eyesight, before proceeding to +nibble the comparatively few morsels which, after all, the most heroic +appetite and widest stomachic capacity of mere mortals can enable even +an alderman really to eat. There fell to my lot three delectable things +enough, which I take pains to remember, that the reader may not go away +wholly unsatisfied from the Barmecide feast to which I have bidden +him,--a red mullet, a plate of mushrooms, exquisitely stewed, and part +of a ptarmigan, a bird of the same family as the grouse, but feeding +high up towards the summit of the Scotch mountains, whence it gets a +wild delicacy of flavor very superior to that of the artificially +nurtured English game-fowl. All the other dainties have vanished from my +memory as completely as those of Prospero's banquet after Ariel had +clapped his wings over it. The band played at intervals inspiriting us +to new efforts, as did likewise the sparkling wines which the footmen +supplied from an inexhaustible cellar, and which the guests quaffed with +little apparent reference to the disagreeable fact that there comes a +to-morrow morning after every feast. As long as that shall be the case, +a prudent man can never have full enjoyment of his dinner. + +Nearly opposite to me, on the other side of the table, sat a young lady +in white, whom I am sorely tempted to describe, but dare not, because +not only the super-eminence of her beauty, but its peculiar character, +would cause the sketch to be recognized, however rudely it might be +drawn. I hardly thought that there existed such a woman outside of a +picture-frame, or the covers of a romance: not that I had ever met with +her resemblance even there, but, being so distinct and singular an +apparition, she seemed likelier to find her sisterhood in poetry and +picture than in real life. Let us turn away from her, lest a touch too +apt should compel her stately and cold and soft and womanly grace to +gleam out upon my page with a strange repulsion and unattainableness in +the very spell that made her beautiful.[20] At her side, and familiarly +attentive to her, sat a gentleman of whom I remember only a hard outline +of the nose and forehead, and such a monstrous portent of a beard that +you could discover no symptom of a mouth, except when he opened it to +speak, or to put in a morsel of food. Then, indeed, you suddenly became +aware of a cave hidden behind the impervious and darksome shrubbery. +There could be no doubt who this gentleman and lady were. Any child +would have recognized them at a glance. It was Bluebeard and a new wife +(the loveliest of the series, but with already a mysterious gloom +overshadowing her fair young brow) traveling in their honeymoon, and +dining, among other distinguished strangers, at the Lord Mayor's table. + +[20] My eyes were mostly drawn to a young lady, who sat nearly opposite +me, across the table. She was, I suppose, dark, and yet not dark, but +rather seemed to be of pure white marble, yet not white; but the purest +and finest complexion, without a shade of color in it, yet anything but +sallow or sickly. Her hair was a wonderful deep raven-black, black as +night, black as death; not raven-black, for that has a shiny gloss, +and hers had not, but it was hair never to be painted nor +described,--wonderful hair, Jewish hair. Her nose had a beautiful +outline, though I could see that it was Jewish too; and that, and all +her features, were so fine that sculpture seemed a despicable art beside +her, and certainly my pen is good for nothing. If any likeness could be +given, however, it must be by sculpture, not painting. She was slender +and youthful, and yet had a stately and cold, though soft and womanly +grace; and, looking at her, I saw what were the wives of the old +patriarchs in their maiden or early-married days,--what Judith was, for, +womanly as she looked, I doubt not she could have slain a man in a just +cause,--what Bathsheba was, only she seemed to have no sin in +her,--perhaps what Eve was, though one could hardly think her weak +enough to eat the apple.... Whether owing to distinctness of race, my +sense that she was a Jewess, or whatever else, I felt a sort of +repugnance, simultaneously with my perception that she was an admirable +creature.--II. 238. + +After an hour or two of valiant achievement with knife and fork came the +dessert; and at the point of the festival where finger-glasses are +usually introduced, a large silver basin was carried round to the +guests, containing rose-water, into which we dipped the ends of our +napkins and were conscious of a delightful fragrance, instead of that +heavy and weary odor, the hateful ghost of a defunct dinner. This seems +to be an ancient custom of the city, not confined to the Lord Mayor's +table, but never met with westward of Temple Bar. + +During all the feast, in accordance with another ancient custom, the +origin or purport of which I do not remember to have heard, there stood +a man in armor, with a helmet on his head, behind his Lordship's chair. +When the after-dinner wine was placed on the table, still another +official personage appeared behind the chair, and proceeded to make a +solemn and sonorous proclamation (in which he enumerated the principal +guests, comprising three or four noblemen, several baronets, and plenty +of generals, members of Parliament, aldermen, and other names of the +illustrious, one of which sounded strangely familiar to my ears), ending +in some such style as this: "and other gentlemen and ladies, here +present, the Lord Mayor drinks to you all in a loving-cup,"--giving a +sort of sentimental twang to the two words,--"and sends it round among +you!" And forthwith the loving-cup--several of them, indeed, on each +side of the tables--came slowly down with all the antique ceremony. + +The fashion of it is thus. The Lord Mayor, standing up and taking the +covered cup in both hands, presents it to the guest at his elbow, who +likewise rises, and removes the cover for his Lordship to drink, which +being successfully accomplished, the guest replaces the cover and +receives the cup into his own hands. He then presents it to his next +neighbor, that the cover may be again removed for himself to take a +draught, after which the third person goes through a similar manoeuvre +with a fourth, and he with a fifth, until the whole company find +themselves inextricably inter-twisted and entangled in one complicated +chain of love. When the cup came to my hands, I examined it critically, +both inside and out, and perceived it to be an antique and richly +ornamented silver goblet, capable of holding about a quart of wine. +Considering how much trouble we all expended in getting the cup to our +lips, the guests appeared to content themselves with wonderfully +moderate potations. In truth, nearly or quite the original quart of wine +being still in the goblet, it seemed doubtful whether any of the company +had more than barely touched the silver rim before passing it to their +neighbors,--a degree of abstinence that might be accounted for by a +fastidious repugnance to so many compotators in one cup, or possibly by +a disapprobation of the liquor. Being curious to know all about these +important matters, with a view of recommending to my countrymen whatever +they might usefully adopt, I drank an honest sip from the loving-cup, +and had no occasion for another,--ascertaining it to be Claret of a poor +original quality, largely mingled with water, and spiced and sweetened. +It was good enough, however, for a merely spectral or ceremonial drink, +and could never have been intended for any better purpose. + +The toasts now began in the customary order, attended with speeches +neither more nor less witty and ingenious than the specimens of table +eloquence which had heretofore delighted me. As preparatory to each new +display, the herald, or whatever he was, behind the chair of state, gave +awful notice that the Right Honorable the Lord Mayor was about to +propose a toast. His Lordship being happily delivered thereof, together +with some accompanying remarks, the band played an appropriate tune, and +the herald again issued proclamation to the effect that such or such a +nobleman, or gentleman, general, dignified clergyman, or what not, was +going to respond to the Right Honorable the Lord Mayor's toast; then, if +I mistake not, there was another prodigious flourish of trumpets and +twanging of stringed instruments; and, finally, the doomed individual, +waiting all this while to be decapitated, got up and proceeded to make a +fool of himself. A bashful young earl tried his maiden oratory on the +good citizens of London, and, having evidently got every word by heart +(even including, however he managed it, the most seemingly casual +improvisations of the moment), he really spoke like a book, and made +incomparably the smoothest speech I ever heard in England. + +The weight and gravity of the speakers, not only on this occasion, but +all similar ones, was what impressed me as most extraordinary, not to +say absurd. Why should people eat a good dinner, and put their spirits +into festive trim with Champagne, and afterwards mellow themselves into +a most enjoyable state of quietude with copious libations of Sherry and +old Port, and then disturb the whole excellent result by listening to +speeches as heavy as an after-dinner nap, and in no degree so +refreshing? If the Champagne had thrown its sparkle over the surface of +these effusions, or if the generous Port had shone through their +substance with a ruddy glow of the old English humor, I might have seen +a reason for honest gentlemen prattling in their cups, and should +undoubtedly have been glad to be a listener. But there was no attempt +nor impulse of the kind on the part of the orators, nor apparent +expectation of such a phenomenon on that of the audience. In fact, I +imagine that the latter were best pleased when the speaker embodied his +ideas in the figurative language of arithmetic, or struck upon any hard +matter of business or statistics, as a heavy-laden bark bumps upon a +rock in mid-ocean.[21] The sad severity, the too earnest utilitarianism, +of modern life, have wrought a radical and lamentable change, I am +afraid, in this ancient and goodly institution of civic banquets. People +used to come to them, a few hundred years ago, for the sake of being +jolly; they come now with an odd notion of pouring sober wisdom into +their wine by way of wormwood-bitters, and thus make such a mess of it +that the wine and wisdom reciprocally spoil one another. + +[21] I rather think that Englishmen would purposely avoid eloquence or +neatness in after-dinner speeches. It seems to be no part of their +object. Yet any Englishman almost, much more generally than Americans, +will stand up and talk on in a plain way, uttering one rough, ragged, +and shapeless sentence after another, and will have expressed himself +sensibly, though in a very rude manner, before he sits down. And this is +quite satisfactory to his audience, who, indeed, are rather prejudiced +against the man who speaks too glibly.--I. 540. + +Possibly, the foregoing sentiments have taken a spice of acridity from a +circumstance that happened about this stage of the feast, and very much +interrupted my own further enjoyment of it. Up to this time, my +condition had been exceedingly felicitous, both on account of the +brilliancy of the scene, and because I was in close proximity with three +very pleasant English friends. One of them was a lady, whose honored +name my readers would recognize as a household word, if I dared write +it; another, a gentleman, likewise well known to them, whose fine taste, +kind heart, and genial cultivation are qualities seldom mixed in such +happy proportion as in him. The third was the man to whom I owed most in +England, the warm benignity of whose nature was never weary of doing me +good, who led me to many scenes of life, in town, camp, and country, +which I never could have found out for myself, who knew precisely the +kind of help a stranger needs, and gave it as freely as if he had not +had a thousand more important things to live for. Thus I never felt +safer or cosier at anybody's fireside, even my own, than at the +dinner-table of the Lord Mayor. + +Out of this serene sky came a thunderbolt. His Lordship got up and +proceeded to make some very eulogistic remarks upon "the literary and +commercial"--I question whether those two adjectives were ever before +married by a copulative conjunction, and they certainly would not live +together in illicit intercourse, of their own accord--"the literary and +commercial attainments of an eminent gentleman there present," and then +went on to speak of the relations of blood and interest between Great +Britain and the aforesaid eminent gentleman's native country. Those +bonds were more intimate than had ever before existed between two great +nations, throughout all history, and his Lordship felt assured that that +whole honorable company would join him in the expression of a fervent +wish that they might be held inviolably sacred, on both sides of the +Atlantic, now and forever. Then came the same wearisome old toast, dry +and hard to chew upon as a musty sea-biscuit, which had been the text of +nearly all the oratory of my public career. The herald sonorously +announced that Mr. So-and-so would now respond to his Right Honorable +Lordship's toast and speech, the trumpets sounded the customary flourish +for the onset, there was a thunderous rumble of anticipatory applause, +and finally a deep silence sank upon the festive hall. + +All this was a horrid piece of treachery on the Lord Mayor's part, after +beguiling me within his lines on a pledge of safe-conduct; and it seemed +very strange that he could not let an unobtrusive individual eat his +dinner in peace, drink a small sample of the Mansion House wine, and go +away grateful at heart for the old English hospitality. If his Lordship +had sent me an infusion of ratsbane in the loving-cup, I should have +taken it much more kindly at his hands. But I suppose the secret of the +matter to have been somewhat as follows. + +All England, just then, was in one of those singular fits of panic +excitement (not fear, though as sensitive and tremulous as that +emotion), which, in consequence of the homogeneous character of the +people, their intense patriotism, and their dependence for their ideas +in public affairs on other sources than their own examination and +individual thought, are more sudden, pervasive, and unreasoning than any +similar mood of our own public. In truth, I have never seen the American +public in a state at all similar, and believe that we are incapable of +it. Our excitements are not impulsive, like theirs, but, right or wrong, +are moral and intellectual. For example, the grand rising of the North, +at the commencement of this war, bore the aspect of impulse and passion +only because it was so universal, and necessarily done in a moment, just +as the quiet and simultaneous getting-up of a thousand people out of +their chairs would cause a tumult that might be mistaken for a storm. We +were cool then, and have been cool ever since, and shall remain cool to +the end, which we shall take coolly, whatever it may be. There is +nothing which the English find it so difficult to understand in us as +this characteristic. They imagine us, in our collective capacity, a kind +of wild beast, whose normal condition is savage fury, and are always +looking for the moment when we shall break through the slender barriers +of international law and comity, and compel the reasonable part of the +world, with themselves at the head, to combine for the purpose of +putting us into a stronger cage. At times this apprehension becomes so +powerful (and when one man feels it, a million do) that it resembles the +passage of the wind over a broad field of grain, where you see the whole +crop bending and swaying beneath one impulse, and each separate stalk +tossing with the self-same disturbance as its myriad companions. At such +periods all Englishmen talk with a terrible identity of sentiment and +expression. You have the whole country in each man; and not one of them +all, if you put him strictly to the question, can give a reasonable +ground for his alarm. There are but two nations in the world--our own +country and France--that can put England into this singular state. It is +the united sensitiveness of a people extremely well-to-do, careful of +their country's honor, most anxious for the preservation of the cumbrous +and moss-grown prosperity which they have been so long in consolidating, +and incompetent (owing to the national half-sightedness, and their +habit of trusting to a few leading minds for their public opinion) to +judge when that prosperity is really threatened. + +If the English were accustomed to look at the foreign side of any +international dispute, they might easily have satisfied themselves that +there was very little danger of a war at that particular crisis, from +the simple circumstance that their own Government had positively not an +inch of honest ground to stand upon, and could not fail to be aware of +the fact. Neither could they have met Parliament with any show of a +justification for incurring war. It was no such perilous juncture as +exists now, when law and right are really controverted on sustainable or +plausible grounds, and a naval commander may at any moment fire off the +first cannon of a terrible contest. If I remember it correctly, it was a +mere diplomatic squabble, in which the British ministers, with the +politic generosity which they are in the habit of showing towards their +official subordinates, had tried to browbeat us for the purpose of +sustaining an ambassador in an indefensible proceeding; and the American +Government (for God had not denied us an administration of statesmen +then) had retaliated with stanch courage and exquisite skill, putting +inevitably a cruel mortification upon their opponents, but indulging +them with no pretense whatever for active resentment. + +Now the Lord Mayor, like any other Englishman, probably fancied that War +was on the western gale, and was glad to lay hold of even so +insignificant an American as myself, who might be made to harp on the +rusty old strings of national sympathies, identity of blood and +interest, and community of language and literature, and whisper peace +where there was no peace, in however weak an utterance. And possibly his +Lordship thought, in his wisdom, that the good feeling which was sure to +be expressed by a company of well-bred Englishmen, at his august and +far-famed dinner-table, might have an appreciable influence on the grand +result. Thus, when the Lord Mayor invited me to his feast, it was a +piece of strategy. He wanted to induce me to fling myself, like a lesser +Curtius, with a larger object of self-sacrifice, into the chasm of +discord between England and America, and, on my ignominious demur, had +resolved to shove me in with his own right-honorable hands, in the hope +of closing up the horrible pit forever. On the whole, I forgive his +Lordship. He meant well by all parties,--himself, who would share the +glory, and me, who ought to have desired nothing better than such an +heroic opportunity,--his own country, which would continue to get cotton +and bread-stuffs, and mine, which would get everything that men work +with and wear. + +As soon as the Lord Mayor began to speak, I rapped upon my mind, and it +gave forth a hollow sound, being absolutely empty of appropriate ideas. +I never thought of listening to the speech, because I knew it all +beforehand in twenty repetitions from other lips, and was aware that it +would not offer a single suggestive point. In this dilemma, I turned to +one of my three friends, a gentleman whom I knew to possess an enviable +flow of silver speech, and obtested him, by whatever he deemed holiest, +to give me at least an available thought or two to start with, and, once +afloat, I would trust my guardian-angel for enabling me to flounder +ashore again. He advised me to begin with some remarks complimentary to +the Lord Mayor, and expressive of the hereditary reverence in which his +office was held,--at least, my friend thought that there would be no +harm in giving his Lordship this little sugar-plum, whether quite the +fact or no,--was held by the descendants of the Puritan forefathers. +Thence, if I liked, getting flexible with the oil of my own eloquence, I +might easily slide off into the momentous subject of the relations +between England and America, to which his Lordship had made such weighty +allusion. + +Seizing this handful of straw with a death-grip, and bidding my three +friends bury me honorably, I got upon my legs to save both countries, or +perish in the attempt. The tables roared and thundered at me, and +suddenly were silent again. But, as I have never happened to stand in a +position of greater dignity and peril, I deem it a stratagem of sage +policy here to close these Sketches, leaving myself still erect in so +heroic an attitude. + + + + +INDEX + + + Actress, an, in an almshouse, 507; + starving for admiration, 508. + + Addison, early home of, 215; + buried among the men of rank, 456. + + Advice, as to giving, 42. + + Ailsa Craig, 358. + + Alexander, Miss, the Lass of Ballochmyle, 344. + + Almshouse, a great English, 498-522. + + American flags, captured, displayed in Chelsea Hospital, 435. + + American mercantile marine, misrepresented at Liverpool, 2, 3, 46; + its vicious system, 45, 48. + + American shipmasters, cruelties of, 44-49. + + Americans, national characteristics of, as seen by a consul, 9, 10; + vagabond habits of, 11, 12; + as claimants of English estates, 18, 22-31; + growth and change the law of their existence, 93; + their scholars and critics, 190; + their light regard for the President, 553. + + Andre, Major, at Lichfield, 216. + + Anne, Queen, statue of, at Blenheim, 295. + + Antiquity, hoar, in English scenes, 90. + + Archdeacon ale, 300. + + Armour, Jean, 329, 330, 346. + + Auchinleck, estate of, 343. + + Avon, the, arched bridge at Warwick, 105; + a sluggish river, 166. + + Ayr, ride to, 347; + its two bridges, 348. + + + Bacon, Lord, his Letters, 176. + + Bacon, Miss, a very remarkable woman, 172; + her Shakespearean theory, 172, 173, 176-178; + her personal appearance, 174; + her book, 179, 189, 192; + an admirable talker, 180; + at Stratford, 181-191; + her plans for searching Shakespeare's grave, 182-184; + Hawthorne incurs her displeasure, 188; + her insanity, 191; + her death, 192. + + Ballochmyle, the Lass of, 344. + + Banquets, civic, 527-588. + + Barber Surgeons' Hall, in London, 537-539. + + Bear and Ragged Staff, the, cognizance of the Warwick Earldom, 109; + silver badge of, 113; + representations of, at Leicester's Hospital, 116, 118, 133. + + Beauchamp, Richard, Earl of Warwick, memorial of, 138; + strange accident to, 139. + + Beauchamp Chapel, at Warwick, 137-140. + + Bebbington, monuments at, 85, _note_; + old village church of, 98, _note_. + + Beggar, a true Englishman's dislike of a, 491; + hardening the heart against, 492; + a phenomenal, 493-495. + + Belmont, August, minister at the Hague, 29. + + Ben Lomond, 358. + + Black Swan inn, Lichfield, 199. + + Blackheath, the wide waste of, 370-373; + amusements at, 373-375. + + Blenheim, excursion to, 281, 282; + its park, 283-289; + Marlborough's Triumphal Pillar at, 289; + its palace, 289-296; + its gardens, 296-298. + + Bolton, 231. + + Boston, old, trip to, by steamer from Lincoln, 255-259; + the river side of, 260; + antique-looking houses at, 263; + a bookseller's shop at, 264, 265; + its crooked and narrow streets, 275; + its Charity School scholars, 277; + market-day in, 278. + + Boswell, Sir James, grandson of Johnson's friend, 343. + + Brooke, Lord, shot near the Minster Pool, 206. + + Brown, Capability, his lake at Blenheim, 284; + grounds at Nuneham Courtney, 321. + + Buchanan, James, in London, 20; + receives Hawthorne's resignation, 55; + calls on Miss Bacon, 178. + + Buckland, Dean, swallows part of Louis XIV.'s heart, 270. + + Bull, John, too intensely English, 101. + + Bunker Hill, England, 279. + + Burleigh, Lord, waistcoat of, 266. + + Burns, Robert, his house at Dumfries, 325-327; + his mausoleum, 329, 330; + marble statue of, 329; + his outward life, 331; + his family pew in St. Michael's Church, 334; + his farm of Moss Giel, 337-342; + his birthplace, 349-351; + his monument, 351-353. + + Butchers' shops, in poor streets of London, 474. + + + Carfax, the, 320. + + Caskets, burial, "a vile modern phrase," 140. + + Cass, Lewis, responds to interference of British Minister, 46. + + Catrine, "the clean village of Scotland," 345. + + Ceylon, wild men of, 28. + + Charlecote Hall, 195-198. + + Charlecote Park, 193; deer in, 194, 195. + + Charles, the Martyr, king, 270. + + Charles I., Vandyck's picture of, 292. + + Chelsea, 433. + + Chelsea Hospital, 433-437. + + Chester, most curious town in England, 59. + + Children in an English almshouse, 509-519. + + Children, poor, in London streets, 487-489. + + Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford, 155. + + Climate, English, unfavorable to open-air memorials, 83, 84. + + Cockneys, in Greenwich Park, 379. + + Coffee-room, English, ponderous gloom of, 200. + + Combe, John a', boon-companion of Shakespeare, 164; + buried near Shakespeare, 168; + marble figure of, 170; + Shakespeare's squib on, 170. + + Concord River, compared with the Leam, 67. + + Connecticut shopkeeper, a, seeking interview with the Queen, 17-21. + + Conner, Mr., an American patron of Leicester's Hospital, 133. + + Consul, as general adviser and helper, 31, 32, 42, 43; + as arbiter between seamen and their officers, 44-49; + not a favorite with shipmasters, 49; + necessary qualifications, 51, 52; + wrong system of appointment and removal, 52; + important duties, 53; + emoluments, 55, + _note_. + + Consulate, American, in Liverpool, its location, 1; + its approaches, 1, 2; + its furnishings, 3-6; + visitors at, 7-21; + faithful English subordinates, 50, 51; + Hawthorne's successor at, 56. + + Cook, Captain, present from Queen of Otaheite to, 266. + + Cornwall, Barry, 469. + + Cottages, rustic laborers', 79-81. + + Cotton, Rev. John, in Old Boston, 263, 270, 271. + + Crystal Palace, the, 438. + + Cumnor, village of, 301; its church, 302, 303. + + Cymbeline, King, founder of Warwick, 103, 129; + one of his original gateways, 112. + + + Deluge, necessity of a new, 472, 518. + + Dinner, the English idea of, 527; + Milton on, 528; + a perfect work of art, 530, 531; + an English mayor's, 539-560; + Lord Mayor's, at the Mansion House, 563. + + Doctor of Divinity, an erring, 33-41. + + Doon, the bridge of, 357. + + Dowager, an English, 73-75. + + Dudley, Earl of Leicester, establishes Leicester's Hospital, 115; + a grim sinner, 127; + his monument in Beauchamp Chapel, 137; + his long-enduring kindness, 138. + + Dumfries, excursion to, 325-334. + + Dutch government, an American under the ban of, 29. + + + East winds, English, 257. + + Edward IV., King, a lock of his hair, 140. + + Edward the Confessor, shrine of, 455. + + Elizabeth, Queen, Secret-Book of, 269. + + Elm, the beautiful Warwickshire, 69. + + England, conservative, 141; + yet the foundations of its aristocracy crumbling, 141. + + English, the, forgetful of defeats, 4; + their character, massive materiality of, 23; + secret of their practical success, 42; + impostors betrayed by pronunciation of "been," 44; + their integrity, 51; + their love of high stone fences and shrubbery, 69, 371; + curious infelicity of, 100; + like to feel the weight of the past, 111; + the very kindest people on earth, 305; + their insular narrowness, 306; + their inability to enjoy summer, 367; + original simplicity of, 379; + eager to know their weight, 402; + women not beautiful, 406; + their contempt for fine-strained purity, 408, 409; + their tendency to batter one another's persons, 482. + + English crowds, unfragrant, 397, 398. + + English post-prandial oratory, 555, 579. + + English village, fossilized life of an, 93. + + English weather, 5, 366-368. + + Englishman, a middle-aged, personal appearance of, 542. + + Epitaphs: illegible, on English gravestones, 84; + moss-embossed, 85; + forlorn one on John Treeo, 86, 87. + + Eugene, Prince, tapestry portraits of, 294. + + + Feeing, in England, 161, 162, _note_. + + Feminine character among the London poor, 481-487. + + Fences, English stone, adorned by Nature, 151, 152, _note_. + + Forster, Anthony, buried in Cumnor Church, 303. + + Fruit, English, poor flavor of, 364. + + Fun of the Fair, the, 399. + + + Garrick, David, boyish days at Lichfield, 216. + + Gin-shops, London, 472. + + Girls, English and American, contrasted, 72, 75, 406. + + Godiva, Countess, picture of, 535. + + Godstowe, old nunnery of, 317. + + Gravestones, English, successive crops of, 83; + illegible inscriptions on, 84; + moss-embossed inscriptions on, 85. + + Greenwich, its park, 376, 377, 379, 380, 383; + its observatory, the centre of Time and Space, 376; + its hospital, 385-396; + its fair, 396-408. + + + Hatton, a community of old settlers, 95; + its church, 96, 97. + + Hawthorne responds to toasts at civic banquets, 558-560, 582-588. + + Hedges, English, 149. + + Henry V., his helmet and war-saddle displayed in + Westminster Abbey, 455. + + Highland Mary, the pocket Bible that Burns gave her, 353. + + Holbein, masterpiece of, in Barber Surgeons' Hall, 537. + + Home, a genuine British, 359-364. + + Hotels and hotel bills, English, 162, _note_. + + Houses of Parliament, the, 431. + + Hunt, Leigh, interview with, 459-468; + final recollection of, 468. + + + Imogen, Shakespeare's womanliest woman, 129. + + + Jackson, General, bust of, 4. + + James, G. P. R., never saw London Tower, 428. + + James I., King, feasted by an Earl of Warwick, 119, 134. + + Jephson, Dr., discoverer of chalybeate well at Leamington, 63. + + Jephson Garden, on the Leam, 65-67. + + Johnson, Dr., born at Lichfield, 201; + as a man, a talker, and a humorist, 202; + the great English moralist, 203; + his birthplace, 216, 217; + his statue, by Lucas, 218; + statue in St. Paul's Cathedral, 219, _note_; + doing penance in the market-place, 220, 223, 228, 229, 230; + his faith in beef and mutton, 225. + + Johnson, Michael, selling books on market-day, 221; + his book-stall, 222; + at the Nag's Head inn, 226, 227. + + Jolly Beggars, the, at Posie Nansie's inn, 336. + + Jonson, Ben, buried standing upright, 451. + + Judges, social standing of, 549. + + + Kemble, John, statue of, in Westminster Abbey, 445. + + Kirk Alloway, 354-356. + + "Kissing in the Ring," 404. + + Kneller, Sir Godfrey, his objection to being buried in + Westminster Abbey, 449. + + + Lambeth Palace, 432. + + Lancashire, a dreary county, 231. + + Lansdowne Circus, 60; + its houses, 61; + its inhabitants, 62. + + Leam, the river, 63, 65; + the laziest in the world, 67. + + Leamington Spa, 60; + a permanent watering-place, 63, 64; + the business portion of the town, 68; + beautiful in street and suburb, 69; + but pretentious, 70; + its aristocratic names, 71; + the throng on its principal Parade, 71, 72. + + Lear, West's dreary picture of, 390. + + Leicester's Hospital at Warwick: + an assemblage of edifices, 112; + the twelve brethren of, 113, 115, 116, 118, 125, 131, 134, 135; + a perfect specimen, 116; + a jolly old domicile, 121; + system of life in, 123; + the porter at, 124-126. + + Lestrange, Sir Nicholas, first proprietor of Leicester's Hospital + buildings, 114, 115. + + Lichfield, 199; + origin of the name, 201; + birthplace of Dr. Johnson, 201, 216; + its people old-fashioned, 204; + its cathedral, 206-214. + + Lillington, the village, 78; + its church, 81, 82; + its churchyard, 83-87. + + Lincoln, cabs unknown there, 236; + its narrow principal street, 237; + its cathedral, 236, 239-249, 253, 254; + Roman remains at, 250; + Norman ruins at, 251. + + Linkwater, Sir John, fines himself for drunkenness, 548. + + Liquor, varieties of hop and malt, in England, 299, 300. + + Liverpool, a convenient starting-point for excursions, 58. + + Lodgings, English custom of, 70, _note_. + + London, suburb, a, 359; + a distant view of, 373; + grimy, 375. + + Lord Mayor's dinner, at the Mansion House, 563-588. + + Lovers' Grove, at Leamington, 77. + + Loving-cup, the Lord Mayor's, 575-577. + + Lucy, Sir Thomas, and Shakespeare, 196. + + + Malay pirates, delightful qualities of, 28. + + Mansfield, Lord, statue of, in Westminster Abbey, 445. + + Mansion House, the, in London, 563. + + Marlborough, Duke of, Triumphal Pillar of, 288. + + Mary Queen of Scots, quilt embroidered by, 265, 271. + + Mauchline, redolent of Burns, 335; + rusty and time-worn, 336; + its chief business, 346. + + Maury, Mr., appointed consul at Liverpool by Washington, 50. + + McClellan, General, before Richmond, 43. + + Melville, Herman, his "Israel Potter" referred to, 13. + + "Memory green, keep his," possible origin of the phrase, 86. + + Methodist open-air preaching in Greenwich Park, 380-383. + + Minster Pool, the, at Lichfield, 205. + + Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, monument to, in Lichfield + Cathedral, 211. + + Moss Giel, Burns's farm of, 337-342. + + Museum, the British, too many materials for knowledge in, 384, + _note_. + + + Nag's Head inn, the, at Uttoxeter, 226. + + Nelson, Admiral, his highest ambition, 391; + not a representative man, 392-394; + Southey's biography of, 393; + pictures of his exploits, 394; + two of his coats preserved at Greenwich Hospital, 395. + + Newcastle, Duke and Duchess of, 444. + + New Orleans, battle of, forgotten by Englishmen, 4. + + Nuneham Courtney, 314, 320-322. + + + Old age, cheerful and genial in England, 277. + + Open-air life of the London poor, 476-481. + + Otaheite, Queen of, her present to Captain Cook, 266, 271. + + Oxford, barges at, 318; + indescribable, 322, 323. + + + Painted Hall, the, at Greenwich Hospital, 390, 391. + + Parliament, British, and American sailors, 45, 46. + + Parr, Dr., once vicar of Hatton, 95; + a misplaced man, 97; + a guest at Leicester's Hospital, 130. + + Peacock hotel, Old Boston, 259. + + Pearce, Mr., vice-consul at Liverpool, 50. + + Peel, Sir Robert, and Holbein's masterpiece in Barber Surgeons' + Hall, 537. + + Philadelphia printer, a, wandering about England, 13-17. + + Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey, 451-459. + + Pope, Alexander, his account of Stanton Harcourt, 308; + translation of Homer, 314. + + Porter, Mr., bookseller at Old Boston, 265-271. + + Posie Nansie's inn at Mauchline, 336. + + Posthumus and Imogen, 129. + + Poverty, glimpses of English, 470-524. + + Procter, Bryan Waller, 469. + + + Raleigh, Sir Walter, and the Thames Tunnel, 420-422. + + "Red Letter A," author of, 306. + + Redfern's Old Curiosity Shop, at Warwick, 142, 143. + + Regatta of the Free Watermen of Greenwich, a, 413. + + Remorse, tragedy of, 40. + + Robsart, Amy, embroidery by, at Leicester's Hospital, 133; + monument of her avenger, 137. + + Rosamond, Fair, at the nunnery of Godstowe, 317. + + Rosamond's Well, Blenheim, 287. + + Russell, Lord John, remonstrates against outrages on American + sailors, 46. + + + Sacheverell, Dr., 219. + + Sacrament Sunday at Mauchline, 337. + + Sailors, American, ill-usage of, 44. + + St. Botolph's Church, Old Boston, 259, 262, 272-275. + + St. Chad, 201. + + St. Hugh, shrine of, in Lincoln Cathedral, 247. + + St. John's School-House, at Warwick, 104. + + St. Mary's Church, at Warwick, 136. + + St. Mary's Hall, at Coventry, 533-536. + + St. Mary's Square, at Lichfield, 216, 218. + + St. Michael's Church, at Dumfries, 328, 332-334. + + St. Paul's Cathedral, 429. + + Saracen's Head hotel, Lincoln, 236. + + Scenery, English, 146, 232. + + Schools, English, long-established, 104. + + Scott, Sir Walter, attractiveness of his name, 160; + and Anthony Forster, 303. + + Seward, Miss, at Lichfield, 216. + + Shakespeare: his church, 155; + his birthplace, 157-163; + his various guises, 164; + his curse on the man who should stir his bones, 165; + his burial-place, 165-171; + family monuments, 167; + his bust, in the church at Stratford, 168, 169; + Miss Bacon's theory, 175; + immeasurable depth of his plays, 175. + + Sheffield, the town of razors and smoke, 235. + + Sherwood Forest, 235. + + Shrewsbury, pleasant walks in, 238, _note_. + + Southey, Robert, his Life of Nelson, 393. + + Stanton Harcourt, its hospitable parsonage, 305; + its old castle, 306, 307, 313, 314; + Pope's connection with, 308, 309, 314, 315; + its church, 309-312. + + Sterne, Laurence, crayon-portrait of, 267. + + Stocks, village, at Whitnash, 90. + + Stratford-on-Avon, scenery near, 145; + approach to, 153, 154; + queer edifices in, 155. + + Swans, aspect and movement of, 66. + + Swynford, Catherine, monument of, in Lincoln Cathedral, 247. + + + Tam O'Shanter, statue of, 353. + + Taylor, General, portrait of, 4. + + Temple, the, 431. + + Tennyson, and English scenery, 77. + + Testament, New, consular copy of, 6, 45. + + Thames, ferry near Cumnor, 305; + steamers on, 412; + its muddy tide, 414; + a summer day's voyage on, 412-435. + + Thames Tunnel, the, 415-423. + + Thornhill, Sir James, 291, 390. + + Tickell, Thomas, his lines on Addison, 456. + + Tower of London, the, 427, 428. + + Traitor's Gate, the, 427. + + Treeo, John, forlorn epitaph on, 86. + + Trees, English and American, compared, 147-149. + + Tuckerman, H. T., his "Month in England," 439. + + + Uttoxeter, 221; + its idle people, 223; + its abundance of public houses, 224. + + + Vagabonds, Yankee, abroad, 11-22. + + Vandyck, his picture of Charles I., 292. + + Victoria, Queen, a Connecticut shopkeeper goes to England to see + her, 18-21; + some American blood-relatives, 26. + + + Walmesley, Gilbert, monument to, in Lichfield Cathedral, 211. + + Wapping, cold and torpid, 425. + + Warren, Sir Peter, bust of, in Westminster Abbey, 444. + + Warwick, founded by Cymbeline, 103, 129; + its castle, 105, 107; + its principal street, 108, 109; + military display at, 109; + the High Street, 110; + Leicester's Hospital, 112-127; + the home of Posthumus and Imogen, 129; + church of St. Mary's, 136-140; + Redfern's Old Curiosity Shop, 142, 143. + + Warwickshire Elm, the beautiful, 69. + + Wasps, attracted by pomatum, 319. + + Wedding, of some poor English people, 522-524; + an aristocratic, in the same cathedral, 525. + + Wedding, silver, as a matter of conscience, 76. + + West, Benjamin, picture by, at Greenwich, 389. + + Westminster Abbey, a Sunday afternoon service in, 440; + its interior, 441; + statues and tombs in, 444-447; + "they do bury fools there," 449; + Poets' Corner, 451-459. + + Whitefriars, the old rowdy Alsatia, 430. + + Whitnash, secluded village of, 88; + yew-tree of incalculable age at, 89; + village stocks of, 90; + change at work in, 93, 94. + + Wilberforce, William, statue of, in Westminster Abbey, 446, 447. + + Wilding, Mr., vice-consul at Liverpool, 51. + + Wilkins, Sergeant, 550, 551, 557. + + Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, 286. + + Witham, the river, 255, 263. + + Women, in the poorer streets of London, 479, 484; + in an English almshouse, 499; + at public dinners, 567. + + Woodstock, 282. + + Wren, Sir Christopher, restorer of St. Mary's Church, Warwick, 136. + + + Yew-tree, extraordinary age of, 89. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Our Old Home, Vol. 2, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR OLD HOME, VOL. 2 *** + +***** This file should be named 37625.txt or 37625.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/6/2/37625/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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