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diff --git a/78179-0.txt b/78179-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21918cb --- /dev/null +++ b/78179-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2420 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78179 *** + + + “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE. + + + + + HOUSEHOLD WORDS. + A WEEKLY JOURNAL. + + + CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. + + + N^{o.} 15.] SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._ + + + + + THE OLD LADY IN THREADNEEDLE STREET. + + +Perhaps there is no Old Lady who has attained to such great distinction +in the world, as this highly respectable female. Even the Old Lady who +lived on a hill, and who, if she’s not gone, lives there still; or that +other Old Lady who lived in a shoe, and had so many children she didn’t +know what to do—are unknown to fame, compared with the Old Lady of +Threadneedle Street. In all parts of the civilised earth the +imaginations of men, women, and children figure this tremendous Old Lady +of Threadneedle Street in some rich shape or other. Throughout the +length and breadth of England, old ladies dote upon her; young ladies +smile upon her; old gentlemen make much of her, young gentlemen woo her; +everybody courts the smiles, and dreads the coldness, of the powerful +Old Lady in Threadneedle Street. Even prelates have been said to be fond +of her; and Ministers of State to have been unable to resist her +attractions. She is next to omnipotent in the three great events of +human life. In spite of the old saw, far fewer marriages are made in +Heaven, than with an eye to Threadneedle Street. To be born in the good +graces of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, is to be born to fortune: +to die in her good books, is to leave a far better inheritance, as the +world goes, than “the grinning honour that Sir Walter hath,” in +Westminster Abbey. And there she is, for ever in Threadneedle Street, +another name for wealth and thrift, threading her golden-eyed needle all +the year round. + +This Old Lady, when she first set up, carried on business in Grocers’ +Hall, Poultry; but in 1732 she quarrelled with her landlords about a +renewal of her lease, and built a mansion of her own in Threadneedle +Street. She reared her new abode on the site of the house and garden of +a former director of her affairs, Sir John Houblon. This was a modest +structure, somewhat dignified by having a statue of William the Third +placed before it; but not the more imposing from being at the end of an +arched court, densely surrounded with habitations, and abutting on the +churchyard of St. Christopher le Stocks. + +But now, behold her, a prosperous gentlewoman in the hundred and +fifty-seventh year of her age; “the oldest inhabitant” of Threadneedle +Street! There never was such an insatiable Old Lady for business. She +has gradually enlarged her premises, until she has spread them over four +acres; confiscating to her own use not only the parish church of St. +Christopher, but the greater part of the parish itself. + +We count it among the great events of our young existence, that we had, +some days since, the honour of visiting the Old Lady. It was not without +an emotion of awe that we passed her Porter’s Lodge. The porter himself, +blazoned in royal scarlet, and massively embellished with gold lace, is +an adumbration of her dignity and wealth. His cocked hat advertises her +stable antiquity as plainly as if she had written up, in imitation of +some of her lesser neighbours, “established in 1694.” This foreshadowing +became reality when we passed through the Hall—the tellers’ hall. A +sensation of unbounded riches permeated every sense, except, alas! that +of touch. The music of golden thousands clattered in the ear, as they +jingled on counters until its last echoes were strangled in the puckers +of tightened money-bags, or died under the clasps of purses. Wherever +the eye turned, it rested on money; money of every possible variety; +money in all shapes; money of all colours. There was yellow money, white +money, brown money; gold money, silver money, copper money; paper money, +pen and ink money. Money was wheeled about in trucks; money was carried +about in bags; money was scavengered about with shovels. Thousands of +sovereigns were jerked hither and thither from hand to hand—grave games +of pitch and toss were played with staid solemnity; piles of bank +notes—competent to buy whole German dukedoms and Italian +principalities—hustled to and fro with as much indifference as if they +were (as they had been) old rags. + +This Hall of the Old Lady’s overpowered us with a sense of wealth; +oppressed us with a golden dream of Riches. From this vision an +instinctive appeal to our own pockets, and a few miserable shillings, +awakened us to Reality. When thus aroused we were in one of the Old +Lady’s snug, elegant, waiting-rooms, which is luxuriously +Turkey-carpeted and adorned with two excellent portraits of two ancient +cashiers; regarding one of whom the public were warned:— + + “Sham Abraham you may, + I’ve often heard say: + But you mustn’t sham ‘Abraham Newland.’” + +There are several conference-rooms for gentlemen who require a little +private conversation with the Old Lady—perhaps on the subject of +discounts. + +It is no light thing to send in one’s card to the Foster-Mother of +British commerce; the Soul of the State; “the Sun,” according to Sir +Francis Baring, around which the agriculture, trade, and finance of this +country revolves; the mighty heart of active capital, through whose +arteries and veins flows the entire circulating medium of this great +country. It was not, therefore, without agitation that we were ushered +from the waiting-room, into that celebrated private apartment of the Old +Lady of Threadneedle Street—the Parlour—the Bank Parlour, the inmost +mystery—the _cella_ of the great Temple of Riches. + +The ordinary associations called up by the notion of an old lady’s +comfortable parlour, were not fulfilled by this visit. There is no +domestic snugness, no easy chair, no cat, no parrot, no japanned +bellows, no portrait of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold in the +Royal Box at Drury Lane Theatre; no kettle-holder, no worsted rug for +the urn, no brass footman for the buttered toast, in the parlour in +Threadneedle Street. On the contrary, the room is extensive—supported by +pillars; is of grand and true proportions; and embellished with +architectural ornaments in the best taste. It has a long table for the +confidential managers of the Old Lady’s affairs (she calls these +gentlemen her Directors) to sit at; and usually, a side table fittingly +supplied with a ready-laid lunch. + +The Old Lady’s “Drawing” Room is as unlike—but then she is such a +peculiar Old Lady!—any ordinary Drawing-room as need be. It has hardly +any furniture, but desks, stools, and books. It is of immense +proportions, and has no carpet. The vast amount of visitors the Old Lady +receives between nine and four every day, would make lattice-work in one +forenoon of the stoutest carpet ever manufactured. Everybody who comes +into the Old Lady’s Drawing-room delivers his credentials to her +gentlemen-ushers, who are quick in examining the same, and exact in the +observance of all points of form. So highly-prized, however, is a +presentation (on any grand scale) to the Old Lady’s Drawing-room, +notwithstanding its plainness, that there is no instance of a +Drawing-room at Court being more sought after. Indeed, it has become a +kind of proverb that the way to Court often lies through the Old Lady’s +apartments, and some suppose that the Court Sticks are of gold and +silver in compliment to her. + +As to the individual appearance of the Old Lady herself, we are +authorised to state that the portrait of a Lady (accompanied by eleven +balls on a sprig, and a beehive) which appears in the upper left-hand +corner of all the Bank of England Notes, is NOT the portrait of _the_ +Lady. She invariably wears a cap of silver paper, with her yellow hair +gathered carefully underneath. When she carries any defensive or +offensive weapon, it is not a lance, but a pen; and her modesty would on +no account permit her to appear in such loose drapery as is worn by the +party in question—who we understand is depicted as a warning to the +youthful merchants of this country to avoid the fate of George Barnwell. + +In truth, like the Delphian mystery, SHE of Threadneedle Street is +invisible, and delivers her oracles through her high priests: and, as +Herodotus got his information from the priests in Egypt, so did we learn +all we know about the Bank from the great officers of the Myth of +Threadneedle Street. All of them are remarkable for great intelligence +and good humour, particularly one MR. MATTHEW MARSHALL; for whom the Old +Lady is supposed to have a sneaking kindness, as she is continually +promising to pay him the most stupendous amounts of money. From what +these gentlemen told us, we are prepared unhesitatingly to affirm in the +teeth of the assertions of Plutarch, and Pliny, and Justin, that +although Crœsus might have been well enough to do in the world in his +day, he was but a pettifogger compared with the Great Lady of St. +Christopher le Stocks. The Lydian king never employed nine hundred +clerks, or accommodated eight hundred of them under one roof; and if he +could have done either, he would have been utterly unable to muster one +hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year to pay them. He never had +bullion in his cellars, at any one time, to the value of sixteen +millions and a half sterling, as our Old Lady has lately averaged; nor +“other securities”—much more marketable than the precious stones Crœsus +showed to Solon—to the amount of thirty millions. Besides, _all_ his +capital was “dead weight;” that in Threadneedle Street is active, and is +represented by an average paper currency of twenty millions per annum. + +After this statement of facts, we trust that modern poets when they want +a hyperbole for wealth will cease to cite Crœsus, and draw their future +inspirations from the shrine and cellars of the Temple opposite the +Auction Mart; or, as the late Mr. George Robins designated it when +professionally occupied, “The Great House over the way.” + +When we withdrew from the inmost fane of this Temple, we were ushered by +the priest, who superintends the manufacture of the mysterious Deity’s +oracles, into those recesses of her Temple in which these are made. Here +we perceived, that, besides carrying on the ordinary operations of +banking, the Old Lady is an extensive printer, engraver, bookbinder, and +publisher. She maintains a steam-engine to drive letter-press and +copper-plate printing machines, besides the other machinery which is +employed in various operations, from making thousand pound notes to +weighing single sovereigns. It is not until you see three steam-printing +machines—such as we use for this publication—and hear that they are +constantly revolving, to produce, at so many thousand sheets per hour, +the printed forms necessary for the accurate account-keeping of this +great Central Establishment and its twelve provincial branches, that you +are fully impressed with the magnitude of the Old Lady’s transactions. +In this one department no fewer than three hundred account-books are +printed, ruled, bound, and used every week. During that short time they +are filled with MS. by the eight hundred subordinates and their chiefs. +By way of contrast we saw the single ledger which sufficed to post up +the daily transactions of the Old Lady on her first establishment in +business. It is no bigger than that of a small tradesman’s, and served +to contain a record of the year’s accounts. Until within the last few +years, visitors to the Bullion Office were shown the old box into which +the books of the Bank were put every night for safety during the Old +Lady’s early career. This receptacle is no bigger than a seaman’s chest. +A spacious fire-proof room is now nightly filled with each day’s +accounts, and they descend to it by means of a great hydraulic trap in +the Drawing Office; the mountain of calculation when collected being too +huge to be moved by human agency. + +These works are, of course, only produced for private reference; but the +Old Lady’s publishing business is as extensive as it is profitable and +peculiar. Although her works are the reverse of heavy or erudite—being +“flimsy” to a proverb—yet the eagerness with which they are sought by +the public, surpasses that displayed for the productions of the greatest +geniuses who ever enlightened the world: she is, therefore, called upon +to print enormous numbers of each edition,—generally one hundred +thousand copies; and reprints of equally large impressions are demanded, +six or seven times a year. She is protected by a stringent copyright; in +virtue of which, piracy is felony, and was, until 1831, punished with +death. The very paper is copyright, and to imitate even that entails +transportation. Indeed its merits entitle it to every protection, for it +is a very superior article. It is so thin that each sheet, before it is +sized, weighs only eighteen grains; and so strong, that, when sized and +doubled, a single sheet is capable of suspending a weight of fifty-six +pounds. + +The literature of these popular prints is concise to terseness. A +certain individual, duly accredited by the Old Lady, whose autograph +appears in one corner, promises to pay to the before-mentioned Mr. +Matthew Marshall, or bearer on demand, a certain sum, for the Governor +and Company of the Bank of England. There is a date and a number; for +the Old Lady’s sheets are published in Numbers; but, unlike other +periodicals, no two copies of hers are alike. Each has a set of +numerals, shown on no other.—It must not be supposed from the utter +absence of rhetoric in this Great Woman’s literature, that it is devoid +of ornament. On the contrary, it is illustrated by eminent artists: the +illustrations consisting of the waves of a watermark made in the paper; +a large black blot, with the statement in white letters of the sum which +is promised to be paid; and the portrait referred to in a former part of +this account of the Wonderful Old Lady. + +She makes it a practice to print thirty thousand copies of these works +daily. Everything possible is done by machinery,—engraving, printing, +numbering; but we refrain from entering into further details of this +portion of the Old Lady’s Household here, as we are preparing a review +of her valuable works, which shall shortly appear, in the form of a +History of a Bank note. The publication department is so admirably +conducted, that a record of each individual piece of paper launched on +the ocean of public favour is kept, and its history traced till its +return; for another peculiarity of the Old Lady’s establishment is, that +every impression put forth comes back—with few exceptions—in process of +time to her shelves; where it is kept for ten years, and then burnt. +This great house is, therefore, a huge circulating library. The daily +average number of notes brought back into the Old Lady’s lap—examined to +detect forgeries; defaced; entered upon the record made when they were +issued; and so stored away that they can be reproduced at any given +half-hour for ten years to come,—is twenty-five thousands. On the day of +our visit, there came in twenty-eight thousand and seventy-four of her +picturesque pieces of paper, representing one million, one thousand, two +hundred and seventy pounds sterling, to be dealt with as above, +preparatory to their decennial slumber on her library shelves. + +The apartment in which the notes are kept _previous_ to issue, is the +Old Lady’s Store-room. There is no jam, there are no pickles, no +preserves, no gallipots, no stoneware jars, no spices, no anything of +that sort, in the Store-room of the Wonderful Old Lady. You might die of +hunger in it. Your sweet tooth would decay and tumble out, before it +could find the least gratification in the Old Lady’s Store-room. There +was a mouse found there once, but it was dead, and nothing but skin and +bone. It is a grim room, fitted up all round with great iron-safes. They +look as if they might be the Old Lady’s ovens, never heated. But they +are very warm in the City sense; for when the Old Lady’s two +store-keepers have, each with his own key, unlocked his own one of the +double locks attached to each, and opened the door, Mr. Matthew Marshall +gives you to hold a little bundle of paper, value two millions sterling; +and, clutching it with a strange tingling, you feel disposed to knock +Mr. Matthew Marshall down, and, like a patriotic Frenchman, to descend +into the streets. + +No tyro need be told that these notes are representatives of weightier +value, and were invented partly to supersede the necessity of carrying +about ponderous parcels of precious metal. Hence—to treat of it +soberly—four paper parcels taken out, and placed in our hands—consisting +of four reams of Bank notes ready for issue, and not much more bulky +than a thick octavo volume—though they represent gold of the weight of +_two tons_, and of the value of two millions of pounds sterling, yet +weigh not quite one pound avoirdupois each, or nearly four pounds +together. The value in gold of what we could convey away in a couple of +side pockets (if simply permitted by the dear Old Lady in Threadneedle +Street, without proceeding to extremities upon the person of the Chief +Cashier) would have required, but for her admirable publications, two of +Barclay and Perkins’s strongest horses to draw.[1] + +Footnote 1: + + One thousand sovereigns weigh twenty-one pounds, and five hundred and + twelve Bank-notes weigh exactly one pound. + +We have already made mention of the Old Lady’s Lodge, Hall, Parlour, +Store-room, and Drawing-room. Her Cellars are not less curious. In these +she keeps neither wine, nor beer, nor wood, nor coal. They are devoted +solely to the reception of the precious metals. They are like the caves +of Treasures in the Arabian Nights; the common Lamp that shows them +becomes a Wonderful Lamp in Mr. Marshall’s hands, and Mr. Marshall +becomes a Genie. Yet only by the power of association; for they are very +respectable arched cellars that would make dry skittle-grounds, and have +nothing rare about them but their glittering contents. One vault is full +of what might be barrels of oysters—if it were not the Russian Loan. +Another is rich here and there with piles of gold bars, set cross-wise, +like sandwiches at supper, or rich biscuits in a confectioner’s shop. +Another has a moonlight air from the presence of so much silver. Dusky +avenues branch off, where gold and silver amicably bide their time in +cool retreats, not looking at all mischievous here, or anxious to play +the Devil with our souls. Oh for such cellars at home! “Look out for +your young master half a dozen bars of the ten bin.” “Let me have a +wedge of the old crusted.” “Another Million before we part—only one +Million more, to finish with!” The Temperance Cause would make but slow +way, as to such cellars, we have a shrewd suspicion! + +Beauty of colour is here associated with worth. One of these brilliant +bars of gold weighs sixteen pounds troy, and its value is eight hundred +pounds sterling. A pile of these, lying in a dark corner—like neglected +cheese, or bars of yellow soap—and which might be contained in an +ordinary tea-chest, is worth two hundred and ten thousand pounds. +Fortune herself transmuted into metal seems to repose at our feet. Yet +this is only an _eightieth_ part of the wealth contained in the Old +Lady’s cellars. + +The future history of this metal is explained in three sentences; it is +coined at the Mint, distributed to the public, worn by friction (or +“sweated” by Jews) till it becomes light. What happens to it then we +shall see. + +By a seldom failing law of monetary attraction nearly every species of +cash, “hard” or soft, metallic or paper, finds its way some time or +other back to the extraordinary Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. All the +sovereigns returned from the banking-houses are consigned to a secluded +cellar; and, when you enter it, you will possibly fancy yourself on the +premises of a clock-maker who works by steam. Your attention is speedily +concentrated to a small brass box not larger than an eight-day pendule, +the works of which are impelled by steam. This is a self-acting weighing +machine, which with unerring precision tells which sovereigns are of +standard weight, and which are light, and of its own accord separates +the one from the other. Imagine a long trough or spout—half a tube that +has been split into two sections—of such a semi-circumference as holds +sovereigns edgeways, and of sufficient length to allow of two hundred of +them to rest in that position one against another. This trough thus +charged is fixed slopingly upon the machine over a little table as big +as that of an ordinary sovereigns-balance. The coin nearest to the +Lilliputian platform drops upon it, being pushed forward by the weight +of those behind. Its own weight presses the table down; but how far +down? Upon that hangs the whole merit and discriminating power of the +machine. At the back, and on each side of this small table, two little +hammers move by steam backwards and forwards at different elevations. If +the sovereign be full weight, down sinks the table too low for the +higher hammer to hit it; but the lower one strikes the edge, and off the +sovereign tumbles into a receiver to the left. The table pops up again, +receives, perhaps, a light sovereign, and the higher hammer having +always first strike, knocks it into a receiver to the right, time enough +to escape its colleague, which, when it comes forward, has nothing to +hit, and returns to allow the table to be elevated again. In this way +the reputation of thirty-three sovereigns is established or destroyed +every minute. The light weights are taken to a clipping machine, slit at +the rate of two hundred a minute, weighed in a lump, the balance of +deficiency charged to the banker from whom they were received, and sent +to the Mint to be re-coined. Those which have passed muster are +re-issued to the public. The inventor of this beautiful little detector +was Mr. Cotton, a former governor. The comparatively few sovereigns +brought in by the general public are weighed in ordinary scales by the +tellers. The average loss upon each light coin, on an average of +thirty-five thousands taken in 1843, was twopence three farthings. + +The business of the “Great House” is divided into two branches; the +issue and the banking department. The latter has increased so rapidly of +late years, that the last addition the Old Lady was constrained to make +to her house was the immense Drawing-room aforesaid, for her customers +and their payees to draw cash on checks and to make deposits. Under this +noble apartment is the Strong Room, containing private property, +supposed to be of enormous value. It is placed there for safety by the +constituents of the Bank, and is concealed in tin boxes, on which the +owners’ names are legibly painted. The descent into this stronghold—by +means of the hydraulic trap we have spoken of—is so eminently +theatrical, that we believe the Head of the Department, on going down +with the books, is invariably required to strike an attitude, and to +laugh in three sepulchral syllables; while the various clerks above +express surprise and consternation. + +Besides private customers, everybody knows that our Old Lady does all +the banking business for the British Government. She pays the interest +to each Stock-holder in the National Debt, receives certain portions of +the revenue, &c. A separate set of offices is necessary, to keep all +such accounts, and these Stock Offices contain the most varied and +extensive collection of autographs extant. Those whom Fortune entitles +to dividends, must, by themselves or by their agents, sign the Stock +books. The last signature of Handel, the composer, and that upon which +Henry Fauntleroy was condemned and executed, are among the foremost of +these lions. Here, standing in a great long building of divers stories, +looking dimly upward through iron gratings, and dimly downward through +iron gratings, and into musty chambers diverging into the walls on +either hand, you may muse upon the National Debt. All the sheep that +ever came out of Northamptonshire, seem to have yielded up their skins +to furnish the registers in which its accounts are kept. Sweating and +wasting in this vast silent library, like manuscripts in a mouldy old +convent, are the records of the Dividends that are, and have been, and +of the Dividends unclaimed. Some men would sell their fathers into +slavery, to have the rummaging of these old volumes. Some, who would let +the Tree of Knowledge wither while they lay contemptuously at its feet, +would bestir themselves to pluck at these leaves, like shipwrecked +mariners. These are the books to profit by. This is the place for X. Y. +Z. to hear of something to his advantage in. This is the land of Mr. +Joseph Ady’s dreams. This is the dusty fountain whence those wondrous +paragraphs occasionally flow into the papers, disclosing how a labouring +thatcher has come into a hundred thousand pounds—a long, long way to +come—and gone out of his wits—not half so far to go. Oh, wonderful Old +Lady! threading the needle with the golden eye all through the labyrinth +of the National Debt, and hiding it in such dry hay-stacks as are +rotting here! + +With all her wealth, and all her power, and all her business, and all +her responsibilities, she is not a purse-proud Old Lady; but a dear, +kind, liberal, benevolent Old Lady; so particularly considerate to her +servants, that the meanest of them never speaks of her otherwise than +with affection. Though her domestic rules are uncommonly strict; though +she is very severe upon “mistakes,” be they ever so unintentional; +though till lately she made her in-door servants keep good hours, and +would not allow a lock to be turned or a bolt to be drawn after eleven +at night, even to admit her dearly beloved Matthew Marshall himself—yet +she exercises a truly tender and maternal care over her family of eight +hundred strong. To benefit the junior branches, she has recently set +aside a spacious room, and the sum of five hundred pounds, to form a +library. With this handsome capital at starting, and eight shillings a +year subscribed by the youngsters, an excellent collection of books will +soon be formed. Here, from three till eight o’clock every lawful day, +the subscribers can assemble for recreation or study; or, if they prefer +it, they can take books to their homes. A member of the Committee of +Management attends in turn during the specified hours—a self-imposed +duty, in the highest degree creditable to, but no more than is to be +expected from, the stewards of a Good Mistress; who, when any of her +servants become superannuated, soothes declining age with a pension. The +last published return states the number of pensioners at one hundred and +ninety three; each of whom received on an average 161_l._, or an +aggregate of upwards of 31,000_l._ per annum. + +Her kindness is not unrequited. Whenever anything ails her, the +assiduous attention of her people is only equalled by her own bounty to +them. When dangerously ill of the Panic in 1825, and the outflow of her +circulating medium was so violent that she was in danger of bleeding to +death, some of her upper servants never left her for a fortnight. At the +crisis of her disorder, on a memorable Saturday night (December the +seventeenth) her Deputy-Governor—who even then had not seen his own +children for a week—reached Downing Street “reeling with fatigue,” and +was just able to call out to the King’s Ministers—then anxiously +deliberating on the dear Old Lady’s case—that she was out of danger! +Another of her managing men lost his life in his anxiety for her safety, +during the burning of the Royal Exchange, in January, 1838. When the +fire broke out, the cold was intense; and although he had but just +recovered from an attack of the gout, he rushed to the rescue of his +beloved Old Mistress, saw everything done that could be done for her +safety, and died from his exertions. Although the Old Lady is now more +hale and hearty than ever, two of the Senior Clerks sit up in turn every +night, to watch over her; in which duty they are assisted by a company +of Foot Guards. + +The kind Old Lady of Threadneedle Street has, in short, managed to +attach her dependants to her by the strongest of ties—that of love. So +pleased are some with her service, that when even temporarily resting +from it, they feel miserable. A late Chief Cashier never solicited but +one holiday, and that for only a fortnight. In three days he returned +expressing his extreme disgust with every sort of recreation but that +afforded him by the Old Lady’s business. The last words of another old +servant when on his death-bed, were, “Oh, that I could only die on the +Bank steps!” + + + + + THE SERF OF POBEREZE. + + +The materials for the following tale were furnished to the writer while +travelling last year near the spot on which the events it narrates took +place. It is intended to convey a notion of some of the phases of +Polish, or rather Russian serfdom (for, as truly explained by one of the +characters in a succeeding page, it _is_ Russian), and of the +catastrophes it has occasioned, not only in Catherine’s time, but +occasionally at the present. The Polish nobles—themselves in +slavery—earnestly desire the emancipation of their serfs, which Russian +domination forbids. + +The small town of Pobereze stands at the foot of a stony mountain, +watered by numerous springs in the district of Podolia, in Poland. It +consists of a mass of miserable cabins, with a Catholic chapel and two +Greek churches in the midst, the latter distinguished by their gilded +towers. On one side of the marketplace stands the only inn, and on the +opposite side are several shops, from whose doors and windows look out +several dirtily dressed Jews. At a little distance, on a hill covered +with vines and fruit-trees, stands the Palace, which does not, perhaps, +exactly merit such an appellation, but who would dare to call otherwise +the dwelling of the lord of the domain? + +On the morning when our tale opens, there had issued from this palace +the common enough command to the superintendent of the estate, to +furnish the master with a couple of strong boys, for service in the +stables, and a young girl, to be employed in the wardrobe. Accordingly, +a number of the best-looking young peasants of Olgogrod assembled in the +broad avenue leading to the palace. Some were accompanied by their +sorrowful and weeping parents, in all of whose hearts, however, rose the +faint and whispered hope, “Perhaps it will not be _my_ child they will +choose!” + +Being brought into the court-yard of the palace, the Count Roszynski, +with the several members of his family, had come out to pass in review +his growing subjects. He was a small and insignificant-looking man, +about fifty years of age, with deep-set eyes and overhanging brows. His +wife, who was nearly of the same age, was immensely stout, with a vulgar +face and a loud disagreeable voice. She made herself ridiculous in +endeavouring to imitate the manners and bearing of the aristocracy, into +whose sphere she and her husband were determined to force themselves, in +spite of the humbleness of their origin. The father of the “Right +Honourable” Count Roszynski was a valet, who, having been a great +favourite with his master, amassed sufficient money to enable his son, +who inherited it, to purchase the extensive estate of Olgogrod, and with +it the sole proprietorship of 1600 human beings. Over them he had +complete control; and, when maddened by oppression, if they dared +resent, woe unto them! They could be thrust into a noisome dungeon, and +chained by one hand from the light of day for years, until their very +existence was forgotten by all except the jailer who brought daily their +pitcher of water and morsel of dry bread. + +Some of the old peasants say that Sava, father of the young peasant +girl, who stands by the side of an old woman, at the head of her +companions in the court-yard, is immured in one of these subterranean +jails. Sava was always about the Count, who, it was said, had brought +him from some distant land, with his little motherless child. Sava +placed her under the care of an old man and woman, who had the charge of +the bees in a forest near the palace, where he came occasionally to +visit her. But once, six long months passed, and he did not come! In +vain Anielka wept, in vain she cried, “Where is my father?”—No father +appeared. At last it was said that Sava had been sent to a long distance +with a large sum of money, and had been killed by robbers. In the ninth +year of one’s life the most poignant grief is quickly effaced, and after +six months Anielka ceased to grieve. The old people were very kind to +her, and loved her as if she were their own child. That Anielka might be +chosen to serve in the palace never entered their head, for who would be +so barbarous as to take the child away from an old woman of seventy and +her aged husband? + +To-day was the first time in her life that she had been so far from +home. She looked curiously on all she saw,—particularly on a young lady +about her own age, beautifully dressed, and a youth of eighteen, who had +apparently just returned from a ride on horseback, as he held a whip in +his hand, whilst walking up and down examining the boys who were placed +in a row before him. He chose two amongst them, and the boys were led +away to the stables. + +“And I choose this young girl,” said Constantia Roszynski, indicating +Anielka; “she is the prettiest of them all. I do not like ugly faces +about me.” + +When Constantia returned to the drawing-room, she gave orders for +Anielka to be taken to her apartments, and placed under the tutelage of +Mademoiselle Dufour, a French maid, recently arrived from the first +milliner’s shop in Odessa. Poor girl! when they separated her from her +adopted mother, and began leading her towards the palace, she rushed, +with a shriek of agony, from them, and grasped her old protectress +tightly in her arms! They were torn violently asunder, and the Count +Roszynski quietly asked, “Is it her daughter, or her grand-daughter?” + +“Neither, my lord,—only an adopted child.” + +“But who will lead the old woman home, as she is blind?” + +“I will, my lord,” replied one of his servants, bowing to the ground; “I +will let her walk by the side of my horse, and when she is in her cabin +she will have her old husband,—they must take care of each other.” + +So saying, he moved away with the rest of the peasants and domestics. +But the poor old woman had to be dragged along by two men; for in the +midst of her shrieks and tears she had fallen to the ground, almost +without life. + +And Anielka? They did not allow her to weep long. She had now to sit all +day in the corner of a room to sew. She was expected to do everything +well from the first; and if she did not, she was kept without food or +cruelly punished. Morning and evening she had to help Mdlle. Dufour to +dress and undress her mistress. But Constantia, although she looked with +hauteur on everybody beneath her, and expected to be slavishly obeyed, +was tolerably kind to the poor orphan. Her true torment began, when, on +leaving her young lady’s room, she had to assist Mdlle. Dufour. +Notwithstanding that she tried sincerely to do her best, she was never +able to satisfy her, or to draw from her aught but harsh reproaches. + +Thus two months passed. + +One day Mdlle. Dufour went very early to confession, and Anielka was +seized with an eager longing to gaze once more in peace and freedom on +the beautiful blue sky and green trees, as she used to do when the first +rays of the rising sun streamed in at the window of the little forest +cabin. She ran into the garden. Enchanted by the sight of so many +beautiful flowers, she went farther and farther along the smooth and +winding walks, till she entered the forest. She who had been so long +away from her beloved trees, roamed where they were thickest. Here she +gazes boldly around. She sees no one! She is alone! A little farther on +she meets with a rivulet which flows through the forest. Here she +remembers that she has not yet prayed. She kneels down, and with hands +clasped and eyes upturned she begins to sing in a sweet voice the Hymn +to the Virgin. + +As she went on she sang louder and with increased fervour. Her breast +heaved with emotion, her eyes shone with unusual brilliancy; but when +the hymn was finished she lowered her head, tears began to fall over her +cheeks, until at last she sobbed aloud. She might have remained long in +this condition, had not some one come behind her, saying, “Do not cry, +my poor girl; it is better to sing than to weep.” The intruder raised +her head, wiped her eyes with his handkerchief, and kissed her on the +forehead. + +It was the Count’s son, Leon! + +“You must not cry,” he continued; “be calm, and when the filipony +(pedlars) come, buy yourself a pretty handkerchief.” He then gave her a +rouble and walked away. Anielka, after concealing the coin in her +corset, ran quickly back to the palace. + +Fortunately, Mdlle. Dufour had not yet returned, and Anielka seated +herself in her accustomed corner. She often took out the rouble to gaze +fondly upon it, and set to work to make a little purse, which, having +fastened to a ribbon, she hung round her neck. She did not dream of +spending it, for it would have deeply grieved her to part with the gift +of the only person in the whole house who had looked kindly on her. + +From this time Anielka remained always in her young mistress’s room; she +was better dressed, and Mdlle. Dufour ceased to persecute her. To what +did she owe this sudden change? Perhaps to a remonstrance from Leon. +Constantia ordered Anielka to sit beside her whilst taking her lessons +from her music-masters, and on her going to the drawing-room, she was +left in her apartments alone. Being thus more kindly treated, Anielka +lost by degrees her timidity; and when her young mistress, whilst +occupied over some embroidery, would tell her to sing, she did so boldly +and with a steady voice. A greater favour awaited her. Constantia, when +unoccupied, began teaching Anielka to read in Polish; and Mdlle. Dufour +thought it politic to follow the example of her mistress, and began to +teach her French. + +Meanwhile, a new kind of torment commenced. Having easily learnt the two +languages, Anielka acquired an irresistible passion for reading. Books +had for her the charm of the forbidden fruit, for she could only read by +stealth at night, or when her mistress went visiting in the +neighbourhood. The kindness hitherto shown her, for a time, began to +relax. Leon had set off on a tour, accompanied by his old tutor, and a +bosom friend as young, as gay, and as thoughtless as himself. + +So passed the two years of Leon’s absence. When he returned, Anielka was +seventeen, and had become tall and handsome. No one who had not seen her +during this time, would have recognised her. Of this number was Leon. In +the midst of perpetual gaiety and change, it was not possible he could +have remembered a poor peasant girl; but in Anielka’s memory he had +remained as a superior being, as her benefactor, as the only one who had +spoken kindly to her, when poor, neglected, forlorn! When in some French +romance she met with a young man of twenty, of a noble character and +handsome appearance, she bestowed on him the name of Leon. The +recollection of the kiss he had given her ever brought a burning blush +to her cheek, and made her sigh deeply. + +One day Leon came to his sister’s room. Anielka was there, seated in a +corner at work. Leon himself had considerably changed; from a boy he had +grown into a man. “I suppose Constantia,” he said, “you have been told +what a good boy I am, and with what docility I shall submit myself to +the matrimonial yoke, which the Count and Countess have provided for +me?” and he began whistling, and danced some steps of the Mazurka. + +“Perhaps you will be refused,” said Constantia coldly. + +“Refused! Oh, no. The old Prince has already given his consent, and as +for his daughter, she is desperately in love with me. Look at these +moustachios, could anything be more irresistible?” and he glanced in the +glass and twirled them round his fingers; then continuing in a graver +tone, he said, “To tell the sober truth, I cannot say that I +reciprocate. My intended is not at all to my taste. She is nearly +thirty, and so thin that whenever I look at her, I am reminded of my old +tutor’s anatomical sketches. But, thanks to her Parisian dress-maker, +she makes up a tolerably good figure, and looks well in a Cachemere. Of +all things, you know, I wished for a wife with an imposing appearance, +and I don’t care about love. I find it’s not fashionable, and only +exists in the exalted imagination of poets.” + +“Surely people are in love with one another sometimes,” said the sister. + +“Sometimes,” repeated Anielka, inaudibly. The dialogue had painfully +affected her, and she knew not why. Her heart beat quickly, and her face +was flushed, and made her look more lovely than ever. + +“Perhaps. Of course we profess to adore every pretty woman,” Leon added +abruptly. “But, my dear sister, what a charming ladies’ maid you have!” +He approached the corner where Anielka sat, and bent on her a coarse +familiar smile. Anielka, although a serf, was displeased, and returned +it with a glance full of dignity. But when her eyes rested on the +youth’s handsome face, a feeling, which had been gradually and silently +growing in her young and inexperienced heart, predominated over her +pride and displeasure. She wished ardently to recal herself to Leon’s +memory, and half unconsciously raised her hand to the little purse which +always hung round her neck. She took from it the rouble he had given +her. + +“See!” shouted Leon, “what a droll girl; how proud she is of her riches! +Why, girl, you are a woman of fortune, mistress of a whole rouble!” + +“I hope she came by it honestly,” said the old Countess, who at this +moment entered. + +At this insinuation, shame and indignation kept Anielka, for a time, +silent. She replaced the money quickly in its purse, with the bitter +thought that the few happy moments which had been so indelibly stamped +upon her memory, had been utterly forgotten by Leon. To clear herself, +she at last stammered out, seeing they all looked at her enquiringly, +“Do you not remember, M. Leon, that you gave me this coin two years ago +in the garden?” + +“How odd!” exclaimed Leon, laughing, “do you expect me to remember all +the pretty girls to whom I have given money? But I suppose you are +right, or you would not have treasured up this unfortunate rouble as if +it were a holy relic. You should not be a miser, child; money is made to +be spent.” + +“Pray, put an end to these jokes,” said Constantia impatiently; “I like +this girl, and I will not have her teased. She understands my ways +better than any one, and often puts me in good humour with her beautiful +voice.” + +“Sing something for me, pretty damsel,” said Leon, “and I will give you +another rouble, a new and shining one.” + +“Sing instantly,” said Constantia imperiously. + +At this command Anielka could no longer stifle her grief; she covered +her face with her hands, and wept violently. + +“Why do you cry?” asked her mistress impatiently; “I cannot bear it; I +desire you to do as you are bid.” + +It might have been from the constant habit of slavish obedience, or a +strong feeling of pride, but Anielka instantly ceased weeping. There was +a moment’s pause, during which the old Countess went grumbling out of +the room. Anielka chose the Hymn to the Virgin she had warbled in the +garden, and as she sung, she prayed fervently;—she prayed for peace, for +deliverance from the acute emotions which had been aroused within her. +Her earnestness gave an intensity of expression to the melody, which +affected her listeners. They were silent for some moments after its +conclusion. Leon walked up and down with his arms folded on his breast. +Was it agitated with pity for the accomplished young slave? or by any +other tender emotion? What followed will show. + +“My dear Constantia,” he said, suddenly stopping before his sister and +kissing her hand, “will you do me a favour?” + +Constantia looked enquiringly in her brother’s face without speaking. + +“Give me this girl.” + +“Impossible!” + +“I am quite in earnest,” continued Leon, “I wish to offer her to my +future wife. In the Prince her father’s private chapel they are much in +want of a solo soprano.” + +“I shall not give her to you,” said Constantia. + +“Not as a free gift, but in exchange. I will give you instead a charming +young negro—so black. The women in St. Petersburg and in Paris raved +about him: but I was inexorable; I half-refused him to my princess.” + +“No, no,” replied Constantia; “I shall be lonely without this girl, I am +so used to her.” + +“Nonsense! you can get peasant girls by the dozen; but a black page, +with teeth whiter than ivory, and purer than pearls; a perfect original +in his way; you surely cannot withstand. You will kill half the province +with envy. A negro servant is the most fashionable thing going, and +yours will be the first imported into the province.” + +This argument was irresistible. “Well,” replied Constantia, “when do you +think of taking her?” + +“Immediately; to-day at five o’clock,” said Leon; and he went merrily +out of the room. This then was the result of his cogitation—of Anielka’s +Hymn to the Virgin. Constantia ordered Anielka to prepare herself for +the journey, with as little emotion as if she had exchanged away a +lap-dog, or parted with a parrot. + +She obeyed in silence. Her heart was full. She went into the garden that +she might relieve herself by weeping unseen. With one hand supporting +her burning head, and the other pressed tightly against her heart, to +stifle her sobs, she wandered on mechanically till she found herself by +the side of the river. She felt quickly for her purse, intending to +throw the rouble into the water, but as quickly thrust it back again, +for she could not bear to part with the treasure. She felt as if without +it she would be still more an orphan. Weeping bitterly, she leaned +against the tree which had once before witnessed her tears. + +By degrees the stormy passion within her gave place to calm reflection. +This day she was to go away; she was to dwell beneath another roof, to +serve another mistress. Humiliation! always humiliation! But at least it +would be some change in her life. As she thought of this, she returned +hastily to the palace that she might not, on the last day of her +servitude, incur the anger of her young mistress. + +Scarcely was Anielka attired in her prettiest dress, when Constantia +came to her with a little box, from which she took several gay-coloured +ribbons, and decked her in them herself, that the serf might do her +credit in the new family. And when Anielka, bending down to her feet, +thanked her, Constantia, with marvellous condescension, kissed her on +her forehead. Even Leon cast an admiring glance upon her. His servant +soon after came to conduct her to the carriage, and showing her where to +seat herself, they rolled off quickly towards Radapol. + +For the first time in her life Anielka rode in a carriage. Her head +turned quite giddy, she could not look at the trees and fields as they +flew past her; but by degrees she became more accustomed to it, and the +fresh air enlivening her spirits, she performed the rest of the journey +in a tolerably happy state of mind. At last they arrived in the spacious +court-yard before the Palace of Radapol, the dwelling of a once rich and +powerful Polish family, now partly in ruin. It was evident, even to +Anielka, that the marriage was one for money on the one side, and for +rank on the other. + +Among other renovations at the castle, occasioned by the approaching +marriage, the owner of it, Prince Pelazia, had obtained singers for the +chapel, and had engaged Signor Justiniani, an Italian, as chapel-master. +Immediately on Leon’s arrival, Anielka was presented to him. He made her +sing a scale, and pronounced her voice to be excellent. + +Anielka found that, in Radapol, she was treated with a little more +consideration than at Olgogrod, although she had often to submit to the +caprices of her new mistress, and she found less time to read. But to +console herself, she gave all her attention to singing, which she +practised several hours a day. Her naturally great capacity, under the +guidance of the Italian, began to develope itself steadily. Besides +sacred, he taught her operatic music. On one occasion Anielka sung an +aria in so impassioned and masterly a style, that the enraptured +Justiniani clapped his hands for joy, skipped about the room, and not +finding words enough to praise her, exclaimed several times, “Prima +Donna! Prima Donna!” + +But the lessons were interrupted. The Princess’s wedding-day was fixed +upon, after which event she and Leon were to go to Florence, and Anielka +was to accompany them. Alas! feelings which gave her poignant misery +still clung to her. She despised herself for her weakness; but she loved +Leon. The sentiment was too deeply implanted in her bosom to be +eradicated; too strong to be resisted. It was the first love of a young +and guileless heart, and had grown in silence and despair. + +Anielka was most anxious to know something of her adopted parents. Once, +after the old prince had heard her singing, he asked her with great +kindness about her home. She replied, that she was an orphan, and had +been taken by force from those who had so kindly supplied the place of +parents. Her apparent attachment to the old bee-keeper and his wife so +pleased the prince, that he said, “You are a good child, Anielka, and +to-morrow I will send you to visit them. You shall take them some +presents.” + +Anielka, overpowered with gratitude, threw herself at the feet of the +prince. She dreamed all night of the happiness that was in store for +her, and the joy of the poor, forsaken, old people; and when the next +morning she set off she could scarcely restrain her impatience. At last +they approached the cabin; she saw the forest, with its tall trees, and +the meadows covered with flowers. She leaped from the carriage, that she +might be nearer these trees and flowers, every one of which she seemed +to recognise. The weather was beautiful. She breathed with avidity the +pure air which, in imagination, brought to her the kisses and caresses +of her poor father! Her foster-father was, doubtless, occupied with his +bees; but his wife? + +Anielka opened the door of the cabin; all was silent and deserted. The +arm-chair on which the poor old woman used to sit, was overturned in a +corner. Anielka was chilled by a fearful presentiment. She went with a +slow step towards the bee-hives; there she saw a little boy tending the +bees, whilst the old man was stretched on the ground beside him. The +rays of the sun, falling on his pale and sickly face, showed that he was +very ill. Anielka stooped down over him, and said, “It is I, it is +Anielka, your own Anielka, who always loves you.” + +The old man raised his head, gazed upon her with a ghastly smile, and +took off his cap. + +“And my good old mother, where is she?” Anielka asked. + +“She is dead!” answered the old man, and falling back he began laughing +idiotically. Anielka wept. She gazed earnestly on the worn frame, the +pale and wrinkled cheeks, in which scarcely a sign of life could be +perceived; it seemed to her that he had suddenly fallen asleep, and not +wishing to disturb him, she went to the carriage for the presents. When +she returned, she took his hand. It was cold. The poor old bee-keeper +had breathed his last! + +Anielka was carried almost senseless back to the carriage, which quickly +returned with her to the castle. There she revived a little; but the +recollection that she was now quite alone in the world, almost drove her +to despair. + +Her master’s wedding and the journey to Florence were a dream to her. +Though the strange sights of a strange city slowly restored her +perceptions, they did not her cheerfulness. She felt as if she could no +longer endure the misery of her life; she prayed to die. + +“Why are you so unhappy?” said the Count Leon kindly to her, one day. + +To have explained the cause of her wretchedness would have been death +indeed. + +“I am going to give you a treat,” continued Leon. “A celebrated singer +is to appear to-night in the theatre. I will send you to hear her, and +afterwards you shall sing to me what you remember of her performances.” + +Anielka went. It was a new era in her existence. Herself, by this time, +an artist, she could forget her griefs, and enter with her whole soul +into the beauties of the art she now heard practised in perfection for +the first time. To music a chord responded in her breast which vibrated +powerfully. During the performances she was at one moment pale and +trembling, tears rushing into her eyes; at another, she was ready to +throw herself at the feet of the cantatrice, in an ecstacy of +admiration. “Prima donna,”—by that name the public called on her to +receive their applause, and it was the same, thought Anielka, that +Justiniani had bestowed upon her. Could _she_ also be a prima donna? +What a glorious destiny! To be able to communicate one’s own emotions to +masses of entranced listeners; to awaken in them, by the power of the +voice, grief, love, terror. + +Strange thoughts continued to haunt her on her return home. She was +unable to sleep. She formed desperate plans. At last she resolved to +throw off the yoke of servitude, and the still more painful slavery of +feelings which her pride disdained. Having learnt the address of the +prima donna, she went early one morning to her house. + +On entering she said, in French, almost incoherently, so great was her +agitation—“Madam, I am a poor serf belonging to a Polish family who have +lately arrived in Florence. I have escaped from them; protect, shelter +me. They say I can sing.” + +The Signora Teresina, a warm-hearted, passionate Italian, was interested +by her artless earnestness. She said, “Poor child! you must have +suffered much,”—she took Anielka’s hand in hers. “You say you can sing; +let me hear you.” Anielka seated herself on an ottoman. She clasped her +hands over her knees, and tears fell into her lap. With plaintive +pathos, and perfect truth of intonation, she prayed in song. The Hymn to +the Virgin seemed to Teresina to be offered up by inspiration. + +The Signora was astonished. “Where,” she asked, in wonder, “were you +taught?” + +Anielka narrated her history, and when she had finished, the prima donna +spoke so kindly to her that she felt as if she had known her for years. +Anielka was Teresina’s guest that day and the next. After the Opera, on +the third day, the prima donna made her sit beside her, and said:— + +“I think you are a very good girl, and you shall stay with me always.” + +The girl was almost beside herself with joy. + +“We will never part. Do you consent, Anielka?” + +“Do not call me Anielka. Give me instead some Italian name.” + +“Well, then, be Giovanna. The dearest friend I ever had—but whom I have +lost—was named Giovanna,” said the prima donna. + +“Then, I will be another Giovanna to you.” + +Teresina then said, “I hesitated to receive you at first, for your sake +as well as mine; but you are safe now. I learn that your master and +mistress, after searching vainly for you, have returned to Poland.” + +From this time Anielka commenced an entirely new life. She took lessons +in singing every day from the Signora, and got an engagement to appear +in inferior characters at the theatre. She had now her own income, and +her own servant—she, who had till then been obliged to serve herself. +She acquired the Italian language rapidly, and soon passed for a native +of the country. + +So passed three years. New and varied impressions failed, however, to +blot out the old ones. Anielka arrived at great perfection in her +singing, and even began to surpass the prima donna, who was losing her +voice from weakness of the chest. This sad discovery changed the +cheerful temper of Teresina. She ceased to sing in public; for she could +not endure to excite pity, where she had formerly commanded admiration. + +She determined to retire. “You,” she said to Anielka, “shall now assert +your claim to the first rank in the vocal art. You will maintain it. You +surpass me. Often, on hearing you sing, I have scarcely been able to +stifle a feeling of jealousy.” + +Anielka placed her hand on Teresina’s shoulder, and kissed her. + +“Yes,” continued Teresina, regardless of everything but the bright +future she was shaping for her friend. “We will go to Vienna—there you +will be understood and appreciated. You shall sing at the Italian Opera, +and I will be by your side—unknown, no longer sought, worshipped—but +will glory in your triumphs. They will be a repetition of my own; for +have I not taught you? Will they not be the result of my work?” + +Though Anielka’s ambition was fired, her heart was softened, and she +wept violently. + +Five months had scarcely elapsed, when a _furore_ was created in Vienna +by the first appearance, at the Italian Opera, of the Signora Giovanna. +Her enormous salary at once afforded her the means of even extravagant +expenditure. Her haughty treatment of male admirers only attracted new +ones; but in the midst of her triumphs she thought often of the time +when the poor orphan of Pobereze was cared for by nobody. This +remembrance made her receive the flatteries of the crowd with an +ironical smile; their fine speeches fell coldly on her ear, their +eloquent looks made no impression on her heart: _that_, no change could +alter, no temptation win. + +In the flood of unexpected success a new misfortune overwhelmed her. +Since their arrival at Vienna, Teresina’s health rapidly declined, and +in the sixth months of Anielka’s operatic reign she expired, leaving all +her wealth, which was considerable, to her friend. + +Once more Anielka was alone in the world. Despite all the honours and +blandishments of her position, the old feeling of desolateness came upon +her. The new shock destroyed her health. She was unable to appear on the +stage. To sing was a painful effort; she grew indifferent to what passed +around her. Her greatest consolation was in succouring the poor and +friendless, and her generosity was most conspicuous to all young orphan +girls without fortune. She had never ceased to love her native land, and +seldom appeared in society, unless it was to meet her countrymen. If +ever she sang, it was in Polish. + +A year had elapsed since the death of the Signora Teresina when the +Count Selka, a rich noble of Volkynia, at that time in Vienna, solicited +her presence at a party. It was impossible to refuse the Count and his +lady, from whom she had received great kindness. She went. When in their +saloons, filled with all the fashion and aristocracy in Vienna, the name +of Giovanna was announced, a general murmur was heard. She entered, pale +and languid, and proceeded between the two rows made for her by the +admiring assembly, to the seat of honour beside the mistress of the +house. + +Shortly after, the Count Selka led her to the piano. She sat down before +it, and thinking what she should sing, glanced round upon the assembly. +She could not help feeling that the admiration which beamed from the +faces around her was the work of her own merit, for had she neglected +the great gift of nature—her voice, she could not have excited it. With +a blushing cheek, and eyes sparkling with honest pride, she struck the +piano with a firm hand, and from her seemingly weak and delicate chest +poured forth a touching Polish melody, with a voice pure, sonorous, and +plaintive. Tears were in many eyes, and the beating of every heart was +quickened. + +The song was finished, but the wondering silence was unbroken. Giovanna +leaned exhausted on the arm of the chair, and cast down her eyes. On +again raising them, she perceived a gentleman who gazed fixedly at her, +as if he still listened to echoes which had not yet died within him. The +master of the house, to dissipate his thoughtfulness, led him towards +Giovanna. “Let me present to you, Signora,” he said, “a countryman, the +Count Leon Roszynski.” + +The lady trembled; she silently bowed, fixed her eyes on the ground, and +dared not raise them. Pleading indisposition, which was fully justified +by her pallid features, she soon after withdrew. + +When on the following day Giovanna’s servant announced the Counts Selka +and Roszynski, a peculiar smile played on her lips; and when they +entered, she received the latter with the cold and formal politeness of +a stranger. Controlling the feelings of her heart, she schooled her +features to an expression of indifference. It was manifest from Leon’s +manner, that without the remotest recognition, an indefinable +presentiment regarding her possessed him. The Counts had called to know +if Giovanna had recovered from her indisposition. Leon begged to be +permitted to call again. + +Where was his wife? why did he never mention her? Giovanna continually +asked herself these questions when they had departed. + +A few nights after, the Count Leon arrived sad and thoughtful. He +prevailed on Giovanna to sing one of her Polish melodies; which she told +him had been taught, when a child, by her muse. Roszynski, unable to +restrain the expression of an intense admiration he had long felt, +frantically seized her hand, and exclaimed, “I love you!” + +She withdrew it from his grasp, remained silent for a few minutes, and +then said slowly, distinctly, and ironically, “but I do not love _you_, +Count Roszynski.” + +Leon rose from his seat. He pressed his hands to his brow, and was +silent. Giovanna remained calm and tranquil. “It is a penalty from +Heaven,” continued Leon, as if speaking to himself, “for not having +fulfilled my duty as a husband towards one whom I chose voluntarily, but +without reflection. I wronged her, and am punished.” + +Giovanna turned her eyes upon him. Leon continued, “Young, and with a +heart untouched, I married a princess about ten years older than myself, +of eccentric habits and bad temper. She treated me as an inferior. She +dissipated the fortune hoarded up with so much care by my parents, and +yet was ashamed on account of my origin to be called by my name. Happily +for me, she was fond of visiting and amusements. Otherwise, to escape +from her, I might have become a gambler, or worse; but, to avoid meeting +her, I remained at home—for there she seldom was. At first from ennui, +but afterwards from real delight in the occupation, I gave myself up to +study. Reading formed my mind and heart. I became a changed being. Some +months ago my father died, my sister went to Lithuania, whilst my +mother, in her old age, and with her ideas, was quite incapable of +understanding my sorrow. So when my wife went to the baths for the +benefit of her ruined health, I came here in the hope of meeting with +some of my former friends—I saw you—” + +Giovanna blushed like one detected; but speedily recovering herself, +asked with calm pleasantry, “Surely you do not number _me_ among your +former friends?” + +“I know not. I have been bewildered. It is strange; but from the moment +I saw you at Count Selka’s, a powerful instinct of love overcame me; not +a new feeling; but as if some latent, long-hid, undeveloped sentiment +had suddenly burst forth into an uncontrollable passion. I love, I adore +you. I——” + +The Prima Donna interrupted him—not with speech, but with a look which +awed, which chilled him. Pride, scorn, irony sat in her smile. Satire +darted from her eyes. After a pause, she repeated slowly and pointedly, +“Love _me_, Count Roszynski?” + +“Such is my destiny,” he replied. “Nor, despite your scorn, will I +struggle against it. I feel it is my fate ever to love you; I fear it is +my fate never to be loved by you. It is dreadful.” + +Giovanna witnessed the Count’s emotion with sadness. “To have,” she said +mournfully, “one’s first pure, ardent, passionate affection unrequited, +scorned, made a jest of, is indeed a bitterness, almost equal to that of +death.” + +She made a strong effort to conceal her emotion. Indeed she controlled +it so well as to speak the rest with a sort of gaiety. + +“You have at least been candid, Count Roszynski; I will imitate you by +telling a little history that occurred in your country. There was a poor +girl born and bred a serf to her wealthy lord and master. When scarcely +fifteen years old, she was torn from a state of happy rustic freedom—the +freedom of humility and content—to be one of the courtly slaves of the +Palace. Those who did not laugh at her, scolded her. One kind word was +vouchsafed to her, and that came from the lord’s son. She nursed it and +treasured it; till, from long concealing and restraining her feelings, +she at last found that gratitude had changed into a sincere affection. +But what does a man of the world care for the love of a serf? It does +not even flatter his vanity. The young nobleman did not understand the +source of her tears and her grief, and he made a present of her, as he +would have done of some animal to his betrothed.” + +Leon, agitated and somewhat enlightened, would have interrupted her; but +Giovanna said, “Allow me to finish my tale. Providence did not abandon +this poor orphan, but permitted her to rise to distinction by the talent +with which she was endowed by nature. The wretched serf of Pobereze +became a celebrated Italian cantatrice. _Then_ her former lord meeting +her in society, and seeing her admired and courted by all the world, +without knowing who she really was, was afflicted, as if by the dictates +of Heaven, with a love for this same girl,—with a guilty love”— + +And Giovanna rose, as she said this, to remove herself further from her +admirer. + +“No, no!” he replied earnestly; “with a pure and holy passion.” + +“Impossible!” returned Giovanna. “Are you not married?” + +Roszynski vehemently tore a letter from his vest, and handed it to +Giovanna. It was sealed with black, for it announced the death of his +wife at the baths. It had only arrived that morning. + +“You have lost no time,” said the cantatrice, endeavouring to conceal +her feelings under an iron mask of reproach. + +There was a pause. Each dared not speak. The Count knew—but without +actually and practically believing what seemed incredible—that Anielka +and Giovanna were the same person—_his slave_. That terrible +relationship checked him. Anielka, too, had played her part to the end +of endurance. The long-cherished tenderness—the faithful love of her +life could not longer be wholly mastered. Hitherto they had spoken in +Italian. She now said in Polish, + +“You have a right, my Lord Roszynski, to that poor Anielka who escaped +from the service of your wife in Florence; you can force her back to +your palace, to its meanest work; but”— + +“Have mercy on me!” cried Leon. + +“But,” continued the serf of Pobereze, firmly, “you cannot force me to +love you.” + +“Do not mock—do not torture me more; you are sufficiently revenged. I +will not offend you by importunity. You must indeed hate me! But +remember that we Poles wished to give freedom to our serfs; and for that +very reason our country was invaded and dismembered by despotic powers. +We must therefore continue to suffer slavery as it exists in Russia; +but, soul and body, we are averse to it: and when our country once more +becomes free, be assured no shadow of slavery will remain in the land. +Curse then our enemies, and pity us that we stand in such a desperate +position between Russian bayonets and Siberia, and the hatred of our +serfs.” + +So saying, and without waiting for a reply, Leon rushed from the room. +The door was closed. Giovanna listened to the sounds of his rapid +footsteps till they died in the street. She would have followed, but +dared not. She ran to the window. Roszynski’s carriage was rolling +rapidly away, and she exclaimed vainly, “I love you, Leon; I loved you +always!” + +Her tortures were unendurable. To relieve them she hastened to her desk, +and wrote these words:— + +“Dearest Leon, forgive me; let the past be for ever forgotten. Return to +your Anielka. She always has been, ever will be, yours!” + +She despatched the missive. Was it too late? or would it bring him back? +In the latter hope she retired to her chamber, to execute a little +project. + +Leon was in despair. He saw he had been premature in so soon declaring +his passion after the news of his wife’s death, and vowed he would not +see Anielka again for several months. To calm his agitation, he had +ridden some miles into the country. When he returned to his hotel after +some hours, he found her note. With the wild delight it had darted into +his soul, he flew back to her. + +On regaining her saloon a new and terrible vicissitude seemed to sport +with his passion:—she was nowhere to be seen. Had the Italian cantatrice +fled? Again he was in despair; stupified with disappointment. As he +stood uncertain how to act in the midst of the floor, he heard, as from +a distance, an Ave Maria poured forth in tones he half-recognised. The +sounds brought back to him a host of recollections; a weeping serf, the +garden of his own palace. In a state of new rapture he followed the +voice. He traced it to an inner chamber, and he there beheld the lovely +singer kneeling, in the costume of a Polish serf. She rose, greeted Leon +with a touching smile, and stepped forward with serious bashfulness. +Leon extended his arms; she sank into them; and in that fond embrace all +past wrongs and sorrows were forgotten! Anielka drew from her bosom a +little purse, and took from it a piece of silver. It was the rouble. +_Now_, Leon did not smile at it. He comprehended the sacredness of this +little gift; and some tears of repentance fell upon Anielka’s hand. + +A few months after, Leon wrote to the steward of Olgogrod to prepare +everything splendidly for the reception of his second wife. He concluded +his letter with these words:—“I understand that in the dungeon beneath +my palace there are some unfortunate men, who were imprisoned during my +father’s lifetime. Let them be instantly liberated. This is my first act +of gratitude to God, who has so infinitely blessed me!” + +Anielka longed ardently to behold her native land. They left Vienna +immediately after the wedding, although it was in the middle of January. + +It was already quite dark when the carriage, with its four horses, +stopped in front of the portico of the Palace of Olgogrod. Whilst the +footman was opening the door on one side, a beggar soliciting alms +appeared at the other, where Anielka was seated. Happy to perform a good +action, as she crossed the threshold of her new home, she gave him some +money; but the man, instead of thanking her, returned her bounty with a +savage laugh, at the same time scowling at her in the fiercest manner +from beneath his thick and shaggy brows. The strangeness of this +circumstance sensibly affected Anielka, and clouded her happiness. Leon +soothed and re-assured her. In the arms of her beloved husband, she +forgot all but the happiness of being the idol of his affections. + +Fatigue and excitement made the night most welcome. All was dark and +silent around the palace, and some hours of the night had passed, when +suddenly flames burst forth from several parts of the building at once. +The palace was enveloped in fire; it raged furiously. The flames mounted +higher and higher; the windows cracked with a fearful sound, and the +smoke penetrated into the most remote apartments. + +A single figure of a man was seen stealing over the snow, which lay like +a winding-sheet on the solitary waste; his cautious steps were heard on +the frozen snow as it crisped beneath his tread. It was the beggar who +had accosted Anielka. On a rising ground, he turned to gaze on the +terrible scene. “No more unfortunate wretches will now be doomed to pass +their lives in your dungeons,” he exclaimed. “What was _my_ crime? +Reminding my master of the lowness of his birth. For this they tore me +from my only child—my darling little Anielka; they had no pity even for +her orphan state; let them perish all!” + +Suddenly a young and beautiful creature rushes wildly to one of the +principal windows: she makes a violent effort to escape. For a moment +her lovely form, clothed in white, shines in terrible relief against the +background of blazing curtains and walls of fire, and as instantly sinks +back into the blazing element. Behind her is another figure, vainly +endeavouring to aid her,—he perishes also; neither are ever seen again! + +This appalling tragedy horrified even the perpetrator of the crime. He +rushed from the place; and as he heard the crash of the falling walls, +he closed his ears with his hands, and darted on faster and faster. + +The next day some peasants discovered the body of a man frozen to death, +lying on a heap of snow,—it was that of the wretched incendiary. +Providence, mindful of his long, of his cruel imprisonment and +sufferings, spared him the anguish of knowing that the mistress of the +palace he had destroyed, and who perished in the flames, was his own +beloved daughter—the Serf of Pobreze! + + + + + A STROLL BY STARLIGHT. + + + We left the Village. On the beaten road + Our steps and voices were the only sound. + The lady Moon was not yet come abroad,— + Our coyly-veiled companion. We found + A footway through the corn; upon the ground + The crake among the holms was occupied; + Rapid of movement, from all points around + Came his rough note whose music is supplied + By iteration while all sounds are hushed beside. + + The stars were out, the sky was full of them, + Dotted with worlds. The land was all asleep. + And, like its gentle breath, from stem to stem + Through the dry corn a murmur there would creep, + Murmur of music: as when in the deep + Of the sun-pierced Ægean, with turned ear, + The Nereids might have heard its waters leap + And kiss the dimpled islands, thus, less near, + Fainter, more like a thought, did to our hearts appear, + + The midnight melody. Our way then led + Where myriad blades of grass were drinking dew; + Thirsty, to God they looked, by God were fed, + Whose cloudless heaven could their life renew. + A copse beside us on the starry blue + Cut its hard outline. Through the leaves a fire + Shone with enlarging brilliance; red of hue + The large moon rose,—did to a throne aspire + Of dizzy height, and paled in winning her desire. + + A change of level, and another scene; + Life, light, and noise. The roaring furnace-blast, + Flame-pointed cones and fields of blighted green! + The vivid fires, dreaming they have surpassed + The stars in brightness, furiously cast + Upward their wild strength to possess the sky; + Break into evanescent stars at last,— + Glitter and fall as fountains. Thus men try, + And thus men try in vain, false gods to deify. + + The roar and flame diminish. Busy light + Streams from the casting-house. The liquid ore + Through arch and lancet window, dazzling Night, + Flows in rich rills upon the sanded floor. + Steropes, Arges, Brontes, from the shore + Of Acheron returned, seem glowing here; + Such form the phantom of Hephæstus wore, + Illumined by his forge. Each feature clear, + Men glorified by fire seem demon-births of fear. + + But the ray reddens, and the light grows dim. + The cooling iron, counterpaned with sand + By those night servitors, no longer grim + In unaccustomed glow, from the green land + And yonder sky, now ceases to command + Our thoughts to wander. As we backward gaze, + The blast renews; with aspiration grand + The flames again soar upward: but we raise + Our glances to God’s Lamp, which overawes their blaze. + + So forward through the stillness we proceed. + Winding around a hill, the white road leaves + Life, light, and noise behind. We, gladly freed + From human interruption, we, mute thieves, + Pass onward through Night’s treasure; each receives + From her rich store his bosom full of wealth, + For secret hoarding. Now an oak-wood weaves + A cloister way to sanctify the stealth + Practised in loving guise, and for the spirit’s health. + + We climb into the moonlight once again. + A broken rail beside the way doth keep + Neglectful guard above the Vale’s domain. + The Vale is in the silence laid asleep, + Not far below. Among her beauties peep + The wakeful stars, and from above her bed + The grey night-veil, wherein to rest so deep + She sank, the Moon hath lifted; yet the thread + Of slumber holds, the dream hath from her face not fled. + + Yon meadow track leads by the church; it saves + Ten minutes if we follow it. We laugh + To see our saving lost among the graves. + Deciphering a moonlit Epitaph + We linger, laugh and sigh. All mirth is half + Made up of melancholy. There is pure + Humour in woe. Man’s grief is oft the staff + On which his happy thoughts can lean secure; + And he who most enjoys, he too can most endure. + + We leave the tombstones, death-like, white, and still, + Fixed in the dim light,—awful, unbeheld. + A squalid village, straggling up a hill + We pass. In passing, one among us yelled, + And from no gallinaceous throat expelled + A crow sonorous. From the near church tower, + Through the cold, voiceless air of night there knell’d + The passing bell of a departed hour: + What sign of budding day? How will the morning flower? + + + + + CHIPS. + + +There is a saying that a good workman is known by his chips. Such a +prodigious accumulation of chips takes place in our Manufactory, that we +infer we must have some first-rate workmen about us. + +There is also a figure of speech, concerning a chip of the old block. +The chips with which _our_ old block (aged fifteen weeks) is overwhelmed +every week, would make some five-and-twenty blocks of similar +dimensions. + +There is a popular simile—an awkward one in this connexion—founded on +the dryness of a chip. This has almost deterred us from our intention of +bundling a few chips together now and then. But, reflection on the +natural lightness of the article has re-assured us; and we here present +a few to our readers,—and shall continue to do so from time to time. + + + + + DESTRUCTION OF PARISH REGISTERS. + + +As the poorest man cannot foresee to what inheritance he may succeed, +through the instrumentality of Parochial Registers, so in their +preservation every member of the community is more or less interested; +but the Parish Register returns of 1833 show that a general feeling +seemed to exist in favour of their destruction. Scarcely one of them +pronounced the Registers in a satisfactory state. The following +sentences abound in the Blue Book: “leaves cut out,” “torn out,” +“injured by damp,” “mutilated,” “in fragments,” “destroyed by fire,” +“much torn,” “illegible,” “tattered,” “imperfect,” “early registers +lost.” + +Thanks to the General Registry Act of William the Fourth, all such +records made since 1835 are now properly cared for; but those prior to +that date are still in parochial keeping, to be torn, lost, burnt, +interpolated, stolen, defaced, or rendered illegible at the good +pleasure of every wilful or heedless individual of a destructive +organisation. Some time ago Mr. Walbran, of Ripon, found part of a +Parish Register among a quantity of wastepaper in a cheesemonger’s shop. +The same gentleman has rescued the small but very interesting register +of the chapelry of Denton, in the county of Durham, from the fate which +once had nearly befallen it, by causing several literatim copies to be +printed and deposited in public libraries. Among other instances of +negligent custody, Mr. Downing Bruce, the barrister, relates, in a +recently published pamphlet, that the Registers of South Otterington, +containing several entries of the great families of Talbot, Herbert, and +Fauconberg, were formerly kept in the cottage of the parish-clerk, who +used all those preceding the eighteenth century for waste paper; a +considerable portion having been taken to “singe a goose!” + +Abstraction, loss, and careless custody of registers is constantly going +on. Mr. Bruce mentions, that in 1845 he made some copious extracts from +the dilapidated books at Andover, “but on recently visiting that place +for the purpose of a supplementary search,” he says, “I found that these +books were no longer in existence, and that those which remained were +kept in the rectory-house, in a damp place under the staircase, and in a +shameful state of dilapidation.” The second case occurred at Kirkby +Malzeard, near Ripon, where the earliest register mentioned in the +parliamentary return was reported to be lost. “Having occasion to +believe that the statement was not correct,” Mr. Bruce states, “I +persevered in my inquiries, and at length fortunately discovered the +book, in a tattered state, behind some old drawers in the curate’s back +kitchen. Again, at Farlington, near Sheriff Hutton, the earliest +registers were believed and represented to be lost, until I found their +scattered leaves at the bottom of an old parish chest which I observed +in the church.” + +Even as we write, an enquiry appears in the newspapers from the parish +officers of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, addressed to “collectors” and +others, after their own Registers; two among the most historically +important and interesting years of the seventeenth century are nowhere +to be found. + +The avidity and dishonesty of many of these “collectors,” or +archæological cockchafers, are shocking to think of. They seem to have +passed for their own behoof a universal statute of limitations; and when +a book, an autograph, or a record is a certain number of years old, they +think it is no felony to steal it. Recently we were interested in +searching the Register for the birth of Joseph Addison; and at the altar +of the pretty little church of Milston, in Wilts, we were told that a +deceased rector had cut out the leaf which contained it, to satisfy the +earnest longings of a particular friend, “a collector”—a poet, too, who +ought to have been ashamed to instigate the larceny. It is hoped that +his executors—his name has been inserted in a burial register since—will +think fit to restore it to its proper place at their early convenience. + +Mr. Bruce recommends that the whole of the Registers now deposited in +parish churches, in rectors’ coal-cellars, churchwardens’ outhouses, +curates’ back-kitchens, and goose-eating parish clerks’ cottages, should +be collected into one central fire-proof building in London. + +Innocent Mr. Bruce! While the great historical records of this land are +“preserved” over tons of gunpowder in the White Tower of the Tower in +London; while the Chancery records are feeding a fine, fat, historical, +and uncommonly numerous breed of rats in the cellars of the Rolls +Chapel; while some of the most important muniments existing (including +William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book) are being dried up in the +Chapter-House of Westminster Abbey, by the united heats of a contiguous +brew-house and an adjacent wash-house; and while heaps of monastic +charters and their surrenders to Henry the Eighth, with piles of +inestimable historical treasures, are huddled together upon scaffolds in +the interior of the dilapidated Riding-School in Carlton Ride—can Mr. +Bruce or any other man of common sense, suppose that any attention +whatever will be paid by any person in power to his very modest +suggestion? + + + + + FROM MR. T. OLDCASTLE CONCERNING THE COAL EXCHANGE. + + + “SIR, Blue Dragon Arms, South Shields. + +“I have just read in your ‘Household Words’ a pleasant enough account of +the ‘Coal Exchange of London,’ in which my name is mentioned. I suppose +I ought—and therefore I do—consider it a great honour; and what Captain +of a collier-brig would not? So, no more about that, except to thank +you. Same time, mayhap, there may be a trifle or two in the paper to +which I don’t quite subscribe; and, as I seem to be towed astern of the +writer as he works his way on, it seems only fair that I should overhaul +his log in such matters as I don’t agree to, whether so be in respect of +his remarks or reckoning. + +“In the first place, the writer says the Coal Exchange is painted as +bright as a coffee-garden or dancing-place on the continent. Well—belike +it is. And what o’ that? Did he wish it to be painted in coal-tar? as if +we didn’t see enough of this at home—whether collier-men or +coal-merchants! I make no doubt he wanted to see all the inside just of +the same colour as your London buildings are on th’ outside—walls, and +towers, and spires, like so many great smoke-jacks. Then as to his taste +in female beauty, he seems more disposed to the pale faces of +novel-writers’ young ladies than such sort of brown and ruddy skins as +some of us think more mettlesome. I confess I do; and so he may rig me +out on this matter as he pleases. Howsomever, I must say that I believe +most people will prefer both the bright ladies, and the bright adornment +of the building, to any mixture of soot and blacking, which has, +hitherto, characterised the taste of my old friends the Londoners. And +it is my advice to the artist, Mr. Sang, just to snap his fingers at the +opposite taste of your writer, which is exactly what I do myself, for +his comparing my ‘hard weather-beaten face’ to the wooden figure of a +ship’s head. + + “I remain, respected Sir, + “Yours to command, + “THOMAS OLDCASTLE.” + +“P.S. What the writer of these coal-papers says I told him about Buddle +of Wallsend, is all true enough; but why did he tell me, in return, that +his name was ‘Gulliver?’” + + + + + NEW SHOES. + + +The following “Chip” is from the chisel of a blacksmith—a certain Peter +Muller of Istra, son of the person to whom it refers. It was gathered +from his forge by M. Stæhlin, who inserted it in his original anecdotes +of Peter the Great, collected from the conversation of several persons +of distinction at St. Petersburg and Moscow. + +Among all the workmen at Muller’s forge, near Istra, about ninety versts +from Moscow, there was one who had examined everything connected with +the work with the most minute attention, and who worked harder than the +rest. He was at his post every day, and appeared quite indifferent to +the severity of the labour. The last day on which he was employed, he +forged eighteen poods of iron—the pood is equal to forty pounds—but +though he was so good a workman, he had other matters to mind besides +the forging of iron; for he had the affairs of the State to attend to, +and all who have heard of Peter the Great, know that those were not +neglected. + +It happened that he spent a month in the neighbourhood of Istra, for the +benefit of the chalybeate waters; and wherever he was, he always made +himself thoroughly acquainted with whatever works were carried on. He +determined not only to inspect Muller’s forge accurately, but to become +a good blacksmith. He made the noblemen who were in attendance on him +accompany him every morning, and take part in the labour. Some he +appointed to blow the bellows, and others to carry coals, and perform +all the offices of journeymen blacksmiths. A few days after his return +to Moscow, he called on Muller, and told him that he had been to see his +establishment, with which he had been much gratified. + +“Tell me,” said he, “how much you allow per pood for iron in bar, +furnished by a master blacksmith.” + +“Three copecks or an altin,” answered Muller. + +“Well, then,” said the Czar, “I have earned eighteen altins, and am come +to be paid.” + +Muller went to his bureau, and took from it eighteen ducats, which he +reckoned before the Emperor. “I would not think of offering less to a +royal workman, please your Majesty.” + +“Put up your ducats again,” interrupted the Czar, “I will not take more +than I have earned, and that you would pay to any other blacksmith. Give +me my due. It will be sufficient to pay for a pair of shoes, of which +you may see,” added he, as he raised his foot, and displayed a shoe +somewhat the worse for the wear, “I am very much in need.” + +Muller reckoned out the eighteen altins, with which the Czar hurried off +to a shop, and purchased a pair of shoes. He put them on with the +greatest delight; he thought he never had worn such a pair of shoes; he +showed them with a triumphant air to those about him, and said, “See +them; look how well they fit; I have earned them well—by the sweat of my +brow, with hammer and anvil.” + +One of these bars of iron, forged by Peter the Great, and bearing his +mark, was kept as a precious relic in the forge at Istra, and exhibited +with no little pride to all who entered. Another bar which was forged by +his hand is shown in the Cabinet of the Academy of Sciences at +Petersburg. + + + + + THE MODERN “OFFICER’S” PROGRESS. + + + III.—THE CATASTROPHE. + +What the Psalmist said in sorrow, those who witnessed the career of the +Honourable Ensign Spoonbill and his companions might have said, not in +sorrow only but in anger: “One day told another, and one night certified +another.” + +When duty was to be performed—(for even under the command of such an +officer as Colonel Tulip the routine of duty existed)—it was slurred +over as hastily as possible, or got through as it best might be. When, +on the other hand, pleasure was the order of the day,—and this was +sought hourly,—no resource was left untried, no expedient unattempted; +and strange things, in the shape of pleasure, were often the result. + +The nominal duties were multifarious, and, had they been properly +observed, would have left but a comparatively narrow margin for +recreation,—for there was much in the old forms which took up time, +without conveying any great amount of real military instruction. + +The orderly officer for the day—we speak of the subaltern—was supposed +to go through a great deal. His duty it was to assist at inspections, +superintend drills, examine the soldiers’ provisions, see their +breakfasts and dinners served, and attend to any complaints, visit the +regimental guards by day and night, be present at all parades and +musters, and, finally, deliver in a written report of the proceedings of +the four-and-twenty hours. + +To go through this routine, required—as it received in some regiments—a +few days’ training; but in the Hundredth there was none at all. Every +officer in that distinguished corps was supposed to be “a Heaven-born +genius,” and acquired his military education as pigeons pick up peas. +The Hon. Ensign Spoonbill looked at his men after a fashion; could swear +at them if they were excessively dirty, and perhaps awe them into +silence by a portentous scowl, or an exaggerated loudness of voice; but +with regard to the real purpose of inspection, he knew as little, and +cared as much, as the valet who aired his noble father’s morning +newspaper. His eye wandered over the men’s kits as they were exposed to +his view; but to his mind they only conveyed the idea of a kaleidoscopic +rag-fair, not that of an assortment of necessaries for the comfort and +well-being of the soldier. He saw large masses of beef, exhibited in a +raw state by the quartermaster, as the daily allowance for the men; but +if any one had asked him if the meat was good, and of proper weight, how +could he have answered, whose head was turned away in disgust, with his +face buried in a scented cambric handkerchief, and his delicate nature +loathing the whole scene? In the same spirit he saw the men’s breakfasts +and dinners served; fortifying his opinion, at the first, that coffee +could only be made in France, and wondering, at the second, what sort of +_potage_ it could be that contrived to smell so disagreeably. These +things might be special affectations in the Hon. Ensign, and depended, +probably, on his own peculiar organisation; but if the rest of the +officers of the Hundredth did not manifest as intense a dislike to this +part of their duties, they were members of much too “crack” a regiment +to give themselves any trouble about the matter. The drums beat, the +messes were served, there was a hasty gallop through the barrack-rooms, +scarcely looking right or left, and the orderly officer was only too +happy to make his escape without being stopped by any impertinent +complaint. + +The “turning out” of the barrack guard was a thing to make an impression +on a bystander. A loud shout, a sharp clatter of arms, a scurry of +figures, a hasty formation, a brief enquiry if all was right, and a +terse rejoinder that all _was_ remarkably so, constituted the details of +a visit to the body of men on whom devolved the task of extreme +watchfulness, and the preservation of order. If the serjeant had replied +“All wrong,” it would have equally enlightened Ensign Spoonbill, who +went towards the guardhouse because his instructions told him to do so; +but why he went there, and for what purpose he turned out the guard, +never entered into his comprehension. Not even did a sense of +responsibility awaken in him when, with much difficulty, he penned the +report which gave, in a narrative form, the summary of the duties he had +performed in so exemplary a manner. Performed, do we say? Yes, once or +twice wholly, but for the most part with many gaps in the schedule. +Sometimes the dinners were forgotten, now and then the taptoo, generally +the afternoon parade, and not unfrequently the whole affair. For the +latter omission, there was occasionally a nominal “wigging” +administered, not by the commanding officer himself, but through the +adjutant; and as that functionary was only looked upon by the youngsters +in the light of a bore, without the slightest reverence for his office, +his words—like those of Cassius—passed like the idle wind which none +regarded. When Ensign Spoonbill “mounted guard” himself, his vigilance +on his new post equalled the assiduity we have seen him exhibit in +barracks. After the formality of trooping, marching down, and relieving, +was over, the Honourable Ensign generally amused himself by a lounge in +the vicinity of the guardhouse, until the field-officer’s “rounds” had +been made; and that visitation at an end for the day, a neighbouring +billiard-room, with Captain Cushion for his antagonist or “a jolly pool” +occupied him until dinner-time. It was the custom in the garrison where +the Hundredth were quartered, as it was, indeed, in many others, for the +officers on guard to dine with their mess, a couple of hours or so being +granted for this indulgence. This relaxation was made up for, by their +keeping close for the rest of the evening; but as there were generally +two or three off duty sufficiently at leisure to find cigars and +brandy-and-water attractive, even when consumed in a guard-room, the +hardship of Ensign Spoonbill’s official imprisonment was not very great. +With these friends, and these creature-comforts to solace, the time wore +easily away till night fell, when the field-officer, if he was “a good +fellow,” came early, and Ensign Spoonbill, having given his friends +their _congé_, was at liberty to “turn in” for the night, the onerous +duty of visiting sentries and inspecting the reliefs every two hours, +devolving upon the serjeant. + +It may be inferred from these two examples of Ensign Spoonbill’s ideas +of discipline and the service, what was the course he generally adopted +when _on_ duty, without our being under the necessity of going into +further details. What he did when _off_ duty helped him on still more +effectually. + +Lord Pelican’s outfit having “mounted” the young gentleman, and the +credit he obtained on the strength of being Lord Pelican’s son, keeping +his stud in order, he was enabled to vie with the crackest of the crack +Hundredth; subject, however, to all the accidents which horseflesh is +heir to—especially when allied to a judgment of which green was the +prevailing colour. A “swap” to a disadvantage; an indiscreet purchase; a +mistake as to the soundness of an animal; and such other errors of +opinion, entailed certain losses, which might, after all, have been +borne, without rendering the applications for money at home, more +frequent than agreeable; but when under the influence of a natural +obstinacy, or the advice of some very “knowing ones,” Ensign Spoonbill +proceeded to back his opinion in private matches, handicaps, and +steeple-chases, the privy purse of Lady Pelican collapsed in a most +unmistakeable manner. Nor was this description of amusement the only +rock-a-head in the course of the Honourable Ensign. The art or science +of betting embraces the widest field, and the odds, given or taken, are +equally fatal, whether the subject that elicits them be a match at +billiards or a horse-race. Nor are the stakes at blind-hookey or +unlimited loo less harmless, when you hav’n’t got luck and _have_ such +opponents as Captain Cushion. + +In spite of the belief in his own powers, which Ensign Spoonbill +encouraged, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that he was every day +a loser; but wiser gamblers than he—if any there be—place reliance on a +“turn of luck,” and all he wanted to enable him to take advantage of it, +was a command of cash; for even one’s best friends prefer the coin of +the realm to the most unimpeachable I. O. U. + +The want of money is a common dilemma,—not the less disagreeable, +however, because it _is_ common—but in certain situations this want is +more apparent than real. The Hon. Ensign Spoonbill was in the +predicament of impecuniosity; but there were—as a celebrated statesman +is in the habit of saying—three courses open to him. He might leave off +play, and do without the money; he might “throw himself” on Lord +Pelican’s paternal feelings; or he might _somehow_ contrive to raise a +supply on his own account. To leave off just at the moment when he was +sure to win back all he had lost, would have been ridiculous; besides, +every man of spirit in the regiment would have cut him. To throw himself +upon the generosity of his sire, was a good poetical idea; but, +practically, it would have been of no value: for, in the first place, +Lord Pelican had no money to give—in the next, there was an elder +brother, whose wants were more imperative than his own; and lastly, he +had already tried the experiment, and failed in the most signal manner. +There remained, therefore, only the last expedient; and being advised, +moreover, to have recourse to it, he went into the project _tête +baissée_. The “advice” was tendered in this form. + +“Well, Spooney, my boy, how are you, this morning?” kindly enquired +Captain Cushion, one day on his return from parade, from which the +Honourable Ensign had been absent on the plea of indisposition. + +“Deuced queer,” was the reply; “that Roman punch always gives me the +splittingest headaches!” + +“Ah! you’re not used to it. I’m as fresh as a four-year old. Well, what +did you do last night, Spooney?” + +“Do! why, I lost, of course; _you_ ought to know that.” + +“I—my dear fellow! Give you my honour I got up a loser!” + +“Not to me, though,” grumbled the Ensign. + +“Can’t say as to that,” replied the Captain; “all I know is, that I am +devilishly minus.” + +“Who won, then?” enquired Spoonbill. + +“Oh!” returned the Captain, after a slight pause, “I suspect—Chowser—he +has somebody’s luck and his own too!” + +“I think he must have mine,” said the Ensign, with a faint smile, as the +alternations of the last night’s Blind Hookey came more vividly to his +remembrance. “What did I lose to you, Cushion?” he continued, in the +hope that his memory had deceived him. + +The Captain’s pocket-book was out in an instant. + +“Sixty-five, my dear fellow; that was all. By-the-bye, Spooney, I’m +regularly hard up; can you let me have the tin? I wouldn’t trouble you, +upon my soul, if I could possibly do without it, but I’ve got a heavy +bill coming due to-morrow, and I can’t renew.” + +The Honourable Ensign sank back on his pillow, and groaned impotently. +Rallying, however, from this momentary weakness, he raised his head, +and, after apostrophising the spirit of darkness as his best friend, +exclaimed, “I’ll tell you what it is, Cushion, I’m thoroughly cleaned +out. I haven’t got a dump!” + +“Then you must fly a kite,” observed the Captain, coolly. “No difficulty +about that.” + +This was merely the repetition of counsel of the same friendly nature +previously urged. The shock was not greater, therefore, than the young +man’s nerves could bear. + +“How is it to be done?” asked the neophyte. + +“Oh, I think I can manage that for you. Yes,” pursued the Captain, +musing, “Lazarus would let you have as much as you want, I dare say. His +terms are rather high, to be sure; but then the cash is the thing. He’ll +take your acceptance at once. Who will you get to draw the bill?” + +“Draw!” said the Ensign, in a state of some bewilderment. “I don’t +understand these things—couldn’t you do it?” + +“Why,” replied the Captain, with an air of intense sincerity, “I’d do it +for you with pleasure—nothing would delight me more; but I promised my +grandmother, when first I entered the service, that I never _would_ draw +a bill as long as I lived; and as a man of honour, you know, and a +soldier, I can’t break my word.” + +“But I thought you said you had a bill of your own coming due +to-morrow,” observed the astute Spoonbill. + +“So I did,” said the Captain, taken rather aback in the midst of his +protestations, “but then it isn’t—exactly—a thing of _this_ sort; it’s a +kind of a—bond—as it were—old family matters—the estate down in +Lincolnshire—that I’m clearing off. Besides,” he added, hurriedly, +“there are plenty of fellows who’ll do it for you. There’s young +Brittles—the Manchester man, who joined just after you. I never saw +anybody screw into baulk better than he does, except yourself—he’s the +one. Lazarus, I know, always prefers a young customer to an old one; +knowing chaps, these Jews, arn’t they?” + +Captain Cushion’s last remark was, no doubt, a just one—but he might +have applied the term to himself with little dread of disparagement; and +the end of the conversation was, that it was agreed a bill should be +drawn as proposed, “say for three hundred pounds,” the Captain +undertaking to get the affair arranged, and relieving Spoonbill of all +trouble, save that of “merely” writing his name across a bit of stamped +paper. These points being settled, the Captain left him, and the +unprotected subaltern called for brandy and soda-water, by the aid of +which stimulus he was enabled to rise and perform his toilette. + +Messrs. Lazarus and Sons were merchants who perfectly understood their +business, and, though they started difficulties, were only too happy to +get fresh birds into their net. They knew to a certainty that the sum +they were asked to advance would not be repaid at the end of the +prescribed three months: it would scarcely have been worth their while +to enter into the matter if it had; the profit on the hundred pounds’ +worth of jewellery, which Ensign Spoonbill was required to take as part +of the amount, would not have remunerated them sufficiently. Guessing +pretty accurately which way the money would go, they foresaw renewed +applications, and a long perspective of accumulating acceptances. Lord +Pelican might be a needy nobleman; but he _was_ Lord Pelican, and the +Honourable George Spoonbill was his son; and if the latter did not +succeed to the title and family estates, which was by no means +improbable, there was Lady Pelican’s settlement for division amongst the +younger children. So they advanced the money; that is to say, they +produced a hundred and eighty pounds in cash, twenty they took for the +accommodation (half of which found its way into the pocket of—never +mind, we won’t say anything about Captain Cushion’s private affairs), +and the value of the remaining hundred was made up with a series of pins +and rings of the most stunning magnificence. + +This was the Honourable Ensign Spoonbill’s first bill-transaction, but, +the ice once broken, the second and third soon followed. He found it the +pleasantest way in the world of raising money, and in a short time his +affairs took a turn so decidedly commercial, that he applied the system +to all his mercantile transactions. He paid his tailors after this +fashion, satisfied Messrs. Mildew and his upholsterers with negotiable +paper, and did “bits of stiff” with Galloper, the horse-dealer, to a +very considerable figure. He even became facetious, not to say inspired, +by this great discovery; for, amongst his papers, when they were +afterwards overhauled by the official assignee—or some such fiscal +dignitary,—a bacchanalian song in manuscript was found, supposed to have +been written about this period, the _refrain_ of which ran as follows:— + + “When creditors clamour, and cash fails the till, + There is nothing so easy as giving a bill.” + +It needs no ghost to rise from the grave to prophesy the sequel to this +mode of “raising the wind.” It is recorded twenty times a month in the +daily papers,—now in the Bankruptcy Court, now in that for the Relief of +Insolvent Debtors. Ensign Spoonbill’s career lasted about eighteen +months, at the end of which period—not having prospered by means of +gaming to the extent he anticipated—he found himself under the necessity +of selling out and retiring to a continental residence, leaving behind +him debts, which were eventually paid, to the tune of seven thousand, +two hundred and fourteen pounds, seventeen shillings, and tenpence three +farthings, the vulgar fractions having their origin in the +hair-splitting occasioned by reduplication of interest. He chose for his +abode the pleasant town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, where he cultivated his +moustaches, acquired a smattering of French, and an insight into the +mystery of pigeon-shooting. For one or other of these qualifications—we +cannot exactly say which—he was subsequently appointed _attaché_ to a +foreign embassy, and at the present moment, we believe, is considered +one of those promising young men whose diplomatic skill will probably +declare itself one of these days, by some stroke of finesse, which shall +set all Europe by the ears. + +With respect to Colonel Tulip’s “crack” regiment, it went, as the saying +is, “to the Devil.” The exposure caused by the affair of Ensign +Spoonbill—the smash of Ensign Brittles, which shortly followed—the duel +between Lieutenant Wadding and Captain Cushion, the result of which was +a ball (neither “spot” nor “plain,” but a bullet) through the head of +the last-named gentleman, and a few other trifles of a similar +description, at length attracted the “serious notice” of his Grace the +Commander-in-Chief. It was significantly hinted to Colonel Tulip that it +would be for the benefit of the service in general, and that of the +Hundredth in particular, if he exchanged to half-pay, as the regiment +required re-modelling. A smart Lieutenant-Colonel who had learnt +something, not only of drill, but of discipline, under the hero of +“Young Egypt,” in which country he had shared that general’s laurels, +was sent down from the Horse Guards. “Weeding” to a considerable extent +took place; the Majors and the Adjutant were replaced by more efficient +men, and, to sum up all, the Duke’s “Circular” came out, laying down a +principle of _practical military education, while on service_, which, if +acted up to,—and there seems every reason to hope it will now be,—bids +fair to make good officers of those who heretofore were merely idlers. +It will also diminish the opportunities for gambling, drinking, and +bill-discounting, and substitute, for the written words on the Queen’s +Commission, the real character of a soldier and a gentleman. + + + + + HOW TO SPEND A SUMMER HOLIDAY. + + +If the walls of London—the bill-stickers’ chosen haunt—could suddenly +find a voice to tell their own history, we might have a few curious +illustrations of the manners and customs—the fashions, fancies, and +popular idols—of the English during the last half century,—from the days +when a three feet blue bill was thought large enough to tell where +Bonaparte’s victories might be read about, to the advent acres of +flaring paper and print which announce a Bal Masque or a new Haymarket +Comedy. One of the most startling contrasts of such a confession would +refer to the announcements about means of locomotion. It is not very +long ago that “The Highflyer,” “The Tally-ho,” the Brighton “Age,” and +the Shrewsbury “Wonder” boasted, in all the glory of red letters, their +wonder-feat speed of ten miles an hour,—“York in one day;” “Manchester +in twenty-four hours;” and so on. The same wall now tells the passer-by +a different tale, for we have Excursion Trains to all sorts of pleasant +places at all sorts of low fares. “Twelve Hours to Paris” is the burden +of one placard, whilst another shows how “Cologne on the Rhine” may be +reached in twenty-four. + +Nor is this marvellous change in speed—this real economy of life—the +only variation from old modes; for the cost in money of a journey has +diminished with its cost of time. The cash which a few years ago was +required to go to York, will now take the tourist to Cologne. The +Minster of the one city is now, therefore, rivalled as a point for +sight-seers by the Dom-Kirche of the other. When the South Eastern +Railway Company offers to take the traveller, who will pay them about +three pounds at London Bridge one night, and place him by the next +evening on the banks of the Rhine,—the excellent tendency is, that the +summer holiday folks will extend their notions of an excursion beyond +the Channel. + +Steam, that makes the trip from London to Cologne so rapid and so cheap, +does not stop there, but is ready now to bear the traveller by railway +to Brunswick, Hanover, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna,—nay, with one short gap, +he may go all the way to Trieste, on the Adriatic, by the iron road. +Steam is ready also on the Rhine to carry him at small charge up that +stream towards Switzerland. Indeed, afloat by steamer and ashore by +railway, the tourist who leaves London Bridge on a Monday night may well +reach Basle by Thursday or Friday, seeing many things on his way, +including the best scenery of the Rhine. The beautiful portion of the +banks of that river forms but a small part of its entire length; indeed, +on reaching Cologne, the traveller is disappointed to find so little +that is remarkable in what he beholds on the banks of the famous stream. +It is not till he ascends many miles higher that he feels repaid for his +journey. _The_ scenery lies between Coblenz and Bingen, and in extent +bears some such proportion to the whole length of the river as would the +banks of the Thames from Chelsea to Richmond to the entire course of our +great river, from its rise in Gloucestershire to its junction with the +sea. In addition to the part just named, there are some few other points +where the Rhine is worth seeing,—such as the fall at Schaffhausen,—but +Switzerland may claim this as one of _its_ attractions. It is a fine +river from Basle, even down through the Dutch rushes and flats to the +sea; but, with all its reputation, there is only a morsel of the Rhine +worth going to look at, and that lies, as we have just said, between its +junction with the picturesque Moselle at Coblenz and the small town of +Bingen. Between those points it passes through hills and near mountains, +whose sides and summits boast the castles and ruins so often painted and +often sung; and these spots are now within the reach of the three pounds +first-class railway ticket, now-a-days announced by placard on the walls +and hoardings of London. + +Once on a Rhine steamer, and Switzerland is within easy reach. + +On our table, as we write, lies the second edition of a volume[2] +written by the physician to the Queen’s Household, Dr. Forbes, showing +how a month may be employed in Switzerland. He adopted the South Eastern +Railway plan, and, starting by a mail train at half-past eight in the +evening of the 3rd of August, found himself and companions on the next +evening looking from the window of an hotel on the Rhine. Steam and a +week placed him in Switzerland. Here railways must be no longer reckoned +on, and the tourist, if he be in search of health, may try what +pedestrian exercise will do for him. This the Doctor strongly +recommends; and, following his own prescription, we find him—though a +sexagenarian—making capital way; now as a pedestrian, anon on horseback, +and then again on foot, only adopting a carriage when there was good +reason for such assistance. He describes the country, as all do who have +been through it, as a land of large and good inns, well stored with +luxurious edibles and drinkables. Against a too free use of them, he +doctor-like gives a medical hint or two, and goes somewhat out of his +way, perhaps, to show how much better the waters of the mountains may be +than the wine. Indeed the butter, the honey, the milk, the cheese, and +the melted snows of Switzerland win his warmest praises. The bread is +less fortunate; but its inferiority, and many other small discomforts, +are overlooked and almost forgotten in his enjoying admiration of what +he found good on his way amidst the mountain valleys and breezy passes +of his route. The bracing air, the brilliant sky, the animating scenes, +the society of emulous and cheerful companions, and, above all, the +increased corporeal exercise soon produce a change in the mind and the +body, in the spirits and the stomach of the tourist. + +Footnote 2: + + “The Physician’s Holiday.” + +What a marvellous change it is for a smoke-dried man who for months, +perhaps years, has been “in populous cities pent,” to escape from his +thraldom, and find himself far away from his drudgeries and routines up +amongst the mountains and the lakes, and surrounded by the most +magnificent scenes in nature; where he sees in all its glory that which +a townsman seldom gets a glimpse of—a sunrise in its greatest beauty; +and where sunsets throw a light over the earth, which makes its beauties +emulate those of the heavens! Day by day, during summer in Switzerland, +such enjoyments are at hand. One traveller may choose one route, and +another another; for there are many and admirable changes to be rung +upon the roads to be taken. Dr. Forbes, for instance, went from Basle to +Schaffhausen, thence to Zurich, and, steaming over a part of the lake, +made for Zug, and thence to the Rigi. He returned to the Zurich-See, and +then went to Wallenstadt, Chur, and the Via Mala. Had he to shorten his +trip without great loss of the notable scenes, he might, having first +reached Lucerne, have left that place for Meyringen, and then pursued +his subsequent way by the line of the lakes, visiting the various +glorious points in their neighbourhood that challenged his +attention—Grindelwald, Schreckhorn, Lauterbrunnen, Unterseen, and so on +to Thun; then by the pass of the Gemmi to Leuk, and, from there, to what +is described by our author as the gem of his whole Swiss experience—the +Riffelberg, and the view at Monte Rosa:— + +“Sitting there, up in mid-heaven, as it were, on the smooth, warm ledge +of our rock; in one of the sunniest noons of a summer day; amid air +cooled by the elevation and the perfect exposure to the most delicious +temperature; under a sky of the richest blue, and either cloudless, or +only here and there gemmed with those aerial and sun-bright cloudlets +which but enhance its depth; with the old field of vision, from the +valley at our feet to the horizon, filled with majestic shapes of every +variety of form, and of a purity and brilliancy of whiteness which left +all common whiteness dull;—we seemed to feel as if there could be no +other mental mood but that of an exquisite yet cheerful serenity—a sort +of delicious abstraction, or absorption of our powers, in one grand, +vague, yet most luxurious perception of Beauty and Loveliness. + +“At another time—it would almost seem at the same time, so rapid was the +alternation from mood to mood—the immeasurable vastness and majesty of +the scene, the gigantic bulk of the individual mountains, the peaks +towering so far beyond the level of our daily earth, as to seem more +belonging to the sky than to it, our own elevated and isolated station +hemmed in on every side by untrodden wastes and impassable walls of +snow, and, above all, the utter silence, and the absence of every +indication of life and living things—suggesting the thought that the +foot of man had never trodden, and never would tread there: these and +other analogous ideas would excite a tone of mind entirely +different—solemn, awful, melancholy.... + +“I said at the time, and I still feel disposed to believe, that the +whole earth has but few scenes that can excel it in grandeur, in beauty, +and in wonderfulness of every kind. I thought then, and I here repeat my +opinion in cool blood, that had I been brought hither blindfolded from +London, had had my eyes opened but for a single hour on this astonishing +panorama, and had been led back in darkness as I came, I should have +considered the journey, with all its privations, well repaid by what I +saw.” + +Having seen this crowning glory of mountain scenery, the tourist intent +only upon a short trip might adopt one of many variations for his return +to Basle. If on going out he had missed any bright spot, he should see +it on his way back. He must remember: + +Interlachen, one of the sweetest spots in all Switzerland, which, though +only about four miles in extent, affords a perfect specimen of a Swiss +valley in its best form. + +The Lake of Thun, inferior to that of Wallenstadt in grandeur, and to +that of Lucerne in beauty, but superior to the Lake of Zurich in both; +and in respect to the view from it, beyond all these; none of them +having any near or distant prospect comparable to that looking back, +where the snowy giants of the Oberland, with the Jungfrau, and her +silver horns, are seen over the tops of the nearer mountains. + +The “show glacier” of the Rosenlaui, which is so easy of access. + +The view from the Hotel of the Jungfrau on the Wengern Alp. + +The lake scenery near Alpnach. + +All these points should be made either out or home. They are not likely +to be forgotten by the tourist when once seen. On the pilgrimage to +these wonders of nature, the other peculiarities of the country and its +people will be observed, and amongst them the frequency of showers and +the popularity of umbrellas; the great division of landed property; the +greater number of beggars in the Romanist as compared with the +Protestant Cantons, and the better cultivation of the latter; the +numerous spots of historical interest, as Morgarten, Sempach, Naefels; +where the Swiss have fought for the liberty they enjoy (to say nothing +of the dramatic William Tell, and his defeat of the cruel Gesler); the +fruitfulness and number of Swiss orchards (which give us our grocers’ +“French plums”), the excellent flavor of Alpine strawberries and cream; +the scarcity of birds; and the characteristic sounds of the Swiss horn, +the Ranz des Vaches, and the night chaunts of the watchmen. + +On the map attached to Dr. Forbes’s volume are the dates, jotted down, +when our traveller entered Switzerland, at Basle, and when he left it on +his return to smoke and duty in London. He reached the land of mountains +and lakes on the 11th of August; he quitted it on the 12th of September; +four days afterwards he was being bothered at the Custom-House at +Blackwall. The last words of his book are these:—“In accordance with a +principle kept constantly in view while writing out the particulars of +the Holiday now concluded, viz. to give to those who may follow the same +or a similar track, such economical and financial details as may be +useful to them, I may here state that the total expenses of the +tour—from the moment of departure to that of return—was, as near as may +be, _One Guinea per diem_ to each of the travellers.” + +The thousands of young gentlemen with some leisure and small means, who +are in the habit of getting rid of both in unhealthy amusements, need +hardly be told that a winter’s abstinence from certain modes and places +of entertainment would be more than rewarded by a single summer holiday +spent after the manner of Dr. Forbes and his younger companions. No very +heroic self-denial is necessary; and the compensation—in health, higher +and more intense enjoyment, and the best sort of mental improvement—is +incalculable. + +What we have here described is an expensive proceeding compared with the +cheap contract trips which are constantly diverging from the Metropolis, +to every part of England, Ireland, Scotland, and to all attainable +places on the Continent. These, so far as we are able to learn, have +hitherto been well conducted; and although the charges for every +possible want—from the platform of the London Terminus back again to the +same spot, are marvellously moderate—the speculations, from their +frequent repetition, appear to have been remunerative to the projectors. + + + + + CHRISTOPHER SHRIMBLE ON THE “DECLINE OF ENGLAND.” + + + _To Mr. Ledru Rollin._ + + Sir, + +I generally believe everything that is going to happen; and as it is a +remarkable fact that everything that is going to happen is of a +depressing nature, I undergo a good deal of anxiety. I am very careful +of myself (taking a variety of patent medicines, and paying particular +attention to the weather), but I am not strong. I think my weakness is +principally on my nerves, which have been a good deal shaken in the +course of my profession as a practising attorney; in which I have met +with a good deal to shock them; but from which, I beg leave most +cheerfully to acquaint you, I have retired. + +Sir, I am certain you are a very remarkable public gentleman, though you +have the misfortune to be French. I am convinced you know what is going +to happen, because you describe it in your book on “The Decline of +England,” in such an alarming manner. I have read your book and, Sir, I +am sincerely obliged to you for what you have made me suffer; I am very +miserable and very grateful. + +You have not only opened up a particularly dismal future, but you have +shown me in what a miserable condition we, here, (I mean in Tooting, my +place of abode, and the surrounding portion of the British Empire) are +at this present time; though really I was not aware of it. + +I suppose that your chapter on the law of this land is the result of a +profound study of the statutes at large and the “Reports of Cases +argued,” &c.; for students of your nation do not take long for that sort +of thing, and you have been amongst us at least three months. In the +course of your “reading up” you must doubtless have perused the +posthumous reports of J. Miller, Q. C. (Queen’s Comedian). There you +doubtless found the cause of Hammer _v._ Tongs, which was an action of +_tort_ tried before Gogg, C. J. Flamfacer (Serjeant)—according to the +immortal reporter of good things—stated his case on behalf of the +plaintiff so powerfully, that before he could get to the peroration, +said plaintiff’s hair stood on end, tears rolled down his cheeks in +horror and pity at his own wrongs, and he exclaimed, while wringing his +pocket-handkerchief, “Good gracious! That villain Tongs! What a terrific +box on my ear it must have been! To think that a man may be almost +murdered without knowing it!” + +I am Hammer, and you, Mr. Rollin, are Tongs. Your book made my ears to +tingle quite as sharply as if you had actually boxed them. I must, +however, in justice to the little hair that Time has left me, positively +state that, even while I was perusing your most powerful passages, it +showed no propensity for the perpendicular. I felt very nervous for all +that; for still—although I could hardly believe that a French gentleman +residing for a few months in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, +London, could possibly obtain a thorough knowledge, either from study or +personal observation, of the political, legislative, agricultural, +agrarian, prelatical, judicial, colonial, commercial, manufacturing, +social, and educational systems and condition of this empire—yet, from +the unqualified manner in which you deliver yourself upon all these +branches, I cannot choose but think that your pages must, like certain +fictions, be at least founded on _some_ fact; that to have concocted +your volume—of smoke—there must be some fire somewhere. Or is it only +the smell of it? + +For, Sir, even an alarm of fire is unpleasant; and, to an elderly +gentleman with a very small stake in the country (prudently inserted in +the three per cent. consols), reading of the dreadful things which you +say are to happen to one’s own native land is exceedingly uncomfortable, +especially at night; when “in silence and in gloom” one broods over +one’s miseries, personal and national; when, in fact, your or any one +else’s _bête noire_ is apt to get polished off with a few extra touches +of blacking. Bless me! when I put my candle out the other night, and +thought of your portrait of Britannia, I quite shook; and when I lay +down I could almost fancy her shadow on the wall. Even now I see her +looking uncommonly sickly, in spite of the invigorating properties of +the waves she so constantly “rules;” the trident and shield—her +“supporters” for ages—can hardly keep her up. Grief, and forebodings of +the famine which you promise, has made her dwindle down from Great to +Little Britain. The British Lion at her feet is in the last stage of +consumption; in such a shocking state of collapse, that he will soon be +in a condition to jump out of his skin; but you do not point out the Ass +who is to jump into it. + +Fortunately for my peace I found, on reading a little further, that this +is not Britannia as she is, but Britannia seen by you, “as in a glass +darkly”—as she is to be—when some more of her blood has been sucked by a +phlebotomising Oligarchy and State-pensionary; by an ogreish Cotton +lordocracy; by a sanguinary East India Company, whose “atrocious +greediness caused ten millions of Indians to perish in a month;” by the +servile Parsonocracy, who “read their sermons, in order that the priest +may be able to place his discourse before the magistrate, if he should +be suspected of having preached anything contrary to law;” by the +Landlords, whose oppressions cause labourers to kill one another “to get +a premium upon death;” and by a variety of other national leeches, which +your imagination presents to our view with the distinctness of the +monsters in a drop of Thames water seen through a solar microscope. + +But, Sir, as Mr. Hammer said, “to think that a man may be almost +murdered without knowing it!” and so, _I_ say, (one trial of your book +will prove the fact) may a whole parish—such as Tooting—or an entire +country—such as England. If it had not been for your book I should not +have had the remotest notion that “English society is about to fall with +a fearful crash.” Society at large, so far as I can observe it (at +Tooting, and elsewhere), seems to be quite innocent of its impending +fate; and if one may judge from appearances (but then you say, we may +not),—we are rather better off than usual just now: indeed, when you +paint Britannia as she is at the present writing, she makes a rather fat +and jolly portrait than otherwise. In your “Exposition” (for 1850) you +say: “The problem is not to discover whether England is great, but +whether her greatness can endure.” In admitting, in the handsomest +manner possible, that England _is_ great, you go on to say, that “Great +Britain, which is only two hundred leagues long, and whose soil is far +from equal to that of Aragon or Lombardy, draws every year from its +agriculture, by a skilful cultivation and the breeding of animals, a +revenue which amounts to more than three billions six hundred millions +francs, and this revenue of the mother-country is almost doubled by the +value of similar produce in its colonies and dependencies. Her industry, +her commerce, and her manufactures, create a property superior to the +primal land-productions, and all owing to her inexhaustible mines, her +natural wealth, and her admirable system of circulation by fourscore and +six canals, and seventy lines of railway. The total revenue of England +then amounts to upwards of twelve billion francs. Her power amongst the +nations is manifest by the number and greatness of her fleets and of her +domains. In Europe she possesses, besides her neighbour-islets, +Heligoland, Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian Islands; in Asia, she holds +British Hindostan with its tributaries, Ceylon, and her compulsory +allies of the Punjab and of Scinde—that is to say, almost a world; in +Africa she claims Sierra Leone with its dependencies, the Isle of +France, Seychelles, Fernandez Po, the Cape of Good Hope and Saint +Helena; in America, she possesses Upper and Lower Canada, Cape Breton, +the Lesser Antilles, the Bermudas, Newfoundland, Lucays, Jamaica, +Dominica, Guiana, the Bay of Honduras, and Prince Edward’s Island; +lastly, in Oceania, she has Van Dieman’s Land, Norfolk Island, Nova +Scotia, Southern Australia; and these hundred nations make up for her +more that one hundred and fifty millions of subjects, including the +twenty-seven to twenty-eight millions of the three mother kingdoms. As +to her mercantile marine, two details will suffice to make it known; she +has about thirty thousand sailing-vessels and steamers, without counting +her eight thousand colonial ships; and in one year she exports six or +seven hundred millions of cotton stuffs, which makes for a single detail +an account beyond the sum total of all the manufacturing exportation of +France.” + +But now for the plague spot! All this territory, and power, and +commercial activity is, you say, our ruin; all this wealth is precisely +our pauperism; all this happiness is our misery. What Montesquieu says, +and you Mr. Ledru Rollin indorse with your unerring imprimatur, _must_ +be true:—“The fortune of maritime empires cannot be long, for they only +reign by the oppression of the nations, and while they extend themselves +abroad, they are undermining themselves within.” + +Upon my word, Mr. Rollin, this looks very likely: and when you see your +neighbours gaily promenading Regent Street; when you hear of the “Lion +of Waterloo” (at whom you are so obliging as to say in your Preface, you +have no wish “to fire a spent ball”) giving his usual anniversary dinner +to the usual number of guests, and with his usual activity stepping off +afterwards to a ball; when you are told that a hundred thousand +Londoners can afford to enjoy themselves at Epsom Races; and that +throughout the country there is just now more enjoyment and less +grumbling than there has been for years, I can quite understand that +your horror at the innocent disregard thus evinced at the tremendous +“blow up” that is coming, must be infinitely more real than that of +Serjeant Flamfacer. “Alas!” you exclaim with that “profound emotion” +with which your countrymen are so often afflicted; “Government returns +inform me that during the past year English pauperism has decreased +eleven per cent., and that the present demand for labour in the +manufacturing districts nearly equals the supply? The culminating point +is reached; destruction must follow!” + +Heavens! Mr. Rollin, I tremble with you. The plethora of prosperity +increases, and will burst the sooner! We, eating, drinking, contented, +trafficking, stupid, revolution-hating, spiritless, English people, “are +undermining ourselves within.” We are gorging ourselves with National +prosperity to bring on a National dyspepsia, and will soon fall asleep +under the influence of a national nightmare! Horrible! the more so +because + + “Alas! unconscious of their fate, + The little victims play.” + +Now, Sir, I wish to ask you calmly and candidly, if there _is_ any fire +at the bottom of your volumes of smoke? or have you read our records, +and seen our country through a flaming pair of Red Spectacles, that has +converted everything within their range into Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones? + +Indeed I hope it is so; for though I am very much obliged to you for +putting us on our guard, you have made me very miserable. This is the +worst shock of all. With my belief in “what is going to happen,” I have +led but a dog-life of it, ever since I retired from that cat-and-dog +life, the Law. First, the Reform Bill was to ruin us out of hand; then, +the farmers threatened us with what was going to happen in consequence +of Free Trade; and that was bad enough, for it was starvation—no less. +What was going to happen if the Navigation Laws were repealed, I dare +not recall. Now we are to be swept off the face of the earth if we allow +letters to be sorted on a Sunday. But these are comparative trifles to +what you, Mr. R., assert is going to happen, whatever we do or don’t do. +However, I am resolved on one thing—_I_ won’t be in at the death, or +rather _with_ the death. I shall pull up my little stake in Capel Court, +and retire to some quiet corner of the world, such as the Faubourg St. +Antoine, the foot of Mount Vesuvius, or Chinese Tartary. + + Yours truly, + CHRISTOPHER SHRIMBLE. + + Paradise Row, Tooting. + + * * * * * + + Monthly Supplement of ‘HOUSEHOLD WORDS,’ + Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS. + + _Price 2d., Stamped 3d._, + + THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE + + OF + + CURRENT EVENTS. + + _The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with + the Magazines._ + + * * * * * + + Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. + Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Renumbered footnotes. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + ● The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript, whether applied to a + single character (as in 2^d) or to an entire expression (as in + 1^{st}). + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78179 *** |