Autocrat of the Breakfast Table Part 17

I was only going to say that I should have drowned myself. For Lake Erie was close by, and it is so much better to accept asphyxia, which takes only three minutes by the watch, than a _mesalliance_, that lasts fifty years to begin with, and then pa.s.ses along down the line of descent, (breaking out in all manner of boorish manifestations of feature and manner, which, if men were only as short-lived as horses, could be readily traced back through the square-roots and the cube-roots of the family stem on which you have hung the armorial bearings of the De Champignons or the De la Morues, until one came to beings that ate with knives and said "Haow?") that no person of right feeling could have hesitated for a single moment.

The second of the ravishing voices I have heard was, as I have said, that of another German woman.-I suppose I shall ruin myself by saying that such a voice could not have come from any Americanized human being.

-What was there in it?-said the schoolmistress,-and, upon my word, her tones were so very musical, that I almost wished I had said three voices instead of two, and not made the unpatriotic remark above reported.-Oh, I said, it had so much _woman_ in it,-_muliebrity_, as well as _femineity_;-no self-a.s.sertion, such as free suffrage introduces into every word and movement; large, vigorous nature, running back to those huge-limbed Germans of Tacitus, but subdued by the reverential training and tuned by the kindly culture of fifty generations. Sharp business habits, a lean soil, independence, enterprise, and east winds, are not the best things for the larynx. Still, you hear n.o.ble voices among us,-I have known families famous for them,-but ask the first person you meet a question, and ten to one there is a hard, sharp, metallic, matter-of-business clink in the accents of the answer, that produces the effect of one of those bells which small trades-people connect with their shop-doors, and which spring upon your ear with such vivacity, as you enter, that your first impulse is to retire at once from the precincts.

-Ah, but I must not forget that dear little child I saw and heard in a French hospital. Between two and three years old. Fell out of her chair and snapped both thigh-bones. Lying in bed, patient, gentle. Rough students round her, some in white ap.r.o.ns, looking fearfully business-like; but the child placid, perfectly still. I spoke to her, and the blessed little creature answered me in a voice of such heavenly sweetness, with that reedy thrill in it which you have heard in the thrush's even-song, that I hear it at this moment, while I am writing, so many, many years afterwards.-_C'est tout comme un serin_, said the French student at my side.

These are the voices which struck the key-note of my conceptions as to what the sounds we are to hear in heaven will be, if we shall enter through one of the twelve gates of pearl. There must be other things besides aerolites that wander from their own spheres to ours; and when we speak of celestial sweetness or beauty, we may be nearer the literal truth than we dream. If mankind generally are the shipwrecked survivors of some pre-Adamitic cataclysm, set adrift in these little open boats of humanity to make one more trial to reach the sh.o.r.e,-as some grave theologians have maintained,-if, in plain English, men are the ghosts of dead devils who have "died into life," (to borrow an expression from Keats,) and walk the earth in a suit of living rags which lasts three or four score summers,-why, there must have been a few good spirits sent to keep them company, and these sweet voices I speak of must belong to them.

-I wish you could once hear my sister's voice,-said the schoolmistress.

If it is like yours, it must be a pleasant one,-said I.

I never thought mine was anything,-said the schoolmistress.

How should you know?-said I.-People never hear their own voices,-any more than they see their own faces. There is not even a looking-gla.s.s for the voice. Of course, there is something audible to us when we speak; but that something is not our own voice as it is known to all our acquaintances. I think, if an image spoke to us in our own tones, we should not know them in the least.-How pleasant it would be, if in another state of being we could have shapes like our former selves for playthings,-we standing outside or inside of them, as we liked, and they being to us just what we used to be to others!

-I wonder if there will be nothing like what we call "play," after our earthly toys are broken,-said the schoolmistress.

Hush,-said I,-what will the divinity-student say?

[I thought she was. .h.i.t, that time;-but the shot must have gone over her, or on one side of her; she did not flinch.]

Oh,-said the schoolmistress,-he must look out for my sister's heresies; I am afraid he will be too busy with them to take care of mine.

Do you mean to say,-said I,-that it is _your sister_ whom that student-

[The young fellow commonly known as John, who had been sitting on the barrel, smoking, jumped off just then, kicked over the barrel, gave it a push with his foot that set it rolling, and stuck his saucy-looking face in at the window so as to cut my question off in the middle; and the schoolmistress leaving the room a few minutes afterwards, I did not have a chance to finish it.

The young fellow came in and sat down in a chair, putting his heels on the top of another.

Pooty girl,-said he.

A fine young lady,-I replied.

Keeps a first-rate school, according to accounts,-said he,-teaches all sorts of things,-Latin and Italian and music. Folks rich once,-smashed up. She went right ahead as smart as if she'd been born to work. That's the kind o' girl I go for. I'd marry her, only two or three other girls would drown themselves, if I did.

I think the above is the longest speech of this young fellow's which I have put on record. I do not like to change his peculiar expressions, for this is one of those cases in which the style is the man, as M. de Buffon says. The fact is, the young fellow is a good-hearted creature enough, only too fond of his jokes,-and if it were not for those heat-lightning winks on one side of his face, I should not mind his fun much.]

[Some days after this, when the company were together again, I talked a little.]

-I don't think I have a genuine hatred for anybody. I am well aware that I differ herein from the st.u.r.dy English moralist and the stout American tragedian. I don't deny that I hate _the sight_ of certain people; but the qualities which make me tend to hate the man himself are such as I am so much disposed to pity, that, except under immediate aggravation, I feel kindly enough to the worst of them. It is such a sad thing to be born a sneaking fellow, so much worse than to inherit a hump-back or a couple of club-feet, that I sometimes feel as if we ought to love the crippled souls, if I may use this expression, with a certain tenderness which we need not waste on n.o.ble natures. One who is born with such congenital incapacity that nothing can make a gentleman of him is ent.i.tled, not to our wrath, but to our profoundest sympathy. But as we cannot help hating the sight of these people, just as we do that of physical deformities, we gradually eliminate them from our society,-we love them, but open the window and let them go. By the time decent people reach middle age they have weeded their circle pretty well of these unfortunates, unless they have a taste for such animals; in which case, no matter what their position may be, there is something, you may be sure, in their natures akin to that of their wretched parasites.

-The divinity-student wished to know what I thought of affinities, as well as of antipathies; did I believe in love at first sight?

Sir,-said I,-all men love all women. That is the _prima-facie_ aspect of the case. The Court of Nature a.s.sumes the law to be, that all men do so; and the individual man is bound to show cause why he does not love any particular woman. A man, says one of my old black-letter law-books, may show divers good reasons, as thus: He hath not seen the person named in the indictment; she is of tender age, or the reverse of that; she hath certain personal disqualifications,-as, for instance, she is a blackamoor, or hath an ill-favored countenance; or, his capacity of loving being limited, his affections are engrossed by a previous comer; and so of other conditions. Not the less is it true that he is bound by duty and inclined by nature to love each and every woman. Therefore it is that each woman virtually summons every man to show cause why he doth not love her. This is not by written doc.u.ment, or direct speech, for the most part, but by certain signs of silk, gold, and other materials, which say to all men,-Look on me and love, as in duty bound. Then the man pleadeth his special incapacity, whatsoever that may be,-as, for instance, impecuniosity, or that he hath one or many wives in his household, or that he is of mean figure, or small capacity; of which reasons it may be noted, that the first is, according to late decisions, of chiefest authority.-So far the old law-book. But there is a note from an older authority, saying that every woman doth also love each and every man, except there be some good reason to the contrary; and a very observing friend of mine, a young unmarried clergyman, tells me, that, so far as his experience goes, he has reason to think the ancient author had fact to justify his statement.

I'll tell you how it is with the pictures of women we fall in love with at first sight.

-We a'n't talking about pictures,-said the landlady's daughter,-we're talking about women.

I understood that we were speaking of love at sight,-I remarked, mildly.-Now, as all a man knows about a woman whom he looks at is just what a picture as big as a copper, or a "nickel," rather, at the bottom of his eye can teach him, I think I am right in saying we are talking about the pictures of women.-Well, now, the reason why a man is not desperately in love with ten thousand women at once is just that which prevents all our portraits being distinctly seen upon that wall. They all _are_ painted there by reflection from our faces, but because _all_ of them are painted on each spot, and each on the same surface, and many other objects at the same time, no one is seen as a picture. But darken a chamber and let a single pencil of rays in through a key-hole, then you have a picture on the wall. We never fall in love with a woman in distinction from women, until we can get an image of her through a pin-hole; and then we can see nothing else, and n.o.body but ourselves can see the image in our mental camera-obscura.

-My friend, the Poet, tells me he has to leave town whenever the anniversaries come round.

What's the difficulty?-Why, they all want him to get up and make speeches, or songs, or toasts; which is just the very thing he doesn't want to do. He is an old story, he says, and hates to show on these occasions. But they tease him, and coax him, and can't do without him, and feel all over his poor weak head until they get their fingers on the _fontanelle_, (the Professor will tell you what this means,-he says the one at the top of the head always remains open in poets,) until, by gentle pressure on that soft pulsating spot, they stupefy him to the point of acquiescence.

There are times, though, he says, when it is a pleasure, before going to some agreeable meeting, to rush out into one's garden and clutch up a handful of what grows there,-weeds and violets together,-not cutting them off, but pulling them up by the roots with the brown earth they grow in sticking to them. That's his idea of a post-prandial performance. Look here, now. These verses I am going to read you, he tells me, were pulled up by the roots just in that way, the other day.-Beautiful entertainment,-names there on the plates that flow from all English-speaking tongues as familiarly as _and_ or _the_; entertainers known wherever good poetry and fair t.i.tle-pages are held in esteem; guest a kind-hearted, modest, genial, hopeful poet, who sings to the hearts of his countrymen, the British people, the songs of good cheer which the better days to come, as all honest souls trust and believe, will turn into the prose of common life. My friend, the Poet, says you must not read such a string of verses too literally. If he trimmed it nicely below, you wouldn't see the roots, he says, and he likes to keep them, and a little of the soil clinging to them.

This is the farewell my friend, the Poet, read to his and our friend, the Poet:-

A GOOD TIME GOING!

BRAVE singer of the coming time, Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, Crowned with the n.o.blest wreath of rhyme, The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, Good-bye! Good-bye!-Our hearts and hands, Our lips in honest Saxon phrases, Cry, G.o.d be with him, till he stands His feet among the English daisies!

'Tis here we part;-for other eyes The busy deck, the flattering streamer, The dripping arms that plunge and rise, The waves in foam, the ship in tremor, The kerchiefs waving from the pier, The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him, The deep blue desert, lone and drear, With heaven above and home before him!

His home!-the Western giant smiles, And twirls the spotty globe to find it;- This little speck the British Isles?

'Tis but a freckle,-never mind it!- He laughs, and all his prairies roll, Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles, And ridges stretched from pole to pole Heave till they crack their iron knuckles!

But memory blushes at the sneer, And Honor turns with frown defiant, And Freedom, leaning on her spear, Laughs louder than the laughing giant:- "An islet is a world," she said, "When glory with its dust has blended, And Britain kept her n.o.ble dead Till earth and seas and skies are rended!"

Beneath each swinging forest-bough Some arm as stout in death reposes,- From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow Her valor's life-blood runs in roses; Nay, let our brothers of the West Write smiling in their florid pages, One-half her soil has walked the rest In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!

Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp, From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather, The British oak with rooted grasp Her slender handful holds together;- With cliffs of white and bowers of green, And Ocean narrowing to caress her, And hills and threaded streams between,- Our little mother isle, G.o.d bless her!

In earth's broad temple where we stand, Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us, We hold the missal in our hand, Bright with the lines our Mother taught us; Where'er its blazoned page betrays The glistening links of gilded fetters, Behold, the half-turned leaf displays Her rubric stained in crimson letters!

Enough! To speed a parting friend 'Tis vain alike to speak and listen;- Yet stay,-these feeble accents blend With rays of light from eyes that glisten.

Good-bye! once more,-and kindly tell In words of peace the young world's story,- And say, besides,-we love too well Our mother's soil, our father's glory!

When my friend, the Professor, found that my friend, the Poet, had been coming out in this full-blown style, he got a little excited, as you may have seen a canary, sometimes, when another strikes up. The Professor says he knows he can lecture, and thinks he can write verses. At any rate, he has often tried, and now he was determined to try again. So when some professional friends of his called him up, one day, after a feast of reason and a regular "freshet" of soul which had lasted two or three hours, he read them these verses. He introduced them with a few remarks, he told me, of which the only one he remembered was this: that he had rather write a single line which one among them should think worth remembering than set them all laughing with a string of epigrams. It was all right, I don't doubt; at any rate, that was his fancy then, and perhaps another time he may be obstinately hilarious; however, it may be that he is growing graver, for time is a fact so long as clocks and watches continue to go, and a cat can't be a kitten always, as the old gentleman opposite said the other day.

You must listen to this seriously, for I think the Professor was very much in earnest when he wrote it.

THE TWO ARMIES.

As Life's unending column pours, Two marshalled hosts are seen,- Two armies on the trampled sh.o.r.es That Death flows black between.

One marches to the drum-beat's roll, The wide-mouthed clarion's bray, And bears upon a crimson scroll, "Our glory is to slay."

One moves in silence by the stream, With sad, yet watchful eyes, Calm as the patient planet's gleam That walks the clouded skies.

Along its front no sabres shine, No blood-red pennons wave; Its banner bears the single line, "Our duty is to save."

For those no death-bed's lingering shade; At Honor's trumpet-call, With knitted brow and lifted blade In Glory's arms they fall.