Nature and Human Nature Part 48

"Well, it was the first visit of the Dutch governor, and they hoped it would be the last, so they pa.s.sed it over. But his business was important, and it occupied him the whole week to settle it, and he took his leave on Sat.u.r.day evening, and was to set out for home on Sunday again. Well, this was considered as adding insult to injury.

What was to be done? Now it's very easy and very proper for us to sit down and condemn the Duke of Tuscany, who encourages pilgrims to go to shrines where marble statues weep blood, and cataliptic galls let flies walk over their eyes without winking, and yet imprisons an English lady for giving away the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' It's very wrong, no doubt, but it ain't very new after all. Ignorant and bigoted people always have persecuted, and always will to the end of the chapter. But what was to be done with his high mightiness, the Dutch governor? Well, they decided that it was not lawful to put him into the stocks; but that it was lawful to deprive him of the means of sinning. So one of the elders swapped horses with him, and when he started on the Sabbath, the critter was so lame after he went a mile, he had to return and wait till Monday.

"No, I don't understand these puritan folks; and I suppose if I had been a preacher they wouldn't have understood me. But I must get back to where I left off. I was a talkin' about the difference of life in town and in the country, and how in the world I got away, off from the subject, to the Dutch governor and them puritans, I don't know. When I say I love the country, I mean it in its fullest extent, not merely old settlements and rural districts, but the great unbroken forest.

This is a taste, I believe, a man must have in early life. I don't think it can be acquired in middle age, any more than playin' marbles can, though old Elgin tried that game and made money at it. A man must know how to take care of himself, forage for himself, shelter himself, and cook for himself. It's no place for an epicure, because he can't carry his cook, and his spices, and sauces, and all that, with him.

Still a man ought to know a goose from a gridiron; and if he wants to enjoy the sports of the flood and the forest, he should be able to help himself; and what he does he ought to do well. Fingers were made afore knives and forks; flat stones before bake-pans; crotched sticks before jacks; bark before tin; and chips before plates; and it's worth knowing how to use them or form them.

"It takes two or three years to build and finish a good house. A wigwam is knocked up in an hour; and as you have to be your own architect, carpenter, mason, and labourer, it's just as well to be handy as not. A critter that can't do that, hante the gumption of a bear who makes a den, a fox who makes a hole, or a bird that makes a nest, let alone a beaver, who is a dab at house building. No man can enjoy the woods that ain't up to these things. If he ain't, he had better stay to his hotel, where there is one servant to clean his shoes, another to brush his coat, a third to make his bed, a fourth to shave him, a fifth to cook for him, a sixth to wait on him, a seventh to wash for him, and half a dozen more for him to scold and bless all day. That's a place where he can go to bed, and get no sleep--go to dinner, and have no appet.i.te--go to the window, and get no fresh air, but snuff up the perfume of drains, bar-rooms, and cooking ranges--suffer from heat, because he can't wear his coat, or from politeness, because he can't take it off--or go to the beach, where the sea breeze won't come, it's so far up the country, where the white sand will dazzle, and where there is no shade, because trees won't grow--or stand and throw stones into the water, and then jump in arter 'em in despair, and forget the way out. He'd better do anything than go to the woods.

"But if he can help himself like a man, oh, it's a glorious place. The ways of the forest are easy to learn, its nature is simple, and the cooking plain, while the fare is abundant. Fish for the catching, deer for the shooting, cool springs for the drinking, wood for the cutting, appet.i.te for eating, and sleep that waits no wooing. It comes with the first star, and tarries till it fades into morning. For the time you are monarch of all you survey. No claimant forbids you; no bailiff haunts you; no thieves molest you; no fops annoy you. If the tempest rages without, you are secure in your lowly tent. Though it humbles in its fury the lofty pine, and uproots the stubborn oak, it pa.s.ses harmlessly over you, and you feel for once you are a free and independent man. You realize a term which is a fiction in our const.i.tution. Nor pride nor envy, hatred nor malice, rivalry nor strife is there. You are at peace with all the world, and the world is at peace with you. You own not its authority. You can worship G.o.d after your own fashion, and dread not the name of bigot, idolater, heretic, or schismatic. The forest is his temple--he is ever present, and the still small voice of your short and simple prayer seems more audible amid the silence that reigns around you. You feel that you are in the presence of your Creator, before whom you humble yourself, and not of man, before whom you clothe yourself with pride. Your very solitude seems to impress you with the belief that, though hidden from the world, you are more distinctly visible, and more individually an object of Divine protection, than any worthless atom like yourself ever could be in the midst of a mult.i.tude--a mere unit of millions.

Yes, you are free to come, to go, to stay; your home is co-extensive with the wild woods. Perhaps it is better for a solitary retreat than a permanent home; still it forms a part of what I call the country.

"At Country Harbour we had a sample of the simple, plain, natural, unpretending way in which neighbours meet of an evening in the rural districts. But look at that house in the town, where we saw the family a.s.sembled at breakfast this morning, and see what is going on there to-night. It is the last party of the season. The family leave the city in a week for the country. What a delightful change from the heated air of a town-house, to the quiet retreat of an hotel at a watering-place, where there are only six hundred people collected. It is positively the very last party, and would have been given weeks ago, but everybody was engaged for so long a time a-head, there was no getting the fashionable folks to come. It is a charming ball. The old ladies are fully dressed, only they are so squeezed against the walls, their diamonds and pearls are hid. And the young ladies are so lightly dressed, they look lovely. And the old gentlemen seem so happy as they walk round the room, and smile on all the acquaintances of their early days; and tell every one they look so well, and their daughters are so handsome. It ain't possible they are bored, and they try not even to look so. And the room is so well lighted, and so well filled, perhaps a little too much so to leave s.p.a.ce for the dancers; but yet not more so than is fashionable. And then the young gentlemen talk so enchantingly about Paris, and London, and Rome, and so disparagingly of home, it is quite refreshing to hear them. And they have been in such high society abroad, they ought to be well bred, for they know John Manners, and all the Manners family, and well informed in politics; for they know John Russell, who never says I'll be hanged if I do this or that, but I will be beheaded if I do; in allusion to one of his great ancestors who was as innocent of trying to subvert the const.i.tution as he is. And they have often seen 'Albert, Albert, Prince of Wales, and all the royal family,' as they say in England for shortness. They have travelled with their eyes open, ears open, mouths open, and pockets open. They have heard, seen, tasted, and bought everything worth having. They are capital judges of wine, and that reminds them there is lots of the best in the next room; but they soon discover they can't have it in perfection in America. It has been nourished for the voyage, it has been fed with brandy. It is heady, for when they return to their fair friends, their hands are not quite steady, they are apt to spill things over the ladies dresses (but they are so good-natured, they only laugh; for they never wear a dress but wunst). And their eyes sparkle like jewels, and they look at their partners as if they would eat 'em up. And I guess they tell them so, for they start sometimes, and say:

"'Oh, well now, that's too bad! Why how you talk! Well, travellin'

hasn't improved you?'

"But it must be a charming thing to be eat up, for they look delighted at the very idea of it; and their mammas seem pleased that they are so much to the taste of these travelled gentlemen.

"Well then, dancing is voted a bore by the handsomest couple in the room, and they sit apart, and the uninitiated think they are making love. And they talk so confidentially, and look so amused; they seem delighted with each other. But they are only criticising.

"'Who is pink skirt?'

"'Blue-nose Mary.'

"'What in the world do they call her Blue-nose for?'

"'It is a nickname for the Nova Scotians. Her father is one; he made his fortune by a diving-bell.'

"'Did he? Well, it's quite right then it should go with a belle.'

"'How very good! May I repeat that? You do say such clever things! And who is that pale girl that reminds you of brown holland, bleached white? She looks quite scriptural; she has a proud look and a high stomach.'

"'That's Rachael Scott, one of my very best friends. She is as good a girl as ever lived. My! I wish I was as rich as she is. I have only three hundred thousand dollars, but she will have four at her father's death if he don't bust and fail. But, dear me! how severe you are! I am quite afraid of you. I wonder what you will say of me when my back is turned!'

"'Shall I tell you?'

"'Yes, if it isn't too savage.'

"The hint about the money is not lost, for he is looking for a fortune, it saves the trouble of making one; and he whispers something in her ear that pleases her uncommonly, for she sais,

"'Ah now, the severest thing you can do is to flatter me that way.'

"They don't discourse of the company anymore; they have too much to say to each other of themselves now.

"'My! what a smash! what in the world is that?'

"'Nothing but a large mirror. It is lucky it is broken, for if the host saw himself in it, he might see the face of a fool.'

"'How uproariously those young men talk, and how loud the music is, and how confounded hot the room is! I must go home. But I must wait a moment till that noisy, tipsy boy is dragged down-stairs, and shoved into a hack.'

"And this is upstart life, is it? Yes, but there are changing scenes in life. Look at these rooms next morning. The chandelier is broken; the centre table upset, the curtains are ruined, the carpets are covered with ice-creams, jellies, blancmanges, and broken gla.s.s. And the elegant alb.u.m, souvenirs, and autograph books, are all in the midst of this nasty mess.1 The couches are greasy, the silk ottoman shows it has been sat in since it met with an accident which was only a trifle, and there has been the devil to pay everywhere. A doctor is seen going into the house, and soon after a coffin is seen coming out.

An unbidden guest, a disgusting levelling democrat came to that ball, how or when no one knew; but there he is and there he will remain for the rest of the summer. He has victimized one poor girl already, and is now strangling another. The yellow fever is there. Nature has sent her avenging angel. There is no safety but in flight.

1 Whoever thinks this description over-drawn, is referred to a remarkably clever work which lately appeared in New York, ent.i.tled "The Potiphar Papers." Mr Slick has evidently spared this cla.s.s of society.

"Good gracious! if people will ape their superiors, why won't they imitate their elegance as well as their extravagance, and learn that it is the refinement alone, of the higher orders which in all countries distinguishes them from the rest of mankind? The decencies of life, when polished, become its brightest ornaments. Gold is a means, and not an end. It can do a great deal, still it can't do everything; and among others I guess it can't make a gentleman, or else California would be chock full of 'em. No, give me the country, and the folks that live in it, I say."

CHAPTER XXI.

THE HONEYMOON.

After having given vent to the foregoing lockrum, I took Jehosophat Bean's ill.u.s.trated "Biography of the Eleven Hundred and Seven Ill.u.s.trious American Heroes," and turned in to read a spell; but arter a while I lost sight of the heroes and their exploits, and I got into a wide spekilation on all sorts of subjects, and among the rest my mind wandered off to Jordan river, the Collingwood girls in particular, and Jessie and the doctor, and the Beaver-dam, and its inmates in general. I shall set down my musings as if I was thinking aloud.

I wonder, sais I to myself, whether Sophy and I shall be happy together, sposin' always, that she is willing to put her head into the yoke, for that's by no means sartain yet. I'll know better when I can study her more at leisure. Still matrimony is always a risk, where you don't know what sort of breaking a critter has had when young. Women in a general way don't look like the same critters when they are spliced, that they do before; matrimony, like sugar and water, has a nateral affinity for and tendency to acidity. The clear, beautiful, bright sunshine of the wedding morning is too apt to cloud over at twelve o'clock, and the afternoon to be cold, raw, and uncomfortable, or else the heat generates storms that fairly make the house shake, and the happy pair tremble again. Everybody knows the real, solid grounds which can alone make married life perfect. I should only prose if I was to state them, but I have an idea as cheerfulness is a great ingredient, a good climate has a vast deal to do with it, for who can be chirp in a bad one? Wedlock was first inst.i.tuted in Paradise. Well, there must have been a charming climate there. It could not have been too hot, for Eve never used a parasol, or even a "kiss-me-quick," and Adam never complained, though he wore no clothes, that the sun blistered his skin. It couldn't have been wet, or they would have coughed all the time, like consumptive sheep, and it would have spoiled their garden, let alone giving them the chilblains and the snuffles. They didn't require umbrellas, uglies, fans, or India-rubber shoes. There was no such a thing as a stroke of the sun or a snow-drift there. The temperature must have been perfect, and connubial bliss, I allot, was rael jam up. The only thing that seemed wanting there, was for some one to drop in to tea now and then for Eve to have a good chat with, while Adam was a studyin' astronomy, or tryin' to invent a kettle that would stand fire; for women do like talking, that's a fact, and there are many little things they have to say to each other that no man has any right to hear, and if he did, he couldn't understand.

It's like a dodge Sally and I had to blind mother. Sally was for everlastingly leaving the keys about, and every time there was an inquiry about them, or a hunt for them, the old lady would read her a proper lecture. So at last she altered the name, and said, "Sam, wo is shlizel?" instead of Where is the key, and she tried all she could to find it out, but she couldn't for the life of her.

Yes, what can be expected of such a climate as Nova Scotia or England?

Though the first can ripen Indian corn and the other can't, and that is a great test, I can tell you. It is hard to tell which of them is wuss, for both are bad enough, gracious knows, and yet the fools that live in them brag that their own beats all natur. If it is the former, well then thunder don't clear the weather as it does to the South, and the sun don't come out bright again at wunst and all natur look clear and tranquil and refreshed; and the flowers and roses don't hang their heads down coily for the breeze to brush the drops from their newly-painted leaves, and then hold up and look more lovely than ever; nor does the voice of song and merriment arise from every tree; nor fragrance and perfume fill the air, till you are tempted to say, Now did you ever see anything so charming as this? nor do you stroll out arm-in-arm (that is, sposin' you ain't in a nasty dirty horrid town), and feel pleased with the dear married gall and yourself, and all you see and hear, while you drink in pleasure with every sense--oh, it don't do that. Thunder unsettles everything for most a week, there seems no end to the gloom during these three or four days. You shiver if you don't make a fire, and if you do you are fairly roasted alive.

It's all grumblin' and growlin' within, and all mud, slush, and slop outside. You are bored to death everywhere. And if it's English climate it is wuss still, because in Nova Scotia there is an end to all this at last, for the west wind blows towards the end of the week soft and cool and bracing, and sweeps away the clouds, and lays the dust and dries all up, and makes everything smile again. But if it is English it's unsettled and uncertain all the time. You can't depend on it for an hour. Now it rains, then it clears, after that the sun shines; but it rains too, both together, like hystericks, laughing and crying at the same time. The trees are loaded with water, and hold it like a sponge; touch a bough of one with your hat, and you are drowned in a shower-bath. There is no hope, for there is no end visible, and when there does seem a little glimpse of light, so as to make you think it is a going to relent, it wraps itself up in a foggy, drizzly mist, and sulks like anything.

In this country they have a warm summer, a magnificent autumn, a clear, cold, healthy winter, but no sort of spring at all. In England they have no summer and no winter.1 Now, in my opinion, that makes the difference in temper between the two races. The clear sky and bracing air here, when they do come, give the folks good spirits; but the extremes of heat and cold limit the time, and decrease the inclination for exercise. Still the people are good-natured, merry fellows. In England, the perpetual gloom of the sky affects the disposition of the men. America knows no such temper as exists in Britain. People here can't even form an idea of it. Folks often cut off their children there in their wills for half nothing, won't be reconciled to them on any terms, if they once displease them, and both they and their sons die game, and when death sends cards of invitation for the last a.s.semblage of a family, they write declensions. There can't be much real love where there is no tenderness. A gloomy sky, stately houses, and a cold, formal people, make Cupid, like a bird of pa.s.sage, spread his wings, and take flight to a more congenial climate.

1 I wonder what Mr Slick would say now, in 1855?

Castles have show-apartments, and the vulgar gaze with stupid wonder, and envy the owners. But there are rooms in them all, not exhibited.

In them the imprisoned bird may occasionally be seen, as in the olden time, to flutter against the cas.e.m.e.nt and pine in the gloom of its n.o.ble cage. There are chambers too in which grief, anger, jealousy, wounded pride, and disappointed ambition, pour out their sighs, their groans, and imprecations, unseen and unheard. The halls resound with mirth and revelry, and the eye grows dim with its glittering splendour; but amid all this ostentatious brilliancy, poor human nature refuses to be comforted with diamonds and pearls, or to acknowledge that happiness consists in gilded galleries, gay equipages, or fashionable parties. They are cold and artificial. The heart longs to discard this joyless pageantry, to surround itself with human affections, and only asks to love and be loved.

Still England is not wholly composed of castles and cottages, and there are very many happy homes in it, and thousands upon thousands of happy people in them, in spite of the melancholy climate, the dest.i.tution of the poor, and the luxury of the rich. G.o.d is good. He is not only merciful, but a just judge. He equalizes the condition of all. The industrious poor man is content, for he relies on Providence and his own exertions for his daily bread. He earns his food, and his labour gives him a zest for it. Ambition craves, and is never satisfied, one is poor amid his prodigal wealth, the other rich in his frugal poverty. No man is rich whose expenditure exceeds his means; and no one is poor whose incomings exceeds his outgoings. Barring such things as climate, over which we have no control, happiness, in my idea, consists in the mind, and not in the purse. These are plain common truths, and everybody will tell you there is nothing new in them, just as if there was anything new under the sun but my wooden clocks, and yet they only say so because they can't deny them, for who acts as if he ever heard of them before. Now, if they do know them, why the plague don't they regulate their timepieces by them? If they did, matrimony wouldn't make such an everlastin' transmogrification of folks as it does, would it?

The way cupidists scratch their head and open their eyes and stare after they are married, reminds me of Felix Culpepper. He was a judge at Saint Lewis, on the Mississippi, and the lawyers used to talk gibberish to him, yougerry, eyegerry, iggery, ogerry, and tell him it was Littleton's Norman French and Law Latin. It fairly onfakilised him. Wedlock works just such changes on folks sometimes. It makes me laugh, and then it fairly scares me.

Sophy, dear, how will you and I get on, eh? The Lord only knows, but you are an uncommon sensible gall, and people tell me till I begin to believe it myself, that I have some common sense, so we must try to learn the chart of life, so as to avoid those sunk rocks so many people make shipwreck on. I have often asked myself the reason of all this onsartainty. Let us jist see how folks talk and think, and decide on this subject. First and foremost they have got a great many cant terms, and you can judge a good deal from them. There is the honeymoon, now, was there ever such a silly word as that? Minister said the Dutch at New Amsterdam, as they used to call New York, brought out the word to America, for all the friends of the new married couple, in Holland, did nothing for a whole month but smoke, drink metheglin (a tipple made of honey and gin), and they called that bender the honeymoon; since then the word has remained, though metheglin is forgot for something better.

Well, when a couple is married now, they give up a whole month to each other, what an everlastin' sacrifice, ain't it, out of a man's short life? The reason is, they say, the metheglin gets sour after that, and ain't palatable no more, and what is left of it is used for picklin'

cuc.u.mbers, peppers, and nastertions, and what not. Now, as Brother Eldad, the doctor, says, let us dissect this phrase, and find out what one whole moon means, and then we shall understand what this wonderful thing is. The new moon now, as a body might say, ain't nothing. It's just two small lines of a semicircle, like half a wheel, with a little strip of white in it, about as big as a cart tire, and it sets a little after sundown; and as it gives no light, you must either use a candle or go to bed in the dark: now that's the first week, and it's no great shakes to brag on, is it? Well, then there is the first quarter, and calling that the first which ought to be second, unless the moon has only three quarters, which sounds odd, shows that the new moon counts for nothin'. Well, the first quarter is something like the thing, though not the real genuine article either. It's better than the other, but its light don't quite satisfy us neither. Well, then comes the full moon, and that is all there is, as one may say. Now, neither the moon nor nothin' else can be more than full, and when you have got all, there is nothing more to expect. But a man must be a blockhead, indeed, to expect the moon to remain one minute after it is full, as every night clips a little bit off, till there is a considerable junk gone by the time the week is out, and what is worse, every night there is more and more darkness afore it rises. It comes reluctant, and when it does arrive it hante long to stay, for the last quarter takes its turn at the lantern. That only rises a little afore the sun, as if it was ashamed to be caught napping at that hour--that quarter therefore is nearly as dark as ink. So you see the new and last quarter go for nothing; that everybody will admit. The first ain't much better, but the last half of that quarter and the first of the full, make a very decent respectable week.

Well, then, what's all this when it's fried? Why, it amounts to this, that if there is any resemblance between a lunar and a lunatic month, that the honeymoon lasts only one good week.

Don't be skeared, Sophy, when you read this, because we must look things in the face and call them by their right name.

Well, then, let us call it the honey-week. Now if it takes a whole month to make one honey-week, it must cut to waste terribly, mustn't it? But then you know a man can't wive and thrive the same year. Now wastin' so much of that precious month is terrible, ain't it? But oh me, bad as it is, it ain't the worst of it. There is no insurance office for happiness, there is no policy to be had to cover losses--you must bear them all yourself. Now suppose, just suppose for one moment, and positively such things have happened before now, they have indeed; I have known them occur more than once or twice myself among my own friends, fact, I a.s.sure you. Suppose now that week is cold, cloudy, or uncomfortable, where is the honeymoon then? Recollect there is only one of them, there ain't two. You can't say it rained cats and dogs this week, let us try the next; you can't do that, it's over and gone for ever. Well, if you begin life with disappointment, it is apt to end in despair.