 | MORNING, NOON, AND EVENING. Reveries of a bachelor, or, A book of the heart |  |
1. I.
The Morning.
ISABEL and I,—she is my cousin, and is seven
years old, and I am ten,—are sitting together on
the bank of the stream, under an oak tree that leans
half way over to the water. I am much stronger
than she, and taller by a head. I hold in my hands
a little alder rod, with which I am fishing for the
roach and minnows, that play in the pool below us.
She is watching the cork tossing on the water, or
playing with the captured fish that lie upon the bank.
She has auburn ringlets that fall down upon her
shoulders; and her straw hat lies back upon them,
held only by the strip of ribbon, that passes under
her chin. But the sun does not shine upon her head;
for the oak tree above us is full of leaves; and only
the pool, where I am fishing.
Her eye is hazel, and bright; and now and then
she turns it on me with a look of girlish curiosity, as
I lift up my rod,—and again in playful menace, as
she grasps in her little fingers one of the dead fish,
and threatens to throw it back upon the stream.
Her little feet hang over the edge of the bank; and
from time to time, she reaches down to dip her toe in
the water; and laughs a girlish laugh of defiance, as
I scold her for frightening away the fishes.
“Bella,” I say, “what if you should tumble in the
river?”
“But I won't.”
“Yes, but if you should?”
“Why then you would pull me out.”
“But if I wouldn't pull you out?”
“But I know you would; wouldn't you, Paul?”
“What makes you think so, Bella?”
“Because you love Bella.”
“How do you know I love Bella?”
“Because once you told me so; and because you
pick flowers for me that I cannot reach; and because
you let me take your rod, when you have a
fish upon it.”
“But that's no reason, Bella.”
“Then what is, Paul?”
“I'm sure I don't know, Bella.”
A little fish has been nibbling for a long time at
the bait; the cork has been bobbing up and down;—
and now he is fairly hooked, and pulls away toward
the bank, and you cannot see the cork.
—“Here, Bella, quick!”—and she springs eagerly
to clasp her little hands around the rod. But the
fish has dragged it away on the other side of me;
and as she reaches farther, and farther, she slips,
cries—“oh, Paul!”—and falls into the water.
The stream they told us, when we came, was over
a man's head;—it is surely over little Isabel's. I
fling down the rod, and thrusting one hand into the
roots that support the overhanging bank, I grasp at
her hat, as she comes up; but the ribbons give way,
and I see the terribly earnest look upon her face as
she goes down again. Oh, my mother!—thought I,
—if you were only here!
But she rises again; this time, I thrust my hand
into her dress, and struggling hard, keep her at the
top, until I can place my foot down upon a projecting
root; and so bracing myself, I drag her to the
bank, and having climbed up, take hold of her belt
firmly with both hands, and drag her out; and poor
Isabel, choked, chilled, and wet, is lying upon the
grass.
I commence crying aloud. The workmen in the
his arms, and I follow on foot to our uncle's home
upon the hill.
—“Oh my children!”—says my mother; and she
takes Isabel in her arms; and presently with dry
clothes, and blazing wood-fire, little Bella smiles
again. I am at my mother's knee.
“I told you so, Paul,” says Isabel,—“aunty,
doesn't Paul love me?”
“I hope so, Bella,” said my mother.
“I know so,” said I; and kissed her cheek.
And how did I know it? The boy does not ask;
the man does. Oh, the freshness, the honesty, the
vigor of a boy's heart!—how the memory of it refreshes
like the first gush of spring, or the break of
an April shower!
But boyhood has its Pride, as well as its Loves.
My uncle is a tall, hard-faced man: I fear him
when he calls me—“child”; I love him when he
calls me—“Paul.” He is almost always busy with
his books; and when I steal into the library door, as
I sometimes do, with a string of fish, or a heaping
basket of nuts to show to him,—he looks for a moment
curiously at them, sometimes takes them in his
fingers,—gives them back to me, and turns over the
leaves of his book. You are afraid to ask him, if
you have not worked bravely; yet you want to do so.
You sidle out softly, and go to your mother; she
scarce looks at your little stores; but she draws you
to her with her arm, and prints a kiss upon your
forehead. Now your tongue is unloosed; that kiss,
and that action have done it; you will tell what
capital luck you have had; and you hold up your
tempting trophies;—“are they not great, mother?”
But she is looking in your face, and not at your
prize.
“Take them, mother,” and you lay the basket
upon her lap.
“Thank you, Paul, I do not wish them: but you
must give some to Bella.”
And away you go to find laughing, playful, cousin
Isabel. And we sit down together on the grass, and
I pour out my stores between us. “You shall take,
Bella, what you wish in your apron, and then when
study hours are over, we will have such a time down
by the big rock in the meadow!”
“But I do not know if papa will let me,” says
Isabel.
“Bella,” I say, “do you love your papa?”
“Yes,” says Bella, “why not?”
“Because he is so cold; he does not kiss you
Bella, so often as my mother does; and besides,
when he forbids your going away, he does not say, as
mother does,—my little girl will be tired, she had
go. I wonder what makes him talk so?”
“Why Paul, he is a man, and doesn't—at any
rate, I love him; Paul. Besides, my mother is sick,
you know.”
“But Isabel, my mother will be your mother too.
Come Bella, we will go ask her if we may go.”
And there I am, the happiest of boys, pleading
with the kindest of mothers. And the young heart
leans into that mother's heart;—none of the void now
that will overtake it like an opening Koran gulf, in
the years that are to come. It is joyous, full, and
running over!
“You may go,” she says, “if your uncle is
willing.”
“But mamma, I am afraid to ask him; I do not
believe he loves me.”
“Don't say so, Paul,” and she draws you to her
side; as if she would supply by her own love, the
lacking love of a universe.
“Go, with your cousin Isabel, and ask him kindly;
and if he says no,—make no reply.”
And with courage, we go hand in hand, and steal
in at the library door. There he sits—I seem to see
him now,—in the old wainscotted room, covered over
with books and pictures; and he wears his heavy-rimmed
spectacles, and is poring over some big volume,
We step up softly; and Isabel lays her little hand
upon his arm; and he turns, and says—“well, my
little daughter?”
I ask if we may go down to the big rock in the
meadow?
He looks at Isabel, and says he is afraid—“we
cannot go.”
“But why, uncle? It is only a little way, and we
will be very careful.”
“I am afraid, my children; do not say any more:
you can have the pony, and Tray, and play at
home.”
“But, uncle—”
“You need say no more, my child.”
I pinch the hand of little Isabel, and look in her
eye,—my own half filling with tears. I feel that my
forehead is flushed, and I hide it behind Bella's
tresses,—whispering to her at the same time—“let
us go.”
“What sir,” says my uncle, mistaking my meaning—“do
you persuade her to disobey?”
Now I am angry, and say blindly—“no, sir, I
didn't!” And then my rising pride will not let me
say, that I wished only Isabel should go out with me.
Bella cries; and I shrink out; and am not easy
until I have run to bury my head in my mother's
There will be times when it will harrass you strangely;
when it will peril friendships,—will sever old, standing
intimacy; and then—no resource, but to feed on
its own bitterness. Hateful pride!—to be conquered,
as a man would conquer an enemy, or it will make
whirlpools in the current of your affections—nay,
turn the whole tide of the heart into rough, and unaccustomed
channels!
But boyhood has its Grief too, apart from Pride.
You love the old dog Tray; and Bella loves him
as well as you. He is a noble old fellow, with shaggy
hair, and long ears, and big paws, that he will put
up into your hand, if you ask him. And he never
gets angry when you play with him, and tumble him
over in the long grass, and pull his silken ears.
Sometimes, to be sure, he will open his mouth, as if
he would bite, but when he gets your hand fairly in
his jaws, he will scarce leave the print of his teeth
upon it. He will swim, too, bravely, and bring
ashore all the sticks you throw upon the water; and
when you fling a stone to tease him, he swims round
and round, and whines, and looks sorry, that he
cannot find it.
He will carry a heaping basket full of nuts too in
his mouth, and never spill one of them; and when
you come out to your uncle's home in the spring,
you—old Tray does! And he leaps upon you, and
lays his paws on your shoulder, and licks your face;
and is almost as glad to see you, as cousin Bella herself.
And when you put Bella on his back for a
ride, he only pretends to bite her little feet;—but he
wouldn't do it for the world. Aye, Tray is a noble
old dog!
But one summer, the farmers say that some of
their sheep are killed, and that the dogs have worried
them; and one of them comes to talk with my uncle
about it.
But Tray never worried sheep; you know he never
did; and so does nurse; and so does Bella;—for in
the spring, she had a pet lamb, and Tray never worried
little Fidele.
And one or two of the dogs that belong to the
neighbors are shot; though nobody knows who shot
them; and you have great fears about poor Tray;
and try to keep him at home, and fondle him more
than ever. But Tray will sometimes wander off; till
finally, one afternoon, he comes back whining piteously,
and with his shoulder all bloody.
Little Bella cries loud; and you almost cry, as
nurse dresses the wound; and poor old Tray whines
very sadly. You pat his head, and Bella pats him;
and you sit down together by him on the floor of the
and tempt him with a little milk, and Bella brings a
piece of cake for him,—but he will eat nothing.
You sit up till very late, long after Bella has gone to
bed, patting his head, and wishing you could do
something for poor Tray;—but he only licks your
hand, and whines more piteously than ever.
In the morning, you dress early, and hurry down
stairs; but Tray is not lying on the rug; and you
run through the house to find him, and whistle, and
call—Tray!—Tray! At length you see him lying
in his old place, out by the cherry tree, and you run
to him;—but he does not start; and you lean down
to pat him,—but he is cold, and the dew is wet upon
him:—poor Tray is dead!
You take his head upon your knees, and pat again
those glossy ears, and cry; but you cannot bring
him to life. And Bella comes, and cries with you.
You can hardly bear to have him put in the ground;
but uncle says he must be buried. So one of the
workmen digs a grave under the cherry tree, where
he died—a deep grave, and they round it over with
earth, and smooth the sods upon it—even now I can
trace Tray's grave.
You and Bella together, put up a little slab for a
tombstone; and she hangs flowers upon it, and ties
them there with a bit of ribbon. You can scarce
when you are rambling over the fields, or lingering
by the brook, throwing off sticks into the eddies, you
think of old Tray's shaggy coat, and of his big paw,
and of his honest eye; and the memory of your
boyish grief comes upon you; and you say with tears,
—“poor Tray!” And Bella too, in her sad,
sweet tones, says—“poor old Tray,—he is dead!”
School Days.
The morning was cloudy and threatened rain;
besides, it was autumn weather, and the winds were
getting harsh, and rustling among the tree-tops that
shaded the house, most dismally. I did not dare to
listen. If indeed, I were to stay by the bright fires of
home, and gather the nuts as they fell, and pile up the
falling leaves, to make great bonfires, with Ben, and
the rest of the boys, I should have liked to listen, and
would have braved the dismal morning with the
cheerfullest of them all. For it would have been a
capital time to light a fire in the little oven we had
built under the wall; it would have been so pleasant
to warm our fingers at it, and to roast the great russets
on the flat stones that made the top.
But this was not in store for me. I had bid the
all packed; I was to go away—to school. The
little oven would go to ruin—I knew it would. I
was to leave my home. I was to bid my mother
good bye, and Lilly, and Isabel, and all the rest;—
and was to go away from them so far, that I should only
know what they were all doing—in letters. It was
sad. And then to have the clouds come over on that
morning, and the winds sigh so dismally;—oh, it
was too bad, I thought!
It comes back to me as I lie here this bright spring
morning, as if it were only yesterday. I remember
that the pigeons skulked under the eaves of the carriage
house, and did not sit, as they used to do in
summer, upon the ridge; and the chickens huddled
together about the stable doors, as if they were
afraid of the cold autumn. And in the garden, the
white hollyhocks stood shivering, and bowed to the
wind, as if their time had come. The yellow muskmelons
showed plain among the frost bitten vines,
and looked cold, and uncomfortable.
—Then they were all so kind, in-doors! The
cook made such nice things for my breakfast, because
little master was going; Lilly would give me
her seat by the fire, and would put her lump of sugar
in my cup; and my mother looked so smiling, and so
tenderly, that I thought I loved her more than I ever
me to take his jacknife, if I wished it,—though he
knew that I had a bran new one in my trunk. The
old nurse slipped a little purse into my hand, tied up
with a green ribbon—with money in it,—and told
me not to show it to Ben or Lilly.
And cousin Isabel, who was there on a visit, would
come to stand by my chair, when my mother was
talking to me; and put her hand in mine, and look
up into my face; but she did not say a word. I
thought it was very odd; and yet it did not seem odd
to me, that I could say nothing to her. I daresay
we felt alike.
At length Ben came running in, and said the
coach had come; and there, sure enough, out of the
window, we saw it—a bright yellow coach, with four
white horses, and band-boxes all over the top, with a
great pile of trunks behind. Ben said it was a grand
coach, and that he should like a ride in it; and the
old nurse came to the door, and said I should have a
capital time; but somehow, I doubted if the nurse
was talking honestly. I believe she gave me an
honest kiss though,—and such a hug!
But it was nothing to my mother's. Tom told me
to be a man, and study like a Trojan; but I was not
thinking about study then. There was a tall-boy in
the coach, and I was ashamed to have him see me
looked back, and saw little Isabel run out into the
middle of the street, to see the coach go off, and the
curls floating behind her, as the wind freshened, I
felt my heart leaping into my throat, and the water
coming into my eyes,—and how just then, I caught
sight of the tall boy glancing at me,—and how I tried
to turn it off, by looking to see if I could button up
my great coat, a great deal lower down than the button
holes went.
But it was of no use; I put my head out of the
coach window, and looked back, as the little figure of
Isabel faded, and then the house, and the trees; and
the tears did come; and I smuggled my handkerchief
outside without turning; so that I could wipe my
eyes, before the tall boy should see me. They say
that these shadows of morning fade, as the sun
brightens into noon-day; but they are very dark
shadows for all that!
Let the father, or the mother think long, before
they send away their boy—before they break the
home-ties that make a web of infinite fineness and
soft silken meshes around his heart, and toss him
aloof into the boy-world, where he must struggle up
amid bickerings and quarrels, into his age of youth!
There are boys indeed with little fineness in the texture
of their hearts, and with little delicacy of soul,
from home; and with whom, a return revives
all those grosser affections which alone existed before;—just
as there are plants which will bear all
exposure without the wilting of a leaf, and will return
to the hot-house life, as strong, and as hopeful as
ever. But there are others, to whom the severance
from the prattle of sisters, the indulgent fondness of
a mother, and the unseen influences of the home
altar, gives a shock that lasts forever; it is wrenching
with cruel hand, what will bear but little roughness;
and the sobs with which the adieux are said,
are sobs that may come back in the after years,
strong, and steady, and terrible.
God have mercy on the boy who learns to sob
early! Condemn it as sentiment, if you will; talk
as you will of the fearlessness, and strength of the
boy's heart,—yet there belong to many, tenderly
strung chords of affection which give forth low, and
gentle music, that consoles, and ripens the ear for all
the harmonies of life. These chords a little rude,
and unnatural tension will break, and break forever.
Watch your boy then, if so be he will bear the
strain; try his nature, if it be rude or delicate;
and if delicate, in God's name, do not, as you value
your peace and his, breed a harsh youth spirit in him,
the delicacy, and richness of his finer affections!
—I see now, looking into the past, the troops of
boys who were scattered in the great play-ground, as
the coach drove up at night. The school was in a
tall, stately building, with a high cupola on the top,
where I thought I would like to go up. The school-master,
they told me at home, was kind; he said he
hoped I would be a good boy, and patted me on the
head; but he did not pat me as my mother used to
do. Then there was a woman, whom they called the
Matron; who had a great many ribbons in her cap,
and who shook my hand,—but so stiffly, that I didn't
dare to look up in her face.
One boy took me down to see the school room,
which was in the basement, and the walls were all
mouldy, I remember; and when we passed a certain
door, he said,—there was the dungeon;—how I felt!
I hated that boy; but I believe he is dead now.
Then the matron took me up to my room,—a little
corner room, with two beds, and two windows, and a
red table, and closet; and my chum was about my
size, and wore a queer roundabout jacket with big
bell buttons; and he called the schoolmaster—`Old
Crikey'—and kept me awake half the night, telling
me how he whipped the scholars, and how they played
uncommon boy.
For a day or two, the lessons were easy, and it
was sport to play with so many `fellows.' But soon I
began to feel lonely at night after I had gone to bed.
I used to wish I could have my mother come, and
kiss me; after school too, I wished I could step in,
and tell Isabel how bravely I had got my lessons.
When I told my chum this, he laughed at me, and
said that was no place for `homesick, white-livered
chaps.' I wondered if my chum had any mother.
We had spending money once a week, with which
we used to go down to the village store, and club our
funds together, to make great pitchers of lemonade.
Some boys would have money besides; though it was
against the rules; and one, I recollect, showed us a
five dollar bill in his wallet—and we all thought he
must be very rich.
We marched in procession to the village church
on Sundays. There were two long benches in the
galleries, reaching down the side of the meeting-house;
and on these we sat. At the first, I was
among the smallest boys, and took a place close to
the wall, against the pulpit; but afterward, as I grew
bigger, I was promoted to the lower end of the first
bench. This I never liked;—because it was close
by one of the ushers, and because it brought me next
eat fennel, and sung with the choir. But there was
a little black-eyed girl, who sat over behind the choir,
that I thought handsome; I used to look at her very
often; but was careful she should never catch my
eye.
There was another down below, in a corner pew,
who was pretty; and who wore a hat in the winter
trimmed with fur. Half the boys in the school said
they would marry her some day or other. One's
name was Jane, and that of the other, Sophia; which
we thought pretty names, and cut them on the ice,
in skating time. But I didn't think either of them
so pretty as Isabel.
Once a teacher whipped me: I bore it bravely in the
school: but afterward, at night, when my chum was
asleep, I sobbed bitterly, as I thought of Isabel, and
Ben, and my mother, and how much they loved me;
and laying my face in my hands, I sobbed myself to
sleep. In the morning I was calm enough:—it was
another of the heart ties broken, though I did not
know it then. It lessened the old attachment to
home, because that home could neither protect me,
nor soothe me with its sympathies. Memory indeed
freshened and grew strong; but strong in bitterness,
and in regrets. The boy whose love you cannot feed
by daily nourishment, will find pride, self-indulgence,
for the soul that is in him. If he cannot shoot his
branches into the sunshine, he will become acclimated
to the shadow, and indifferent to such stray gleams of
sunshine, as his fortune may vouchsafe.
Hostilities would sometimes threaten between the
school and the village boys; but they usually passed
off, with such loud, and harmless explosions, as
belong to the wars of our small politicians. The
village champions were a hatter's apprentice, and a
thick set fellow who worked in a tannery. We prided
ourselves especially on one stout boy, who wore a
sailor's monkey jacket. I cannot but think how
jaunty that stout boy looked in that jacket; and what
an Ajax cast there was to his countenance! It
certainly did occur to me, to compare him with
William Wallace (Miss Porter's William Wallace)
and I thought how I would have liked to have seen
a tussle between them. Of course, we who were
small boys, limited ourselves to indignant remark, and
thought `we should like to see them do it'; and
prepared clubs from the wood-shed, after a model
suggested by a New York boy, who had seen the
clubs of the Policemen.
There was one scholar,—poor Leslie, who had
friends in some foreign country, and who occasionally
received letters bearing a foreign post-mark:—what
letters;—what extraordinary parents! I wondered
if I should ever receive a letter from `foreign parts?'
I wondered if I should ever write one:—but this was
too much—too absurd! As if I, Paul, wearing a
blue jacket with gilt buttons, and number four boots,
should ever visit those countries spoken of in
the geographies, and by learned travellers! No, no;
this was too extravagant: but I knew what I would
do, if I lived to come of age;—and I vowed that I
would,—I would go to New York!
Number seven was the hospital, and forbidden
ground; we had all of us a sort of horror of number
seven. A boy died there once, and oh, how he
moaned; and what a time there was when the father
came!
A scholar by the name of Tom Belton, who wore
linsey gray, made a dam across a little brook by the
school, and whittled out a saw-mill, that actually
sawed: he had genius. I expected to see him
before now at the head of American mechanics; but
I learn with pain, that he is keeping a grocery store.
At the close of all the terms we had exhibitions,
to which all the towns people came, and among them
the black-eyed Jane, and the pretty Sophia with fur
around her hat. My great triumph was when I had
the part of one of Pizarro's chieftains, the evening
moustache put on with burnt cork, and whiskers very
bushy indeed; and I had the militia coat of an
ensign in the town company, with the skirts pinned
up, and a short sword very dull, and crooked, which
belonged to an old gentleman who was said to have
got it from some privateer, who was said to have taken
it from some great British Admiral, in the old
wars:—and the way I carried that sword upon the
platform, and the way I jerked it out, when it came
to my turn to say,—`battle! battle!—then death to
the armed, and chains for the defenceless!'—was
tremendous!
The morning after, in our dramatic hats—black
felt, with turkey feathers,—we took our place upon
the top of the coach, to leave the school. The head-master,
in green spectacles, came out to shake hands
with us,—a very awful shaking of hands. —Poor
gentleman!—he is in his grave now.
We gave three loud hurrahs `for the old school,'
as the coach started; and upon the top of the hill
that overlooks the village, we gave another round—
and still another for the crabbed old fellow, whose
apples we had so often stolen.—I wonder if old
Bulkeley is living yet?
As we got on under the pine trees, I recalled the
image of the black-eyed Jane, and of the other little
come back after the college days were over,—a man,
with a beaver hat, and a cane, and with a splendid
barouche, and how I would take the best chamber at
the inn, and astonish the old school-master by giving
him a familiar tap on the shoulder; and how I would
be the admiration, and the wonder of the pretty girl,
in the fur-trimmed hat! Alas, how our thoughts
outrun our deeds!
For long—long years, I saw no more of my old
school: and when at length the new view came, great
changes—crashing like tornadoes,—had swept over
my path! I thought no more of startling the
villagers, or astonishing the black-eyed girl. No, no!
I was content to slip quietly through the little town,
with only a tear or two, as I recalled the dead ones,
and mused upon the emptiness of life!
The Sea.
As I look back, boyhood with its griefs and cares
vanishes into the proud stateliness of youth. The
ambition, and the rivalries of the college life,—its
first boastful importance as knowledge begins to dawn
on the wakened mind, and the ripe, and enviable
complacency of its senior dignity,—all scud over my
and like that too, bear upon their wing, a chillness—
as of distant ice-banks.
Ben has grown almost to manhood: Lilly is living
in a distant home; and Isabel is just blooming into
that sweet age, where womanly dignity waits her
beauty;—an age that sorely puzzles one who has
grown up beside her,—making him slow of tongue,
but very quick of heart!
As for the rest—let us pass on.
The sea is around me. The last headlands have
gone down, under the horizon, like the city steeples,
as you lose yourself in the calm of the country, or
like the great thoughts of genius, as you slip from
the pages of poets, into your own quiet reverie.
The waters skirt me right and left: there is nothing
but water before, and only water behind.
Above me are sailing clouds, or the blue vault, which
we call, with childish license—heaven. The sails,
white and full, like helping friends are pushing me
on; and night and day are distent with the winds
which come and go—none know whence, and none
know whither. A land bird flutters aloft, weary
with long flying; and lost in a world where are no
forests but the careening masts, and no foliage but
the drifts of spray. It cleaves awhile to the smooth
spars, till urged by some homeward yearning, it bears
the angry waters, until its strength is gone, and the
blue waves gather the poor flutterer to their cold, and
glassy bosom.
All the morning I see nothing beyond me but the
waters, or a tossing company of dolphins; all the
noon, unless some white sail—like a ghost, stalks the
horizon, there is still nothing but the rolling seas; all
the evening, after the sun has grown big and sunk
under the water line, and the moon risen, white and
cold, to glimmer across the tops of the surging ocean,
—there is nothing but the sea, and the sky, to lead
off thought, or to crush it with their greatness.
Hour after hour, as I sit in the moonlight upon the
taffrail, the great waves gather far back, and break,—
and gather nearer, and break louder,—and gather
again, and roll down swift and terrible under the
creaking ship, and heave it up lightly upon their
swelling surge, and drop it gently to their seething,
and yeasty cradle,—like an infant in the swaying arms
of a mother,—or like a shadowy memory, upon the
billows of manly thought.
Conscience wakes in the silent nights of ocean;
life lies open like a book, and spreads out as level as
the sea. Regrets and broken resolutions chase over
the soul like swift-winged night-birds, and all the unsteady
heights and the wastes of action, lift up distinct,
of memory.
Yet within this floating world I am upon, sympathies
are narrowed down; they cannot range, as
upon the land, over a thousand objects. You are
strangely attracted toward some frail girl, whose pallor
has now given place to the rich bloom of the sea
life. You listen eagerly to the chance snatches of a
song from below, in the long morning watch. You
love to see her small feet tottering on the unsteady
deck; and you love greatly to aid her steps, and feel
her weight upon your arm, as the ship lurches to a
heavy sea.
Hopes and fears knit together pleasantly upon the
ocean. Each day seems to revive them; your morning
salutation, is like a welcome after absence, upon
the shore; and each `good night' has the depth and
fullness of a land `farewell.' And beauty grows
upon the ocean; you cannot certainly say that the
face of the fair girl-voyager is prettier than that of
Isabel;—oh, no!—but you are certain that you cast
innocent, and honest glances upon her, as you steady
her walk upon the deck, far oftener than at the first;
and ocean life, and sympathy, makes her kind; she
does not resent your rudeness, one half so stoutly, as
she might upon the shore.
She will even linger of an evening—pleading first
white hand not very far from yours upon the rail,—
look down where the black ship flings off with each
plunge, whole garlands of emeralds; or she will look
up (thinking perhaps you are looking the same way)
into the skies, in search of some stars—which were
her neighbors at home. And bits of old tales will
come up, as if they rode upon the ocean quietude;
and fragments of half forgotten poems, tremulously
uttered,—either by reason of the rolling of the ship,
or some accidental touch of that white hand.
But ocean has its storms, when fear will make
strange, and holy companionship; and even here, my
memory shifts swiftly and suddenly.
—It is a dreadful night. The passengers are
clustered, trembling, below. Every plank shakes;
and the oak ribs groan, as if they suffered with their
toil. The hands are all aloft; the captain is forward
shouting to the mate in the cross-trees, and I am
clinging to one of the stanchions, by the binnacle.
The ship is pitching madly, and the waves are toppling
up, sometimes as high as the yard-arm, and
then dipping away with a whirl under our keel, that
makes every timber in the vessel quiver. The thunder
is roaring like a thousand cannons; and at the
moment, the sky is cleft with a stream of fire, that
glares over the tops of the waves, and glistens on the
that I can see the men's faces in the main-top, and
catch glimpses of the reefers on the yard-arm, clinging
like death;—then all is horrible darkness.
The spray spits angrily against the canvass; the
waves crash against the weather-bow like mountains;
the wind howls through the rigging, or, as a gasket
gives way, the sail bellying to leeward, splits like the
crack of a musket. I hear the captain in the lulls,
screaming out orders; and the mate in the rigging,
screaming them over, until the lightning comes, and
the thunder, deadening their voices, as if they were
chirping sparrows.
In one of the flashes, I see a hand upon the yard-arm
lose his foothold, as the ship gives a plunge;
but his arms are clenched around the spar. Before
I can see any more, the blackness comes, and the
thunder, with a crash that half deafens me. I think
I hear a low cry, as the mutterings die away in
the distance; and at the next flash of lightning,
which comes in an instant, I see upon the top of one
of the waves alongside, the poor reefer who has
fallen. The lightning glares upon his face.
But he has caught at a loose bit of running rigging,
as he fell; and I see it slipping off the coil
upon the deck. I shout madly—man overboard!—
and catch the rope, when I can see nothing again.
I shout, and shout, and shout, and feel the perspiration
starting in great beads from my forehead, as the
line slips through my fingers.
Presently the captain feels his way aft, and takes
hold with me; and the cook comes, as the coil is
nearly spent, and we pull together upon him. It is
desperate work for the sailor; for the ship is drifting
at a prodigious rate; but he clings like a dying man.
By and by at a flash, we see him on a crest, two
oars length away from the vessel.
“Hold on, my man!” shouts the captain.
“For God's sake, be quick!” says the poor fellow;
and he goes down in a trough of the sea. We pull
the harder, and the captain keeps calling to him to
keep up courage, and hold strong. But in the hush,
we can hear him say—“I can't hold out much
longer;—I'm most gone!”
Presently we have brought the man where we can
lay hold of him, and are only waiting for a good lift
of the sea to bring him up, when the poor fellow
groans out,—“It's no use—I can't—good bye!”
And a wave tosses the end of the rope, clean upon
the bulwarks.
At the next flash, I see him going down under the
water.
I grope my way below, sick and faint at heart;
sleep. But the thunder and the tossing of the ship,
and the face of the drowning man, as he said good bye,—
peering at me from every corner, will not let me sleep.
Afterward, come quiet seas, over which we boom
along, leaving in our track, at night, a broad path of
phosphorescent splendor. The sailors bustle around
the decks, as if they had lost no comrade; and the
voyagers losing the pallor of fear, look out earnestly
for the land.
At length, my eyes rest upon the coveted fields of
Britain; and in a day more, the bright face, looking
out beside me, sparkles at sight of the sweet cottages,
which lie along the green Essex shores. Broad sailed
yachts, looking strangely, yet beautifully, glide upon
the waters of the Thames, like swans; black, square-rigged
colliers from the Tyne, lie grouped in sooty
cohorts; and heavy, three-decked Indiamen,—of
which I had read in story books,—drift slowly down
with the tide. Dingy steamers, with white pipes,
and with red pipes, whiz past us to the sea; and
now, my eye rests on the great palace of Greenwich;
I see the wooden-legged pensioners smoking under
the palace walls; and above them upon the hill—as
Heaven is true—that old, fabulous Greenwich, the
great centre of school-boy Longitude.
Presently, from under a cloud of murky smoke
Column of the Fire, and the white turrets of London
Tower. Our ship glides through the massive dock
gates, and is moored, amid that forest of masts, which
bears golden fruit for Britons.
That night, I sleep far away from `the old school,'
and far away from the valley of Hillfarm; long, and
late, I toss upon my bed, with swift visions in my
mind, of London Bridge, and Temple Bar, and Jane
Shore, and Falstaff, and Prince Hal, and King
Jamie. And when at length I fall asleep, my
dreams are very pleasant, but they carry me across
the ocean, away from the ship,—away from London,
—away even from the fair voyager,—to the old oaks,
and to the brooks, and—to thy side—sweet Isabel!
The Father-Land.
There is a great contrast between the easy
deshabille of the ocean life, and the prim attire,
and conventional spirit of the land. In the first,
there are but few to please, and these few are known,
and they know us; upon the shore, there is a world
to humour, and a world of strangers. In a brilliant
drawing-room looking out upon the site of old Charing-Cross,
and upon the one-armed Nelson, standing
voyager of the sea. Her white negligé has given
place to silks; and the simple careless coiffe of the
ocean, is replaced by the rich dressing of a modiste.
Yet her face has the same bloom upon it; and her
eye sparkles, as it seems to me, with a higher pride;
—and her little hand has I think a tremulous quiver
in it, (I am sure my own has)—as I bid her adieu,
and take up the trail of my wanderings into the heart
of England.
Abuse her, as we will,—pity her starving peasantry,
as we may,—smile at her court pageantry, as
much as we like,—old England, is dear old England
still! Her cottage homes, her green fields, her
castles, her blazing firesides, her church spires are as
old as song; and by song and story, we inherit them
in our hearts. This jeyous boast, was, I remember,
upon my lip, as I first trode upon the rich meadow
of Runnymede; and recalled that Great Charter
wrested from the king, which made the first stepping
stone toward the bounties of our western freedom.
It is a strange feeling that comes over the Western
Saxon, as he strolls first along the green bye-lanes of
England, and scents the hawthorn in its April bloom,
and lingers at some quaint stile, to watch the rooks
wheeling and cawing around some lofty elm tops, and
traces the carved gables of some old country mansion
charming English poesy, that seems made for the
scene! This is not sight-seeing, nor travel; it is
dreaming sweet dreams, that are fed with the old life
of Books.
I wander on, fearing to break the dream, by a
swift step; and winding and rising between the
blooming hedgerows, I come presently to the sight
of some sweet valley below me, where a thatched
hamlet lies sleeping in the April sun, as quietly as the
dead lie in history;—no sound reaches me save the
occasional clinck of the smith's hammer, or the
hedgeman's bill-hook, or the ploughman's `ho-tup!'
from the hills. At evening, listening to the nightingale,
I stroll wearily into some close-nestled village,
that I had seen long ago from a rolling height.
It is far away from the great lines of travel;—and
the children stop their play to have a look at me, and
rosy-faced girls peep from behind half-opened doors.
Standing apart, and with a bench on either side of
the entrance, is the inn of the Eagle and the Falcon,
—which guardian birds, some native Dick Tinto has
pictured upon the swinging sign-board at the corner.
The hostess is half ready to embrace me, and treats
me like a prince in disguise. She shows me through
the tap-room into a little parlor, with white curtains,
and with neatly framed prints of the old patriarchs.
watch the white flame leaping playfully through the
black lumps of coal, and enjoy the best fare of the
Eagle and the Falcon. If too late, or too early for
her garden stock, the hostess bethinks herself of some
small pot of jelly in an out-of-the-way cupboard of the
house, and setting it temptingly in her prettiest dish,
she coyly slips it upon the white cloth, with a modest
regret that it is no better; and a little evident satisfaction—that
it is so good.
I muse for an hour before the glowing fire, as
quiet as the cat that has come in, to bear me company;
and at bed-time, I find sheets, as fresh as the
air of the mountains.
At another time, and many months later, I am
walking under a wood of Scottish firs. It is near
night-fall, and the fir tops are swaying, and sighing
hoarsely, in the cool wind of the Northern Highlands.
There is none of the smiling landscape of England
about me; and the crags of Edinburgh and Castle
Stirling, and sweet Perth, in its silver valley, are far
to the southward. The larchs of Athol and Bruar
Water, and that highland gem—Dunkeld, are passed.
I am tired with a morning's tramp over Culloden
Moor; and from the edge of the wood, there stretches
before me in the cool gray twilight, broad fields of
heather. In the middle, there rise against the
where King Duncan was murdered by Macbeth.
The sight of it lends a spur to my weary step; and
emerging from the wood, I bound over the springy
heather. In an hour, I clamber a broken wall, and
come under the frowning shadows of the castle. The
ivy clambers up here, and there, and shakes its
uncropped branches, and its dried berries over the
heavy portal. I cross the moat, and my step makes
the chains of the draw-bridge rattle. All is kept in
the old state; only in lieu of the warder's horn, I
pull at the warder's bell. The echoes ring, and
die in the stone courts; but there is no one astir, nor
is there a light at any of the castle windows. I ring
again, and the echoes come, and blend with the rising
night wind that sighs around the turrets, as they
sighed that night of murder. I fancy—it must be a
fancy,—that I hear an owl scream; I am sure that I
hear the crickets cry.
I sit down upon the green bank of the moat; a
little dark water lies in the bottom. The walls rise
from it gray, and stern in the deepening shadows.
I hum chance passages of Macbeth, listening for the
echoes—echoes from the wall; and echoes from that
far away time, when I stole the first reading of the
tragic story.
“Dids't thou not hear a noise?
I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
When?
Now.
As I descended?
Ay.
—Hark!”—
And the sharp echo comes back—`hark!' And
at dead of night, in the thatched cottage under the
castle walls, where a dark faced, Gaelic woman, in plaid
turban, is my hostess, I wake, startled by the wind,
and my trembling lips say involuntarily—`hark!'
Again, three months later, I am in the sweet
county of Devon. Its valleys are like emerald; its
threads of water stretched over the fields, by their
provident husbandry, glisten in the broad glow of
summer, like skeins of silk. A bland old farmer, of
the true British stamp, is my host. On market days
he rides over to the old town of Totness in a trim,
black farmer's cart; and he wears glossy topped
boots, and a broad-brimmed white hat. I take a vast
deal of pleasure in listening to his honest, straight-forward
talk about the improvements of the day and
the state of the nation. I sometimes get upon one of
his nags, and ride off with him over his fields, or
visit the homes of the laborers, which show their gray
the parish church, I doze against the high pew backs,
as I listen to the see-saw tones of the drawling curate;
and in my half wakeful moments, the withered holly
sprigs (not removed since Easter) grow upon my
vision, into Christmas boughs, and preach sermons to
me—of the days of old.
Sometimes, I wander far over the hills into a
neighboring park; and spend hours on hours, under
the sturdy oaks, watching the sleek fallow deer,
gazing at me with their soft, liquid eyes. The
squirrels, too, play above me, with their daring leaps,
utterly careless of my presence, and the pheasants
whir away from my very feet.
On one of these random strolls—I remember it
very well—when I was idling along, thinking of the
broad reach of water that lay between me, and that
old forest home,—and beating off the daisy heads
with my cane,—I heard the tramp of horses, coming
up one of the forest avenues. The sound was
unusual, for the family, I had been told, was still in
town, and no right of way lay through the park.
There they were, however:—I was sure it must be
the family, from the careless way in which they came
sauntering up.
First, there was a noble hound that came bounding
toward me,—gazed a moment, and turned to watch
elderly gentleman mounted upon a spirited hunter,
attended by a boy of some dozen years, who managed
his pony with a grace, that is a part of the English
boy's education. Then followed two older lads,
and a travelling phæton, in which sat a couple
of elderly ladies. But what most drew my attention
was a girlish figure, that rode beyond the carriage,
upon a sleek-limbed gray. There was something
in the easy grace of her attitude, and the rich
glow that lit up her face—heightened as it was,
by the little black velvet riding cap, relieved with a
single flowing plume,—that kept my eye. It was
strange, but I thought that I had seen such a figure
before, and such a face, and such an eye; and as I
made the ordinary salutation of a stranger, and
caught her smile, I could have sworn that it was she—
my fair companion of the ocean. The truth flashed
upon me in a moment. She was to visit, she had told
me, a friend in the south of England;—and this was
the friend's home;—and one of the ladies of the
carriage was her mother; and one of the lads, the
school-boy brother, who had teased her on the sea.
I recal now perfectly, her frank manner, as she
ungloved her hand to bid me welcome. I strolled
beside them to the steps. Old Devon had suddenly
renewed its beauties for me. I had much to tell her,
had led me to: and she—as much to ask. My stay
with the bland old farmer lengthened; and two days
hospitalities at the Park ran over into three, and four.
There was hard galloping down those avenues; and
new strolls, not at all lonely, under the sturdy oaks.
The long summer twilight of England used to find a
very happy fellow lingering on the garden terrace,—
looking, now at the rookery, where the belated birds
quarreled for a resting place, and now down the long
forest vista, gray with distance, and closed with the
white spire of Modbury church.
English country life gains fast upon one—very
fast; and it is not so easy, as in the drawing-room of
Charing Cross, to say—adieu! But it is said—very
sadly said; for God only knows how long it is to last.
And as I rode slowly down toward the lodge after my
leave-taking, I turned back again, and again, and
again. I thought I saw her standing still upon the
terrace, though it was almost dark; and I thought—
it could hardly have been an illusion—that I saw
something white waving from her hand.
Her name—as if I could forget it—was Caroline;
her mother called her—Carry. I wondered how it
would seem for me to call her—Carry! I tried it;—
it sounded well. I tried it—over and over,—until I
came too near the lodge. There I threw a half
She curtsied low, and said—“God bless you, sir!”
I liked her for it; I would have given a guinea for
it: and that night,—whether it was the old woman's
benediction, or the waving scarf upon the terrace, I
do not know;—but there was a charm upon my
thought, and my hope, as if an angel had been near
me.
It passed away though in my dreams;—for I
dreamed that I saw the sweet face of Bella in an
English park, and that she wore a black velvet riding
cap, with a plume; and I came up to her and
murmured, very sweetly, I thought,—“Carry, dear
Carry!” and she started, looked sadly at me, and
turned away. I ran after her, to kiss her as I did
when she sat upon my mother's lap, on the day when
she came near drowning: I longed to tell her, as I
did then—I do love you. But she turned her tearful
face upon me, I dreamed; and then,—I saw no more.
A Roman Girl.
—I remember the very words—“non parlo Francesce,
Signore,—I do not speak French, Signor”—
said the stout lady,—“but my daughter, perhaps, will
understand you.”
And she called—“Enrica!—Enrica! venite,
subito! c'è un forestiere.”
And the daughter came, her light brown hair falling
carelessly over her shoulders, her rich hazel eye
twinkling and full of life, the colour coming and going
upon her transparent cheek, and her bosom heaving
with her quick step. With one hand she put back
the scattered locks that had fallen over her forehead,
while she laid the other gently, upon the arm
of her mother, and asked in that sweet music of the
south—“cosa volete, mamma?”
It was the prettiest picture I had seen in many a
day; and this, notwithstanding I was in Rome, and had
come that very morning from the Palace of Borghese.
The stout lady was my hostess, and Enrica—so fair,
so young, so unlike in her beauty, to other Italian
beauties, was my landlady's daughter. The house
was one of those tall houses—very, very old, which
stand along the eastern side of the Corso, looking out
upon the Piazzo di Colonna. The staircases were
very tall, and dirty, and they were narrow and dark.
Four flights of stone steps led up to the corridor
where they lived. A little trap was in the door; and
there was a bell-rope, at the least touch of which, I
was almost sure to hear tripping feet run along the
stone floor within, and then to see the trap thrown
slyly back, and those deep hazle eyes looking out
the corridor, under the daughter's guidance, (until I
had learned the way,) I passed to my Roman home.
I was a long time learning the way.
My chamber looked out upon the Corso, and I could
catch from it a glimpse of the top of the tall column
of Antoninus, and of a fragment of the palace of the
Governor. My parlor, which was separated from the
apartments of the family by a narrow corridor, looked
upon a small court, hung around with balconies.
From the upper one, a couple of black-eyed girls are
occasionally looking out, and they can almost read
the title of my book, when I sit by the window. Below
are three or four blooming ragazze, who are
dark-eyed, and have Roman luxuriance of hair. The
youngest is a friend of our Enrica, and is of course
frequently looking up, with all the innocence in the
world, to see if Enrica may be looking out.
Night after night, a bright blaze glows upon my
hearth, of the alder faggots which they bring from the
Albanian hills. Night after night too, the family
come in, to aid my blundering speech, and to enjoy
the rich sparkling of my faggot fire. Little Cesare, a
dark-faced Italian boy, takes up his position with pencil
and slate, and draws by the light of the blaze
genii and castles. The old one-eyed teacher of
Enrica, lays his snuff box upon the table, and his
upon his nose, and his big fingers on the lesson, runs
through the French tenses of the verb amare. The
father a sallow-faced, keen-eyed man, with true
Italian visage, sits with his arms upon the elbows of
his chair, and talks of the Pope, or of the weather.
A spruce count from the Marches of Ancona, wears
a heavy watch seal, and reads Dante with furore.
The mother, with arms akimbo, looks proudly upon
her daughter, and counts her, as well she may, a gem
among the Roman beauties.
The table was round, with the fire blazing on one
side; there was scarce room for but three upon the
other. Signor il maestro was one—then Enrica, and
next—how well I remember it—came myself. For I
could sometimes help Enrica to a word of French;
and far oftener, she could help me to a word of
Italian. Her face was rich, and full of feeling; I
used greatly to love to watch the puzzled expressions
that passed over her forehead, as the sense of some
hard phrase escaped her;—and better still, to see the
happy smile, as she caught at a glance, the thought
of some old scholastic Frenchman, and transferred it
into the liquid melody of her speech.
She had seen just sixteen summers, and only that
very autumn was escaped from the thraldom of a
convent, upon the skirts of Rome. She knew nothing
happiness, lay as yet in her childish hopes. It was
pleasant to look upon her face; and it was still more
pleasant to listen to that sweet Roman voice. What a
rich flow of superlatives, and endearing diminutives,
from those vermillion lips! Who would not have
loved the study, and who would not have loved—
without meaning it—the teacher?
In those days, I did not linger long at the tables
of lame Pietro in the Via Condotti; but would hurry
back to my little Roman parlor—the fire was so
pleasant! And it was so pleasant to greet Enrica
with her mother, even before the one-eyed maestro
had come in; and it was pleasant to unfold the book
between us, and to lay my hand upon the page—a
small page—where hers lay already. And when she
pointed wrong, it was pleasant to correct her—over
and over;—insisting, that her hand should be here,
and not there, and lifting those little fingers from one
page, and putting them down upon the other. And
sometimes, half provoked with my fault-finding, she
would pat my hand smartly with hers;—but when I
looked in her face to know what that could mean, she
would meet my eye with such a kind submission, and
half earnest regret, as made me not only pardon the
offence,—but tempt me to provoke it again.
Through all the days of Carnival, when I rode
wander up, from a long way off, to that tall house
upon the Corso, where I was sure to meet, again and
again, those forgiving eyes, and that soft brown hair,
all gathered under the little brown sombrero, set off
with one pure white plume. And her hand full of
bon-bons, she would shake at me threateningly; and
laugh—a musical laugh—as I bowed my head to the
assault, and recovering from the shower of missiles,
would turn to throw my stoutest bouquet at her balcony.
At night, I would bear home to the Roman
parlor, my best trophy of the day, as a guerdon for
Enrica; and Enrica would be sure to render in
acknowledgment, some carefully hidden flowers, the
prettiest that her beauty had won.
Sometimes upon those Carnival nights, she arrays
herself in the costume of the Albanian water-carriers;
and nothing, one would think could be prettier, than
the laced crimson jacket, and the strange head gear
with its trinkets, and the short skirts leaving to view
as delicate an ankle as could be found in Rome.
Upon another night, she glides into my little parlor,
as we sit by the blaze, in a close velvet boddice, and
with a Swiss hat caught up by a looplet of silver, and
adorned with a full blown rose—nothing you think
could be prettier than this. Again, in one of her
girlish freaks, she robes herself like a nun; and with
veil,—relieved only by the plain white ruffle of her
cap—you wish she were always a nun. But the wish
vanishes, when you see her in a pure white muslin,
with a wreath of orange blossoms about her forehead,
and a single white rose-bud in her bosom.
Upon the little balcony Enrica keeps a pot or two
of flowers, which bloom all winter long: and each
morning, I find upon my table a fresh rose bud; each
night, I bear back for thank-offering, the prettiest
bouquet that can be found in the Via Condotti. The
quiet fire-side evenings come back;—in which my
hand seeks its wonted place upon her book; and my
other, will creep around upon the back of Enrica's
chair, and Enrica will look indignant,—and then all
forgiveness.
One day I received a large pacquet of letters:—
ah, what luxury to lie back in my big arm-chair,
there before the crackling faggots, with the pleasant
rustle of that silken dress beside me, and run
over a second, and a third time, those mute paper
missives, which bore to me over so many miles of
water, the words of greeting, and of love! It would
be worth travelling to the shores of the ægean, to
find one's heart quickened into such life as the ocean
letters will make. Enrica threw down her book,
and wondered what could be in them?—and snatched
intensity over that strange scrawl.—What can it
be?—said she; and she lay her finger upon the little
half line—“Dear Paul.”
I told her it was—“Caro mio.”
Enrica lay it upon her lap, and looked in my face;
“It is from your mother?” said she.
“No,” said I.
“From your sister?”—said she.
“Alas, no!”
“Il vostro fratello, dunque?”
“Nemmeno”—said I—“not from a brother either.”
She handed me the letter, and took up her book;
and presently she laid the book down again; and
looked at the letter, and then at me;—and went out.
She did not come in again that evening; in the
morning, there was no rose-bud on my table. And
when I came at night,with a bouquet from Pietro's
at the corner, she asked me—“who had written my
letter?”
“A very dear friend,” said I.
“A lady?” continued she.
“A lady,” said I.
“Keep this bouquet for her,” said she, and put it
in my hands.
“But, Enrica, she has plenty of flowers: she
gather them by scores to make garlands of.”
Enrica put her fingers within my hand to take
again the bouquet; and for a moment I held both
fingers and flowers.
The flowers slipped out first.
I had a friend at Rome in that time, who afterward
died between Ancona and Corinth: we were sitting
one day upon a block of tufa in the middle of the
Coliseum, looking up at the shadows which the
waving shrubs upon the southern wall, cast upon the
ruined arcades within, and listening to the chirping
sparrows that lived upon the wreck,—when he said to
me suddenly—“Paul, you love the Italian girl.”
“She is very beautiful,” said I.
“I think she is beginning to love you,” said he,
soberly.
“She has a very warm heart, I believe,” said I.
“Aye,” said he.
“But her feelings are those of a girl,” continued I.
“They are not,” said my friend; and he laid his
hand upon my knee, and left off drawing diagrams
with his cane,—“I have seen, Paul, more than you
of this southern nature. The Italian girl of fifteen
is a woman;—an impassioned, sensitive, tender
creature—yet still a woman: you are loving—if you
loves—as a ripe heart should.”
“But I do not think that either is wholly true,”
said I.
“Try it,” said he, setting his cane down firmly,
and looking in my face.
“How?” returned I.
“I have three weeks upon my hands,” continued
he. “Go with me into the Appenines; leave your
home in the Corso, and see if you can forget in the
air of the mountains, your blue-eyed Roman girl!”
I was pondering for an answer, when he went on:—
“It is better so: love as you might, that southern
nature with all its passion, is not the material to
build domestic happiness upon; nor is your northern
habit—whatever you may think at your time of life,
the one to cherish always those passionate sympathies
which are bred by this atmosphere, and their seenes.”
One moment my thought ran to my little parlor,
and to that fairy figure, and to that sweet, angel
face: and then, like lightning it traversed oceans, and
fed upon the old ideal of home, and brought images
to my eye of lost—dead ones, who seemed to be
stirring on heavenly wings, in that soft Roman
atmosphere, with greeting, and with beckoning.
—“I will go with you,” said I.
The father shrugged his shoulders, when I told
guide. His wife said it would be cold upon the hills,
for the winter was not ended. Enrica said it would
be warm in the valleys, for the spring was coming.
The old man drummed with his fingers on the table,
and shrugged his shoulders again, but said nothing.
My landlady said I could not ride. Cesare said it
would be hard walking. Enrica asked papa, if there
would be any danger? And again the old man
shrugged his shoulders. Again I asked him, if he
knew a man who would serve us as guide among the
Appenines; and finding me determined, he shrugged
his shoulders, and said he would find one the next
day.
As I passed out at evening; on my way to the
Piazzo near the Monte Citorio, where stand the
carriages that go out to Tivoli, Enrica glided up to
me, and whispered—“ah, mi dispiace tanto—tanto,
Signor!”
The Appenines.
I shook her hand, and in an hour afterward was
passing with my friend, by the Trajan forum, toward
the deep shadow of San Maggiore, which lay in our
way to the mountains. At sunset, we were wandering
over the ruin of Adrian's villa, which lies upon the
bells of Tivoli were sounding, and their echoes
floating sweetly under the broken arches; before us,
stretching all the way to the horizon, lay the broad
Campagna; while in the middle of its great waves,
turned violet-coloured, by the hues of twilight, rose
the grouped towers of the Eternal City; and lording
it among them all, like a giant, stood the black dome
of St. Peter's.
Day after day we stretched on over the mountains,
leaving the Campagna far behind us. Rocks and
stones, huge and ragged, lie strewed over the surface
right and left, deep yawning valleys lie in the
shadows of mountains, that loom up thousands of
feet, bearing perhaps upon their tops old castellated
towns, perched like birds' nests. But mountain and
valley are blasted and scarred; the forests even, are
not continuous, but struggle for a livelihood; as if
the brimstone fire that consumed Nineveh, had withered
their energies. Sometimes, our eyes rest on a
great white scar of the broken calcareous rock, on
which the moss cannot grow, and the lizards dare not
creep. Then we see a cliff beetling far aloft, with
the shining walls of some monastery of holy men glistening
at its base. The wayside brooks do not seem
to be the gentle offspring of bountiful hills, but the
remnants of something greater, whose greatness has
of yawning chasms. Even the shrubs have a look, as
if the Volscian war-horse had trampled them down to
death; and the primroses and the violets by the
mountain path, alone look modestly beautiful amid
the ruin.
Sometimes, we loiter in a valley, above which the
goats are browsing on the cliffs, and listen to the sweet
pastoral pipes of the Appenines. We see the shepherds
in their rough skin coats, high over our heads.
Their herds are feeding, as it seems, on ledges of a
hand's breadth. The sweet sound floats and lingers
in the soft atmosphere, without a breath of wind to
bear it away, or a noise to disturb its melody. The
shadows slant more and more as we linger; and the
kids begin to group together. And as we wander on,
through the stunted vineyards in the bottom of the
valley, the sweet sound flows after us, like a river of
song,—nor leaves us, till the kids have vanished in
the distance, and the cliffs themselves, become one
dark wall of shadow.
At night, in some little meagre mountain town, we
stroll about in the narrow pass-ways, or wander under
the heavy arches of the mountain churches. Shuffling
old women grope in and out; dim lamps glimmer
faintly at the side altars, shedding horrid light
upon painted images of the dying Christ. Or perhaps,
some bier in the middle, with a figure or two kneeling
at the foot, and ragged boys move stealthily under
the shadows of the columns. Presently comes a
young priest, in black robes, and lights a taper at the
foot, and another at the head—for there is a dead
man on the bier; and the parched, thin features look
awfully under the yellow light of the tapers, in the
gloom of the great building. It is very, very damp
in the church, and the body of the dead man seems
to make the air heavy, so we go out into the starlight
again.
In the morning, the western slopes wear broad
shadows, and the frosts crumple, on the herbage, to
our tread: across the valley, it is like summer; and
the birds—for there are songsters in the Appenines,—
make summer music. Their notes blend softly
with the faint sounds of some far off convent bell,
tolling for morning mass, and strike the frosted
and shaded mountain side, with a sweet echo. As
we toil on, and the shaded hills begin to glow in the
sunshine, we pass a train of mules, loaded with wine.
We have seen them an hour before—little black dots
twining along the white streak of foot-way upon the
mountain above us. We lost them as we began to
ascend, until a wild snatch of an Appenine song
turned our eyes up, and there, straggling through the
brought the mules and wine casks rolling upon us.
We keep still, holding by the brushwood, to let them
pass. An hour more, and we see them toiling slowly,—
mule and muleteer,—big dots, and little dots,—far
down where we have been before. The sun is hot
and smoking on them in the bare valleys; the sun is
hot and smoking on the hill-side, where we are toiling
over the broken stones. I thought of little Enrica,
when she said—the spring was coming!
Time and again, we sit down together—my friend
and I—upon some fragment of rock, under the
broad-armed chestnuts, that fringe the lower skirts of
the mountains, and talk through the hottest of the
noon, of the warriors of Seylla, and of the Sabine
women,—but oftener—of the pretty peasantry, and
of the sweet-faced Roman girl. He too tells me of
his life and loves, and of the hopes that lie misty
and grand before him:—little did we think that in so
few years, his hopes would be gone, and his body
lying low in the Adriatic, or tost with the drift upon
the Dalmatian shores! Little did I think, that here
under the ancestral wood,—still a wishful and blundering
mortal, I should be gathering up the shreds,
that memory can catch of our Appenine wandering,
and be weaving them into my bachelor dreams.
Away again upon the quick wing of thought, I
once more a height that overlooked the Campagna—
and saw the sun setting on its edge, throwing into
relief the dome of St. Peter's, and blazing in a red
stripe upon the waters of the Tiber.
Below us was Palestrina—the Præneste of the poets
and philosophers;—the dwelling place of—I know
not how many—Emperors. We went straggling
through the dirty streets, searching for some tidy-looking
osteria. At length, we found an old lady,
who could give us a bed, but no dinner. My friend
dropped in a chair disheartened. A snub-looking
priest came out to condole with us.
And could Palestrina,—the frigidum Præneste of
Horace, which had entertained over and over, the
noblest of the Colonna, and the most noble Adrian—
could Palestrina not furnish a dinner to a tired
traveller?
“Si, Signore,” said the snub-looking priest.
“Si, Signorino,” said the neat old lady; and
away we went upon a new search. And we found
bright and happy faces;—especially the little girl of
twelve years, who came close by me as I ate, and
afterward strung a garland of marigolds, and put it
on my head. Then there was a bright-eyed boy of
fourteen, who wrote his name, and those of the whole
family, upon a fly leaf of my book: and a pretty,
from behind the kitchen door, but before the evening
was gone, she was in the chair beside me, and had
written her name—Carlotta—upon the first leaf of
my journal.
When I woke, the sun was up. From my bed I
could see over the town, the thin, lazy mists lying
on the old camp-ground of Pyrrhus; beyond it, were
the mountains, which hide Frascati, and Monte Cavi.
There was old Colonna too, that—
Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest
Of purple Appenine.
As the mist lifted, and the sun brightened the
plain, I could see the road, along which Sylla came
fuming and maddened after the Mithridaten war. I
could see, as I half dreamed and half slept, the frightened
peasantry whooping to their long-horned cattle,
as they drove them on tumultuously up through the
gateways of the town; and women with babies in
their arms, and children scowling with fear and hate,
—all trooping fast and madly, to escape the hand of
the Avenger;—alas! ineffectually, for Sylla murdered
them, and pulled down the walls of their town
—the proud Palestrina!
I had a queer fancy of seeing the nobles of Rome,
their corslets flashing out of the mists,—their pennants
dashing above it,—coming up fast, and still as
the wind, to make the Mural Præneste, their strong-hold
against the Last of the Tribunes. And strangely
mingling fiction with fact, I saw the brother of Walter
de Montreal, with his noisy and bristling army,
crowd over the Campagna, and put up his white tents,
and hang out his showy banners, on the grassy knolls
that lay nearest my eye.
—But the knolls were all quiet; there was not
so much as a strolling contadino on them, to whistle
a mimic fife-note. A little boy from the inn went
with me upon the hill, to look out upon the town and
the wide sea of land below; and whether it was the
soft, warm April sun, or the gray ruins below me, or
whether the wonderful silence of the scene, or some
wild gush of memory, I do not know, but something
made me sad.
“Perché cosi penseroso?—why so sad?” said the
quick-eyed boy. “The air is beautiful, the scene is
beautiful; Signore is young, why is he sad?”
“And is Giovanni never sad?” said I.
“Quasi mai,” said the boy, “and if I could travel
as Signore, and see other countries, I would be always
gay.”
“May you be always that!” said I.
The good wish touched him; he took me by the
arms, and said—“Go home with me, Signore; you
were happy at the inn last night; go back, and we
will make you gay again!”
—If we could be always boys!
I thanked him in a way that saddened him. We
passed out shortly after from the city gates, and
strode on over the rolling plain. Once or twice we
turned back to look at the rocky heights beneath
which lay the ruined town of Palestrina;—a city that
defied Rome,—that had a king before a ploughshare
had touched the Capitoline, or the Janiculan hill!
The ivy was covering up richly the Etruscan foundations,
and there was a quiet over the whole place.
The smoke was rising straight into the sky from the
chimney tops; a peasant or two, were going along
the road with donkeys; beside this, the city was, to
all appearance, a dead city. And it seemed to me
that an old monk, whom I could see with my glass,
near the little chapel above the town, might be going
to say mass for the soul of the dead city.
And afterward, when we came near to Rome, and
passed under the temple tomb of Metella,—my friend
said,—“And will you go back now to your home?
or will you set off with me to-morrow for Ancona?”
“At least, I must say adieu,” returned I.
“God speed you!” said he, and we parted upon
Peter's, and I for the tall house upon the Corso.
Enrica.
I hear her glancing feet, the moment I have tinkled
the bell;—and there she is, with her brown hair
gathered into braids, and her eyes full of joy, and
greeting. And as I walk with the mother to the
window to look at some pageant that is passing,—she
steals up behind, and passes her arm around me, with
a quick electric motion, and a gentle pressure of
welcome—that tells more than a thousand words.
It is a pageant of death that is passing below. Far
down the street, we see heads thrust out of the windows,
and standing in bold relief against the red
torch-light of the moving train. Below, dim figures
are gathering on the narrow side ways to look at the
solemn spectacle. A hoarse chant rises louder, and
louder; and half dies in the night air, and breaks out
again with new, and deep bitterness.
Now, the first torch-light under us shines plainly
on faces in the windows, and on the kneeling women
in the street. First, come old retainers of the dead
one, bearing long blazing flambeaux. Then comes a
company of priests, two by two, bare-headed, and
chanting.
Next, is a brotherhood of friars in brown cloaks,
with sandalled feet;—and the red-light streams full
upon their grizzled heads. They add their heavy
guttural voices to the chant, and pass slowly on.
Then comes a company of priests, in white muslin
capes, and black robes, and black caps,—bearing
books in their hands, wide open, and lit up plainly
by the torches of churchly servitors, who march beside
them; and from the books, the priests chant
loud and solemnly. Now, the music is loudest; and
the friars take up the dismal notes from the white-capped
priests, and the priests before catch them from
the brown-robed friars, and mournfully the sound rises
up between the tall buildings,—into the blue night-sky,
that lies between Heaven and Rome.
—“Vede—vede!”—says Cesare; and in a blaze of
the red-torch fire, comes the bier, borne on the necks
of stout friars; and on the bier, is the body of a dead
man, habited like a priest. Heavy plumes of black
wave at each corner.
—“Hist!”—says my landlady.
The body is just under us. Enrica crosses herself;
her smile is for the moment gone. Cesare's boy-face
is grown suddenly earnest. We could see the pale,
youthful features of the dead man. The glaring
light over the wan visage of the sleeper. A thousand
eyes were looking on him; but his face careless of
them all, was turned up, straight toward the stars.
Still the chant rises; and companies of priests follow
the bier, like those who had gone before. Friars,
in brown cloaks, and prelates, and Carmelites come
after—all with torches. Two by two—their voices
growing hoarse—they tramp, and chant.
For a while the voices cease, and you can hear the
rustling of their robes, and their foot-falls, as if your
ear was to the earth. Then the chant rises again, as
they glide on in a wavy, shining line, and rolls back
over the death-train, like the howling of a wind in
winter.
As they pass, the faces vanish from the windows.
The kneeling women upon the pavement, rise up,
mindful of the paroxysm of Life once more. The
groups in the door-ways scatter. But their low
voices do not drown the voices of the host of mourners,
and their ghost-like music.
I look long upon the blazing bier, trailing under
the deep shadows of the Roman palaces, and at the
stream of torches, winding like a glittering, scaled
serpent.—It is a priest—say I to my landlady, as
she closes the window.
“No, signor,—a young man never married, and so
“So I”—says the pretty Enrica—“if I should
die, would be robed in white, as you saw me on a
carnival night, and be followed by nuns for sisters.”
“A long way off may it be, Enrica!”
She took my hand in hers, and pressed it. An
Italian girl does not fear to talk of death; and we
were talking of it still, as we walked back to my little
parlor—my hand all the time in hers—and sat down
by the blaze of my fire.
It was holy week—never had Enrica looked more
sweetly than in that black dress,—under that long,
dark veil of the days of Lent. Upon the broad
pavement of St. Peter's,—where the people flocking
by thousands, made only side groups about the altars
of the vast temple—I have watched her kneeling,
beside her mother,—her eyes bent down, her lips
moving earnestly, and her whole figure tremulous with
deep emotion. Wandering around among the halberdiers
of the Pope, and the court coats of Austria,
and the bare-footed pilgrims with sandal, shell and
staff, I would sidle back again, to look upon that
kneeling figure; and leaning against the huge
columns of the church, would dream—even as I
am dreaming now.
At night-fall, I urge my way into the Sistine
the gaunt figures of the Judgment of Angelo. They
are chanting the Miserere. The twelve candle-sticks
by the altar are put out one by one, as the service
continues. The sun has gone down, and only the red
glow of twilight steals through the dusky windows.
There is a pause, and a brief reading from a red-cloaked
cardinal, and all kneel down. She kneels
beside me: and the sweet, mournful flow of the
Miserere begins again,—growing in force, and depth,
till the whole chapel rings, and the balcony of the
choir trembles: then, it subsides again into the low
soft wail of a single voice—so prolonged—so tremulous,
and so real, that the heart aches, and the tears
start—for Christ is dead!
—Lingering yet, the wail dies not wholly, but
just as it seemed expiring, it is caught up by another
and stronger voice that carries it on, plaintive as
ever;—nor does it stop with this—for just as you
looked for silence, three voices more begin the
lament—sweet, touching, mournful voices,—and bear
it up to a full cry, when the whole choir catch its
burden, and make the lament change into the wailings
of a multitude—wild, shrill, hoarse—with swift chants
intervening, as if agony had given force to anguish.
Then, sweetly, slowly, voice by voice, note by note,
the wailings sink into the low, tender, moan of a
the utterance; and swelling out, as if despair sustained
it.
It was dark in the chapel, when we went out;
voices were low. Enrica said nothing—I could
say nothing.
I was to leave Rome after Easter; I did not
love to speak of it—nor to think of it. Rome—that
old city, with all its misery, and its fallen state, and
its broken palaces of the Empire—grows upon one's
heart. The fringing shrubs of the coliseum, flaunting
their blossoms at the tall beggar-men in cloaks, who
grub below,—the sun glimmering over the mossy pile
of the House of Nero,—the sweet sunsets from the
Pincian, that make the broad pine-tops of the Janiculan,
stand sharp and dark against a sky of gold,
cannot easily be left behind. And Enrica with her
silver brown hair, and the silken fillet that bound
it,—and her deep blue eyes,—and her white, delicate
fingers,—and the blue veins chasing over her fair
temples—ah, Easter is too near!
But it comes; and passes with the glory of St.
Peter's—lighted from top to bottom. With Enrica—
I saw it from the Ripetta, as it loomed up in the
distance, like a city on fire.
The next day, I bring home my last bunch of
flowers, and with it a little richly-chased Roman ring.
Warm days have come, and the summer air, even
now, hangs heavy with fever, in the hollows of the
plain.
I heard them stirring early on the morning on
which I was to go away. I do not think I slept very
well myself—nor very late. Never did Enrica look
more beautiful—never. All her Carnival robes, and
the sad drapery of the Friday of Crucifixion could
not so adorn her beauty as that neat morning dress,
and that simple rosebud she wore upon her bosom.
She gave it to me—the last—with a trembling hand.
I did not, for I could not, thank her. She knew it;
and her eyes were full.
The old man kissed my cheek—it was the Roman
custom, but the custom did not extend to the Roman
girls;—at least not often. As I passed down the
Corso, I looked back at the balcony, where she stood
in the time of Carnival, in the brown Sombrero, with
the white plume. I knew she would be there now;
and there she was. My eyes dwelt upon the vision,
very loth to leave it; and after my eyes had lost it,
my heart clung to it,—there, where my memory
clings now.
At noon, the carriage stopped upon the hills, toward
Soracte, that overlooked Rome. There was a
stunted pine tree grew a little way from the road, and
I looked back with strange tumult of feeling, upon
the sleeping city, with the gray, billowy sea of the
Campagna, lying around it.
I seemed to see Enrica—the Roman girl, in that
morning dress, with her brown hair in its silken fillet;
—but the rose-bud that was in her bosom, was now
in mine. Her silvery voice too, seemed to float past
me, bearing snatches of Roman songs;—but the songs
were sad and broken.
—After all, this is sad vanity!—thought I: and
yet if I had espied then some returning carriage
going down toward Rome, I will not say—but that I
should have bailed it, and taken a place,—and gone
back, and to this day, perhaps—have lived at Rome.
But the vetturino called me; the coach was ready;
—I gave one more look toward the dome that guarded
the sleeping city; and then, we galloped down the
mountain, on the road that lay towards Perugia, and
Lake Thrasimene.
—Sweet Enrica! art thou living yet? Or hast
thou passed away to that Silent Land, where the
good sleep, and the beautiful?
The visions of the Past fade. The morning breeze
has died upon the meadow; the Bob-o'-Lincoln sits
swaying on the willow tufts—singing no longer. The
and dense upon the silver stream.
Noon has broken into the middle sky; and Morning
is gone.
| MORNING, NOON, AND EVENING. Reveries of a bachelor, or, A book of the heart | |