Baked meats of the funeral a collection of essays, poems, speeches, histories, and banquets |
 |
HOME OF THE HIGHER BOHEMIA. |
|
 | Baked meats of the funeral |  |
HOME OF THE HIGHER BOHEMIA.
CONTRIBUTIONS TO ITS ALBUM FROM DISTINGUISHED
AUTHORS.
Mr. Wm. Stuart, of the Winter Garden
Theatre, keeps for the benefit of himself and
friends, a very delightful villa near New London,
where one can pass a few days more agreeably
than in any other house at present known to us.
The villa is delightfully located, overlooking the
broadest part of the Sound, and with very pretty
garden and other grounds around it. The snipe,
duck, and plover-shooting in the vicinity is excellent;
while of the warm and refined hospitality
of the occupier and proprietor we need not speak,
nor of that eminent social genius which draws
around him men of the most diverse opinions and
stations, and can yet harmonize all otherwise warring
and discordant elements into an agreeable
mosaic of very pleasant and enlivening contradictions.
At this “Home of the Good Samaritan for the
used-up children of Bohemia,” as one guest called
it, we meet every one that is any one, and nobody
that is not something. We have bankers, journalists,
foreign celebrities, domestic representatives,
warriors, lawyers, yachtmen, comedians,
dramatists—an omnium gatherum, in fact, of all
that is remarkable, queer, fantastic, or note-worthy
within the extensive circle of Mr. Stuart's
acquaintance.
Last year the institution of an album was
started, in which each guest is requested to write
his name during his visit and attach thereto any
rhymes, sentiments, or other remarks he may feel
prompted to leave behind him for the benefit of
those guests who are to follow him in the revolving
circle of manager Stuart's hospitality; and it
is from this volume that we make the following
extracts, the first of which, on opening the volume,
we find to be in a handwriting that looks as
familiar as our own:
RULES
For the government of the Home of the Good Samaritan, in
which all worthy and used-up children of Bohemia find
hospitable and happy welcome:
You must be extremely nice,
Emphatic and most precise,
In doing exactly the thing you please:
For the rule of the Good Samaritan
Is “Every man at his ease.”
With the bright blue bay before you,
The shady veranda o'er you,
And the pleasant bottles in the room behind;
You must feel like a Good Samaritan
To all of human kind!
In the home of the Good Samaritan
Your talk may have all variety,
Save that politics or piety,
If gabbled about some grief may brew;
And to feel like a Good Samaritan
These topics we must eschew.
To the Home of the Good Samaritan,
From the dust and heat of the town,
Bohemia rushes gladly down—
The gifted, the witty, the wise, the queer;
“And oho!” says the Good Samaritan,
“You are all of you welcome here!”
By order of Grand Hierarch,
Gulielmus Stuartius.
Mi-les Au-Relius,
A. A. G., and Chief of Staff.
Following this introduction, there are verses
and versicles, sentiments and sentimentalities, sage
proverbs, capital toasts, pungent aphorisms, and
judicious anecdotes—original and otherwise, but
mostly original—in the handwriting and bearing
the signatures of nearly all the most prominent
belonging to the Higher Bohemia.
As samples of the contents of this really remarkable
and valuable volume, which Mr. Stuart should
be restrained by no mauvais honte from publishing,
if only as one of the curiosities of our literature
—we have extracted, and here append with the
permission of their respective and distinguished
authors, the following jeux d'esprit on certain passing
topics of the day from the pages of the Good
Samaritan's Album.
In the clear, large, and beautiful Italian chirography
of the Hon. Horace Greeley, every letter
like the best English copperplate, and every sentence
ringing with the sharp, military, and militant
spirit of that distinguished bard, warrior, journalist,
philanthropist, and statesman of PrintingHouse
Square, we find the subjoined stirring appeal
in behalf of a then-much-needed household
economy, dated July 4, 1865.
THE LEAGUE OF ANTI-BEEFERS.
Pass the word along the line,Let the butchers come to grief;
When we breakfast, sup, or dine,
Let us shun the sight of beef!
Let it be as flesh of swine,
Unto Israel's strict believers;
And, till present rates decline,
Let us all be Anti-Beefers!
Soon our butcher-foes we'll humble;
Join our league and share our strife,
'Till the beefy idol tumble!
Raise your glistening hands to heaven,
And swear—however fashion differs—
That, until meat is cheaper given,
You join the League of Anti-Beefers.
Nor with hunger need we pine,
While the trees their fruitage render;
Fish are juicy, fresh, and fine,
Salads, too, are crisp and tender.
Join the banner that we raise;
Already, see! the butcher quivers!
And victory's wreath, ere many days,
Shall crown the brows of Anti-Beefers!
After this, in the revered handwriting of Wm.
Cullen Bryant, and with all the gloomy earnestness
and poetic beauty of the author of Thanatopsis,
we find the remarkable eulogy hereinafter set
forth of Mayor Gunther, Recorder Hoffman, City
Inspector Boole, Corporation Counsel John E.
Develin, and Comptroller Multiply Taxes Brennan,
for their official agency in giving the contract
for cleaning the streets of New York to those three
distinguished patriots—Messrs. Brown, Shepherd
Knapp, and Devoe. While Bryant's beautiful Lines
to a Seagull live, and they will live for ever, this
touching tribute to municipal merit can never fade
away from the recollection of our grateful citizens:
SONG OF KING PESTILENCE.
I am monarch of all I survey,No breeze my fierce ardor can cool,
I am King of Manhattan to-day,
Thanks to Brennan, and Develin, and Boole;
Nor be Hoffman and Gunther forgot,
Who nurtured my birth with their smiles—
And the weather's delightfully hot,
And the garbage rots rankly in piles.
Oh, cleanliness, comfort, and health!
Oh, summer-airs, laden with sweets!
To increase of some villains the wealth
Have you fled, and for ever, our street?
Must King Pestilence riot and rule
Unchecked and at will o'er the town,
To enrich Brennan, Develin, and Boole,
And contractors Devoe, Knapp, and Brown?
In the tenement-houses where thick
The poor, like red herrings, are stowed;
In the alleys where fever is quick,
And consumption hath made its abode;
Where the offal is foul as the “ring”
Of Tweed, Ottiwell, Farley and Co.—
I am king—I am king—I am king!
Thanks to Brown, Shepherd Knapp, and Devoe!
Oh, mother! with babe at your breast,
As its life flickers faintly and low,
Be sure your full thanks are expressed
To contractors Brown, Knapp, and Devoe!
Our gutters with ordure defiled;
And 'tis they pile the poison in heaps
That is strangling the life of your child.
The bright air of summer is dense
With glutinous odors and stenches;
We breathe at a dreadful expense
Of olfactory tortures and wrenches;
But this comforting fact we should know,
And close to our hearts we should lock it—
That contractors Brown, Knapp, and Devoe
From this job two clear millions will pocket!
The graveyards will fill, to be sure,
Much faster than need would demand;
And a full double-crop of the poor
I will reap with my skeleton hand;
Oh, the widows may mourn for the dead,
And the orphans may snivel their woe—
But the purses will largely be fed
Of contractors Brown, Knapp, and Devoe!
Oh, Fenton, our Governor dear!
To you our entreaties ascend;
Let your guillotine, gleaming and clear,
On the necks of these villains descend!
The basket of saw-dust, we know,
Will keep the heads pleasant and cool
Of contractors Brown, Knapp, and Devoe,
And their “chums”—Brennan, Develin, and Boole!
The next contribution claiming special attention
is in the sharp calligraphy of James Gordon
recall to every lover of poetry the affecting Lines
to Marianne from the same exalted source, which
appeared some years ago in Bonner's Ledger. Mr.
Bennett's admiration of the pure legislative character
of Senator Demas Strong, of Brooklyn, is evidently
as powerful as the distinguished legislator's
name would imply, or as the aroma which surrounded
certain of the Honorable Senator's votes
on the “Cross-town,” “Broadway,” and other
city-railroad operations in the lobbies of Albany.
Thus run the lines, “suggested,” as the author
modestly remarks, “by Senator Strong's libel-suit
against George C. Bennett, of the Brooklyn Times,
to prove himself an honest legislator.” They are
headed in the album of the Home of the Good
Samaritan:
REFRIGERATION INSTANTANEOUS!
All day the heat had been intense,No cloud obscured the burning ray,
The air was sultry, close, and dense,
And what we suffered, so immense
That language never can portray;
When suddenly a coolness came
As some one cried, that “Demas Strong
Now purposed by the law to claim
An honest legislator's name”—
Our laughter brake forth loud and long!
“Strong brings a libel-suit to prove
That never in corruption's tide
Have his white hands been blackly dyed”—
Chill currents o'er us seemed to move!
No iceberg drifting toward the line
Brings quicker chill to nearing ships;
The coolness grew so keen and fine,
'Twas piquant as some well-iced wine
Of bubbling foam to thirsty lips.
“Let now thy servant part in peace,
Oh! Lord,” arose our humble prayer;
For never till the years shall cease
Can come a coolness like to this—
So fresh, so pure and debonnair!
But let the words not oft arise,
For such the coolness they unfold,
That, spoken oft, a woof of ice
Seems to have seized us in a vice,
And our souls perish in the cold!
Having quoted from so many editorial celebrities,
we feel compelled to make room for the Hon.
Henry J. Raymond's charming little compliment
to a Balmoral Skirt and the wearer thereof—each
reader being only cautioned that the correct accentuation
of the word “Balmoral” is on the penultimate
syllable “or,” and not the ultimate “al,”
as is the common, but erroneous, pronunciation in
this country. In all of Ruskin's essays on art there
is nothing more absolutely perfect than the word-coloring
reader on this side of fifty—is there?
THE BALMORAL SKIRT.
Oh, contrast divine with the pale, saintly face,And the blue eyes that beam, now in mirth, now in dolor!
Oh, Garment that blends picturesqueness and grace,
Suggesting sweet dreams full as warm as thy color!
Oh, feet flashing out from the roseate ring,
Like doves from a sunset that crimsons behind them!
Oh, flame still attracting each moth on the wing
To court the embrace which but dazzles to blind them!
As the pomegrante glistening, an apple of gold,
Invites every tooth with its flesh to make issue,
Yet contains richer coloring, fold within fold,
And the nearer its heart so the warmer its tissue;
Thus, Laura, to me a pomegranate thou art,
With thy rich golden hair and thy lips of red coral;
Yea! the dreamy similitude startles the heart,
When thy silken skirt raised shows the glowing “Balmoral.”
We shall conclude our extracts—confessing
that some of the imputed Authorships may be
erroneous, as we only judge by handwriting, and
handwriting, as the negro said of the white man,
is known to be “berry onsartain”—by giving
one very undoubtedly from the pen of Private
Miles O'Reilly, which, having made its first
published in Harper's Weekly, and extensively
copied from that paper:
NOT QUITE IN VAIN.
How often in days of our sore distress,When we faint with an absolute weariness
Of endless labor and endless pain,
The sickening thoughts in our souls will rise,
Clouding with gloom even the summer skies,
And chilling the pulse and filling the eyes—
`We have lived—we have lived in vain!”
When hearts we thought golden and trusted best,
Prove but shrivelling dross in the fiery test
Which the Fates for all friendships ordain;
As we turn the false picture with face to the wall,
Or veil the lost idol with charity's pall,
How cold on the soul seems the whisper to fall—
“We have lived—we have lived in vain!”
When some prize of ambition, for years postponed,
Is at length attained, yet we feel unatoned
For the struggle that gave us the gain—
Oh, spurning the dead-sea fruit we sought,
“Must it ever be thus?” is the weary thought,
And again to our ear is the whisper brought—
“We have lived—we have lived in vain!”
Oh, friends! how rare in this workaday life
Are the prizes, if won, that are worth the strife,
The clangor, the dust, and the strain!
But one, that, whatever its price of woe,
Bids the soul in the veins to exultingly know
That we have not lived in vain.
'Tis that moment unspeakable—best unsaid—
When blushingly downward the dear drooping head
To our breast for the first time we strain;
And the promise is given, not in words, but in sighs,
And the sweet humid tenderness filling her eyes—
“Oh, soul of my soul, if my love be a prize,
Then you have not lived in vain!”
Miles O'Reilly.
In salient contrast with the loving and eminently
human character of the preceding verses, are
the subjoined quaint, tender, and pathetic stanzas
in which Theodore Tilton of the Independent sets
forth the longing of his soul for immortality, and
pictures forth the kind of paradise to which his high-strung
spirit so ardently aspires. Special attention
is requested to the terse Saxon force with which this
young but eminent theologian declares his wishes—
no such complete mastery of brief expression being
attainable by any one who had not thoroughly mastered
and familiarized his mind with John Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress. We must all remember the
striking view of a happy hereafter given by Charles
Lamb when he stammered out, “I believe Heaven
is a place where one lies on a sofa all day, and always
has new novels;” but on comparing this unfinished
sketch of the same thought, no reader, however
dull, can fail to see in which direction the palm of
merit should be awarded:
MY PRIVATE HEAVEN.
BY THEODORE TILTON.
Well, talk of pleasures as you will,'Tis all a point of taste;
Some like to scrape, collect, and fill,
Some like to spend and waste.
Some choose in love's young smile to bask,
Exchanging sigh and look;
But give to me—'tis all I ask—
My coffee, pipe, and book!
Some, led by fortune's fickle star,
All seas and countries roam;
And some—I think the wisest far—
Prefer to stay at home.
Some love the angler's tedious task,
The harmless fish to hook;
But give to me—'tis all I ask—
My coffee, pipe, and book.
Some love to hunt with gun and hound,
Some hunt for wealthy widows;
Some go geologizing round,
Some botanize in meadows.
Full many love to steal a kiss
In some not public nook;
But give to me—'tis all I ask—
My coffee, pipe, and book.
To make a pleasant living;
And Tom takes up with politics,
While Dick does bolder thieving.
Full many tastes to us are given,
And each man's whim I brook;
But give me as my private Heaven,
My coffee, pipe, and book!
| Baked meats of the funeral | |