 | Letters from New York |  |
LETTER X.
In a great metropolis like this, nothing is more observable
than the infinite varieties of character. Almost
without effort, one may happen to find himself, in the
course of a few days, beside the Catholic kneeling before
the Cross, the Mohammedan bowing to the East, the Jew
veiled before the ark of the testimony, the Baptist walking
into the water, the Quaker keeping his head covered in
the presence of dignitaries and solemnities of all sorts, and
the Mormon quoting from the Golden Book which he has
never seen.
More, perhaps, than any other city, except Paris or New
Orleans, this is a place of rapid fluctuation, and never-ceasing
change. A large portion of the population are
like mute actors, who tramp across the stage in pantomime
or pageant, and are seen no more. The enterprising, the
curious, the reckless, and the criminal, flock hither from
all quarters of the world, as to a common centre, whence
they can diverge at pleasure. Where men are little
numbers here live with somewhat of that wild license
which prevails in times of pestilence. Life is a reckless
game, and death is a business transaction. Warehouses
of ready-made coffins, stand beside warehouses of ready-made
clothing, and the shroud is sold with spangled opera-dresses.
Nay, you may chance to see exposed at sheriffs'
sales, in public squares, piles of coffins, like nests of boxes,
one within another, with a hole bored in the topmost lid to
sustain the red flag of the auctioneer, who stands by, describing
their conveniences and merits, with all the exaggerating
eloquence of his tricky trade.
There is something impressive, even to painfulness, in
this dense crowding of human existence, this mercantile
familiarity with death. It has sometimes forced upon me,
for a few moments, an appalling night-mare sensation of
vanishing identity; as if I were but an unknown, unnoticed,
and unseparated drop in the great ocean of human
existence; as if the uncomfortable old theory were true,
and we were but portions of a Great Mundane Soul, to
which we ultimately return, to be swallowed up in its infinity.
But such ideas I expel at once, like phantasms of
evil, which indeed they are. Unprofitable to all, they have
a peculiarly bewildering and oppressive power over a mind
constituted like my own; so prone to eager questioning of
the infinite, and curious search into the invisible. I find
it wiser to forbear inflating this balloon of thought, lest it
roll me away through unlimited space, until I become like
the absent man, who put his clothes in bed, and hung himself
over the chair; or like his twin-brother, who laid his
candle on the pillow, and blew himself out.
You will, at least, my dear friend, give these letters the
credit of being utterly unpremeditated; for Flibbertigibbet
himself never moved with more unexpected and incoherent
variety. I have wandered almost as far from my starting
to the varieties in New-York. Among them, I often meet
a tall Scotsman, with sandy hair and high cheek-bones—a
regular Sawney, with tartan plaid and bag-pipe. And
where do you guess he most frequently plies his poetic
trade? Why, in the slaughter-houses! of which a hundred
or more send forth their polluted breath into the atmosphere
of this swarming city hive! There, if you are curious
to witness incongruities, you may almost any day see
grunting pigs or bleating lambs, with throats cut to the tune
of Highland Mary, or Bonny Doon, or Lochaber No More.
Among those who have flitted across my path, in this
thoroughfare of nations, few have interested me more
strongly than an old sea-captain, who needed only Sir
Walter's education, his wild excursions through solitary
dells and rugged mountain-passes, and his familiarity with
legendary lore, to make him, too, a poet and a romancer.
Untutored as he was, a rough son of the ocean, he had
combined in his character the rarest elements of fun and
pathos; side by side, they glanced through his conversation,
in a manner almost Shakspearean. They shone,
likewise, in his weather-beaten countenance; for he had
`the eye of Wordsworth, and the mouth of Molière.'
One of his numerous stories particularly impressed my
imagination, and remains there like a cabinet picture, by
Claude. He said he was once on board a steamboat, full
of poor foreigners, going up the Mississippi to some place
of destination in the yet unsettled wilderness. The room
where these poor emigrants were huddled together, was
miserable enough. In one corner, two dissipated-looking
fellows were squatted on the floor, playing All-fours with
dirty cards; in another, lay a victim of intemperance,
senseless, with a bottle in his hand; in another, a young
Englishman, dying of consumption—kindly tended by a
venerable Swiss emigrant, with his helpful wife, and artless
young man, who, being unable to marry the object
of his choice, with any chance of comfortable support in
his own country, had come to prepare a home for his beloved
in the Eldorado of the West. A neglected cold
brought on lung fever, which left him in a rapid decline;
but still, full of hope, he was pushing on for the township
where he had planned for himself a domestic paradise.
He was now among strangers, and felt that death was nigh.
The Swiss emigrants treated him with that thoughtful,
zealous tenderness, which springs from genial hearts
deeply imbued with the religious sentiment. One wish of
his soul they could not gratify, by reason of their ignorance.
Being too weak to hold a pen, he earnestly desired
to dictate to some one else a letter to his mother and
his betrothed. This, Captain T. readily consented to do;
and promised, so far as in him lay, to carry into effect any
arrangements he might wish to make.
Soon after this melancholy duty was fulfilled, the young
sufferer departed. When the steamboat arrived at its final
destination, the kind-hearted Captain T. made the best
arrangements he could for a decent burial. There was no
chaplain on board; and, unused as he was to the performance
of religious ceremonies, he himself read the funeral
service from a book of Common Prayer, found in the young
stranger's trunk. The body was tenderly placed on a
board, and carried out, face upwards, into the silent solitude
of the primeval forest. The sun, verging to the west,
cast oblique glances through the foliage, and played on the
pale face in flickering light and shadow. Even the most
dissipated of the emigrants were sobered by a scene so
touching and so solemn, and all followed reverently in procession.
Having dug the grave, they laid him carefully
within, and replaced the sods above him; then, sadly and
thoughtfully, they returned slowly to the boat.
Subdued to tender melancholy by the scene he had witnessed,
and the unusual service he had performed, Captain
T. avoided company, and wandered off alone into the
woods. Unquiet questionings, and far-reaching thoughts
of God and immortality, lifted his soul toward the Eternal;
and heedless of his footsteps, he lost his way in the windings
of the forest. A widely devious and circuitous route
brought him within sound of human voices. It was a
gushing melody, taking its rest in sweetest cadences.
With pleased surprise, he followed it, and came, suddenly
and unexpectedly, in view of the new-made grave. The
kindly Swiss matron, and her innocent daughter, had woven
a large and beautiful Cross, from the broad leaves of the
papaw tree, and twined it with the pure white blossoms of
the trailing Convolvulus. They had placed it reverently
at the head of the stranger's grave, and kneeling before it,
chanted their evening hymn to the Virgin. A glowing
twilight shed its rosy flush on the consecrated symbol, and
the modest, friendly faces of those humble worshippers.
Thus beautifully they paid their tribute of respect to the
unknown one, of another faith, and a foreign clime, who
had left home and kindred, to die among strangers in the
wilderness.
How would the holy gracefulness of this scene have
melted the heart of his mother and his beloved!
I had many more things to say to you; but I will leave
them unsaid. I leave you alone with this sweet picture,
that your memory may consecrate it as mine has done.
| Letters from New York | |