 | Letters from New York |  |
LETTER XVI.
Were you ever near enough to a great fire to be in immediate
danger! If you were not, you have missed one
form of keen excitement, and awful beauty. Last week, we
had here one of the most disastrous conflagrations that have
occurred for a long time. It caught, as is supposed, by a
spark from a furnace falling on the roof of a wheelwright's
shop. A single bucket of water, thrown on immediately,
would have extinguished it; but it was not instantly perceived,
roofs were dry, and the wind was blowing a perfect
March gale. Like slavery in our government, it was not put
out in the day of small beginnings, and so went on increasing
in its rage, making a great deal of hot and disagreeable
work.
It began at the corner of Chrystie-street, not far from
our dwelling; and the blazing shingles that came flying
through the air, like a storm in the infernal regions, soon
kindled our roof. We thought to avert the danger by
buckets of water, until the block opposite us was one sheet
of fire, and the heat like that of the furnace which tried
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Then we began to
pack our goods, and run with them in all haste to places of
safety; an effort more easily described than done—for the
streets all round were filled with a dense mass of living
beings, each eager in playing the engines, or saving the
lares of his own hearth-stone.
Nothing surprised me so much as the rapidity of the
work of destruction. At three o'clock in the afternoon, there
stood before us a close neighbourhood of houses, inhabited
by those whose faces were familiar, though their names
smoking ruins. The humble tenement of Jane Plato, the
coloured woman, of whose neatly-kept garden and whitewashed
fences I wrote you last summer, has passed away
for ever. The purple iris, and yellow daffodils, and variegated
sweet-williams, were all trampled down under heaps
of red-hot mortar. I feel a deeper sympathy for the destruction
of Jane's little garden, than I do for those who
have lost whole blocks of houses; for I have known and
loved flowers, like the voice of a friend—but with houses
and lands I was never cumbered. In truth, I am ashamed
to say how much I grieve for that little flowery oasis in a
desert of bricks and stone. My beautiful trees, too—the
Ailanthus, whose graceful blossoms, changing their hue
from month to month, blessed me the live-long summer;
and the glossy young Catalpa, over which it threw its arms
so lovingly and free—there they stand, scorched and blackened;
and I know not whether nature, with her mighty
healing power, can ever make them live again.
The utilitarian and the moralist will rebuke this trifling
record, and remind me that one hundred houses were burned,
and not less than two thousand persons deprived of
shelter for the night. Pardon my childish lamentations.
Most gladly would I give a home to all the destitute; but I
cannot love two thousand persons; and I loved my trees.
Insurance stocks are to me an abstraction; but stock gilliflowers
a most pleasant reality.
Will your kind heart be shocked that I seem to sympathize
more with Jane Plato for the destruction of her little
garden-patch, than I do with others for loss of houses and
furniture?
Do not misunderstand me. It is simply my way of saying
that money is not wealth. I know the universal opinion
of mankind is to the contrary; but it is nevertheless a mistake.
Our real losses are those in which the heart is concerned.
might sell for fifty dollars; but if I possessed such a rare document,
would I save it from the fire, in preference to a letter
from a beloved and deceased husband, filled with dear little
household phrases? Which would a mother value most,
the price of the most elegant pair of Parisian slippers, or a
little worn-out shoe, once filled with a precious infant foot,
now walking with the angels?
Jane Plato's garden might not be worth much in dollars
and cents; but it was to her the endeared companion of
many a pleasant hour. After her daily toil, she might be
seen, till twilight deepened into evening, digging round the
roots, pruning branches, and training vines. I know by experience
how very dear inanimate objects become under such
circumstances. I have dearly loved the house in which I
lived, but I could not love the one I merely owned. The
one in which the purse had interest might be ten times more
valuable in the market; but let me calculate as I would, I
should mourn most for the one in which the heart had invested
stock. The common wild-flower that I have brought to
my garden, and nursed, and petted, till it has lost all homesickness
for its native woods, is really more valuable than
the costly exotic, purchased in full bloom from the conservatory.
Men of princely fortunes never known what wealth
of happiness there is in a garden.
Beneath his garden trees;
Wrapped in a dream of other things,
He seems to take his ease.
One moment he beholds his flowers,
The next they are forgot;
He eateth of his rarest fruits,
As though he ate them not.
It is not with the poor man so;
He knows each inch of ground,
That grows within its bound.
And though his garden-plot is small,
Him doth it satisfy;
For there's no inch of all his ground,
That does not fill his eye.
It is not with the rich man thus;
For though his grounds are wide,
He looks beyond, and yet beyond,
With soul unsatisfied.
Yes, in the poor man's garden grow
Far more than herbs and flowers;
Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,
And joy for weary hours.”
The reason of this difference is easily explained:
His gardeners young and old;
He never takes a spade in hand,
Nor worketh in the mould.
It is not with the poor man so—
Wealth, servants, he has none;
And all the work that's done for him,
Must by himself be done.”
I have said this much to prove that money is not wealth,
and that God's gifts are equal; though joint-stock companies
and corporations do their worst to prevent it.
And all the highest truths, as well as the genuine good,
are universal. Doctrinal dogmas may be hammered out on
theological anvils, and appropriated to spiritual corporations,
called sects. But those high and holy truths, which make
the soul at one with God and the neighbour, are by their
very nature universal—open to all who wish to receive.
Outward forms are always in harmonious correspondence
with inward realities; therefore the material types of highest
truths defy man's efforts to monopolize. Who can bottle
ocean and the breeze?
This great fire, like all calamities, public or private, has
its bright side. A portion of New-York, and that not a
small one, is for once thoroughly cleaned; a wide space is
opened for our vision, and the free passage of the air.
True, it looks desolate enough now; like a battle-field, when
waving banners and rushing steeds, and fife and trumpet
all are gone; and the dead alone remain. But the dreary
sight ever brings up images of those hundred volcanoes spouting
flame, and of the scene at midnight, so fearful in its
beauty. Where houses so lately stood, and welcome feet
passed over the threshhold, and friendly voices cheered the
fireside, there arose the lurid gleam of mouldering fires, with
rolling masses of smoke, as if watched by giants from the
nether world; and between them all lay the thick darkness.
It was strikingly like Martin's pictures. The resemblance
renewed my old impression, that if the arts are cultivated
in the infernal regions, of such are their galleries formed;
not without a startling beauty, which impresses, while it
disturbs the mind, because it embodies the idea of Power,
and its discords bear harmonious relation to each other.
If you wanted to see the real, unqualified beauty of fire,
you should have stood with me, in the darkness of evening,
to gaze at a burning house nearly opposite. Four long
hours it sent forth flame in every variety. Now it poured
forth from the windows, like a broad banner on the wind;
then it wound round the door-posts like a brilliant wreath;
and from the open roof there ever went up a fountain of
sparks, that fell like a shower of gems. I watched it for
hours, and could not turn away from it. In my mind there
insensibly grew up a respect for that house; because it defied
the power of the elements, so bravely and so long. It
must have been built of sound timber, well-jointed; and as
the houses round it had fallen, its conflagration was not
one o'clock at night when the last tongue of flame flickered
and died reluctantly. The next day, men came by order
of the city authorities, to pull down the walls. This, too,
the brave building resisted to the utmost. Ropes were
fastened to it with grappling irons, and a hundred men tugged,
and tugged at it, in vain. My respect for it increased,
till it seemed to me like an heroic friend. I could not bear
that it should fall. It seemed to me, if it did, I should no
longer feel sure that J. Q. Adams and Giddings would stand
on their feet against Southern aggression. I sent up a joyous
shout when the irons came out, bringing away only
a few bricks, and the men fell backward from the force of
the shock. But at last the walls reeled, and came down
with a thundering crash. Nevertheless, I will trust Adams
and Giddings, tug at them as they may.
By the blessing of heaven on the energy and presence of
mind of those who came to our help, our walls stand unscathed,
and nothing was destroyed in the tumult; but our
hearts are aching; for all round us comes a voice of wailing
from the houseless and the impoverished.
| Letters from New York | |