Children of the Market Place by Edgar Lee Masters

E >> Edgar Lee Masters >> Children of the Market Place

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

CHILDREN OF THE MARKET PLACE

by

EDGAR LEE MASTERS

1922

TO GEORGE P. BRETT

CHAPTER I

I was born in London on the eighteenth of June, 1815. The battle of
Waterloo was being fought as I entered this world. Thousands were giving
up their lives at the moment that life was being bestowed upon me. My
father was in that great battle. Would he ever return? My mother was but
eighteen years of age. Anxiety for his safety, the exhaustion of giving
me life prostrated her delicate constitution. She died as I was being
born.

I have always kept her picture beside me. I have always been bound to
her by a tender and mystical love. During all the years of my life my
feeling for her could not have been more intense and personal if I had
had the experience of daily association with her through boyhood and
youth.

What girlish wistfulness and sadness there are in her eyes! What a
gentle smile is upon her lips, as if she would deny the deep foreboding
of a spirit that peered into a perilous future! Her dark hair falls in
rich strands over her forehead in an elfin and elegant disorder. Her
slender throat rises gracefully from an unloosened collar. This picture
was made from a drawing done by a friend of my father's four months
before I was born. My old nurse told me that he was invalided from the
war; that my father had asked him to make the drawing upon his return to
London. Perhaps my father had ominous dreams of her ordeal soon to be.

They pronounced me a fine boy. I was round faced, round bodied, well
nourished. The nurse read my horoscope in coffee grounds. I was to
become a notable figure in the world. My mother's people took me in
charge, glad to give me a place in their household. Here I was when my
father returned from the war, six months later. He had been wounded in
the battle of Waterloo. He was still weak and ill. I was told these
things by my grandmother in the succeeding years.

When I was four years old my father emigrated to America. I seem to
remember him. I have asked my grandmother if he did not sing "Annie
Laurie"; if he did not dance and fling me toward the ceiling in a riot
of playfulness; if he did not snuggle me under my tender chin and tickle
me with his mustaches. She confirmed these seemingly recollected
episodes. But of his face I have no memory. There is no picture of him.
They told me that he was tall and strong, and ruddy of face; that my
beak nose is like his, my square forehead, my firm chin. After he
reached America he wrote to me. I have the letters yet, written in a
large open hand, characteristic of an adventurous nature. Though he was
my father, he was only a person in the world after all. I was surrounded
by my mother's people. They spoke of him infrequently. What had he done?
Did they disapprove his leaving England? Had he been kind to my mother?
But all the while I had my mother's picture beside me. And my
grandmother spoke to me almost daily of her gentleness, her
high-mindedness, her beauty, and her charm.

I was raised in the English church. I was taught to adore Wellington, to
hate Napoleon as an enemy of liberty, a usurper, a false emperor, a
monster, a murderer. I was sent to Eton and to Oxford. I was
indoctrinated with the idea that there is a moral governance in the
world, that God rules over the affairs of men. I was taught these
things, but I resisted them. I did not rebel so much as my mind
naturally proved impervious to these ideas. I read the _Iliad_ and the
_Odyssey_ with passionate interest. They gave me a panoramic idea of
life, men, races, civilizations. They gave me understanding of Napoleon.
What if he had sold the Louisiana territory to rebel America, and in
order to furnish that faithless nation with power to overcome England in
some future crisis? Perhaps this very moral governance that I was taught
to believe in wished this to happen. But if the World Spirit be nothing
but the concurrent thinking of many peoples, as I grew to think, the
World Spirit might irresistibly wish this American supremacy to be.

And now at eighteen I am absorbed in dreams and studies at Oxford. I
have many friends. My life is a delight. I arise from sleep with a song,
and a bound. We play, we talk, we study, we discuss questions of all
sorts infinitely. I take nothing for granted. I question everything, of
course in the privacy of my room or the room of my friends. I do not
care to be expelled. And in the midst of this charming life bad news
comes to me. My father is dead. He has left a large estate in Illinois.
I must go there. At least my grandmother thinks it is best. And so my
school days end. Yet I am only eighteen!

CHAPTER II

I am eighteen and the year is 1833. All of Europe is in a ferment, is
bubbling over in places. Napoleon has been hearsed for twelve years in
St. Helena. But the principles of the French Revolution are working.
Charles is king of France, but by the will of the nation first and by
the grace of God afterward. There is no republic there; but the
sovereignty of the people, the prime principle of the French Revolution,
has founded the right of Charles to rule.... And what of England? Fox
had rejoiced at the fall of the Bastille. Coleridge, Wordsworth, and
Southey had sung of liberty, exulting in the emancipation of peoples
from tyranny. Then they had changed. Liberalism had come under the heel
again. Revolution was feared and denounced. Liberal principles were
crushed.... But not for long. We students read Shelley and Byron. They
were now gone from earth, eleven and nine years respectively. They had
not altered their faith, dying in the heyday of youthful power. Would
they have changed at any age to which they might have lived? We believed
they would not have done so. But what of England? It is 1833 and the
reform bill is a year old. The rotten boroughs are abolished. There is a
semblance of democratic representation in Parliament. The Duke of
Wellington has suffered a decline in popularity. Italy is rising, for
Mazzini has come upon the scene. Germany is fighting the influence of
Metternich. We students are flapping our young wings. A great day is
dawning for the world. And I am off to America!

What is stirring there? I am bound for the Middle West of that great
land. What is it like? Shall I ever return? What will my life be? These
are my reflections as I prepare to sail.

I take passage on the _Columbia and Caledonia_. She is built of wood and
is 200 feet long from taffrail to fore edge of stem. Her beam is 34-1/2
feet. She has a gross tonnage of 520 tons. She can sail in favorable
weather at a speed of 12 knots an hour. I laughed at all this when,
something more than twenty years after, I crossed on the _Persia_, 376
feet long, of 3500 tonnage, and making a speed of nearly 14 knots an
hour, with her 4000-horse-power engines.

It is April. The sea is rough. We are no sooner under way than the heavy
swell of the waves tosses the boat like a chip. The prow dips down into
great valleys of glassy water. The stern tips high in the air against an
angry sky. The shoulders of the sea bump under the poop of the boat, and
she trembles like a frightened horse under its rider. I have books to
read. My grandmother has provided me with many things for my comfort and
delight. But I cannot eat, not until during the end of the voyage. I lie
in a little stateroom, which I share with an American. He persists in
talking to me, even at night when I am trying to sleep. He tells me of
America. His home is New York City. He has been as far west as Buffalo.
He gives me long descriptions of the Hudson River, and the boats on it
that run to Albany. He talks of America in terms of extravagant eulogy.
The country is free. It has no king. The people rule. I have read a
little and heard something of America. At Oxford we students had
wondered at the anomaly of a republic maintaining the institution of
slavery. I asked him about this. He said that it did not involve any
contradiction; that the United States was founded by white men for white
men; that negroes were a lower order of beings; that their servitude was
justified by the Bible; that a majority of the clergy and the churches
of the country approved of the institution; that the slaves were well
treated, much better housed and fed than the workers of Europe; better
than the free laborers even in America. His thesis was that the business
of life was the obtaining of the means of life; that all the uprisings
in Europe, the French Revolution included, were inspired by hunger; that
the struggle for existence was bound to produce oppression; that the
strong would use and control the weak, make them work, keep them in a
state where they could be worked. All this for trade. He topped off this
analysis with the remark that negro slavery was a benign institution,
exactly in line with the processes of the business of life; that it had
been lied about by a growing fanaticism in the States; New York had
always been in sympathy, for the most part with the Southern States,
where slavery was a necessary institution to the climate and the cotton
industry. He went on to tell me that about a year before a maniacal
cobbler named William Lloyd Garrison had started a little paper called
_The Liberator_ in which he advocated slave insurrections and the
overthrow of the laws sustaining slavery; and that a movement was now on
foot in New England to found the American Anti-Slavery Society. And that
John Quincy Adams, once President, but now a senile intermeddler, had
been presenting petitions in Congress from various constituencies for
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. This would be
finally squelched, he thought. New England had always demanded a tariff
in order to foster her industries, and that policy trenched on the
rights of the states not needing and not wanting a tariff. While slavery
did not in any way harm New England, she intermeddled in a mood of moral
fanaticism.

I was much interested in these revelations by Mr. Yarnell, for such was
his name.... One morning we began to sense land. We had been about three
weeks on the water. We were nearing the harbor of New York.

CHAPTER III

Yarnell was a man of about thirty. He seemed very mature to me. In fact
he was quite a man of the world. I had told him my destination, and
asked him how best to reach it. He had given me some information, but it
was not wholly clear. He advised me to ask for direction at the Franklin
House, which he recommended to me as a comfortable hotel.

As we came into the harbor we stood on the deck together while he
pointed out the places of interest. I was thrilled with its beauty and
its extent. The day was mild. A fresh breeze was blowing. May clouds
floated swiftly in the clear sky. I felt my blood course electrically in
expectation of the wonders of New York. It was now lying before me in
all its color and mystery. Boats of all kinds passed us. There was a
tangled thicket of masts at the piers. I discerned gay awnings over a
walk around a building near the water. Yarnell said this was Castle
Garden, where many diners came for the excellence of the food and the
view of the harbor. I could begin to see up the streets of the city
beyond the Battery. But there was a riot of stir and activity, in
expectation of our boat.

I disembarked and hired a hack. I was traveling with a huge valise.
This the hackman took for me. Yarnell came up to bid me adieu, promising
to call upon me at the Franklin House. The fare was twenty-five cents a
mile. The hotel was at 197 Broadway. Was it more than a mile? I did not
know. I was charged fifty cents for the trip. I was not stinted for
money, and it did not matter. I paid the amount demanded, and walked
into the hotel.

How simple things are at the end of a journey and a daily restlessness
to arrive! My valise was taken to my room. I went with the negro porter.
I looked from my window out upon Broadway. The porter departed. The door
was closed. My journey to New York was over. I was alone. I began to
wish for Yarnell, wish to be back upon the boat. Above all I began to
sense the distance that separated me from England and those I loved.
Here was the afternoon on my hands. Should I not see something of the
city? When should I start west? I took from my pocket the letter written
from Illinois by the lawyer, who had advised this journey and my
presence at Jacksonville, for that was the town where my father's estate
was to be settled. For the first time I was conscious of the fact that
difficulties probably stood in my way. The letter read: "Claims are
likely to be made against the estate that require your personal
attention." What could it mean? Why had my grandmother said nothing to
me of this? She had seen the letter. I began to wonder. But to fight
down my growing loneliness I started out to see the city.

As I passed up the street I bought _Valentine's Manual_ and glanced at
it as I walked. How far up did the city extend? The manual said more
than thirteen miles. I could not make that distance before dark. A
passerby said that there was a horse railway running as far as Murray
Hill. But I strode on, arriving in a little while at Washington Square.
Beyond this I could see that the city did not present the appearance of
being greatly built. On my way I passed the gas works, the City Hall,
many banks, several circulating libraries, saw the signs of almost
innumerable insurance companies. But the people! They were all strange
to me. So many negroes. My manual said there were over 14,000 negroes in
the city, which, added to the white population, made an aggregate of
more than 200,000 souls. I sat for a while in the Park and then retraced
my steps.

On my way back I stopped at Niblo's Garden at Broadway and Prince
Street. It was a gay place. People were feasting upon oysters, drinking,
laughing, talking over the affairs of the day. Here I partook of oysters
for the first time in my life. I walked through the grounds, looking at
the flowers. I stared about at the splendor of the paintings and the
mirrors in the rooms. Then like a ghost I resumed my way to my hotel.
Why? There was nothing there to call me back. Yet it was the only home I
had, and the evening was coming on.

Instead of stopping at the hotel, I went on to Castle Garden. I decided
to dine there. I could look over the harbor and the ships. It was a way
to put myself in touch with England, to travel back over the way I had
come. I found a table and ordered a meal.

I became conscious of the fact that the captain of the _Columbia and
Caledonia_ was at a near table with a gay party. They had wine, and
there was much merriment. This abandonment was in contrast to the
serious, almost dark spirit of a party at another table. This was
composed of men entirely. I had never seen such faces before. Their hair
was long. They wore goatees. They were strangely dressed. They talked
with a broad accent. Excitement and anger rose in their voices. They
were denouncing President Jackson. The matter seemed to be a force bill,
the tariff imposed by New England's enterprise, the duty of the Southern
States to resist it. They were insisting that there was no warrant to
pass a tariff law, that it was clearly a breach of the Constitution, and
that it should be resisted to the death. There was bitter cursing of
Yankees, of the greed of New England, of its disregard of the rights of
the South.... But out upon the harbor the sea gulls were drifting. I
could hear the slapping of the waves against the rocks. And in the midst
of this the orchestra began to play "Annie Laurie." The tears came to my
eyes. I arose and left the place. My mind turned to a theater as a means
of relief to these pressing thoughts. I consulted my manual, and started
for the American theater. It was described as an example of Doric
architecture, modeled after the temple of Minerva at Athens. I found it
on the Bowery and Elizabeth Street, bought a ticket for seventy-five
cents and entered. The play was _Othello_, and I had never seen it
before.

I could not help but overhear and follow the conversation of the people
who sat next to me. They were wondering what moved Shakespeare to depict
the story of a black man married to a white woman. Could such a theme be
dramatized now? How could a woman, fair and high-bred, become the wife
of a sooty creature like Othello? Was it real? If not real, what was
Shakespeare trying to do? And much more to the same effect, together
with remarks about negroes and that slavery should be let alone by New
England, and by everyone else.

The play was dreary to me, played listlessly where it was not ranted and
torn to tatters. I sat it through and then went back to my hotel.... The
loneliness of that room as I entered it has never left my memory. For
long hours I did not sleep. The city had 600 night watch, so the manual
said, and I could hear some of them going their rounds. At last ... I
awoke and it was morning. I awoke with a sense of delight in the
strength and vitality which sleep had restored to me.... I went below
to breakfast and to find the way to travel to Illinois.

CHAPTER IV

The clerk of the hotel told me that the best route was by way of Albany,
the canal, the Great Lakes to Chicago; that when I got there I would
likely find a boat or stage service to Jacksonville. I could leave at
noon for Albany if I wished. Accordingly, I made ready to do so.

I was entranced with the river boat. It was longer than the _Columbia
and Caledonia_. And it was propelled by steam. It had the most enormous
wheels. And no sooner were we under way than I found that we were
gliding along at the rate of twenty miles an hour. The swiftly passing
hills and palisades of the Hudson served to mark our speed. There were
great saloons, lovely awnings under which to read or lounge, promenade
decks. And there was a gay and well-behaved crowd of passengers.... At
dinner we were seated at long tables, and served with every luxury. And
the whole journey cost me less than seven shillings.

On arriving at Albany that night at about nine o'clock I found myself in
the best of luck. I could get passage on a canal boat the next morning
for Buffalo; rather I was permitted to sleep on board.... I got on and
retired. I awoke just as the boat was beginning to start. I had never
seen anything like this before. The boat was narrow, sharp, gayly
painted. It was drawn by three horses, each ridden by a boy who urged
the horses forward. We traveled at the great speed of five miles an
hour.

But it was delightful. We were more than three days going from Albany to
Buffalo. The time was well spent. The scenery was varied and beautiful.
All the while we were climbing, for Lake Erie, to which we had to be
lifted, was much above us. We went through lovely valleys; we ran beside
glistening streams and rivers; we wound around hills. The farms were
large and prosperous. The villages were new, fresh with white paint and
green blinds, hidden among flowers and shrubbery.

You see, I am eighteen and these external objects realize my dreams and
stimulate them. I do not know these people. They are frank, talkative,
often vulgar and presuming. But they are friendly. There is much
merriment on board, for we have to dodge down frequently to save our
heads from the bridges which the farmers build right across the canal.
The ladies have to be warned and assisted. There are narrow escapes and
shouts of laughter. And when the dinner bell is rung by a comical negro
every one rushes for the dining room. I am introduced again to the
American oyster, raw, fried, and stewed. It is the most delicious of
discoveries among the new viands. Then we have wonderful roast turkey,
chicken, and the greatest variety of vegetables and sweets. I am keeping
a daily record of events and impressions to mail to my dear grandmother
when I shall arrive at Buffalo....

Sometimes I get tired of the boat. Then I go on land and run along the
path behind the horses. A young woman on her way to Michigan to teach
school joins me in these reliefs from the tedium of the boat. We
exchange a few words. But I see that I am not old enough for her. I have
already observed her in confiding conversation with a man about the age
of Yarnell. And soon they go together to trot along the path, to stray
off a little into the meadows, or at the base of the picturesque
hills.... I am interested in the talk of the passengers, and cannot
choose but follow it at times.... One man has been reading the _New
Yorker_, printed by H. Greeley and Company. I learn that Horace Greeley
is his full name, and he comes in for a berating at the hands of a man
with one of the characteristic goatees that I first observed at Castle
Garden. The Whigs! I had always associated this party with
latitudinarian principles. Now I hear it called a centralist party, a
monarchist party. A voluble man, who chews tobacco, curses it as a mask
for the old Federalist party, which tried to corrupt America with the
British system, after it had failed as a combination of Loyalists to
keep America under the dominion of Great Britain.... This is all a maze
to me, at least so far as the American application is concerned. Then
the man with the goatee assails New England, and calls her the devotee
of the soured gospel of envy which covers its wolf face of hate with the
lamb's decapitated head of universal brotherhood and slavery abolition.
Surely there is much strife in America.... Also again President
Jackson, the tariff, and the force bill! And will South Carolina secede
from the Union on account of the unjust and lawless tariff? New England
tried to secede once when the run of affairs did not suit her. Why not
South Carolina, then, if she chooses? Another man is reading a book of
poems and talking at intervals to a companion. I hear him say that a Mr.
Willis is one of the world's greatest poets. I glance at the book and
see the name Nathaniel Parker Willis. Also it seems Willis is the editor
of one of the world's greatest literary journals. It is published in New
York and is called the _New York Mirror_.... It is all so strange. Is it
true that in this country, so far from England, there are men who are
the equals of Shelley and Byron, or of Tennyson, whose first book has
given me such delight recently?...

We near the journey's end. At Lockport we are lifted up the precipice
over which the Falls of Niagara pour some miles distant. We are now on a
level with Lake Erie, to which we have climbed by many locks and lifts
over the hills since we left Albany. Soon we travel along the side of
the Niagara River; quickly we drift into Buffalo.

CHAPTER V

Buffalo, they told me, had about 15,000 people. I wished to see
something of it before departing for the farther west. For should I ever
come this way again? I started from the dock, but immediately found
myself surrounded by runners and touters lauding the excellences of the
boats to which they were attached. The harbor was full of steamboats
competing for trade.... They rang bells, let off steam, whistled. Bands
played. Negroes ran here and there, carrying freight and baggage. The
air was vibrating with yells and profanity.... But I made my escape and
walked through the town. It had broad streets, lovely squares,
substantial and attractive buildings and residences. And there was Lake
Erie, blue and fresh, rippling under the brilliant May sun. I had never
seen anything remotely approximating Lake Erie.... "How large is it?" I
inquired of a passerby. I was told that it was 60 miles wide and 250
miles long. Could it be true? Was there anything in all of Europe to
equal it? I could not for the moment remember the extent of the Caspian
Sea. And I stood in wonder and delight.

As I left the dock for my walk I had observed the name _Illinois_ on a
boat that had all the appearances of being brand new. I walked leisurely
toward the dock so as to avoid the touters as much as possible while I
was overlooking the boat. I liked it, but would it take me to Chicago?
The gangplank was lying on the dock and near it stood what seemed to me
to be the captain and the pilot, around them touters and others. I edged
around to the captain and asked him if the _Illinois_ would take me to
Chicago. "In about an hour," he said with a laugh. Immediately I was
besieged by the runners to help me on, to get my baggage, to serve me in
all possible ways. I couldn't hire all of them. I chose one, who got my
valise for me, and I went aboard.

It was a new boat, and this was its maiden trip. All the stewards,
negroes, waiters were brisk and obliging, and bent on making the trip an
event. The captain gave parties. He was a bluff, kindly man, who mingled
much with favorite passengers. Wine flowed freely. The food was abundant
and delicious. We had dances by moonlight on the deck. A band played at
dinner and at night. The boat was distinguished for many quaint and
interesting characters. I enjoyed it all, but made no friends. I did not
understand this free and easy manner of life. The captain noted me, and
asked if I was well placed and comfortable. Various people opened
conversations with me. But I was shy, and I was English. I could not
unbend. I did not desire to do so.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25