Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

Or Jake's droll commentary on the story of Old Bridger, ousted from his
fort, and robbed of his goods, by the Saints, in the name of the Prophet
Brigham.

"'It's olluz so,' says Jake; 'Paul plants, and Apollyon gets the
increase. Not that Bridger's like Paul, any more 'n we're like Apollyon;
but we're goan to have all the cider off his apple-trees.'"

Or, again, Jake's compliments to "Armstrong of Oregon," that galloping
Vigilant Committee of one.

"I'll help you, if I know how, Armstrong. I ha'n't seen no two in my
life, Old Country or New Country, Saints or Gentiles, as I'd do more for
'n you and your brother. I've olluz said, ef the world was chock full of
Armstrongs, Paradise wouldn't pay, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob mout
just as well blow out their candle and go under a bushel-basket,--unless
a half-bushel would kiver 'em."

But the true hero of the book is the horse Don Fulano. It is easy to see
that Winthrop was a first-rate horseman, from the loving manner in which
he describes and dwells on the perfections of the matchless stallion.
None but one who knew every point of a horse, none but one of the
Centaur breed, could have drawn Don Fulano,--just as none but a born
skater could have written those inimitable skating-scenes in his story
of "Love and Skates."

"He was an American horse,--so they distinguish in California one
brought from the old States,--A SUPERB YOUNG STALLION, PERFECTLY BLACK,
WITHOUT MARK. It was magnificent to see him, as he circled about me,
fire in his eye, pride in his nostril, tail flying like a banner, power
and grace from tip to tip. No one would ever mount him, or ride him,
unless it was his royal pleasure. He was conscious of his representative
position, and showed his paces handsomely."

This is the creature who takes the lead in that stirring and matchless
"Gallop of Three" to the Luggernel Spring, to quote from which would be
to spoil it. It must be read entire.

In the "Canoe and Saddle" is recorded Winthrop's long ride across the
continent. Setting out in a canoe, from Port Townsend, in Vancouver's
Island, he journeyed, without company of other white men, to the Salt
Lake City and thence to "the States,"--a tedious and barbarous
experience, heightened, in this account of it, by the traveller's cheery
spirits, his ardent love of Nature, and capacity to describe the grand
natural scenery, of the effect of which upon himself he says, at the
end,--

"And in all that period, while I was so near to Nature, the great
lessons of the wilderness deepened into my heart day by day, the hedges
of conventionalism withered away from my horizon, and all the pedantries
of scholastic thought perished out of my mind forever."

He bore hardships with the courage and imperturbable good-nature of a
born gentleman. It is when men are starving, when the plating of romance
is worn off by the chafe of severe and continued suffering,--it is then
that "blood tells." Winthrop had evidently that keen relish for rough
life which the gently nurtured and highly cultivated man has oftener
than his rude neighbor, partly because, in his case, contrast lends a
zest to the experience. Thus, when he camps with a gang of
"road-makers," in the farthest Western wilderness,--a part of Captain
McClellan's Pacific Railroad Expedition,--how thoroughly he enjoys the
rough hospitality and rude wit of these pioneers!

"In such a Platonic republic as this a man found his place according to
his powers. The cooks were no base scullions; they were brethren, whom
conscious ability, sustained by universal suffrage, had endowed with the
frying-pan."

"My hosts were a stalwart gang.... Their talk was as muscular as their
arms. When these laughed, as only men fresh and hearty and in the open
air can laugh, the world became mainly grotesque: it seemed at once a
comic thing to live,--a subject for chuckling, that we were bipeds, with
noses,--a thing to roar at, that we had all met there from the wide
world, to hobnob by a frolicsome fire with tin pots of coffee, and
partake of crisped bacon and toasted dough-boys in ridiculous abundance.
Easy laughter infected the atmosphere. Echoes ceased to be pensive, and
became jocose. A rattling humor pervaded the forest, and Green River
rippled with noise of fantastic jollity. Civilization and its
_dilettante_ diners-out sneer when Clodpole at Dives's table doubles his
soup, knifes his fish, tilts his plate into his lap, puts muscle into
the crushing of his _meringue_, and tosses off the warm beaker in his
finger-bowl. Camps by Tacoma sneer not at all, but candidly roar, at
parallel accidents. Gawky makes a cushion of his flapjack. Butterfingers
drops his red-hot rasher into his bosom, or lets slip his mug of coffee
into his boot drying at the fire,--a boot henceforth saccharine. A mule,
slipping his halter, steps forward unnoticed, puts his nose into the
circle, and brays resonant. These are the jocular boons of life, and at
these the woodsmen guffaw with lusty good-nature. Coarse and rude the
jokes may be, but not nasty, like the innuendoes of pseudo-refined
cockneys. If the woodsmen are guilty of uncleanly wit, it differs from
the uncleanly wit of cities as the mud of a road differs from the sticky
slime of slums.

"It is a stout sensation to meet masculine, muscular men at the brave
point of a penetrating Boston hooihut,--men who are mates,--men to whom
technical culture means nought,--men to whom myself am nought, unless I
can saddle, lasso, cook, sing, and chop,--unless I am a man of nerve and
pluck, and a brother in generosity and heartiness. It is restoration to
play at cudgels of jocoseness with a circle of friendly roughs, not one
of whom ever heard the word bore,--with pioneers, who must think and
act, and wrench their living from the closed hand of Nature."

And here is a dinner "in the open."

"Upon the _carte du jour_ at Restaurant Sowee was written Grouse. 'How
shall we have them?' said I, cook and convive, to Loolowcan, marmiton
and convive. 'One of these cocks of the mountain shall be fried, since
gridiron is not,' responded I to myself, after meditation; 'two shall be
spitted and roasted; and, as Azrael may not want us before breakfast
to-morrow, the fourth shall go upon the _carte de dejeuner'_.

"'O Pork! what a creature thou art!' continued I, in monologue, cutting
neat slices of that viand with my bowie-knife, and laying them
fraternally, three in a bed, in the frying-pan. 'Blessed be Moses, who
forbade thee to the Jews, whereby we, of freer dispensations, heirs of
all the ages, inherit also pigs more numerous and bacon cheaper! O Pork!
what could campaigners do without thy fatness, thy leanness, thy
saltness, thy portableness?'

"Here Loolowcan presented me the three birds, plucked featherless as
Plato's man. The two roasters we planted carefully on spits before a
sultry spot of the fire. From a horizontal stick, supported on forked
stakes, we suspended by a twig over each roaster an automatic baster, an
inverted cone of pork, ordained to yield its spicy juices to the wooing
flame, and drip bedewing on each bosom beneath. The roasters ripened
deliberately, while keen and quick fire told upon the frier, the first
course of our feast. Meanwhile I brewed a pot of tea, blessing Confucius
for that restorative weed, as I had blessed Moses for his abstinence
from porkers.

"Need I say that the grouse were admirable, that everything was
delicious, and the Confucian weed first chop? Even a scouse of mouldy
biscuit met the approval of Loolowcan. Feasts cooked under the greenwood
tree, and eaten by their cooks after a triumphant day of progress, are
sweeter than the conventional banquets of languid Christendom."

"Life in the Open Air"--containing sketches of travel among the
mountains and lakes of Maine, as well as the story of "Love and Skates,"
which has been spoken of, "The March of the Seventh Regiment,"
"Washington as a Camp," an essay descriptive of Church's great picture,
"The Heart of the Andes," and two fragments, one of them the charming
commencement of a story which promised to be one of his best and most
enjoyable efforts in this direction--is the concluding volume of
Winthrop's collected writings. I speak of it in this place, because it
is in some part a companion-book to the volumes we have been discussing.
It is as full of buoyant life, of fresh and noble thought, of graceful
wit and humor, as those; in parts it contains the most finished of his
literary work. Few Americans who read it at the time will ever forget
that stirring description of the march of the New-York Seventh; it is a
piece of the history of our war which will live and be read as long as
Americans read their history. It moved my blood, in the reading,
tonight, as it did in those days--which seem already some centuries old,
so do events crowd the retrospect--when we were all reading it in the
pages of the "Atlantic." In the unfinished story of "Brightly's Orphan"
there is a Jew boy from Chatham Street, an original of the first water,
who, though scarce fairly introduced, will, I am sure, make a place for
himself and for his author in the memories of all who relish humor of
the best kind.

"Cecil Dreeme" and "Edwin Brothertoft" are quite other books than these
we have spoken of. Here Winthrop tried a different vein,--two different
veins, perhaps. Both are stories of suffering and crime, stories of the
world and society. In one it is a woman, in the other a man, who is
wronged. One deals with New York city-life of the very present day; the
other is a story of the Revolutionary War, and of Tories and Patriots.
The popular verdict has declared him successful, even here. "Cecil
Dreeme" has run through no less than fifteen editions.

In this story we are shown New York "society" as doubtless Winthrop knew
it to be. Yet the book has a curious air of the Old-World; it might be a
story of Venice, almost. It tells us of Old-World vices and crimes, and
the fittings and furnishings are of a piece. The localities, indeed, are
sketched so faithfully, that a stranger to the city, coming suddenly, in
his wanderings, upon Chrysalis College Buildings, could not fail to
recognize them at once,--as indeed happened to a country friend of mine
recently, to his great delight. But the men are Americans, bred and
formed--and for the most part spoiled--in Europe; Americans who have
gone to Paris before their time, if it be true, what a witty Bostonian
said, that good Americans go to Paris when they die. With all this, the
book has a strange charm, so that it takes possession of you in spite of
yourself. It is as though it drew away the curtain, for one slight
moment, from the mysteries which "society" decorously hides,--as though
he who drew the curtain stood beside it, pointing with solemn finger and
silent indignation to the baseness of which he gives you a glimpse. Yet
even here the good carries the day, and that in no maudlin way, but
because the true men are the better men.

These, then, are Winthrop's writings,--the literary works of a young man
who died at thirty-two, and who had spent a goodly part of his mature
life in the saddle and the canoe, exploring his own country, and in
foreign travel. As we look at the volumes, we wonder how he found time
for so much; but when we have read, we wonder yet more at the excellence
of all he wrote. In all and through all shines his own noble spirit; and
thus these books of his, whose printed pages he never saw, will keep his
memory green amongst us; for, through them, all who read may know that
there wrote a true gentleman.

Once he wrote,--

"Let me not waste in skirmishes my power,
In petty struggles. Rather in the hour
Of deadly conflict may I nobly die,
In my first battle perish gloriously."

Even so he fell; but in these written works, as in his gallant death, he
left with us lessons which will yet win battles for the good cause of
American liberty, which he held dearest in his heart.

* * * * *

HILARY.

Hilary,
Summer calls thee, o'er the sea!
Like white flowers upon the tide,
In and out the vessels glide;
But no wind on all the main
Sends thy blithe soul home again:
Every salt breeze moans for thee,
Hilary!

Hilary,
Welcome Summer's step will be,
Save to those beside whose door
Doleful birds sit evermore
Singing, "Never comes he here
Who made every season's cheer!"
Dull the June that brings not thee,
Hilary!

Hilary,
What strange world has sheltered thee?
Here the soil beneath thy feet
Rang with songs, and blossomed sweet;
Blue skies ask thee yet of Earth,
Blind and dumb without thy mirth:
With thee went her heart of glee,
Hilary!

Hilary,
All things shape a sigh for thee!
O'er the waves, among the flowers,
Through the lapse of odorous hours,
Breathes a lonely, longing sound,
As of something sought, unfound:
Lorn are all things, lorn are we,
Hilary!

Hilary,
Oh, to sail in quest of thee,
To the trade-wind's steady tune,
Past the hurrying monsoon,
Into torrid seas, that lave
Dry, hot sands,--a breathless grave,--
Sad as vain the search would be,
Hilary!

Hilary,
Chase the sorrow from the sea!
Summer-heart, bring summer near,
Warm, and fresh, and airy-clear!
--Dead thou art not: dead is pain;
Now Earth sees and sings again:
Death, to hold thee, Life must be,
Hilary!

* * * * *

DEBBY'S DEBUT.

On a cheery June day Mrs. Penelope Carroll and her niece Debby Wilder
were whizzing along on their way to a certain gay watering-place, both
in the best of humors with each other and all the world beside. Aunt Pen
was concocting sundry mild romances, and laying harmless plots for the
pursuance of her favorite pastime, match-making; for she had invited her
pretty relative to join her summer jaunt, ostensibly that the girl might
see a little of fashionable life, but the good lady secretly proposed to
herself to take her to the beach and get her a rich husband, very much
as she would have proposed to take her to Broadway and get her a new
bonnet; for both articles she considered necessary, but somewhat
difficult for a poor girl to obtain.

Debby was slowly getting her poise, after the excitement of a first
visit to New York; for ten days of bustle had introduced the young
philosopher to a new existence, and the working-day world seemed to have
vanished when she made her last pat of butter in the dairy at home. For
an hour she sat thinking over the good-fortune which had befallen her,
and the comforts of this life which she had suddenly acquired. Debby was
a true girl,--with all a girl's love of ease and pleasure; and it must
not be set down against her that she surveyed her pretty travelling-suit
with much complacency, rejoicing inwardly that she could use her hands
without exposing fractured gloves, that her bonnet was of the newest
mode, needing no veil to hide a faded ribbon or a last year's shape,
that her dress swept the ground with fashionable untidiness, and her
boots were guiltless of a patch,--that she was the possessor of a mine
of wealth in two of the eight trunks belonging to her aunt, that she was
travelling like any lady of the land with man-and maid-servant at her
command, and that she was leaving work and care behind her for a month
or two of novelty and rest.

When these agreeable facts were fully realized, and Aunt Pen had fallen
asleep behind her veil, Debby took out a book, and indulged in her
favorite luxury, soon forgetting past, present, and future in the
inimitable history of Martin Chuzzlewit. The sun blazed, the cars
rattled, children cried, ladies nodded, gentlemen longed for the solace
of prohibited cigars, and newspapers were converted into sun-shades,
nightcaps, and fans; but Debby read on, unconscious of all about her,
even of the pair of eyes that watched her from the opposite corner of
the car. A gentleman with a frank, strong-featured face sat therein, and
amused himself by scanning with thoughtful gaze the countenances of his
fellow-travellers. Stout Aunt Pen, dignified even in her sleep, was a
"model of deportment" to the rising generation; but the student of human
nature found a more attractive subject in her companion, the girl with
an apple-blossom face and merry brown eyes, who sat smiling into her
book, never heeding that her bonnet was awry, and the wind taking
unwarrantable liberties with her ribbons and her hair.

Innocent Debby turned her pages, unaware that her fate sat opposite in
the likeness of a serious, black-bearded gentleman, who watched the
smiles rippling from her lips to her eyes with an interest that deepened
as the minutes passed. If his paper had been full of anything but
"Bronchial Troches" and "Spalding's Prepared Glue," he would have found
more profitable employment; but it wasn't, and with the usual readiness
of idle souls he fell into evil ways, and permitted curiosity, that
feminine sin, to enter in and take possession of his manly mind. A great
desire seized him to discover what book so interested his pretty
neighbor; but a cover hid the name, and he was too distant to catch it
on the fluttering leaves. Presently a stout Emerald-Islander, with her
wardrobe oozing out of sundry paper parcels, vacated the seat behind the
two ladies; and it was soon quietly occupied by the individual for whom
Satan was finding such indecorous employment. Peeping round the little
gray bonnet, past a brown braid and a fresh cheek, the young man's eye
fell upon the words the girl was reading, and forgot to look away again.
Books were the desire of his life; but an honorable purpose and an
indomitable will kept him steady at his ledgers till he could feel that
he had earned the right to read. Like wine to many another was an open
page to him; he read a line, and, longing for more, took a hasty sip
from his neighbor's cup, forgetting that it was a stranger's also.

Down the page went the two pairs of eyes, and the merriment from Debby's
seemed to light up the sombre ones behind her with a sudden shine that
softened the whole face and made it very winning. No wonder they
twinkled, for Elijah Pogram spoke, and "Mrs. Hominy, the mother of the
modern Gracchi, in the classical blue cap and the red cotton
pocket-handkerchief, came down the room in a procession of one." A low
laugh startled Debby, though it was smothered like the babes in the
Tower; and, turning, she beheld the trespasser scarlet with confusion,
and sobered with a tardy sense of his transgression. Debby was not a
starched young lady of the "prune and prism" school, but a frank,
free-hearted little body, quick to read the sincerity of others, and to
take looks and words at their real value. Dickens was her idol; and for
his sake she could have forgiven a greater offence than this. The
stranger's contrite countenance and respectful apology won her good-will
at once; and with a finer courtesy than any Aunt Pen would have taught,
she smilingly bowed her pardon, and, taking another book from her
basket, opened it, saying, pleasantly,--

"Here is the first volume, if you like it, Sir. I can recommend it as an
invaluable consolation for the discomforts of a summer day's journey,
and it is heartily at your service."

As much surprised as gratified, the gentleman accepted the book, and
retired behind it with the sudden discovery that wrong-doing has its
compensation in the pleasurable sensation of being forgiven. Stolen
delights are well known to be specially saccharine; and much as this
pardoned sinner loved books, it seemed to him that the interest of the
story flagged, and that the enjoyment of reading was much enhanced by
the proximity of a gray bonnet and a girlish profile. But Dickens soon
proved more powerful than Debby, and she was forgotten, till, pausing to
turn a leaf, the young man met her shy glance, as she asked, with the
pleased expression of a child who has shared an apple with a playmate,--

"Is it good?"

"Oh, very!"--and the man looked as honestly grateful for the book as the
boy would have done for the apple.

Only five words in the conversation, but Aunt Pen woke, as if the
watchful spirit of propriety had roused her to pluck her charge from the
precipice on which she stood.

"Dora, I'm astonished at you! Speaking to strangers in that free manner
is a most unladylike thing. How came you to forget what I have told you
over and over again about a proper reserve?"

The energetic whisper reached the gentleman's ear, and he expected to be
annihilated with a look when his offence was revealed; but he was spared
that ordeal, for the young voice answered, softly,--

"Don't faint, Aunt Pen; I only did as I'd be done by; for I had two
books, and the poor man looked so hungry for something to read that I
couldn't resist sharing my 'goodies.' He will see that I'm a countrified
little thing in spite of my fine feathers, and won't be shocked at my
want of rigidity and frigidity; so don't look dismal, and I'll be prim
and proper all the rest of the way,--if I don't forget it."

"I wonder who he is; may belong to some of our first families, and in
that case it might be worth while to exert ourselves, you know. Did you
learn his name, Dora?" whispered the elder lady.

Debby shook her head, and murmured, "Hush!"--but Aunt Pen had heard of
matches being made in cars as well as in heaven; and as an experienced
general, it became her to reconnoitre, when one of the enemy approached
her camp. Slightly altering her position, she darted an
all-comprehensive glance at the invader, who seemed entirely absorbed,
for not an eyelash stirred during the scrutiny. It lasted but an
instant, yet in that instant he was weighed and found wanting; for that
experienced eye detected that his cravat was two inches wider than
fashion ordained, that his coat was not of the latest style, that his
gloves were mended, and his handkerchief neither cambric nor silk. That
was enough, and sentence was passed forthwith,--"Some respectable clerk,
good-looking, but poor, and not at all the thing for Dora"; and Aunt Pen
turned to adjust a voluminous green veil over her niece's bonnet, "To
shield it from the dust, dear," which process also shielded the face
within from the eye of man.

A curious smile, half mirthful, half melancholy, passed over their
neighbor's lips; but his peace of mind seemed undisturbed, and he
remained buried in his book till they reached ----, at dusk. As he
returned it, he offered his services in procuring a carriage or
attending to luggage; but Mrs. Carroll, with much dignity of aspect,
informed him that her servants would attend to those matters, and,
bowing gravely, he vanished into the night.

As they rolled away to the hotel, Debby was wild to run down to the
beach whence came the solemn music of the sea, making the twilight
beautiful. But Aunt Pen was too tired to do anything but sup in her own
apartment and go early to bed; and Debby might as soon have proposed to
walk up the Great Pyramid as to make her first appearance without that
sage matron to mount guard over her; so she resigned herself to pie and
patience, and fell asleep, wishing it were to-morrow.

At five, A.M., a nightcapped head appeared at one of the myriad windows
of the ---- Hotel, and remained there as if fascinated by the miracle of
sunrise over the sea. Under her simplicity of character and girlish
merriment Debby possessed a devout spirit and a nature full of the real
poetry of life, two gifts that gave her dawning womanhood its sweetest
charm, and made her what she was. As she looked out that summer dawn
upon the royal marriage of the ocean and the sun, all petty hopes and
longings faded out of sight, and her young face grew luminous with
thoughts too deep for words. Her day was happier for that silent hour,
her life richer for the aspirations that uplifted her like beautiful
strong angels, and left a blessing when they went. The smile of the June
sky touched her lips, the morning red seemed to linger on her cheek, and
in her eye arose a light kindled by the shimmer of that broad sea of
gold; for Nature rewarded her young votary well, and gave her beauty,
when she offered love. How long she leaned there Debby did not know;
steps from below roused her from her reverie, and led her back into the
world again. Smiling at herself, she stole to bed, and lay wrapped in
waking dreams as changeful as the shadows dancing on her chamber-wall.

The advent of her aunt's maid, Victorine, some two hours later, was the
signal to be "up and doing"; and she meekly resigned herself into the
hands of that functionary, who appeared to regard her in the light of an
animated pin-cushion, as she performed the toilet-ceremonies with an
absorbed aspect, which impressed her subject with a sense of the
solemnity of the occasion.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19